Last Day

After staying at our favorite hotel in one of our favorite cities, we needed breakfast before hitting the road.  We went to two different places which were recommended, both of which had 1 hour wait times, even at 9:30 in the morning.  We settled for the second of the two but we got take out instead.  The wait for that was only 10 minutes.  We enjoyed a fried egg BLT and sweet potato pancakes with pecans on top.  We found out the reason for the long wait was because the city was packed with people for an Oktoberfest celebration.  We wished we had known about this sooner; we would have stayed in town two nights instead of one.  After breakfast we headed for the Biltmore estate, or more specifically, the gift shop at the Biltmore.  The last time we were there, in April, we especially enjoyed one of their wines, so we decided to get some more.  After loading up on wine we made the trip towards Chimney Rock State Park, which was only about a 40 minute drive outside of the city.  We had first heard about Chimney Rock State Park on our Blue Ridge Parkway trip in the spring.  At the time we skipped the park so that we could stick solely to the parkway.  This time, with the amazing fall weather, we wanted to check out the park.  Chimney Rock State Park is named after a granite rock formation which looks like a chimney.  This is the highlight of the park.  We arrived at the park and were surprised not by an entry fee per vehicle, but by a $15 per person entry fee.  We thought this was steep for a state park but we paid anyway.  Since it was so crowded they did not allow us to drive to the top, instead they were using shuttle busses.  We boarded a bus and got close to the top.  Near the top one had a choice: either take an elevator the rest of the way up or walk.  We chose to take the elevator up and walk back down.  The wait for the small, 8 person elevator, ended up being much longer than we had anticipated.  We estimate we waited in line for about a half hour.  Once we got to the top, where they dump you into a gift shop, we walked out to Chimney Rock.  The rock, which stands alone, separated from the rest of the mountain, is connected by a staircase which seems to be suspended in mid-air.  We walked out, enjoyed the amazingly clear day, and just looked at the view for awhile.  After getting off of the rock we explored the area a little more, first walking up hill to a cool little viewpoint called Opera Box, which is kind of a cave in the side of the mountain but overlooks Chimney Rock.  We then walked further up the trail and up a bunch of stairs to the highest point in the park called Exclamation Point.  From there we saw a plane flying through the valley, below us!  The views from there were just as great and we rested for awhile after getting a nice workout. 

The view from inside of the Opera House

Airplane flying below

View from Exclamation Point

After making our way down the mountain, we got back in the car and started driving northeast towards home.  It was already about 4 in the afternoon and we had only driven about 35 miles since we started.  We had spent that much time on the mountain.  We wanted to make some good time because we wanted to be in NY early in the afternoon on Sunday and it was already 4 PM and we had over 700 miles to go.  We had no idea where we would be spending the night, we figured we would just drive until we got tired, then we would find a place to stay.  However, we were starving.  While we had a nice breakfast, we had nothing for lunch and already it was getting close to dinner time.  We read about a great fried chicken place called Keaton’s in Cleveland, NC, so we headed that way.  It was unfortunate that we had so little time because North Carolina is famous for its excellent BBQ.  Had we had more time we would have tried more of it.  We arrived in Cleveland about 2 hours after leaving Chimney Rock.  The place reinforced the fact that we are not snooty.  Located pretty much in the middle of nowhere, from the outside it looked like a dump.  Inside, however, there was a long line of people talking with local accents, which was a very good sign.  Keaton’s is home to some of the best chicken we have had.  The menu calls it barbecued, which it is, sort of, but it is also fried. The hot sauce penetrates the crust and meat of the chicken and caramelizes all around its outside edges, resulting in pieces of chicken that are hot, sweet, and savory all at once.  We split an order which consisted of two wings, two breasts and two thighs.  We also got side orders of spicy slaw, green beans and mac and cheese.  We also drank nearly a pitcher of sweat tea.

