Day 3 – Monday : Oak Ridge to Carbondale (610 km) It is with mixed feelings we leave Chet and Janet. I feel for them – taking their pride and joy away on a cross-country trip. Anything could go wrong. We have also enjoyed a lovely time with them; but it is time to start this journey properly.
My plan is to push hard for the first 3 days of driving to get us out to the ‘West’. If we had a couple of months we would have the luxury of exploring the states in between, but we are on a tight schedule. Hence, we can’t hang around too long in the morning since we have to hit the road and get some miles under our belt today, ideally aiming to camp near St Louis tonight.
I had organised my trip planning the way I usually do – that is to locate things we would like to see along the route, then find a range of suitable campgrounds along that route, and program both into my GPS. Hence on any given day we could set the GPS to point us at a pre-determined location, and we could then see whether we made that location, got further, or stopped short, but either way we had somewhere to aim at avoiding the need to waste valuable travel or sight-seeing time working out where to go during the vacation.
The great thing about travelling in the US is State Parks – they are my favourite thing and I had already programmed a load of them into my GPS. However, we won’t need the planned one tonight.
On the way out of Oak Ridge we pass the site of the Oak Ridge X-10 reactor – the second reactor created after Chicago Pile 1 – continuing on our Manhattan Project tour.
Sally watches the TV series “Nashville” on cable (its not my kind of thing, but that is probably because it doesn’t involve guys welding together extreme automobiles). So as a surprise we pull into the Grand Ole Opry car park. I don’t tell her until we got here.
We don’t have time to take a tour, or do anything other than buy some souvenirs and take a photo. However, we do get a chance to stuff our faces with fatty food in the nearby mall, and best of all visit an Outdoor World – now that’s an impressive store.
After lunch we cross into Kentucky and head for Kentucky Dam.
It is really just a chance to stop and stretch our legs after a few more miles. It is impressive seeing a tug slowly manoeuvre a long string of barges accurately into a giant lock to be lifted to the level of the lake beyond the dam.
I find the truck seems happiest cruising at 60 mph. If on quiet back-roads I revert to 55mph which is an even more pleasant speed.
I mentioned the intention to get to St Louis, but we get a much better offer. D and Jane (67 Avion) had contacted us and invited us to stay with them in Carbondale. This is an invitation not to be missed – partly because they are exceptionally interesting and wonderfully hospitable, but also because we have failed to meet up in the past on either side of the Atlantic, so now is a chance not to be missed. Soon after crossing the Ohio River into Illinois we turn west off of I-57 towards Carbondale.
We squeeze onto their driveway in a leafy street and are treated to some wonderful local cooking along with stories of D’s time as White House photographer for the NY Times, the civil rights marches of the ‘60s and of course Avion campers.
After plenty of wine and home cooking we retire to the camper.
