The Sweatiest Road Trip Ever - Day 3 - The Great Mayonnaise Crisis!

Day 3 -

Today was, and this is not going to shock many of the more astute readers, a day full of driving.
We awoke at our hotel and began the day with a toast to crappy coffee.

Crappy coffee tastes slightly better when you drink it out of a mug that your best friend made. Thanks, Ben!

The view from our hotel seemed scientifically designed to remind you that no matter how crappy your coffee is, things could be infinitely worse.

Yes, your coffee may taste like watered down road grit, but at least you didn't have to sleep there.

And it worked. With this renewed, revitalized outlook on life, we packed up Squanket and headed back on the road. Our goal for the day was to make it to Jacksonville, FL so we could have breakfast with my brother and his wife who had recently moved to that area.

Off we go. Kerri is still behind the wheel to prevent me from stopping at The World's Largest Anything.

We had, without any question, arrived in The South. There is a palpable change in the air. I'd like to say that it was the smell of peaches and honeysuckle, but it was, in fact, hot asphalt and diesel fumes. There is a distinct increase in Jesus-themed slogans and billboards.

Awwwwww.

I'm not sure what sort of sin you have to commit in order to need a billboard begging for forgiveness.

Wow. It must have been a whopper.

Seriously. What happened?

WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!

Was it you? It seemed rude to ask. And, possibly, dangerous.

I did enjoy the juxtaposition of the signs begging forgiveness with the signs advertising the "Adult Superstores".

We didn't stop because

Kerri

claimed that

I'm still not

an adult.

As we avoided temptation at every exit, we passed a sprawling trailer park flying a football-field sized banner reading "TRUMP THE LEGEND - 2020".

We also passed a U-Haul storage facility that advertised it as a great place to store "RV - BOAT - WINE". Seems fancy, right?

Southerners, as a general rule, tend to have fewer bumper stickers on their cars than we New Englanders do. We did see many, many alarming "Trump Forever" stickers.

We also saw this cryptic window decal of Jesus shooting a basketball.

And there are also a staggering number of billboards for injury lawyers. I suppose that people spend time reading the billboards, crash into other cars, and then need accident lawyers. It's brilliant, really.

We stopped at a Welcome Center in South Carolina and enjoyed some real southern heat and humidity.

It. Is. SOOOO. Hot. Here.

Tori was afraid her feet would melt if she touched the ground.

South Carolina did have a lovely welcome center, complete with a metal seat, baking in the sun. Naturally, we forced our children to sit on it for a photo.

Don't touch me. Also, our legs are cooked to the seat. Thanks, Dad.

I'd love to show you the natural beauty of South Carolina. I assume it has some. Our view was somewhat limited due to the astounding number of semi-trucks on the highway.

Ohh, look, kids. A truck!

You can see some greenery there. Past the truck.

Hey! Is that a field?

Pretty!

Oh, dear. It seems like death is sort of a self-solving condition, but what do I know?

This is as close as we actually got to seeing any turf or sod in South Carolina.

Look at that beautiful blue sky. 

...sigh...

Hey! Is that a tree?

The majesty of the highway landscape.

Kerri enjoyed the camaraderie of sharing the road with the truckers. 10-4, good buddy! 

And then, it was time for lunch.

We made the regrettable mistake of deciding to combine lunch and a stop for gas. We somehow managed to find the most filthy Exxon station in the entire Northern Hemisphere.

"This seems like a good place to get Hepatitis A, B, C, and K," Tori cheerfully announced.
"Don't lick anything," I growled. "You'll be fine."

We did make the potentially life-altering decision to use the bathrooms at this gas station. Maybe we would need a funeral solution afterward. Who knows?

Without getting overly personal, I made the decision to not wash my hands after seeing the condition of the sink. It seemed safer that way.

After surviving the squalid bathrooms, we naturally wanted lunch. The only place with any sort of shade was right at the gas pumps so, in defiance of all good manners, we ate right at the pumps.

