East to West Trip Day 1

And we are off for our second road trip in a little over two years (three, if you count our England excursion with Kristen). We made it into Lexington really late on Wednesday night (after nearly being killed by a GIANT Little Debbie) and the next morning, after Shiri and Roni went to pick up some groceries and we all had breakfast, Roni and I hit the road.

It was a long day of pretty monotonous driving- the Blue Ridge mountains are pretty but quite bare this time of year. We did see a driver with an amazing mullet, some awful truck drivers, two semis nearly crash and only had one delay because of road construction. At some point during the day, we crossed over into Tennessee. We also stopped to get lunch at Subway, also known as the congregating place for all the law enforcement in the area. Seriously, there were seven police vehicles of various kinds in the parking lot. And five men inside. Also, apparently we popped over to England for a moment, seeing sings for Abingdon and Bristol.

Once we arrived in Knoxville, we headed over to Moti and Mary Ben Ami's house- their daughter Maya and I met in Israel a few years ago and they are distantly related to us. But, as always with our Israeli family, if there's even a tenuous thread on the family tree, then we are family. Moti served us tea and we updated each other on our family lives and when Mary arrived, she took us for a whirlwind tour of Knoxville. First she took us down to Sequoyah Park, which is a big river-walk down by the Tennessee River. The son was just coming down and it was just beautiful, if a bit chilly (which was nice after being in a hot car all day). The neighborhood was beautiful with some incredible houses. We then drove past some Old Civil War houses which I would have taken pictures of but there wasn't any time. Mary , having gown up in the Knoxville area, knew so much history, information, stories, etc. about all the things we saw and we got a far more comprehensive tour of Knoxville than we would have if we were just on our own.

The last place that we stopped was the James White Fort- James White was the founder of Knoxville and this was one of the first Forts. It was closed when we got there since it was almost 6:00 pm, but we were able to look at the outside and peer in through the fence. And if I hadn't told you we weren't actually inside, I bet you wouldn't have even guessed :) The cherry on top, almost literally, was the bizarre fruit fan/mosaic thing.

We found a Chik-Fil-A near our classy Red Roof Inn and ate dinner on our beds while watching the Big Bang Theory. The plan tomorrow is the Girl Scout museum (represent!) and then the drive out towards Memphis, stopping in Nashville and some Civil War sites. Get ready for some good history tomorrow!