"On the road again..."

Tuesday November 1, 2011

This morning we got up around 6:30, planning to head out at 7:00am. We just about made our goal; we pulled out of the hotel around 7:20am and headed on our way.

We added another state to our journey! We passed the Alabama sign about 20 minutes into our trip; Ben gave me the warning that it was coming so I actually was able to get the picture of it! The fun thing about driving today was not only that we got to add a few new states to our list for this year (Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia), but we also got to see fall colors again! The drive was absolutely beautiful along the way and we got to see a new scenic route since we took a different way.

We drove through the entire day listening to audio books we rented from Cracker Barrel, catching up with friends and family on the phone, snacking and playing car games such as “if you could be…” Around 11 we began looking for hotels because we were getting ready to be done for the day and get some sleep. We figured we only had about 4 hours to go and we could finish that up tomorrow. Unfortunately we came to find that EVERYTHING was booked even 3 hours outside of where we were heading. The snow storm was so bad that it shut off the power of MANY houses (we actually saw a whole bunch of power cable vehicles heading up North from Texas and Louisiana as we were driving), and apparently the radius of the power outage was more significant then we thought. We literally called every place that we passed and looked things up on the internet and GPS and could find NOTHING available! So as the night went on and we continued to get more and more tired, we just decided to find a place to park the car and get some rest. We parked the car, loaded on the blankets and sweatshirts and eventually fell asleep. Sleeping in the car is not ideal, especially when it is cold and the parking lot lights are shining in your eyes. I think that is why I ended up in a complete ball with the blanket over my entire face when I woke up. The good news is we stayed safe, semi-warm and we got some sleep, so that was good!