Getting the cats herded this morning is more interesting than usual. Jelly and Midget have found holes in the side of the box spring and are camped inside there. We virtually have to disassemble the bed to pry them out.
We get on the road and head toward I-20. Most of the drive is unremarkable, and in a couple hours we cross the state line into Alabama. Goodbye and good riddance Georgia! What a nightmare.
Alabama is okay until we reach Birmingham. Then we get lost in a twist of roadways, and are 20 minutes out of our way (and another 20 minutes back) before we realize we're on the wrong road. We stop for directions, head back the same way. From here we're supposed to catch I-65 and then I-78, but there's no exit that says I-78, and we're once again lost. Again stopping for directions, we're told to head back the way we came a few miles, get off at an exit and follow the road straight for a while. Then the road will dead end on 78. "Is there a sign?" "No, no signs," the guy says. Just great.
It actually ends up easier than it sounds, and for a nice change we're off the interstate for a while. Since we can't go over 45mph or so anyway, being on town roads isn't much trouble. We stop and get some delicious corn fritters and chicken fingers (real southern fried chicken). Eventually we reach 78. The road is beautiful, passing by steep hills and gorges. On the bad side, we're passing steep gorges, and its starting to get dark, and the driving is a bit nerve-wracking. At last we cross the state line into Mississippi. Wow a whole state in one day! Its a record for us!
Just before we leave Alabama we notice a sign for the town of Guin, AL. A couple hundred yards later is another sign with the phonetic spelling "Gu-win." Wow, these folks are bilingual! They speak both English and Redneck.
We get to Tupelo MS, around 10 at night. Actually it's an hour earlier, cause we've just changed time zones. The signs at the exit we stop at suggest 6 motels to choose from, but we can't find more than one of them. (By now I've been outvoted again on the motel thing.) We ask directions and are told they're just up the road. We drive and drive and don't find anything. Finally we go back and to the only motel we'd seen.
I'm leaving out a lot of the grumbling. We're all tired and cranky and there's a lot of grumbling. I'm amazed we made it all the way here without killing each other. CK is, and continues to be whiny about driving the truck, whether or not he can make turns, the condition of the Dodge, etc. We check in, just barely too late to make a call to the Chinese place that closes up at 11, and are stuck with pizza for dinner again. By now I hate pizza.
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