Atlanta, GA - Warsaw, IN in four easy steps

We arrived late at our booked hotel, somewhere in Nowhere, TN. I think our GPS said it would take 4 hours from Atlanta, but the trip was much longer and difficult due to heavy rain, traffic, hills and darkness, not to mention a fussy baby who didn't want to sit strapped into a car seat. The hotel was great though, with a large room, big beds, and a hot southern breakfast, including biscuits and gravy!

The next day we drove for about an hour to Nashville, TN where we stopped at the Antique Archaeology store, because my little group of American Pickers fans wanted to see it. Lots of cool stuff there! We left the store around lunch time, looking for a place to eat, and ran straight into a restaurant called Jack's BBQ. It was really good, with a homemade BBQ sauce bar, and when we later looked it up online, it turns out it's famous!

 After Nashville we continued north and arrived at the Mammoth caves in IN around 3 pm, just in time for one of the last caving tours of the day. Large caves, some beautiful spaces and great tours, but if you've recently visited caves in Greece, Italy and/or the Jeita grottos in Lebanon, you'll find the Mammoth caves a little less exciting. Hum. It was a fun stop, in any case, and made our last drive of the day, to Louisville, KY, easy.

In Louisville we stayed at the same chain hotel as in TN, Comfort suites & inn by Carson, and the hotels were pretty much identical, with a nice pool, great breakfast, comfortable rooms. The next morning after check-out we headed over to the Louisville Slugger museum and factory downtown for a tour and a visit. My little baseball crowd was in heaven for a few hours, and we even left with a new baseball bat, personalized, despite my protests that we had more things than we could take with us already.

After a late lunch just down the street from the museum we got in the car and drove the last bit from Louisville, through Indianapolis, to northern IN. The stops and comfortable hotels on this trip made our transfer so much easier, and even fun. On to new adventures!

Road trip, day 4: from Bryson City, NC to Atlanta, GA - arrival

This day was our last drive (170 miles), and we were eager to get to our new house, so we started early, however the drive was slow, as Max had had his fill of sitting in a car seat and uncomfortable, insufficient nursing breaks. He cried, and I stopped to hold and nurse him, but it barely helped, as he would start crying again as soon as he was back in his seat. Not even Bob Dylan’s Jokerman, which had helped soothe him to sleep throughout most of the trip, worked. It was a beautiful but stressful drive. Thankfully, our GPS found its signal again, and guided us straight to our house, which we had rented online. What a feeling, coming up on our address and hearing, “Your destination is on your right. You have arrived.”

Renting a house online is probably not a good idea, but what choice did we have? We were a bit nervous about the whole thing (worst case scenario: we had been completely ripped off), but when we arrived, the house and everything was there, exactly as in the pictures, keys on the kitchen counter. The only thing pictures or Google had not prepared us for was how hilly it was. Our house is on a big slope. Perhaps the name of the area: “Druid HILLS” should have turned on a light in our little heads – in any case, we were quite relieved, happy and excited to finally be here. We had a house! Yay. But no furniture. So after we had managed to bring all our stuff into the house, we set the GPS to IKEA and spent the next 6 hours trying to figure out the best way to get what we needed without going completely broke.

Road trip, day 3: from Hazard, KY to Bryson City, NC

We spent the night in Kentucky in a hotel. The next morning we went to visit Courtney's aunt in Viper, who fixed us a fabulous Kentucky breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, fried bologna and gravy, and then we went to the family cemetery where Courtney’s grandma and grandpa are buried, among other family members. 

It’s a peculiar experience, to drive through such small communities. At one point we got really lost and stopped to knock on someone’s door, to ask if they knew the exact location of the cemetery: a random house, but sure enough, not only could they happily direct us, but they also remembered Courtney’s uncles and grandparents. The man at the door, yelling back into the house where his old grandpa and wife were sitting, “Yo'all remember them Fugate boys that lived up the creek?” As we drove off, following directions like, “take a right at the end of the corn field,” we imagined they were still exchanging stories about our family, stories that we would have loved to hear.

Our drive that day went through four states (260 miles). Courtney was determined to photograph all the signs, welcoming us into each state, but guess what? It’s really hard to take pictures of road signs that you pass on a highway!

We arrived quite late at our motel in Bryson City - tired, exhausted  - and crashed right away. 

Road trip, day 2: from Oxford, OH to Hazard, KY

On our second day we drove to Hazard, KY (240 miles) where Courtney has an aunt and a couple of cousins. Somewhere between Anywhere and Nowhere, our GPS signal disappeared and we got lost a few times, but finally found our way. Kentucky really is beautiful as well: so green! The people are very friendly, and oh – the accent! I love it! We ate dinner at a Ponderosa and our waiter could have been a movie star in one of those quirky movies, like Elizabethtown: [looking at Max] “Weeell, ain’t them the purdiest little eyes the Lord has ever seeean? You sure have a purdy baby theire, mam!” Actually, you know what? I can’t transcribe it – it’s too unique and when I try to write it out, the beauty is lost. You are just going to have to go have dinner yourself, somewhere in the middle of the Kentucky mountains.

Road trip, day 1: from northern Indiana to Oxford, OH

We packed up the van the night before. Not only did we have the five suitcases of clothes and things we had brought from Beirut, but since we had already spent well over a month in the US, we had accumulated quite a bit of additional stuff. We stuck it anywhere we could. When we pulled out of the drive way on a bright Sunday morning, waving good bye to grandma and grandpa, the bottom of the van hit the curb. As we kept driving a bit, the van got higher, and we decided a full tank was probably out of the question for the remainder of our drive.

We drove about 165 miles that first day, to Oxford, OH, where good friends from our Cairo days live.

We stopped several times on the way, mainly to nurse. We had brought sandwiches and drinks that we ate in Berne, a very cute little town, apparently quite proud of their Swiss heritage. There were a lot of Amish settlements along the way as well and several times, we ended up behind a buggy. We had not seen our friends for a couple of years, and the reunion, although brief, was happy: good dinner, lots of catching up, kids play, a good sleep and a shower, and we were on our way again, the next day, quickly leaving Ohio behind.

Getting a license plate for my car

There is a license plate for my car on its way in the mail! Insha Allah. It took quite some effort, I’m telling you.

To transfer a car title and to license a vehicle in Indiana, you need to prove your residency or provide an Indiana state driver’s license. You also need a valid ID, proof of insurance, and – obviously – proof of ownership of the vehicle. The day I purchased my car I got an insurance through Geico, however the residency proof was a little trickier, because only certain documents are acceptable if you don’t have an IN driver’s license; you need two pieces of official mail that was sent to you – mail by certain standards, such as utility bills or bank statements. Since we’ve specifically asked our bank not to send paper mail – since we are usually abroad – we had to change our paper-less preference and then wait for a bank statement. It came in the mail the same day the dealer had the title ready for me, so I went to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles with my documents.

The first time I went, I wasn’t able to get the paperwork done, because my address was not printed on my car insurance card. I went back home, printed out my insurance policy with my address on it, and went back.

The second time I went, I wasn’t able to get the paperwork done, because of the “valid ID” part. I had no idea, but as it turns out, if you are in the US on a non-immigrant VISA, you need to provide your I-94 VISA number, and it’s not printed in the passport with the US VISA, but is on a document that can be found online. So again, I had to go back home to print this out.

The third time I went to the BMV – the next day – I didn’t have to take a number and wait, because the manager and one of the clerks felt sorry for me, having had to send me away twice already. They were all so nice. My paperwork was all finished within ten minutes.

Yay, me!