The entrance to Keaton's

After dinner we started driving again.  Only about 5 miles from the restaurant we had a choice to make.  Make a left turn onto US 64, which would take us to I-77 north to I-81 north, through Virginia and PA, a trip that would be 640 more miles and about 11 hours; or make a right onto US 64, and onto I-40 toward I-95, a trip that while longer in mileage at 651, and longer in time at 12 hours, was probably better since we would be driving at night and Chris thought the extra traffic would keep him more alert.  We opted for the busier route with a twist.  At Greensboro, NC, we headed north on US 29.  We had taken this router before as an alternate to I95 and we enjoyed it.  While the speed limited alternated between 65 and 55, there is little to no traffic, compared to I95 to the east that can back up for no reason at all.  We drove into Virginia and then headed east on US 360 towards Richmond. After driving for only about an hour and a half, it was already 9 at night and we knew we were not going to make it very far that night.  We pulled over, switched drivers, and Chris took out his phone to start looking for places to stay in Richmond.  We found a Fairfield Inn and using our General Dynamics corporate rate (wait a minute, neither of us work for General Dynamics), we booked an inexpensive room.  We arrived at our hotel after driving through the night and likely picking up a dozen more counties, just before midnight.  At one point before we got off of the interstate, we almost hit something in the road.  It was dark and we didn’t see it until we nearly hit it, but in the right lane of the interstate was the contents of someone’s house, or so it seemed.  There was a bunch of broken furniture all over the road and just up the road, an empty pickup truck with its flashers on and the tailgate open.  We suspect they were overpacked and they hit a bump and everything fell out.  We figured this was a good reason to rent a U-haul if we ever move.

Saturday's route

On Sunday we had only one real goal: getting to NY as early as we could.  We wanted to beat the Sunday afternoon traffic plus we wanted to have a few hours to unwind and unpack the beast and re-pack the truck before we headed home on Monday morning.  Our decision to head towards I95 last night probably came back to bite us: now we had to travel up 95 from Richmond, through Washington, Baltimore, Philly and NJ, all the way to NY on a Sunday.  This surely would not be good.  Google maps said it was a 369 mile drive which would take us 7 hours.  If you have ever driven that stretch of I95 at any time other than the middle of the night you know that 7 hours would be amazing, 8-9 would be more like it.  We quickly looked for alternate routes and found one.  Anyone who ever travels towards Florida from the NY area should take note.  You can avoid the I95 corridor from Washington to NY by doing what we did.  Just outside of Washington DC we took US29 north towards Baltimore.  At first there were a few lights but mostly it was 60 mph driving.  We picked up I70 and I695 outside of Baltimore, then headed north on I83.  We took that into Pennsylvania, then hit US30 heading east then US222 through Reading and joined I78 just west of the PA/NJ border.  The route was advertised at 404 miles and 7 hours 45 minutes but we made it in a little under 6 1/2 hours including a stop for gas and a quick stop at McDonald’s for lunch.  We absolutely recommend that route and we will surely take it again ourselves when we travel south.  While we were driving through Washington we passed through some construction zones where they were adding tolled HOV lanes.  We have seen these in California where the regular interstate is free but the HOV lanes have a toll.  Not only that, the price of the toll increases as traffic in the regular lanes becomes more congested.  So you end up paying a premium for zipping around the stalled traffic in the regular lanes.  If traffic is moving freely in the open lanes then the HOV lanes are usually free as well.  We know that if we had this opportunity we would pay to not sit in traffic.  We finally arrived in Stony Point around 2:45 and started unpacking.  We unpacked the beast, packed our truck and went and filled up the beast.  The final fill up cost us a staggering $106 at $4.15 per gallon.  NY gas prices are too high.

New HOV lanes to the left



One of the 2 chimenas that took up our backseat



The Beast

Back in NY just in time for fall

Sunday's route, all in under 7 hours!

Our entire route



New counties added this trip are in blue



Back to one of our favorite cities

After spending nearly a week in Huntsville, AL for work, we had to hit the road heading for NY and on Monday, home.  We needed to somehow keep our larger vehicle for both the comfort and for the space it gave us to take home the stuff we bought in New Mexico last week.  Earlier in the week when we had to trade the monster in we almost ended up with a car instead of the Suburban.  That would have been bad because we are pretty sure our chimeneas would not have fit in the back seat.  We needed a plan. As the week went by Chris had different ideas on how we could keep our Suburban but none of them were panning out.  We were going to use free days which we had accumulated to rent a suburban for 3 days but renting that sized vehicle with free days would not have allowed us to have unlimited miles. That would have been a problem because we had about 1000 miles to drive.  We also thought of just trying out luck and begging at the airport to keep the large car but we didn’t want to take that risk. Finally we just decided to call National and ask them if we could return our current vehicle in NY rather than in Huntsville and if we could return it three days later.  We never told them that we had a car that was probably 8 sizes larger than what we were paying for but we figured if they wanted that information it was probably right at their fingertips.  They said we could but our entire rental would be at the one way rate rather than our first week at the regular rate and only 3 days at a one way rate.  We did the math and figured it was only $12 extra to do it this way so we ended up keeping our monster and even better, we would not have to repack the car.  We even had room for more stuff if we wanted!

