West Trip 2012: Day 33

Hopkinsville, Kentucky to Knoxville, Tennessee

5 ½ hours

230 miles

Weather: Rainy-60’s daytime

We woke up pretty early this morning in the Cracker Barrel parking lot to get out of there before the breakfast crowd came in. It was rainy most of our drive today through the mountains of Tennessee. We drove south toward Nashville, and managed to somehow avoid a good bit of morning traffic. We then turned east and had pretty much a straight shot on I-40 towards Knoxville. We stopped for lunch along the way-it was actually an RV store parking lot that we stopped in. Dennis wanted to see if they had a part for our outside light, and also they had a big selection of RV’s. We decided to take a look inside a few of them, just to compare since we now have had our RV for awhile. What we found was interesting-we are VERY happy with the one we got and feel it is definitely the best fit for our family and our needs.

We arrived in Knoxville at the home of our friends the Steimer’s. We knew them when we lived in Greenville-Mark was the youth pastor at our church there and before Eric was born and for a short time after he was born we worked with the youth with Mark and Julie in that church. We have kept in touch loosely with them since they moved to Knoxville about the same time we moved to Maryland, and it was really great to see them and how their kids have grown up, and also meet their newly adopted 2 year old, Samuel Bay. Yes….his middle name is Bay-just like our Bay! We think that is pretty cool! It was so nice to just pick up where we left off with them-there is something comforting about reuniting with old friends-the kids played, hung out, and we enjoyed dinner and games with them and also some other friends, Joel and Brianna, who came over. The two oldest kids (Julianna and Jacob) are now off to college, so we did not get to see them, but it was fun to see how Elizabeth and Lydia have grown into such neat young people. In fact, Mark and Julie are in the process of bringing home their other adopted child, Chala, and you can view their adoption blog here if you are interested in seeing their story. www.steimeradoption.blogspot.com. It is a great story that totally brings glory to only God and he has shown them in so many ways that this is His story, His plan and He is the one writing it down and bringing it to fruition.

We stayed up too late, looking at pictures and talking, and then crashed in our camper parked in front of their house. What a great visit!