{"id":16889,"date":"2025-10-07T21:10:49","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/?p=16889"},"modified":"2025-10-07T21:10:49","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:10:49","slug":"spinning-the-odometer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/2025\/10\/07\/spinning-the-odometer\/","title":{"rendered":"Spinning the Odometer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The trip, post-Archon, to date has added a lot of miles. First it was Collinsville to the Great Smoky Mountains. I drove down through the park to Cherokee, then up to Asheville, NC (the place where it flooded). Then over to the Blue Ridge Parkway and about 100 twisty-turned miles, many of them in heavy fog. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today I spent far too many miles on the interstate, (there was a backup where I spent over an hour creeping along at a walking pace) heading toward Natchez Trace Parkway. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natchez Trace is one of my favorite roads and I’ve driven it many times in the past. It’s about 450 miles long from Nashville to Vicksburg and of course I didn’t do any research. I know almost every pull-out and hiking trail on the thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So when I planned to spend the night at one of the free campgrounds, I subtracted the destination, mile 191, from the current mile number on the post beside the road, divided it by the speed limit (50) and asked Siri when sundown was due.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mistake number one: Siri gave me the sunset time in one timezone and my math assumed another, so I was driving in the dark for an hour. I did see a deer and either a small coyote or a fox. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mistake number two: I didn’t do my research. I didn’t notice the posted message about construction and the closed section of the road, which included the campground I hoped for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, exit the park at the detour and pull out my handy guide to Interstate Rest Areas. Fifty miles later, I at least have a place to sleep (in my car), a restroom, and a row of vending machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The trip, post-Archon, to date has added a lot of miles. First it was Collinsville to the Great Smoky Mountains. I drove down through the park to Cherokee, then up to Asheville, NC (the place where it flooded). Then over to the Blue Ridge Parkway and about 100 twisty-turned miles, many of them in heavy… Continue reading Spinning the Odometer<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":false,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[550],"tags":[56],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4t90x-4op","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16889"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16891,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16889\/revisions\/16891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}