We left Huntsville on Friday at around 7:30 AM.  It was raining pretty hard for the first hour or so as we drove away.  Because of the rain we did not make very good time.  It stopped raining somewhere around Tennessee and we made our first stop at a Confederate cemetery just outside of Chattanooga.  The cemetery has 155 soldiers buried in it, mostly in unmarked graves.  When reading the sign out front we read that most of the graves were once marked by wooden crosses giving name and rank but today there is nothing.  There was no explanation as to how that happened but when we got to a computer we found out that the cemetery was originally located closer to the river and was once flooded, washing away the wooden markers.  After the flooding the remains were all moved to this new place where they remain today but when they moved the remains they had no way of knowing who was who. 

After the cemetery we made a stop in Cleveland, TN where there was an interesting sight.   We visited a mausoleum in Cleveland which was the location of if nothing else, an interesting story.  John Henderson Craigmiles was a very successful man. He was a former sea captain and a prominent business man in Cleveland, TN during the 1800s. However, he endured more tragedy than most people can imagine.

Nina Craigmiles was born on August 5, 1864, to John Henderson Craigmiles and his wife, Adelia Thompson Craigmiles. From the day she was born, her entire family fell in love with her, especially John. He showered her with affection, and bought her the best toys money could buy. He rarely ever let her leave his sight, and, as a result, she had few friends her own age.

Sadly, on October 18, 1871, that happiness came to an end. It was Saint Luke's Day, and Nina's grandfather, Dr. Gideon Blackburn Thompson, was taking her for a ride on a horse and buggy. He had done this many times before, and Nina absolutely loved riding. Apparently, Dr. Thompson lost control of the horse and buggy, because it went directly into the path of a train. Dr. Thompson was thrown to safety, but Nina was killed.

The entire town was saddened by the news, and many people showed up for her funeral. After her funeral, Dr. Thompson and two others were baptized. The Craigmiles were devout Episcopalians, and since the Episcopal congregation of Cleveland did not have a church to visit at, John Henderson Craigmiles vowed to build one, which he did in memory of Nina. Saint Luke's Episcopal Church was consecrated on the third anniversary of Nina's death. It was (and still is) a very beautiful church. Not long after, Mr. Craigmiles had a mausoleum built behind the church in memory of his daughter. She was laid to rest inside, as was another infant son who died, and Mr. and Mrs. Craigmiles. Mr. Craigmiles met an untimely death after falling on some ice, which apparently triggered blood poisoning. A third member of the family had met a tragic death.

Today, if you visit the mausoleum, you will notice red streaks the color of blood appear on it. The stories say that the bloody stains first began to appear on the Craigmiles mausoleum after Nina was interred there. With the death of each family member, the stains grew darker and more noticeable. Some of the locals began to believe that the marks were blood, coming from the stone itself, in response to the tragedies suffered by the family.  We snapped a picture of the mausoleum and the “blood stains” and we were on our way.

Our next stop was at an overlook that looked out over an old copper mine.  There was a museum on the site but it was really tiny and they charged $4 per person so we skipped the museum and took some pictures of the mine from the overlook.  We then stopped for lunch at our favorite fast food restaurant, Hardees.  You cannot find any Hardees restaurants back home so we took advantage and ate some burgers for lunch.  We then drove about 3 miles south to the town of Copperhill, TN, where the TN/GA border runs right through a parking lot of a supermarket.  It was marked by a blue dotted line, which runs across the parking lot and then through some buildings.  Supposedly it also runs through a bar, which is interesting because the bar is half located in a dry county in TN and the other half in the GA county that allows alcohol sales.  So the restrooms are located on the TN side and the drinking side is in GA.  We did not stop because we still had some driving to do but maybe we will return some day.

 

After leaving there we went to see something a little different which we had seen on Roadside America:  The world’s largest 10 commandments.  Near Murphy, NC is a 300 foot wide tablet covering a hillside.  Had we known we were going to come here Chris would have bought a staff so he could have his picture taken up top holding it high above his head like Moses.  Unfortunately we didn’t have one so we just took pictures of the 10 commandments.  We also met a very friendly cat in the parking lot which reminded us of our cat, Red back home.  We fed him some pizza which he seemed to love and we headed out.

