The halfway point between Ithaca and Knoxville would be about Winchester, Virginia. I usually stay at the Hampton Inn Winchester. Good continental breakfast and clean. Not too far from the 81 either. Hope this helps.
Now that is a lot of brass air fittings http://www.liangdianup.com/subpages/airfitting_1.htm there is just about every type of air fitting that you could want. Wholesale prices too. I guess these could be used as small water pipe fitting also. I used some of the parts to make my babington wvo bu