Southern Comfort (Pt. 3), Baby You Can Drive My Car
10/31/07 01:17 AM
| Up ChucksI was sitting in the leather recliner thinking what were the chances of us making it to Tennessee in the truck, Jenni was calling D&R and asking to talk to Mike. Then she called Auto-Zone, Advantage Auto-parts, Advance Auto-parts and O'Reilly Auto Parts trying to find an in-tank BMW fuel pump. The prices ranged from $230.00 to $120.00. Availability of two to three days at some to 10 am Saturday at O'Reilly, who also had the lowest price. Then Jenni had another idea and surfed the web and called some Car rental places and found us the last car on the east side for rental, at least at Budget. The time was 5:35 and they closed at 6:00, so we jumped in the truck and headed west and arrived with 10 minutes to spare, the usual questions were asked, the contract printed and the keys to a cream colored 2008 Chrysler 300 Touring were handed over.
Back home I reloaded all the travel minutia in the trunk, which has a glow in the dark emergency release handle for that pesky mob hit who just won't die. The snacks and drinks were placed inside the cavernous interior, the doggie condo was re-make-shifted and we were out of the house at 6:37. I drove and we listened to Sirius Satellite radio. Jenni navigated with the blessing of Google maps which took us to Crossville Tennessee. We didn't know where we would be staying address wise, and we didn't know the name of the place either.
When we were about 60 miles out Jenni's family started calling her cell to ask where we were. With our google instructions we made it to Crossville without one single miss turn or step. Then the fun started. The directions from Maggie from I-40 exit 322 included such cartographers dream phrases as "drive a bit" and "take the first turn that has a sign for Lake Tansi" and "Look for Dunbar Rd" other key features that were on a 10 x 12 inch map of the entire town and surrounding area were street names that didn't appear on the streets, and no distance scale on the maps legend. Did I mention that we didn't have the map, Maggie did.
We found a Dunbar Lane which dead ended in about a block. We found 392. We were told to take 392 to Lantanna Rd (which as it turns out is highway 101) which is not labeled as Lantanna Rd so we went right through town to the downtown corridor of Crossville. We eventually ended up at the Wal-Mart where they conveniently were out of detailed Crossville maps, they had no Tennessee Maps either. Another call, this time from Bill who said that Lantanna is 101. I remembered a 101 so we backtracked until we found 101 and headed SW on that now looking at every cross street in the dark for Dunbar Rd. and/or the first sign that said Lake Tansi, no one knew the distances and I was forbade to ask . We found the Lake Tansi sign at highway 282 and were instructed that it would be the 4th or 5th right after taking the road with the sign, we went about a mile and a half and studied every right turn like we had for the Dunbar Rd signage which we never found. Eventually we returned to where we turned off, Jenni was talking to Bill yet again who thought we had gone too far, and I again tried to ask a simple question and immediately silenced. I got out of the car to cool off and wandered around the parking area of the Fairyland Dairy store.
There was a police officer with a car pulled over just back north from us, and after he finished with business he came to our rescue. Jenni was out now and we were having a conversation with our hands and had gotten his attention. After a few minutes and our I.D. checks he asked us if we were drinking or fighting. I told him we were just looking for Dunbar Rd and then Jenni added another (previously secret, new) puzzle piece by saying "Cherokee Rd." with that the officer smiled and pointed right to where we just were and said it's right there, just go east about 5 miles. Turns out 282 is Dunbar Rd, a little thing like a road sign could have helped immeasurably. Bill was waiting at the t-road that was just before Cherokee and we followed him about 150 yards to the Condos. Soon we were in the Condo which we shared with David and Laura (Sissy), Jenni's sister and her husband. With the luggage placed in our room we had a glass of wine spent a few minutes to catch up and then we were off to bed.
We arrived at about 11:40 our time (just under 5 hours travel time) and were in bed by 12:15. Thus ended the ordeal laden Friday the 26th (that's like two Friday the 13th's stacked) and the next day was wedding day and more driving. BTW the name of the condo resort turns out to be Hiawatha Manor, we were in building 117, #102 but you can't get there from here.
Chuck Pace © 2007 |