The Big Drive: Launch

Early on the fifteenth – not as early as we’d planned, but plenty early – Marty and I launched from Youngstown on that day’s fourteen hour drive.

We made it to Tuscaloosa (bane of all hotel-seeking travellers) for the night, as some of you may already have heard. Oh, but if you haven’t heard… please, please read on.

We figured, hey – we’re in a good mood. The trip thus far was easy. We stopped for gas, we picked up food here and there. Somewhere in Kentucky we stopped for dinner at Shoney’s, across the street from a burning building. (That was interesting.) We discovered that Shoney’s was the bestest restaurant evar. We continued on. We hit Nashville, switched drivers, and kept going. Nashville was a little nuts, but nothing too complicated. We hit Alabama, where everything is called ‘Bama this and ‘Bama that. ‘Bama ‘bama ‘bama.

It was late, around midnight, and we were pretty sure we could go another three hours to Summerland. But did we really want to? I mean, why not end the evening on a fresh note? Have something to eat, watch a movie, konk out?

Excellent idea, we decided! And tomorrow’s drive would be short and sweet in comparison.

“Hey, are you updating your journal?”

“Yeah.”

“Make sure to put how much we hate Tuscaloosa.”

“Heh. Okay.”

Apparently a lot of business people stop in Tuscaloosa. I mean, a LOT. As in, three hotels without vacancy… and several others with only a couple of rooms left. Smoking rooms. Expensive rooms. We finally stopped at the Holiday Inn Express and were told the only thing they had left was a $130 suite.

Hmm.

I even considered it, you know? We were just so tired.

The woman at the desk was nice – she called around to other Tuscaloosa hotels for us. By then we were so annoyed with driving around Tuscaloosa at night, stopping at hotels that were already full, we weren’t going to drive around anymore – but we didn’t want a suite with two televisions and a couch that we had to pay double a normal rate for, either.

Ultimately, she found the Quality Inn – and then WE found the Quality Inn, after driving up the strip a ways – and they held a non-smoking king for us. And we came, and we passed out, and we slept.

And that was the first day. If you’d like, you can take a look at my TON of pictures from March 15 on Flickr here. Stay tuned – more details soon! :}

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