On the road to Lexington, Ky.

Taking the back roads might be the only real way to see the country.


Silos on U.S. 11 through southern Tennessee. We're off-roading it now.


The busiest McDonald's on the planet. It's in Athens, Tenn., the "friendly city."


A truck loaded with lumber shared the road with us for part of the trip.


Is every bowling alley in the South out of business?


You know you're in Tennessee when ... you see an "If it flies, it dies" bumper sticker. We'd also asked a gentleman in a truck next to us if he had any suggestions for good places to eat in town. "Well, there's a Ryan's Steakhouse up ahead," he replied. We don't think so.


Eating at Brownie's reminded me of the scene in "Back to the Future" when Marty McFly visits a 1950s-style diner. We didn't look like locals so we got a few stares.


After our jaunt on U.S. 11 in Tennessee, we stopped to repack the trunk.


Of course, as we drove through Knoxville we had to give a shout-out to friend Adriana Gomez, who graduated with us in 1990 from Coconut Creek High. Adriana works at the gym seen in this distant billboard.

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Tech report: We left Cartersville, Ga., on I-75 at 10:31 a.m. We entered Tennessee at Chatanooga at 12:36 p.m. At 12:55 p.m. in Cleveland, Tenn., we left I-75 for the scenic U.S. 11/64 toward Knoxville. We rejoined the interstate south of Knoxville and continued to Lexington. We got in around 5:30 p.m. Danielle attended the Dance Trance.

From Mark: Seems I'm always worried about "making good time." I think a lot of that came from childhood trips with Grandma and Grandpa, who detested stopping so much that they often kept a tin can in the car. Need to urinate? Well, there's the tin can.

With that in mind, it was difficult for Danielle to persuade me to take backroads on our way to Lexington from Cartersville. I wanted to get there the quickest way possible because that meant more time for us to do stuff at our destination. I told Danielle, “I have a problem with a 35 mph speed limit.”
But this time, I would not regret my decision to veer from I-75. Along U.S. 11 in Tennesse, we saw some unusual sights -- such as rolling hills, hay bails, silos, the Pop-a-Top pub and various side-of-the-road restaurants. At one of these restaurants, Brownie’s in Athens, Tenn., we went back in time. We sat in wooden booths with five layers of paint, eyed desserts (“desert” on the menu) for $1.50; paid $3 for a BLT and $2.25 for a grilled cheese. Older Southern ladies ran the place.

It had taken us a while to agree on a place to dine. We didn't want to eat at a franchise, and we didn't want to be the only people there. So, with about a dozen cars parked in front, we decided on Brownie's.

I ordered a grilled-cheese sandwich, which came with fries, and Danielle had a BLT with green beans and cole slow. Danielle had her usual water with lemon, while I, of course, had to sample the sweet tea. I wasn't disappointed, as it was the finest to date.

Before getting back on I-75 we had one problem to resolve. I had a few goals going into this trip. For one, I didn't want the backseat of my car getting cluttered the way Danielle's did during last year's trip. In leaving Cartersville, I jammed as much stuff into the trunk as possible. And, of course, I overdid it, as the trunk wouldn't open the very first time we needed to get into it.

Little problems like this often make my mind race. The seats folded down, allowing us to get to the trunk. But what would we do if this didn't resolve the problem? I kept thinking back to "Doc Hollywood" and how the Michael J. Fox character was stuck in the backwoods for longer than expected. 

We unloaded the trunk's luggage through the backseat and inserted the key.....The trunk opened, and we were on our way down the road.
With some rain clouding the road, we listened to a book on tape (“Lucky” by Alice Sebold) as we pulled into Lexington.