Down to Georgia
Nine o’clock. Something like that. We had been on the road a few hours – two silver Honda Fits coasting down the highway under pale cold sunrise – and after a lot of J.T. and Lana Del Rey, Carrie-Bri was looking for a new form of entertainment.
“Rose, what boy do you like?”
“No.”
“Tell me a story.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Once upon a time … there was a big fat blob. No, Rose! No chocolate! It’ll give me a heart attack!”
Rose wiggled the Reeses peanut butter cups over Carrie’s shoulder. Carrie resisted. But she couldn’t avoid the box of Runts that Rose dumped in her lap at the next fuel-up in Illinois somewhere. Or maybe it was Tennessee; I don’t really remember. The blur of the open road.
We waited about half an hour in line at Wendy’s for lunch. Grandma chatted with an elderly couple standing nearby; I could hear her talking behind me while I ordered a “son of a baconator”.
“Well, I’ll have to check with our travel guide, my granddaughter, Collette. Collette? This couple says we should just end our journey right here instead of going on.”
I’m pretty sure we were still in Tennessee at this point. But Florida called. Grandma wished them a “goodbye” on our way out, clutching a chocolate frosty, “thick and rich”. “Goodbye now! Yoo-hoo! Goodbye!”
Anyway, I decided to stay behind the wheel most of the day because I felt fine. Made the hours pass even faster. Red Georgia clay and magnolias already in the afternoon. But about ten hours later, I decided to sit out the last two hours in the back seat watching some Georgian farmland, cattle, and forests of fir flash by the windows.
By the time we found Columbus, Georgia, it was around 7:30. This time, Rose wasn’t bunking down in the bathtub, which was actually more surprising than it should have been.
But first, we walked three ways for dinner: Longhorn Steakhouse for Grandma and Mom, Denny’s for Rose, Linnea-Irish, and her friend, and finally McDonald’s for Carrie and myself (filet-o-fish for me) which we ate while watching the ten deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history. Great way to kick things off this spring break.