Back in January we had to submit our vacation requests for the year and with five weeks of vacation and personal time being earned this year I had to make some choices. The first week I picked was the week of March 14 through the 20. My friend's birthday falls in that week and figured if I could swing it, perhaps I could visit for his birthday.
The beginning of February I started making the plans and found out that he'd be in Oklahoma City on the 14th for a rugby match, so my goal was to meet up there and plan a surprise. Since I like to drive I started working out the plan and extended my vacation to begin on the 11th using a vacation day on Wednesday and taking Thursday and Friday as my days off that week (although it did mean working an eight day stretch from my last day off. I sat and mapped out the trip in February tweeking the hotel choices and figuring out distances in order to not drive too far each day. The itinerary was: 3/11 - Nashville, 3/12 - Little Rock, 3/13 - Oklahoma City, 3/14-3/16 - Dallas/Fort Worth area, 3/17-3/18 - New Orleans, 3/19 - Montgomery, with an optional stop in Atlanta on the 20th - all totalled roughly 2,500 miles!
Those who know me know that I love to keep lists and get small goals for myself and one of those lists is the states and state capitals I have visited. (Visit means, slept in or did more than just drive through - feet have to touch the soil). This trip would add seven states to the 24 already visited and six state capitals!
I packed on Tuesday night after work in preparation of getting an early start in the morning. Well, I overslept a little bit, but decided that this was supposed to be a stress-free vacation - so I went with the flow and left the house at 8:24 am. I forgot to mention that over the last weekend I got a Blackberry, and I can post about that at another time when I learn how to fully use it, but the reason i bring it up is that I put a navagation system on it since the first month was free, it's a great chance to try it out. A little weird though is that it was sending me through Uptown Charlotte to get onto I-85 South which was aready reading a 20 minute delay ... so i overroad the system and went my own way. The route I took to Nashville went from Charlotte south on I-85 to Spartanburg, then head north on I-26 into Asheville, NC hooking up to I-40 west through Knoxville and into Nashville. And so, the journey began!
The beginning of February I started making the plans and found out that he'd be in Oklahoma City on the 14th for a rugby match, so my goal was to meet up there and plan a surprise. Since I like to drive I started working out the plan and extended my vacation to begin on the 11th using a vacation day on Wednesday and taking Thursday and Friday as my days off that week (although it did mean working an eight day stretch from my last day off. I sat and mapped out the trip in February tweeking the hotel choices and figuring out distances in order to not drive too far each day. The itinerary was: 3/11 - Nashville, 3/12 - Little Rock, 3/13 - Oklahoma City, 3/14-3/16 - Dallas/Fort Worth area, 3/17-3/18 - New Orleans, 3/19 - Montgomery, with an optional stop in Atlanta on the 20th - all totalled roughly 2,500 miles!
Those who know me know that I love to keep lists and get small goals for myself and one of those lists is the states and state capitals I have visited. (Visit means, slept in or did more than just drive through - feet have to touch the soil). This trip would add seven states to the 24 already visited and six state capitals!
I packed on Tuesday night after work in preparation of getting an early start in the morning. Well, I overslept a little bit, but decided that this was supposed to be a stress-free vacation - so I went with the flow and left the house at 8:24 am. I forgot to mention that over the last weekend I got a Blackberry, and I can post about that at another time when I learn how to fully use it, but the reason i bring it up is that I put a navagation system on it since the first month was free, it's a great chance to try it out. A little weird though is that it was sending me through Uptown Charlotte to get onto I-85 South which was aready reading a 20 minute delay ... so i overroad the system and went my own way. The route I took to Nashville went from Charlotte south on I-85 to Spartanburg, then head north on I-26 into Asheville, NC hooking up to I-40 west through Knoxville and into Nashville. And so, the journey began!
Along the drive to Nashville I drove through a mountain tunnel for the 2nd time in my life (first was a few years ago in Pennsylvania), drove through the Great Smokey Mountains and possible the Blue Ridge Mountains as well and for the first time in my life I drove across a time zone! It was also the first time I've been in Tennessee except to change planes once in Memphis many years ago. The drive took a little more than the seven hours expected with a couple of stops along the way at the Tennessee welcome center in I-40 and to get gas and food. The car averaged aoubt 32 miles to the gallon on the drive!More about Nashville on the next posting - until then, enjoy this video for out of state drivers from the state of tennessee. . .
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