Day Seventy-Six: Free and Easy Down the Road We Go

Since we stopped outside of Nashville for the night, we decided to get an early start this morning. We had breakfast, talked to Adam a little, and headed out. The girl at the front desk wished us luck, too. We left at 8:00 and hit very little traffic. The good thing about taking I-40 through Texas and up to Tennessee is that there is very little traffic. It's a lot of truckers and only a few cars. We drove on, and crossed the last time zone. No more accidental 4-am phone calls. We drove on through Knoxville, where it was cloudy. I think today was the first time we've seen clouds and fog since Northern California. Apparently there is a park called "Frozen Head State Park". We passed signs for Dollywood, Oak Ridge, and the Smokey Mountains. Fun family vacation memories...
After a while, we made it into Virginia. The drive from the border to Richmond, through Roanoke, is such a nice ride. There are small cities along the way, including a whole bunch of historic points and the such. Once we got to Richmond, we met some rain. It was pretty bad for like four minutes and then the sun came out again. It didn't rain that hard all summer! When we first started this morning, we were supposed to get to Virginia Beach at around 4:00. After stopping for a few coffees and traffic, we got to the area at 6:00. We ended up getting there at 6:30. Once we got there, we met a few of Adam's friends. Very nice! We spent a few hours talking, looking at pictures, and catching up. It was a nice evening with everyone.

States Visited : Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho,Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming (25/50)
States Visited

Day Seventy-Five: Music Trail

Yesterday, we decided that we were going to leave Texas today. Erik woke up early, which woke us up early. He had to work today, so we said our farewells. He was actually disappointed that we were leaving, which totally surprised us! After he left, the three of us had breakfast and talked for a few hours. I'm pretty sure it was Sarah's way of making us stay longer. It sort of worked. We ended up leaving around 9:00, which is probably our latest starting time all summer.
It took us about three hours to just drive out of Texas. There wasn't too much traffic, except for the beginning through Dallas. We got through that and some construction, and then it was a straight shot to Arkansas. I did find it kind of funny that you could tell what state you were in because all of the bridges on the Texas side of the border were accented with blue stars and the shape of Texas. Once we crossed over they were all red. There wasn't much in Arkansas. We did see the sign for Bill Clinton's birthplace, though. We ended up stopping in, or at least near, Little Rock. It didn't seem like a big city, which was kind of surprising. It took about 4.5 hours of driving to get through the whole state. There wasn't much on the other side of Little Rock either, except for a bunch of trucks. We did see a circus drive by, with all of their rides. One of them was broken down on the side of the road.
We decided that since we were so close to the Mississippi border, we were going to dip down so we could add it to our list. The city of Southaven is right on the border. We were afraid they didn't have a sign since it had been like three miles into the state before we saw it. We turned around and headed back for Tennessee. Actually, we crossed into Tennessee, then Mississippi, and then back. So, we drove through Memphis and stopped for a coffee. We kept going towards Nashville. We got into the city around 10:00. We were planning on stopping and spending a few days there, but decided to keep going. We ended up finding a hotel about 15 minutes outside of Nashville, on the eastern side. It was a good time to stop. It was in a small town, with not much around. Another early start tomorrow!

States Visited: Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho,Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, , South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming (24/50)