The Longest Drive

Holy hell.  So in hopes of spending the afternoon in St. Louis and having a short drive on Saturday, instead of 3 am we decided to load up the team and head out last night at 9:30 -- long and short of it, leaving mid-night means the adults get little quality sleep and the kids wake up early.  Instead, we said our goodbyes, loaded up and rolled out towards Jacksonville.  We hit one of the local gas station/trinket shop/fruit stands for some thick coffee and away we went.  Kids sleeping around 10, Kari dozing, me listening to Greek vocab and putting the hammer down.  And then...

Somewhere around Tallahassee, the Seminole Nat'l Forest surrounded I-10.  The trees formed a type of tunnel it appeared; my eyes focused on the glowing lane markers and after a bit it felt like we were on some crazy ride to God knows where marked only by glowing dots in the distance. We did witness a shooting star, which was super cool; the road turned north after Tallahassee towards Alabama (our choice to avoid Atlanta's traffic in the early morning) and turned into something even more disconcerting.  The GPS had a tendancy to get us where we were going, albeit by somewhat non-traditional, well marked routes; we ended up on a one lane county blacktop somewhere in Florida's panhandle with the only other living creatures being police men (out in force) and deer (also out in force -- on the stretch between I-10 and I-65 in Montgomery, if we saw 1 we saw 50 RIGHT ON THE SHOULDER OF THE ROAD).  It was during this stretch, sometime around 1:30 am, that Jesus and I got serious about our chats regarding safety and deer staying off the road; He was good to keep both requests.  Big surprise, eh?  Needless to say in future trips, flight is preferred; if we drive, I-75 thru Atlanta and the billboards of Georgia will be the route of choice.  We did however see Montgomery around 4 am and both thought of Martin Luther King Jr...pretty amazing to be in places where such pivotal moments in history took place.

Kari took the wheel around this time, she took it from my hands, cuz I couldn't do it on my own...I snoozed until Birmingham when the skyline and Kari's thumpin' hip hop woke me up momentarily; the kids got up around 6 am Central after sleeping a solid 9 hours in the van without waking up.  We hit a McDonald's in Alabama for more coffee and breakfast, and kept on rolling.  Nashville in the early morn, Kentucky and Illinois, and finally arrived in St. Louis around 1:30 pm.  18 hours of road time, a freakin' lot of miles, two whipped adults and 3 squirreled out kids are now residing in the Ramada airport edition for the night.  Snow in the DSM, 70 here in Missouri; we'll see what tomorrow brings.  What a road trip this has been.  In the morning, we take off for home, we hope; at last report, Kansas City and St. Louis were under Winter Storm Warnings...unreal.  So many good memories, so much more to report!  Not tonight, though.  Time to rest.

Until tomorrow...