We stopped at Nashville and stayed there overnight. Tennessee is another beautiful state and surprisingly hot and humid. We have been welcomed to the south!
It was nice to be sleeping outside after the eye opening experience we had at Cincinnati. Instead of 29 degrees, we got 92 degrees. That is bearable when you are driving around in a convertible until the minute you stop. Many establishments in Nashville run air conditioning which helps until you step outside.
Regardless, sleeping outside in the warmer weather was very nice and pleasant for me. I definitely prefer that to the frigid temperatures that we experienced in Yellowstone. The real drawback, of course, are the mosquitoes and other insects that bite you. The humidity is not very comfortable, either.
We ended up with numerous mosquito bites. Although, these bites seemed different from the others that we’ve gotten on this trip. Nothing could compare to my yellow-jacket sting from Idaho. I still have a small scar from it.
We had a great conversation with a couple of people--a man and his son in the campsite. They were incredulous about the fact that we aren't carrying guns on this trip. They entertained us with numerous stories about their hunting trips and encounters with wildlife (which of course ended with the animals losing their lives). I appreciated hearing about a different way of life from people that were openly sharing their stories.
We drove past the Grand Ole Opry. For some reason, I thought that it was located in the center of Nashville. It looks a lot different from any of the older photographs that I have seen of it. Like Old Faithful, they have built a complex around it. There is a huge mall next to it. There is a large conference center located near it. There are tours to see it. It looks so commercialized now which was very disappointing for me. The Grand Old Opry is such a historic institution that it seems a shame that money is taking over the management of it.
There are many things that we take for granted. I have been learning all about that on this trip. As a techie, I tend to think that there should be wifi access everywhere. I also tend to think that I should be able to make a cell phone call anywhere in the United States. Hot and cold water should be available. And, more significantly, you should be able to use a restroom wherever there is one available. By the way, never use the Marathon Gas station restrooms. I have no words to describe the state of the two bathrooms that I didn’t use on this road trip.
Availability is really important. Lack of availability causes significant issues. I have a lot of thoughts around this and I’m sure that I’ll expand on that when I return to the Bay Area. But, for now, there was one glaring lack of resource that we needed when we arrived in the outskirts of Atlanta—gas.
We didn’t run out of gas while driving. We just couldn’t find it. You read that right. And, no, we are not living in the 1970s right now. Although, we might as well have been.
Unbeknownst to us, there was an oil pipeline rupture in Atlanta. It apparently started on September 9th. The oil company fixed it on Tuesday, September 20th. The problem became more acute this past weekend--people panicked. There were lines of cars trying to get gas. People got gas even if they didn’t need it. As a result, all of the gas stations in the area that we were staying at ran out of gas. As you can guess, we are currently stuck waiting until the supply increases. In the meantime, we are staying with a friend who in dire need of some repairs to her house. So, we are helping her with that.
We’ll just fix things until things fix themselves back again with gas.
The new Grand Ole Opry--the old one is hidden in there somewhere