This'n'That; June 25th[Vacation]

Vacation....

I had intended to mention it last Friday before we left on Saturday morning. As usual, I wanted to leave at 5AM, but due to my carelessness, I had not gotten everything ready and in the car Friday night.

Suffice it to say, Day #1 started at 5:30 AM from the Rochester, NY area enroute to Knoxville, Tn. My intent was to see what was available for affordable housing. We are intending to move out of the state of NY before Guvner "Double-Dealin' " Dave Paterson can tax us completely penniless!!

On a previous trip we had re-discovered a really affordable restaurant in New Kingstown, Pa. I had discovered it while an over-the-road truck driver but had never stopped for a meal. "The Middlesex Diner" is a terrific place to eat; affordable, neat, clean and truely friendly wait-staff. We both had a breakfast meal of eggs, corned beef hash, rye toast and a drink-for less than a ten dollar bill TOTAL!!

In my "engineering," I had planned that we would stop for the night in Winchester, Va. Wrong; we would have wasted nearly two hours driving time, so we pressed on to Staunton, Va., where we found a Red Roof Inn-take my advise, NEVER STOP THERE!! The east-Indian working the desk whom-we nicknamed Mockmood-not only could not understand us, we couldn't understand him. "The Young Miss Lovely" did the negotiations; we were putting all expenses on her debit card; and was assured that we would have a smoking room. As we carried our luggage in I was smoking my pipe; I normally don't smoke indoors or in any vehicles. As we settled in I noticed there were no ashtrays, essential in a smoking room-along with a sign that smoking in a non-smoking room would encur a $100 unexpected charge to the offenders' credit card!! When queried, Mockmood said that he asked "Lovely" four times and each time she said no to a smoking room-a boldfaced lie on his part. We got that ironed out by being moved into a smoking room. I certainly hope for his sake, the Little Prick doesn't try assessing the $100 charge on us!! Mockmood has definitely turned us off to Red Roof Inns in general and his in particular, the one at I-81, exit 222, 42 Sangers Lane, Staunton, Va., 24401.

Day #2 started with us checking out of Mockmood's Inn and having breakfast at the local Shoney's Restaurant. Many times, we "restaurant hop" from Shoney's-to-Shoney's. They have to have the best breakfast buffet on the planet!! Out on Interstate Eighty-One, motoring southwardlybound, we passed some cars and trucks-some other cars and trucks passed us. At one point, we found ourselves in the right lane, with a Penske rental truck to our left-keeping pace with us. Apparently, the driver got sick of riding in the left lane and decided he wanted that patch of the planet we were occupying, cuz he started easing to the right, giving us no place to be!! We ended up driving on the shoulder at about 75mph, to get out of this Kamikaze driver's way.

As I said, our destination was the Knoxville, Tennessee area so I had elected to stop for the day at Morristown, Tn., and we selected the Super 8 motel, completely at random. What a stroke of luck!! The lady that tended to our needs was just the greatest, nicest person....named Barbara. We-Miss Lovely and I, Barbara and her "gentleman friend" hit it off immediately. She was great to joke with, has a great knowledge of the area and she and "Miss Lovely" are both originally from the upstate New York area. The room we had [for two days], as motel rooms go, was very nice; modern, working appliances, not threadbare in the least!! I would highly recommend these accomodations to anyone in the Morristown area [I-81, exit 8, 5400 South Davey Crockett Parkway, Morristown, Tn., 37813].

Day #3 presented us with a beautiful mid-south day.... bright sun, moderate morning heat. One of the side-trips "Miss Lovely" wanted to take was to see the Biltmore Estate, Asheville, N.C., so off we went eastward on I-40 to Asheville. Anyone who's been on this stretch of I-40 knows that east of the Tennessee state line the road drops down into the gorge formed by the collision of a bunch of rocks with a bunch of water, and up the other side, into northwest North Carolina. We'll talk more about the estate later, but Gawd!! Whadda Sight!! By mid-afternoon we were done sightseeing and were on our way back. We stopped at the rest area at the top of the gorge on the NC side. When we got into the rest area, we couldn't get out. Seems there were a bunch of motorcyclists [5-6] eastbound; one of 'em had a wreck; the injured one was brought to the rest area to be "mercy-flighted" out-our way out was blocked by the helicopter waiting for the person to be stabilized and loaded onto the craft. We couldn't find out how bad he was injured, but to be flown to the hospital, one has to be pretty banged up!! We returned to Miz Barbara's Super8 for an unprecedented second night's stay.

We awoke on Day #4 to find yet another beautiful day!! Today we're going to visit Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Neither of us are the "amusement park" types but thought some sightseeing and shopping might be in order. So we checked out, said our "good-byes" to Miz Barbara and hit the road. As we approached Sevierville the traffic steadily grew until it was bumper-to-bumper going into the city. We fought it through Sevierville and into Pidgeon Forge with the traffic increasing and the speed decreasing. No stops sofar!! And on into Gatlinburg with no change in the traffic. I had visited this area 15-18 years ago and I should not have revisited!! The entire area has experienced explosive growth-BUT-in a "willy-nilly" fashion, with no organization. There were crap shops just stuck in anywhere there was enough surface space!! For us, none of the aforementioned cities were worthy of a stop; we just kept driving on into the National Forest and continued up to Knoxville. Miss Lovely had never been to the area so she had no idea how it used to be; I was sadly disappointed!! We continued north on I-81 and finally stopped at a Days Inn in Wytheville, Va [exit #62] and later had supper at the local Shoney's.

Day #5 started with us eating breakfast at the same Shoney's where we supped the evening before. I'm a diabetic so I check my blood-glucose levels several times each day. After my second check of the morning I apparently had misplaced the lancet [that finger-pricker thingie] somewhere in the car. We conducted one of those "down on yer knees" searches under the car seats and everywhere we could think of-to no avail!! We just continued driving and when both felt hungry, we each had McDonald's salads..... pretty much a safe bet when I don't know my blood-glucose values. We drove straight through from Wytheville, Va., to Rochester, NY, arriving home about 8:30PM, yesterday [Wednesday]...... and never did find the lancet!!!

Til Nex'Time....