Day 1: 65 South to the Home of Country Music

So.....  when asked what I was going to do after my last day at NCR (after 14 years), and I answered, "going to visit some friends around the country I haven't seen in a while," the majority of YOU responded, "oh cool, you should blog about that".  [or something to that effect.]

I've never blogged before; never thought that I'd have anything I'd want to blog about.  But I'm going to try it.  I will warn you ahead of time; I'm detailed-oriented.  And I tend to think and talk -- and I assume, write -- in stream of consciousness.  That means a lot of meandering; if you're like my Dad ("what's the bottom line?") you may get frustrated and just skip to the end or stop entirely.  That's okay, you won't hurt my feelings.  :-)

Day 1:  the car is packed and I hit the road in the early afternoon to head south through Cincy and Louisville to Nashville and my best girlfriend, Connie.

It's a gorgeous day, and I'm listening to Lady Gaga's "Monster Ball" as I head south through Cincy.  [anyone else think that Lady Gaga's "Monster" sounds a lot like Ne Yo's "Beautiful Monster"?]  Flowing along just fine until I hit traffic just as I cross the Ohio River into Kentucky.  All lanes bumper-to-bumper; all the way through the 275 outer-belt.  What is that, like 10-15 miles at least???

And then when it thins out, there is no apparent reason for why it was bumper-to-bumper.  No construction with lanes merging, no cars pulled over to the side (not even on the northbound side of 75), no evidence of an accident.  Nothing.  So why the traffic???  Yes, I do just need to know!  Maybe we were punk'd by a group of truckers?


The rest of the drive was pretty uneventful.  I was tempted to stop at both the Maker's Mark distillery (yes, it has been designated a "National Historical Landmark", you can look it up) and Dinosaur World, but kept on going.  :-)  I did take a picture of the T-Rex as I was driving by.

I really only lost half an hour for the traffic south of Cincy, and missed rush hour in both Louisville and Nashville, so pulled into Connie's place right around 7pm.  I had kept her posted on my progress, and she had dinner ready about 5 minutes after I walked in the door!  Fantastic salmon -- she's set the bar really high for the rest of my hosts.  ;-)

We're hanging out -- she's doing some work around the house, and I'm learning how to blog -- talking and catching up.  Max and Cocoa (her pups) are sitting on the couch with me.

288 miles down........