Birmingham...part two

My Dad could drive for hours and hours and never need to stop for a bathroom break or for a drink or food. I’ve climbed into a truck with him in Shelbyville and not gotten out until we arrived just north of Chicago nearly eight hours later. From years of driving over the road, he was used to it (and I think he must have had an excessively large bladder). A little of that has been passed on to me, but I have also learned that making good time is not as important as having happy passengers and a wife that will speak to me when we reach our destination.

I like breaking up our trip in reasonable places. I am goal oriented, so I like to reward myself with a stop after reaching a certain point in the journey, like achieving the “half-way” point, or at least one hundred miles. Also, I like to drive a little hungry and a little cold. It keeps my edge. Warm and full makes me sleepy.

After many years of marriage, Connie and I have come to an understanding. If I say that we are going to “stop and eat” along the way, she now understands that I don’t mean within twenty miles of leaving home. She also knows that she needs to bring blankets for the car. I keep the air temperature at slightly above sub-artic. The girls have followed suit and they all have their “car blankets” and “car pillows.” Once they get cozy, I can put some miles behind us.

With four women, the need and frequency of bathroom breaks on road trips has been an issue. Connie and Shelby are pretty reasonable. They go when the opportunity presents itself and only request an emergency stop in dire situations (usually after several glasses of iced tea at the Cracker Barrel). Taylor is like a camel. We could drive for six hours without stopping and she would still say that she didn’t need to go. It’s a little scary.

Ashlyn, up until recently, was our problem child on trips. She could use the bathroom before we left the house, then ask to stop before we got to the other side of town (and our town ain’t that big). We quit giving her drinks before trips so we could drive at least thirty minutes without stopping. Worse yet, it was never “when you get the chance, I need to stop,” it was always “you have to stop NOW!” Fortunately, she seems to have outgrown this in the last few years, and we can now travel on a reasonable schedule.

I had told them to eat a snack before we left Oak Ridge and that we would stop near Chattanooga for dinner. This would not be quite half way, but I didn’t think I could push eating much past 9pm. I didn’t want to take the time for a sit down meal, so I told them that it would be fast food and for them to be thinking about where they wanted to go. I knew this was a waste of time, and I don’t know why I ever give a choice anyway.

Shelby likes Arby’s, but Taylor does not. Long John Silver’s, Krystal’s, KFC, etc. are deemed too greasy, could make them queasy. Taylor likes Taco Bell, but I refuse to feed them beans or any variation of Mexican food on a car trip. No one likes Hardees’s. The answer is almost always the same: McDonald’s.

Although there were a few McDonald’s on the north side of Chattanooga, my secret plan was to get to the other side before stopping. I knew that on I-75 there were lots of small towns just below the state line, so I assumed it would be the same on I-59. I was wrong.

I-59 connects interstate 24 out of Chattanooga with Birmingham. As soon as we exited off I-24 and started south, I realized that we had entered a dark, desolate stretch of road with little traffic and even less civilization. My family was not happy.

Connie is typically a warm, cheerful person and a joy to travel with. As we drove further from the lights of Chattanooga, however, I could feel a chill coming from her side of the car that had nothing to do with the cool driving temperature I preferred. She was getting hungry, and I didn’t blame her. It had been a long time since our light lunch at 11:30am and it was now nearing 10pm. My stomach was grumbling like an old tractor and I was really regretting my decision not to stop sooner.

The girls began asking when and where we would eat, how much further, and why had I betrayed them? My eyes searched each passing road sign for any hope of a Big Mac, Chicken McNuggets or Filet of Fish. Fearful of a mutiny, I sadly realized that I would settle for almost anything at that point, even Taco Bell or Beulah’s Big Bountiful Bowl of Beans. My fatherly responsibility was to feed my family, and I was failing miserably.

Finally, about thirty-five miles into Alabama, we reached a town whose road signs promised a McDonald’s. Gleefully, we exited the interstate and made our way the 1.2 miles down the road to the bright yellow arches and the small red and white building. It was an older restaurant, maybe one of the first McDonald’s from the look of it…and quite possibly the only place within an hour’s drive to eat. It was completely packed.

Shelby looked out the car window and with her usual dry tone said, “Let’s keep going. I don’t want to go there.”

I couldn’t believe it. For the last hour I had been in fear for my life, and now the mood had changed to “no big deal.”

I gauged from other comments that while the feeling was not completely mutual amongst the family, it was also just fine to continue searching. I reminded them that I had no idea how much farther we would have to go to reach another eating establishment, but the image of that tiny packed restaurant must have outweighed the hunger at that moment, because they all agreed to keep driving. “On the plus side,” Shelby said, “we’re in the Central Time Zone now, so it’s not as late as you think.” Our stomachs felt much better knowing that.

Forty miles further south we hit a mother-lode of fast food restaurants, and of course, another McDonalds. We stopped, hurried to the bathroom (except for Taylor), and with Combo meals in hand, grabbed a corner table and vacuumed up our food in an embarrassingly record amount of time.

Back on the road, everyone was in a better mood. There seemed to be a new energy in the car just knowing that we were out late on a Friday night, driving toward a city we had never been. Even I felt somewhat better, which could have been the food or maybe because the anti-biotic was finally kicking in. Whatever it was, the next few hours were peaceful and fun; road trip nirvana.