Day 1: The Birthplace of Barefoot and Pregnant

  Hardeeville, South Carolina, United States
Friday, July 21, 2006

001 - Getting Ready to Leave

I always have a hard time falling asleep the night before we leave for a vacation.  Always.  But this time would be different... I had already been off from school for a good two and a half months and I was on the worst schedule ever.  Every night I wouldn't be able to fall asleep until 5:00 in the morning and I wouldn't wake up until 2:00 the next afternoon.  To me that's the perfect summer schedule, but it wouldn't be fun being up all night the night before we had to drive down I-95 for fourteen hours so I decided to get on a good schedule.  A week before our trip was set to begin I started setting my alarm to wake me up at 7:00 in the morning.  I was hoping that getting up so early would help me fall asleep earlier and get back on a good schedule, so by the time Thursday night rolled around I'd be able to conk out early.  Things should have gone perfectly...

002 - Getting Ready to Leave

Or not.  After still not being able to fall asleep early all week despite getting up at 7:00 in the morning, leaving me with a good three hours of sleep a night, I was again up all night.  Literally... ALL NIGHT.  I watched the newest Tivo'd episode of "I Want To Be a Soap Star" until 1:00 and then I just tossed and turned all night.  So what did I get out of my brilliant, "No sleep 'till Orlando" plan?  A pair of bloodshot eyes.  I should have known that my excitement for a trip would far outweigh a few bouts of exhaustion.   At 1:20 my mom came into my room and said that she was also having trouble sleeping.  She had gone to bed at 10:00 and had gotten two hours of sleep, but now she couldn't fall back asleep.  You know how most people do the laundry two or three times a week?  Well, mom does the laundry two to three times a day.  So what did she do to pass the time?  She went downstairs at 1:30 in the morning and did the laundry.  All that was left to wash was the clothes that we had worn the day before but she had to get it done... and she says I'm neurotic!  Haha!

003 - Getting Ready to Leave

I tossed and turned and turned and tossed.  I tried rocking back and forth to relax myself to sleep; I counted backwards from one hundred.... twice.  But nope, no luck.  I was wide awake.  I knew I would feel like absolute crap in the morning but there was no use in just laying there in the dark.  I turned on the Travel Channel and watched the "Samantha Brown's First Cruise" special that I had seen a few months before.  I usually watch the Travel Channel and wallow in my self pity for watching TV at home in Brooklyn instead of being out in the world and experiencing all it has to offer.  But not tonight, baby, not tonight.  The next day I would pack my bags and head out into the great wide open.  I would be an explorer.  A traveler... at least to the Land of Endless Theme Parks.

004 - Getting Ready to Leave

When the show was over I shut my TV off and again tried to fall asleep.  This time was worse than ever, though, because nothing gets me psyched for a trip like the Travel Channel.  I was ready to get out there!  I was going to just get up and get dressed, but then I looked at my clock and realized that it was only 3:00 in the morning.  Yes, we wanted to leave by 5:00, but that was two hours away and the computers were disconnected, I had already watched everything I had Tivo'd, and... well, at 3:00 in the morning those are really the only two options.  After what seemed like a year and a day of staring at my ceiling and contemplating how stupid of an idea it was to not sleep all week, I finally fell asleep at 3:40.  I was so relieved!  Well I wasn't actually relieved since I was asleep, but I knew I would be in the morning.  I needed a few good hours of sleep to help me get through the long drive we had ahead of us.  See?  Falling asleep the night before a trip really isn't too bad.  Not at all.  But wait, what was that?  It sounded a lot like the Travel Channel's theme music.  My love for traveling and the channel dedicated to it had even made its way into my dreams!

005 - Getting Ready to Leave

But it wasn't a dream... it was my TV.  I pried my eyes open and wondered why my TV was on.  Then I looked at the clock and realized that it was 4:00 in the morning.  On any normal day that would be a sign to roll over and drift back to the land of the Sandman but nope, not today.  Today was July 21 and it was time to head to the world of all things Disney.  I should have been psyched.  Thrilled.  ECSTATIC! But all I could think about was my night of sleep.  Or my luxurious twenty minutes of half-sleep.  Well, twenty minutes is better than nothing, right?  Wrong.  I felt like crap and wanted nothing more than to give my Mickey stuffed animal a nice smug smile, shoot him the finger and fall back asleep.  But there was fun to be had and I needed to be a part of it.  As hard as it was, I got out of bed and went to go into the bathroom before I realized that mom was still in there getting ready.  So back to bed I went.  I was planning on getting another quick twenty minutes of sleep so I crawled under my covers and cuddled up to my pillow.  Ah, this was nice.  Then thirty seconds later mom came into my room to tell me that she was done and that I had to get up NOW.  (Sigh)  What a tease.

007 - Getting Ready to Leave

I brushed my teeth and fixed my hair in the bathroom before sitting on my bed to get ready.  Yes, I do my makeup in bed despite having been warned more than once not to since I've already ruined three comforters.  But do I listen?  Nope.  I'm a rebel.  By 4:50 I was almost done and was just hanging out watching videos on Fuse.  I was really, really hoping that "MakeDamnSure" by Taking Back Sunday would come on.  I love those boys way too much.  You know what the great part of this story is?  As soon as I hoped that the video would come on... it did!  Am I psychic or what?  The awesome drumbeat of the song, and the ridiculously gorgeous presence of Mr. Adam Lazzara, helped to wake me up more than I already was and I was done getting ready by 5:00.

