The Drive: Day 1

Packing the car was a lot simpler than we thought. Tim bought a little clamshell for the top that held all of his stuff, and I had the entire trunk of the Jeep. He had a hanging rack across the backseat area that was half full so Pete could have half of the seats. Princess Ella had to stay on my lap - until we put a pillow on the center console and she curled up on that and slept.

Pete, enjoying the view from the backseat

Ella, in her Captain's chair

We left at around 4:30 am on Tuesday (9/25) morning and beat the New York traffic by five minutes. I made it into New Jersey before passing out, and Tim ended up driving until we hit Pennsylvania and Cracker Barrel. Did you know they have awesome French Toast? We had lunch at a cute little park where we got to stretch our legs and let the dogs run for a little bit.

Park, somewhere in Tennessee

Gene Simmons

Then we drove to Knoxville, where we stayed at a Howard Johnson's for the evening.

For the record, I don't really recommend staying at that HoJo's. The exterior and lobby are ok, but the hotel reeks of smoke and a lot of the rooms aren't updated. We had to switch rooms because the first room was a dump - the air conditioning barely worked and the air was dirty-feeling, and the furniture looked like something the hotel picked up from a ratty thrift store. Tim went down and the management switched us right next door, and it was like night and day. The air conditioner was brand-new, the furniture was a lot newer and much nicer, and the bathroom was even cleaner.

The continental breakfast was sort of icky, but as we were in the South, there was white gravy and sausages and some yummy buttermilk biscuits that Pete and Ella loved.