Exceedingly Mundane

Currently blogging from a Comfort Inn in Harrisonburg Virginia! We arrived safe and sound tonight around 8:15 local time (7:15 central) and checked in (they had no queens or kings and we’re stuck in a double, icko). We were glad to get a room though – the guy at the front desk said they only had 3 rooms left for tonight.

We had a long day of driving, leaving home at 6:25 AM and driving pretty much straight-through. We stopped once for food, at a Checkers in Cleveland Tennessee, and twice for gas. We also stopped at the Virginia Visitors Center upon entering Virginia on I-81. Picked up some maps, info booklets and coupon booklets.

We had another small problem with the car. Background: When we went to Gatlinburg last October, we noticed on the way back that the right rear floorboard was wet. At first, we thought this was because a thing of bottled water had leaked, but then we realized the bottles were not down any water! Then, we thought it must have come from the road because we drove home in a lot of rain. Tim actually took the car apart for nearly 10 days before Christmas (finally putting it back together the day before Christmas Eve –his idea of how to keep me from shopping and spending money, hahaha), but he never could find a leak. So, we decided it was a fluke and we haven’t noticed a drop of water since. WRONG! Our right rear floorboard is completely flooded and Tim has bailed water twice today. The front floorboard is damp too. We’ve decided it must be a problem with the AC, it’s either a clogged line or a leak, because we did run the AC in the car all day. More fuel for the “get rid of this car and get a new one soon” fire.

Ok, some other small tidbit:s

We really lucked out in the traffic department and didn’t hit any major traffic.

We added a new “sign” to our collection – we take pictures of state signs as we enter new states, something we started doing when we were first married and going places together. Neither Tim nor I have ever been to the state of Virginia before today, so this is new for us, and we have a picture of the sign to prove it!

The new iPod and iTrip (FM transmitter) came in very handy today – we pretty much used it all day and ran the battery down. The CD player in the car is broken (more fuel for that aforementioned fire), so we knew this would be useful, and it was. Listened to lots of great country, rock and oldies music on the road. I took a book to read in the car, but never once opened it! I was having too much fun talking to Tim and looking at the sites and playing with the iPod.

We saw a water tower (we think in Wyethville Virginia, but we’re not sure now!) that was painted like a multi colored hot air balloon. Caught our attention from very far away!

We saw a giant guitar somewhere, advertising something. Can’t remember what, but at the time, we both thought it was pretty cool!

We saw a bad wreck on the other side of I-81 coming out of Bristol TN. We saw an 18 wheeler turned around nearly backwards and smashed up, a bulldozer in the middle of the highway (we think the dozer was probably on the bed of the truck) and then a couple of smashed up cars on the other side. There were a lot of cops and emergency vehicles – but the kicker was that traffic was backed up for miles – at least 4 miles that we counted off on our trip odometer. We were really glad and grateful it was not on our side of the interstate!

The parts of Virginia that we drove through this afternoon and evening were really pretty and pastoral – lot of Colonial or Federalist style houses up on hills, lots of barns and silos, lots of cows and haybales in the pastures. Very pretty.

We almost stopped at the Natural Bridge, but didn’t. We wanted to see it, but it was getting late and we just wanted to find a hotel and check in.

We were late getting back out to get supper – it was about 9 PM when we left the hotel to find food. I hate to eat that late and neither of us was really hungry, so we ended up going to Taco Bell and getting chili cheese burritoes. Spent a grand total of 6.27 for supper. Good for the ole budget!

OK, that’s about it for all the exceedingly mundane details. Today was just a travel day, we hope to have more to report tomorrow! We’ll be at our regular hotel in Arlington and hope we have good luck with the high speed Internet access there, so we can continue to blog!