Journey to the East, the First Part

I seem to remember saying some time ago that I’d write SOMEthing about our trip this year.  That hasn’t yet happened, so let me make a start and see.

I can’t tell all that much about the first day, ’cos I was in the grip of, appropriately enough, a case of turista.  I gave up on the notion of doing my own driving by the time we reached Bryan, and a little later we stopped at Wally World (in Henderson, I think) and bought a small pillow so I could lean back without getting a crick in my neck.  L drove for the rest of the day while I lay back in the passenger’s seat and alternately growled or moaned at everything. 

By evening, when we reached our usual stopping place of West Memphis, Arkansas, my cramps let up (although other symptoms stayed with me for the rest of the week) enough that I was able to sit through dinner at Applebee’s.  On the way out I startled a table of strangers by asking how long it had taken them to get from Austin.  After the obligatory shocked “how did you know we were from Austin?”, I pointed out that one woman at the table was wearing a Tyler’s shirt, which gave away the game.

Next morning we started across Tennessee, with the goal of being at Green River Plantation, where we had reservations, before supper.  The plan worked wonderfully all across Tennessee, with beautifully clear and dry weather (I-40 in the rain is a misery), and the few road paving crews we saw only had one lane shut down.  But only a few miles into North Carolina, our plan got knocked into a cocked hat.  Traffic began slowing down near the entrance to a short tunnel underneath the toe of a ridge, and about a hundred feet further on stopped completely, with no indication that ANYthing was moving or about to move.  Gradually the idea that we were all stuck behind something sank in, and cars and trucks alike began shutting down their engines and opening the windows for air.

There was enough breeze moving to clear fumes from the tunnel, so temperatures and smog alike stayed down, but eventually the continued lack of Moving Traffic prompted me to get out and walk down to the other end to see what the holdup might be.  At the far end, a group of truckers were standing around visiting, and one of them told me the jam was caused by a semi-rig that had taken a curve too fast and flipped over, blocking the entire road, and there was some kind of hazmat cleanup to be done besides getting the truck clear of the road, all of which the police fire departments were estimating would take two to two and a half hours.  (L and I later guessed the hazmat spill might have been diesel from the overturned truck’s tanks.)

After getting that discouraging piece of news, I walked back to our car, spreading the news to other cars along the way.  By this point, people were getting tired of being cooped up, so they started getting out, walking out to the ends of the tunnel for air, taking their dogs for walks, and whatever else. The one big problem for almost everyone was the lack of any kind of restrooms for miles.  The woods and riverbed that came right up to the edge of the road were full of poison ivy and poison oak, so going out into the trees was just about Right Out.

Fortunately, we had the cooler that we always pack to carry the makings of our picnic lunches on these journeys, so we dined on sandwiches—not at all what we’d wanted, but needs must.  Our only worry was that we’d phoned Green River and told them to expect us sometime around seven.  Where we were, almost at the bottom of a river bed, cell-phone signals were something that happened to other people, so calling to let them know what happened was impossible.

Almost on cue at 2½ hours, the fire department reopened the highway, and we resumed our interrupted run through the hills.  It was an hour or more past full dark when we finally passed Rutherfordton, the nearest town to Green River, and dove down a dark-as-the-inside-of-a-billygoat secondary highway off US 221.  We found the driveway (the directions we had were fortunately good), but when we reached the big house, everything was dark, no signs to indicate where we should go, and nobody about . . . except for a big ol’ chocolate-colored houn’dog and an Italian greyhound, both fortunately friendly.

I went round the front and rang the bell a while, trying to attract attention, without success.  A few minutes later, I heard a noise that sounded like voices somewhere at the back, so I walked round and, in approved country-manners fashion, hollered “HELLO, THE HOUSE!” and was answered a once by a chorus of teenage-female screams.  (L claims they were even in harmony.)

After things sorted themselves out, I found that I’d scared the daughter of the house and a couple of her friends, out for an after-dark swim in the pool, out of a year’s growth.  At last one of them calmed down enough to get her cell phone and call over to where the family lives, and Grandpa came in a few minutes to show us to our room, in the second story of the eighteenth-century kitchen building.  The room wasn’t as much as I’d hoped it’d be, but when you have to travel on a budget, this sometimes happens.

Next morning, while we had breakfast in the big dining room, the woman who’d bought and restored the house came over to talk with us since I was a direct descendant of the original builder.  We ended up buying a history of the house and family (which I still haven’t read; it’s mislaid someplace in the house), then wandered the grounds and took some pictures.  We tried to walk to the family cemetery at the top of the rise behind the house, but got turned around going through the woods and gave it up.

From there, we drove back into Rutherfordton, let M spend an hour or so at the local storefront children’s museum (not at all bad for what it was), then packed up and drove on toward Old Salem.