Day Two: Alabama to Louisiana

Today we entered....

they had a really nice welcome center there...

where we got to show off our plaid shorts...

and they gave us free drinks....

and had WiFi...

and we thought that the mens and women's bathrooms were connected...

but it was really just two women's bathrooms...:)
Dad and Mom enjoyed the rest stop too...

then we stopped for CHINESE food in mississippi...and it is just as good as virginian chinese food.

we stopped in Vicksburg, because it is illegal for the quann's to go on a trip with their dad without visiting a battlefield...

Linz entertains herself taking pics in the van...

jenn entertains herself by making weird faces in those pics...

there are pretty flowers in mississippi...

we crossed the mississippi river, and into LOUISIANA!!!

it was a cool bridge...

english and FRENCH signs are not something we virginians are used to seeing...

Jenn's school was already closed for the day, but we stopped to take pictures...

It is exactly ONE building, and located next to the Laundromat & Cracker Barrel.

We checked into our hotel, and Charlie made sure the shower cap worked properly.

we had dinner at IHOP around 8pm

when life gives you lemons....point at them! :)

linz was called "the little lady with the plaits" for the first time ever...

chocolate milk definitely hit the spot...


Hours on the Road: 7ish
Number of Photos Taken: 127
Quote of the Day:
"The Mississippi Welcome Center HAS to be nice. They're making up for the fact that their flag still has the confederate symbol on it..." - Jenn to Mom, who couldn't get over how nice the place was (neither could the rest of us, for that matter...)
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It was a good ride today and I felt considerably better. We finished Wednesday Wars. I almost cried a few times... but I didn't:) The Mississippi welcome center supplied me with free coffee, which was particularly appreciated. After some amount of excitement, I needed a nap, took one, and woke up in Louisiana. This evening, I stood outside my school; the building I have been calling regularly for several years now but never been to. After dinner, I went and got a Starbucks gift card for the lady who acted as my adviser/general question answerer though all that. I'll meet her tomorrow. Tonight I enjoyed the hot tub and met someone who suggested I use my counseling degree to travel with a band... I might like that job. But for tomorrow, I'm just gonna be glad the studying part is over. I'll find where I'm supposed to be next. --Jenn

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I would just like to start this by giving a hugenormous thank-you to all our friends who have prayed that we would not kill each other on this car trip. It has been one of the best long trips we have ever taken as a family.

This morning I woke up, pulled on some clothes and stumbled out into the breakfast area of the hotel. I looked up to notice that I was entirely surrounded by people in business suits. I looked down at my plaid shorts. I smiled. I got some fruit loops to make the contrast complete.

After we finished listening to "The Wednesday Wars" this morning (which I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone taking a long car trip this summer -- it is hilarious, sometimes serious and witty :) I started reading "Searching for God Knows What"...and I fell asleep. This does not in any way reflect upon the content of the book. It is very interesting. I was just very tired :)

I like hearing southern accents whenever we stop places. I sometimes wish it wasn't weird to take pictures of people you don't know...it's kind of hard to sneak pictures with a camera the size of a toaster. There are so many beautiful people. I want to take pictures of them all. Like the little old lady in line in front of us at wal-mart, with the fire engine red lipstick, who opened up the paper towels she was buying so that she could wipe off the conveyer belt thing at the check out line because it was wet...or the adorable baby girl at IHOP with the crazy colored bows in her hair...or our waiter name Ja-something (the rest of the syllables slip my mind at the moment) when he called me "the little lady with the plaits"...

the lights in our hotel room are now out (suggesting, i think, that we should be doing that sleep thing...) while our laptops continue to glow...

i'm not really tired...so i think i'll end up on the bathroom floor reading (not because i find tile floor especially comfortable, but to let the already-sleeping family members continue to sleep...)

till tomorrow --Linz-cap ;)

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First of all, i just want to say how awesomely cool my sisters are to wear plaid shorts. we were like a matching set today! except that we didn't match at all. plaid shorts are fun like that :-)

Last night, at the hotel i wrote the last scene for Counting Red Shoes (which some of you know about, and others do not. it will be a movie, when it's done.) so, last night i wrote the first draft of the last scene. all except for the last line. i cannot, to save my life, nail down that last line. it has to be perfect, that last line of the last scene delivered by the last character still there. maybe it will come... i hope.

and i haven't written a word in The Brink of Delirium yet. i'm sure i will, i'm always working on it in my mind, not on paper. but listening to stuff like Wednesday Wars makes me realize how i am actually not that great at writing. lol, like i'd let THAT stop me from trying to write the great american novel...

The car rides have been superb! really great stuff. i'll probably listen to Shane&Shane on the way home. the sisters say it's good.

i think i'll finish On the Run tonight, probably in the bathroom so the light doesn't bother anyone, and my eyes don't give out from trying to read in the dark. (of course then i could always run a marathon and find some kid on juvenille detention to be my guide runner.(only someone who has read the book will understand what the heck i'm talking about. (so yes, "A DIVERSION!!!")))

and i just put three parenthasis together. so goodnight!

cheers!

-Charlie