Road Trip, Day 1, Part 1

Day 1

Alright, friends, here I am. My new home is beautiful, as I expected. The accommodations aren’t luxurious, but they’re adequate, and the food is rather better than I’d hoped.

I’ve decided to begin my record by reporting the trip here, broken into three days.

On Day One, I left the house at 5 AM central time, and drove until I was in the middle of Kentucky. There, like any good hobbit leaving the shire, I stopped for a second breakfast, which I ate by the Tennessee River. I hadn’t realized that I was going to cross the River again, and I was amused by the thought that, in terms of proximity to the River, I may as well have been eating back in downtown Chattanooga.

Once I had finished my meal, I want for a short walk to get the blood pumping again in my legs. I wandered down from the pavilion in which I had eaten and made my way to the river shore.


There, I found that the people of Kentucky are not taking very good care of our river. The only logical conclusion I can reach is that they through their picnic furniture into the Tennessee along with their leftovers for the fish. Silly Kentuckians, tables are for people.

From there, I drove to Illinois.



I was beginning to run low on gas; imagine my dismay when I found that the first BP I stopped at had plastic bags over the pumps. Calculating that I could make it to another gas station easily, I drove on. At the next BP, I found the same situation, but this time there was a memo to would-be customers taped to the pump: “Due to the power outages, our pumps are out of operation,” then, below that, a simplified version for the poor people of Illinois: “No power, no gas.”

A bit discomfited, I drove desperately onward. The song I’d Sure Hate to Break Down Here began playing in my head. Finally, I found a gas station in the midst of farmland which was run by generators. After fueling up, I asked the cashier why no one seemed to have gas. Looking at me strangely, she asked, “You ain’t from around here, are you?” Remembering my Uncle Jeff’s warning about people who asked me this question, I began to nervously back away from the counter. Then she added, “They’s been a tornado; we ain’t had power since Friday.” I mumbled a few words of thanks and consolation, and beat a hasty retreat before any banjo music started playing.

From there, I made my way to Missouri, excited to spend a few hours in St. Louis. I drove through a lot of farmland, all of it small fields, mostly fallow or full of yellow flowers, and divided into no more than a few acre patches by surrounding trees. I emerged from the countryside into East St. Louis. Seeing the famous arch in the distance, I consulted my atlas and began to plot a course for the memorial.