Hello from a motel in Little Rock, Arkansas, which turns out to have free ethernet. (The motel, not the city.) Today’s route ran from near Salem, SC, up I-85 to Spartanburg, SC where I picked up I-26 to Asheville, NC, where you hit I-40. The drive across the Smokies was beautiful, though there were some brutally heavy rainstorms. Then I drove across the whole of Tennessee, lengthways. The first city was Knoxville. I swear the smug looking guy in the fancy sportscar who cut me off around there looked familiar. 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 from a day’s worth of driving. Tomorrow: On to Amarillo! 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.
Comments on this entry are closed.