Day 2 A Long Drive and a Long Awaited Reunion

We woke up at 5:30 AM to rain on the roof of the van. We always love that sound while lying in bed. After breakfast and washing up, we used the campground bathrooms and dump station and continued driving south down Skyline Drive to the southern terminus at Rockfish Gap VA. It was rainy and foggy and deer were everywhere along the roadsides. We then took 64W and 81S through Virginia and stopped for some gas. Just recently, after hearing about gas siphoning at one of the destinations we plan to go to on this trip, we purchased and installed a locking gas cap. Well, we could unlock it but we couldn’t get it off! It had us baffled and panicked for about 5-10 min before I finally got it loose. Mi or catastrophe avoided and back to the original unlockable has cap! Continuing onward we stopped for a nice salad lunch at the Tennessee welcome center. 

We had previously made plans to have dinner with friends at 4:30 north of Nashville but now they texted that thunderstorms were in the forecast. Having had tornadoes last weekend in he area, they weee concerned for our safety and told us to stay put. But we looked at the forecast and radar and decided to keep driving. So we then made plans to meet another friend in Nashville instead at 7-ish. We drove across TN on 40W and listened to the Phillies game on my iPhone to kill the time. Turns out our other friend had to work late and could not meet us but now that the storms had passed our original plans with the first group of friends were back on! 576 miles and about 10 hrs of driving and we pulled into the cafe 15 min before our 4:30 set time.

So the people we met for dinner were old friends we first met in 2013? While cruising. Waiting to board the ship I noticed a woman with a guitar case and asked if she was performing on board the ship. Turns out she was not but her daughter was the star singer in the cruise. So we hung out with them on that cruise and became Facebook friends afterwards. Then in 2015 my dad and I booked a Panama Canal cruise with the daughter singer on board.she is now pictured here with her parents and her two kids. So that was the highlight of our day catching up with these old friends who we only met briefly a decade ago. Then we Crackerdocked overnight at a nearby Cracker Barrel north of Nashville, rain beating down on the metal roof of our van. Ah, vanlife at its finest!