Day Three of driving started off great with a Starbucks Hazelnut latte and a Chick-fil-a breakfast. Seriously, the best fast food breakfast ever! We left Ft. Smith and headed east, excited to only have two more days of driving ahead of us. The Ozark country of western Arkansas is nice and afforded us a good start to the day’s drive, including a detour off the road to Arkansas Tech’s campus to avoid an accident (thanks Garmin!). After Little Rock we descended to the Mississippi flood plain, and saw a more agricultural side of the state. We crossed the Mississippi and entered our first traffic of the trip in Memphis due to construction and closed lanes. Tennessee is a long state and our goal was the eastern side of Knoxville. We were hungry and Chick-fil-a is our weakness, so we stopped to enjoy a little taste of the south, only to discover that we had stopped at an exit which literally had every box store and car dealership imaginable.
Presumably the only shopping stop in 30 miles, on a Saturday. So our quick stop turned into almost 45 minutes, but after fighting crazy store traffic, we made it back to I-40 and finally headed east again. We passed through Nashville before dark, one of my favorite cities to visit, but unfortunately, we had no time to stop. Tennessee, while beautiful, is difficult to drive through at night with all of the tractor trailers. But we had a time line, and needed to continue on, so we drove through the dark mountain curves praying that the tractor trailers were paying attention to us. Thankfully we have driven this stretch of road numerous time and had experience with the trucks. Plus the “E” was a pleasure to drive on it’s first trip across the country! We cannot pass through Knoxville without stopping at Turkey Crossing for Jimmy Johns, so we stopped for dinner, and then finally made it to the hotel. Time zones had been kicking our butt, and we had finally reached Eastern Standard Time... only to discover that Daylight Savings began that night. So our three hour change in our body clocks became four hours, and we lost another hour of driving. I would be fairly exhausted on my first day of class.
Day Three of driving started off great with a Starbucks Hazelnut latte and a Chick-fil-a breakfast. Seriously, the best fast food breakfast ever! We left Ft. Smith and headed east, excited to only have two more days of driving ahead of us. The Ozark country of western Arkansas is nice and afforded us a good start to the day’s drive, including a detour off the road to Arkansas Tech’s campus to avoid an accident (thanks Garmin!). After Little Rock we descended to the Mississippi flood plain, and saw a more agricultural side of the state. We crossed the Mississippi and entered our first traffic of the trip in Memphis due to construction and closed lanes. Tennessee is a long state and our goal was the eastern side of Knoxville. We were hungry and Chick-fil-a is our weakness, so we stopped to enjoy a little taste of the south, only to discover that we had stopped at an exit which literally had every box store and car dealership imaginable. 
Presumably the only shopping stop in 30 miles, on a Saturday. So our quick stop turned into almost 45 minutes, but after fighting crazy store traffic, we made it back to I-40 and finally headed east again. We passed through Nashville before dark, one of my favorite cities to visit, but unfortunately, we had no time to stop. Tennessee, while beautiful, is difficult to drive through at night with all of the tractor trailers. But we had a time line, and needed to continue on, so we drove through the dark mountain curves praying that the tractor trailers were paying attention to us. Thankfully we have driven this stretch of road numerous time and had experience with the trucks. Plus the “E” was a pleasure to drive on it’s first trip across the country! We cannot pass through Knoxville without stopping at Turkey Crossing for Jimmy Johns, so we stopped for dinner, and then finally made it to the hotel. Time zones had been kicking our butt, and we had finally reached Eastern Standard Time... only to discover that Daylight Savings began that night. So our three hour change in our body clocks became four hours, and we lost another hour of driving. I would be fairly exhausted on my first day of class.
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