Monday, May 6, Washington, DC
At 2:53 a.m., the cats jump on the bed. I give them dry food and fall asleep again eventually.
At 5:00, our phone alarm clocks go off. I start moving
around in my pajamas. Then there’s a knock on the RV door.
I say, “Yes?” thinking that it might be the police or an
annoyed neighbor. It is my mother, fully dressed, asking if we want to go
inside the house for anything. I slip on my shoes, open the door and say no
thank you. I go out and give her a hug goodbye. She goes and sits on the front
porch until we leave.
I begin to get curt with Cathleen as I get anxious. We need
to be on Canal Road north of Chain Bridge before the police decide to roadblock
it for Monday inbound rush hour. We pull away from the curb at 5:36 a.m.
Getting through Canal Road and Clara Barton Parkway works!
At 6 a.m. both lanes will be inbound, and we would have had to go further afield.
The DC Beltway to I-66 is smooth. By 6 am, inbound traffic
is building. We are cruising in the opposite direction.
On I-81, the scenery is gorgeous. The distant mountains look
like felt blankets dropped lazily, green with black accents from clouds. Before
them are pillows of ground fog in the valleys.
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| Appalachian foothills in the Virginia distance. |
We have breakfast in the RV at 7:30 am at a truck stop on I-81,
in Mt. Jackson, Virginia. We get supplies, use the bathroom, and stretch, but
we can’t get gas because they only have diesel. We go down the street to an
actual Exxon for gas. The whole process takes over an hour. But we’ve made good
progress, back on I-81 before 9 am, well clear of the DC rush hour.
We have already been in DC, Maryland and Virginia today, and
plan to stay in Tennessee tonight.
While driving, I notice many different
license plates. By the time we get to Sewanee tomorrow, I will have seen plates
for every state east of the Mississippi except Vermont, Rhode Island, and
Wisconsin; plus, Texas, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska, California, and
Washington state.
As I’m driving, I sense something to my right, between
Cathleen and me. It is Dusty the cat, walking up to visit us, as if to say “OK,
I’m here now. I got myself out of that thing.”
“What?” I say. “How did he get out of his travel carrier?”
“He unzipped it with his nose, I think. His little nose is
rubbed raw,” says Cathleen as she picks him up into her lap in the passenger
seat. We will zip him back in at our next rest stop.
Later, Cathleen uses the bathroom while I’m driving. “Wobbly,”
she calls it.
At noon, we phone app order lunch to pick up at a Panera Bread
in Christiansburg, Virginia. We eat in the RV parked at the edge of the Panera
lot in some shade. They leave the apple chips off the Fuji Apple Chicken Salad,
so I walk back in to get some apple chips. They are apologetic. While there, I
order a pumpkin muffin. They’re not apologetic enough to give it to me free, however.
The cats’ behaviors have evolved during the trip. They both
seem to realize that we let them roam around the RV when we are stopped, and that
we put them in the carriers before we move. However, they evolved differently. At
Panera, Tallulah decides to hide under the driver’s seat, from which it is
difficult to extract her. Subsequently, we will put a backpack in front of the
seat when stopped. Dusty, in contrast, begins to present himself in front of his
carrier when we are ready to go.
The speed limit is 70 mph on the interstate. In Virginia, a
billboard informs us that exceeding 80 mph is considered reckless driving and
will warrant a second ticket. We see several Virginia State Troopers openly aiming
their radar guns at oncoming traffic. That’s fine with us because the RV does
not seem too comfortable going 70 or faster. We are mostly in the slow lane.
About 1:40 pm, just north of Pulaski, Virginia, in the left
lane, 8 white vehicles proceed quickly in tandem. All have Federal Protection
Services in bold blue letters and a Homeland Security logo on their doors. All
were sedans except the fifth which was an SUV. Looks like a prisoner relocation
convoy. Cathleen looks for prisons on the map. The nearest is Marion
Correctional Center. No other news was available. She hypothesizes, “maybe it’s
el Chapo.”
Cathleen is driving when Google Maps warns of a vehicle fire
on I-81 near Bristol. It suggests a detour through town that would save an
hour. From Business 381 to smaller and smaller roads, when we can barely share
the road with a mail delivery van, then back to Highway 421 and I-81. We did
see a bright pink temporary sign stating “Emergency Situation Ahead” just
before leaving I-81, so we can assume that we saved time. But we hadn’t
actually seen a backup on I-81, or smoke. One mile later, we’re in Tennessee.
Three little words strike fear into the hearts of drivers:
Road Work Ahead. However, though we have seen them several times today, the
impact has been small and surgical, unlike Pennsylvania’s miles and miles of
sometimes just vacant closed lanes.
Knoxville traffic is busy but moves quickly for rush hour.
We check in to the Sweetwater KOA at 6:24 pm, less than 13
hours after leaving DC. The clerk says my name perfectly. Cathleen is
suspicious of that. I point out that he looks very similar to the Pennsylvania KOA
clerk. Coincidence?
We hook up the RV, Cathleen cooks, and I investigate the
campground shower situation. Most of the people here are older than us, except
for a young couple with a baby in a backpack walking two dogs, one giant, one
small.
After dinner - quinoa, cauliflower, peas, and chicken sausage
- we put the cats in strollers and make a circuit of the camp. Many greetings
are offered. Many weathered faces, I suspect from cigarettes, but maybe from sun
or farming. Some RVs, the larger Class A models, have HD TVs mounted on the
outside. Retirement-aged couples sit on lawn chairs watching TV with a campfire
nearby.
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| Cathleen strolling the cats in Sweetwater, Tennessee. |
One couple is camping in just a tent, which is not the norm
here. There is a variety of camping styles here, including tents and cabins.
Most of the nature surrounds the campground. Our site has water, electric, and
cable (which we don’t use – the TV is still face-down), but not a sewer hookup.
We can dump the sewer holding tanks at the dump station before leaving
tomorrow. We intend to leave hours before check-out, so there shouldn’t be a
line or anything. Also, it’ll be Tuesday morning, not an obvious leaving time. Our
site is a “Premier Site” due to the nice table and chairs on a paved area by
the RV. Also, it is a “pull-through” rather a than a “back-in” site, making it
easier to get in and go out.
After eating and walking around, we take showers in the
office building by the pool. Yes, there is an outdoor pool, with your basic
poolside showers and bathrooms. Then, I do the dishes.
I am surprised that after five nights sleeping in a strange
RV bed, my back has been better than usual. No ibuprofen needed. It is a
pillow-top Serta. For the sake of research, we should verify its worthiness for
intimacy. We’re in bed by 10, asleep by 11.
To be continued...
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