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that's the distance and time we traveled, each way. after some slight setbacks with the rental car, we finally picked it up. i was surprised how nice it was, a hundai sonota, with cd player and moon/sunroof.

after leaving around noon, we'd barely driven twenty minutes when we found ourselves stopped, dead on the highway. cc was convinced it was only people slowing down on the "bridge" to gaze upon lake norman. it's barely a bridge, and especially in the summer, traffic does crawl because of looky-lous. it's been the cause of many accidents, cars sailing off the roadway and into the water, and boats soaring out of the water and onto the road. it's caused so many problems that there is talk of errecting a wall on both sides so drivers will no longer be able to gape and gawk at the beauty queens on pontoon boats.

i hate sitting in traffic, and we sat for several minutes without moving barely an inch. so i hit the off ramp and cut through the backroads to come out thirty miles down the interstate. traffic going southbound was also stopped.

thirty minutes later, when we hit our cutoff onto interstate 40, the interstate that would take us all the way to arkansas, we heard there was a bad accident on the bridge and traffic had been stopped so the rescue helicopter could land to airlift the injured out.

we drove to twenty miles this side of asheville. i, of course, needed the bathroom (i'm getting old and the bladder appears to be shrinking) and cc was hungry. there was a restaurant shaped like a barn next to the station, so we decided to give it a try. it was one of those lovely, country diners, that someone like me prefers to eat in. we tried to convince z that diners such as that one would offer delicious food, but he wasn't buying. he did order a plate of chili cheese fries, as did cc. i opted for the turkey with bacon sandwich, not the best choice, as the turkey wasn't what i expected.

probably the biggest surprise was that there, in little Nebo, NC a few folks were gathered around the t.v. watching a world cup game. but the one most interested in the game was a man, apparently from india. i guess, if you're from rural india, Nebo, NC might seem like a great place to live.

driving through the mountains freaks cc out. she doesn't like to drive it and she doesn't like to sit while someone else is driving it. in the daytime, it's not a problem for me, and i easily flew through the winding roads, past semis and pokey ass country folk.

i find it odd tho, that there were no scenic turnouts to stop and snap shots from. so i pulled out my camera, prepared to snap as i drove. cc would have none of this, and took the camera from me and snapped a few. not the best, but hey, we do what we gotta do. the interstate was extremely crowded.



the nc/tenn line comes in the middle of that drive over the mountains. and once on the other side, i hit it. when we got to knoxville, the traffic was horrid because of construction. if you look up job security in the dictionary, you'll find shots of interstate 40 workcrews. it took us nearly an hour just to get through knoxville.

once outside of the city, which is still in the mountains, but probably considered to be in the foothills, cc took over driving. i admit, i have control issues when it comes to driving and so i plopped z in the front seat next to her, while i sat behind her, yep, vodka bottle in one hand, camera in the other. there's a reason they're called the smokeys.



before long, the late day thunderboomers came, and it began to rain quite hard at times. i hate driving in the rain, and cc was making me nervous by sucking up to the bumper in front while driving pretty fast. it wasn't long before traffic crawled to a slow pace again. apparently, the rain had contributed to an accident.



i continued to sit in the back seat, snapping a few pics whenever i could, before it got too dark.



nashville also had construction on the interstate, but considering the later hour, it didn't take too long to get through.

there is nothing between knoxville and nashville. we stopped in a small little town, at a rundown quickie store, with plenty of good-old-boys gathered outside. they were packing up for the races at the dirt track just up the road.

likewise, there is nothing between nashville and memphis. shortly before memphis, cc and i switched again, but only after stopping in some small town. by this time, we had been on the road for nearly ten hours and still had a little over four hours to go(thank god arkansas isn't wide, like tenn).

oddly enough, on either border of tenn, there are hoards of xxx stores. once you cross the border of either nc or ar, they disappear.

ibrihama used to travel in his semi through arkansas all the time. he'd tell me, "arkansas stinks" i didn't remember that. but sure enough, under a warm summer night, the smell of chickens does float on the air. arkansas is black at night. also rural and empty.

by the time we got to little rock, i was nearing the end. i had been up since five a.m. and at midnight, i wasn't sure i could make it much further. but i pushed on, and hoped like hell the po-po was nowhere to be found. as we drove, reststops were filled with snoozing semis, and i'd forgotten (not driving at night too much) how they just pull off on various off ramps to sleep. nearly every off ramp we passed, especially those that were rural and without truckstops or quickies, had a semi with only his parking lights on.

when i pulled off onto the 540 to fort smith, i thought i would feel some sort of tightness in my gut, anxiousness of going back to a place i hated so much. but i felt nothing. i have to think it was pure fatique.

my parents live right off of 540. the quickie across the street was no longer a roadrunner, the gas station i'd spent so much time at as a child (soda machines, and later cheap ass cigarettes) was only an empty, blackened shell. the road to my parents house was old and worn and without curbs. i'd forgotten most of the streets in town were without curbs. it seems odd to me now.

at two-thirty a.m., my parents woke easily. half asleep, z and i emptied our stuff out of the car and said goodbye to cc, who still had to drive about ten miles down the road to her sister's.

and after a coke and a few smokes, i fell into my old bed and slept until almost ten the next day.