Still Road Trippin! Days 4 & 5!

Two HUGE days of driving!! We left Arkansas early and didn't stop until Oklahoma where we ran around amongst the hay bales. After a couple extremely unsuccessful attempts to give one another a leg up onto a hay bale, we settled for a selfie in front of it:

Then it was on to Texas where our dinner spot pretty much summed up the whole state! The Big Texan.

The place was massive! Complete with shooting arcade, deer/cow/goat heads on the walls (very House Baratheon from Game of Thrones), and a trio of country singers.

If you can eat a 72 ounce steak, you get it for free! This guy took on the challenge and was running outta time and resolve when we snapped a pic with him!

We also ran into a big brown bear! Aww Chewy...

With full bellies and some chocolate-peanut-butter fudge to go, we found a hotel and crashed for the night. 
The next day was hotter than you can possibly imagine. 

With the heat wave blazing at 113 degrees, we thanked a higher power that we'd gotten the AC working again in the car. We drove all day - 10 hours - through Texas and New Mexico to Arizona. 

 

Finally we reached Phoenix where we spent the night with mum's childhood friend and her family! The meal at home, lovely new people, doggies to play with, and fresh conversation were just what we needed to get us through to our final day of driving!

Day 3!

The car had a 1:30 appointment at the dealership to get checked out, so we decided to do a little exploring in Nashville… Typing in “shopping” to the trusty Google Maps came up with one potential result within walking distance: The Shopping Bag Thrift Store. We set out into the 95 degree heat, blindly following the GPS past barbed wire fences and down seriously sketchy streets – so sketchy that a security guard stopped us to ask if we needed directions because “you don’ wanna be walkin’ around just anywhere in Nashville.” Yikes! After passing what mum suspected to be “crack houses,” we popped out onto a main road and reached the thrift shop! 

To quote Macklemore: What what. What. What? Closed?! Major disappointment. But it was okay! Because there was a Burger King across the road waiting for us with refreshing lemonade and chocolate sundaes :).

We went back to Subaru and they gave us the all-clear to keep driving, YAY! We reached Memphis and had some delicious barbecue ribs and pulled pork for dinner at Corky’s.

We crossed the Mississippi River into Arkansas and watched an incredible lightening storm all the way along the highway until we found a hotel.

Day 2 in Tennesseeeeeee

 We took the Subi in to get a headlight fixed in the morning. This fifteen minute job turned into an hour-long job, because, well, we were in the South, and when they heard we were doing a trip across country, they did a safety check and changed all the fluids free of charge :). Only a little behind schedule, we were on the road again and headed toward Tennessee. We’d had an uneventful couple hours before finding ourselves following a certain, ahem, very manly, truck… 

Dying with laughter, we followed this guy for a while, his truck’s balls swinging in the breeze. 

Before long, we saw some very ominous-looking clouds on the horizon. Hoping the storm wouldn’t hit us, we drove on – and right into it. The windscreen wipers on full blast barely made a dent in the deluge of rain pouring down on us. Mum, white knuckled, steered us through the worst of it, and we could only hope that everything on the roof wasn’t completely soaked.*

Our next little adventure began when, all of a sudden, the “check engine” light came on and the cruise control kicked off. Q assured us that engine lights come on all the time, though, and that it was probably fine. So we kept driving… Big mistake. Without warning, the AC shut off and the temperature gage went from normal to completely off the scale! Ahh!! Q pulled over and called the insurance company for a tow.

We all rode in the tow truck to Darryl’s Auto Shop, middle of nowhere, Tennessee. While they checked out the car, we had a great chat with Darryl himself. He’d lived all his life within a couple mile radius, he showed us his license which authorizes him to carry a concealed handgun, and he told us about his dogs that run free around his neighborhood: “I said to ma neighbor, ‘If that dog ever bothers you, don’t say a word, you jus’ take your shotgun and kill it, and it ain’t gone never bother you again.” We stood there, mouths open, thinking of our pampered puppies – how we fluff up their bedding at night and make sure we give them a treat every time we leave the house…

After finding the temperature in the engine to be normal, despite the reading on the gage, we were given the go-ahead to drive to Nashville where they’d have the parts we need to get it fixed properly. The drive was hell. Two hours, 93 degree heat, no AC.

But we made it! And had the best Southern dinner you could imagine at the Loveless Café! Biscuits, fried chicken, pork chops, hash brown casserole, pulled pork, caramel sweet potatoes, mac and cheese, and cole slaw. We took two pieces of pie and four serious food babies back to the hotel, and fell into bed.

*Everything wasn’t completely soaked, somehow only Hannah’s stuff got wet :(

Road Trip! Day 1

We crammed the boot of the car full on Monday, leaving plenty of space for everything we had to get on the roof Tuesday morning - two big tubs of shoes and four small bags with our stuff for the trip. Inevitably, though, the “plenty of space” we’d left hadn't accounted for the width of the roof racks and quickly became “not enough space.” By the time we came downstairs, ready to go, Mum and Q had tried every possible configuration of tubs and bags to no avail. Mum greeted us with a panic inducing, “Morning girls! You’re going to have to choose which shoes you want to take.” Ahhh! What?! Okay. Decision time... After sacrificing a couple pairs of boots and heels each, saying goodbye to the doggies, and snapping a quick pic, we were off!

With “Life is a Highway” blaring, our Dunkin' Donuts coffees in hand, and our minds struggling to comprehend what was happening, we left Massachusetts for the next seven months! Connecticut and New York went by event-free, but when we hit New Jersey, it was Hannah’s turn to drive (dun dun duunn). The combination of pushy NJ drivers, 400lbs of extra weight in the car, minimal experience on highways, and absolutely zero vision out the rear-view mirror, made for a nerve-jangling hour for everyone in the car. We made it, though, and stumbled out at our lunch spot: the Spinning Wheel Diner. After lunch we tackled Pennsylvania (which we slept through), West Virginia (where Mum and Q learned that there’s an explicit version of Thrift Shop), and arrived in Virginia for the night. Lucy’s final comment, just as we were all going to sleep, was: “Guys, I feel like my earplug’s so far in it’s touching my brain.”