It has nice roads and a weird fashion sense.
The highways were the quietest and smoothest I've seen on this trip. Road quality, especially after logging 2,000 miles in four days, is a big deal to me.
As for the fashion, I've never been somewhere where hunting camouflage is worn as a normal, daily article of clothing. Uggs and Realtree don't mix. Unless you live in Arkansas. I saw a lot of people in camouflage and not a lot of gun racks. Make fun of my polo shirts all you want, but suiting up like your going duck hunting and going anywhere else instead is just plain weird.
The kids did great today. After yesterday's outbursts and lack of sleep they were too tired to be bad. This worked out for me; I got a good hundred and fifty miles in before they started to stir. But even when both kids were awake, they seemed happy. It could be that they've resigned themselves to the reality that they're not going anywhere. The minivan is now their home, so they believe.
Actually, that's probably not too far from the truth. Besides overnights, we've been living out of it. It's our kitchen, living room, and changing station on wheels. Today certainly proved that to me. Like when I took Grace out of her car seat and noticed that she had amassed more varieties of food than a Chinese lunch buffet. I pulled out Cheerios, veggie sticks, mashed fruits, a tator tot, and the remnants of one of those veggie pouches just to name a few. We've eaten a lot of meals on the road.
With all this eating means our fair share of diaper changes. And when one doesn't exist at one of our rest stops, the driver seat has doubled as the changing station. Today I had the honor and privilege of cleaning up one of Timothy's trademark diaper blowouts. This one required about 50 wipes and a full wardrobe change. That's difficult enough as is, but as I'm trying to undress and clean him he's grabbing a hold of the steering wheel and pulling himself up. Poop was everywhere and all he wanted to do was drive.
I finally did get him cleaned up and was finishing putting him in new clothes when it suddenly started to rain. Hard. I'm standing outside the van, he's still squirming on the seat. I quickly jumped in, butt towards the steering wheel, hunched over him trying to get his onesie on. This didn't work out too well for me. But instead of helping, the Wife was laughing hysterically.
Yeah. Real funny.
That was the highlight of her day.
My highlight was our lunch stop in Memphis. We stopped at Tom's BBQ which was featured on Food Network a couple of times. I was really impressed. The food was amazing, as I expected it to be, but the service was what made it really special to me.
When we showed up, Tom was coming in too. He held the door and thanked us for coming as we struggled with the kids and their dining accessories (portable highchair, diaper bag, Grace's blanket). Then, as I was paying, the cashier asked if this was our first time at Tom's. It was, so she told us she'd send out a special treat to our table. The special treat was a good-sized portion of their dry-rubbed ribs. Then, as we were leaving, we saw Tom outside again. I rolled down my window to tell him how much we enjoyed the meal. He asked us where we were headed, and told us the best way to get back to I-40. But the topper was that he then walked out into the middle of the very busy street to block oncoming traffic so we could get to the other side of the road. A pit master, gentleman, and traffic cop. I can't wait to go back.
The rest of the drive was uneventful, except for more rain. We're in Nashville now, which I'm pretty excited about. Tomorrow's drive is pretty short, so maybe we'll have a chance to do a little exploring. Or maybe I'll just sleep in.
Cincinnati bound ...
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