Road Trip!

A road trip is all about what you do when you get there!

Like eating BBQ at Rays in Grayling Michigan!

School is out, I'm still retired, so we hit the road!

We drove a lot of miles from home in South Carolina to visit relatives in Michigan, then down to Cincinnati for a family graduation (and some Reds baseball!), and then back home. All in all, we had no car issues, and the 2023 Honda Accord Hybrid cranked out the miles and still got over 40mpg over hill and dale!

Along the way we drove over this cool covered bridge in Ohio. 

Sure, we had to buy gas. $3.99 in Michigan for regular. 

Trip wise, we enjoyed seeing lots of family, enjoyed some great food (yes, Skyline Chili on two occasions) and had fun seeing plenty of countryside. Oh, the baseball game included the Reds winning over the Guardians in the Battle for Ohio. One of my theories that no matter how many ball games you've seen, you generally see something new at each one. In this case, we saw two different runners get picked off of 2nd base, one for each team. This might be one of the rarest plays in baseball, I really don't know for sure, but to have it happen twice was crazy. Base running mistakes like this seem pretty dang embarrassing for professionals, but I guess it happens. 

Along the way we visited two different Buc-ee's stores, so that was crazy too. Nothing like 120 gas pumps and a ridiculous number of snacks and etc. in the store. We probably don't need to go back anytime soon. 

Pictures or it didn't happen. I think this is the one east of Knoxville on I-40. Earlier the same day we visited a Buc-ee's in Kentucky on I-77. 

Without boring you to death with the actual driving details, let's just say that there's still a lot of drivers out there that get a grade of "Needs Improvement" from me. Here's a few tips: 

Julie and I with our nephew Joel Nixon. 2LT Nixon is the one in the middle. 

1: OK, cool, you have a newer car with Daytime Running Lights. Yippee for you! Did you know that a lot of these systems ONLY run the front headlights? What I'm getting at is that as you're driving around with your DRL's on, if it's getting dark, or if it's night, or if you go into a tunnel like in West Virginia or North Carolina, or if it's raining cats and dogs, I CAN'T SEE YOU FROM BEHIND BECAUSE YOUR TAILLIGHTS ARE NOT ON! Please turn your lights on. 

Reds baseball behind 1st base. The Reds defeated the Guardians. 

2: Didja know that your car has turn signals? Didja know that you could use them to indicate a FUTURE lane change?  Based on my analysis of this issue, using your turn signals will COMMUNICATE to other drivers what you're about to do, and makes us all safer! Use your turn signals every time. 

Here we're entering the fun part of I-40 between Knoxville and Asheville NC. This was our first time since the hurricane last fall sent chunks of the Interstate into the Pigeon river and closed the road for months. Currently this stretch of I-40 is open, with one lane in each direction. It's a huge reconstruction job going on that will last a while. 

3: From my ancient driver's education training in high school (and yeah that was a LONG time ago, in the last century!) you should LOOK OUT FOR THE OTHER GUY! This lesson comes to mind thanks to a clueless SUV driver on the Interstate that jumped into my lane really close in front of me just in time for them to BRAKE HARD to avoid hitting the huge semi truck directly in front of me. I'm not sure what this person was doing, but it appeared that my existence and the existence of the 18-wheeler was unknown to them. Look out for the other guy. 

When in Asheville NC, we recommend the Sierra Nevada brewing company taproom. Great food, and as you might imagine, all their beers are nice, but don't drink and drive. 

I'd like to think that someday everyone will be a good driver on the road, so let's just shoot for these top 3 tips. Have a great day, let's be careful out there, and LOOK OUT FOR THE OTHER GUY!