Sunday 4-30-23 Leaving Virgina, More Pinball

 Welcome to Tennessee

After four outstanding nights at Cumberland Gap National Historic Park we moved on.

I woke up at 7:15 and got dressed. We had an English muffin for breakfast. We wanted to get an early start. We also needed to stop at the dump station and fill our fresh water tank. We hadn't added water to it in about eight days. After breakfast we put things away and down. I made sure everything was secure. Larry started the Minnie and put the step up, then he moved the Minnie forward to get it off the blocks. We stacked the blocks and Larry put them in storage. We were ready to go a little after 8:00.

We were the only people at the dump station, not too surprising this early, however being a Sunday it will get busy quickly. Larry decided to dump the tanks even though they didn't need to be. He normally dumps them whenever he has to opportunity. While he dumped the tanks I walked to the dumpsters and got rid of the trash and I put our cans in the recycle bin. By the time I got back Larry was filling the Minnie with fresh water. When this was done and the hose was put back in it's place we were on the road.

Cumberland Gap National Historic Park is in three different states, Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. It's a gorgeous park with a lot of hiking. We exited the park the same way we came in. 

We only drove a couple of miles before we entered into Tennessee. Today we didn't go through the tunnel but we saw it. We drove about 300 miles through gorgeous country. We drove mainly two lane highways through small towns. The last 100 miles were driven on an interstate. The two lane highway part of the drive was very relaxing and mainly at 45mph or 55 mph. We saw horses, cattle and a lot of green pastures. I'm proud of myself I stayed awake the whole ride.

We don't know when the time zone changed back to central time. There was no sign but I looked at the phone and it had changed from eastern to central. We stopped at a rest area and had sandwiches for lunch. 

After lunch we were back on the road. Larry drove to Murfreesboro. which was 230 miles from Cumberland Gap. We filled the Minnie up with gas. Then we went a couple of blocks to Flashback Arcade to play pinball. It was a big building, they had 40 pinball machines and two big rooms full of arcade games. A lot of pinball machines were turned off because the person running it didn't want the kids to abuse them. Larry had to ask him to get permission to turn the machines on that we wanted to play. It took a bit but the guy finally agreed to let Larry turn them on and off. The arcade area was very busy. Three of the arcade games were huge (Pac Man, Space Invader and I can't remember the third one). We played the Space Invaders game. It was very cool. We played a few other arcade games. They had a lot of the arcade games we have including Tapper. It was fun to play it. We played a lot of the pinball machines. Some of the games we have. We had a great time playing games for a couple of hours.

Flashback Arcade

Playing Space Invaders

 

A couple of guys playing Pac Man

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Dr. No (we have)

F-14 Tomcat

After playing games we got back on the road. Larry was going to drive another two to three hours but the wind was very strong and blowing the Minnie around. He ended up only doing about 60 miles to a Walmart in Dickinson. We parked the Minnie for the night. Then we went into Walmart and bought a few things including a rotisserie chicken. It has been a few years since we bought one, when they were $5 they were a deal, not so much now at $7. It was a quick and delicious dinner.

We spent the rest of the evening reading. No games today because of limited power. I finished reading Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner. It was a great fiction story about two sisters, who were separated during the war in the 1940s in England when Hitler invaded London. Then I asked Larry to choose another book. I started reading Sarah's Quilt by Nancy E. Turner.