Nashville night
The roughly 875 mile drive yesterday went smoothly aside from the usual madness that starts to creep in after being in a vehicle for so long. We found a Sleep Inn to stay at that was half decent both in accommodations and price point.
After unloading the car we headed back out for downtown Nashville. You may recall last year we got raped in parking fees, paying around 50 bucks. This year I took 30 seconds to do a Google search of affordable Nashville parking and was directed to a nearby garage that only cost 10 bucks. It was about 3-4 blocks away from the main street but after 14 hours in a car we needed to walk.
Since it is Labor Day weekend the downtown area was quite busy. Seeing the never ending river of people instantly soured my mood. I was already tired from the two consecutive days of early alarms. The first few places we looked at to eat were either packed, allowed smoking, or had deafening live music going on. I wasn’t in the mood for any of the three.
We finally found a brewery/restaurant combo deal. We were originally told there was a half hour wait but we instead found two empty chairs at the bar and ate there. Just like the rest of downtown, the restaurant was very, busy. I looked at how hard the bartenders were working and was glad it was not my vocation. You have to be absolutely exhausted after a shift like this.
Cindy and I both enjoyed our dinners. I opted for fish and chips while Cindy got a blackened mahi sandwich. We both bypassed the ketchup for our fries and instead tried some vinegar which actually was pretty good. Once we were done eating I had no desire to walk the strip since we had done it last year. We did revisit the same ice cream shoppe as last year and split a very good almond joy cone on the walk back to the car.
Once we showered back at the room we crashed pretty quickly in bed. We were both really, really beat.
During the day we were checking in on the chickens pretty regularly thanks to the surveillance tech we have in and around the coop. During one of those check ins we saw that a storm had actually blown the door to the chicken run closed, trapping one of the chickens inside and cutting the others off from their food and water. We normally put a small piece of 4×4 wood in front of the door to prevent it from closing in such a situation, something our chicken sitters might not have known about. I got ahold of our next door neighbor and asked her to go open the door and block it. Crisis averted.
This morning we did not set an alarm and woke up around 6AM central time. I felt more rested than I have the past few days. We enjoyed a nice spread at the free continental breakfast and got on the road before 7:30. At the gas station I saw the low tire pressure sensor was on. The air pump at the gas station was out of order. I then remembered I packed my little portable compressor that runs off the cigarette lighter. It took awhile but I put a few pounds of pressure in three of the four tires which cleared the warning light.
Our destination today after another long 750 miles is Omaha Nebraska. The forecast highs there are only in the upper 70’s so I am looking forward to more pleasant temps. We have already cleared Kentucky and are going through the small portion of Illinois before we cut straight through Missouri.
Happy Labor Day!