Oh Shenandoah . . . I'm bound Away

This is actually the Tennessee River, flooded, but
I thought it worked with the lyrics of the
song :)

Oh Shenandoah, I hear you calling,

Hi-Ho, You rolling river.

Oh Shenandoah, I long to hear you, 
Hi-Ho, I'm bound Away.

~ Traditional American Folk Song, early 19th Century

Linda and I have been learning oh, so much on this trip!  Anytime we see something along the way and don't know about it, I look it up on my trusty iPhone and regale her with what is probably an overload of information.  We feel so smart when we're done, though!!!  So no, to answer anyone's question about whether or not we are bored, no.  Besides that, we have well over 100 years of stories between us to share, so it will be awhile before we run out of things to say.  And, we have made four more days of good stories to share . . .

This was in the bathroom at the
Whistle Stop Cafe where we
had lunch.  Except for the "brain's" part
(should be "brains") this
describes our trip so far :)

Today, we mostly just drove.  It was our second day of rainy weather, so stops were not as inviting.  Plus, we needed to cover ground.  Which we did.  More than 700 miles of ground.  Most of Tennessee and quite a bit of Virginia.  We will get to where we are going sometime tomorrow morning.  When we arrive depends on we leave (duh).  The hotel people have warned us that there is quite a bit of traffic between here (Staunton, VA) and D.C. so we are thinking about what to do about leaving.  We don't want to venture forth only to sit in traffic.  We will decide in the morning.

One of the things that has amused us no end is the odd names to places along the way.  I've been keeping a list of the more preposterous SMH ones (shaking my head): Bucksnort, TN (a town), Pigtail Creek, Mouse tail Camp, Magazine Mountain, Frozen Head State Park (yes!), Cross-eyed Cricket Campground, Hungry Mother State Park, Route 666/Hog Back Road, Scrooges Restaurant, among others.  We thought "Frozen Head" might have an interesting story, but it only referred to the snowy mountain top near the park.  Kind of disappointing.  I did find an account of 18 frozen heads that were discovered in a container at an airport, though.  And something about the Ted Williams cryogenics controversy.

We've been collecting interesting road signs.
This one warns motorcycle riders of
grooved pavement.

Our room is at the back of the hotel, next to railroad tracks.  Linda had to sign a waiver about the noise of the "unscheduled trains" saying we understood there were no refunds for the possibly noisy room.  We didn't know what that could mean, but have just experienced the first train...and it is noisy and does shake the room a bit.  We are hoping to sleep through the next one :)

Yet another series of favorite pictures from the day:

It was extremely foggy in the mountains much of
the day.

The VW van in front of the Whistle
Stop Cafe (our place for lunch in the
town of Baxter, TN)

We saw at least four of these giant crosses
in front of churches in both TN and VA.  They
were all the same--huge and overpowering.

There are quite a few similar museums
along the way in TN and VA.  Too bad
we had no time for them today.

My favorite road-side photo.

Seventh-day Adventist Church in VA (don't recall
what city).  This is the 4th SDA Church we've
seen along the roadside.

Joe Bear enjoying the picturesque VA rest stop.

The VW van is to the left of the second sign.

This cute rubber ducky and note were on our
bathtub at tonight's Best Western!

We've seen several similar signs questioning our
destiny (we also saw a lot advertising "adult"
entertainment!  Strange juxtaposition of
values!!!).

In the Land of the Delta Blues

View of Memphis from the Arkansas side of the
Mississippi River

"Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues In the middle of the pouring rain." ~ Marc Cohen, Walking in Memphis

Kellogg's sign just outside of
Fort Smith--where the Kellogg side
of my family lived 70 years ago!

We are spending the night on the east side of Memphis, having driven a more productive number of miles today, thanks mostly to the rain and all the trees.  The rain because we didn't want to get out in it, the trees because we cannot see all the interesting things there might possibly could be just waiting for us off the interstate!  It's beautiful, and we are loving the lush velvety grass and leafed-out trees...except for the limited effect they have on our side-tripping experience :)  Perhaps it's just as well.  We certainly do have miles to go before this trip is finished.  Some 912 miles to be exact, more or less, perhaps, if we don't get lost.  Or side-tracked.

Welcome sign as we went into the historic part
of Fort Smith

Today did have its moments, though.  Our first slight detour took us into the town of Fort Smith, just over the border of Oklahoma into Arkansas.  My mother and at least some of her family lived there some 70 years ago.  I remember hearing stories of how they road their horse Jubilee bare-footed and bare-backed (the horse, not the girls).  Mama taught school here for a time.  We spent some time exploring the Catholic Church in the historica part of town.  It was quite beautiful.  [We have discovered at least three Adventist Churches along the way, too, lest you think we are only interested in Catholic ones!]  And open, so we went in for some pictures and discovered one of the priests training some children to help with Communion Service.  We enjoyed watching for awhile.

The Swiss restaurant we ate in was originally the
hand-dug underground home the family lived in when
they first came to this country.  They then built a
cabin on top of this dugout, which then became
a restaurant.

Our next major stop was for lunch in a town of 46 people, many of them related.  It was a restaurant at a winery and we thought we might find some tasty food, but ended up with just a baked potato and tossed salad.  Everything else we could not eat.  The atmosphere was kind of cool, but the food a little disappointing. 

Road-sign for the Trail of Tears,
route 70 in Arkansas, not far from the
Tennessee border.

The rest of the time we were driving and driving, mostly keeping ahead of the rain (once we got out of it this morning).  When we stopped for supper at about 8, after having crossed the very full Mississippi River and gone around and out of Memphis, rain and thunder and lightening were in the air.  Linda talked the hotel clerk into giving us one of their last rooms to us at a much-reduced rate.  It's a suit, but we just one bed, so I'm on the pull-out couch.  Feels just fine.  We're tired enough to not care. 

We whiled the time away by researching some of the places we drove through (or by) and talking about books and other oh-so-fascinating things about our lives and our interests.  And once we got off the interstate and took a parallel "red" road in the hopes of finding something interesting...and found the historic Trail of Tears, which we followed until we got to Memphis.  Such a sad page in our history that is :(...

Here are a few more favorite shots from our trip today:

  

Historic part of Fort Smith with the Immaculate
Conception Catholic Church at the center.

Linda at lunch.

Rondi at lunch.