The Journey, part 1.

After checking out the weather forecast, I decided to take a southern-route through Arkansas, Tennessee, and Virginia, instead of the northern-route through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. I made it past Nashville before stopping for the night, so I should be in Beckley sometime tomorrow afternoon.

The drive so far has been good, though incredibly dull. Seriously, there’s nothing in Arkansas. It’s kind of like Oklahoma in that way. It didn’t help that it was a gray, overcast day; I don’t think I saw the sun once. But at least it didn’t rain much. And no wintry mixes.

Ixi has been incredibly good so far. It took her a few hours to settle down, but once she did, she slept most of the rest of the drive. Getting her in and out of the car was a challenge because she did not want to jump up or down. Now she’s staring and growling at her reflection in the full-length mirror in our room in the Comfort Inn in Lebanon, TN.

Other random musings from the day:

 Why is it that turnpikes are always the crappiest roads? If we have to pay tolls to drive on these roads, wouldn’t you think they’d be in at least decent condition? To get from Stillwater to Tulsa, I drove on the Cimarron Turnpike, which has to be one of the bumpiest stretches of highway west of the Mississippi. Then as soon as I exited onto OK-51, which has no tolls, the pavement became smooth and looked new. Then past Tulsa I took the Muskogee Turnpike, and literally as soon as it became a toll road, the pavement was all grooved and crappy. What does my $3.25 pay for?

 One of the tollbooth ladies was sweet and gave Ixi a treat.

 The woman working the counter at the hotel also gave Ixi a little bag of treats. This dog is making bank. And with the way my mother’s going to spoil her over the next two weeks, she’s going to come home morbidly obese. All the other dogs will laugh.

 I stopped for lunch at an Arby’s in Clarksville, Arkansas. The girl running the register was named Panther, according to her nametag. I wanted to say, “No shit? Your name’s really Panther?” but I figured she gets that several times a day.

 Somewhere in Arkansas, I saw a sign for Toad Suck Park. I wonder what the story is there. Really, how do you come up with that name? Was Frog Blow Park taken?

 James made me six data CDs of new music, so I had lots of good tunes to keep me company. Thanks James.

 High-speed wireless my ass. This is the. Slowest. Connection. Ev.er.

 I should have asked Panther if she has a sister named Puma.

More tomorrow from West-By-God.