Yesterday
we drove diagonal across Tennessee, starting in Memphis, all the way into
Virginia. We stopped in Nashville and drove past the capitol building, which
looks older than the others I’ve seen in the west. We wanted to get fried
chicken there, but the line around the chosen place was so long we couldn’t
wait. It was a ringing endorsement if I’ve ever seen one, though.
It
rained ALL day; we had about an hour total collected time where it wasn’t pouring.
Tennessee is a gorgeous state; it’s old school and gothic and I can just see
myself getting lost in the hills of the Smoky Mountains to learn all the
stories that live there. I kept being astounded by the rocks, the trees, the flooded
riverbanks. It’s just so different than anything I’ve seen before. And the same
road that we got on in Albuquerque, the I-40, morphed into this. America is a
land of many lands.
We
stopped for the desired fried chicken in Knoxville, Tennessee, instead. We
tried the spicy southern style and the chicken was delicious, although it is my
opinion that nothing has ever really been improved by being spicy.
We
have been listening to The Boys in the Boat about the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It’s
a great read. As LeVar Burton says on his podcast, you can do it, with
audiobooks.
We’ve
only had one major traffic holdup, and that was for construction. We crossed
into Virginia at night and the sign was dark and my hands were shaky, so that’s
the first state sign picture that’s not really clear. But you can’t have
everything in this life.
We
collected the West Virginia license plate, so now we’re down to five missing.
(Isn't this the cutest welcome to a state sign?)
Later:
Made
it all the way to Philadelphia! It was odd when Justin pointed out the Delaware
and we recognized it. We’ve been here before.
Today
was our most states day with Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and
Pennsylvania. The drive was quite nice; there are so many trees everywhere and
we finally had blue skies, something we haven’t had since Texas. Something else
we saw for the first time since day two was snow-- nothing crazy but there were
patches here and there from northern Virginia on up. We stopped for frozen
yogurt in WV, a state I have never much thought about but it was good frozen
yogurt.
We
took a side trip through some Maryland countryside in order to avoid toll roads
because we haven’t figured that out yet. This turned out to be a great choice because
the drive was absolutely beautiful. Can’t even imagine how pretty it will be in
the spring when the trees are growing. Then we found a collection of old houses
with the gables and the porches, you know the type. Old Victorian style houses.
We saw the Susquehanna, we saw a hydroelectric plant, it was a lovely break
from the interstate traffic. It was picturesque.
We
collected Vermont and Delaware license plates. At the beginning we said it would
be all right if we only got the 48 continental states. Since we had all but the
Dakotas and Rhode Island, but got Alaska and Hawaii, we decided the Dakotas
could be the outliers. That left us with the task of finding Rhode Island, and
Justin was especially dedicated. We sped up, we slowed down, we looked for that
license plate, to no avail.
We
were so tired today and just wanted to get pizza and crash at the hotel to celebrate
our long trip being done. We pulled up to the hotel and Justin was walking towards
it when he stopped and motioned me over. A Rhode Island license plate!! Our
quest is complete!
I don't know if Philadelphia will be our forever home, but this will be a fun adventure for at least a few years. Lots to learn, so much to see. So many towns here have signs that they were established pre-1800. I'm loving it!! Can't wait to go downtown and see Independence Hall. And Baltimore, and Boston, and just, everything.
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