Day 25 – Traveling through Tennessee

Today we had breakfast in Knoxville, lunch in Nashville, and dinner in Memphis. We listened to country music on the radio and heard lots of deep southern accents. I have never really listened to country music before, but I really enjoyed it today.

All the states are slightly different, and the little nuance that shocked me in Tennessee was witnessing at least two vehicles that did NOT appear to be police or government merge onto our side of the highway from dirt paths in the middle area. It was almost as if they were making a U-turn from the other side. Also, the hotels serve biscuits and gravy for breakfast, and Colonel Sanders is at almost every exit.

The other thing that intrigued me is the number of Civil War Battlegrounds. It brought home full force that a war was fought here in the USA on these grounds and people died over keeping our nation together and the slavery issue. I had been completely enamored at the Lincoln Memorial, seeing and hearing all of Lincoln’s speeches and learning about all the other important demonstrations that were held there in the name of equal rights. I thought it would be good to stop and see an actual Civil War battleground.

But I didn’t stop. As usual, I’m torn finding a balance of stopping to experience the places of interest, and getting a couple of days of solid driving in so we can make it home in time to rest for a day before school starts. Today we made ok time despite a morning filled with constant rain, poor visibility, construction detours, and driving by a couple of accidents. This evening, the kids found a stray kitten hiding under our car to get out of the rain. The manager says someone must have abandoned it here a couple of days ago. The kids are begging me to take it home (can you imagine a kitten in the car for 2000 more miles?), or at least find a shelter for it. These are the things they remember about the trip. I asked them if they wanted to see Graceland, or if they knew who Elvis was, or if they wanted to see downtown Memphis, and they were very noncommittal.

None of this stuff opens until 9am tomorrow, so if we do it, that means another slow day without much progress. Tomorrow I want to see the Crystal caves in the Ozarks, so maybe we’ll just do a quick drive downtown in the morning if it’s not still raining.