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Date Posted: 20:11:20 12/18/03 Thu
Author: Maye
Author Host/IP: 66.188.131.119
Subject: The Secret Life of Tennessee Car Enthusiasts
In reply to: wwolfe 's message, "wwolfe's Morbidly Curious Question of the Day" on 15:52:21 12/16/03 Tue

I'd never experienced road rage in my life until I went to Tennessee for one of my clinicals. My boyfriend was visiting me in Knoxville, and we thought we'd take a day trip out to Gatlinburg, which is a tourist-y little town with a state park up in the Smokey Mountains. The drive should have taken us about an hour. On the way there, we hit some bad traffic, so it took us nearly two hours. We discovered there was a car show in Pigeon Forge (home of Dollywood), so we decided to stay in Gatlinburg all day in order to miss the traffic on the way back.

So at about a quarter to 10pm, we started driving back. SIX FREAKING HOURS LATER we got back to Knoxville.

5 of those hours were spent on the 10 mile drive between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.

It seems that as part of a quaint little custom there, for this particular car show, they CLOSE a SIX LANE HIGHWAY and allow red-necks in nice cars to drive around in circles while other rednecks sit in lawnchairs by the side of the highway and scream at them.

Now keep in mind, we're in the Smokey Mountains. There are no sideroads, and no exits.

There were no signs anywhere warning us of this event. There were no detours. There were no radio announcements.

The only contributions from the police were to ticket motorcyclists who were trying to get through the traffic.

I seriously wanted to kill someone. Violently.

Moral of the story: Tennessee is a beautiful state, but don't go there. Ever.

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Replies:

[> My father's actually done exactly that. -- Heather, 22:34:48 12/18/03 Thu (209.179.223.122)

Once you get on the 5 at one point near my house, you can't get back off for quite some distance. He was on his way to taking me to the airport for one of my trips (I believe it was to London) when I suddenly remembered that I'd forgotten my watch. So he pulled over to the side lane and reversed his way all the way back to the offramp and made his way off. Very odd experience.

Oddest driving experience I've ever had myself was the day that I couldn't see out my window because of the sunlight reflecting off the frost and as a result ended up on the opposite side of the road unable to see anything, but able to hear cars honking at me. Scary stuff.


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[> [> Oh, and also... -- Heather, 22:37:22 12/18/03 Thu (209.179.223.122)

When you drove yourself, Maria, and I back to Newark from Anthony's house in the pouring rain ranks up there. I can't say I've seen that much rain while on a highway in my life.


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[> [> [> I forgot that! -- wwolfe, 19:59:28 12/19/03 Fri (209.179.51.222)

That's the hardest rain I've ever driven through. Watching cars, including ours, come to a dead stop in the middle of the Interstate under the signs so that the writing could be made out through the deluge was very, very strange.


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