It took us a little over an hour to reach the Tennessee border, and I snapped this photo as we crossed over. We drove North through Tennessee on scenic I-24, which winds through the Appalachian Mountains. passing through Chattanooga and Nashville before crossing into Kentucky.
1-24 through the Appalachians in TN
At a rest stop outside Chattanooga, a nice elderly gentleman started admiring my old car. Like me, he is a longtime Volvo owner, and has an appreciation for the classics: 140, 240, 444, and 544. He and his family have driven these cars for over 30 years. One particularly interesting story he told us involved rolling his 144 down an embankment after swerving to avoid hitting a deer. He was able to drive the car away from the incident, and the next morning when he checked on the car (I guess it happened really fast and he wasn't sure if the car actually rolled over), sure enough, there were grass stains on the roof of the car. If this story is true, it is just further testament to the quality of these cars (when they don't need shock mounts that is!) - I doubt many other cars could drive away after flipping over like that...
Albert in the Tennessee Mountains
After driving through Tennessee, we drove through parts of Kentucky and Illinois before entering Missouri through St. Louis. Outside the cities, the traffic was pretty light and the drive was relatively easy. We decided to drive through the St. Louis metro area and then stop for the night somewhere past the city. We ended up in O'Fallon, MO, about 25 miles West of St. Louis at about 9:30 PM.
Albert in St. Louis
So we are about a third of the way through our drive. We have reservations at a hotel in Jackson, WY for Saturday night, so we have two long days ahead of us. Tomorrow, we will be on the road for 11 or 12 hours and will be driving through Missouri and Nebraska. We might stop at a Cabella's store to pick up some last minute hiking supplies on the way tomorrow. I better get some sleep so I will be up for a big day tomorrow!
View Road Trip in a larger map
Molly, I'm just loving your blog! It makes me happy to hear about your journey- roadtrips are the best, and I'm getting excited for my significantly shorter one in 2 weeks. Glad you are rolling along again, and that you found an old man Volvo friend. (How do you not know if your car rolled over, though? I would imagine that's something I would note...)
ReplyDeleteYou may have not known this, but right before you hit Paducah, KY, you skirted around one of our (colin, heath and me) regular camping spots when we lived in Memphis--Land Between the Lakes Nat'l Rec Area. Good luck on the rest of the trip, it's gonna get real flat for a while!
ReplyDeletethanks, jenn! i am glad you have been enjoying reading it! i know, i question the plausibility of volvo man's rollover story!
ReplyDeleteJeff, I did see signs for that recreation area, but i had no idea you all had camped there... it definitely is a pretty area!
ReplyDeleteMolly, I don't know if you'll get this since I'm following your blog really late, but if you do, could you let me know how you do the road trip maps? I'm doing a road trip adventure to Yellowstone etc, and am using GoogleEarth, but I love your google ones. Thanks so much!
ReplyDeleteMokihana