Hotlanta

After nine days of driving, spending nights in hotels, getting up by 8:30 to ensure time for continental breakfast, and changing time zones we have finally reached Eastern Time and a bed to sleep in for more than one night.

Let me tell you...It is sweet.

We made it through Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama the last two days and are now settled in Atlanta for the weekend at my uncle's place. I'll highlight for you a couple of the major things on our road here.

Before leaving Texas, we turned around and headed back West so we could go see the Cadillac Ranch just outside the city. I don't know if you all have heard of it, but its a public art display in the middle of a piece of farm land with 10 old Caddys burried hood first into the ground. It is open to the public and strongly encouraged to bring spray paint or paint and write something of your own on the cars. Every now and again the cars will be repainted in different colors so as to give a "clean canvas".

Luckily, it looks like we arrived there not too soon after a fresh coat had been applied, because there was plenty of open space on the cars. We didn't buy spray paint to bring, but while wandering around and looking at the cars, we found half-full cans left by others we could use. Walking around and taking pictures with the cars was alright, but after we started spraypainting, it was a lot of fun and a really good stop. I got some photos of some of our masterpieces, so be sure to check them out.

Next, we decided to head to Oklahoma City because there was a place from the Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives list in OKC which was supposed to have some really good BBQ. Yes, that is really how we made our decision, I wasn't lying in my last post! So we drove the 3+ hours there, all the while trying to stave off hunger and keep our appitite. We arrived at Leo's Bar-B-Que about 3:30, starving, and ready to eat. Well this place was a perfect canidate for Triple D, but the food was pretty good. Susan and I agreed it wasn't the best BBQ either of us had ever had, but it was very good. What was even better was their bananna-strawberry cake for desert.

From there we headed to Little Rock, AR and stayed in about the dankest, crappiest place I've ever had the misfortune of spending a night in. If every other building withing 500 miles was burned to the ground and I had to find shelter or else risk dying, I probably still wouldn't set foot back inside this hotel. The side doors to the place didn't even have locks. Neither one of us was daring enough to try the shower, or for that matter not sleep fully clothed. As in, I stayed in all my clothes I drove in that day...Yeah. Well, the next morning my alarm went off and we were happy to be able to open our eyes on another day. We left about as quickly as possible and hit the road. The best part of the morning, besides still being alive, was stopping at Waffle House for breakfast.

Another hard day of driving and we made it to Atlanta and some home comforts for a couple days. It looks like there is a lot to do here in the city and we are looking forward to getting out and exploring. As I write this though, I see that my uncle only has wireless and he has no idea what the password is...So I probably won't be able to use my computer and upload photos.

Oh, and for kicks last night, Susan mapped out our journey so far and the distance we've traveled. From San Diego to Atlanta, it looks like we've gone at least 3,784 highway miles, along with a couple driving around the cities we've been in, and we still got more to go!