As I type this those of you on the East Coast are experiencing the deluge and quasi-tropical storm that I just drove through for the last three days. I find myself this evening not down South in Asheville, NC as I had planned, but in the little town of Milton, West Virginia, about 30 miles east of Lexington, Kentucky.
“Why”, you may ask. Well, let me put it this way. There are many ways to experience stress in one’s life but one of the prime ways, as I’ve discovered, is driving along Interstates in a pounding rain with gusts of wind coming out of nowhere up to 30 miles per hour. Oh, and of course the fog is so thick one can barely see the red lights of the cars in front of you, and the oncoming headlights suddenly appearing on the other side of the road are something Hollywood could put in a horror movie. The problem with all this is that one has to be “on” 100% of the time. You can’t relax for even an instant. I did at one point, and an 18 wheeler came by me about 10 mph faster than I was going and I found myself blown off onto the right shoulder with my wheels screaming on the warning pavement. It was everything I could do to keep from overcompensating to get back on the road.
In short, it has been an exhausting three days. So much so that day before yesterday I came to the conclusion that I “just want to get home.” Not a cop out mind you…I said before I left that this trip would either take ten years off my life or put on five. I think the latter is true…perhaps maybe even 7 or 8! So, I decided I would have plenty of time to drive down south to visit my folks in Asheville (you may recall, not my folks per se, but their gravesite) and fit the bypass to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg along the way. Doing that in a regular car will be a LOT easier too!
I do have a couple of minor memories of the last three days that I can share. The first is driving through St. Louis. Yes, it was pouring, but in a crazy moment I reached for my phone and snapped the following picture. If you look closely, you’ll see the famous St. Louis Arch in the distance. That’s as close as I got. I know it’s a magnificent piece of art (I’ve been to St. Louis before on a business trip and seen it up close), but I could only catch this glimpse this time around.
The other anecdote was from today, driving across Kentucky. I-64 is also known as the Bourbon Trail. Indeed, I passed signs marking many of the famous distilleries including: Four Seasons, Bulleit and Buffalo Trace. The latter is known not only for its own label, which is very very good, expensive and hard to find up in the Northeast, but because it is also the distillery where Pappy Van Winkle bourbon is made. For those of you not familiar with PVW…it is perhaps the most sought after Kentucky bourbon in the world; it’s now almost unobtainable and if you were to be able to find some, it’d be outrageously expensive.
Anyhow, as I passed the Buffalo Trace sign I recalled this fun fact.
Next thing I know, I’m at a gas station and attached to the gas station (this is Kentucky after all) is a liquor store. I stroll in and see names of whiskeys I’ve never heard of (my son-in-law, who collects whiskeys, would be hard-pressed to get back on the road after entering this place).
Just for grins and giggles I ask the shopkeeper if she has any Buffalo Trace. “Sure,” she says and goes over to a separate cabinet and pulls out a bottle. “I’m afraid to ask how much you get for that,” I toss out.
“Let’s see,” she says, and when she walks over to the register she looks it up and announces, “$24.99”.
I say to myself, “the last time I saw a bottle of Buffalo Trace back home it was something like $80.00!”
“I’ll take a bottle,” thank you and walked out of the shop a happy camper.
As I continued my drive towards West Virginia I thought to myself, “You idiot, why didn’t you buy more?”
So at the last town before crossing the Ohio River, Ashland, I pull off the Interstate, find another liquor store, and buy another bottle. This one I’ll take home to the family…the other I’m gonna add to MY collection!
Tomorrow I’m going to head back to the same KOA campsite I spent the very first night of this trip at, in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. With that I will have made the full circle.
As my wife would say, “Two more sleeps” and I’ll be home.
