Miles traveled: 410
Hours on Road: 6
States covered: 4 – Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia
As we tried to leave Tennessee we found ourselves in the presence of (and behind) the worst driver in the world. It was bad enough that we were trapped on a road that, though it looked like it wanted to be a highway, because some fool plunked stop lights all along it, it was nothing but a four-lane stop and go traffic nightmare, and bad enough that there were thousands of tractor trailers on this road, but to add insult to injury, the aforementioned fool wouldn’t go fast enough to pass the semi that was right next to her and kept swaying back and forth erratically in her lane; she left me unable to do anything but stay far behind them both, cursing under my breath. I could see the driver’s right hand gesturing wildly while holding a cigarette between fingers haunted by three-inch nails, and during one of the swaying episodes the car wandered over into the left-hand turning lane; but I wasn’t positive that it was the driver’s intention to actually turn left, so I kept behind the car’s weaving space until it came to a complete stop, at which point I could see, as I drove past, that the driver’s other hand was busy holding a phone to her ear, which explained not only the right-hand gesturing, but the bad driving, as well.
Leaving her behind, we had the pleasure of driving through yet another violent storm that allowed zero visibility through the front window as well as in the side mirror. I cannot understand how others can plow forward at high speeds without the ability to see the road or any traffic ahead of or behind them. Even though cars had their headlights on, I couldn’t see them until they were almost right on me. Because I slowed down to 45 mph during the heaviest outbursts of rain, I turned on my hazard lights. I soon caught up to a car going only slightly slower than I had been, so I felt comfortable that someone else was being as cautious as I. But that car continued to go slow even when the rain let up a little from time to time, and though I wanted to pick up speed during those times, I was too chicken to pass. After several stints of slowed rain and impatience on my part, I sucked it up, held my breath, waited for the faster cars to go by me, and I pulled over into that elusive (to me anyway) left lane, and I passed, hands gripping the wheel, breath held, shoulders tights, and eyes wide. The rain and my driving continued in this manner for about an hour before finally letting up for good. I am priming myself for a stroke or a heart attack. Seriously!!
I knew that Birmingham was on the course we had set for the day’s drive, which I found exciting since that is where Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his magnificent “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in which he states that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The problem with our drive through Birmingham began with the breakdown of Lee. Yesterday Parker was able to get him to work with a little careful fussing. Today, Cal rode in the front seat, and his fussing was evidently not as careful as Parker’s because by the time I got out to the van, the issue was no longer that Lee did not believe the cord was supplying a charge, the problem was that the cord would no longer plug into Lee at all. I have no idea what Cal did, but he brought an end to any relationship Lee was going to have with that plug. He still had a little charge left in him, so we were able to use him to get out of Tennessee and then we turned him off to save juice, but by the time we reached Birmingham he had little to no life left in him at all, so we tried to go without him. Luckily, I had printed out all our directions from MapQuest, so we did have a clue as to what to do. Unluckily, the directions from MapQuest sucked. They said to get on a road that was really three roads combined for a while, then veer left on one of the roads until it took you to the highway that continued on to Georgia. We took a left but couldn’t find any clue as to where the next road we were looking for was. We took a right, hoping to find a sign somewhere, but all we ran into was a train stopped across the road. So I did a U-turn. We then took a right, which had us continuing on the road we’d first turned left on. We couldn’t get straight whether we should go north or south on 59, which was also 65, because north on one was south on the other – go figure. So we woke Lee up. He said to do a U-turn; so I did. He then brought us back down the road we had just come from where the train was stopped, (broken-down stopped), so we did another U-turn, figuring we’d head back along the same road we’d originally turned left on and had done that second U-turn on. During the very short drive on that road, we finally figured out that both Lee and the MapQuest directions ultimately wanted us on 65 South, but I was already in the middle lane and couldn’t get over to the right in time to get to the on-ramp for the highway without cutting off a semi, so we pulled to the left, and did our second U-turn in that spot, which was actually our fourth U-turn altogether. So we went back down the road where the train was stopped (we felt comfortably familiar with that road by now), did a third u-turn on that road, making it the fifth U-turn within 10 minutes, pulled right out of that road, turned right onto the highway, and were on our way once again. Like the bats at Carlsbad Caverns, we had to circle counterclockwise around our half-mile long area of departure from Birmingham before we could take flight onto the highway.