Fresh tomato sandwiches are a weakness of mine. I could eat them every meal in the summer and this trip had come right in the middle of the tomato harvest. I had picked a few tomatoes from our garden just before we left for this trip. I also baked a fresh loaf of bread and packed up a small container of mayonnaise. These are the only things that belong on a tomato sandwich and I will listen to no arguments about it.

Trying hard to suppress the memories of the bathroom, I carefully sliced my tomato.  I gently laid out the bread.  I looked for the mayonnaise. Where was the mayo? HOW CAN I HAVE A PROPER TOMATO SANDWICH WITHOUT MAYO?

Tori, ever the trooper, slipped back into the gas station and grabbed a few mayo packets from the sandwich case. Yes. I'd eat mayonnaise from a place where the sink was too dirty to wash my hands. The irony is not lost on me, thank you very much.

Crisis averted. 

As I finished my sandwich and licked the last few precious crumbs from my fingers, Kerri asked, "Did you ever wash your hands after using that bathroom? We have hand sanitizer right here."

I began resigning myself to a painful, undignified death.  Maybe I should order a few billboards to be installed along the highway so that others will repent not washing their hands.

The good news is that I didn't die.

The better news is that we were making better time than we had planned on. Mostly because we didn't take and scenic routes. Mostly because there aren't any scenic routes available.

Ohhh, scenic. This might be the only toilet in South Carolina worse than the one at the Exxon station.

Or, maybe this one.

This is as close to a scenic view as we were afforded.

Soon, our brief journey through South Carolina was at an end.

Good-bye, old friend.

Hello, new friend.

The most striking thing about Georgia was that it was almost exactly like South Carolina.

Except it had a light house,

unabashedly cheap gas,

And lots and lots of peaches.

And as soon as we had really started to appreciate Georgia, we were in Florida.

Well, thank you!

Behold, the bridge into Florida. We had arrived.

Our plan had been to stop near Jacksonville and pop in on my brother and his wife for a quick breakfast before we hit the road to get Tori to school on time. We made such good time that we arrived in Jacksonville earlier than we had planned.

Pat & Carolyn very graciously changed their plans from breakfast with us to dinner with us. We joined them for a delicious BBQ dinner at their beautiful new home. It was relaxing and fun and delicious!

Pulled pork = joy.

Me and my kid brother, Pat. Thanks for the wonderful visit!

Since we still had about 5 hours of driving before we reached Fort Lauderdale and Tori wanted to check in by 2:00 at the latest and I still hadn't died of gas-station-induced dysentery, we decided to get in another couple hours of driving.

We made it to a hotel in Daytona and spent the night.

I don't know what the view outside the room was like because it was dark. But inside the room:

Maybe don't leave the card advertising your "Squeaky Clean" rooms next to the eggshells and cracker crumbs scattered all over the desk. 

Tomorrow: Move In Day for Tori!

The Sweatiest Road Trip Ever - Day 2. Skyline Drive in Squanket

In our last thrilling episode, you may recall that we had climbed into a rented minivan that had all the raw driving appeal and responsive handling of a poached egg, and were headed south to deliver our daughter to college in Florida.

That first night we managed to get all the way to southern New York, about 4 hours from home. We decided to crash for the night before we crashed.

In the morning, we got up early and hit the road again. We passed some time deciding on a name for the van. this is an important element of any trip. As the mighty Dodge Caravan was to be our prison for many, many hours, it needed a good name to reflect its importance.

Based on a permutation of a pond name we saw, we decided to call the van Squanket.

Shut up.

Go name your own van.

As you may or may not know, I simply adore tourist traps. The tackier and more awful, the more I genuinely enjoy them.

Here is a partial list of places that my family would not allow me to stop (on the flimsy argument that Tori needed to be at school on time for orientation):

The John Wayne Truck Stop and Chrome Shop
The Lion's Den Adult Superstore
The Food Lion
The Runaway Truck Ramp

One of the many, many "World's Largest Fireworks" stores we saw along the way.

All my sightseeing had to be done along the road, at 70+ miles per hour.

