All-day car wash

Thursday, February 24, 2011

HARRIMAN, TN — Rain. Pelting, relentless, teeming, sloshing rain gushed out of the skies from the start of the day almost to its end! We weren’t unprepared, thanks to the weather channel, but we still couldn’t believe how steadily and heavily the rain came down, hour after hour.

Looking on the bright side, it wasn’t white, and it wasn’t frozen. We sailed through it (literally) in our dry, warm truck cabin with its heated seats and well-stocked cup holders. And when we stepped outside, our waterproof jackets reduced discomfort, as long as we moved fast.

We entered the state of Tennessee after about an hour and a half of driving, and turned off at the visitor centre to raid the racks of brochures and maps. Each state produces wonderful coupon books with discounts on hotel accommodations, and this has helped us shave quite a few dollars from the already very reasonable room rates we’ve encountered so far. Tonight will probably be our last hotel night; the temperatures are not summer-like yet, but quite bearable in a trailer equipped with a goose-down duvet and propane furnace.

Tennessee is one of the few states I can pick out easily on an unmarked map of the US; it’s the one that’s shaped sort of like a Pink Pearl pencil eraser – parallel borders top and bottom and slanted ones east and west. It’s the home of Davy Crockett, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley, Martin Luther King Jr. and three of America’s presidents – among many others. It’s also the cradle of the Civil War, as Paul Simon describes it in his song, where a staggering 10,000 soldiers died in the space of five hours in a single battle.

Dozens of signs by the highway pointed out museums devoted to Civil War memorabilia. One of the brochures I picked up described many of the battles, as well as the human pain and misery endured by soldiers and civilians alike, black and white, north and south. It also said that one hopeful legacy of that dreadful time was the first sign of emancipation for the black population, when freed slaves were enlisted by the US government in “colored troops”, first of all to tend cannons or perform other support duties, but eventually to engage in full combat like any other soldier.

The rolling hills and trees we passed looked similar to roadside scenes along any Ontario highway. Of course, today we viewed these sights through a misty wash of spray from the huge semi trucks passing by. That mist, plus my right arm pointing to the right split we were supposed to take in order to stay on Interstate 40, prevented Val from seeing the road in the right rear-view mirror clearly enough to follow my earnestly-repeated direction.

This in turn prompted some rather earnest language from the driver as we were forced to veer left instead, heading for Chattanooga to the south rather than Nashville to the west! Even the GPS lady’s voice, with her “recalculating”, sounded a bit plaintive to my ears, as I clutched my delinquent arm to my chest. A short detour later, we were back on the I40, sloshing toward Harriman a few miles further along. The hotel was very easy to find and to get into with our big rig, so all was well again.

Not long after we settled into our room, the rain finally let up! As I gathered a few things from the trailer to bring inside, I actually heard a chorus of frogs croaking happily in swamp heaven. So some creatures think wet is wonderful.