Monday, June 25, 2012

Vacay Day Two

Usually, when I am out of the house, my normal routine goes out the window (also out of the house!). I stay up late, sleep late, find energy I never knew I had, you know, the kinds of things that just shout, "I don't have ANYTHING to do !" So I was a little worried about getting on the road to Savannah on Thursday morning. If I left around 8:00 a.m. Central time, I could arrive in Savannah around 4:00 p.m. Eastern time. This assumed a normal drive around Atlanta.

I didn't need to worry. I woke up full of energy around 7, "bright-eyed and bushy tailed," and loaded up the car. I headed across the outer road to Panera, took a right to the gas station and filled up, and then made one more right turn onto I-Whatever-it-was, bidding good-bye to the Doubletree precisely at 8:00 a.m. Wow! I watched for lots of traffic, because I had been warned about Bonnaroo the night before by the helpful desk clerk at the hotel. As she handed me my warm chocolate chip cookie, she said, "Hon, if you're headed south, you better watch out for lots of traffic. It's Bonnaroo, and there will be lots and lots of people and trucks and RVs and troopers. It might take you a while to get to Chattanooga." I remembered seeing a car with a phrase, "Bonnaroo or Bust," chalked on its back window, and so I asked, "What is a Bonnaroo?" "Music festival," she said. "Big. Big."

So as I sped along the interstate, I watched for the huge conglomeration of traffic, but it didn't show up that early. Everyone was breezing along quickly and quietly, except in a couple of areas where the speed limit was lowered to 55. In my naivete, I thought the signs were serious, but I found myself terribly mistaken as I watched all kinds of cars and trucks and RVs passing me and all the troopers as if we were sitting still. Well, the troopers WERE still, but they were not sitting. They were doing their jobs and getting ready for the inevitable onslaught of people. I decided to call Max and have him tell me what Bonnaroo meant, so he looked it up, and I was really missing a party. Radiohead was there, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beach Boys, Alice Cooper, Kenny Rogers, Steven Wright (one of my favorite comedians), and a bunch of other acts.

Sorry to have to miss all the fun, but really glad not to be having to sit out in the sun for two or three days and wait in line for a vacancy in a porta-potty, I headed straight to Chattanooga, where my grandmother, great-grandmother, sister, and I went when my parents went to teachers' meeting in, probably, 1963. I remembered going to Lookout Mountain and Rock City, and generally finding all kinds of tourist stuff to do. I remembered the mountains, and I was happy to find that they are still there. The drive into Chattanooga is nothing short of spectacular, the road drifting and winding and climbing and falling in the midst of the Smoky Mountains. It was still early and cool, and the sun turned its face on the layers and layers of mountains on the horizon in all directions; I could see the green trees and a little blue haze and a ribbon of gray that wound about in the distance. I will drive to Savannah again just to see that vista.

I got through Chattanooga just fine, and decided that I needed to stop on the way back to see the Civil War battlefield at Chickamauga, and then took the next leg of the trip on I-75 toward what I dreaded most: a drive around Atlanta, about 110 miles from Chattanooga. I have often heard the East Coast being described as a "megalopolis," with city running into city into city, with no green area in between. I go on record here today to say that I-75 is the same way. From Chattanooga to Atlanta, exit after exit, traffic was unrelenting, at least three lanes each way, and crammed to exploding with huge trucks and pick-up trucks, RVs and vans, SUVs and cars, all screaming along at what seemed to be 110 miles per hour, taking no prisoners, leaving a wake of shattered tire rubber and broken glass all over the highway. I know how hard I was gripping the steering wheel because my tan line stops at the second knuckle on each hand where my fingers turned under the wheel. And I had no choice but to go as fast as I could, right along with them, hoping that I could see where I was going when I had to get in the correct lane for my exits from I-75 to I-285 and back to I-75.

Changing lanes became a practiced art. I looked in each mirror, and turned my head just the way Bill Wheeler told me to do in Driver's Ed in 1969, and then quickly claimed my space in the next lane. I also had to watch out for people in front of me doing the same thing, only doing it at their own speeds, decidedly slower than traffic in the left outside lane. Speed, slow down, speed, slow down. Speed. And then, as I expected, right when I was about to change lanes around the airport (I think the cars at the airport in Atlanta are just about as bad as planes at the airport), someone came up on my blind spot going so fast that I hadn't even seen him in my mirrors, or when I looked over my shoulder a few seconds earlier. I jerked the car back into my own lane - or so I thought. This was my education in the responsiveness of our little black convertible. I jerked the car as I would have my Honda Accord, and though the Accord would have been just fine, the jerk I gave the wheel put the car not in the lane from which I had come, but about one-third of the way into the NEXT lane to my right! Fortunately, and incredibly, that lane was empty. I shook for a while after that, but made it through just fine, and heaved a sigh of relief (sounds trite, but it's true) after I took my exit from I-285 onto I-75.

