Day 12: Nashville TN to Erie PA

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Today is pretty unexciting as far as the plan goes — drive north and east, and put me within a short day’s drive of Montreal. I wonder if I can make Erie, which my GPS tells me is 10½ hours away…

I started by heading north out of Nashville, and so thus across Kentucky. There’s signs for the huge cave complex, just off the road. This is one of the funny things about this trip — you read about stuff like this in a magazine but you never think you’ll make it there, and now I’m driving by. As I look on the map, I realize Lincoln’s birthplace is about 10 miles off the road. The site is a neat way to learn a little more about this American president, and an hour and a half later I’m on the road. I decided to keep on the side road I was on — it wasn’t that much slower than the Interstate, especially considering the 10 miles I’d have to backtrack to go back to I-65, plus the side road (US-35E) was much more beautiful. Lunch was a ‘home made’ sandwich from the deli at the IGA in New Haven, and then on past Cincinnati, where I got back on the Interstate. From Cincinnati, I got on the I-71, which has a very handy northeast angle across the state of Ohio. Just south of Cleveland, a little bit of fog rolled in, and with the full moon and the trees and the night sky, it made for a beautiful scene (but one nearly impossible to capture on film, unfortunately). As a side tour through Cleveland, I stopped in and managed to find the complex in Beechwood where I lived several years ago. From there, it was east along the I-90. I got to Erie PA about one in the morning, but while the rest of the world may be on Eastern Time, my head is still somewhere between Mountain and Central, so it didn’t seem near that late and I felt like I could keep going for a while, I figured I’d better stop for the night as the next stretch of road was pretty bare, with no obvious place to stop. Tomorrow: Montreal!!

leave Nashville TN — 10:20am (CDT) — 225,945km
Cave City KY (gas $21) — 11:45am — 226,086km
Lincoln’s Birthplace (crest $6.31) — 12:35 to 2:05pm — 226,150km
New Haven KY (lunch at IGA $2) — 2:30 to 2:45pm
Rest Stop, I-71 mp 10 (nap), Ohio — 3:55 to 4:30pm — 226,272km
Ohio Welcome Center — 6:05 to 6:20pm — 226,460km
Jeffersonville OH (gas $26.25 Pizza $3.29) — 6:55 to 7:25pm - 226,518km
Beachwood OH (sidetrip…) — 10:05 to 10:35pm — 226,817km
Pennsylvania Welcome Center — 11:45pm — 226,924km
arrive Eria PA — about midnight (CDT) — 226,972km

Today — US$58.85 — 10h05 — 1027km
Total — CAD$1150.05 — 71h20 — 7447km