Today we were headed to Memphis! We woke up at the hotel a little late to grad some extra sleep as we had arrived late and we needed a little rejuvenation. The hotel breakfast was a bit of a disappointment:
It consisted of bagged prepackaged food. Did we really need an entire bag to house a bagged muffin? I guess in Arkansas the motto is “Let’s see how fast we can destroy the environment”. For the second time on this road trip, my breakfast consisted of a bagged muffin. However, in this case, it wasn’t because we needed to get out at 5:45am. Also, there was no silverware. Hence, Tween was Ecstatic to use her finger and the nutella we had brought to create her own breakfast:
Texas again?
As we got on the road we had stopped to fill the car with gas. Being the collector I am I decided to stop to see if I could get a keychain from Arkansas for my collection. We weren’t going to stop anywhere else, so might as well get it at the gas station. Imagine my surprise when the available keychains in Arkansas were from Texas? I guess Texas is sooooooo big that Arkansas is confused:
What the is this?
As we headed toward Memphis, with what we thought was plenty of time we hit our first real traffic.
“Did the car say stopped traffic?”, one of us muttered at one point. “That can’t be good”. Let’s check google maps and see what it shows.
Ugghhh! The traffic was completely stopped going from West Memphis (in Arkansas) to real Memphis in Tennessee. Could we go around?
Nooooo, some jerk put a river in the way and we had forgotten our amphibious minivan. We only had some model labeled Limited or something like that.
“Is there at least a way around some of the traffic?”
“Umm, not really”
“Well, we can get off the next exit and at least get further. Maybe we can just stop for lunch, this looks like a populated area”, I said.
As Mom the ReRouter worked to get us around the traffic she also searched for lunch places.
“There are no restaurants”
“How can that be? Use my phone instead of that crappy Iphone, I have Yelp installed.”
“Yelp shows exactly 2 places: Dennys (the old standby on this trip) and a weird Mexican place that looks a bit shady”
“I guess Dennys it is” At least we cut off 45 minutes of traffic!”
“Yeah, but it still shows 1+ hour to go 5 miles”
We arrived at Dennys, but it was part of a gas station. In unison, we heard from the back seat, “Are we eating at a gas station again?” The kids stomachs were probably grumbling with the thought of all the sugar they would get again.
Luckily, on the side of the gas station there was an actual attached Dennys. Here is the sign to prove it:
Uh Oh – In the middle of eating Dad’s work cellphone rang. It never rings so something must be up. However, the cell phone was almost out of power and the connection was reallllllllly bad due to severe thunderstorms that decided to make things even more difficult. I went outside and held my phone up to the sky to get better reception. Luckily I was not struck by lightning. I needed to log on to my work computer to help an employee on a site that only I had permission to use. I informed the family and sat in the car trying to get it to work. This was one of the most populated areas we had been in, yet the cellphone service and internet were the worst. After waiting for things to painfully load, similar to the old modem days, I was eventually able to get it to work.
Elvis Died
We were supposed to stop by a few sites, like Graceland, before heading to the zoo. However, now that it was so late, we decided to proceed directly to the zoo. There was no speeding this time:
When we got their, it was a zoo! Families were fleeing like a herd of wild animals. I made the mistake of looking at the weather radar. It was solid red, meaning LOTS of rain. We debated what to do. Do we spend a billion dollars to get in the zoo, only to leave because of the pouring rain?
Luckily, we are from Oregon. We had brought waterproof windbreakers. As the rest of the zoo fled, we laughed and decided to enter. One young family threw tickets at us, “We can’t stay anymore, we are drenched. Here are tickets to the Giraffe feeding and train ride.”
We weren’t sure if it would be open, but we took them anyway.
As we made our way to the Giraffes, I kept continuously scouting areas to flea to if the floodgates opened up or the lightning got really bad.
Unfortunately, the Giraffe feeding and all other rides and attractions were closed due to the threat of lightning. The rain was so hard that the hippos were drowning and the alligators were posing (it’s a joke I think):
We continued on our way and saw a lot of animals. The good thing is that because of the rain, the park had emptied out. I think by the time we were done that there were only about 10 families at the zoo. Even better, the rain mostly stopped except for one or two times.
The thunder and rain made the animals a little more active (I am talking about the lions and not the kids).
I am pretty sure that male lion is me when the kids are bothering me. Notice his reaction!
After a stop at the gift shop, dinner at a Mexican place that Tween the Picky complained about, and a few hour drive we ended up in Nashville.
While the rain and traffic could have deterred us, it gave us a near empty zoo to explore. Sure, we got a little wet, but it could have been worse. Plus, the kids got to act like wild animals while we saw some real wild animals. Another successful day on our Epic Road Trip!