Total travel time: about 11 hours
First, go figure on the sign above for Christmasville Rd. It only reinforces that every city in Tennessee ends in “-ville.”
Leaving Nashville
Since we’d been upgraded to a “Capitol View” room, it seemed only appropriate to take a photo of Tennessee’s state capitol building. Maybe it’s because we were on the 21st floor, but it seems kinda small.
We started out the morning with a hearty breakfast at one of 1,737 Cracker Barrels located along I-40 in Tennessee. I hadn’t eaten at a Cracker Barrel in years and Clint wanted a taste of “home” (since apparently he and Adam eat at the one near their house quite often). I had multiple “research projects” along our route. One of them was to determine if Cracker Barrel was established in Tennessee. The Barrel, in fact, was founded in Lebanon, TN, which explains why they are—quite literally—every few miles.
After breakfast and getting on the road, we ended up behind this Chrysler PT Cruiser with “open Sunday” in the back window. I think it was funnier on the road (we thought it was downright hysterical), but here’s a photo of it anyway.
Outside of Nashville, we hit traffic backups, which slowed us down a bit. Then outside of Memphis, we came across five different car accidents. The weather was fine. The sun was shining. The Tennesseans seemed Hell-bent on smashing into each other. Clint and I were happy to get through Tennessee unscathed and un-smashed.
Clint and I also decided that at every sign welcoming us to a new state, we’d stop and take a picture. It was too dark when we drove into Tennessee and when we drove into Arkansas, the sign was on the bridge crossing the Mississippi River. Foiled twice.
Arkansas
Home of the Clintons, one huge nuclear power plant, lots of “adult bookstores”, and one smokin’-hot local who was gassing up next to us in Nowhere, AR. (Sorry, no photos, but he was hauling a very nice sofa in the back of his enormous pickup truck.) I wanted to visit the Clinton Presidential Library on the way through Arkansas, but we ended up stuck in really bad traffic for no apparent reason for at least an hour.
In the traffic jam, we came across several really interesting (and by “interesting” I mean “scary, creepy, and odd”) billboards reminding both of us just exactly where we were. Since we sat in traffic so long, we skipped the Clinton Library as we were anxious to get to Oklahoma City. Somewhere on the other side of Little Rock, just as dusk was turning to dark, we noticed a HUGE nuclear-power-plant-shaped cooling tower near I-40. We both speculated that it was a nuclear power plant, but were both a little surprised it was so close to the interstate. As it turns out (another one of my research projects), we did see a nuclear power plant, Arkansas Nuclear One and Two. The cooling tower, according to Arkansas Nuclear One web page, is 552 feet high (that’s 2 feet higher than the Washington monument), and 396 feet in diameter. In other words, it’s frickin’ huge!
Oklahoma
We entered Oklahoma about 7 p.m. and it was really, really, really cold. Instead of stopping to take a picture of the Welcome to Oklahoma sign, I pulled over and hopped out quickly to snap a photo. Shortly after entering Oklahoma, we realized that Oklahoma’s roads made New Mexico’s and D.C.’s roads feel like butter. Okla’s roads suck.
Somewhere along the way we stopped for gas at a station attached to a restaurant called the Pig Out Palace. The “lawn art” was too priceless to let go by without photos.
An ominous text message, “Call me when you get this” somewhere after the Pig Out Palace from Bob got Clint on the phone quickly. Bob warned us of bad weather heading towards Okla. City and suggested we take an alternate route on our final leg. We said we’d take a look at the situation once we settled in for the night.
I think we finally pulled into Oklahoma City about 10 p.m. We stayed downtown at the Oklahoma City Sheraton. Where Nashville welcomed us with open arms ready to upgrade our room, the trainee behind the counter in Okla City did not upgrade us, but very efficiently checked us in and sent us on our merry way. Our room was nice, but our view was of a parking garage. I don’t suppose it matters since we basically opened the curtains, commented on the crappy view, then closed them back up to go to bed.
It was a long day of driving and after a quick meal and drink in the bar, we crashed.
We only had one day left…