At least it sure feels that way.

Day 1 of our little Christmas adventure turned out to be a bit more adventurous than we had hoped. I had the van all packed Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning we were up early and ready to take off. About 7:15 I went out to start the van to get it warmed up, and click-click-click-click-click-click-click. Wouldn’t start. Nada. Finally got it jump-started, and not knowing what might be wrong, took it down to the mechanic who managed to sneak it in. After checking things over, he diagnosed a weak battery, so we had it replaced and were finally on our way about 3 hours behind schedule.

After one false start (forgot the phone chargers at home, go back 4 miles to get them), we were on our way south. Actually more east first, through eastern Iowa and Illinois. I think we managed to take one of the slowest routes to Nashville. It looks straight enough on the map, but take a little hint from me and Messrs. Rand and McNally: the blue roads travel faster than the orange roads. Blue roads don’t have stoplights. Blue roads don’t force you to slow down to 30 mph for small towns. I will not forget this lesson.

We stopped at a Cracker Barrel somewhere in Illinois for lunch, and at an Arby’s in Vincennes, IN for supper. We ended up getting to Nashville about 10:15 pm. We are staying at the Opryland resort, which is just amazing. I’ll post more about it tomorrow, along with lots of pics.