Headin' on down to Georgia...

The trip to Georgia went smoothly. We left Thursday, shortly after school. Here is the precise route we took to achieve Southern-ness. We stopped in Albert Lea, MN for Thursday night, had a fun breakfast in the morning and hit the road again at about 9am.

Friday took us through Iowa, Missouri and into Illinois. Let me just tell you that throughout the entire city of St. Louis, not a single driver was within 15 mph of the actual speed limit. Signs in this zone dictate 55 mph? Nah, we're just gonna treat this like the 70 mph zone and go 80-85. Man, do they move! Nothing like keeping up with the herd to avoid getting trampled. Now, I'd hate for anyone to think that I don't enjoy the experience of highway driving in a large city. I ain't skurred. I have to admit though that driving through St. Louis on the Friday before a 3-day weekend at 6:30pm (with three kids sleeping in the back of the minivan that don't belong to me) had me white-knuckling it a couple times. A bit further down the road, we hit a right lane closure. Congestion was backed up 4 miles before the actual merging point because all the jerks in the right lane chose to save themselves 3 minutes and cost everyone else about 45 by NOT MERGING!!! God bless the gracious semi driver immediately ahead of us for finally moving right; we worked together to block the rude people and eventually made it through. We decided to bed down in West City, IL.

On Saturday morning, we skipped through Illinois and the corner of Kentucky. The data connection on my phone went away all day, so no GPS or internet. Thankfully I had retained the basic directions and Nate was so good as to confirm the crucial intersections - ok, maybe all of the intersections - over the phone (reiterated note to self: never travel across country without an atlas, just in case). Here are some pics of Whitehaven Welcome Center we stopped by in Paducah, KY. It's the only historic home in the US to be converted into a rest area. Way cool.

Only one side of the main level is public access, with an information desk, tourist pamphlets, etc. The rest is roped off for guided tours, which we did not stick around for, though it would have been fun. We did peek in the windows at the rooms and furniture, which were quite lovely.

Does anyone else find it amusing that "Bide-a-Wee" is now a rest stop for tourists? :)

From there, we continued into Tennessee, through Nashville and Chattanooga where we switched interstates and headed straight for Atlanta. A few turns and a couple hours later we arrived in Hawkinsville, GA.

The only real difference I noticed between the journey here and joy-riding in southern Minnesota was the change in trees. I mean, the country got a little hill-ier, but from Illinois onward, the landscape suddenly ceased to consist of 'our' trees. The further south we went, the more and more strange they looked. I don't think I've completely realized that we're 1500 miles from home. CRAZY!