I finally got out of the gigantic weather storm after getting through probably the same rain squall that passed me by during my nap and was able to drive on through Kentucky and Tenessee on the same route at normal speeds.

I reached Nashville soon after the sun rose, so it was too early to go a few minutes south to the REI store I visited on the way up, as they wouldn't be open for another 3 hours.

I pressed on to Memphis and got sleepy again, so I pulled off, went to the bathroom, and got back in and put on my eye shades for some sleep. It was about this time that I began to see how hot it was getting. Another hour later, I woke up, feeling somewhat ready to go, and took off. I soon crossed over the Tennessee river.

However, I-40 turned into a parking lot as far as the eye could see in both directions. I got photos of the lines of traffic from the median and from the center stripes, facing towards the rear and towards the front for effect. We just hung out for over an hour and a half, talking about the man who got caught in this accident and thinking of the family that would be getting the call this afternoon (word was passed down by radio from the truckers upfront to those further back from the site). Two ambulances headed back towards Nashville about halfway through the wait. See how many trucks there are compared to cars?

Finally, people started getting into their cars and moving forward. About a mile up the road I could see the destroyed car on the bed of the flatbed truck parked on the Nashville-bound road. The white car did not have a single untouched body panel nor window (nor even a fragment in the window frames that I could see), even the hood was gone! As plain as day, you could see the off-white air bag fired from the steering wheel. We then drove onto the bridge and over a hundred feet in, we realized what the other "vehicle" involved in the accident was - a tractor pulling a cargo trailer that lost its front end and both front wheels and possibly its front axle (the front end of the box frame under the cab was sitting on the road, the front wheels jutting out from under the cab body). The diesel fuel tanks from the tractor were ripped off and scattered several feet away, and I believe one of the air tanks from the trailer was on the ground as well. Recovery personnel were waiting for the right equipment to come and pick the tractor up off the road. There was simply no escape for the car driver. None...

And this is why you cannot afford to make mistakes on the highway. It's usually the place where last mistakes are made and the now-dead people are standing beside their dead bodies and going, "Whoops!" It also helps to keep your vehicles maintained. Maybe neither driver made a mistake and instead something mechanical failed, triggering the accident. Be alert, keep your vehicle maintained, and watch for recalls on your make, model, and year. Don't drive next to a tractor for miles; either hang back or pass it quickly. It could save your life. And of course, please don't text out your torrid life stories while behind the wheel! I do not want to be at your funeral, nor does your family.

I finally got through Memphis and gassed up in eastern Arkansas. By this time, I was beginning to understand the gas mileage performance of my new small truck (somehow I thought CR-Vs would average 30+ mileage) and looked up on the phone the specs on the model and found the actual mileage to be what the specs call for - about 22 MPG under mixed conditions, so it was working as advertised.

I was getting to see Tennessee and Arkansas in daylight, all the stretches I had seen only at night, including the Hernando de Soto bridge west of Memphis while crossing the Mississippi River back into Arkansas.