My Uncle Adam Schenfeld's grave
Day 6, Friday, July 25, 2003
We have another full day planned. We need to drive nearly 500 miles from Ashland to Nashville, TN. We have a planned stop in Monterey, TN for another family obligation. Then the pay off is going to be second row seats at the Grand Ole Opry. We started out, as we had the last two days, by eating a light breakfast at the Best Western we were staying at. We all really liked this hotel. The beds were comfortable, the location was good, the people were friendly and it was clean.
Mom, Dad, and Arielle, graveside.
Mom commented that we were probably going to get spoiled. Later on, we were to find out Mom was psychic.
We were on the road by 6:30 AM, but pulled into a rest stop at 7:15 AM. Margo had to go to the bathroom. I was a little annoyed, but what can you do. We have had to stop every hour and a half to two hours. It’s usually Dad who needs the rest break, but not always. I have had to interrupt the trip too. This one turned out to me just a bit more than a rest break, as we ran into my cousin, Shelia and her husband, Bill. They had both been at the reunion yesterday, and were on their way to Lexington. Her husband had had a liver transplant last November and they were going to have some blood tests done. So we visited for a few minutes and then we were both off.
Two hours later we pulled into London, KY and stopped at McDonald’s for one of their tasty and nutritious breakfasts.
Standing Stone Monument
Photo courtesy of montereytn.com We didn't actualy visit, but this picture is a better representative of Monterey that my Uncle's grave
OK, that’s two lies for the price of one. But, what the hell, isn’t McDonalds almost a traditional part of an American Road Trip? About four hours later, with stops in Knoxville for a rest break, and in Crossville, TN to pick up flowers, we arrived in Monterey, TN.
My Mom’s oldest brother, Adam, had relocated to Monterey, TN when his adopted grandchild (He never married and kids of his own, but got close to a neighborhood girl. When she grew up, married and moved away, he followed. Truth be told my Uncle Adam was never all there) moved there about three years ago. He passed away in March. As we were so close Mom really wanted to pay her respects. She would likely be the only representative of our family to ever visit the grave. No one else lives close. We had gotten directions from Uncle Adam’s “family” here and made it to the church cemetery. It took us a few minutes but we eventually found the grave. We were not impressed. Mom and the rest of her brothers and sisters had been paying for an insurance policy to cover Adam’s burial expenses when he did pass away. As such we were expecting a stone monument. But there was just the temporary one, and it was still pretty much bare earth. Maybe it had not been enough time yet, and our expectations were too high. But at least we were there. I snapped a few pictures and we got back into the mini-van.
We stopped about twenty miles down the road to eat at the Shoney’s in Cookeville. Thus we established that not all Shoney’s had given up on the restaurant business. This was our last pit stop. 80 minutes or so from this point and we would be in Nashville and getting ready to go to the Grand Ole Opry!
