July 3rd Every Journey Begins with a Single Step (Georgia to Tennessee)

July 3rd

Mile .01 – snag some movies and portable DVD players from friend Amanda. God Bless you, Friend Amanda. Because of you, I might not kill my kids during the next week and a half.  

Mile- 18.8- 2 out of 3 kids snoring, this might be considered good by some camps, only it’s 7:14 and oops we forgot to feed them dinner.  We are leaving 2 days earlier than we had planned because of our 4^th of July plans being thwarted by a torrential rainstorm.  We are headed to St. Louis to see the fireworks in front of the Arch! (unlike fireworks in front of the arc if we’d stayed in Marietta) Isn’t that spontaneous of me?

Mile 220: Nashville!  We pulled in blaring a little Shania Twain ‘cause that’s okay when you are in Nashville! but lame when you are in the ATL.  In the pouring rain we managed to harness all of the technology at our fingertips (laptop, wireless card, cell phone) and book a hotel close to the interstate. You don’t realize how freaking loud your children are until you get them sequestered in a hotel room. Even if it is a moderately sized hotel room, it automatically feels like you are crammed in a portoilette, a portoilette full of extraneous stuffed animals that you told husband not to let the kids bring to the porta potty, but he caved and now you have 23 stuffed animals to keep track of in this tiny, loud portajohn.  The moment of panic came when said portotel made you PAY for kid channels. NOT. ONE.FREE. KID. CHANNEL. I mean, we had already shelled out $40 for a fair to middling bottle of wine, I was not paying for Good Luck, I Carly while you're at Camp Rock.  You have to consider your priorities when in a PortoJohn with 15 children and 38 stuffed animals, plus McKenna and her crutches. My moment of Zen came when Austin City Limits came on public television and it was Gillian Welch/John What’s his name and the Decemberists. Charlotte asked when Taylor Swift was going to be on. “NEVER”, I shouted. “BWHAAAHAHA”. Tonight, fair child, decent music will abound! Because, we are in Nashville!