After going to bed fairly early last night, we woke up at 3 am and packed up the rest of the trailer (we had pre-packed everything we could the night before) in order to hit the road by 4 am. The idea was to get as much driving in as possible before the sun got down to business on us. We were all like a family of mice scurrying around in the darkness prepping the trailer for takeoff. The drill has become second nature to everybody – the darkness did not slow us down – and we went from sleeping to on the road in half the time it usually takes us (Mr. Sun has a way of motivating you).
What a pleasure it was to drive in relative cool (temp was 68) for a while. We knew we would be driving until just after noon, but the pre-dawn hours were a blessing as everyone except the driver slept in the cool. We were 150 miles down the road before the sun blazed up over Little Rock as the commuter traffic thickened around us. All along the highway, a thick mist hung over the fields, rivers and lakes. We filled up outside of town and watched the temperature rise with the sun.
By 9 am, we crossed the Mississippi into Memphis, Tennessee, 300 miles into the 540 mile trip, and the temp had already risen to 86. As we drove through Memphis, we listened to the King sing "You Ain't Nothing But a Hound Dog" and "Love Me Tender". The Tennessee welcome sign is mounted on the middle of the bridge across the Mississippi. When we stopped for gas and breakfast/brunch outside of Jackson, an hour later, it was 95, with two hours to go. We laughed (gallows humor) as we waited in the drive through at McDonald’s for our sausage and egg biscuits, and compared the humidity and heat to an elephant sitting on us. Joy was sad to have slept through Memphis. I was sorry not to have wakened her. We rolled into Nashville at noon, but our campsite was across town, which took us 45 more minutes to negotiate.
We set up quickly and turned the AC on the camper – thankfully, it works! After our usual quick set up, we crashed for a nap in the cool air. Before we lost consciousness, all of us decided that the only flaw in our plan is that we had not gotten up early enough. With only 800 miles between us and home, we will skip an overnight in Virginia and drive straight through from sundown to sunup tomorrow night and Sunday morning, alternating drivers to keep us fresh through the night.
Between now and then, we have a little time to enjoy Nashville and rest up for the final leg of our 6000 mile odyssey. Actually, “enjoy Nashville” takes on a different kind of meaning at the end of the trip. At the beginning, it would have meant driving all over the place, seeing the sights and taking lots of pictures. After 4200 miles on the road, plus another 1300 sightseeing, we enjoy Nashville (or any city) mainly by chilling out and getting ready to go home.
For supper, we drove one exit south to enjoy a meal at Cracker Barrel, after which we browsed the store and headed across the street to Kmart to purchase the fifth Harry Potter movie (Vicki hadn’t seen it yet) and one of those spray bottles with a fan on it. A woman in the parking lot was looking for some twine to secure a wicker chair she was so proud of snapping up for $60 – she reminded us too much of Grandma (and I was going to buy her some twine before another woman found a bungee cord to give her). We enjoyed the movie together back at the campsite while it rained a little and went to bed.
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