I did get to see:

This

truck

painted

like

Shrek.

The Rust-Oleum Factory

Drooling Tori.

Oddly Contorted Alex

A LOT of super-huge crosses.

People with the worst camp site in the world.

This fine person with the "Democrats Kill Babies",  "Hitler Cuomo Kill Babies", and "Trump Forever" bumper stickers.

I will admit that some of these attractions were less appealing than others, but still, I like the adventure they offer.

We did trust our GPS (named Nellie) to find us a park to have lunch in. We followed her off the highway and pulled into a scenic parking lot at a truck repair facility.

Thanks, Nellie. This is really nice.

After some high-intensity whining, I managed to get the family to allow me to pull off the highway into a tourist information center in Virginia.

I opted for the safety rest area instead of the danger rest area because I am a responsible adult.

Awwwww...

I did discover a triceratops fossil. No big deal or anything, but I think I deserve some sort of award.

It doesn't say anything about removing these items. Thanks for the free gum, Virginia!

Oddly specific directions.

The friendly attendant talked my ear off for about 8 or 9 hours, while I slowly edged away from him. I leapt into Squanket and squealed out of the parking lot and he clung to the hood like some action-movie hero, still trying to convince me to take more pamphlets extolling the virtues of visiting the Factory Outlet Stores next to the Applebee's.

After some tricky evasive driving and three trips though a car wash, we managed to get him off the hood. The only thing that remained was a piece of a map, beckoning us to visit Skyline Drive, a scenic road that winds along virtually parallel to the highway we were on.

"Let's do it!" I cried, reaching out and snatching the scrap of map from under the windshield wiper.

"We drove on Skyline Drive when we came to Virginia before," Kerri reminded me.

"And it was lovely, right?" I said, steering Squanket off the highway toward the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. And it really was lovely. Even the second time through.

Scenic Vista.

Another Scenic Vista.

The 10 millionth Scenic Vista.

The names of some of the overlooks were worth the price of admission.

This, in case you wondered, is what Gooney Manor Overlook looks like. 

And speaking of Gooney.

Tori noticed the buzzards circling overhead and suggested that it might be time to leave.

I made her play dead as a distraction while the rest of us piled in the van.

It really makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Tunnels are always fun.

Wheeeeee!

The road continued to wind and be scenic and lovely, but it was really, really long. Eventually, I asked Tori to look at the pile of literature that the ranger had given us when we entered the park and see how long Skyline Drive is.

"105.5 miles," she answered. "And the speed limit is 35 miles per hour, so..."

I might have lost consciousness for a moment because I didn't hear the rest of her reply.

"105 miles!" I cried.

"105.5," she corrected.

"105.5 miles of this slow, winding road?"

I could feel my family's eyes boring into me. So I closed my mouth and smiled. "Sure is scenic, isn't it?" I asked. "Oooh, look! Scenery!"

A small problem with Skyline Drive is that there are only a few ways off it once you get on it. And they are many, many miles apart. Another, more deeply personal problem was that Alex had developed some sort of intestinal distress and was clouding the air inside Squanket with a toxic haze of egg farts.

Thanks, buddy!

"If you had let me go to the World's Largest Fireworks Store, we could have strapped a bunch of bottle rockets onto the van and blasted back to the highway," I whined.

"If you light a match anywhere within a mile of Alex, we'll all die," Tori choked from the floor, where she had slumped.

We did, eventually, wind our way back to the highway and, all in all, we only lost about 3 precious hours of driving in the race to get Tori to school in time for orientation.

The only way I could see to make up for that lost time would be to stop for pizza.

Alex used his super power of Googling things to find a lovely-looking pizza place that had a wood-fired oven.

The food was delicious. And, boy, did it feel good to sit down after that long drive.

Fortunately, the service was super slow, so dinner only took a couple hours.

At some point during the meal, it was apparently decided that I should be relieved of all driving responsibilities and Kerri was to be the driver from now on.

Which is fine with me. Now I can really do some sight-seeing for the rest of this trip.