Day One

And we’re off! 2:00pm EST…..we then turned back around to go get the apples we left in the fridge. #priorities

And we’re off! 2:15pm EST.

As we make our way out of Georgia, the first state we hit is Tennessee. Traffic through Chattanooga was AWFUL. I-24 was the worst (and continued to be the worst). But we keep driving and the beauty of driving with the Appalachian Mountains in the background and the Tennessee River under us reminds me why we’re taking this trip. To take in all the beauty this country has to offer.

I quickly forget all of this again when we are stopped for almost an hour on the interstate. A tractor-trailer had a chemical spill about half a mile in front of us, causing not one, not two, but seven fire trucks, 3-4 ambulances, and a whole police squad to show up. Apparently the truck leaked sodium hydroxide. I don’t believe anyone was hurt thankfully. One thing I did learn, though, is that no one can drive or pull over for emergency vehicles – they will just sit there in the middle of the lane until the fire squad car gets on the loud speaker and yells at you.

Back to the beauty of nature – we passed over two rivers with really impressive bridges (the first picture at the very top of this post is over the Tennessee River). The second bridge was crossing the Ohio River into Illinois. In the final stretch of our trip as the sun was going down, I snapped the picture below of the truck in front shielding us from the sun. Didn’t realize half this trip was going to be driving directly into the sun, so THANKFUL for this truck.

And we finally made it to Mt. Vernon, IL – the lesser known of the Mt. Vernon’s.

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MILES: 474

TIME: 8 1/2 hours with 3 stops and a 50+ minute delay

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