ROAD TRIP ACROSS the AMAZING USA Begins! Driving I-40: Tennessee to Little rock | Wandering Journey ep 24

March 9, 2021

Our road trip across the United States from Tennessee to Washington State begins in episode 24

Our “Wandering Journey” feels like it just starting now. In reality it is just the beginning of the next chapter of our new nomadic lifestyle.

After spending months downsizing and preparing our home of 12 years for sale, saying goodbye (for now) to all of our friends it begins.

We finished our stay at the hotel, er… our home for the last two days, in Brentwood, TN and drive to Little Rock, AR to stay for the night. After the whirlwind of the last few months and days we decided to make our first day of our journey a relatively easy one at just over 6 hours of drive time.

Our drive was relatively uneventful except for a rain storm as we were crossing from Tennessee to Arkansas in Memphis. Upon crossing the bridge over the Mississippi River Michelle had ticked off another state off of her list. I had made this drive multiple times of the years and the bulk of which in the late 1990’s when I was stationed at Little Rock AFB. I would make the journey back to Nashville to visit friends on every long weekend I could.

We didn’t stop in Memphis on this trip but it is a great place to check out if your into soulful music and ribs!

Needless to say I wanted to show Michelle Little Rock, my old stomping grounds for those 4 years when I was stationed at Little Rock AFB years back. I might get some hate for this, but Little Rock still sucks. Arkansas is a beautiful state but Little Rock is still a bit of a dumpster.

Wingate by Wyndham

The gravity of our new normal began to set in during this first leg of our trip after being in a car for hours on end. We arrived in good time to our stay for the night at the Wingate by Wyndham. Our check in was easy and we made fast work of settling in for the night.

Overall the Hotel was a decent and inexpensive stay. Our room cost us $ and we booked it though Hotels.com which we are members of their reward program. It gets you a room night credit for each night you book and a free room after 10 nights. There Hotel provided us with a free breakfast that included both hot foods liek eggs and waffels but also fruits and cereals. Win win!

If your like me and always looking for a good gym to use while traveling then the Wingate by Wyndham is actually a decent choice. WIth a decent complement of free weights, yoga balls, treadmills and even a few cable machine I would recomend it.

As for the room, it was a decent size, with a King bed that was fairly comfortable, not the best, but not to bad. Our room came with a coffee pot and mini fridge as well as a HDTV and decent sized bathroom. One big plus for us is that the room had quite a few electrical outlets. This is important to us as we film and use our laptops to work and need lots of power to charge all of our electronics.