OH HEY! we're totally still alive, i promise

SO, to do this in different chapters - one for each day of travel... here is a quick little entry on our drive to tennessee:

We pulled out of Mechanicsville, VA bright and early on monday morning and set off for our longest drive on this trip - about 10 solid hours of only three states.  which is funny when you think about the fact that it took us about 10 hours to drive down the east coast on friday... but that was due to far too much traffic and we still went through at least 7 states. but one of those three includes the infinitely long state of tennessee. ANYWAY. lots of driving. we've officially fallen in to the 2 hour driving shifts; which came in handy for such a long drive.

Overall, a pretty uneventful drive except for the hike up and over the Smokeys.  Beautiful winding roads, perfectly green trees and awesome scenery that can only be ruined by gigantic trucks that wobble along in long chains of 5 or so at a time. I made Jimmy take a picture, but if you're still not catching the windy awesome drift of these roads you should probably go give them a shot yourself.

Other good news from Monday includes: NO RAIN! and arriving in Tennessee just in time for some delicious dinner with Pete, Hope and Bradley.  I do have to say, I don't envy their Tennessee summers much.... I'm pretty sure I was sweating as soon as I got out of the car.  We quickly unloaded the essentials.  I'm proud to say that we're getting much better at pulling out only the essentials without getting confused and messing up all our beautiful puzzlicious packing. But Tennessee was the first night we really had to do that annd things are always a little harder when there's sweat dripping off your nose.  ANYWAYS, we went out for dinner with Pete Hope and Bradley at an awesome noodle place (very veggie friendly Jimmy added) and then returned to the house to hang out and chat before bed time.

Brief interlude- I had forgotten that I do this thing, right before i got on a trip anywhere really (france, college, chicago.. you name it... and now california) that I basically just don't sleep all night.  So when we hit the road on Monday, I was working on barely any sleep. So by the time I hit the pillow in that little house in Knoxville, TN I was out.  So, Dear Pete, Hope and Bradley, not only do I want to thank you for the dinner and the warm welcome but ALSO for the bed.  I slept so well that night. 

OK NEXT CHAPTER!