We pulled into the hotel by the Nashville International Airport about an hour ago. Long drive, with an interesting detour through Newton and Olney, Illinois and Evansville, Indiana. We passed only a few cops and one fully-involved Car-B-Que. Traffic through downtown Nashville was remarkably congested, with some stop and go traffic on the I-24 East ramp to I-40 East for no apparent reason. Tomorrow, assuming we can get motivated early enough, we hope to hit the vaunted Pancake Pantry before getting on the road. Off to bed now…
Ooo… I loved going to the Pancake Pantry when I lived down in Nashville. Let me know if you see any country music stars…
When you passed through Evansville, did you stop for some tasty tasty brains?
Heh. I’d forgotten that was in Evansville. No, no brains for us. I had hoped to stop at the Bon Ton Mini Mart for dinner, but the weather was crappy enough and it was late enough that we had to grab a quick dinner at Hardees and get back on the road. That made me sad. Dan observed that as we have gone to Hardees over the years – maybe once every couple of years as we travel – each store has fewer and fewer people in it. It could be that we’re just hitting the wrong Hardees at the wrong times, or it could be that they are starting to suck worse and worse and people are recognizing that 🙂
1. If you had bothered asking, you could have been told to take Briley Parkway around the city, which would have dumped you out on I-40 right by the airport without dealing with the clusterf$^% that is the downtown Nashville Interstate system. I swear, if a canary farts at the wrong time, then I-24 and I-65 will back up, with I-40 as collateral damage.
2. Pancake Pantry is not just The Bomb, but it’s (a) about 3 blocks from my office and (b) about 15 minutes from our house. :-PPPPPPP
#1: Amen to that. I always jump onto the city streets when heading into downtown (Usually 24 to Harding and take that west to Franklin Rd which becomes 8th.) There was an odd proposal about taking all interstates out of the downtown area a couple years ago, and I’d tend to agree with that idea. Put through the north loop and let people who aren’t coming into the city proper just get around and get on with their business.
Of course, I’d kill just to have 840 SOUTH done. 😛
While I didn’t have a problem with the driving (hell, the Kennedy Expressway to the Dan Ryan through downtown Chicago at rush hour doesn’t phase me), I was just surprised at the amount of traffic. Of course, it was the Friday before Christmas, which couldn’t have helped matters much.
Well, I don’t make it a habit of asking for road directions in every city I go through of every person that lives there when I travel. This marks only the third time I’ve been through Nashville over the last fifteen years; the last time I came through and tried to take Briley Parkway as an alternative, it wasn’t actually completed and I wound up having to take surface streets 🙂 That said, after I saw the signs on both I-24 and I-40 I realized that that probably would have been a good alternative.
Hm that pancake place looks like something I will have to investigate the next time I get to Nashville.
Ya know, I’ve never had good luck with Nashville and traffic. I just plan my trips assuming I’ll lose an hour in traffic there, and then I’m potentially early but never late 🙂
-Jack