Just Checkin' In, Part Deux

The above is what we did today.  The below is something of a rant.

We had a hard day but we're nearly better now.  Witness:

That would be YrHmblScrb, ensconced in a sleazy motel room, smoking a Macanudo Gold, and drinking good whiskey... Bulleit Rye... from a freakin' plastic cup.  I don't care about the aesthetics, I'm simply glad to be off the road and dried out.

Once again, very briefly.  We began our day at the much more reasonable hour of 0730 local at Little Rock Airplane Patch and kinda-sorta ended it at 2030L in Wytheville, VA.  I say kinda-sorta coz we're not done yet, in that there WILL be a second cigar and more rye to be had before we call it a night.  It's the in between start and finish that makes it a hard day, Gentle Reader.  We'd planned to call it quits once we hit Bristol, Tennessee... about an eight or nine hour drive from LRAFB... but unbeknown to us it's a NASCAR weekend in Bristol.  Which means those guys that only turn left and all their adoring fans have commandeered every gotdamned hotel room within a 20-mile radius of Bristol and those that MIGHT still be available can be had for a princely sum and an appendage or two.  I said "thanks, but no thanks" and decided to motor on until we were out of NASCAR range.

And then The Deity At Hand, who must be a turn-left fan, intervened and brought down the deluge upon my head for not paying the proper respect to those inbred baccy-chewing Neanderthals.  Or rather she brought down the deluge on The Dowager Tart's head AND mine later on when we were unloading the car.  I got soaked to the very bone.

I MAY have been caught up in harder rain in my life, but I really cannot remember exactly when that might have been.  It was bad, Gentle Reader, SO bad that normally fearless truckers were driving 40 mph with their four-way flashers on.  That's BAD.

So.  We white-knuckled it for about an hour in the downpour and got off I-81 at Wytheville in search of a hotel room at any price.  We lucked out, in that the hotel is reasonable (read as: less than $100.00, much less) and OMG, no kidding, we have a smoking room.  I didn't think such things existed in this PC world of ours, but thank The Deity At Hand (whom I just cast aspersions towards) they do.  You can see that we are taking advantage of our good fortune.

Tomorrow should be an easy day in that I'm only about four to five hours away from our first end-point.  I sure as Hell hope the WX is better.