Spring Break 2000

For Spring Break 2000, I took a trip with my friends Scott, Ben, and Doug. We drove to the Southeast in Ben's 1996 Plymouth minivan. (note: Scott and I wired my amp and his sub into the minivan temporarily for the trip, so we had some good bass) The major attractions on the trip were the Corvette Museum, Atlanta, Jacksonville, and Washington DC.

Scott and I were the only ones that were originally going to go, and we made up this advertisement to show Ben and Doug. After they decided to come along with us, the trip changed from advertised, notably the Cleveland leg and the vehicle taken.

Day 1

We left from Platteville, WI at 11:45 AM on Friday, March 10. We took WI 81 to WI 23 in Darlington, and then took CTH K, WI 11, and WI 78 to Stage Coach Trail in Illinois. From there we took IL 73 and US 52 to I-39. In Normal, we caught I-74 to I-57 in Urbana, which we took to Mount Vernon. (2013 note: In Illinois the stereo in the van started to malfunction. So while Ben was driving, Scott got out the tool kit and removed the stereo and fixed the jamming problem in the tape deck. In the process he found a lot of dried-up grape juice in the dash which was from a previous accident Ben's family had with an elk in Arizona several years earlier.) We ate at Wendy's and then took I-64 to I-164 to Evansville. We then took US 41 to the Audobon Parkway to Owensboro, our destination for the evening. We stayed at Motel 6, the motel of choice for the trip. We got one room for the four of us, and two of us slept on air mattresses. This is what we did for the whole trip, except for in Washington, DC. Day 1 was uneventful, the weather was good and we didn't stop to see anything.

Welcome to Illinois Sign

Day 2

We woke up and took the William Natcher Parkway from Owensboro to Bowling Green, Kentucky. We ate breakfast there at this great place called Mary's. ("Can I take all y'alls plates?") Then we went to the National Corvette Museum. It was very interesting. There were a lot of Corvettes on display and information about how they have evolved. I bought a T-shirt at the souvenir shop.

Bridge on William Natcher Parkway, Corvette

Corvette, Corvette Transmission

Corvette, Test Corvette @ 35 MPH

Corvette, Corvette Wheel Rim

New Corvette, Corvette parking only

We then took I-65 to Nashville, Tennessee. We parked downtown, and took a walk around. We saw the Tennessee State Capitol, the arena, the new country music hall of fame being built, and we walked into the NASCAR Cafe, which had lots of cool racing stuff in it. We then took I-24 out of the city and headed to Chattanooga.

Welcome to Tennessee sign, Nashville skyline

Tennessee State Capitol, bridge in downtown Nashville being demolished

Scott, Doug, Craig, and Ben in Nashville, the new country music hall of fame