To give you an idea of the size of the commandments, yes that is a small airplane at the bottom of the hill

Looking down...the little speck in the parking lot is the cat

We started heading towards Asheville, NC, with no intention of making any more stops.  However, as we made the drive up through the Nantahala gorge through western North Carolina, the same drive we had made back in April, the fall foliage was really nice so we stopped to take some pictures.  There were people rafting on the river, just like back in April, but this time they were all in wetsuits. 

 

We arrived in Asheville, NC around 5 PM and checked into our favorite hotel, the Hotel Indigo.  We could not afford this place but we were using points, so it was free.  We then walked around Asheville for a little while before coming back to eat dinner.  We found it unusual that we were drawn back to Asheville, after all, we were here only 6 months ago, and at that time we stayed for 3 nights when we only planned on staying one.  This time we can’t stay 3 nights but we are fairly certain we will be back.

On the way to Huntsville

After nearly falling asleep after driving most of the day on Sunday, we ended up staying at the Super 8 just west of the OK/AR border.  We think we have grown accustomed to better hotels.  When we first were married a Super 8 motel would have been just fine.  We were tired and after driving the previous night for many miles looking for really anything, we saw the Super 8 and stopped because we were so tired.  We were disappointed.  The place was a dump.  We should have known by the sign out front offering weekly rates.  The room was small, everything was worn and worse of all, there was something living in the room, or at least we think.  The only thing missing was a desk clerk with hair slicked back with Vaseline sitting behind bulletproof glass.  We pretty much hit the bed and fell asleep (fully clothed due to the skeevy feeling we had) and after maybe 30 minutes were awaken by something in the room.  We turned on a the flashlight on the cell phone, Chris put on his shoes so that he could easily kill whatever might be crawling around and we started looking.  We couldn’t find a thing so we tried to sleep some more. Later in the night we heard it again, but once again, couldn’t find anything.  We slept uneasy for the next 6 or so hours and woke up and got on the road by 7.  As we started driving we wondered if we are spoiled or was that place really that bad?  Mostly due to travelling for work and staying using points when we travel on our own we have gotten used to Marriott hotels and newer Holiday Inn chain hotels like Candlewood Suites and Staybridge Suites.  It is rare for us to stay at one of what we call lower end hotel chains like a Super 8, Days Inn or even a Best Western.  Nowadays unless it is a bed and breakfast we usually stay away from local mom & pop type places too.  Have we become snooty?

We started driving towards Huntsville, AL, which was advertised at just under 9 hours from where we stayed.  We really did not make any stops until lunchtime, when we got off of the interstate because we were in the mood for pie.  We had visited a rundown place called the Family Pie Shop, in De Valls Bluff, AR several years ago.  The place wasn’t much on the eyes; it was actually not even a restaurant.  It is more of an annex of the house of the woman who bakes the pies.  The pie shop is built out of a former bicycle shed.  Maybe we are not snooty after all?  We remembered they made amazing pies though. On the wall inside was a picture of Bill Clinton when he was governor of AR, eating pie at the pie shop.  People reportedly travel many miles to come to this place and this would have been our second time here.  Unfortunately, likely due to it being Columbus Day, the Pie Shop was closed.  We were not too disappointed though, because right across the street is an amazing BBQ place which again, is more than run down, but the pulled pork sandwiches are to die for.  We ended up getting 4 of them, 2 each and we ate in the car before hitting the road again towards Alabama.  When we almost got to Huntsville we stared passing lots of cotton fields and we stopped to get some pictures.

