Heading south from Marion, we took Interstate 24 to and across the Ohio River to Paducah, Kentucky, where we stopped for gas and food before continuing.
The route took us across the north ends of the lakes on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, respectively, that form the famous “Land Between the Lakes” of western Kentucky. Here the land was rugged and forested, resembling the piney country I had seen in my previous visits to places further south.
As we crossed the toe of Kentucky and approached the Tennessee line I tried periodically to find radio stations I could listen to for more than a few minutes at a time, and I found a pretty wide variety of formats to listen to — for a few minutes at a time. This really gave me my first clear idea of just how much country we were covering on this trip, even though since crossing the Mississippi we had been limited by law to 65 mph at the most.
Then we crossed into Tennessee and the speed limit jumped once more. Ahead lay Nashville, a major city that offered no peripheral alternatives to the main freeway routes — so we stayed on I-24 right through downtown. The traffic got hairy for a while there, and on one occasion a trucker put his eighteen-wheeler practically on top of my already bent-up rear bumper. Twice in the Nashville vicinity we passed construction zones where blasting was being done, so we had to turn off our radios each time until we reached the end of the work zone.
The next significant obstacle came after our gas stop at Murfreesboro: Monteagle Mountain. Interstate 24 crosses this mountain on grades so steep that truckers reaching the top have to stop for a brake inspection before being allowed to start down the other side. Going up was a slow business, but once we reached the top and all the big rigs pulled off for inspection, the road opened wide. There was a slow lane far to the right for the trucks, which were required, once they’d passed inspection, to keep their speed down to about 25 mph. I was a little troubled by that when I saw that all the runaway truck ramps were over on the left. Still, I glided right on down the hill well behind Chris, who was having to ride her brakes. My Bronco, with its relatively new engine, was apparently tight enough that merely by keeping my foot off the gas I was able to control my speed just fine. I hardly had to use my brakes at all. This fact turned out to be a godsend the next day.
We reached Chattanooga just as the afternoon rush was getting underway, and encountered a traffic backlog at Missionary Ridge that had no logical explanation that we could ever see. But we managed to reach our hotel and check in in time for Chris to call her mother and let her know we were coming over for dinner. We thought we’d actually be there early. Then we met the construction backup on I-75 north that delayed us so much we were actually three minutes late!
(By the way, I-24 from Nashville to Chattanooga briefly crosses into Georgia before returning to Tennessee just west of Chattanooga. Thus this day actually involved travel in four different states, the most of any day on our journey.)
The street on which the Harbours live is narrow, but because they had little room in their driveway for the Bronco I parked it on the street in front of the house. Contrary to a habit I had unfortunately developed over the years, I set the parking brake, as a safety measure because there were children playing nearby. We went on in to dinner and had a wonderful time, as we always do with Chris’ folks. After dinner we stayed for several hours so Chris could spend time with her mother, but at last we left for our hotel.
And I drove on I-75 at 65 mph with the parking brake set.
By the time I realized that I had forgotten about the brake, my right rear wheel was smoking. Of course at that point I released the brake, but the smoke didn’t stop until I had Chris bring me water several times, using the hotel room ice bucket, to throw on the wheel. Finally the smoke stopped, but now I was worried about the next day’s drive. Would I have any brakes?
