On the Road Again

We're travellin' again! This time we're with the Wills, Petersons, and Liggetts in Gatlinburg. We left on Sunday morning at about 9:15. We packed the car the night before, that helped us avoid our usual slowdown and noon departures :)

There was bad weather going through Ohio and Kentucky. Hurricane Ike was taking some last puffs - there were very high winds. We saw downed trees, for miles and miles, and miles. A bridge we were supposed to take near Cincinnnati was closed because of an overturned truck. We saw several trucks upside down in ditches, scary stuff. Many towns didn't have electricity and it was a challenge to find an open gas station. Even Wayne gave up price shopping and got gas at the first working station. Someone from Cincinnati posted this on a forum - "It seems a bit crazy to be posting about Hurricane Ike from Cincinnati, Ohio but we got the winds from the storm as it moved north--- we had up to 75 mph winds which damaged houses, killed at least 3 people, and knocked down trees...resulting in over 90% of the Greater Cincinnati area losing power! It was the strangest storm as we never really got any rain, just the strongest sustained winds I've ever seen for hours yesterday afternoon. They are saying some people could be without power for a week."

We did make it all the way to Lexington. It was funny, the hotel that Royce and Sherry chose was right across from the Cracker Barrel where we had lunch with Ru and Jeanne, almost two years ago. Then we went to a Logan Roadhouse restaurant that was just across the street from the Target where we met Ru and Jeanne. Small world.......

The Gatlinburg tourism center had sent us a bunch of information that included a card with a "shortcut" to avoid traffic going into Gatlinburg. It was supposed to save up to an hour....HA! It took us forever.......well it didn't help that we were behind a Crankshaft, but still.....It was pretty awful. It was supposed to be a "scenic tour" but Wayne said it was more like a "fool tour".

Tomorrow we're on to Dollywood!