We got to the airport in Huntsville just after 5.  We had to go there first because we had to return our car and pick up a new one, or as we had hoped, keep the same car and just renew the contract.  We drove into the return area and the guy there didn’t think there would be any problem, he just said we would have to go to the counter and explain to them what we wanted to do.  We drove up and parked near the counter, talked to the people there and had some problems.  Since we had a Suburban but our contract was for an intermediate sized car they said we could not keep the monster unless we paid the extra price.  Chris told a white lie and said that his company would not pay for the bigger car and it would be a major pain in the neck to unpack and repack another car.  Really we had no leverage on our side, just a hope that they would feel bad for us.  The lady then said, ok, let me check in your car then talk to my manager.  We let her check the car in, now we had officially returned the car even though Jackie and all of our stuff was still sitting in it.  She then said that her manager would not allow us to take the car at our price so we would either have to pay extra or take an intermediate car.  We explained that all of our stuff would not fit in an intermediate car so we asked if we could take our Suburban to the hotel to unpack first.  We knew by saying this that we may have had them because since we had returned the car already there was no way they would let us take the car away. So she went back in to talk to the manager, came back out and asked us if we were staying local.  We said we were so they let us take the car we already had under our intermediate contract.  This was good.  Now we would only have to do this one more time at the end of the week when we returned the Suburban and rented something else for the return trip to NY.  We didn’t think we would have any luck based on our most recent experience so we would have to come up with another plan to get our chimeneas and other stuff home, but we had a few days to think about that.

our trip today

Hot Air Balloons and a long drive

We stayed the previous night at the  Hyatt in downtown Albuquerque, which when we made our reservations about 3 weeks ago, was the only place within about 30 miles that had rooms at all.  Originally we were going to wake up before 5 because starting at 5:30 AM they start launching hot air balloons in the dark and supposedly the balloons look really cool with the glow from the fire lighting up the balloons in the night sky.  However we also knew that we got in late the night before plus we had at least a 12 hour drive that day so we decided to sleep in a little bit and arrive at the balloon park around 7:30 for what they call Mass Ascension.  The mass ascension is when pretty much everyone with a hot air balloon launches at about the same time.  There are hundreds of balloons so this takes a couple of hours to get them all in the air.  On the balloon festival’s website we read that you should plan on arriving at the park no later than 6:45 because you would miss out on the launching of the balloons if you got there later.  We also read that since there were roughly 100,000 people arriving, you should plan on sitting in traffic to get into the park.  This meant we might as well get up for the 5 AM show.  However, Chris read online last night on some random site that if you wait and arrive at 7:30 you will still see about 75% of the balloons being launched, plus you will be able to drive right into the parking lot without sitting in traffic.  This was what we wanted.  So we woke up at about 6:30, showered, checked out of our hotel only 7 hours after checking in, and made our way to the balloon park.  Arriving a little later than everyone else might have had its advantages.  Besides not sitting in traffic at all we also did not have to pay the $10 to park!  We walked down towards where they were launching balloons and could not believe what we saw.  Now just about everyone has seen the occasional hot air balloon.  It is always a cool sight.  Some people may have even seen multiple hot air balloons at once, maybe 2 or 3, maybe a half dozen.  That is always a nice treat as well.  If you come to New Mexico in early October you will see hundreds of hot air balloons in the sky and being launched at the same time.  The skies are usually clear and the morning light really makes this scene even more impressive.  There were balloons of every shape, size, style, and color.  Some were regular hot air balloons with nice colors, some were cartoon characters; others were shapes of objects such as an ice cream cone.  What they all had in common was that they were just amazing.  Words cannot describe the scene.  The Balloon Festival is listed in the book “1000 places to see before you die” for a reason.  The really cool thing is that not only can you see these balloons filling up the sky but you can also walk up close and touch them and talk to the owners as they are launching their balloons.  We did notice that the non-traditional balloon shaped balloons seemed to have the most trouble getting launched.  They looked really cool but the wind must have been giving them trouble.  We probably took 200 pictures from every conceivable angle of these things.  We stayed for about two hours at which time about 90% of the balloons had been launched, and like just about everyone else, we started making our way back to the car.  We stopped for a quick breakfast burrito from one of the tents selling food (with green chiles of course) and we made our way to the car.  As we looked around the city (you can see for miles out here) we saw balloons landing in very random places just about everywhere throughout the city.  We drove past a balloon that had landed behind a fast food restaurant in an empty parking lot and we took some pictures.  By this time it was approaching 10 AM and we had to get moving.  The balloons were pretty much all launched so we were not missing out on anything else.  They launch the balloons first thing in the morning then again at dusk, to take advantage of the good lighting. 

We started driving east on I-40 and made our first stop about 40 miles east of Albuquerque at a place called Clines Corners.  We had seen billboards for many miles advertising all the stuff they had here.  We knew what to expect, this place would be similar to South of the Border or Wall Drug in South Dakota….an overpriced tourist trap.  That is exactly what it was.  In 1934 a man named Ray Cline set up a service station on what was then Rte. 66.  The highway has long since been replaced with I-40 but the service center, which has expanded over the years, remains with Cline’s original name. 

