Day Two (Or: Nuh-Nuh-Nuh-Nashviiiiiiille)

If I wasn't such a lady, I'd write something like, oh, I don't know, how-lee sheeee-it.

In non-hillbilly, this means: What a day. But let's start at the beginning, before I get to the nitty-gritty, like megachurches, Hardee's and scary north Nashville K-Marts.

This morning, as I checked out of my hotel room, I said to the clerk, "Wish me luck in this snow!" If I had been in New York, the clerk would have likely rolled her eyes and said, "Yeah, really," which is a New Yorker's approximation of empathy. But I was in West Virginia, so the clerk smiles and said, "Good luck!" With feelin'. (Anybody who gets the 'Alice's Restaurant' reference there, raise your hand)

If snow-filled mountains are your thing, today would have been your day to ride shotgun. If you're not much of a fan of crazy speeding 18-wheelers, then you should probably be glad that you sat this one out. At some points, it was near white-out, but the roads were salted (as my car is now), so overall the ride was smooth, if agonizingly slow. To wit: it took me about 4 hours to go 100 miles. Yeesh. But I did have the somewhat distant promise that it wasn't snowing or raining or anything in Tennessee.

(An aside: do any of you watch CNN in the mornings? I can't remember the meteorologist's name who has the morning shift, but he's always using the word weather inappropriately, like just because he's a meteorologist, that forgives all his grammatical sins. For example, he likes to say, "There's a lot of weather all over the place." Not good weather, not bad weather, just weather. Now, technically, isn't that always going to be true, like, everywhere? Isn't there always weather everywhere? Windy? Calm? Cloudy? Clear? Snow? Rain? Sunshine? Aren't these all weather? But I digress.)

(Oh, another aside: Is the Animals' version of "House of the Rising Sun" not one of the most perfect rock songs ever?)

I feared that I'd be in snow a lot on this trip, so before I left, I put a playlist on my iPod called "Tropic of Cancer" which contains every song in my library that is even remotely connected to good weather (oh my God, I just remembered the meteorologist's name is Chad Myers), like the Flaming Lips' "Summertime," Weezer's "Islands in the Sun," and Beck's "Tropicalia." It worked to keep the mood buoyant.

Also? I stopped in the cleanest gas station bathroom I've ever seen this morning in West Virginia.

Lunch was a la Cracker Barrel, so I can finally cross "Eat at Cracker Barrel" off my life list. Which is good since I think that's the most embarrassing item. While I was eating my sandwich (which was tasty) I overheard a waitress say, "Jeez Louise!" In Earnest.

Many of the previously mentioned 18-wheelers were hauling oversized items like train cars (Amtrak and a car from Atlanta's MARTA system) and what can only be described as something clearly resembling a piece of the space shuttle.

I traveled predominantly on the interstate today (I-64 to the Bluegrass Parkway to I-65) because of the snow, but I think I misperceived what the interstates would be like down here. The interstate I'm most familiar with is I-95--forget what you know. In Kentucky in particular, the landscapes were like the covers of Nicholas Sparks novels. For real. Rolling hills, barns and tree swings for, like, 110 miles.

Some odds & ends:

• When I got out to stretch my legs in Bowling Green, my first thought was: "This is the wrong time to start craving Thai food."
• A trucker at a rest stop, who got a map machine to work for me by doing the Fonzie-style fist-bump, called me "little lady." I didn't know truckers really said things like that. My mom's brother is a trucker, and though he dresses like a cowboy (for real), but I've never heard him say anything like that.
  
• One more thing: Excuse me, Nashville, but in what other major city does one actually have to search for a Starbucks? Even in Morgantown, WV, you trip over Sbuckses everywhere. I never ended up finding one.
  

I rolled into Nashville around 7 o'clock and momentarily fretted: do I eat first, or find a hotel? I called the hotel, made sure they had a room free and then went to the Big River Brewery on Broadway in downtown Nashville. Big River is a small chain, and they're a microbrewer (I tried the Sweet Magnolia Brown Stout, which was terrific).

Nashville and Nashvillians (Nashvillains? Nashvillagers?) are totally unpretentious, and that was good, since it meant I could just pounce on my waitress for advice about the city. The hardest part about traveling alone into a major city you've never been to is that you have no idea where the cool parts are. Like, say you drove into New York from the Holland tunnel--you'd probably end up eating Chop Suey in Chinatown--OK, actually, that doesn't sound too bad. But not every city is New York, and if you don't know where you're going, good luck. You'll be familiar with the buffet at Shoney's in no time. (Eeee, memories of many bad breakfasts at travel camp!)

Lastly, where was this article when I was planning this trip? (OK, full disclosure: practically no planning went into the actual trip. The planning headaches were in all the ancillary details)

Thanks everyone for the overwhelmingly kind e-mails. I'm thinking about all of you!

Snow!


MARTA train on a flatbed trailer


Cracker Barrel: Mission Accomplished!


Welcome to the Bluegrass State!


Military Police on my tail.


Tank!


I wanted to offer this man a carrot. Welcome to methane belt.


I'm really in the South now.


Nashville Skyline


Random Bob Dylan trivia: The track listing on the B-side of his 1969 album "Nashville Skyline" (which is, coincidentally, my favorite--I have a first press 33 that I got on City Island)forms a poem:

Lay lady lay,
One more night,
Tell me that it isn't true.
Country pie,
Tonight,
I'll be staying here with you.

Day Two:
Morgantown, WV - Nashville, TN
Mileage: 557 mi.
Total Mileage: 1001 mi.