<h2>First Day - Rehoboth Beach to Bristol Tennessee</h2>

We left the house at 8:15 A. M., only 15 minutes late, and did one tenth less than the last mile of 500 miles by 5:00 P.M. Terrible traffic around Washington D. C. was to be expected, but once we were on Interstate 66 and out of the metropolitan area we made great time.

The Shenandoah Valley in Virginia was a surprise. It is absolutely beautiful with hazy pale gray-layered mountains, rolling grass hills, and farms. It warrants a separate trip through the Blue Ridge some future fall, I think.

The photographs I’ve posted tonight are of Joe and I after loading the car this morning and at the Hampton Inn in Bristol this evening. We explored downtown Bristol after relaxing by the pool with a glass of wine, and found a great restaurant, the State Line Bar and Grill in a town full of antique stores and a surprise Blue Grass and Rock Festival. For a town of about fifteen to twenty thousand in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, the place hums. For dinner we had a “build your own appetizer in which we chose stuffed mushrooms, fried onions, and potato skins. I had a delicious, rare sirloin steak with roasted asparagus for the main course, and Joe had a huge ground sirloin hamburger with Swiss cheese, tomato and lettuce, fried okra, and of course dill pickles.

Now, we are ready to relax, watch a bit of the boob tube, and catch some “z-z-z-z-z-s.”

Tomorrow we drive from Bristol, Tennessee to Brinkley Arkansas, another 500 miles.


The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.

St. Augustine