Day 4 10/19 (Little Rock to Knoxville--529 miles)

I did not take one single pic of our travels on Day 4. There are several reasons for this. First, it was raining from the minute we stepped out the door of our motel (avoiding the large, dead cockroach on the sidewalk) and loaded up the truck until we unloaded that night. And it was cold. And there really wasn't a whole lot that was pic-worthy that day. Sure, Memphis was neat when we crossed the river. The big pyramid-shaped sports arena downtown is cool-looking, if a little out of place. And once you've seen one soggy cotton field, the rest all pretty much look the same. The rest of the landscape looked once more like we could have been driving within a few miles of our house here in lower Michigan.

Breakfast consisted of coffee, a cinnamon roll and a cranberry scone from Old Mill Baking Company. We simply drove a mile or so from the motel, figuring we'd come upon something like this in the middle of other restaurants and suburban workplaces. We munched and drank on the road.

Lunch was a wet cold stop at a rest area in Western Tennessee. I probably should have taken a pic of Ollie looking forlornly out of the rain-spattered passenger window as Bryan and I huddled under a nearby picnic pavilion with our box of Trader Joe's goodies, apples and cheese. It would have really been a beautiful rest area in better weather, with all the lovely oak trees.

You know, I really tried not to be a nagging biotch on this trip. The potential was definitely there. I have the bad breeding for it, and travel kind of stresses me out. So I honestly could have been a whole lot worse, in my humble opinion. 'Did you lock the back of the truck?', 'Did you make sure the tailgate was latched?' 'What are you doing??!' 'No, turn there--!' These and other statements passed my lips over the course of the week. My whole job that week was to be a help, not a hindrance. I really hope my help outweighed any bitchiness.

There were many amusing moments to be had in conversation. We spent the requisite amount of time bitching and venting about mom, and using worn-out, childhood cliche' statements at each and every possible opportunity. And there were The Voices. Bryan has several alter egos which he taps into. There's Cajun Man, there's Drunken Man, and a new one surfaced. This was Lonely Trucker Man. Funny, but slightly creepy. Especially on a long road trip. One of those 'you had to be there' things.

We did manage to hit a traffic jam in Nashville. Unfortunately we were passing through around 1630, and we managed to be going 5 mph on one of the bypass routes around the city. 'Grand Ole Clusterf***', as Bryan so aptly put it.

By the time we reached Knoxville that night, we had passed through our last time zone change of the trip, and we were dragging ass. We checked into the Motel 6 on the west side of town and got extremely nebulous directions to the nearest Sonny's Barbecue from the desk manager. Tim and I had eaten there before, and been very pleased with the food. We managed to find it and pull into the parking lot 10 minutes before they closed. The waitress made a point of letting us know this by hollering across the room to ask a another server what time it was. Bryan very calmly let her know that if the lateness of the hour was a problem in serving us a meal, we could easily find somewhere else to eat. Without another word, she seated us, took our orders and we dined on some fine barbecue. My entire meal was pretty much occupied by me talking on my phone letting Tim know we'd gotten to our day's destination safely. The entire time I'm talking and eating, I'm painfully aware that I'm doing the very thing I'd get annoyed seeing someone else do. Oh well, there were no other customers to get annoyed at the time.

To put the icing on his high-road behavior, Bryan cheerfully left the waitress a $10.00 tip. Yes, $10.00. He said it was partly to make her feel like an ass for acting the way she did when we walked in the door, but also because he's been on that side of retail/service for so long now, he knew exactly what it was like. I was mightily impressed. My first (and only!) inclination was to go into bitch mode. We'd driven over 500 miles, we were tired, and we certainly didn't need any kind of dissing at that point in our day. But Bryan kept the whole thing cool.

We went back to the motel, watched most of an episode of 'Futurama', and went to sleep, knowing the next day was the last of our road trip and 24 hours from then we'd be with family at our destination.