Road Trip Day 1 and 2 Recaps
(I will be writing these in an incomplete sentence, straight to point format. Sorry to any English majors or grammar sticklers out there. But if you take issue with less than perfect grammar, this blog is not for you).
Day 1
Got a late start (around 2pm) out of Atlanta. Sarah’s last apartment cleaning for a while. Headed north out of Atlanta on I-75 and hit traffic pretty quickly. Slow start to a long trip. Kids fell asleep and stayed asleep all the way to Chattanooga. That’s better. Start an audio book about Alexander Hamilton and feel like we’re going to fall asleep. Jam up the radio trying to connect to bluetooth. Show up at a Farm outside of Chattanooga around 5:30pm. Camp site is in the middle of a sunny meadow with no one else around. It’s beautiful and hot. Walk down to the stables and check out the sheep, ponies and cows. Cormac makes me carry him and I hit my low of the day knowing that no shower is coming and I’m being covered in sweaty Cormac. Earlier blog post that day was hubris. Sit in the shade for an hour. Watch the kids chase chickens around knowing that they don’t actually want to catch one. Clouds cover the sun so we head back to set up the tent. Dark clouds and thunder drift in. Setting up a tent under pressure isn’t ideal. We take our shirts off hoping for a rain shower to cool off. It never comes but the wind and lack of sun cools things off. More fireflies than we’ve ever seen. Easy pickings for me and the kids. We pile into the tent and Sarah puts on a sweater which makes me nauseous after experiencing a 90 degree day. Country sounds of crickets, cicadas, cow bells, trains and Dr. Suess’ The Lorax on Sarah’s mac laptop. Ah wilderness…
Day 2
Wake up to one of our kids pooping on the ground a few feet from the tent. Pack up quick and hit the road (after cleaning up the poop of course). Stop and get coffee, croissants and ham from “Food City”. Head to Nashville. Quick stop at the YMCA for a bathroom break and water fill up. Ask about nice local parks and get a recommendation from the Y staff to head over to Centennial Park. Feels almost too close to home. Picnicked and played at the playground across the street from the Parthenon replica. Wonder for a while why you’d spend so much on a replica and not something original to the city. Have a long discussion with Marnie about a flyer given out by Bible Beaters. Long story short, the world will probably not end due to large flaming rocks predicted to hit the Parthenon replica across the street from the playground. Frustrating but also a nice opportunity to teach a skeptical approach to interpreting all literature and media, regardless of how “professional” it appears. After about 3 hours head out of Nashville towards St. Louis. Find a hotel room for $45 bucks a night right off the Ohio River that has an indoor pool and free breakfast and just happens to be right next to a Harrah’s Casino. It’s in a town called Metropolis, IL which has a big statue of Superman. Check into the hotel and immediately hear a siren going off outside. A tornado alarm. Six Georgians reacting to a tornado alarm is something to see. Storm passes. Go for a swim in the pool, take showers and settle in for the night. Watched the train crossing the Ohio. Contemplating heading over to the poker room next door after the kids go down…
