THE DRIVE
Centerville, Tennessee to Omaha, Nebraska
780 miles; 11 hours, 40 minutes
ROAD SIGNS SPOTTED FOR PLACES NAMED IN OUR PLAYLIST
New Madrid, Missouri
Lawrence, Kansas
THE FOOD
Breakfast: Quality Inn breakfast buffet (yeah, waffle maker!)
Lunch: Qdoba burrito (Jeff) and burrito bowl (Betsy)
Dinner: So many snacks — cashews and apples and oranges and crackers with hummus (Jeff) and still more Prodigal Farms cheese (Betsy)
THE SOUNDTRACK
“Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard”
“What Happened When with Tony Schiavone”
And the Road Trip to the West! playlist continues to be a work in progress. Today’s additions include: “Tennessee” (Arrested Development), “On the Road Again” (Willie Nelson), “Go Your Own Way” (Lissie), “Pancho and Lefty” (Willie Nelson), “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” (Iron Butterfly), “Crossroads” (Cream), “Drive” (R.E.M.), “Man on the Moon” (R.E.M.), “Drive Slow” (Kanye West), “I’ve Been Everywhere” (Johnny Cash), “Jackson” (Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash), “Wichita Lineman” (Little Big Town with Jimmy Webb, but I like the R.E.M. cover better), “Atlantic City” (The Band), “Hard Travelin’” (Mandelin Orange), “One Nation Under a Groove” (Parliament Funkadelic), “Flashlight” (Parliament), “Cups” (Anna Kendrick)
READING LIST
Many articles about mortgage rates (Wall Street Journal and Washington Post)
“How Same Sex Couples Divide Chores, and What It Reveals About Modern Parenting” (Claire Cain Miller/New York Times)
Roadside America’s entry on the Tina Turner Museum (surprisingly awesome)
The Cecilia and Kate Novels: Sorcery and Cecilia, The Grand Tour and The Mislaid Magician (Patricia C. Wrede and Carolina Stevermer)
THE HIGHLIGHTS
Betsy: “Stopping in Humboldt, Tennessee, to see my Uncle Lee and talk about modular/city-in-a-box design for disaster relief and U.N. interventions. (Here’s a 2011 article about the kind of work he does.)”
Jeff: “Seeing that there is a one-room schoolhouse that houses a museum dedicated to Tina Turner behind a Dairy Queen in Brownsville, Tennessee.”
THE RECAP
Jeff: “My actual favorite part of the day was tag-teaming additional playlist songs with Betsy. It was a fun way to break up a day of driving. Plus, you know you have a great wife when she suggests you listen to five hours of wrestling podcasts. And I met Betsy’s Uncle Lee for the first time, learned that it’s not surprising to see multiple random people grilling out of the backs of their pick-up trucks in a motel parking lot, and we drove across two full states and into a new time zone. I regret not being able to drive through Memphis, hoping for a chance encounter with Jerry Lawler.”
Betsy: “Total road-warrior day, but we woke up feeling rested (yay, not sleeping on an air mattress!) and feisty, so after we stopped to see my uncle, we decided to try to blast past our planned stopping point in Kansas City and get to Omaha tonight, so we could have a full day with my family. Jeff continues to refuse to let me drive, which is good (yay, faffing around on the Internet) and bad (boo, he’s got to be so bored and tired). I also landed a marital sacrifice throw: suggesting that Jeff listen to five hours of professional wrestling podcasts so that I could guiltlessly read a couple of novels. It’s nice when you get brownie points for doing the thing you wanted to do. Also, dudes, I cannot wait to get to Bellingham and start eating like a healthy adult again. And if you know me at all, you know that we have really been eating junk food for a while if even I am over it.”