I’m exhuming this piece in celebration of nine years of low-carb eating. The trip in the story below is the very trip when I started eating low-carb, June 8th, 2017. Since it was still so new, I hadn’t thought to write about it at the time. But this trip was notable in another way: I was completely responsible for my own food choices. No negotiating what to eat; Katlyn didn’t care what I had. It was also when I experienced my first NSV (Non-Scale Victory) — driving for hours on end without that horrible sleepy fatigue.
It’s been several months past now and the sting of all the chaos has settled down. Maybe I can do better justice to writing my travels. It all started with the idea of a road trip. Katlyn had an internship at Neiman-Marcus and we needed to get her down to Dallas, TX. (Not Dallas, PA, mind you.) I thought this would be a great time to get re-acquainted with Katlyn, now that she had established her autonomy as a young lady. Side note: When your child asserts her autonomy, it is necessarily in a way that the parent finds profoundly disturbing, or she’s not asserting her autonomy. Though I understand this now, it doesn’t mean I have to like it.
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley. — Robert Burns
We leave Apex early morning. We’re driving Katlyn’s car, since she’ll need transportation. Katlyn warned us the car was “driving funny,” but it wasn’t when I would drive it. I play the “Dad” card, and insist that Katlyn drive, thus allowing me to do what I’ve done since the late 1980s — stare at a glowing rectangle. Katlyn’s youth is better suited for long drives anyhow, right? Katlyn plays her Dad-targeted Spotify playlist, which we both enjoy, talking about her picks, and which musicians and songs we do and don’t like.
“Dude” when I meant “dud?” As Freud said, there are no accidents.
We’re in East Tennessee, on I-40, when Katlyn notices the transmission is revving, though that’s not how she described it. “The car is driving funny again.” Oh, and the rear seat window kept dropping because, hey, it was a 2002 Honda Accord. We stop in Knoxville to buy packing tape to keep the window up. This is also when we switch driving.
We’re back on I-40. I’m accelerating and I can hear, feel, the transmission revving up without our speeding up. This isn’t good. Maybe it’s a passing mechanical fluke? Hondas are self-healing, aren’t they? Concerned, but not greatly so, we call Elena, my wife, to help us pick a lunch spot in Nashville, TN. She settles on “Arnold’s Country Kitchen,” which, we soon discover, is providentially located near “Carter’s Vintage Guitars,” a used guitar store.
We exit the interstate and head into Nashville. I’m at a stop sign, with city traffic. An 18-wheeler pauses to let me into his lane, a left turn. I accelerate. Engine revs. No movement, well, we start to roll backwards. Nice. “Houston, we have a problem.” Somehow I manage to engage the transmission and we roll into Arnold’s for lunch.
Yeah, Katlyn and I are sobered by what just happened. The emotional dark storm clouds appear over our heads as we try to figure out what to do. We call Elena, who is transforming into Houston Command Central. I call our mechanic, and he gives us some things to try. Meanwhile, lunch was marginal, but Carter’s Vintage Guitars was unexpectedly exciting.
Uncharacteristically camping it up
The store threw me back three decades. I haven’t been to a guitar store this impressive since Manny’s in NYC back in the 70s. The place is bursting with all kinds of stringed instruments, not just guitars. Also, being Nashville, the place oozes with talent. There’s a thirteen-year-old girl, across the store, eye-rollingly bored, playing a mandolin like it’s no one’s business. It’s like she’s on auto-pilot, waiting on someone. Me? I’m a kid in the candy shop, running around, playing everything from double basses to tiny basses.
Me and my homies
Meanwhile, Katlyn spots her own candy. Luke Bryan, barely disguised, is enjoying the axes there as well. I roughly know who he is, since Elena’s a big fan. He is talking to an impossibly pretty woman, who, I presume, is a music starlet wanna-be. I don’t want to pile on, and Katlyn is bashful, so we leave without a photo. Later, outside, we spot said woman in the parking lot. “Was that Luke Bryan?” Her eyes dreamily sparkle; “Oh, that was Luke.”
High off this excitement, we haltingly stumble back to I-40, sobering us right back up. Clearly, something’s wrong with Katlyn’s car. Crap. Now what? We decide to gamble on a drive to Jackson, TN — roughly our original plan — for the night, to regroup.
Nothing finer than… staying in Jackson, TN?
We limp into the Super 8 parking lot. Elena, making NASA’s moon missions look like child’s play, had arranged our stay, had been working the interwebs for the best deal. More digging reveals a highly rated mechanic in town. We settle in for the night, a shade optimistic for a quick fix and return to the road.
The next morning would be where God’s laughter begins. Here’s my Facebook post:
Our trip to Dallas, TX, so far:
Previous night: review AAA mechanics to find a reputable one in Jackson, TN 7:30 AM: transmission still is a mess, drive to mechanic. 8:30 AM: after free inspection, sends us to a transmission specialist 9:30 AM: review options to bring Honda home by myself 10:30 AM: agree that having this mechanic fix the car is the best option over self-towing the car home 11:30 AM: we scramble to get Katlyn to Dallas by Saturday. Lose $100 to Enterprise 12:30 PM: Learn that you cannot rent a car with a debit card away from home 1:00 PM: Elena scrambles to overnight a credit card to us after we determine where we’re staying tonight. 1:30 PM: Transmission specialist drives Katlyn and me, and all her transferred belongings, to another hotel, for another night in Jackson
After I drop Katlyn off in Dallas, (God willing) I’m returning to Jackson to wait for Katlyn’s car to be repaired. Then I’m driving home. Oh, and I must provide documentation proving valid reason for canceling my return flight, for a refund, which, we’ll have to wait for, of course.
Enterprise has only thrown shade on my challenge of their $100 “cancellation” fee. Katlyn has discovered a myriad of unhappy Enterprise customers on FB. My skepticism grows.
I pray for a solid good day tomorrow.
It was quite the pickle we were in. Before the trip, I was thinking how nice it would be to have this one-on-one time with Katlyn. Instead, we found ourselves before a cosmic-scale life-learning lesson. I hadn’t been faced with such seemingly insurmountable problems since my Mom had her stroke and Elena and I stared at each other, clueless, about what to do, without the luxury of time. This felt very much like Hebrews 12:6-7 was coming down, and we’d better be listening.
To be continued…
Revised 2026-06-14: It never was, but maybe it should be…