Tennessee Wake Up, Yet Another State, Another One Night Stand

We had a great night’s sleep in the parking lot. This surprised both of us as we weren’t far off the interstate and it was noisy during the day. I went to bed at 9:30 and didn’t wake up on Friday, Mar. 29^th until 4:15. Solid sleep. It was easy to drop off at that time but when I woke again at 5:30, that was enough sleep for me. Bill slept on until closer to 6:30. We got up, washed and had our morning brew with some toast.

Good morning, Tennessee!

Clemson, our good little sleepy boy didn’t budge until I pulled the covers back, exposing parts of his furry self to the cooler air. It was 7:15 and time to close things up. I was ready first so after reading a couple of blogs in the order they came up on my sidebar, I took the Windex out to clean Black Beauty’s windshield. Inside and out it needed it. That should improve the day’s view!

Fueling up with some cheap diesel at Sam's

Both families were ready to drive across the lot and fuel up at Sam’s pumps. The diesel price was awesome with our member cards at $2.62/gal. We didn’t need much but always good to get cheap fuel when you can. We were on I-640W at 8 under a mixture of sunny and light clouds but at least I caught the sunrise. Why are we going west, you might ask? Well, we came further east to go into Arden, NC for Bill’s model connection, so need to get back on track.

Just some pictures of the drive today

This made us hope for a nice day

 Soon enough, within 7 miles, we were catching I-75N and back on track. After seeing Tupelo and being in the Elvis frame of mind, we have tuned our Sirius Radio to Channel 19. It is wonderful to hear his beautiful voice both in the Suite and on the road. We’ll do this for a few days and then switch back to The Bridge or 60’s on 6. It is nice to have tunes while we’re travelling along as we don’t always chatter between us.

There are a few of these huge beautiful crosses on our winter route

Today, I was more silent than usual (except for singing with Elvis) as I was trying to get another day or two of posts published. Too many pictures……well, no, never TOO many but you know what I mean. I do love looking back on them though so I continue to snap, snap, snap. This wasn’t as pretty a drive but we did have some nice views all the same. The spring green has disappeared as it is too early in this neck of the woods for too many buds yet. In time.

Once on I-75N we could relax as we were on it for most of the trip. Our plan was to stop at Lexington, KY. Yesterday, that was the plan. After doing the extra hour yesterday, it shortened today’s drive. When we crossed into Kentucky around 9, we stopped at a very crowded Information Centre but we didn’t feel that there was room to open our slide safely. Therefore, we didn’t make ourselves a coffee. We stopped for fuel at a Shell station around 11 and bought one and had one of our snack bars that we keep in the truck.

Sorry for the blur but we've mentioned weird town names before
This one made me plug my nose, just in case

We were going to be at our destination around 11:30 so decided once more to keep on truckin’. Adding another two hours to our day today would still put us at a new destination early in the afternoon. So, I found a Cracker Barrel in Forest Park, the north side of Cincinnati. That would get us through (or around) a huge city today and we’d have an easy drive tomorrow to one of our membership parks. We could rest right and proper for a few days.

A bit of a snag up due to construction

but it didn't last as long as we first thought it would

It wasn’t too bad coming through Cincinnati and we caught the bypass I-275W. Too bad we didn’t get on it sooner as the road was quite rough for a while but it was an okay drive missing a lot of city congestion by nipping through at 1:30. We pulled off the interstate and into the Cracker Barrel at 1:45. That’s pretty good for a day’s drive! On Google Earth, I was able to see that in the back, there are spots for RV’s and Buses so we pulled into those.

Time for some water towers - because I can
pretty ones

tall skinny ones

Patriotic ones

The manager was outside and we asked him about spending the night and moving along the back of the property instead. He couldn’t have been more obliging as he welcomed us. Another Cracker Barrel meal. Yay! The remainder of the day was peaceful. I made myself a tea and Bill had a hot chocolate while we ate our lunch sandwiches. We were pretty hungry. The sky is clouded over completely and it is 57F. Not too bad for being this far north.

and some downright friendly ones
Y'all

I’d finished Cradle and All last night and I know that my sweetie won’t enjoy it, so tucked it away to drop off at our park. It sure wasn’t a typical James Patterson story BUT it was typical in the sense that I kept turning the pages! It was quite weird into the religious side of the Virgin Mary. I found a Michael Connelly, one of his later ones with Harry Bosch and got into that last night and then more today. Bill downloaded pictures, read some of his book and then dozed.

This could be (and was a bit) intimidating but also pretty with the skyscrapers

Ohio River? We weren't sure

Into Ohio
So close to home now!

 I took Clemson for a walk around the outskirts of the building and parking lot here, since he made it very clear to me that it was time for his walk! We’ll get back to the regular walking tomorrow. Back inside, he bugged for his supper but we’ve done well at putting him off for a couple of weeks now. He really is close to being on our regular home time of 5 o’clock but that doesn’t mean he is accepting of that!

Looks like this overpass should have a fancy name

I felt tired with a bit of a nagging headache again so went up to the bedroom for 20 minutes. I think the headache is from our irregular eating over the last couple of days. That will also get back on track soon. At 6 we met with Rob and Pat and walked in for supper. Tonight, I ordered Apple Grilled BBQ Chicken, carrots and green beans. The chicken was a little spicy with the southern sauce they used but it was tender and everything tasted wonderful. We asked for biscuits so have 2 for tomorrow morning.

Yum, and no dishes again!

Forest Park is where we found our overnight spot
I didn't get a picture of us in the Cracker Barrel

Bill checked with the Night Manager about how early we should depart in the morning and he said that we were welcome to stay as long as we needed and that 9 am was fine. This is nice because now that we have a short jaunt tomorrow, there is no rush to move. We’ll have time for showers without having to be up out of bed at 6……unless that is what we choose to do. This was a great day and what better to on a cloudy day but travel?

Uh, just let me know when we get there

Thank you for stopping by. Your comments are always appreciated very much.