12 hours on the road, and 24 hours in Alabama (and another 12 hours on the road to get back...)

(Geez, I've let this sit for too long. Hopefully I'll remember everything!)

So yeah, this blog entry is meant to chronicle my 48-hour trip to Alabama and back. The original plan was to leave Saturday morning, drive during the day, and then spend two nights in Alabama before driving back on Monday. Unfortunately, over winter break, hotel prices jumped up dramatically, so to keep it to a $25 cost for the students, we had to cut a night at the hotel, which meant we would drive through Saturday night. Fun!

Anyway, the drive to Alabama. There were three drivers and two vans, so with a 12-hour drive, we each took 2 4-hour shifts. I pulled the "I'm the least experienced driver" card so I got to rest during the 1am-5am shift. My first shift (the 9pm-1am) was kind of crappy. It was really foggy and rainy and there were a lot of semis about. Of course, it was hard to tell with the fog although a braking semi could surprise you through the fog. The first shift took us to around Danville, although Danville really didn't prove to be anyway near the road we were on. I was able to get some rest during the middle shift and woke up to swap out at Vienna, Illinois. The kids were still basically out of it, but during that last part of the drive, people were getting up and active.

We ended up stopping in Tennessee for breakfast (our route was Missouri-Illinois-Kentucky-Tennessee-Alabama) and it was only a little bit longer before we were finally there. With all the driving in the fog and bad weather/night, my hands and ankle got pretty bad stress cramps which was not fun.

Since we got into Alabama around 9:30am, we went right to the Space & Rocket Museum for a full day to simply wander. When we walked inside, we had a group photo taken, got our passes, and let the group roam free. We all went up a flight of stairs and went to a giant room that had a Saturn V rocket broken into its stages hanging from the ceiling. The whole room was dedicated to the Saturn rocket project: the history, the people, a landing module, a moon mobile unit, even an incubation trailer for the astronauts to live in for a week to prevent any moon disease from wrecking havoc (it seems kind of silly now, but they were thinking about everything). Of course, the sheer monstrosity of the Saturn V rocket was simply amazing. The fact that it was basically hand-crafted and the machine you're reading this blog entry on could very well be more powerful than the operational technology of the day is just stunning.

The students walked through the room fairly quickly I think. I really took time to breathe things in, especially the space suits and rover unit and all the stuff that actually went up. The weird thing was that this room seemed to be the only big room in the building we were in, aside from the IMAX theater, which we didn't buy tickets for. We were all kind of wondering what was going on until we realized that there was an entire outdoor area and a huge museum of stuff in a different building. Even though there were gray skies, it was really nice to just walk around because it wasn't too crowded, it was nice and cool, and you didn't have to worry about sunburn.

The main museum (not the Saturn V room) was also really cool and was more focused on all different aspects of space. There was a upper level that had a rocket pack and talked about shuttle explosions. There was a room with panels dedicated to each Apollo mission which included various objects, like the plaster casts of Neil Armstrong's hands (space suits are shared through the years but gloves are made specifically for each astronaut and the first thing an astronaut does after accepting a mission is to have their hands cast). The museum is also the site of Space Camp... the Space Camp... like in the movies ("Stranger than Fiction", "Space Camp"). I didn't get to see too much of the Space Camp facilities, but it just seemed cool to think that I was there at this world-known place. The outdoor "Rocket Park" also included what's apparently the only place in the world where you can stand under a "full stack", which is a shuttle with full rocket thrusters. (Here's a picture, although the actual one was horizontal so you could walk under the underbelly.) It was the Shuttle Pathfinder, which is actually a model that's been used to test facilities, but it was still really awe-inspiring. (Can you see a pattern? :-P)

After a very nice time at the museum (I'm glad I wandered around by myself because the students were all ready to leave earlier and it was nice to go at my own pace), I went back to the La Qunita we were staying in and had a nice little afternoon nap. I won't go into too much detail, but I really wouldn't recommend that hotel. It felt shady. I mean, the rooms were bleh, and Margaret and Emily's room had mold in the shower, and the key system was a piece of plastic with holes punched in it. I will go on the record and say that I'm still getting used to the hotels that don't have interior hallways and all the rooms lead right to outside. It can definitely work in Alabama and it probably saves a bundle on heating and maintenance, but it's not really anything I experienced in Minnesota.

