Home Again, Home Again

We had a good trip home from Bristol. The traffic was generally light and, though rain was forecast, all we encountered was a few sprinkles.

I-81 was good until we got around Roanoke where the truck traffic was incredible. Every time we crested a hill, we could see two lanes full of trucks as far as we could see. The speed limit was 65 and most of the trucks were doing around 70. The problem was there was no consistent flow to the traffic. That was probably due to the hills (I-81 runs between the Blue Ridge and the Appalachian Mountains) causing the truck speeds to vary a good deal. It took us about 15 miles to get through the congestion.

The scenery was very nice, though I am sure it is much nicer in early summer or fall when the leaves are on the trees. It was nice to travel through an area we had not seen previously, or had seen it so long ago we couldn't remember.

We arrived home about 3:15 after a stop at the grocery store to pick up milk and orange juice. It took us about half an hour to unpack the car and get everything in the house. It sure is nice to be home again.

This time around, we were gone for 18 days and put over 4300 miles on the car. We traveled through nine states and stayed at nine different lodging places. We haven't counted the T-shirts and shot glasses yet, but we have a few. We also haven't gotten on the scales yet, but I know our time in New Orleans and Natchitoches couldn't have helped any there. We had a great time, saw a lot of interesting people and places and identified locales for future travels. Now to get all those pictures into a slide show.

Pardon Me Boy

Is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo? Yes, it was. We got a fairly early start today and decided we had plenty of time to stop in Chattanooga, TN. We drove around a bit and found the Chattanooga Choo Choo. We parked and walked around there. The railroad station is now a Holiday Inn, and several old Pullman cars are being used as hotel rooms. The area around the station is very touristy (as you can imagine) with lots of shops. An old style (as in Civil War era) steam engine is parked on one track and is labeled as the Chattanooga Choo Choo. The downtown area of Chattanooga was really quite quiet for nearly noon on Saturday. We checked out a couple of gift shops and took some pictures around the railroad stuff. There really is a lot of history in the area and a lot to see. We decided that it would be good to come back to Tennessee and spend several days. Maybe in the spring when it starts to warm up a bit.

We had a nice drive along the Great Smoky Mountains and the Appalachians. The drive up the route we took is so much more scenic and less crowded than I-95. We sure did hit a lot of interstate highways in the process: I-20, I-59, I-24, I-75, I-40, and I-81.

Tonight we are in Bristol, TN / VA. Bristol is an interesting town that sits right on the border between the two states. In fact, the main downtown street is named State Street, and the border runs down the middle of the street. There are brass markers embedded in the center of the street every few yards that contain a line marking the border and "TENN" on one side and "VA" on the other. We decided to eat at a bar and grill on State St. It turned out they were watching the LSU, Tennessee game on big screen TV, so it was a little loud at times. There weren't really a lot of people in there, though. We stayed neutral during our stay. The food was great (barbecue pork and sirloin steak) and the Guinness properly constructed, so it was an enjoyable meal. Back in our room we rooted for LSU (quietly).

The forecast for tomorrow is for rain up through Virginia and into Maryland. Who knows we may decide to spend another night on the road somewhere. But, we really are ready to get home.