Road Trip 2006
The following is the account of my travels May 28-June 5 2006.
Sunday morning left at 740ish. I got to Clarksville around 4ish had to stop a lot because i was tired. It was ridiculous. Seemed like every hour I was stopping.
Finally I stopped at a Burger King somewhere in Kentucky and sat down in a corner booth and dozed for about five minutes. Winston then called me and asked about some work stuff which helped keep me alert.
Laura directed me in as I was driving closer to her place by the Army base. It seems to be a thing that happens is that she'll give me directions and we keep talking about stuff till I show up at the destination.
So anyways very exciting to see Laura and Dan's house. I got to see Bubbles, their boxer mix dog, again. And their newest addition, Bazooka, a black lab mix. Laura was making steak for dinner.
I met her friend, had a little sip of wine with dinner. Later we went to see X Men 3. It was pretty good. Then back to the house to get to bed. Laura and I stayed up for a bit messing with the dogs and talking about random topics.
Monday morning we got up and had some cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Then we proceeded to go car shopping for Laura. We found a Toyota place that was open, and saw a sporty corolla.
Then onto the Ford dealership for a Focus excursion. I liked the Corolla better it seemed more sporty. It was fun looking at cars and just getting to actually do stuff with Laura since we never see each other being 8+ hours apart.
I kept pointing out all the cool features and got to make sure the back seat had decent room. I kept urging her to get a silver car because silver is awesome. Seriously.
After car shopping we went back and Laura baked up a pizza for lunch and we terrorized the dogs some more.
Monday afternoon I took off north into Kentucky to meet up with my chat friend Jen. We hung out, she gave me a tour of the town, showed me all the destruction from a tornado that hit earlier in the year.
I had been giving Jen trouble about not going out to take pictures of the tornado when it came through, but turns out it was an F4 so I mean...not exactly something you wanna go try to pet haha.
She showed me all the places she used to hang out, her church, the high school, random places and got me all turned around backwards. There was this bridge that had a high arch to it that I found interesting.
We also had had some dinner, some grilled chicken vegetables. Jen's cat was fun to mess with, it just never would give up. Ha! We caught part of a TV show about the 100 funniest comedies. I had seen a few of them.
Tuesday I headed on to Nashville. First things first I got checked into my hotel room. It just so happened that there was a show on about advances in body armor so I watched that before going sight seeing in Nashville.
Then I made my way to the Bass Pro Shop in Nashville. It's not as much fun to me as the Cabela's stores but its pretty close. I got a couple shirts and a shot glass or two with my name on it. Ha! beat that.
From there it was hop skip and a jump on to the Grand Ol' Oprey where I took a few pics and then hit the souvenir shop. I didn't get to see the inside of the place but oh well.
Then I found this Aquarium Restaurant at the mall there so I decided I'd eat there. I had some Mahi Mahi. It was alright. It was fish. So...whatever. Then I got a couple shot glasses at the gift shop they had there.
They're relatively cheap, fairly small, so they're easy to get back home. After wandering around weird roads around Nashville I made it back to my hotel room and watched a little more TV before crashing.
Wednesday when I woke up I had a quick lil breakfast and then headed out to check out of my hotel room. On the road about 7am, I wandered around the outskirts of Nashville seeing if there was anything worth seeing the headed on east.
To my amazement, the mountains, or big hills as I thought they looked like, had soe fog still trying to rise. SO it was really pretty scenery. as I got closer to Knoxville it got more to the point of seeming like maybe there was a mountain or two,
but they still just don't compare to the Rockies out in Colorado haha.
So I got to Knoxville a lot sooner than I thought I would but that was okay. So I run around Knoxville and drive by a sign that says Zoo next exit. Ooooo a zoo! So I go. And I pay $3 parking. Stupid but whatever.
So I am walking up to the entrance and this lady is like "Do you have a free entrance coupon?" And of course I didn't but she had extras so she gave me one. Flippin sweet especially since entrance to the zoo was like $17.
The Zoo had elephants and a couple of red wolves, and lions and somewhere there was a tiger. And bears. Oh my. I also saw rhinos and Gorillas and some snakes and turtles and more turtles.
This lady who worked at the zoo showed me some interesting stuff about the bog turtles of the zoo and then there was also...porcupine and chinchilla on display and I got a lil lunch.
But it wasn't made from any of the animals at the zoo. Then realized I hadn't adjusted my watch for the time shift. Way to go. I just lost an hour of time. :(
So I hit up the gift shop and found a shot glass I liked. I tried to find something with a gecko on it but no luck. Oh well. Good enough. Oh and there was some penguins at the zoo. Out of the zoo I go.
I spent probably three hours at the zoo. I noticed a street called Rutledge St by the Zoo. Random and pointless unless you know the right person. So ANYWAYS...
I make it past Knoxville and stop at a visitors center on the exit for Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. I got some maps, this nice lady gave me all kinds of crap I didn't really need but could kindof sortof come in handy.
