2014 Trip - Day 12 - And we thought we had bad drivers.

We managed to survive the night without being woken by rattling chains and ghostly calls.  The Hotel Roanoke is truly a place frozen in time.  It was an amazing find and the shivers that it gave me just added to the experience.  We had our breakfast in the most ornate of restaurants.  It was truly beautiful adding to our memorable stay.

We were on the road again after breakfast heading further south to try to avoid more snow storms.  But alas....we had not been driving more than a couple of minutes when it started snowing.  Again.  FML.   I am a nervous passenger under the best of conditions.  Driving through another snow storm (ok...not quite a snow storm.....but close enough in my books) absolutely terrified me.  The wind buffeted the car around and the snow swirled into the windscreen.  Interestingly, when it is snowing, you don't need to use the windscreen wipers.

The fact that drivers around us overtook at amazing speeds and threw their vehicles around like matchbox cars did nothing for my nerve levels.  However......nothing will side track me from my woes as much as a good accident will.  Not surprisingly, there were plenty. 

Our first taste of this was a small white sedan which had somehow jammed itself sideways across a snow covered median strip.  It would have slid across the road and landed there I guess.
 

 

A little bit further down the road, there was a large semi-trailer that had rolled.  I was too caught up in sticky beaking to remember that I had the camera and did not get evidence of such!  A little bit further down the road though, there was another on its side and I had the camera ready.

 

I couldn't believe this!  The roads are dangerous, and the loonie drivers are plentiful but I never expected that I would see this many accidents in a row!  And.....you guessed it!  A little bit further on, there was yet another accident.  Another large semi on its side.
 

 

Fortunately there were no more accidents that we saw between Roanoke and Knoxville.  We did see a dead skunk though which was a first.  Fond childhood memories of Pepe Le Pew had me choke back a tear.  Ok.....that might have been a crumb from the over stale chicken torpedo that I had for lunch......but the thought was there.

I am sick of snow.  So damned sick of snow.  I hate snow.  Snow, snow and more snow.  And....as though just to piss me off further....I have found that I cannot photograph a snow flake.  Lord knows I have tried.  I will photograph anything that moves.  There is 2000000000000000000000 billion trillion snow flakes on the car right now, and I cannot photograph one of them individually.  The snow is trying to have the last laugh.
 

 

Snow ploughs are everywhere.  I highly doubt that Australia would be that prepared if they were needed.   I turn my attention to the signs off the road to try to cope with my nervousness.  We pass a store somewhere in the middle of whoop-whoop which carried the sign "Jesus is Lord.  We buy guns".  Hmmmmmkaaaayyyy.  If it wasn't so dangerous to do so, I would have got the Bear to stop and turn around so that I could grab a photo.  A little bit further down the track....a road sign said...."First Exit - Winery.  Next Exit - Weddings".   This appeared to be a very serious sign.   Hmmmkay again.  

 

We are driving along just willing the white scenery to pass quickly and we are playing music from the Bears phone through the car.  Radio Stations in these parts have two types of music.  Country AND Western.  Given that this most definitely doesn't float our boats, we plugged in his phone.  Now the Bear and I have very similar music tastes a lot of the time, however we both have a streak in us that absolutely loathes the music of the other.  I was happy to take the risk with his music as Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton just don't do it for me.  Well that was until "Macho Man" came on.  I took a side ways glance at the Bear to which he exclaimed "I didn't put that there!".  Yep sure Bear.....sure.....

 

Crossing the Virginia/Tennessee State Line showed me that one thing is for certain.  My first impression of Tennessee back in 2012 was not exaggerated.  I still did not like what I saw.  I know it is winter and everything is brown (with the exception of the snow) but this has BORING stamped on it in a major way.  As we drove further  the snow began to thin and I was thinking that the state did have its upsides.  I noted with interest that that the contents of the yards had changed from one state to the next.  Unlike the sprawling ranches in Virginia which kept large herds of very healthy cattle and horses, the yards in Tennessee kept a minimum of 6 car wrecks, a few rusted tractors, someone's broken fence, a donkey and two chooks. The more affluent of residences also bore a collapsing henhouse.

 

We pulled into Knoxville early afternoon and had a little bit of a laydown before heading out to dinner.  I was so thrilled with the Golden Corral yesterday that I wanted to go again!  There is a Golden Corral Restaurant in Knoxville Tennessee so that was settled.

 

Well tie up your mothers people.  This was an experience.  Do you remember how I said yesterday that the Roanoke Golden Corral was like being on the set of the Duck Dynasty and the Jerry Springer Show?  Well dagnammit.....I have no words for this one. 

 

I was facing the food bar which was possibly mistake number one.  I witnessed some old coot drop a calamari ring which rolled under one of the bay maries.  He stuck his foot under it to drag out the food morsel.  I mentally congratulated him for picking up dropped food and disposing of rubbish.......until he put it in his mouth.  It was at that time I noticed the soiling on the back of his track suit pants.  I swear I had a little bit of vomit rise.  As I tried to ignore that, everything else around me was magnified.  Firstly it was a man (Shrek?) that was sitting across from the Bear (who was opposite me) who kept dropping his teeth.  At one point he actually took out his dentures to pull something off of them.  Like....come one dude! Second it was a bloke, for want of a better word, that kept getting up and down and running (?????) to the bay maries looking as though he had a ten cent piece stuck firmly between the cheeks of his very ample butt. I lost count of how many pieces of cutlery (lovingly known as silver ware over here) up his sleeve.  I didn't want to turn around in case he used one of the pieces to poke out my eye.    Thirdly there was a little girl, probably about 8 or 9 years old that was dipping her stick of fairy floss into the large dish of liquid orange cheese that was on the food counter.   Her parents thought it was majorly funny although in support of them, I believe they may have been inbred so wouldn't have known better.  There was more dribbling in this restaurant than done on a basketball court.  I think it was the lack of teeth that had people failing to keep their salivations to themselves. I got to the point where I could not eat and could not find a place to look where I wasn't going to be sick.  And I mean....I would have projectile vomited.

 

We left rather quickly although it took a few hours for my tummy to settle.  The Bear and I are definitely coming down with something, so that would not have helped.  Hopefully a good night sleep will have us feeling better.  We move onto Chattanooga tomorrow!  I have my fingers (and toes, legs, nostril hairs) crossed that there are less slack jawed yokels there!