I certainly did not realize it would be a week after I got back to Minneapolis before I would be writing out day 2 of this trip. Let alone days 3 through 5. I also did not realize that my 32 year old body does not respond as well to 12 hour days of driving as it did when it was 22 years old. It took a lot out of me this time around and I had to conserve resources wherever possible. Unfortunately, that meant not spending a half an hour each night blogging. Once I got home, I was exhausted and emotional overwhelmed. I couldn't even put to words how wonderful my week had been until a couple days ago. But I have a clear memory and some great photos to back it up, so I think I can still get you fairly well up to date.
Day 2
After sleeping fairly soundly at the hotel in Saint Louis, I woke up to drizzling rain and a sniffly nose from leaving the a/c on all night. I wanted to make sure that I was on the road as early as possible, but didn't take into account the horrible rush hour traffic of Saint Louis. Blah. I did get to see the Arch from the MLK though.
After three hours on the rainy freeway, I started to get a bit stir crazy. I had been listening to podcasts and had run out of good ones. The satellite radio system in the rental car was not providing anything interesting. And then I saw a highway sign for Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. A quick look at the GPS showed that it would add an hour or so to my drive, but I knew that I really needed some nature time. Don't get me wrong. I'm a city girl at heart, but occasionally, I really need some time with trees around me. This was one of those times.
I can't even begin to describe what a beautiful drive it was. Lush trees hang over all of the roads. There isn't one sound beyond the wind blowing and the occasional car that drives past on the back roads.
At one point, I decided to follow a road sign to a "primitive cemetery". I pulled off the main paved road onto a wet gravel drive. There were a few times that I was concerned that I would end up stuck in the mud, but luckily that did not happen. I had rolled down the windows and was really sucking in all of the fresh air and wonderful smells of the forest. Just after I went around that bend in the road in the photo above, I saw what I initially thought was a large dog. But the closer I got to it, the more I realized that it was a very large bear! I was too freaked out to manage to get my camera out and snap a picture. I just tick tacked my little rental car around and sped the other direction praying that the bear wasn't going to chase me. Of course, now that I look back on it, I realize that the bear was probably more annoyed with me than anything and the chances of her trying to chase me down were one million to one, but in the moment I was terrified. I don't see a whole lot of bears in Northeast Minneapolis!
That was not my only encounter with wild animals during my trek through LBL. I was listening to the AM "park information" station on the radio and was informed that there were numerous locations throughout the park where I would have a good chance of seeing a herd of wild Bison. So, I kept my eyes peeled toward the prairie areas. For the first half our, all I really saw was prairie grass, which was absolutely gorgeous...
but it wasn't a herd of Bison! I was really determined to see those damn Bison! Then as I turned a bend in the road, I notice a couple other cars pulled over with cameras out. And there they were...
just as wild and majestic as I had hoped they would be. I sat down in the grass, about 200 feet from the herd and just took it all in. I had seen Bison in the zoo before, but this was something that I cannot even begin to explain. I couldn't believe how powerful and real they looked. THIS was nature. And exactly what I needed to feel energized again about the rest of my drive.
I finished the drive through LBL, driving from the very Northern entrance all the way to the Southern exit. I could have cut through at a number of places and made my drive a bit shorter, but I was so entranced by how beautiful it was that I just couldn't get myself to turn off the road and head back to the freeway.
I finally made it out, and spent some time meandering through small Tennessee towns along the southern edge of Fort Campbell. I saw homes that I thought were somehow tied into the mythology of that area of the country; essentially little shacks with rickety front porches, barely large enough to have two rooms.
I'm always amused by the billboards in the South. See, in Minnesota, you very rarely see a billboard for an "adult clubs". Sexuality is much more...hidden here. As I drove through Tennessee, I would say a good 30% of the billboards were for gentleman's clubs or sex toy shops. It amused me a great deal. Then I saw what I can only think of as the "strip mall of sin"-- a gun shop, a strip club, a sex toy store, a tobacconist, and a liquor store. It was priceless. Must have had something to do with the zoning in that village, but I couldn't help but laugh.
I finally made it back to the interstate and got the Nashville fairly quickly. Unfortunately, it was evening rush hour and the most I saw of the city was the skyline from the freeway and the rear end of a truck. I sat behind that truck for almost an hour before traffic cleared up and I was able to move faster than 30 miles an hour.
I reached Huntsville around 9 pm. I wanted to make sure I got to sleep as soon as I could, since I had to be in Fayetteville by 7:30 in the morning. I absolutely had to eat, because eating and driving just never equates to healthy eating. I was very tempted by the Waffle House that was attached to my hotel, since we don't have WH in Minnesota. But I made the better choice to keep myself healthy and got a sandwich full of veggies and delicious whole grain bread.
