On Sunday morning Sue and I had planned to get up early to be picked up for our Kiwi Express tour. Somehow I managed to reset the clock when I set the alarm, so that we had an hour less than we thought we had, but luckily we'd both done some packing the day before so we still managed to be in the foyer at 8:30 am to be greeted by Joe Veeder. All the other Aussies (Mary, Jill, Jennifer, and the Owens family: Mary, David, Robbie, Carol and Pat) were already waiting for us on the bus.
We swung by the Holiday Inn to pick up some of the New Zealanders, and then headed out of Nashville. Kate Veeder had organised a competition to match people's names with their biographies, which was an incentive to get to know each other, and we also had a competition to name our mascots. The coaches are well stocked with water, soft drinks and treats. There is also a box at the back for recycling books after we've read them, so I was able to unload a few I'd been carrying with me.
We drove through some beautiful country side as we headed north-west along highway 81 through Tennessee,Virginia and West Virginia. The trees are turning shades of yellow, orange and red. The towns we passed through looked very inviting, with weatherboard houses with gables separated by expanses of green lawn.
We stopped along the way for lunch and a rest break, and didn't get to our hotel at Roanoke until 7 pm. After we unpacked, we got back on the coaches to go to Crackerjack for dinner, and then back to the hotel for a happy hour, which is traditional on Kiwi Express tours. I came back after one glass of wine to wrestle with a wireless internet connection. Sue and I have separate beds, and we both slept very well.
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