So along the way I see this Coca cola novelty shop. They didn't have any straight up coca cola shot glasses. Disappointing. I got a lil Gatlinburg TN shot glass anyways and went on my merry way to Pigeon Forge.
Having checked into my hotel room I continued on to the wonderful little town of Gatlinburg. Arrrr. Tourist trap galore. It is inevitable to pay to park around the area.
The funny part is that on the way to Hard Rock Cafe I didn't realize how far away from it I was and got confused for a moment before realizing I had only past the first billion shops and had another billion to go.
But I found it, and I had never been to HRC so off I went and had a nice lil 10oz hamburger and this nice girl Kiki was my server. She was nice. And it was cool listening to rock as I ate.
I got to see a Red Hot Chili Peppers music video so I text messaged Jess because she likes them. A lot. So yeah. I got some martini glass drink with my dinner and then at the souvenir shop got a Gatlinburg Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt.
Good fun. Oh and on my way to the Cafe I had tried to check my voicemail and kept getting my own greeting message and then I was thinking I had screwed something up so I started freaking out,
then realized it was playing because it was picking up a different wireless carrier's signal.
Then I felt dumb. But just for a bit cuz then I found the Hard Rock Cafe and all was well.
Wednesday morning I got up and had biscuits and gravy, yogurt and cranberry juice. It was a good breakfast. I was stoked about biscuits and gravy. Has to be my favorite breakfast food.
So I went on towards the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. I took the scenic bypass around Gatlinburg. Saw some good places to take pictures right as I went by them so I had to turn around and go back.
IT was worth it and frankly, I didn't care. I did what I wanted.
Then I headed into the National Park and started going up and up and up towards the highest point in the park. Clingman's Dome sits over six thousand feet above sea level and I could drive most of the way up to it.
Then there was a hike the rest of the way, it claimed it was a 30 minute hike on the paved trail but I did it in 12:19. I had put on my camel back water pack and put on my waterproof cammo boots for the ascent.
I took pictures of every direction to be able to put them all together and see a huge panoramic shot. We'll see if it turns out. On the way down from the dome I saw a park ranger walking down with a shotgun in hand.
His name was Scott and he had been helping to control the local wild boar population. We had fun talking on the way back to the vehicles.
Back at the car I opened up my animal crackers and tossed some in my backpack along with a bottle of Gatorade. I also put my camelback inside my backpack, it has a slot where the tube sticks out of the main compartment, how cool?
I also packed this other juice drink thing with me. Just for a variety. The hike was pretty rocky and there was water that kindof followed the trail, sometimes on the trail. Which was okay, but I had to watch my step.
The trail led down the mountain, and I made it about 1.8 miles down the mountain when I decided that the thunder I had been hearing was getting closer.
Well I finally came across a point that had an open grassy knoll or something, a place I could see more than trees in front of me, so I took a picture, and then also took a picture of this couple who was there with their camera.
See? My good deed for the year. At this point the whole dark clouds and rumbles of thunder getting louder started to worry me slightly. I took off back up the hiking trail and well...I was going as fast as I could without killing myself.
Finally I return to the car and there's some other people heading up to the Clingman's Dome still so I figure, I might as well continue my ascent, so I go back up to the top. Which was a little bit slower of a trek up this time. I was kindof tired.
The temp had dropped enough and I had ran a little drizzle so I put on my hooded sweatshirt to stay comfortably warm. Back at the tip top I basked in the glory, then decided to head back down to the car. It had been fun and a bit of a rush to go hiking.
I started heading down the mountains back toward civilization when I passed a place that looked excellent for taking a scenic picture of the area so I turned around and went back about two hundred yards.
It turns out that every now and then it did offer nice view but then in a matter of twenty seconds fog could roll in and completely cover the view of the valley below. While there this guy asked me if I had any AA batteries because his camera batteries were dead.
My camera uses some weird CR2 and I didn’t have any other things with me that I could remember that used AA. Then he was talking about the views and I mentioned having gone to Clingmans Dome but couldn't remember the exact trail and all that so I went back to my car to get my map and remembered a mini MagLite in my glove box.
Ha! Score so I helped him out with being able to get a picture of his daughter with the valley in the background and all. Then I headed out on the road again.
Gatlinburg and the Hard Rock Cafe called my name again so back I went, this time it was closer to 5pm when I ate there instead of 7ish. This time Jason was my server and I had a Guinness with my dinner. I ordered just a regular hamburger this time. While sitting there enjoying beef I got to see a Third Eye Blind video.
The random things I remember from road trips. Still had a good time. Off I went and wandered around some more shops. It was fun. I found a couple shot glasses and a cheap t-shirt. Finally I drove back to Pigeon Forge and it took me a moment to get back to my hotel. I kindof wandered around the town looking at some of the random shops they had.
Didn't stop at any, I just wandered. Ha! Back at the hotel OI caught a show about submarines on the History channel so I watched it.
Friday morning I woke up and again had biscuits and gravy with some yogurt and cranberry juice for breakfast. I drove on through the tourist traps and headed east back towards the interstate. This time I was headed for North Carolina.
