Day 2: I would drive 500 miles..: Winchester, VA to Chattanooga, TN

Another long drive today. Weather was glorious this morning, mostly. My walk took me around the busy streets near Cracker Barrel in Winchester. We hit the road around 0850 and stopped at Costco for gas. Thanks, Costco. The weather was warm but windy. We drove in irons all day. The van isn’t great into a headwind but at least we mostly avoided gusts abeam.

We stopped at a rest area for lunch. I had the same chicken caesar salad for 3 days and still have some left. Thank you, Cheesecake Factory. Liz whipped up some fish tacos with her leftovers.

Oh, I forgot to mention. On day one we broke one of the rules. Off the road by dusk. But you know, weather delays and the Verizon incident forced our hand a little. By the end of the drive I was feeling a bit like Jan-Michael Vincent (get that reference??? Go back to 1975).

Back to today. It started raining. It was 24 degrees out. I don’t smell good. I don’t smell well. Both of those statements are currently true. But, we could both smell that familiar odour of rain on hot pavement. It was lovely. It rained quite heavily for much of the afternoon drive.

What? I don’t smell good. It’s day two and we have not showered yet. Tomorrow we intend to stop somewhere with water so we can clean out the water lines, turn on the water heater and have a shower. Mmmmm. Probs break out the Blackstone Griddle and do some cooking!

We arrived at our current spot around 0615 after a productive stop at Verizon. Thanks helpful dude! And a quick food pickup at Firehouse subs. Thanks staff that just gabs amongst themselves! Full disclaimer, I own stock in Firehouse Subs parent company. Now that Verizon has done me right I must make another call!

Our overnight location for today is…can you guess?? Cracker Barrel! They are very nice here. We closed all the windows as we ate our subs. Mrs. Milddogs did go and get me some Cracker Barrel peanut brittle. Always thank the hosts.

I was noodling on the usefulness of the TV in the van. I’m thinking I can remove it and add a Tablo to use with iPads if we want local TV. Less power consumption. Easier to set up. Less bulk. A bit too late to do it on this trip unless I just toss the TV in the trash.

Now the big news. Oh crap, I already said it. I got the Verizon JetPack Mifi 8800 thing. I changed the SID to “ExpensiveWifi”. Don’t have to use it quite yet as we have much data on our phones and good reception.

Even better news. Mrs. Milddogs has not asked me to drop her off at an airport. Nor has she just wondered off to get milk and cigarettes (we don’t smoke, it’s an old cliche). Yay!

The radio in the van is pointless. As #1 child says, no point giving it more power with all of this road noise. Fix that, then the stereo. So, I just leave it off and sing songs in my head. Given we have passed through many John Denver songs, they have been the mainstay. Shenandoah River. Life is old there. Blue Ridge mountains.

Pictures.

This is where we had lunch. In the van, not out near the people.

Tomorrow. Shorter drive. We pick the target tonight. Tomorrow we are provisioning and looking for a cushion for Amy to sit on. She is a tad needy and has been sitting on Mrs. Milddogs lap for 20 ours over the last few days. That will stop. Or it won’t 🙂

We used our new dining table that I made for little budget yesterday. It worked! I purposely left the top grainy so things would not slide around. Pure brilliance! I’ll take a picture next time. I’ll mount some of the other mods tomorrow when we have time.

Thank you, Cracker Barrel. Thank you, Verizon.

Oh, we saw a Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet today. Apparently they are rare.

Peace!