Day 137-149: A new route

So I know I have been horrible with posting - I have been keeping track of the days, but it has just been a hassle to sit down at the computer and type them all up. So, I'm thinking about doing a new sort of thing: instead of having a set topic to write about each day, I'll have a choice - either write about my day/something I find interesting, or, if nothing comes to mind, I can use the topics I originally planned on.

Since I haven't posted in a while, I'm hoping an extra-long post will make up for it. Here's what's happened so far:

• Cafeteria duty: my mom "volunteered" me to help out at my old elementary school (she currently teaches there) as a lunch lady. Meaning, for half of lunch hour, I supervised 200 kids playing on a playscape and the blacktop area of the playground. Boy, was that interesting. Mainly, I didn't remember exactly how cool ice packs were until all of the kids came up to me with invisible boo-boos and wanted to go to the clinic and get one. Luckily, during my three weeks there, not one kid died, or was injured permanently. After 30 minutes outside, I would go inside with the kids to watch them while they ate lunch. Now that was interesting - I was assigned to two second grade classes, each holding about 30 kids, and was told, simply, to "handle" them. I had the hardest time controlling the volume, their incessant bathroom and water fountain needs, and, of course, the ultimate crime of throwing/sharing food. It. was. horrible. But we made it through, with only a couple of kids crying (they didn't like getting punished), and only one girl getting sick (luckily she had the foresight to go to the bathroom).
• Friends: Since the cafeteria job only lasted for an hour each day, I had the afternoons to myself. While sometimes I would just go home and watch copious amounts of House, I also enjoyed getting to see friends (both new and old). I would usually grab a late lunch with them, and then hang out for a bit before heading home to meet my mom after work. A couple of times, I drove out to see friends from school, and, I must admit, that was so nice. It's strange going from seeing a person every day, multiple times per day, and living only down the hall from them, to being an hour or two away from them at any time. It was great to see everyone again, and though I didn't catch up as much as I'd have liked to with everyone, it was amazing to spend the time we did together.
• The drive to Baton Rouge: yesterday my mom and I set out, along with our two cats and my three fish (from school) on the drive from Grosse Pointe to Baton Rouge (about 1200 miles). It was going to be an adventure, and I had my camera ready every step of the way. Here we go!

Michigan: we set out around 8:00 a.m. EST. The car was loaded (surprisingly there was room left - surprising because I'm a teenage girl who was leaving for three months) and the cats were already yowling to get out of their cage. Starting on I-94, we hit I-75 and began the trek south.

This is what I left: grey skies, threatening rain, and industrial smoke. Luckily, I wasn't too attached to it, otherwise I would have been leaving my version of paradise.

Ohio: Ew. Let me just say that I'm a Michigan person: I was born and raised there, and attend the University of Michigan. Therefore, it is my opinion that Ohio is a good-for-nothing state. It just isn't. I mean, other than connecting Michigan with the rest of the United States, it doesn't do anything for me (and on that note, I could always just drive West and go down into Indiana). And, apparently Ohio isn't the biggest fan of me, either, since it was grey and rainy throughout the state as well

But, our luck with stormy skies turned around Cincinnati, when we got our first glimpse of blue. It was like a beacon of light from Kentucky, calling to us, saying "come here! Don't worry - you won't be in horrible Ohio much longer!". And we weren't. We passed over my favorite bridge (the one that connects Cincinnati to Kentucky) and were finally rid of the worst state in the United States.

Kentucky: nothing really of note happened here. Unfortunately. We had sunny skies throughout the state, but saw a lot of police officers on patrol, which really hampered our speed (we usually try to cruise around 75 or 80 to make nice time, but with the police out, we were forced to top out at 70 mph). But, the slowed speed certainly let me take nice pictures of the mountains and rocky summits that surrounded the highway!

We passed a couple of tourist attractions that never fail to make us laugh. Our favorite? Dinosaur World.

Tennessee: again, nothing really of note. I drove for most of the state, so there weren't too many chances to snap photos. The roads were windy, and wound around mountains, so I had a minor freak out when I heard a strange whistling noise that I swore was coming from the tires. After testing them by braking, accelerating, etc. , my mom woke up from her nap and asked what I was doing. I told her, and she gently explained that the sound was, in fact, only wind, and that had I been listening to which direction it was coming from, I would have noticed that it was always on the side of the car closest to the mountain, meaning that it was only a crosswind.

Alabama: by far my favorite state. Not only is it (as the sign says) absolutely BEAUTIFUL, but I also lost my heart to the University of Alabama. We entered it around 5:00 p.m. CST, and we had been making good time all day. So, we relaxed the pace a bit, and the search for my favorite house began.

We were greeted by a space shuttle at the Welcome Center of Alabama. So we thought we were getting close to my all-time favorite part of the drive. You see, there's this house. Well, it's not really just a house. It's my future. It's gorgeous, and on a hill, with a river at the bottom and a winding driveway, complete with a white fence. There are fields and a barn and horses and it's just all-around stunning. And I'm going to live there when I grow up. No, honestly. I'm going to.

The one problem is that we never know exactly where this house is. It's much like Nanny McPhee, where the house will only appear when you need it to, once you've lost all hope at catching a glimpse of it. I remembered that it was in Alabama (last time we thought it was right outside Nashville, TN), but thought it was around 10 miles into the state (just past the Welcome Center). So I began stalking all the right-hand bends, camera ready, and snapping whenever we passed by.

The first five or six times were all false alarms. There was nothing (except for a random shack) in any of the fields, and so I lost hope. I was convinced that we had missed it, or that something had happened to it (disappeared? tornado? I'm not quite sure what my mind thought would happen to a giant house to make it just vanish). But, about 10 miles before Birmingham, AL, my mom gasped and pointed to the side of the road.

There it was, in all its glory. The house, and road, and lake, and barn, and fields. There was paradise. And though I couldn't get a photo of the house (the trees surrounding it were too lush to see through), I still squealed with excitement. Here was my house: we hadn't missed it, and it hadn't left me.

With that, we pulled into the hotel (to the discovery that my mom was the "Guest of the Day") and hunkered down for the night. And it is there that my tale ends, since the photos from today's journey have yet to be uploaded to my computer. But I guess it'll just wait until tomorrow.