6-18-21 Knoxville - ATL

 Check out day---again.  So I packed everything up and loaded it in the car.  Then we headed off to breakfast.

Good bye Homewood Suites by Hilton.

Tim and Faith joined us again---their 2nd time out in 1 week!  I've been wanting to go to First Watch and get their lemon ricotta pancakes.  So we did.  Plus we had a gift card from the kids from over a year ago---pre-cancer and pandemic!  Breakfast was as good as I remembered.

From there, the kids headed their way and Ken and I hit the highway, again.

It was a little congested on I-75 between Knoxville and Chattanooga.  That surprised me.  Usually that area traffic is flying on.

but it was another pretty day.

doesn't look congested here, but it was.  But we were almost to the I-75/I-24 split here.

past Chattanooga and heading South into Georgia now.  Glad we weren't going the other way.  Traffic was at a stand still.  We hit some of that on the way out, but not to the extent that it was today.

at least South-bound was going good

North bound stopped for miles

never did see what the tie up was.

But the tie up went on and on.

and on

But we made pretty good time.  Home in about 3 hours.  Then it was time to hit the pool!  It was up to 90 degrees again.  But I'm not complaining!

The kids asked if we wanted to go to Totopos for dinner.  We, of course, said yes!  They even had a guy singing and playing a guitar.  Layla seemed to really enjoy it---even played air piano along with him.

As we were leaving, I grabbed the teddy bear Bill gave us from the machine at Stef's.  She was tickled to get it.  She even named her Fuzzy.

Then I ran to the grocery store.  On my way home from there, I was treated to a pretty amazing sunset!

a nice welcome home!

 We were gone for a week.  I wasn't sure how this trip would go---long drive; lots of things scheduled; staying in hotels when we're use to resort condos.  But I think it turned out really well.  Got to visit with a lot of friends and family.  I didn't fall asleep while driving and crash.  Ken seemed to enjoy himself without getting too overly tired.  And I enjoyed myself.  Don't know if (we/I) will ever go back to St. Louis, so it was nice getting a little closure.