Hello from a motel in “Little Rock, Arkansas”:http://www.littlerock.com/, which turns out to have free ethernet. (The motel, not the city.) Today’s route ran from near “Salem, SC”:http://www.sciway.net/city/salem.html, up “I-85”:http://www.ncroads.com/interst/ih085.htm to “Spartanburg, SC”:http://www.cityofspartanburg.org/ where I picked up “I-26”:http://www.ncdot.org/projects/I26Connector/ to “Asheville, NC”:http://www.asheville.com/, where you hit “I-40”:http://www.interstate-guide.com/i-040.html. The drive across the “Smokies”:http://www.nps.gov/grsm/ was beautiful, though there were some brutally heavy rainstorms. Then I drove across the whole of Tennessee, lengthways. The first city was “Knoxville”:http://www.knoxville.org/. I swear the smug looking guy in the fancy sportscar who cut me off around there “looked familiar”:http://www.instapundit.com. The longer it went on, the flatter and less interesting Tennessee became, and the more I was forced to resort to strategies like singing in the car in order to keep myself awake. Well, to be honest maybe I didn’t need that much provocation. Here’s “forty seconds’ worth of video”:http://www.kieranhealy.org/trip/day1.mov from a day’s worth of driving. Tomorrow: On to “Amarillo”:http://www.amarillonet.com/! I wonder if we have any readers in Amarillo.
{ 16 comments }
nick 07.28.04 at 3:51 am
Hey, Kieran: sorry about the mess at the I-26/I-40 intersection right now… and if you’d come a couple of days sooner, you’d have had views across the Smokies to die for. But I don’t mind that: being British, the weather in WNC reminds me of home. (‘If you don’t like the weather, don’t worry, because something different will be along soon enough.)
biff3000 07.28.04 at 4:02 am
If you make it as far as Flagstaff, yell “Yo, Biff!” out of the window….
jdw 07.28.04 at 4:19 am
I wonder if there _are_ any readers in Amarillo.
eszter 07.28.04 at 4:29 am
But have you seen one of these yet? I took that picture a couple of weeks ago when driving toward the Indiana Dunes.
fyreflye 07.28.04 at 6:37 am
Clearly you were involved in a fatal motor crash on the first day of your trip and are actually descending into Red State Hell.
Rod 07.28.04 at 1:55 pm
Just don’t pick up any hitchers!
Matthew 07.28.04 at 2:51 pm
The last two hours from Memphis to Little Rock is the roughest part. Flat, flat, flat with lots of rice farming as far as the eye can see. Had I known you were staying in Little Rock we’d have rolled out the welcome committee. (‘We’ being the two CT readers in LR!)
Tom 07.28.04 at 2:53 pm
A better link for my beloved former home city of Knoxville would be http://www.southknoxbubba.net/skblog/. That is what the town is really like!
Tom
Heather 07.28.04 at 4:13 pm
lemme know if you’re coming through Austin to get to Amarillo. I’m sure there’s lots of readers here…
Chris Bertram 07.28.04 at 4:18 pm
Would that be “this”:http://www.geocities.com/ha_hammer/amarillo.htm Amarillo?
Scott 07.28.04 at 4:47 pm
I swear I saw that same Volvo with that same sticker when I crossed the Mississippi on my way from Charlotte to Tucson. This was in Vicksburg though.
That’s mighty weird.
Russell Arben Fox 07.28.04 at 6:52 pm
Matthew’s right; the Delta section of Arkansas is hard on the eyes. Arkansas is actually a quite pretty state, but you have to go north to the Ozarks, or to the forests in the south/southwest, to really get it. (I know, because I live in Jonesboro, about 70 miles north of the path you took on 1-40 over the Mississippi River.)
Hank 07.28.04 at 10:13 pm
Nit: It was a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, not an Abrams.
And, in the earlier thread about your drive I suggested you stay off the interstate because they’re boring. Now that you have proven that to yourself, get onto the 2-lane. It’s fun!
Ophelia Benson 07.29.04 at 1:24 am
Where is it you’re going? Arizona? Well, let me know if you go through Seattle to get there from Little Rock. I wouldn’t let anyone else know that if I were you, but let me know.
BenA 07.29.04 at 6:07 am
Well, you have one reader in Norman, OK (just South of OKC)…I’m actually headed in the reverse direction on I-40, out to NC, on Saturday.
rvman 07.29.04 at 5:18 pm
Hmph. If you think Tennessee is boring, just wait until the last 2 hours closing in on Amarillo. Other than the escarpment east of town, nada to look at but silos and grain.
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