Day 9: Tenessesee to Virginia Drive

We left Nashville in the late morning and made our way east then north towards Virginia. Warned by some that VA was an unpleasant place, we found the drive to be extremely pleasant (well most of it, more on that later). There were rolling hills, cows, green trees, and more rolling hills with green trees...for miles in all directions. It was probably the most leisurely drive we've had the whole trip, save for Kansas but that was a dry boring landscape.

The drive was great until it started to rain. Only slightly at first which is when we stopped for gas. At that point Jackie took over and then the downpour began!! It was so bad that at one point we pulled off the road and waited for it to die down. You couldn't see a thing. But Jackie did a great job and I commend her for her excellent rain driving skills. Sometimes I still get nervous with her driving since she's a newbie. But all in all she is a damn fine driver.

The rain finally subsided and we made our way to Roanoke, VA where we will be staying the night. Up to this point anywhere in between relatives and friends houses we had been camping to save money. But a quick look at the weather forecast showed rain all week, and no one likes rain camping. So we decided to stay at a little B&B just outside of town called the Black Lantern Inn. A home from the 1920's that has been renovated into a place to stay by a local couple. The place is amazing on the inside and they've done quite a bit of work to rebuild it.

In the evening we drove to downtown Roanoke. We had dinner at a decent indian restaurant and walked around the old downtown market area. Which of course was closed but looks fantastic and I'm hoping its open tomorrow so I can take pictures. We were going to call it a night but stumbled upon an old Irish pub with live music. In my opinion there is nothing better than an old pub with good beer and irish bands playing, so we stuck around for a drink and not realizing that it was also quiz night listened as the announcer gave the answers to the quiz questions. After some more tunes and sitting outside to watch the rain we decided to pack it in so we could get up early in the morning, have breakfast, check out the market and be on our way.