A Year Ago Today...December 28th

At 8:00 AM on Monday, December 28th Carl and I finished packing our "must have" items and hugged our family good-bye one last time before heading West. The U-haul we drove from PA to NC was unloaded at his mom's house and our belongings were going to be shipped once we got settled in CA. 


Our first day took us across the North Carolina/ Tennessee border. We were going to take I-40 the entire trip, but a landslide in the TN mountains made us detour onto some very curvy roads.

We had planned on getting a picture of every state sign that we passed, but we were worried that because we had detoured onto country roads that we would miss our very first sign. However, as we rounded a curve we saw it...our first "Welcome to..." sign. It came up so quick that we actually missed the chance to get the camera out. But since we really wanted to capture it we took a few minutes to turn around and go back to get the picture.

We made plans to meet up with our friends Brain and Heather who lived in Sevierville, TN. We got to their house in the early afternoon to grab lunch together. As usual, there is no such thing  as a quick visit with friends and we got back on the road later than we had anticipated. 

We drove thru Knoxville, TN during rush hour traffic which was not fun. Not only was there bumper to bumper traffic but the sun was also setting right in front of us which was blinding. Thankfully, once the sun had set and rush hour ended the drive was quite pleasant. 

We would have loved to  have been able to stop and visit Nashville but we were getting tired and wanted to make it to the other side of the city to find a hotel room.

Our drive by Nashville at night. 

The end of our first day found us in Dickson, Tennessee. We splurged on our hotel room the first night and spent $130. This is the hotel room in which I walked into a wall in the middle of the night trying to get back to bed from the bathroom. I had a bruise on my forehead the next morning but thankfully no headache. 

I drove 100% of the time on Day 1 and only had one minor anxiety attack during rush hour which would be considered a good day for me. 

Join me tomorrow for Day 2 of our Westward journey.