July 15, 2010

Our grand adventure – Days 17-18

Day 17: Wednesday, July 14, 2010

We took our time getting off on Wednesday, since I was not in any particular hurry to leave my aunt’s house. But leave we did, after I checked the oil and added a good deal of coolant to the car. (It seems to me I may need this checked when I get to Texas. Should my car be needing coolant refills every week? Maybe so!) The girls all pitched in to help get the car loaded and Timothy ready. The car’s seats were a bit wet, but Timothy’s carseat was dry, since it had been in the garage during the night’s thunderstorm. So we set out anyway. Somehow we made room for another box of diapers (unpacked into its two packages) and some more food (including some of my aunt’s fresh banana-blueberry muffins with the blueberries we’d picked ourselves Monday). We didn’t get off until almost noon and had an uneventful drive to our motel in Greenville, Alabama. I have an alarm on my phone set for 2:30 PM every day to remind me to pray for a friend, and yesterday it went off twice – once in Eastern time and then again in Central time. :)

We got to see some cool lightning just south of Montgomery, although Timothy saw much more than I did, since it was off to our left. He immediately connected it to Lightning McQueen. (My cousin Alyssa had bought him his own toy McQueen at Walmart the previous day.) Smart kid! The motel in Greenville was decent, but the Internet was wretched. It was on just long enough for me to chat with my sister on Facebook before it quit entirely. It’s a good thing it’s free because otherwise I’d have demanded a refund. Good grief. I stayed up late hoping it would work, but finally gave up sometime after 11, after Timothy had been in bed an hour or so.

Day 18: Thursday, July 15, 2010

Today we planned to drive to Sulphur, Louisiana, a 7+ hour drive, so we got up around 8 AM and ate the motel’s free breakfast before heading out. (Okay, Timothy actually woke up at 7 AM, which doesn’t make any sense since he was up so late! But I told him it wasn’t time to get up, so he lay in bed, kicking his legs and singing to himself for an hour. Thank goodness!) We headed southwest toward the Gulf and then turned west to follow the I-10, which will take us the rest of the way. We stopped at a rest area on the border of Mississippi and Louisiana around lunchtime and discovered it was also a NASA visitor’s center. I was tempted to visit the NASA area, which was separate from the rest area, but with Timothy, I thought it might be just too much. It’s a really nice rest area, though, if you’re ever heading either way on the I-10 at that border. It was hot today – 96 or so – but in cooler weather I’m sure it would be delightful. There are lots of shaded picnic tables under trees, and I think it’d be a great place for a picnic lunch. Plus there’s free coffee if you go inside! We stopped shortly afterward for lunch at Subway. (I only recently discovered you can get tuna sandwiches at Subway – yeah!) Timothy had fun running around and playing peek-a-boo with a young man at a nearby booth. :)

One thing I noted as we drove today was that we drove extensively over water – more than I’ve ever done before. I guess in this part of the country, when the signs says “Mobile River” (or whatever), it actually means “Mobile Delta.” I kept wishing we could pull over and look at the trees growing out of the water. Such a cool phenomenon!

And I realized that perhaps my greatest pet peeve of driving is tailgaters, especially when they are semis. Yes, I am a slow driver. I go the speed limit. But I have to pass vehicles, too! Usually I try to do so when it doesn’t inconvenience anyone else, in other words when I don’t see speeders coming up quickly behind me in the left lane. And sometimes I do speed up to pass other cars. But seriously, I pray God has mercy on these drivers who follow five feet behind other vehicles going 70mph. Don’t they have any idea how dangerous it is – both for them and for the vehicle in front? Obviously not. It’s just idiocy in my opinion.

Anyway, we made it here to the La Quinta Inn in Sulphur, Louisiana (thanks, Priceline!), where there is air conditioning and high-speed Internet, as well as free breakfast tomorrow. Yeehaw! Timothy and I had leftovers and fruit for supper and have gotten to relax this evening. I am so wiped out after almost three weeks of traveling. But when we get to San Antonio, we’ll only be in one place for two weeks then will move to our more permanent residence. So it’s not “home” yet! Oy! I guess I’m really learning flexibility as well as the fact that we really are strangers in this world!

So tomorrow: San Antonio! We’re aiming to be there by around 3 PM, so we’ll try to leave between 8 and 9 AM. (Ha ha.) Here we go!

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