The 840 Adventure

First of all, let me start by saying that driving from West Tennessee to North Georgia on the Sunday after Thanksgiving is a giant pain, especially when it rains the entire trip. It took 9 hours instead of 6. Someone asked me what time we got home and I replied, "I don't know, I just know it was really late." Then Rocky pointed out that we were home by 7, it only felt like 2 in the morning.
The one high point of the trip was that we decided to take the unfinished I-840 loop instead of driving through Nashville (smartest thing we did all day). They have only been building this road since we moved to GA 10 years ago, and it still isn't done, but I digress. The day before, my aunt and uncle had done a test run for us and sent back direction. This was extremely helpful because after 840 stops there are absolutely no directions pointing you to how to get back on. There aren't even hints of where to go. State highways are not marked, and good luck getting a data signal strong enough to get gps. This is probably why there wasn't another car in sight for miles.
When we first started thinking of taking this path I looked it up on Google maps. It looked like a large stretch of the road was newly completed, which would make the drive a piece of cake. It was going to be 2 or 3 turns on major roads. What Google doesn't tell you is that although the road is complete, the exits are not, and they will dump you in the middle of nowhere with no warning.
It took use exactly 1 hour to go from one side to the other. This means we loss no time and didn't have to drive through Nashville in the rain (win!). We also got to drive through the extremely cute town of Leiper's Fork where a bunch of the country music folks live (and live very well, I might add).

The drive was pretty, it was different scenery, and we got to see the castle, which always makes me smile. Who builds a castle in the middle of Tennessee? You may recognize it from the Taylor Swift video "Love Story" (they still make music videos? huh).

Anyway, to sum up, interstate traffic, bad; bypass, need directions but good; music videos, still made

*additional info
here is the video, and the castle is in there a good bit. It's a cute song, but I can't help but wonder if she has ever read Romeo and Juliet or The Scarlet Letter (I do not think it means what she thinks it means).