Dad once told me that a road trip can really test the steel of a relationship. Or, in his case, the beginnings of one. Not my story to tell; however, suffice it to say that a cross-country road trip he took when I was a very young child erased any pretenses of him being in a relationship with the woman in the car with him.

Todd and I recently embarked on an 11-day, 1900-mile road trip. We’ve done several road trips before. We travel well together. That is not to say there were never any bumps along the way. We are living beings, after all.

This was our second trip to Nashville. The original plan was to drive through Kentucky, stopping at Buffalo Trace Distillery (my favorite bourbon) in Frankfort. You need reservations to tour. I kept checking the site for the week to open up and when it finally did there was no availability. Ach.

I considered Roanoke, Virginia like we did last year, and then – I have no idea why – decided maybe we should drive as far as we can and stay over a couple of days to rest and complete the last 3-1/2 hours to our primary destination. This led us to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

First Day – Destination, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

We packed our car to the gills with suitcases and bags and a cooler and a coffee maker* and a bag with snacks. As a big fan of the Real Housewives franchise, I’m proud to say that this time I packed one suitcase for clothes and one for shoes, and a suit bag with dresses. The only thing I didn’t have was a “concierge” to carry everything door to door.

I also packed a blanket for the car because every car driven by Todd has the temperature set to frostbite and it’s always blowing right on me which I hate. I complain about it every time we get in the car together. Lesson learned: bring a blanket and a sweatshirt. Also, there is music.

We like the same genres, overall (though he hasn’t quite caught on to my love of Chris Stapleton). He likes to sing along. Sometimes I just want to hear the original artist sing it. My tolerance for this is dependent entirely on how rested and fed I am. He also likes to whistle along and I love my husband but God damn it would make a dog howl.

Love on the Rocks started playing and I hate Neil Diamond and wanted to slit my wrists and bleed out slowly while Todd sang along because he loves this song. We mixed in some Cat Stevens which reminds me of my childhood and I learned that day that he wrote The First Cut is the Deepest in 1967. We both agreed that Sheryl Crow sang it better.

How do we pass the time on these long trips? As above, listening to music. Sometimes we both sing along and that’s nice. Sometimes the music inspires conversation and deep-Google dive into origins and inspiration. We talk about life, love, friend and family, our plans for the future, and memories, like who remembers Richard Dawson on the Family Feud?

How today it would never fly – the way he kissed every single woman on that stage – and I was thinking, what if they didn’t want to be kissed? I searched him online and found that contestants were required to take a pre-show herpes test. Can you imagine?

We stopped for gas and a bathroom break at the Exxon in (Apple Mountain) Linden, an easy-off, easy-on exit on Virginia’s route 66. Longest line for the ladies’ bathroom I’ve ever seen at a gas station. Todd was in and out of the men’s room and I was still standing in the same spot.

Next stop – Lexington, Virginia as a halfway point for food and leg-stretch as suggested my brother, Matt.

We drove past Buchanon and noted the Wattstull Inn, situated on the mountain to our left across from Purgatory Mountain. From the looks of it, if the Motel itself aint purgatory, the view from your room – ostensibly facing Purgatory Mountain – is advertised as “one of the best in the Shenandoah Valley.” I’ll take their word for it. I’m a city girl, for all intents and purposes. Remember this for the future. (Haven’t stayed in a roadside motel since 1989.)*

My brother, Matt, said – you HAVE to go to Macado’s. Which is, by his estimate, the halfway point in Lexington, Virginia. Macado’s is a regional chain (something he didn’t know) with an extensive menu including: 15 appetizers, 8 different quesadillas, 8 different burgers + one hot dog, 8 different wraps, 8 different salads, 6 different grilled cheese sandwiches, and 4 taco choices.

But, the piece d-resistance is an astounding FORTY -THREE different “overstuffed sandwiches” (not including 6 clubs and reubens) with names like Annie Oakley, Lone Ranger, Babe Ruth, Titanic, Chicken Cordon Boo, and Custer’s Last Stand. Todd ordered the Ragtime: roast beef with bacon, melted swiss and “macado sauce” on grilled rye bread. I had the Sherlock Holmes: mesquite turkey breast with melted cheddar, cole slaw and thousand island dressing. We split the Totchos which were amazing. We ate half our sandwiches and took the other halves with us for dinner.

Lexington, Virginia appears quaint and lovely, very walkable at least where Macado’s is. Little shops to pop into and plenty to look at in a small area. The town is also home to the Virginia Military Institute so we also saw a few white uniforms walking around town. On our way out of town we were greeted by a small parade of cars flying their freak flags and it seemed as good a time as any to GTFO. (Side bar: I’ve seen more cars at a car wash.)

Todd did the bulk of the driving but hit a slump about an hour after and so I suggested we stop for coffee somewhere. This is no easy feat, by the way, if anyone recalls how he hates Starbucks and McDonald’s is a hard “no.” A quick Google search found us a little place called The Conery Coffee and Ice Cream in Draper, Virginia, just a short detour off Route 81 south of Lexington and nestled in a rural area next to a community park. Cleanest bathroom I’ve ever seen, BTW.

I took over the last leg of the drive – roughly 3-1/2 hours – to Pigeon Forge. The weather forecast in the general region called for storms and the black clouds looming over us like a giant alien ship threatened massive downpours. We got lucky with only a spot or two of heavy rain that I drove through with less gumption than Todd would have, and I might have reminded him once or twice that I drive at the speed I’M comfortable with and he should just get back to his online poker game and zip it. It bears mentioning here that we took his car this year, which is bigger than mine and I’m not as comfortable in the driver’s seat – which is also a dangerous situation if I get anxious.

I had booked the Econo Lodge in Pigeon Forge for two nights. We landed in P-Forge just before 8:00 and merged onto the Parkway – four lanes across in both directions and traffic moving swiftly.

My first impression of Pigeon Forge? It’s like a hillbilly Vegas. I felt like a squirrel in traffic looking at all the places lining the parkway and Todd was getting edgy because I was a distracted driver. Shops and venues everywhere: Titanic museum, Hatfield’s & McCoy’s Dinner Theater, Dolly’s Stampede, the WonderWorks, Hollywood Wax Museum, Paula Deen’s Supper Show, two-story Sky Pirates of Mermaid Bay Mini Golf, and no fewer than three brick-and-mortar Trump stores in a four-mile radius.

So much to see, so little time. But I had an agenda for day 2, and I was not to be deterred.

Miscellaneous Tidbits:

The Virginia Military Institute was founded in 1839 and is America’s first state military college and the oldest public senior military college in the United States.

We pack a coffeemaker so that we can brew our own every day. MOST hotels just have those cheap, tiny, one-cup brewing gizmos that make something resembling coffee even the devil wouldn’t serve.

No disrespect to the Wattstull Inn. It is family owned and operated for 59 years and is undergoing renovations so temporarily closed. There is an award-winning restaurant/bar on site called Foot of the Mountain Café.

TV executives repeatedly tried to get the Kissing Bandit, as Richard Dawson became known, to stop after getting criticism about it and the hand-holding and touching. Roughly 200,000 people wrote in at Dawson’s request to weigh in on the matter, and the vast majority supported him.

Saw a license plate somewhere in Virginia: BTTYWT. I like it.