Blacksburg VA to Knoxville TN (and why cars run on gasoline)

Those who know me know I’m not the type to worry to much about anything. But all of us have our moments of panic. Today as the sun went down and I was left 40 miles from my destination, I thought it was finally time to sleep in a ditch and sink to my true level of seediness. But bless, once again I was saved by an incredibly friendly american, and my ‘everything will be alright’ attitude was vindicated once more.

My day started early, getting a lift from my lovely couch-surfing host to the bus to Roanoke. I got to fill out a survey on my feelings about the bus service:

Number of times a week you take this bus: 0
Location of bus stops: Reasonably good, I only got a little lost
Quality of service: Excellent, quality control measures on 100% of rides.

This took me back to the good ol’ 81, and I grabbed a couple of short rides. The first with a friendly working man in his comercial truck, and the second with an older gent on his way back from the hospital where he’d been having a blood test to make sure his blood was thin enough for his artifial valves to keep pumping blood through the system. Unfortunately this left me at a slightly awkward spot, with a cool breeze blowing. Gotta get south, I kept telling myself. Its not November yet, but it soon will be.

After waiting an hour or so, I caught my big ride. This was with an interesting couple. She was a veterinary technician on her way to a conference in Ashville, North Carolina, and her stoned-mason (excuse pun) boyfriend was coming along for the ride. He was an intriguing fellow, of the super-cynic view of the world. He’d spent a year in Iraq serving in the marines, an experience he described as “the best and worst days of my life.” He believed in all sorts of conspiracy theories, one which I hadn’t heard before. It involves gasoline and prohibition, that cars ran on alcohol in the beginning (a reasonably verifiable fact that I can’t be bothered verifying). This would mean that any hillbilly with a distiller could make his own fuel. So the prohibition movement was designed so that the oil industry could capture the market such that everyone would have to pay to run their cars. Dubious theories aside, these guys were tremendous, and merely cruising through the countryside they decided to change their route and take me all the way down the 81 to 40 miles from Knoxville.

I was so happy about making such great time that I decided to go for a walk into the wilderness and play my guitar and generally dick-about near the town of Newport. When I finally got back on the road, I realized I was actually in a terrible spot, with very little traffic going to Knoxville. So I stood at a lonely exit, thumbing hopefully at the cars that came past, maybe one every 10 minutes, but without luck. I’d been taught a little trick by my marine friend earlier, using fingers to gauge remaining hours of sunlight. I gauged I had less than an hour, and decided something needed to be done. I didn’t know what though, so I started walking when my latest saviour pulled up. He asked me where I was going, I told him my story, and he said he could get me back on track.

He was a great guy, towing a four-wheel motorbike on a trailer behind, curious and open about my means of travel. In the end he got me more than just back on track, going out if his way (almost the opposite direction from where he was going, as far as I could tell) to take me all the way into Knoxville. And with the help of his GPS, right to where my new friend, and a fun filled night, awaited me at the Old City Java café.