The trip went a lot faster than I had anticipated and I arrived at my destination near Winston-Salem at about 1:15pm.
I stopped off and got a large pizza at Little Caesars for $5.35 and then after wandering around for a bit checked into my hotel.
I had to call the place I ordered the hotel reservations through because they didn't alert the hotel that I had pre-paid So that was an ordeal.
But I got to talk to Katie in KC in the process cuz I knew she could get online to pull a customer service number for me to call.
Apparently they got that sorted out. So then I go off to the mall in Winston-Salem because I was bored and had talked to Andrew and we weren't going to be meeting up till about 9:00ish.
So I wandered the mall for a bit, found some Guinness coasters and a Guinness bottle opener. Then back to the hotel room to finish off some of my pizza.
I called Laura at this point to see how the rest of her car shopping had gone. Then Andrew called and confirmed they were heading off for mini-golf so I joined in.
We played two games, and I got a cherry Icee while we played. Then we hit up the arcade and played some games for a bit. There were a few other people I knew from college there, so that was fun.
Finally we retired to the hotel to play some poker and hang out.
Saturday I woke up and got breakfast about 9:15am. Then I watched TV and finally started getting dressed up for the wedding. It was a nice wedding, the brides maids had light pink dresses. Andrew looked all spiffy in his tuxedo.
The reception was nice, they had some nice dinner food line. There was also a chocolate fountain with fruit and whatnot. At the reception I helped decorate the car. Andrews sister and brother and a few others had already put some balloons and Oreos and shoe polish on it.
I assisted in trying to blow up some balloons. We also put some saran wrap around it heh. That was funny. Then back inside for the rest of the evening to enjoy talking with people.
I helped clean up things a little bit afterwards then headed back to my hotel room. I cleaned my car up a little bit and went to bed early cuz I was going to be getting up early.
Sunday morning I checked out of my hotel room, then drove around til I found a gas station and started to make my way on out of town. I had a couple of squirrels dart out in front of my car before I reached the interstate. Stupid squirrels.
Anyways. I made it a fairly quick trip, although I did stop in a little town in North Carolina to see if they had anything interesting. But being Sunday nothing was open.
SO I continued on to the Great Smokey Mountain National Park and found myself a short scenic route through part of the park. IT was only about seven miles long.
Then I made the mistake of going through Gatlinburg instead of backtracking to the highway because a million people were trying to leave the town too...so it took me like forever to get back to the interstate. stupid me.
Oh well. I booked it through Knoxville and on to Nashville. I stopped back by the Bass Pro Shop and found a shot glass for my brother. Then I made it on towards Laura's place. I called Nikki P on the way just to see how she was doing. It was nice to talk to her for a bit.
Once I got to Laura's she informed me that some of her friends were supposed to be coming over. It took a little longer than she planned for the girls to arrive but they got there so that was the important part. Then there was salad and soup and cheesy bread for dinner.
Laura coarsed me into having a small glass of wine with dinner.
Alas after dinner it was time to go to bed, although somehow mingling with the dogs kept that from happening. Nonetheless sleep finally found its way in. Monday I got up around seven. I left Laura's at 7:20am and headed out on the road.
I stopped just inside Kentucky and got gas. I didn't need it but knew I would before I got home. I proceeded to drive 6 hours straight, stopping about seventy miles from Kansas City for gas. Along the way I saw a speed trap at the intersection of I24 and I57.
I was going the sped limit at the time so no problem with it. I talked to Katie via yahoo messenger which I logged into on my phone. I also had a conversation with my little sister. I got home at 3:41pm, thus completing a journey from Kansas to North Carolina and back.
Pictures
Grand Ole Oprey. Eh?
Bass Pro Shop. Outdoor stuff. Camo. Guns. Yay!
It looked like a spotlight was shining down on that patch of ground so I took a picture of it. Ha!
A roadsign...small significance for the right people.
African elephants. Yep. MOOOO!
African goats or something..
Yay! Gorillas! Yay!
And that would be a red wolf picture didn't turn out real well but whatever.
Rhino. Don't mess with em. They got horns.
The Hard Rock Cafe. I took this picture with my cell phone.
The Hard Rock Cafe sign they had inside the restaurant. Crappy clarity cuz it was taken on my cell phone.
A scenic look across Gatlinburg TN.
Follow the directions boys and girls. It's that simple, and you won't get lost.
So there's a tree that's leaning. And another tree. and a trail...and I took a picture of it.
This is one of the few spots where there was open sky above the trail...
This is a valley that I overlooked that had a bunch of fog rolling through.
Ducks.
Duck. Sit? Stay? Good duck
A different stop closer to the northeastern part of the park...it gives a "let's see now far we can see" look.
Yay! Bubbles gave me a hug!
Laura! woot.
Shot Glasses. Yay!
The stuff I got on the trip...Guinness Bottle Opener and Coasters, shot glasses
a couple magnets, a keychain, and a few shirts. And Martini glass from Hard Rock Cafe.
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