Let's review our drive down to Destin.. nothing less than entertaining.
Picture it, Knoxville. 2015. Raining, 49degrees, and general dreariness. Two moms, three kids (ages 6, 7 and 8), a Tahoe and a crapload of stuff. And two Dads - not going on the trip- but in charge of packing said crapload of stuff.
10:45, and we're off. Two girls in the way back row, with a large tote sandwiched between them, and possibly a box of wine too. The solo male in the crowd, sitting in the middle row, squashed against a massive tote of groceries, two suitcases, and a Monopoly game.
One mom in the passenger seat, in charge of navigation, phones, food, children and music. With an unknown number of bags surrounding her feet. The other mom driving the Tahoe, which she's never before driven, and it literally took all 9.5 hours of the trip to get a solid feel for the dang brakes.
And I won't even begin to try to take inventory of the tablets, phones, dvd players, headphones, and chargers. Let's just say we could have opened our own Best Buy.
Before we even get out of the zip code, we stop at the liquor store. If you have to ask why, please review the first six paragraphs of this post.
While Mom 1 (that's Bre) is in the store, Mom 2 (thats me) is already re-arranging the dad-packed car. Mom 2 found more space, which came in handy after the liquor store haul.
And yes! We are on the road. We make it a whole hour! and then Mom 2 has to pee, and Mom 1 has an empty stomach and coffee rot. We let the sole male pick where to eat. WAFFLE HOUSE! (I am fairly certain I have not entered said franchise since my freshman year of college). Sodas, waffles, and patty-melts later, we're off again. (note - our kids have probably had a combined total of 45 sodas in their entire lives, so don't be judging).
Next up, we actually leave the State of Tennessee. PROGRESS! We make it about another hour, and one girl has some tummy problems. We find a McDonalds that looks disease free. Mom 1 and little girl head inside, while Mom 2 lets the boy and other girl burn some energy. At one point they were running up the hill and possibly hanging from a short billboard as if it were Monkey Bars. Mom 2 may have gotten some looks from the locals.
Meanwhile, Mom 1 was supervising a very descriptive little girl in the facilities. Another empathetic mom overheard the conversation, and promptly provided Mom 1 with some Magical Pepto Bismol tablets with advice on the best way to administer to a 7year old. It takes a village, right?
OK! Mission accomplished. Off we go. Again.
Turns out things really do happen for a reason. If it hadn't been for that upset tummy, we very likely may have been part of an accident we came upon as we traveled South. Thankfully, it wasn't a bad one- but scary nonetheless, and it had clearly happened about 15minutes prior. Moms 1 & 2 did indeed say a quick prayer of thanks.
After a bit more, we watched as the northbound travelers were at a standstill, due to what appeared to be an 8car pileup. Again, it didn't appear to have been anything tragic - but the small crowd gathering amongst the cars, the miles of backed up traffic, and the emergency vehicles - just overwhelming.
SO. We finally make it to clear skies and somewhat beach-ish feeling air. Somewhere in L.A. is where the good stuff happens. for those of you not in the know.. L.A. does NOT equal Los Angeles.. it DOES equal Lower Alabama. Just so we're clear. We make a brief stop at McDonalds to get dinner. The children swear they aren't hungry, yet the 20piece chicken mcnugget order is gone in 12.4 seconds. And for those of you counting, yes, we did indeed feed our children Waffle House for lunch and McDonalds for dinner. We're pretending it is 1984. We grab the substances passing as food, shove the children back in the car, and allow them to eat while we drive.
Seriously, we're working hard to pursue our degrees in Mothers of the Year. It's hard y'all.
So we're driving along. A nice lovely State Road with goats and cows and turquoise trailers. Some of the trailers have monogrammed letters on the front doors. Ya know, like a fancy "B" for Bryant. I kid you not. Turquoise trailers with front door monogrammed letters. We're less than 75 miles out, and Google Map Lady (why doesn't she have a name, like Siri?) suddenly alerts us that "traffic conditions have changed, opting for an alternate route will save you 57 minutes. You have 20seconds to accept."
WHAT? Are we on Mission Impossible? What the HELL? We're so baffled and amused and giddy - and looking at WIDE OPEN roads, we decide that Google Map Lady is just bored and tired of the goats. We push on.
About the time we get to Florabama - YES - all my Yankee readers - there is indeed a town called Florabama. And it is, as you may have deduced, on the line between Alabama and Florida. So back to the point - at about the Florabama mark - we see a donkey just trotting along the side of the road. A DONKEY. Trotting. No human in sight. Harness on. Yard, road, yard. Mom 1 exclaims "LOOK! Someone's DONKEY is LOOSE!" Because, I mean, don't we all just have donkeys running around our yards? Mom 2 is absolutely about to pee her pants at this point, as she just can't get over the donkey. The children are beyond mad that none of them saw this donkey.
And about .25 miles later, we see the PoPo. These PoPo have some young men pulled over to the side of the road. Young men sitting on their bottoms with their hands CUFFED behind their backs, while the PoPo examine the contents of the car. These young men are clearly on their way to Spring Break, and most likely that spring break was ruined by whatever they opted to transport across State Lines.
Of course our kids missed the fascinating donkey, but TOTALLY saw the cuffed kids. That was fun to explain.
If we'd have had the time, I SO would have wanted to stick around to see if the donkey wandered into the PoPo scene. I mean, how fun is that?
SO, we're less than 30miles from our destination, but Google Map Lady is still telling us we have 75minutes to go. We're still baffled. Then Google Map Lady gets her revenge as we come upon stand still traffic. By now it is about 8pm CT (oh - yes- we crossed from ET into CT), so we've been in the car for a very long time. Eventually we see flashing lights and men walking amongst the cars with flashlights. Well this just can't be good. Eventually, we make our way in the line to our man with the flashlight. We indicate where we're going, and are then sent on a detour to get to our condo. Sigh. Google Map Lady was right. We have no idea why we got detoured, no idea what happened.
What we DO know is that the detour sent us over the toll bridge. So Mom 1 and Mom 2 promptly deduced this was government at it's best! Can't you just see the powers that be sitting around -
Well Golly Gee Dan, I've GOT it!
What? What have you got Johnny?
Spring Break! The families! The college kids! Lets set up a big 'ol road block, and force everyone over that toll bridge! Think of the cash flow!
Sigh. Anyway. Since Destin is Memphis South and I've been here so many times, I didn't even need the GPS to get us where we needed to be. We finally pulled in sometime around 9 (I think)? Of course the guy at the check in desk was NOT THERE - instead there was a 'be back in five minutes' sign. You can imagine the exhaustion, giddiness, full bladders and generally greasy humans that just wanted to curl up in the lobby and pass out.
But we were here. Finally. The kids passed out, Mom 1 and Mom 2 dug out a Box of Wine, and all was well.
Spring Break starts now!
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