So, moving on with actual trip report stuff...
The rest of the drive is running together in my mind. Basically, it got greener and greener as we drove south. More and more flowering trees. I had to explain to the others that the reddish/purplish trees were redbuds, and reminded them that there is one on our block at home. It isn't blooming yet, of course! (I'm the family gardener, fwiw, and I also do a little bit of landscape designing for some of our projects.)
Dd was also excited to see all the rock walls where they cut through hills to make the roads. She took a lot of photos on her phone that mostly didn't turn out very well, lol. Tho I did go through her phone photos and emailed some to me, so a few will likely show up in this report.
A lot of the photos on her phone were taken by dh, because we didn't let him take his phone to the parks. We figured that was the best way to keep him from talking to clients, contractors, etc! I did have my phone, just in case anyone needed us, and on the way down, I did end up answering some contractor questions.
We never did stop for lunch that day. I had packed lots of road trip snacks, so we just kept munching. Ds has also recently discovered baking, and had baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies especially for the trip, so of course, it included his cookies.
We had strategically booked our hotel just north of Atlanta, in Smyrna, so we wouldn't need to deal with much Atlanta traffic at the end of a long day. We were at a Holiday Inn Express, and it was very new and modern looking. It was very nice, and of course, it got our vote also because it was big enough to fit a rollaway in the room so the kids wouldn't need to share. Dd has always been a pretty restless sleeper, and so no one really wants to have to share a bed with her, and especially now that the kids are older, they pretty much refuse to share a bed. A couple times on our Yellowstone road trip, dd made a nest on the floor with pillows!
For dinner, dh had already decided he wanted to go to Ted's. His grandmother lived in Marietta, and when he and his mom went down for her funeral, they went to a Ted's, and he wanted to return. Part of this is because when we were in Yellowstone, he tried bison a couple times, and it never came out right. He even sent back his bison steak 3 times one night! So, he was very happy that Ted's was able to properly cook his bison steak!
Ds got a bison burger, and it met with his approval. Dd got macaroni and cheese, after determining that it was *not* Kraft. She is quite the mac and cheese snob lately. She's been making a point of trying it at almost every restaurant we go to, especially starting on the infamous Yellowstone trip that I keep referencing. Sorry, apparently we don't get out much.
Sadly, I can remember what everyone else ordered, but not what I ordered! But, it was good.
So, we had a good night's sleep, a good breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express continental breakfast (featuring a machine that makes pancakes and rolls them out, after you just push a button!). We quickly packed up and left, without even doing my usual complete room sweep since we hadn't brought in much. (cue the music of doom...)
So, we hit the road, and managed to miss most of the morning rush hour by going around the city. Driving south in Georgia was pretty, and soon, we got to Florida!!!
We made sure to stop at the Welcome Center, and got our first good photo op of the trip.
Dh was quite impressed with the "Open for Business" sign.
Then, we had to go figure out the toll thingy. Since we live in Illinois, we are used to having our I-Pass so we can go through open tolling. Since we live near a toll road and use it way too often, this saves us both time and money. So, we figured we should try out the Florida version. You can buy it at the Welcome Center. They tell you to buy it in a vending machine. And yes, it is in the same vending machine as the one that sells chips and candy!!!
(Yay, I finally found the rolling rofl smiley again!) But, you have to be careful. The closer vending machine sells the kind you can move from car to car. That one costs a little over $20, before you put any money on it. There is also a smaller kind that attaches permanently to one car - that one costs about $5. Fortunately, a guy who was buying his transponder helped me figure that out before I spent too much. There was a family after me who accidentally bought the more expensive one, thinking it was pre-loaded. Oops! Then of course, the screen to activate it wasn't working, so I had to call and activate it. And guess how much to put on it. We probably would've saved money if we had just paid cash, but anyhow, now we have it.
The kids and dh had a fun time gathering brochures and drinking Florida oj while I was figuring all of this out. Somehow, I missed out on my free oj! (We also had lunch sometime along the way. It was uneventful. I think it was KFC, since dd loves KFC, and we had just gone through Kentucky without having any.)
We had an uneventful drive through Florida, besides lots of rain. We kept noticing big billboards for Florida Welcome places that offered free Disney tickets. It seemed like they were also selling condos. We didn't stop to hear their pitch, and anyhow, we already had our tickets!
Btw, we played the license plate spotting game throughout the trip. Believe it or not, we saw 2 different Alaska plates on the way south! No Hawaii plates this time, however. Yes, we spotted both Alaska and Hawaii on the Yellowstone trip. However, the highways were better for the license plate game this time, with more traffic. Out west, there was so little traffic, we didn't see many license plates while driving. We spotted most of our states in parking lots! Strangely enough, in Orlando, we mainly saw Florida plates! We assumed lots of them were rental cars.
As we got closer, the traffic got busier and busier. And the rain was getting harder, and some lightning. On I-4, traffic was pretty much at a halt. We figured out that it was probably because of all of the people leaving parks due to the thunderstorms. But, it was pretty annoying, since we were so close and moving so slowly! Getting to our resort (Blue Heron), was also pretty stressful the first time. It is just off of a very busy road, with a small left turn lane, and no traffic light or stop sign. And it seemed like lots of people didn't know where they were going, including us, of course. But, we got in safely, and got our room. Yay!
Photos will follow in the next installment...