Originally we'd planned to go to Mammoth Caves on Thursday and accumulate break-in miles on the car before autocrossing it Friday. Of mice and men.
After our baby pictures, we went to the mall. Got screwdrivers at Sears, got another tape adapter at Radio Shack, got some music at DJs.
Then we went to Wal-Mart to drop off Jennifer's film. With an hour to kill before they're developed, Jennifer suggests we install the car's bra. I foolishly agree.
An afternoon of confused-frustration-related profanity ensues. We discover we need a 7mm wrench. We buy a cheap wrench set at Wal-Mart. I put the wrong fasteners in the wheel wells, discover the mistake after a five-minute barrage of insults at the unnamed quality-control person who shorted me a fastener, then launch a ten-minute barrage of insults at the unnamed engineer who designed the right fasteners which don't make any sense. I then spend ten minutes laying down with my head under the nose of the car installing the remaining fasteners as people stare at the nut-job with the shiny new car laying down in the grease of a Wal-Mark parking lot.
Jennifer comes back with her pictures and helps wrestle the bra into place over the nose of the car. As we discover on Saturday, the bra is (thankfully) much easier to remove, which is as it should be.
On to Shoney's to pick up Jennifer's Registry badge, which she'd left there Wednesday night.
With less than 250 miles on the car, and most of the day gone, Jennifer suggests we go to Nashville (about 60 miles) for dinner. Since the Interstate is a no-no during break-in, we need to take secondary roads down and back. Kentucky and Tennessee have no shortage of these roads.
Armed with a paper highway map and electronic mapping software on the notebook, getting to Nashville and back on secondary roads should be easy. Whoever said getting there is half the fun missed our Nashville excursion.
After a missed exit sent us ten miles down the interstate (tip: don't miss your exit in Kentucky; it's a long piece to the next one), the trip down on U.S. 31W was pleasant. Small towns and beautiful countryside rolled by, our new Valentine One radar detector proved its worth repeatedly (thanks to all who helped buy it for my birthday), telling us where the hungry local constabulatory was well before he was close enough to give us the evil eye.
Once in Nashville, we were pulled over -- for no license plate. We showed the officer our temporary tag (which had fallen out of view in the window) and were sent on our way.
At the recommendation of the Rennaisance Hotel concierge, we dined at Demo's. Busy but not noisy, great food up fast, even greater service from a mind-reading waitress.
We get lost leaving Nashville, going U.S. 31E instead of 31W. We get back to 31W/41W but miss the split and wind up on 41W. At this point it's after 11pm so we just take the interstate, speeding up and slowing down and changing gears twice a minute to help break in the car properly. We finally collapse in bed just after midnight.
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