Hitting the road and not looking back

I am a planner. There's very little that I like to do on the fly and travel is not one of them. Though there can be exceptions. We're currently on vacation at Walt Disney World. We decided to drive down because I wasn't too keen on flying right now and wanted to do the "family road trip" thing anyways. Well, according to Google Earth, the way to Disney World is pretty straight-forward, just hop onto I-75 and away you go...

Google's directions for best way to get to I-75 from the Lansing area is to take I-96 to I-23, and hop onto I-75 in Toledo. For the past several weeks, my daily commute has taken me past an MDOT construction sign warning of long delays on 23. Originally, I had thought that we'd skip that by taking 127 all the way from Lansing to I-80 in Indiana to connect up with 75 in Ohio. Since Chuck is flying home tomorrow and staying the full week with us, our last chore before skipping town was to drop his car off at the airport. In a moment of weakness (brought on by starting my day at 4:30 and the stress of vacation prep), I let Chuck convince me that it would be shorter to hop onto I-69 and take that to Fort Wayne, then cut over on state highways to I-75. Okay, now. This is where you can take out your own map book and see for yourself just how utterly retarded a route this is. In hindsight, I'm thoroughly convinced that this route added at least an hour to the trip. Well, what's an extra hour for a trip that Google Earth says is only 16 hours long, right? Well, let's just say that it's not the time; it's the damage to morale. To make me feel better, I'd like for someone to sing me the praises of Lima OH, because right now my memories of it are filled with telling Chuck that I'll never let him navigate again (not true, but it made me feel better at the time).

We weren't on 75 for long until a very strong lightening storm rolled in, carrying with it bursts of torrential downpours. With both Sylvain and Chuck nodding in and out of sleep, I drove us just over the Ohio-Kentucky border in that mess before needing a break and some gas. Chuck woke and offered to drive. It was 11pm by then, and I was tired of driving, so hesitantly let him take the wheel. My Honda is a 5 speed, which he can drive just fine on the highway, but with the slick roads and poor conditions, I was worried that I couldn't rest. As it turns out, that wasn't a problem at all. When I woke, it was 4am and we were pulling-in at a small state park in Athens, Tennessee (between Lexington and Chattanooga). Chuck saw a sign for it off of the highway and thought that it would be a good place to rest for a while. Apparently, every rest area on 75 through Kentucky and most of Tennessee was closed. So, we stayed in the car and all had a quick nap.

By 6:30, I was wide awake again and ready to roll. Taking the wheel, we were back on the road with the goal of getting into Georgia and having some breakfast. We made great time through Georgia and past Atlanta without much traffic trouble. We had reservations for a night in Lake City last night, and I couldn't wait to have a hot shower and normal bed. We were about 150 miles from the Georgia-Florida border when we ran into our first traffic snarl. Remember about the Honda being a 5 speed? If you haven't experienced the joy of stop & go traffic in a manual vehicle, count yourself lucky. I was driving with Chuck taking a nap. By the time we were back on our way, I was able to knock off a couple inches on my magic loop/two at a time socks that I brought to work on. Any more stops like this and I'll have this pair done in a hurry.

Our night in Lake City was good. We stayed at a Holiday Inn; and since I'm a planner, we're lucky because the hotel (and acc'd to the clerk others around it) were sold out. Figuring that I wouldn't be able to strictly adhere to my diet, we decided to head out for some local barbecue. We ate at a place called "Ken's" based on a recommendation from the hotel clerk. I was pretty good with a salad and a small order of pulled pork. My splurge was for the Southern-style sweet tea. [Please don't leave a comment with the calorie count on that; I'd much rather not know.] After a quick shopping trip to the store that won't be named for forgotten items, we capped off our evening out with a treat at TCBY. The only dent was when Sylvain finally figured out that TCBY was frozen yogurt and not ice cream, which is too bad because we've made stops at TCBYs over Baskin Robbins many times since it was a "healthier" option....now the years of trickery are over.

Well, that's all that I have for now; so, check back in tomorrow for a posting of today's adventure...