Runnin on Empty: Day 1 - Vienna, Virginia to Shelbyville, Kentucky

The first day of driving was perfect. I drove for nearly 9 hours through the mountains of western Maryland and West Virginia and stopped in a small town in Kentucky called Shelbyville. My GPS showed that there were a few motels and bars in the area, so I thought it was a good town to stop in. Upon arriving I discovered that the motels that showed up on the GPS either didn’t currently exist or were pretty scary looking. It was getting pretty late and there were no other good looking towns nearby. I ended up driving about a mile out of the town to stay in a typical chain hotel near the interstate...the exact thing I was trying to avoid on this trip.

I had dinner and walked next door to the bar I had seen earlier, but now it was closed. 8:30 on a Saturday night? Wow, and it wasn’t even a dry county or anything. I drove around a bit to see if I could find anything going on, but found nothing. Shelbyville was shut down. The town must loose all its after hours business to the bigger cities of Lexington and Louisville, about 20-30 miles in each direction. I headed back to the hotel disappointed, and even had a few thoughts going through my head saying “are you sure you want to do this whole trip?"

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