Loom Rescue

4/28/21

On this day, we finally, after some further adventures, picked up the cargo van, got things sorted, and left Nashville, driving to Staunton, VA. We had intended to make it a lot further on Day 1, but didn’t leave Nashville until noon, thanks primarily to U-Haul.

Again, let’s use the posts put up at the time to tell the story, with commentary where necessary.

7:50A:

WanderingBeekeeper - Enterprise didn't have the van at the places in Franklin. We're driving back across Nashville to Donelson to pick up the alleged van. #loomreacue

8:39A:

WanderingBeekeeper - My spouse's father, who we need to rent the truck because Enterprise has a rule that your license must list an address no more than fifty miles from the rental location, forgot his driver's license. We have to go all the way back across Nashville to Spring Hill to get it, then back to the rental place, and hope they still have a van by then.

10:20A:

WanderingBeekeeper - Back at Enterprise, having driven across the city and back to retrieve my father in law's driver's license. Waiting to see if we pass all the wealth checks and are allowed to rent a van this time. #loomrescue

At long last, we were successful, and obtained a Ram Promaster 2500 cargo van, that would be our home for the next five days. It came with an appliance dolly, as requested.

We went back to the house. Caroline, our youngest at age 21, and I pulled the broken washer from the laundry room, and put it in the van to take to the Pine Bush house. We moved the good washer from the garage to the laundry room. I got the water inlet hoses hooked up and tested, and then discovered the outflow hose was missing. I spoke with Sean, middle kid, and he will go get one and finish installing. That was taken care of before we got back, so all ended well there.

We finished loading. Cooler, drinks, tote bags with crackers and such. We still didn’t have shower stuff, and put it on a list to get later.

12:30p

WanderingBeekeeper - #LoomRescue we are moving! After 24 hours of bullshit, we have the cargo van, we've loaded our bags and the cooler, and we're on our way. Plan right now is to drive into the evening and lay over in Chambersburg PA.

We ran into heavy rain leaving Nashville, occasional clear areas but obscuring vision in most. We reached the I-40 split at 1:20p and headed east, past Cedars of Lebanon State Park. Tennessee mooches a lot of names, like most American states. To be fair, it's near a small town named Lebanon. It's not known for being welcoming to actual Lebanese folks.

At 2:15p, we reached Cookeville. This is decidedly slow going. The weather caused massive traffic delays. People caused multiple traffic accidents, driving badly in the weather, and that caused further delays. Getting past Knoxville took us four hours.

At 4:49p, we were at Ash Cabin Hollow, near Harriman, Rugby, Midtown. The name caught my attention and I noted it as a benchmark.

Our first fueling stop topped out at $50, the limit for a CashApp card, which got us 18.5 gallons.

At 5:18p, we passed I-75, at the outskirts of Knoxville, and started our attempt to cross through at rush hour. This was a bad move, but the only option available, and the less said, the better.

7:35P:

https://wandering.shop/@WanderingBeekeeper/106145575189766843: WanderingBeekeeper - We have crossed into Virginia, having traveled across the width of Tennessee to reach the northbound route we needed. #LoomRescue​

7:47P: We are 9.5 hours from our destination, 18 miles into Virginia.

8:17P:

WanderingBeekeeper - Waffle House was out of chicken. For a company known for its logistics, this is worrying. We moved to Applebee's because it was right across the parking lot, and has keto items so my spouse can also dine. #LoomRescue

10:38P:

WanderingBeekeeper - We're stopping for the night in Staunton, Virginia. Going to be a hard push tomorrow, but we'll make Pine Bush in time to load and put a little distance behind us before we have to stop again. #LoomRescue​

By the time we got moving, we knew we weren’t going to make it to Chambersburg. The best we could do was Staunton. By then, we were both badly fatigued. Thanks to Steve, the night auditor at the hotel who worked with Expedia to get my mistake corrected, we got a room for the night. I mentioned him by name in my five-star review of the place.

As a sidebar, yes, I take doing reviews on Google Maps seriously. I made a decision about it a while back, that if I was going to start doing reviews, I was going to do it properly, or not at all. If things go well, I try to pick out a detail or two that stood out, especially if I can point out a customer-facing employee by name. I’m specific about why I take off a star, and sometimes have suggestions as to how the situation could be corrected. I try to be fair and honest, and provide useful information to other customers and to the business. In this case, I made an error booking the stay with Expedia. Steve worked with Expedia to fix it and get us into a room, and was thus deservedly mentioned to Corporate, who you know reads the reviews. I get replies on some of them. Some are obviously boilerplate posted by a script, but I’ve had human responses at times.

So we got checked in, got a ground-level accessible room which was useful for both of us at that point. We used the hotel soap and shampoo, groused about it, and resolved to find a grocery or bodega or something and get proper shower supplies the next day. You’ll see how well that worked.