The kids woke up about 5:45 yesterday morning, so we had no issues getting up and about, and after having breakfast at the hotel (where the friendly breakfast attendant said "You have four babies! What water are you drinking??" then was even more shocked to find out Mara had four children as well, who just couldn't come along because we ran out of room in the van), we breezed through Atlanta and got out of Georgia with relatively little fanfare. We did get a little excited when we saw a sign for a Fazoli's just south of Tennessee and we stopped to eat lunch. The kids were underwhelmed by the never ending breadsticks, but it was exciting for Mara and me. Kids just don't have appreciation for carbs, I guess. Thor doesn't either, apparently, as the combination of sitting in the car all day and eating Fazoli's made my blood sugar rise.
Tennesee, though, gave us problems. We were dying for good music and were completely over listening to Adventures in Odessy, so I ran into a Wal-Mart to find one of those FM things that connects to your phone. We figured it would be worth the lost time.
Of course I bought it and the thing didn't even work. So it is totally going back. But we both ended up frustrated and annoyed and then....out of the blue, the GPS directed us off of I-65 and into the boonies of northern Tennessee, where we spent what felt like forever driving around in the country trying to get back to the highway. I am supremely disappointed in my Garmin. We had no phone coverage, a revolting GPS, and kids who were getting tired of sitting all day. Every twently minutes or so, Seth would just scream at the top of his lungs and them go back to jabbering while looking out the window, I guess to get some latent energy out. Evany rounded the bend from frustrated to delirious and cackled non stop at nothing in the back of the car.
Right after we saw not one, but two drive up beer stands literally ten feet away from each other (competition!), we suddenly found ourselves in Kentucky and found the highway again. We pushed on through and powered through Kentucky, grabbing Arby's and getting to our hotel about 8:15 last night.
Of course that's when we found out the hotel had an issue with our prepaid-to-a-third-party-that-would-never-refund-me-reservation.
I almost died right then, I'll tell you.
Luckily, the clerk changed things around, put us in some other room and let us take a rollaway bed and a pack and play with us and we made it work. We ate cold Arby's in our room and then puzzled all the kids' beds together and put them to bed. Then I listened to Seth whine "Mommy!" at me for almost two hours from his bed while I took a HUGE unit test for Anatomy under not so great conditions. Mara l kept laughing and saying "Any grade you get I will be so proud!"
I got a 92%, and the test is a huge part of my grade, so that pretty much redeemed the day for me.
And now we're in Louisville, about to eat breakfast and head over the state line to Indiana. We have just a few hours to drive today. It's a strange feeling, I have to say.
We've almost arrived.
P.S. Thanks for the sweet offer of a place to stay, Holly! I didn't see it until last night and we were in Kentucky. =)
Luckily the clerk was