By this time we had had enough of interstate driving even though we had only come about 50 miles.  We headed southeast on US 285 to US 60 which we would take east into the Texas panhandle.   The scenery along this highway was much different than we had grown accustomed to over the last week.  We’ve been in the desert for so long that it was strange to see something else.  We were now in grassy plains, the kind where you might expect to see buffalo.  There was still nothing in terms of civilization for miles.  Every 30 miles or so we would come across a small town which more often than not was just a clustering of old run down, broken houses, many of which seemed abandoned.  After about two hours of this we came over a hill and saw a pretty good sized town several miles in the distance.  This was the town of Fort Sumner, NM.  This certainly was not much of a town but it was much bigger than anything we had seen since leaving the interstate a few hours ago.  There wasn’t really anything to speak of in terms of services, at least not along highway 60 but they did have a Billy the Kid museum, which being Sunday in the “winter”, was closed.  We did see a sign for Billy the Kid’s grave, so we headed about 3 miles down a side road to check it out.  Sure enough, in a small cemetery, with the obligatory museum out front, was Billy the Kid’s grave.  Turns out this is where he was killed back in 1881.  After taking some pictures and using the bathroom we were on our way east again across the plains of eastern New Mexico.  We finally stopped for a quick lunch in Clovis, NM.  While it was past lunch time we hadn’t really been hungry since eating our breakfast burrito this morning.  We entered Texas and turned northeast.

Downtown Clovis, NM

You could tell we were now in cattle country.  The towns in the Texas panhandle that we passed through had names like Bovina and Herreford.  The trucks we passed going in the opposite direction mostly had either cattle in them or hay.  We passed a few huge stock yards where thousands of cows were awaiting their fate. 

While the scenery was still flat and very rural, what did stick out for miles away were the grain elevators that each farm had.  Some of the bigger towns had bigger grain elevators.  We also noticed that many people had boxcars on their properties.  We assume an old boxcar makes for a good shed.  If you have the land, why not?  We have always said that if we had the space we would get a caboose but a boxcar would be pretty cool too.  As we came into the town of Dimmit, TX we saw a geocache up ahead that seemed interesting.  The geocache itself was nothing special but the location it brought us to was quite interesting.  It brought us to the storefront of a hardware store called Kerr Hardware that was covered in grimy windows which looked as if they hadn’t been washed in years.  The place literally was falling apart.  If you looked inside of the windows past all of the dirt, it looked like something out of the 1950’s.  There are old wringer washing machines, new bicycles, tricycles, radios, fishing baskets, etc.  Legend has it that in 1961 when the Texas Limited Sales, Excise and Use tax act was enacted, Mr. Kerr, who was obviously a man of principle, got upset because Texas had the audacity to require him to charge a sales tax.  Mr. Kerr said that he would lock the doors before he charged sales tax.  Apparently Mr. Kerr walked out and never came back.  And so today, 50 years later, the hardware store sits, locked up, a snapshot in time.  This was pretty cool.  As for the rest of the town, it too looked like it came right out of the 50’s.  We always wonder why many of these towns do not modernize and why so many people choose to never leave.

Downtown Dimmitt, TX

After a little while longer the grassy plains gave way to some interesting canyons and much more rugged terrain, but only for a little while.  It ultimately returned to flat grass lands again.  We headed northward now and we picked up I-40 again, this time in the eastern part of the Texas panhandle.  We stopped almost immediately at a rest area which was called the Route 66 rest area, probably because it was built on what used to be Route 66 prior to the interstate being built.  We continued driving through the evening.  We had wanted to get as far as Fort Smith, AR that night but we were getting very tired.  Chris figured if we could make it to at least Oklahoma City we would be ok.  We made it through Oklahoma City and we were not too tired yet so we pressed on.  About an hour later it started to hit us.  We were exhausted.  We started looking for a place to stay off of the exits but there was really nothing other than cheap looking places that we did not want to stay at.  Finally we could not take it anymore and we pulled off at the first chain motel we saw, which turned out to be a Super 8.  We took a room and made our way upstairs.  We hit the bed right after midnight and fell immediately asleep.  In the end this was probably our longest driving day ever.  We logged 785 miles!