This drive was a very long drive. Because we’ve been on the road so long, it felt like a painfully long drive, especially since we’ve come to realize that when the directions say it’s going to take five hours, it’s really going to take seven. We stopped only for lunch at Sonic, and otherwise we were driving forward. We called Tim a couple of times to coordinate our meeting time and make sure we were going in the right direction. We also used a trick my wonderful nephew John had shown me in Austin. Lee could be hooked up to the computer through the cord that hooks the camera up to the computer for downloading photos, so while I drove, I directed my children, step by step in clear, slow English, what to do. Parker had to take the computer out of its bag and hook up its plug, while Cal had to hook the inverter up to the lighter in the van and plug the computer plug into it. Cal then had to find and give to Parker the necessary camera cord, which Parker plugged into the computer and Cal hooked up to Lee. Then it was only a matter of turning the computer on, which Trey took care of. Viola, a charging GPS. The only problem was that Lee wouldn’t provide any directions while he charged this way, but we had 210 miles on the same highway, so we had time to wait.
When we were just outside Atlanta, we woke Lee back up, and he managed to guide us from one road to the next. We panicked a little at each stoplight when Lee would let us know the batteries were getting low. We’d press OK, but he’d keep reminding us, as if there was something we could do about it. Couldn’t he understand? We couldn’t hook him up to the van! Somehow, some way, with his last dying breath, Lee got us to the parking lot where we were to meet Uncle Tim.
Tim took us to Delta’s flight simulator building so see if we could get a little flight time. He was able to find someone there, Paul, who was willing and able to take us for a ride. We entered what exactly simulated a 777 cockpit. I felt like I was on the flight deck of the USS Enterprise, there were so many lit-up buttons. The windows were blank, but when Paul asked us where we were from, and we said Connecticut, he called up the LaGuardia airport as our view out the window. It was amazing how real it looked. They use Google Earth as their mapping system. I took photos of the “view” out the “window.” Then we took off. It’s unbelievable that we were sitting in a room-sized cube because I would have sworn we were taking off: the pressure felt real, the tilt felt real (that probably was, because I’m sure the room tilted back). I even got a little motion sickness as I looked out the window while we were flying. Paul pointed out all the sights we were seeing: Manhattan, Citi Field, some bridges (I took a photo of one bridge). It was an amazing experience. We had to “land” a little early because there had been some planned maintenance of the equipment that Paul had been unaware of, but it was amazing nonetheless. Many thanks go out to Paul and to Uncle Tim.
On the way to Tim’s house, I followed along behind him, and he drove at a reasonable speed, which is not easy for him. He became a pilot to fulfill his need for speed. The boys went swimming in the lake behind Tim’s house with their cousin, Ian, while I pounded a few beers and talked with Tim and Susan. They’d prepared a barbeque pork rib dinner for us that, I have to say, was better than the one the night before (sorry, Cozy Corner). There was more meat on these bones.
After dinner, Tim took the boys out on golf cart, which is one of their favorite things in the world to do. He even bought them ice cream. It was so nice and relaxing just hanging out. When I went to bed, it was in my own private suite in an apartment over the garage. I didn’t do much with the blog because it was more fun to talk with family members I haven’t seen in a while, that’s why this is being posted several days after the fact. But I sure slept well, and I woke up when I felt like it, not when a boy decided I should wake up.
For corresponding photos, go to:
http://www5.snapfish.com/snapfish/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=2006591027/a=2740108027_2740108027/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/
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