Advertisement
Published: June 18th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Unfortunately, we were off to a late start from Pennsylvania. When we got to our hotel the night before, my trunk refused to open. I had forgotten to tell R that my car key doesn't open the trunk door and that she needed to pop the trunk instead. When she tried to use the key, something got stuck and my trunk door wouldn't open (with our suitcases inside!).
Luckily, my back seats pull forward and we were able to retrieve our suitcases -- although not without some difficulty since I had packed every nook and crevice of the trunk. And my largest suitcase was super-heavy, since, ummm, it's actually, literally, filled with stones.
Okay, small rocks that I've collected here and there. Some from Alaska from when I went fishing at every body of water we encountered but couldnt' catch anything except for a scary looking lamprey so I decided to collect stones instead. Then there were those light-colored flat stones from P-town in Cape Cod. And then, the one teeny flat black stone the size of a dime from which I couldn't bear to part that I picked from the Punalu'u Black Sand Beach in the Big
Island. I thought that since I'd returned the lava rocks I wouldn't incur the curse of Pele but I may have been wrong on that one.
But I digress. I was able to borrow a screwdriver from the hotel staff and crawled into the trunk space from the inside to try to jiggle it open -- in the dark and in the heat. After an hour of not much success, E finally stepped in and told me to just give up and that we would just have to deal with it in the morning.
The next day, R and I went to the Toyota dealership next to our hotel. A big mean guy told us, You would have to make an appointment first, empty the car of everything, it might take a few hours, and my guys won't know what's wrong with the trunk until they're actually working on the car.
When we got back to the car, I turned to R and said, I'm not liking this guy. I'm not getting a good feeling from him. I think we should go to the locksmith first and see what they have to say.
So we drove
to the locksmith in Uniontown and entered this huge building filled with vaults and the furs of dead animals on top of them. It was early morning and the guys were all sitting around in a circle, smoking, talking or something. One of them got up and we told him what was wrong with the car (and that my original key had broken long ago and all I had was my valet key).
What year and make is your car? I can probably make you a key.
1991 Toyota Corolla. I was told the dealers no longer have the keys for it.
Oh, I can make a copy. Shouldn't be a problem. Hold on one second. He makes a copy, goes outside, comes back.
It works. You're all set.
That's it? We spent all night worrying we wouldn't be able to open the trunk the rest of the trip and all we needed were new keys?
Yup.
R, having felt incredibly guilty, was quite relieved.
So we were late heading out. We stopped and briefly had lunch at the Cowboy's Restaurant in Fayetteville before heading out
again (surprisingly good and satisfying). We passed through the Appalachian mountains, had a pickup truck briefly shadow us (I think he was trying to get me to lift up my shirt because I was wearing beads to hold my keys), had another brief stop in Abingdon, VA (where the women's bathroom at the gas station off the freeway sold "love kits") and headed on to Nashville.
Our hotel was right on Broadway so we just had to walk a few blocks to hit all the restaurants and bars. Since it was quite late, we really didn't have much choice as to where to eat so we ate at Rippy's Ribs and BBQ. Their ribs were actually not that great but their pancake corn bread was amazing. Soft, moist and tasty.
A balding man with a ponytail (why is that always the case?) dressed in a Hawaiian shirt was playing his guitar and singing,
Oh gimme the beat, boys and free my soul
i wanna get lost in you're rock'n'roll
and drift away
Beginning to think that i'm wastin' time
i don't understand the things i do
the world outside look so
unkind
now i'm countin' on you, to carry me through
Oh gimme the beat, boys and free my soul
i wanna get lost in you're rock'n'roll
and drift away
And when my mind is free
you know a melody can move me
when i'm feeling blue
the guitars comin' through to soothe me
Thanks for the joy you've given me
i want you to know i believe in you're song
rhythm and rhyme and harmony
you help me along, makin' me strong
Since none of us listened to country music, we couldn't tell if the other songs he sang were country or just oldies.
So.. when we were done with dinner, we thought we would check out the Legends bar across the street. But, the rain started to come down in sheets so instead, we ran back to our hotel as fast as we could. Nashville, we hardly knew ye.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.07s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 11; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0373s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb