Ready for takeoff!

Dear Reader,

The cross-country road trip has begun. Charlotte and Keith are escorting Henry and Ruby, Keith’s grand dogs, from home in Maryland to Fort Irwin, California to spend the month of April with Chris, together as a family.

To ensure compliant canines, the morning constitutional is a must. Henry is the dachshund (4yo) which means Ruby is the Doberman (14mo old).

Creek in Roanoke near Covenant Coffee

We achieve on-time departure from Bowie at 09:57. It is cool (cold) but sunny and pushing departure forward to miss the evening rush hour traffic is a strong first logistical decision. Lotte has a boss call at 15:30 and we should be able to take from Salem, VA, our first overnight.

Thanks to the La Quinta Inn & Suites very dog-friendly policy and their road trip-friendly app, booking our hotels was easy and our itinerary clear: Salem (Roanoke) - Nashville - Little Rock - Amarillo - Flagstaff - Ft. Irwin, with a stop in Las Vegas to deliver Keith to his plane.

Plan is to stop every two hours to exercise the dogs and allow the humans to switch drivers. About six hours per day net driving time is the goal, with morning departure around 07:00, which provides hotel arrival around 15:00 check in time and the opportunity to enjoy the evening in each overnight location. Let us see.

Lunch in Charlottesville, of course. Home of UVA we dine outside with Henry and Tiny at the Timberwood Taproom. Salads all around.

Riverside walk and coffee break in Roanoke (“No, Charlotte, it doesn’t rhyme with karaoke.”)

At Greenway Park coffee kiosk Covenant Coffee, iced cappucino for Lotte, traditional 6oz. ‘cino for Keith. Keith unwittingly steals a Covenant Coffee sticker but the owner graciously barters the sticker for a 5-star review.

La Quinta in Salem is everything hoped for: clean, good WiFi, great water pressure (toilet and shower).

Our dinner spots are ideally casual eateries with outdoor dog-friendly spaces. We start at Big Lick Brewing Company in Roanoke for one beer before dinner. And it turns into a whole evening chatting around the fire table with our new local friends Melinda, Kennedy and Will.

Not-so-gentle spur of the Blue Ridge Mountains - but “mountains” a bit of an exaggeration

They do love each other

Dog exercise stop at a lovely park in Bristol, VA

Knoxville is a handsome university town worthy of its general praise and reputation. A lovely lunch near the river at The Plaid Apron, outside on the patio in the shade.

Fancy grilled cheese and tomato soup for Lotte (Keith tries and salutes both) and mixed green salad with chicken and “roasted onion vinegrette” for Keith. And a snickerdoodle each.

Sunrise

Blue Ridge Mountains - nice but…

Keith enjoys the facilities, so much evidently that he leaves one of two phones behind on top of the toilet paper dispenser. Returning to the scene of the incident (see below), the stall is occupied for a long while - but not by the male patron who followed Keith on location.

But there are attentive bathroom attendants and soon all Buc-ee’s Crossville visitors hear the same announcement over the loudspeaker, “Attention, dear guests! Would the elderly man in the white baseball cap who left his phone in the washroom please identify himself to lost and found staff by jumping up and down in front of the Texas Brisket counter?”

Chocolate and cream for dessert at the Plaid Apron

West of Knoxville Tennessee turning grimmer: Trump Mega Store with huge billboard visible from the interstate followed in short order by a giant Confederate flag flying at full mast opposite a 100ft.-tall Polyurethane white cross.

And our first traffic, lots of lanes and cars between Knoxville and the I-75 junction to Chattanooga.

Our La Quinta near BNA airport is the identical layout and amenities, and the room is identical and therefore familiar to the dogs. They seem calm(er) settling in. The location is “airport-sketchy,” with an overturned car and lots of emergency vehicles one light down from the hotel and a parking lots smelling of KFC due to the KFC immediately adjacent. Henry is confused; wants to pee but is distracted looking for fries which he smells due to McDonald’s across the street.

Waiting for Mommy to be finished in the bathroom

The best of Nashville is represented by BBQ at Edley’s on 12 Ave South, where Keith has eaten before. The Avenue South neighborhood was hipster 20yo and still is. Charlotte prefers the ribs - St. Louis cut with red sauce - and Keith agrees to eat ribs only at Edley’s in Nashville. The brisket was fatty and therefore a bit disappointing, and the pulled pork amazing.

Early to eat and early to bed for we four.

Highlight of the day, however, is our maiden voyage to Buc-ee’s. What to say? This is not your grandmother’s gas station.

After lunch in Knoxville, Charlotte naps for the last 20min before arrival at Buc-ee’s in Crossville. “Dad, that was the best sleep in ever the world,” she says, but has it prepared her for Buc-ee’s?

Welcome to the La Quinta - Nashville Airport

Timely start again today in spite of Two Men and One Truck parking loudly outside our room window in the middle of the night. Keith rescues the women and granddogs by downloading a white noise app and selecting Ocean Waves over Amazon Jungle.

The food and ambiance at Ciao Baci is incredible

A bit of traffic getting out of Nashville

The drive on Interstate 40 west from Nashville is surprisingly pleasant with undulating hills and no discernable redneck drivers.

Our first destination today is Memphis, by 11am, for the Peabody Hotel’s duck march and water show. Think La Reve at the Wynn in Vegas without the gambling. We achieve street parking just steps away from the hotel entrance and have time enough to visit the washroom (Keith) before the mallards do their thing, coming down the elevator from the penthouse.

Not super impressed, we are first in line at the lobby gift shop for rubber ducky souvenir and chocolate, and would have been back at the car in a total of 13 minutes if not for the announcement in the lobby, “Would the fat guy in the baby blue polo shirt please claim his two cell phones from the concierge?”

“Where in the middle America are you?” - Anna R.

March of the Ducks, Peabody Hotel

From Memphis we backtrack 25 minutes east to the lovely and expansive Shelby Farms Park and it’s Outback off-leash dog park, the #1 rated dog park in the USA (USA Today)

The drive across the Mississippi is uneventful and also unphotographable as blocked by railway bridges. Michelle at the Arkansas Welcome Center is good for a smile, two stickers and a good story about Bill Clinton’s favorite dive bar in West Memphis (2 out of 3 are true). And that was the best thing about Arkansas for the next 2.5 hours.

However, the La Quinta in Bryant is way, way nicer than either Salem or BNA, and we are hopeful that our selected restaurant for dinner in Little Rock will also meet expectations. And, wow. Ciao Baci in the Hillcrest neighborhood is first-rate fantastic (Lotte: “einfach fantastisch!”) - best meal so far on Road Trip 2026 and ready to face all challengers.

Small charcuterie board and cucumber dip with grilled pita to start, quiche with cheese, mushrooms and carmelized onions for Lotte and yellowtail poke spicy tacos for Keith. The Aperol spritzes are just the ticket to cut the edge off a long day.

Perhaps not a coincidence, Hillcrest uncannily shares the same bohemian vibe as Nashville’s Avenue South neighborhood from last night. Well done, Little Rock!

The mighty Tennessee River

Keith stops again

Underwhelming crossing of the Mississippi River

Ciao Charlotte!

Henry at Shelby

Ruby at Shelby

Arkansas River before sunrise

You may not know, dear reader, that seven years running Maryland has the worst motor vehicle drivers of any state. About half way through Road Trip 2026, Lotte and Keith concur: Maryland has the worst drivers in America. Virginians and Tennesseans are decent, save around Memphis which is pretty horrible, vehicularly speaking.

In retrospect, Virginia is quite lovely, and historical. We passed James Madison’s Montpelier, Lee’s Headquarters, were near Appomattox Courthouse. In eastern Tennessee, the highlights include an entire town of mobile homes visible from the interstate. Six churches, two gas stations (closed) and mobile homes in multiple subdivisions (is it Atkins?) - and the birthplace of Dave’s Crockett in Limestone (saw the sign, did not stop).