Then came the Friday night trip. Emily heard that there was a nice shopping mall near the hotel with a movie theater and figured that people would really enjoy a nice relaxed evening of shopping. Of course, we had to get there first and we had Emily's GPS to guide us. I was driving the second van and Emily was in the first van with the GPS (Margaret stayed behind in the hotel since some students had ordered pizzas). The first attempt lead away from the hotel to a less-populated area. At a turn, Emily quick pulled a U-turn and by the time I realized what was going on, the left turn signal was gone and we had incoming traffic. I was able to pull off a U-turn and thought "Well, I need to catch up since the other van probably zipped ahead", so I gunned it only to find that they had pulled into a parking lot so we could catch up. Of course, I whizzed by that parking lot, decided to pull into another parking lot, had them zip by me, and eventually we got back to the hotel area.

Take 2. We got from the hotel to a highway. We only traveled for a few minutes and then took the first exit. Well, it was another barren area and we turned around in a chiropractor parking lot with many speed bumps. By this point, the students in the van and I were asking each other what we did to upset Emily and prepping our apologies (aka spirits were still high despite bad directions). Take 3. We got back on the highway and after driving for a few minutes, we saw the shopping mall! Sweet! We took the exit, drove into the parking lot, parked by the movie theater (which was also close to the food court), and everyone piled out. All the students except two wanted to go see a movie and I wanted to explore, so I took the two students (Courtney and Tricia) into the mall to see what was there.

Well, since we drove to Alabama on Saturday night, and we spent all day at the museum, that meant we were in the mall on a Sunday night. The entire mall was closed. I maybe got to see one store open for a moment but some employees were leaving and were closing the gate. At that point, I decided that I was hungry, so I took Courtney and Tricia to a Waffle House that was right across the street. I had never been to a Waffle House before but remembered seeing a lot of them when we were driving through Atlanta back in high school (we took buses down to Orlando). It was really good! I can't fully describe it, but I went with a waffle (since it is Waffle House) and it was really good. I had a nice conversation with Courtney and Tricia about Southern accents and different regional stuff and it was really fun. (All the other students were with Emily at the movie theater.)

Of course, now that Emily (& the GPS) were away, the fun part of the night began: trying to get back to the hotel. The Waffle House we went to was actually right next to La Quinta. Not our La Quinta, but a La Quinta. I pulled out to the road, and two buildings later, another La Quinta! This one was next to a Denny's and after pulling into the parking lot, we realized this wasn't ours either. I remembered about being on the highway, so I found my way back, and took the first exit. Wouldn't you know, I ended up back at the chiropractor's! Seeing stuff we drove by the first time was slightly reaffirming, although I went back on the highway, took the next exit, and didn't recognize a thing. I pulled into a Barnes & Noble, parked the van, and called up Margaret for help. Fortunately we were able to use my phone's GPS device to get a route back to the hotel.

So, I took the directions and when I exited the highway, I saw the shopping mall. Then, the directions were to drive straight down the road for a few miles, and wouldn't know, the La Quinta was right there! It was a freaking direct route from one to the other. I'm not sure what was possessing Emily's GPS, but the trip to the shopping mall should have been a right turn from the hotel... and the GPS had us go left. I'm just I was able to call up Margaret since I was out of ideas once I got to the Barnes & Noble (and of course, I didn't have the specific street address to our hotel or knew the specific road... yeah, that was dumb on my part). After getting back to the hotel, Margaret and I hung out, picked up some Popeye's (since she had eaten), and I made sure not to drive the rest of the night.

The next morning, we got everyone gathered up and headed out after a brief breakfast. We stopped in Alabama for refueling, Kentucky for lunch, and it was the best weather during the entire trip. I volunteered to drive the first two shifts to see if I could pull off eight hours of driving. It turned out to be a really good decision for me because it was amazing weather, the kids were up (as to be expected since it was 9am - 5pm), and there were really good radio stations. Oh, and I got to drive through St. Louis and got to basically drive right by the St Louis arch. Awesome! It's kind of funny (to me at least) that I drove for eight hours and when I turned the keys over to Margaret to drive the second van, the fog just rolled in. I definitely got lucky, that's for sure.

During the last 4-hour shift, I was getting pretty bored and I could tell that the students were getting bored. I ended up teaching them Mafia (there was a deck of cards floating around) and I ended up playing Mafia with the students for at least 2-1/2 hours. It was really fun. I included a couple of other students in the various murders and it seemed like people really got a kick out of it.

So yeah. That was my three-day weekend of 12 hrs of driving/24 hrs in Alabama/12 hrs of driving again. It was quite fun. I'd definitely do it again, but I'd be sure to take a nap before the departure trip.