I know you're waiting to hear if my stay last night at the Holiday Inn Express made me "smarter"... Well I'm still driving west, what's that tell ya? Geez I should have never given up my marketing career. Did you know that Holiday Inn and Kohler have entered into a joint venture to market a "smarter" shower head... geez I could have done so much better!
Well day 2 of the trip to Phoenix and yes my butt is sore. 807 miles today. Yup 807 long drawn out miles. Again thank god for XM Radio to help keep me sane. I've spent a lot of time today listening to the comedy channel, a few news channels and even on occasion the traffic and weather channel for DC (OK so I'm home sick, shoot me)
Today I saw a few scary things while on the road. I wasn't sure if my eye's had played tricks on me or not. While driving some 80 MPH I saw this image 
(click on it to see full size) in front of me. At 1st I thought "OH MY GOD, he's coming right for me", then I realized... OK stupid it's a truck towing an exact same model truck. As you pass this buy it reminded me of a push-me pull-you from Dr Dolittle. After my heart returned to a relative norm, I'm happy to say I continued down the road without wetting the car seat.
Later in the day, I found myself sitting in a stopped traffic jam on I-40 somewhere east of Memphis. Being an ER Nurse and former EMS guy, I know that managing the accident scene can be tough. But I was amazed at how the TN state folks handled it. Check this picture out 
(click on it). This was easily a mile back... could you imagine some nutty ambulance guy slowing down to drop this sign on the way to the accident.. Well I guess they do things differently here. Hey at least they knew which lane the darn thing was in.
I learned something else, while driving through all of TN. It seems they are a god fearin' bunch down here. There wasn't a billboard around that didn't praise someone for something. I mean these guys John, Luke, David, and some guy Earl... sure had a lot to say. (Yeah they actually had a billboard that quotes the scripture of Earl.) Perhaps the oddest thing was I stopped at another Cracker Barrel for lunch today.. I never made it in the place. An entire buss load of folks from some big church were trying to get in. The surprising thing was they literally bus the entire load of people in from right across the highway... Literally a stones through (no religious pun intended) away and they all got on the bus and took it across the street after the noon service. It must be a Baptist thing... Do Baptists drive on the sabbath? No? Well I ate at Burger King anyway.
Well for day 2 I put in some decent miles. Of course my butt hurts, but I made it all the way to Little Rock AR. Former home to Bill Clinton. I was going to stop in as see some of Bubba's Kin folk. I mean heck all those years he and I shared the same McD's outside the Whitehouse... I mean someone should know me... right?
Well I got settled into my hotel and was dying for a drink. Wouldn't you know it AR is a dry state on Sundays. Oh lucky me
Until Next time... Night
wow...you really put some miles in! Good luck and keep the updates coming. I want to know where you end up next!
Posted by: archerr | March 07, 2005 at 18:15
Maybe that accident in Tennessee was caused by a driver pulling his camera out to take a picture of what he thought was a 18-wheeler about to cause an accident. Woah. That's like an Escher painting.
Enjoy your travels, Ed. And if your route takes you on I-10 through West Texas...well, you know those commercials where they show people having car trouble in the middle of the desert? It's like that.
Posted by: Reid | March 07, 2005 at 07:21