Woke up in a raw panic. It took me a few minutes to figure it out. I’m traveling. Have to get moving. Have to get to the airport. Whew. No airport. No hard and fast time schedule. Panic dissipates. So Calli got her last run round with Luna at 6:30, as usual, and I got my last fix of Summit Coffee.
Then, the road. Oh wait. Not yet. First the Latin Placement Emails. Then the road. Left at 9:30. Calli was pumped. For a while. Where are we going? Fisher Farm? Lucky Dog? Huh? Wait. Why? We are just driving driving driving. And, as for the driver, she was in ‘get there’ mode. It didn’t seem like a road trip until we got beyond Asheville and the Smoky Mountains. Had to be new territory. Then I started to relax more. At every rest area I checked for nearby hikes (thank you All Trails and Bring Fido). Nada. And I had to keep moving. Why? Well, I don’t know. I was annoying myself and I was really annoying the dog. (“Seriously, either a dog park or I’m going home”).
Rest areas in Tennessee are not puppy palaces–this sign is only one of several varieties found are all over the place:
I’ll spare you the rest of the pictures. We never did find a hike (there was a great one, but it turned out to be 30 miles behind us. We didn’t go).
I finished listening to Michael Lewis’ “The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed Our Minds”, which is about the lives, research and remarkable friendship between Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. Mostly I liked it a lot. (end of review…too tired).
I have always been curious about Knoxville and got off to see the University, a sprawling construction site with no visitor parking. I parked illegally in a staff lot (I am staff, just not there) near the (huge) music building, which sports this impressive rock:
And a lot of construction.
Eventually we got to Nashville, where I’m staying at the very underwhelming LaQuinta. But only a ten minute drive away is an incredible dog park and somehow I summoned the energy to put the very confused Calliope back in the car for a romp in greenery:
We are going back there tomorrow! Dinner? Bourbon and Ramen Noodles and Chocolate. 🙂
