Day One: Road Trip

I took off yesterday for a weeklong road trip. First stop is Maryville, TN, home of my friend Chad. Nine hour drive. Straight shot. Hopefully the rest of the trip will be more low key, but I wanted to get down here yesterday before Chad went out of town.

Weirdest radio station tag line en route to Tennessee: "Aromatherapy for the ears".

Church sign message that has stayed with me the longest: "Humility is not thinking less of yourself. Humility is thinking of yourself less often."

Something I learned about Tennessee (from Chad): Tennessee's status as the "Volunteer State" is due to wartime service (willingness to volunteer to go to war).

Never knew this before either: Bristol, TN is called the "birthplace of country music" in part because that's from where The Carter Family hails. Nashville, says Chad, is a relative "upstart".

And the Hungry Mother National Park (which is in Virginia and, therefore, outside of Chad's area of expertise) is called the Hungry Mother National Park because — well, I'm still trying to figure out that one.