Drive Over, the Flyover…
My habit is to grab an aisle seat on pretty much every flight I take. However, back in the early days of my business travel, a window seat was often my choice. I wanted to see the country from 38,000 feet. Especially the landmarks; Rocky Mountains, Grand Canyon, Manhattan at night, maybe a glimpse of Niagara Falls. The middle of America just looks like a patchwork quilt. Pretty dull and uninteresting. Often referred to as “Flyover States” and shunned in conversation. I usually took a nap for that portion of the flight.
Our most recent road trip took us through ten of those flyovers. The purpose of the trip was to attend the 2nd annual Renegade Vienna & Villagio rally at Hog Valley RV Resort south of Fayetteville Arkansas (Sooie…). It was a 15-day trip that covered 3,219 miles. As with all of our trips, I try to keep our daily mileage to 300 miles or less. This gives us ample time for breaks, whether they be for the bathroom, a meal, or planned site, or an ad-hoc “we have got to see that…” stop.
We had several planned and unplanned stops on the way down to Fayetteville which I talked about in prior blogs. Our friends in St. Louis (Lake St. Louis) recommended we stop south of Branson Missouri to check out Payne’s Valley Golf Course. That was an excellent suggestion. While we did not play, we did take in the incredible vistas of the area owned & developed by Johnny Morris, founder of Bass Pro Shops. He has developed five golf courses in the area including Tiger Wood’s designed Payne’s Valley and Gary Player designed 13-hole short course, Mountain Top. Definitely a place we will revisit. Before checking into our RV park which was right off I-44, we visited Bass Pro’s flagship store in Springfield MO. A little slice of heaven for me.
After the rally we shot straight across Arkansas to Memphis and then just south over the Tennessee border into Southaven Mississippi for a one-night stay before heading for Nashville. Roughly halfway between our RV-park in Southaven and Two Rivers park in Nashville lies the Shiloh Battlefield. If you’re not a history buff, or you didn’t pay attention in history, you won’t know about Shiloh. While planning this trip I had stumbled on Shiloh as I zoomed in on the map of southwestern Tennessee. Some quick research told me this National Military Park is a must see. It is a humbling and beautiful place. The two-day battle on April 6th & 7th 1862, left a staggering number of casualties. Nearly 24,000 dead, wounded, or missing. All of them Americans. More casualties than in all prior American wars combined. In the National Cemetery, on a bluff above the Tennessee River, 3584 Civil War dead (of whom 2357 are unknown) are interred. The unknown are marked by headstones with only a number. It was so worth the 2-hours we spent walking the grounds and taking in the 25-minute movie of the battle, narrated by Peter Coyote.
We spent two-nights in Nashville at Two Rivers RV Park just adjacent the Gaylord Opryland. I had visited Opryland on business back in the late 80’s or early 90’s, but Terri had never been there. The weather that day in Nashville was near 100. So we set up the campsite, took a quick dip in the pool, then summoned an Uber for the short drive to the resort. Those of you who have visited or stayed at the Gaylord Opryland know what an incredible place it is. We walked the atriums for a good 90 minutes then stopped for dinner at their Sports Pub. I would give the Pub a mere 3 stars. Nothing special and a bit pricey.
Our next day in Nashville was much more special, and a day we had planned long in advance. We really wanted to see a show at the Ryman Auditorium, and were very happy that Amos Lee would be there for the second of his two-night run on June 21st. Our plan included a stop at the Country Music Hall of Fame before dinner and the show. Everything we could ask for as newbies to Nashville was within a five minute walk. The shuttle from the RV park dropped us off in front of the CMHOF. We spent better than two hours taking in the Hall. I found myself drooling at all the guitars on display. My favorite being Maybelle Carter’s Gibson L-5. Another highlight were the hand-written lyrics of John Prine’s “Sam Stone”. That song will be a hard one for me to play from now on.
A big surprise after the Hall of Fame, was meeting up with my former Starwood Colleague Dannielle Deruise Shepherd and her husband Allen and daughter Makayla. I had noticed a Facebook post of her’s indicating she was in Nashville for her son’s baseball tournament. A few text messages later had us meeting up at Rippy’s Honky Tonk on Broadway. After our short visit, Terri and I were off to find dinner. We were lucky to find two stools at the bar at Boqueria, an excellent Tapas joint. Then it was a short walk across the street to the Ryman.
Amos Lee did not disappoint. His long-time touring band is outstanding and he put on a fantastic show. The Ryman is everything I expected. It feels more like church than a concert. And his solo performance of John Prine’s “Speed of the Sound of Lonliness”, was like a prayer. I found a YouTube video of his performance the night we were there (we had much worse seats). John Prine keeps intersecting with me for some reason.
#17 at Bel Meadow Golf Club, Mount Clare WV
We left Nashville and headed for a one night stay outside Frankfort, Kentucky. The drive through KY was beautiful with I-65 being one of the only sections of interstate that had no issues. From Frankfort we traveled east on I-64 to Charleston, West Virginia, where we picked up I-79 north to Clarksburg and one of our favorite Harvest Hosts, Bel Meadow Golf Club. We had stayed at Randy & Donna’s wonderful golf course in April on our way back from Alabama. Their hospitality was just as great for this stopover. We got in 9 holes of golf on their back-9 which we were unable to play on our last visit. It’s a much more challenging set of holes than the front, with 17 being their signature hole. A dogleg left over a big pond, with the drive needing 150+ yard carry and the second shot about a 100+ yard carry to the green. My drive was awesome… dead straight. My second… plop, right in the water. We love Bel Meadow and will head back there whenever our travels carry us on that route.
From West Virginia we headed east on I-68 then north on Pennsylvania 219. Our last stop of the trip was to be in an RV park off I-80 in Milton PA, just 221 miles from home. Somewhere outside Somerset, PA we saw a small sign on the side of 219 that read “Flight 93 Memorial Hwy”. I turned to Terri and said “Google Flight 93 Memorial and find out where it is”. We were only 17 minutes away and took the next exit. Like Shiloh in TN, this memorial operated by the National Park Service is a must see. Another humbling and beautiful place that memorializes that terrible day in our history and those brave passengers of Flight 93. We spent about two hours walking the grounds, taking pictures and visiting the museum. It was a spur of the moment stop and another example of why we schedule drives of 300 miles or less each day. The whole time we were there I kept hearing Todd M. Beamer’s words, “Are you guys ready… let’s roll”.
We arrived home Saturday, June 25th to our grandson Cayden greeting us in the driveway. Our Vienna performed extremely well averaging 15.6 mpg over the 3219 miles. All systems worked great, especially the AC as temperatures throughout the trip were in the mid to upper 90’s. Some of our stops are places that we hope to return to. We’ll certainly have the opportunity as we need to visit New Orleans, Texas and other states where our route will be similar. We absolutely loved this trip. Saw some beautiful places and met some new friends. There are those that call them flyover states. I call them America.
