A Drive to Kingsport, TN

10:30, or so, we kissed Barbara Hunter (Aunt to me, mother to Den) goodbye with instructions to be good, safe, and careful on this adventure. Naturally we agreed and off we went west on I66 to I81 south. The rolling hills of VA on this cloudless blue sky day were far more vivid than the rain I had driven through just the weekend before. I noticed the first set of cattle were lying on the ground. My kids use to say that meant rain because the cattle could predict the weather and wanted a dry spot to lay in. No rain this day and as we drove on more and more cattle were standing. There were many mothers and calves in the fields. I did notice many of the farmers had spread feed on the ground, undoubtedly distributed when there was snow on the ground, that left trails the cattle followed to feed on.

The sun on my hands was warm, even hot. It reminded me of fishing in the Gulf of Mexico just a week earlier when my hands and face were the only exposed body parts and both had been weathered by the days outing. The sun was welcome, the ride was good, not too much traffic and no pressure to get somewhere on time. The sky did partly fill with white puffy clouds after 4:30PM.

We punched in a Super 8 motel address in Kingsport, TN arriving about 7PM. We had already stopped at the Tenn. Welcome center to pick up a coupon book for appropriately priced motels and this fit the bill. The young lady was quite pleasant until we flashed the coupon. “It's race weekend. The best I can do is $99, the coupon was $45.”
“Goodbye” was my comment.
Den was more in a negotiating mood and suggested she offer us the government employees rate.
She said “really the best I can do is $64.”
There was give and take, we mentioned it was after all Thursday, not Friday and the race in Bristol was Saturday and the parking lot was empty (well maybe 10-15 cars for a 3 story 50 room motel). She blinked and said the big race was Sunday and she was going Saturday.
We received the room for the coupon rate. Then asked about a couple of BBQ joints we had passed on 11W on the way in. She liked Pratt's and that is were we went and had the Tennessee Triple (ribs, brisket, pulled pork with 2 sides). Good stuff along with the local beer from Jonesburg, TN. The young lady that served us could not recommend the beer, she was underage, but it did compliment the meal. She look like she should eat a little bit more than she did. We returned to the motel to plan (yeah, right) our travels in the morning.