When we got up this morning we discovered the Smoky Mountains again. The fog was so thick that the mountains we saw last night were invisible today. For just a moment we could see a part of the tallest mountain, but seconds later, it too was invisible in the fog. Smokey indeed.
We spent the entire day on the road. It is amazing how far you can travel in one day. It is also interesting that exciting things can happen just while you are driving. Sometimes that is good, sometimes it is not.
We saved some time because we discovered the restaurant we planned on was now closed on Sundays. We finished our pizza from the previous night while we were traveling.
We almost lost a lot of time when a semi ran us off the road. The driver was passing us while going up a hill. As he slowed down because of the hill, he forgot that we were beside him and began to switch back to the right hand lane. Fortunately, we had a wide shoulder there. A long loud horn blast and the noise of the roadside rumble strip we crossed with all four wheels reminded him of our location. He quickly pulled back to the left lane.
All was well except for our racing hearts. The vehicles behind us had slowed down when they saw what was happening, so we were able to get back on the road and moving easily, but a little slower! The truck driver also slowed down. We passed him a couple of minutes later. He had his window down. He waved an apologetic wave and we waved back. It all ended well.
Once in a while a wrong turn is the correct turn after all. When we got to Paducah Kentucky, we were supposed to see the only visitor center in the country that is a national historic site. We learned when reading about it while on the road today that it was also closed because it was Sunday. We had crossed it off our list. Then a wrong turn took us right by the visitors center, It was a beautiful building. Our lost time for the wrong turn was worth the time because we got to see the building form the outside.
On the happy excitement side, our travel for the day was from Kentucky to Missouri. We had to cross the Mississippi to get to our destination. We did not realize until we were there, that we were crossing the Ohio River literally just before the Mississippi River.
We went from Kentucky over the Ohio River to Illinois. Within five minutes We were crossing the Mississippi from Illinois to Missouri. Both bridges were high and narrow. The bridge over the Mississippi was so narrow that trucks had to drive very slowly to pass each other, particularly at the ends where the road curved as it neared the bridge. Once we crossed through three states and over two bridges over major rivers in under ten minutes, we realized we should have had our camera ready for pictures. Oh well.
When we got to our hotel in Springfield Missouri, we asked for a recommendation for dinner. We were told if we liked seafood we should go to Sam’s Southern Eatery. From the description, we were expecting a fancy building and a great meal. The building was not fancy, but the take-out seafood was terrific.
The 500 miles we covered turned out to be a great day even though it was all spent in the car.