Pre-GoatRun: Day 1

Today was occupied by 8 hours of driving on Interstate 40 across Tennessee… and about two minutes in Georgia.

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The scenery wasn’t bad, but compared to the past few days… it was crap. The driving wasn’t like I-80 through Nebraska, but compared to the past few days… it was crap. The only historical site I contemplated visiting was the Jack Daniels Distillery, but it would have required an hour detour… In hindsight I probably should have gone.

For some reason, today there were a whole bunch of big rigs on the road… don’t they know it’s Saturday!?! For the most part I was able to work my way past them, but there were a few times it became tricky. Fortunately early on in the day I let a truck in ahead of me, so my “trucker karma” was high. While most trucks were nothing special, there were a few that I needed to get past quickly!

While the trucks in Tennessee weren’t a problem, the drivers of cars/trucks were. I’ve driven in many places before (including with cabbies in New York City), but these guys were nuts! I was just trying to drive at my own pace, but I was getting run over left and right… by guys towing trailers… and I was still going 10 mph over the speed limit!

To make things even worse, just as I was entering Memphis on I-40 my car decided to go into “Limp Mode”. Now, the new tune doesn’t throw a DTC that needs to be cleared, but for some reason I wasn’t able to get the car out of Limp Mode while under motion. At this point I was forced to pull-off this 5-lane intersection and beat my head against the steering wheel until my car wanted to run properly. Fortunately the merge back onto the freeway was easy… as my 0-65 mph only takes a couple of seconds!

I only had the one issue with Limp Mode, and the rest of the drive went smoothly. After checking into my hotel and relaxing for a little while, I headed-out to find some dinner. I also spent some time driving around trying to find a decent photo location… as when I don’t include photos from the road I get complaints.

For dinner I went to the Whole Hog Cafe for some World Championship Barbeque. I had an awesome pulled pork sandwich (with their #5 sauce) and some tasty potato salad. I was very tempted to get some more BBQ for the road, but I don’t think eating it for breakfast would be a good idea.

Tomorrow is another day of boring driving along I-40, but I hope to make the best of it. Worst case I should be a couple hundred miles closer to GoatRun!

Update: At one point just outside of Memphis a Gold Porsche 911 came past me. A little farther down the road I noticed him pulling off into a rest stop with his hand out of his sunroof… and it almost looked like he was flipping me off. I didn’t think I did anything stupid, but maybe it was because I was driving like a slowpoke? Well, it turns out the driver of the 911 owns a GTO, noticed my GoatRun stickers, and was trying to get me to pull into the rest stop! It would have been cool to talk with an Arkansas GOAT owner… I think there needs to be an international “GTO owner hand signal” or something!