{"id":21399,"date":"2019-02-09T18:47:01","date_gmt":"2019-02-09T23:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=21399"},"modified":"2022-04-29T06:16:07","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T11:16:07","slug":"cross-country-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/cross-country-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Cross-Country, Part 5 (The Eastern Half)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We actually did a lot more than <a href=\"\/blog\/?p=21284\">collect new counties<\/a> and <a href=\"\/blog\/?p=21297\">visit zoos<\/a>.\u00a0 After all, we sat in a car for five days!\u00a0 I needed to stop every couple of hours to stretch my legs.\u00a0 Sometimes we timed our layovers to see something interesting and sometimes things had a way of finding us.\u00a0 The open road works like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Crossing the First Border<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-large size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/96225726@N08\/44621694210\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/4860\/44621694210_dbd8765d43_b.jpg\" alt=\"Tennessee Welcome Center. Photo by howderfamily.com; (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)\"\/><\/a><figcaption>Welcome to Tennessee<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>We began our drive well before sunrise and watched the first rays of light as we approached Virginia&#8217;s Shenandoah Valley.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve always hated driving on Interstate 81.\u00a0 It always seems choked with trucks and I wanted to avoid the hassle.\u00a0 But leaving early worked as I expected.\u00a0 We rolled down the valley under clear skies and nothing remarkable happened during the several hours it took to exit the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first border slipped behind us as we passed Bristol and crossed into Tennessee.&nbsp; There we exited at a rest stop, <a href=\"\/blog\/?p=2682\">thankful for its existence<\/a>, and marked the completion of our initial leg.&nbsp; The journey continued onward another couple of hours before we finished our first day at Knoxville.&nbsp; Clouds formed as we toured the Knoxville Zoo in a cold mist.&nbsp; The next morning we drove through freezing fog on the way to Nashville, with an icy shroud covering trees, although conditions improved the rest of the way into Memphis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Virginia and Tennessee stretched on forever.\u00a0 Only those two states separated Washington, DC from Memphis, a distance of 870 miles (1,400 km).\u00a0 That seemed like an amazingly long distance until we crossed into Texas later in the trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Grand Guitar<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-large size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/96225726@N08\/32566076348\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/4907\/32566076348_36944f44a4_b.jpg\" alt=\"Grand Guitar Building. Photo by howderfamily.com; (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)\"\/><\/a><figcaption>The Grand Guitar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I noticed something weird when we pulled over at that first rest stop when we entered Tennessee. A building shaped like a giant guitar (<a href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/maps\/WRycSqEDpfFYBYxi6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">map<\/a>) stood across the highway.&nbsp; I took a photo of it and I vowed to scour the Internet when I got a chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As it turned out, I&#8217;d encountered The Grand Guitar, which had its own entry on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.roadsideamerica.com\/story\/12556\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Roadside America<\/a>.\u00a0 An entrepreneur named Joe Morrell built this masterpiece shaped like a Martin Dreadnought acoustic guitar in 1983.\u00a0 Inside, he placed a recording studio, a country music radio station, and his collection of musical instruments.\u00a0 The building fell into disarray after his death although the National Register of Historic Places still <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/nr\/feature\/places\/14000057.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">recognized it<\/a> in 2014.\u00a0 Rumors of restoration floated around various websites. I saw no signs of that as we gazed upon its dilapidated walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Always Time for a Geo-Oddity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-large size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/96225726@N08\/46464918261\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/4895\/46464918261_18a24d6bce_b.jpg\" alt=\"Texarkana Post Office Border. Photo by howderfamily.com; (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)\"\/><\/a><figcaption>The Texarkana Post Office<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>We stopped overnight at Forrest City, Arkansas &#8212; a little west of Memphis &#8212; on Christmas Eve.\u00a0 Only one place seemed to be open for dinner, a Mexican restaurant sharing a lobby with a one-story motel.\u00a0 A chimichanga and a margarita seemed oddly appropriate at that moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Christmas morning dawned and we followed a southwestern diagonal through Arkansas.\u00a0 We took a short detour from the interstate as we approached the Texas state line and drove into central Texarkana. There are actually two Texarkanas there, conjoined twins on opposite sides of the Texas-Arkansas border.\u00a0 Even so they so completely intertwined they appeared as one.\u00a0 We took State Line Avenue\u00a0 where the boundary ran down the middle of the road.\u00a0 Southbound lanes fell on the Texas side and northbound ones in Arkansas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We reached our goal, the main post office and courthouse shared by the portmanteau cities (<a href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/maps\/dtdPih5BsuM3EWK97\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">map<\/a>).\u00a0 Naturally we found no trouble parking directly in front of the building on a holiday.\u00a0 One other group had the same idea so we swapped chances to take photos of our families split by a state border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Christmas Dinner<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-large size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/96225726@N08\/46413931512\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/7920\/46413931512_ce91c2f9c8_b.jpg\" alt=\"Waffle House on Christmas. Photo by howderfamily.com; (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)\"\/><\/a><figcaption>Christmas at Waffle House<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Then we pressed onward, driving through a rainy Dallas <a href=\"\/blog\/?p=21270\">on our way to Weatherford, Texas<\/a> where we stopped for the night.\u00a0 Christmas Dinner would be an adventure.\u00a0 Once again we had very few choices.\u00a0 The local Waffle House seemed to be the best idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Waffle House famously never closes.\u00a0 Not only was the Waffle House in Weatherford open, it was packed with diners and fully staffed for the onslaught of Christmas guests.\u00a0 People filled every booth and we felt lucky to find even two empty seats at the counter.\u00a0 I wouldn&#8217;t call this is our new holiday tradition although we certainly made the best of it.\u00a0 Breakfast for dinner on Christmas?\u00a0 Why not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Articles in the Cross-Country Series:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"\/blog\/?p=21256\">The Plot Thickens<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"\/blog\/?p=21270\">Weatherford Art Thou?<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"\/blog\/?p=21284\">County Counting<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"\/blog\/?p=21297\">Zoos &amp; Brews<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"\/blog\/?p=21399\">The Eastern Half<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"\/blog\/?p=21408\">The Western Half<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"\/blog\/?p=21486\">A Week in Phoenix<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"\/blog\/?p=21500\">Bonus!<\/a><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>See Also: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/96225726@N08\/albums\/72157704965496855\">The Complete Photo Album on Flickr<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We actually did a lot more than collect new counties and visit zoos.\u00a0 After all, we sat in a car for five days!\u00a0 I needed to stop every couple of hours to stretch my legs.\u00a0 Sometimes we timed our layovers to see something interesting and sometimes things had a way of finding us.\u00a0 The open [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,11,21,732],"tags":[207,2215,6656,156,6655,6654,6653,4921,4945,3074,76,2163,112,2145,6645],"class_list":["post-21399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-borders","category-roads","category-states","category-weather","tag-arkansas","tag-bristol","tag-chimichanga","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-eve","tag-forrest-city","tag-grand-guitar","tag-i-81","tag-interstate-81","tag-portmanteau","tag-tennessee","tag-texarkana","tag-texas","tag-waffle-house","tag-weatherford"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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