On our final full day of driving, Rob announced we'd be stopping at Buc-ee's, a travel stop, to see what all the hype is about. Michele heard that their bathrooms are the gold standard for cleanliness. In all our travels we've never stopped at one despite many opportunities to do so.
We slept well last night, hearing the last of the airplanes at 11pm. Michele liked the breakfast setup, enjoying a freshly made egg and vegetable scramble, and blueberries with yogurt. We left the hotel at 8am. The skies were clear and the temperature was 37F. Departing Nashville in eastbound rush hour was easy since we were already on the east side of the city and reverse
commuted out of the city. Back on I-40 we traveled for 90 minutes to the Buc-ee's in Crossville, TN. We were greeted by two long rows of gas pumps.
Whoa, impressive. Michele said she planned to wait for Rob to finish fueling the car because the place was so big she'd never find him if she went inside alone. Inside, Michele declared, "I've been using gas station bathrooms when I could have been here instead?!" For a gas stop, it was amazing!
The bathrooms were exceptional, Rob said the men's were also. It was like a mini Wal-Mart, but so much better. Clothing, shoes, camping gear, hot candied nuts station, fudge station, tortilla station, a counter with hot breakfast sandwiches and BBQ sandwiches for lunch, a wall of jerky, a wall of taffy, kitchen items, beauty items, gifts for everyone in the family, and what looked to be synthetic animal pelts that people could use for decor.
We spent about 30 minutes wandering around in a daze, then drove an hour to lunch at Nixon's Deli in Knoxville, TN. It was a nice sandwich shop with friendly women running it.
Back on the road, we had a 30- to 45-minute traffic delay due to rolling road work. Tennessee DOT was doing rolling tar patching, which Rob thought was likely a waste since the workers just dump asphalt into the potholes with a shovel, no smoothing machine is used, leaving rocks everywhere for traffic to flatten it. While sitting there we saw an overloaded truck.
After we got past that several mile slowdown, we drove in moderate traffic straight through for five hours without stopping. In that time we crossed back into Virginia at 3pm. The temperatures throughout the day hovered in the mid to upper 60s. We arrived at our hotel in Lexington, VA just after 5:30pm, driving over 470 miles in total today.
Michele got us a 6:30pm reservation at the Bistro on Main, a 10-minute walk from the hotel. Since we were in the car so long without a break today, it was nice to get our legs moving.
We enjoyed a Caesar salad, fresh bread, and beef short ribs with mashed potatoes. We were too full for the dessert options tonight. After dinner, downtown was quiet and we peeked into shop windows. Michele liked this mannequin's outfit, with a little dog bone treat poking out of her fashionable fanny pack.
Rob noticed the clever items for sale to keep her doggie safe on a hike.
We thought this tree at our hotel was quite impressive. It was too large to fit in the camera frame.
Back in our hotel we relaxed and watched movies. Tomorrow is a short drive day to home.
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