In the backseat of a Nissan Rogue rental, somewhere in the middle of nowhere west Tennessee heading to Nashville and the lull before the storm.
Sometime this afternoon, Nashville will be flooded with Kentucky fans clad in blue and looking for something to do before the Wildcats play Thursday night.
Many will come to tonight's games -- not called play-in games but they are -- because the tickets came in the package they had to buy. There may be more blue in the arena than any other color, and they'll probably pull for Vanderbilt to beat Arkansas.
Some will bring more than one blue T-shirt, all will be filled with hope of another SEC Tournament championship.
The wins and the fans are why this tournament is often called The Wildcat Invitational.
There will be far more Wildcat fans than the Kentucky allotment of tickets, but since this is the only chance of seeing their beloved team in person -- most can't afford the donation and price of tickets making Rupp Arena mostly a mink and diamond crowd -- and they are resourceful.
Most don't buy from scalpers, but instead compete with them offering to buy tickets from the fans of the two teams who lose tonight.
Many make a minimum donation to less-successful programs and buy tickets. They don't care what section they are in, just that they are in the house.
Their optimism comes from a five-game win streak, its longest since the 'Cats won six consecutive games between Dec. 9 and Jan. 9.
Since a 75-74 loss at LSU, Kentucky has beaten Alabama 117-95, at Mississippi State 91-89, Arkansas 111-102, Vanderbilt 93-77 and at Tennessee 85-81.
Still, there is a sense of restlessness in the Big Blue Nation.
The last time John Calipari won a SEC regular season title was the same year the world learned of covid, 2020.
Since then in the NCAA Tournament, the Wildcats failed to make the field in 2021, lost a first-round game to No. 15 seed Saint Peter's 85-79 in 2022, and lost a second-round game to Kansas State 75-69 last season.
That makes a 1-2 NCAA Tournament record in the past three years.
They haven't been to the Final Four since 2015 when they won the national championship.
CBSsports.com has them projected as a No. 4 seed and ESPN as a No. 3, but they aren't favored to this week's conference tournament, Tennessee got that honor.
And there will plenty of orange clad fans as Knoxville is less than a three-hour drive away.
For sure Tuesday night was the last chance to eat dinner in a restaurant without a two-hour wait, especially in the hub of country music on Broadway.
Teams no one wants to play unless it is for the championship both hail from the football state of Alabama.
Auburn is hard to guard and if Alabama gets hot from behind the arc, it can be ridiculously hard to beat.
Without a doubt the biggest challenge of the week lies with Arkansas-Vanderbilt and Georgia-Missouri, who have one chance to make the NCAA Tournament -- or any tournament -- and that is win the SEC Tournament and the automatic bid.
That means winning five games in five days, and that has never been done. Before the conference added Missouri and Texas A&M, only two teams had won four games in four days.
Arkansas did it in 2000 and Georgia in 2008, when Atlanta was hit by a tornado and the games were moved from the Georgia Dome to Georgia Tech.
Winning five in five may not be impossible. The longest win streak in the SEC right now is Kentucky with five, and that took two weeks.