Roadtrip Day 2: Jailhouse Rock

I don’t think I’ve gone to bed as early as I did last night since sometime back in the Hockaday days… Waking up at 8am BEFORE your alarm goes off is a strangely magical experience. Rejuvenated and more than a little excited about our first stop for the day we promptly got on the road still full from yesterday’s ‘slab of ribs.’

We kicked off the day with some solid nerding out time as we spent 2 hours at The Hermitage – Andrew Jackson’s ‘farm’ (aka: plantation) just outside of Nasvhille. Pulling into the parking lot at 9:01am we were the first to arrive (it opened at 9) and essentially got a private tour of the estate. There is surely a lot to be said about our visit and what all we learned here, but later events in the day have consumed my mind so we’ll just move on….

This stop inspired us to dedicate the rest of the roadtrip to memorizing the order of the presidents – unsure how we both got through our respective AP US History classes without that (shhh don’t tell Wass or Kramer). After a quick stop in the museum store where Anna of course got a souvenir pencil and she also invested in a postcard with all the presidents, we were ready to get out of Tennessee…

Fun fact: both of us seemed to be completely unaware of the existence of our 23rd president, Benjamin Harrison, the filler president between Grover Cleveland’s 2 terms…

We made through 18 presidents before putting on music that was too good to be talked over, and thus the task of memorization is to be resumed tomorrow. We’ll get there.

The day started off so well…. and then….

… and then we got to Virginia. We laughed at the signs indicating that speed was enforced by aircraft – I mean seriously, the mental images that can develop with that concept are comical – we contented ourselves with rocking out to some solid music choices (Anna has taken on the majority of the musical decisions due to my indecisiveness). The sun set. We were in the final stretches to the hotel. We were rockin’ along – and perhaps rockin’ along a bit too much….

Anna took this opportunity to sneak a picture out the back while I awaited my 1st ticket.

As soon as the lights started flashing in my rear-view mirror I let out a string of expletives. And thus a perfectly pleasant day ended in my very first speeding ticket… If only a helicopter with a dangling claw had plucked me off the highway like a toy in a vending machine, I would have had a more thrilling first ticket experience (but seriously, how do you monitor the speed from an aircraft?!) Of course with ~40 miles remaining between the scene of the ‘crime’ and our hotel, I had the pleasure of driving another 45 minutes. I think I hit the speed limit ONCE, and very briefly, during that time period. I was ‘that’ car in the right lane that 18 wheelers were passing…

And so here we are, in Natural Bridge, VA, with about 11 hours of driving (spread out over a day + 2 hours) left between us and an apparently crime-ridden campus (come on Tufts, let’s not have 2 attempted robberies on campus within 2 hours of each other anymore…) Sounds like nothing but good times ahead.

On tap for tomorrow:

• Not getting another speeding ticket. Ever again.
• Excessive amounts of driving – but along scenic routes (and at, or under, the speed limit)
• Wesleyan for the night!

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