Before we went to bed on Tuesday, we loaded the futon mattress in the back of the van.  Without the middle row of seats, we've got just over 8 feet of space.  Our futon mattress is about 8 inches thick and it's VERY comfortable!  I figured it couldn't hurt to have some place to lay down if we were tired.  Our original plan was to leave the house right after lunch, but Matt surprised me and took off the entire day!  Woo hoo! He's so awesome!

My first thought was: YAY, we can leave early!  Then, I immediately felt like I was behind!  I wasn't 100% finished with packing because I thought I had all morning to get things finalized.  Before we went to bed, we made a list of everything that we had to do before we left.  When my internal clock woke me up at 7:00, I got out of bed and tackled my "To Do" list.  Our new goal was to leave the house by 10:00.  We managed to make it out the door at 10:15. Stopped for gas and some McDonald's tea and got on 64 West at 10:30 AM.

We were on 64 for only about 40 minutes when we came to dead stop.  After 15 minutes of stand still traffic, things started moving.  There did not appear to be a reason for the delay.  There were no tow trucks, ambulances, or anything else.  Maybe aliens had landed on the road and the MIB came to take them away and white lighted us.  Who knows?

After that, we made it over to I-81 pretty quickly. Every time I'm driving on 81, I think of the children's song - "The Song That NEVER ends" - it just goes on and on my friend. Cross the border in Tennessee - Guess what? You still have another gazillion miles on 81. But 81 is like a 5 K compared to the marathon known as I-40! UGH!  696 miles!

Driving was a perfect opportunity for me to chat with Jane & Merriah!  It's great to have friends that can help entertain me on our marathon trips.  I also ended up talking to my mom, my son, my daughter, Jennifer, and I am sure there are a few more!  We brought along a binder full of old CDs.  It was fun to listen to the music from the 80's and to sing along!  Of course, I also spent some of the time talking to Matt!

There was no way we'd finish I-40 on our first day, but at least we were ahead of schedule.  While I was driving, Matt looked on the web to see if there was something we could do along the way. Since we were in Tennessee, Graceland seemed like an obvious choice.  We were surprised to discover admission was $77 per person!  Neither one of us were interested in spending that much money just so we could say we visited Graceland.  Now, if they let us sleep in Elvis's bed, it would be worth every penny!

Rest Stop SelfieMost of our stops along the way were for gas or visits to the restroom. However, we did stop at a "Scenic Overlook", but we couldn't figure out what we were supposed to be seeing. Instead of taking a photo of the unimpressive view, we took a selfie!  

Dinner time was approaching and we were hungry!  It had been hours since we ate our PB&J sandwiches!  Matt scouted out exits with restaurants. Of course, we all love the consistency that comes with chains (Red Robin, Ruby Tuesdays, Chili's, etc.), but it's more interesting to go off the well traveled food path and to check out one of the local restaurants.

After a short debate, Matt picked a steak house called The Copper Cellar. It wasn't far out of the way. When we pulled into the parking lot, we weren't sure if they were open or even still in business. There were very few cars and it seemed a little sketchy. The building didn't have any windows! I waited in the car and Matt went inside to check it out.

When he came back out, he said they were open and that we were probably under dressed. As it turns out, the Copper Cellar is an upscale restaurant. This was clearly reflected by the prices on the menu. Eek!  I had to remind myself that we were on vacation. AND, we had eaten PBJ's for lunch.  With a number of interesting choices on the menu, Matt was having a hard time picking between two entrees. I told him to order both and we'd share. Swordfish, shrimp, rib eye steak, broccoli, asparagus, wild rice and Tennessee blue cheese grits. Plenty of food for two! While we were waiting for our entrees, the waitress brought out fresh baked bread - it was yummy!

I wasn't sure if I'd like the grits. The last time I ate grits was in college, but they were mixed with butter and strawberry jam. When our plates arrived, the pile of grits looked a little like mashed potatoes. Of course, we both had to try them first. They were good. The blue cheese wasn't overpowering. I'm not going to run out and buy the ingredients to make my own, but I did enjoy eating them.

When we were back in the car, I got a text message from Jennifer. She asked if I knew a woman on the PD team. There was a fatality in DeLand and a 33 year old woman had died after a low cutaway. My first thought was Jess (a woman that I met at Skydive Suffolk in August), but she is a very skilled canopy pilot with over 6,000 skydives AND she teaches canopy control courses. Plus, last I heard, Jessica was living in Virginia Beach.

After a few more hours of driving, we tried to decide where to spend the night. There was no way that we'd make it all the way to Memphis! It was getting late and I was getting tired of driving. Matt said he'd take over so I could find a hotel room. We ended up stopping at a travel plaza with a Dunkin Donuts! Yay! We got gas, grabbed some donuts, and headed back to the car.

When we got back in the car, I discovered something was leaking on the passenger side. At first, I thought maybe I knocked over our water when I got in, but that wasn't the case. The dripping was coming down on my feet from the glove box. What the hell?

All day long, the A/C was struggling. We just figured it was in need of service - some Freon, etc. We shut down the air immediately. I sent a text to Jane (she has been following my car saga) and she said we should stop driving because we could damage something called the heater core. We were 50 miles from the hotel - there was no way we'd be stopping! Since the car did not appear to be overheating, we figured it was safe to keep driving.

I got another text from Jennifer. It was Jessica. I had this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I just couldn't believe it. It had to be a mistake.

When we finally stopped, we'd been driving just over 12 hours - 728 miles! Once we got into our room at the Comfort Inn, we made a HUGE mistake. We turned on the TV and one of the Jurassic Park movies was playing. At first, we were trying to figure out which movie it was. Then, we got sucked in! We ended up watching most of the movie, but agreed to shut it off at 11:40 local time. We needed to get some sleep!

So, it was from Virginia to ... Jackson, Tennessee!