Day 17

Total Miles: 3946
Total States: 13

I got a pretty early start to the day and managed to peel myself away from the kids by 7:30. It was an incredibly fun visit... not only getting to see some interesting stuff around the area, but also having plenty of time to just play with the kids. It has been quite the break from the fast-paced, intense PhD program.

Anyhow, destination today was Louisville, Kentucky, where a couple of my friends from UW had just moved to attend the Southern Baptist Seminary. Here's the travel log for the day...

Drive from Arlington, TX to Louisville, KY.

Mile 3052: Left Arlington. Hit some traffic trying to get around Dallas that held me up around half an hour. Sometimes you just really want to get out of a city... and especially out of its traffic!

3250: Crossed over from Texas into Arkansas at a town called Texarkana. (It's anybody's guess where they came up with a name like that!)

3385: Went through Little Rock. In general, there isn't much of interest along the freeway in Arkansas. I did appreciate the fact that most of the state is wooded along the freeway (I hadn't driven through any sort of trees since I left Glacier), but that was about it.

3422: Crossed the Mississippi into Tennessee (Thats a lot of double letters right there!). The freeways around Memphis were horrible in terms of heavy traffic and the merging that was necessary (such as while going around sharp corners with narrow lanes)

3430: I took a half hour detour to hit Mississippi (the state) so I could cross it off my list and never need to go back. This took me right through Graceland, the hometown of Elvis, though.

3437: Mississippi. The first state I've come across that doesn't bother to put a "Welcome to" sign on the interstate as you cross in.

3765: Nashville, TN. Of course I didn't take time to stop, but it still looked like a nice city. In general, the drive through Tennessee was quite enjoyable. Most of it is tree-covered hills that are a tiny bit too steep to be called "rolling". There were even some spots where the rock of the hills had to be cut back for the interstate (as opposed to the terrain I've been in for the last week+)

3794: Crossed into Kentucky

3823: Bowling Green, KY. GM had a plant here for years (and still does?), but its best known because Corvettes were made here. There is a national Corvette Museum that I would have stopped in at if (1) it wasn't closed for the night and (2) I had more time.

3893: Birthplace of Abe Lincoln. I forget the name of the town. Much like TN, KY is mostly rolling hills carpeted with trees and dotted with horse farms.

3946: Arrived in Louisville just after 10:00 pm.

Again, neither the BMW nor I had any problems with a day-long drive. We stayed up a little while talking, but both of them had to be up early the next morning. The trip is rapidly drawing to a close. I'll spend a full day and another night here in Louisville, but then its a quick 10 hour drive back to Ithaca.