Vacation: Day 1

Good morning from Forrest City, Arkansas -where when you mention the summer temperature you're also mentioning the relative humidity, the size of bugs in meters and the number of dead animals on the road in a 1 mile stretch!-

Our hotel was overbooked last night so at 10 o'clock when it was still 100 outside I was on the phone trying to book a new one without having to drive all over town. We were comp'ed $25 in "travel pay" -which, incidentally, meant being heavily inconvenienced by having to travel across the street *snarf snarf*- As it was we sat at a "dead red" for at least 5 minutes so I felt better about accepting the compensation. We also were comp'ed $100 toward our next booking and I didn't even get snippy though I wanted to as the heat and humidity had triggered the monster mood. 

The kids, as usual, are fantastic travelers. Jeremiah and I have only managed to come close to killing each other once which I think may be a new record for us. I am somewhat of a stressed traveler while he is not. Suffice to say it makes for a somewhat volatile traveling relationship! I like to know that every creek and bump is normal (even if it's a false sense of security) and I don't like forking out vacation funds to pay speeding tickets. While on the other hand, Jeremiah's best travelers insurance is AAA and he thinks 5-10 MPH over the speed limit is tolerance. Oddly enough our only altercation yesterday had nothing to do with speed or mechanical problems, it was a toll issue in which I apologized to myself profusely for for him because I told him I didn't think it was a good idea to go into the "coin only" lane (not knowing it was a coin only) but he wanted the shorter route. I also thanked myself profusely for saving the day by having (i.e. hiding) enough quarters to pay the toll out of my "Aldi rent-a-cart fund" (which inevitably is usually taken by miscellaneous people)! I also apologized for not being an adequate TC (A.K.A. navigator) although I thought my comment about it not being a good idea to enter that lane was a sufficient warning. Anyway...
Our new smart phone is actually is anything but. I've cursed and shaken it at least a half a dozen times (as if that makes it work better) so it's well broken in now. It's a blessing and a curse suffice to say. I am sure every time I get mad at it I hear Jeremiah muttering under his breath that it's a user issue. I don't believe it.

We should have made it further yesterday but it's clear Sooners and Arkansans don't travel out of their own two states much otherwise they would realize how crappy their roads are (Sorry Kiley and Amy, but it's true!). Not to mention that we've spent probably half of what it cost in fuel yesterday ($301.24) in tolls alone. Okay, maybe it was more like $10 in tolls but still. Jeremiah says the tolls go to give toll collectors and the people who put road cones out so it looks like the roads are being worked on a job. I believe it!

We cross the "Mighty (dirty) Mississip" this morning. We're going to let the kids swim for a little bit because it's Rachel's life obsession to swim at every hotel's pool we ever stay at regardless of how cold it is. This one should be rather refreshing (not) seeing as how the outside temp. is probably 90 at this point and the pool will be a close to ambient. J is trying to convince them we should get on the road early and skip the pool so we can "get home" sooner, the kids aren't buying it, HA! I fear the debt would be far more than we can afford anyway.

Other than that, it's travel as usual. We had forgotten how beautiful eastern Ok. and Arkansas is and how much the goats would LOVE either one. The grass sometimes IS greener on the other side, but probably mostly because they've just gotten more rain. Jer keeps pointing out locations with deep enough woods that it would make a good "shine" location. He's watched too much "Moonshiners" on Netflix recently.
We'll make eastern Ky. today via Tn., providing the roads improve. For now it's time to grab some food but not before figuring out what to do about toothbrushes because apparently, we forgot all of ours! I guess it's better than some of the other things that could have been left and there always has to be something! Ahhh, never mind, the toothbrushes were in my purse because that's always the place you pack toothbrushes, isn't it?

Have a great day!