Days 5, 6 and 7 - there is no room at the hotel so just keep on driving!

Where did we leave off? Oh that's right, the empty Florida home.

We got out in the afternoon, after packing the car, emptying the fridge, organizing the garbage. Unplugging the internet!

We did, and got on the road, about 1200 miles to go but we wanted to do a few on Saturday so we could start Sunday somewhere else, somewhere easier to leave. And here we are, we made it to a cracker barrel in Gainsville, Florida at the time of this photograph.

We trucked on into Georgia, until I started to feel tired. We pulled off the road and found a Holiday Inn Express. Everything was going pretty well, it was time to rest and relax a bit for tomorrow.

We even found the Florida Forest Service also enjoying this hotel. That's interesting!

Except, it wasn't all that we expected! The hotel was full, and the next one as well. In the second hotel, the Hampton Inn, they revealed to us that they were full because a number of people were still displaced from the recent hurricane, and so probably all the hotels in the area were full.

And we should head about an hour north of Valdosta to see if there is anything available up there.

So tired, but still determined, we got back in the car and drove again. I was determined not to fall asleep while driving, I got some more coffee and kept it up, but I was feeling weary, if not explicitly tired. I really wanted to rest, I had already told my body it was time.

We made it 45 minutes north of Valdosta, to a town called Adele. Surely there would be room at this hotel. But there wasn't! This time, it was because of a local race (cars? maybe) in Cecil. I don't know where that is or what they were racing, but now I was really feeling it. Back in the car baby, we need to drive some more.

Finally, about 25 minutes later and getting close to midnight, we got a room at La Quinta. It was a nice room, and only later did we find out it was the last room. That's right, there was a beauty pageant for Miss Georgia in town, and we got to see all of them not eat breakfast in the morning while drinking our coffee and enjoying some canadian bacon.

But we got some sleep at least!

By 6pm we had made it to this Starbucks in Tennessee, outside of Nashville. We spent some time charging our cell phones and taking advantage of the free wifi. I didn't know it yet, but I would go on to 'drive straight through' this night, so its lucky we got a good night's sleep in La Quinta.

There was another interesting thing we found along the way, in a McDonald's, we found some information about coffee.

One of these days I will have to do a truth about coffee part 3 post, and for that post I have this picture ready. Suffice it to say, basically nobody knows anything about coffee, and placards like this probably hide more than they reveal.

Well, at least we made it, and you can see the proof in @snook's latest post. She is happy, grandma is happy, we got through a rainstorm in Chicago before 5am, and didn't die. Thank goodness because those Chicago people are serious about their driving even before 5am, I can't imagine what it would have been like trying to read signs in the rain at 7am when people were really trying to get to work.

Unfortunately my posts are becoming more irregular. But I am still trying to take pictures and keep up with all my responsibilities - we will see what September yields but keep an eye on this blog for all sorts of interesting stuff coming out about @ecoinstant and my adventures!

Freedom and Friendship