Fingerprinting and Bonnaroo......

I'm back tracking again to tell a story about our fingerprinting process. Again this is a trip to Nashville that we made on a Thursday in early June. Chris had to come with me as his fingers needed to be printed. So, we all took off on a trip to Nashville, after a meeting he had at work. We were pushing it time wise, as they are only open until 2:00pm. Go figure that the traffic heading up there is heavy.... This route is always jammed with 18 wheelers heading up through the mountains to get out west. It's one of my least favorite roads to drive just for that reason.... LOTS of trucks!

I don't know about you, but our family counts license plates on long trips. It's just something we do....but to make it fun, we each give a guesstimate, of how many states we think we will see. Then I write it down and we start looking for states. Whoever is closest to the number we find, wins. They don't win anything...they just win. ;-)

So, about 1/2 way through our journey, we see a huge back up in the right lane and slow down considerably. Cars stretched out for miles and miles are getting off on the shoulder about an hour south of Nashville. Interspersed between the cars are state troopers with their lights flashing....to alert people of the slow down. What in the world? Chris and I are looking and all the vehicles are being driven by young kids, piled into cars, campers, etc. Several are stopped on the side, hanging out of pickup trucks as they inch along the shoulder with signs saying "Bonnaroo". What in the world is that? Some event is going on, but we have no idea what it is. Then I begin noticing the license plates. From all over the country. New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Nevada, California (like 6 of them), Ohio, Michigan, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Florida, Arizona.... tons and tons of plates! Unfortunately our lane was clear, so Chris was back up to normal speed and it was hard to catch a lot of them. I "know" we probably would have had 48 states if we could have traveled slower.... but we were on a deadline to be fingerprinted.

We arrived at CIS (Citizen and Immigration Services) on time and met a friendly police officer on the inside. This older gentleman, was so amiable, and when we told him what we came through to get here (ie: Bonnaroo), and asked what in the world it was... well we got quite an answer. Apparently it is like a Woodstock concert/camping event from the 60's. It's held every year on some guys property, and kids from all over the country flock to it. We ran into it on the first day, (hence the miles and miles and miles of cars inching along the shoulder of both sides of the highway). Apparently like Woodstock, it is a haven for illegal activity as well.... but back to our fingerprinting process. We had some paperwork to fill out and after a short wait, they called Chris in to be printed. The boys waited for me, and then it was my turn. Very high tech equipment, interesting. So, now it's official, the government now has every print of my right and left hand. Should they ever need our assistance in international affairs, we have a head start. lol!

We grabbed a bite to eat for dinner in Nashville. and then headed home in rush hour traffic, with Bonnaroo to contend with as well. We decided to take a totally different route home that was more scenic, and longer, but might equal the time with traffic. Driving along at dusk, about an hour from home in a beautiful mountainous area, we saw fog settling in the valley. We had peaked the mountain, and were on the downhill stretch....hardly a car in sight, when we see a black sport utility police vehicle in the grassy median on the road. Then flying along behind us is another police vehicle with its lights flashing. Oh my. Chris pulls over and an officer gets out of the car, while the other vehicle pulls up behind him. License and registration. Do you know how fast you were traveling? Pretty fast, do you know that the speed limit is 55 on this section of the highway? Me: (shocked) What? Are you serious? (giving my dear husband a look of reproval). We told him that we didn't know that, and that we were trying to travel around the Nashville highway because of all of the traffic for that Bonnaroo event. He said, he would be back after he checked our info, but when I looked in the rear view mirror, he and his young partner were talking just holding our information. He walked back up to the car and handed our documents back and said to slow down. He then went on to further answer our Bonnaroo questions, telling us a little more about the event, and the cars they stopped and drugs they confiscated in the last night. (I guess with our family vehicle and two young kids in the back we didn't look like the Bonnaroo type.) lol! So, we thanked him profusely and went on our way... slower this time. Whew!