Fooey! The traffic AFTER Atlanta was only marginally better than the traffic BEFORE and IN Atlanta, and to my surprise, the three-lane highway extended to Macon, some 85 miles south. At Macon, however, I would be able to make my final turn, onto I-16 East, toward Savannah! Before that, though, I was getting hungry, and so I tried to find an exit with fast food that would be an "easy-off, easy-on." I took the exit for McDonough, Georgia, in honor of my friend Mark McDonough, and found nothing easy about it. I managed, however, to find something to eat at Burger King, and knew I would be able to wait for real food until I arrived in Savannah and we went to dinner at Sapphire Grill. That thought kept me going. When I turned onto I-16, my last 160 miles before I saw my lovely girl, I began to get excited all over again. I knew a great time was waiting, and I would be happy to see all the people who would be arriving about the same time, and who would join us for dinner for the next three nights.

Coming up: Dinner at some really good places, and Savannah Dan, the best tour guide EVER! See you next time!

Friday, June 22, 2012

On the Way to Savannah

I have not been on a vacation in years - that is, a vacation that has taken me out of town more more than three or four days at a time. My teaching schedule, court schedule, and church schedule run pretty much daily, and getting out of town requires that I find a teaching substitute, a piano substitute who will play for the praise team and for the choir, an organist, and a substitute judge. Until this past year, any trip out of town also required a puppysitter, who usually was our loyal secretary and dog-lover Michelle (and her family).

This year is different.

I am not teaching any summer classes, the second Sunday in June was Juice and Joplin, which meant no choir, no praise team and no organist (we bring in a Scott Joplin Festival pianist who plays for the one casual service in the Fellowship Hall), the substitute judge was free for one Wednesday - and as you all know, Fluffy is no longer with us.

So I planned to take a trip to Savannah for Emily's graduation. Max didn't have as many vacation days available as I wanted to be gone, so though we would normally have driven down together, I planned to drive by myself and he would fly down. This was going to be an adventure! I was going to put the top down on the car and drive as fast as each state's highway patrol would allow through Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia.

So last Wednesday, I changed clothes at City Hall, jumped in the car, and drove off toward Savannah, Georgia, where my little girl was going to graduate without our being there (see previous blog entry if you have forgotten what happened - as if there is not more!). The day was warm, but not hot, the sun was shining, but not too intensely, and when the wind hit me full force as I breezed across Missouri on I-70, I was simply invigorated.

My plan was to get to Nashville by 8 p.m. and then eat dinner at the Bonefish Grill. Max and I had found that restaurant on the way back from Savannah at Thanksgiving, and the food was good and reasonably priced. The restaurant also pours really good wine, and I figured I would be able to use a glass after an 8-hour trip.

Well, as plans go, that sounded fine, but my plans had already been somewhat adjusted because of the graduation SNAFU, and then when I tried to get a reservation at Aloft, I found that the hotel was sold out because of some music festival called Bonnaroo. So while I drove toward Nashville, Max looked on line for a hotel where I could stay, and we lucked out because the Doubletree was available. It was not, however, close to the Bonefish Grill, and so my lovely dinner was out of the question. I simply was not going to check into a hotel and drive another 30 minutes or so to a restaurant. I figured there would be some chain restaurant close to the Doubletree that would do. It would be, of course, required to have a bar.

The drive to Nashville took about eight hours, as expected. I got through St. Louis with little fuss and bother, except that driving 80 miles per hour is somewhat stressful, especially with big trucks on both sides of my little car, and Lexi and "big-assed" trucks and SUVs whizzing by me faster than 80 miles per hour. Max usually drives through that area, and so I had not experienced the exhilaration of speed under my own foot for some time, but I was triumphant after I completed my solo drive-through - and I didn't get lost even one time!

The drive through Illinois and then Kentucky was uneventful, but fast. The speed limit in both states, in more rural areas, is 70, so I drove 75 and was passed continually by lots of travelers who were going much faster. As I passed through Paducah, I remembered my trip to the LowerArts District and the historic downtown, and thought about eating dinner at Cynthia's or Max's, but by this time - probably around 5:30 - I was hot and dirty, so I decided to keep on driving. Nashville was but 140 or so miles away, and I would easily arrive before dark. I had noticed more than a few "armadeddos" (say it fast) lying on the side of the road, and certainly more dead deer than I care to remember, so I was not thrilled about the possibility of finding a buck of my own to hit, and I had to travel through beautiful and wooded Kentucky lake country, likely full of deer trying to hit my car.

So I got to Nashville a little before 7:30, driving somewhat more slowly than I had on the open highway - I saw MANY troopers! - and discovered that lots of people live and work in Nashville, and that rush hour lasts until 7:30. The Doubletree was on the south side of the city, so I got to drive all the way through and around Nashville in order to find the exit to my hotel. Even with the Google map on my phone, I took the wrong turn off the interstate and took an additional 15 or so minutes to find myself in the only suburb of Nashville without a chain restaurant. The Doubletree, however, had a sports bar/restaurant off the lobby, and so I ate some food, and more important, had a Scotch and soda to burn off the stress of the day. The server asked me if I wanted a particular Scotch - I guess she doesn't drink Scotch. Why get a good one only to sully it with club soda?

After eating the mediocre food, I went to my room and celebrated my successful trip and my making the trip it on my own by reading a book: Burden of Proof, by Scott Turow. It was his first book after Presumed Innocentand deals with some of the same characters. I had begun reading it before I left for the trip, and was enjoying the story and reading itself.

As I fell asleep, finally clean and tired and tanned regardless of 70SPF sunblock, I reveled in the idea of being away, and looked forward to what the next day would bring. Stay tuned.