2.16.13

Marita picked me up in her SMART car this morning at 8:00 to drive from Goshen, IN to Franklin, NC.  We looked at the googlemap directions which suggested driving to Ft. Wayne, then Indianapolis  then Cincinnati, Lexington, Knoxville, and finally, Franklin.  We thought we were smarter than the computer.  So instead of going to Indianapolis as the directions suggested, we took US 33 to Ft. Wayne and then continued on to Richmond, IN on US 27.  It was a more interesting drive, but infinitely slower.  We also saw more cop cars than we could count as we drove along.

Then we cut over to KY where we stopped at the Creation Museum, which you might remember from my previous post.  The Creation Museum focuses a lot on showing that Evolution is not true, but Creation is.  Marita told me about a paper that she wrote in college on this subject in which she argued that, because she is an artist, she sees no problem saying that the world was created, and also that the creation is an evolving thing.  Just as an artist evolves and continues to work on a piece of art or sculpture.  It was an interesting perspective and I'm glad to hear it.  Marita said that she was disappointed that the museum premise was "The Bible is true because the Bible says it is True.  Therefore if the Bible says X then science must be interpreted as such _________"  Instead she was hoping that it would say something more like this, "Science shows us this, and that dovetails into the Bible because....."  But we're glad that we stopped in to see what it was all about.  The museum was crowded with visitors.  And from an exhibit we learned a new favorite phrasing, "He died an unbeliever."  (Code, he went to hell.)  We spent the rest of the day using various versions of "you'll die an unbeliever" because we thought it was funny.

Then we stopped for a sandwich and also went to Dick's Sporting Goods to buy camping fuel and Super Feet insoles for my boots.  Then we actually started driving on a highway around 3 pm and tried to make faster time.  We stopped at a Shoney's restaurant somewhere in TN for dinner and the waitress, in her thick Southern accent, told us that it was snowing a lot and would keep snowing all night and she was very concerned about this.  Marita and I had noticed a few flakes, but nothing that we were concerned about, so we chalked it up to being in the south where they don't see as much snow.

After eating we started driving and the roads became more mountainous and more snowy.  Marita and I had packed up my first box of food to take the the Budget Inn in Franklin, where I could get it after two days of hiking.   Marita and I thought we could just check in there for the night and leave the box at the desk for me to use two days later. So around 10:30, as Marita drove, I called The Budget Inn to make sure that they had rooms available. But no one answered the phone.  So I looked in the hiker book and found that a man named Ron throws a hiker party every year in Franklin, and the e-mail address listed for him matched the e-mail address given for the Budget Inn.  So I called his number. A sleepy man answered and I learned that he is not Ron, but he is the manager of Saphire Inn and they had rooms open for the night.  I decided that since he answered the phone he should get our business instead of the Budget Inn.  He told me that the hotel just opened two days earlier (I'm guessing they close seasonally).  He informed me that he was from Illinois and had moved to Franklin two days earlier when the hotel opened to become the manager, so he could not really give me directions, but he was sure I'd find the hotel.  He warned that the roads were very slippery and that we should drive slowly.

Again Marita and I shrugged it off and kept driving, never feeling unsafe in the SMART car.  Until we were behind a plow and in front of a pickup.  Marita changed to the left lane to pass the plow and the truck behind us moved up beside us.  Suddenly the plow, which I guess couldn't see us, came over into the left lane also.  Marita hit the breaks and pulled left onto the shoulder.  I think another inch on the right and the plow would have clipped us, and another inch on the left and we would have bounced off of the guardrail.  It was really scary.  I'm glad that my sister is such a good driver.  We went a little more slowly after that.  We saw two cars in the ditch, and a third that we watched spin off the road right in front of us.  We were glad to pull into the hotel just about midnight.

The man who had answered the phone checked us in, a bit bewildered by his new job, but cordial enough.  The room was definitely a cheap motel room.  Marita even slept in my sleeping bag because she wasn't sure she felt the sheets were clean.  But there was heat and hot water.  We decided to look at maps in the morning and get some sleep while we could.

Marita in the hotel room.