We also did not stop at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex (home of the Manhattan Project and Cillian Murphy). Keith explained that Lotte’s DoD CAC card, while it gets us onto Fort Mead, home of the NSA, for example, would not gain us access to Oak Ridge for the simple reason that Oak Ridge is administered by the Dept of Energy and not Defense. #nationalsecurityminutewithkeith

While eastern Arkansas makes Keith think of the dust bowl as featured in that black-and-white Henry Fonda movie (The Grapes of Wrath, 1940), the run into Fort Smith is greener, the fields, the trees. Feels like two distinctly different places. We are heading toward Oklahoma which is the birthplace of the dust bowl.

Last night after lights out:

Lotte: “Dad, can I ask you a question?”

Keith: “Of course, Lotte. What is it?”

Lotte: “Why do you go to the bathroom so often?”

Keith: “Good night, Charlotte.”

Lotte: “Good night, Dad.”

Fun fact about Arkansas: it’s illegal to mispronounce the name Arkansas. A 1917 law, re-authorized in 1947, defines the pronounciation as “Arkansaw” with a silent “s.” The statute was enacted to honor and protect the indigenous people/French/Spanish fusion origin of the name.

Birthplace of meth

Exercised the dogs month soccer field at Fort Smith Park, on the Arkansas River. The third-largest city in the state today, Fort Smith was founded in 1817 as a military outpost to supervise competing Native American tribes, was a strategic center captured and recaptured during the Civil War, and is most in/famous for its location vis-a-vis the Trail of Tears (genocide/ethnic cleansing of the American southeast: The Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Osage and Seminole nations were forcibly transported from their homelands to the new Indian Territory west of the Arkansas River).

In the 1880’s Fort Smith was the quintessential frontier town, the stuff Westerns are still made of. It was the seat of Isaac C. Parker, US district judge for the Western District of Arkansas, which also included jurisdiction over the utterly lawless Indian Territory, and that refers to white men. He was sensationalized in the press as The Hanging Judge due to meting out 160 death sentences in name of law and order.

One of the first African-American Federal Marshall’s, Bass Reeves, made his career serving under Parker in the Indian Territory. Can recommend reading up on Reeves.

In 1907 Oklahoma achieved statehood and joined the Indian Territory to the Oklahoma Territory. To this day virtually the entirety of the eastern half of the state is made up of the Osage, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee Reservations.

Contrary to Keith’s expectations, and packing, it’s fucking freezing today. Only his blubber layer negates the need to haul down the suitcase from the cargo box and fetch jeans and jacket.

Oklahoma City and the massive Tinker AFB give way to the flat windmilled near-nothingness of western Oklahoma, unless you appreciate the austere beauty of the Texas Panhandle because it looks exactly like that.

Buc-ee’s Amarillo is exactly the same as the one in TN except for the stickers are Texan and bigger.

Dinner at the Pondeseta Brewing Co. consists of a (Keith is told) “girl meal” of fries and hummus tray (?) and spicy asada tacos the man. Wine and beer is also ingested. At press time, Ruby is alerting based on dogs in the hallway so Keith ups the volume on White Noise | City Streets in a Rainstorm. “Ruby, no!”

Our longest day on the road this far, we make it to Shawnee, OK before hunger sets in. Chicken noodle soup and spicy chicken filet (Lotte) and romaine with almonds, apples, strawberries and grilled chicken breast (Keith) in a clean and welcoming dining atmosphere.

These chicken people should take over airport security nationwide.

Not only does she pump her own gas…

U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves

No worries: Oklahoma is still…

The Hanging Judge (Parker)

…a Christian nation

West Texas sunrise

Indian City - home of Navajo fry bread and clean bathrooms

And in case you are unclear

BNSF intermodal block train. Lots of them this day.

Morning canine constitutional, today in Santa Rosa

The Blue Hole, Santa Rosa

Route 66 at Santa Rosa

All explained

Route 66 at Newkirk, NM