008 - Brooklyn

All of our bags had already been packed away in the trunk, but I had to be the odd man out and leave my toiletry bags in my room.  Half of the stuff I was planning on packing in them I needed that morning so it wasn't my fault!  Mom and I ran out to the car, opened the trunk, and bam!  That thing popped open like a can of sardines... or any other less gross edibles that come in cans.  The trunk of our car is huge and it was completely packed.  PACKED.  I was able to squeeze in my two toiletry bags but my overnight bag just wouldn't fit.  We already had a ton of stuff in the backseat with us so I was going to leave it home before I put it in the backseat.  I just laid the bag down on top of the pile of endless suitcases and slammed that bad boy closed.  Can you imagine if we flew?  We'd have racked up some serious extra weight charges... or I just wouldn't have packed twelve pairs of flip-flops.

010 - Brooklyn

At 5:30 we were all set and ready to go... and then the stomachaches began.  Mike automatically gets a stomachache when he knows there won't be a clean bathroom in site for a while.  He anticipates not feeling well and automatically makes himself not feel well.  It's actually pretty funny!  We all just told him to relax as we piled into the car.  We were on our way!  After a year of planning did it feel like we were actually on our way?  Of course not, but we were and that's all that mattered.  Five minutes after we left my Uncle Marc called and asked us where we were.  Why he was up at 5:30 in the morning on his day off, I don't know.  Mom told him that we had left really late the night before and were already in North Carolina.  If only.  We told him we were kidding and that we were three blocks away from home and had been driving for five minutes.  Yay, only seventeen hours and fifty-five minutes to go!

011 - Staten Island

By 5:45 we were crossing the Verazzano Bridge into Staten Island.  My Aunt Stacy called and asked us what we were doing.  We were driving... at least it was down an empty Staten Island Expressway, which we don't get to experience too often.  That damn parkway is always packed and it usually takes us a good hour to get through the three miles of Staten Island.  I hate Staten Island.  We reached Jersey by 6:00 which was awesomely fast.  We spent the time listening to Elvis Duran and the Z Morning Zoo, the morning show on Z100.  It's the only time I listen to Z100, and I hadn't gotten to listen to the morning show since the middle of May.  Of course this was the week that the entire group was on vacation, but the rerun they were playing was from a show that we had missed earlier in the summer.  For a half-hour they debated whether or not it was OK for a gay guy to touch a woman's boobs.  I say go for it.  Then they asked if it was alright for a gay guy to touch a straight guys butt.  I say go for it.  Haha!

014 - New Jersey

At 6:35 we stopped at the Richard Stockton rest area, the rest stop right after Six Flags Great Adventure.  I love this rest stop; it's one of the best ones on the entire length of I95.  I love how the Jersey rest stops have stores, restaurants, bathrooms and tourist information booths.  It's an all-inclusive one stop shop.  Once you get farther down I95 there are only bathrooms and vending machines at the rest stops so if you need food, gas, or directions, you have to get back on I95 and drive another five miles to the nearest town.  And who wants to stop in random towns out in the middle of nowhere to ask for directions?  Haven't there been one to many scary movies based on this exact concept?  It's very inconvenient.  Anyway, we parked in the middle of the lot and walked to the entrance where Mom and I ran into the main rest area while dad and Mike walked Oreo in the grass.  We ran into the bathroom and then looked at the menus for the two open restaurants - Burger King and Starbucks.  Starbucks only had fruit-flavored muffins which I hate, so I had to get something from Burger King.  I had a choice of a croissant sandwich, a croissant sandwich, or croissant sandwich.  I went with the croissant sandwich.

017 - New Jersey

Mom waited for dad by Burger King while I went out to meet Mike.  There were a few clean tables right in the middle of a nice grassy knoll so we headed over there.  In retrospect, it wasn't exactly a grassy knoll... it was more like a few blades of grass surrounding a garbage can.  But it was nice.  Oreo sat on her own bench across from mine and she looked like a little person sitting there at the table.  It was so cute!  It was a peaceful and quiet area until we realized that we had invaded someone else's space.  A small and really fat bird came running up to us and chirped.  And chirped.  And chirped.  And chirped.  And chirped.  And chirped.  It was the cutest thing!   At first.  After ten minutes of constant angry chirping I was ready to chase him away, but I felt bad so I let him chirp.  And chirp.  And chirp.  And chirp.  And chirp.

032 - New Jersey

Mom and dad were back within fifteen minutes and the food was all really good.  I got a bacon, egg and cheese croissant and mom got a bacon, ham and cheese croissant.  I know they're probably the worst things in the world for you, but man they were delicious.  For the past year I had eaten nothing but Special K and Smart Start cereal for breakfast so a nice greasy bacon and cheese sandwich definitely hit the spot.  Heart attack, schmart attack.  Dad got a chocolate muffin from Starbucks and Mike had a cereal bar that we had brought from home.  He didn't want to eat too much on the road since he was still afraid of getting a stomachache.  Well, a worse stomachache than he already had.  While we ate, our little chirpy friend did what he did best.  He chirped and chirped and chirped and chirped and chirped.  Then mom decided to feed him.  Yep, when you want a wild bird to leave, feed it.  Well, chirpy had gotten exactly what he wanted and he called a bunch of his friends over to share in the good fortune.  Before we knew it we had twenty birds chirping.  And chirping.  And chirping.  You get the idea.  What was ridiculously cute, though, was when chirpy passed his pieces of croissant over to Mrs. Chirpy.  There was a smaller, skinnier bird standing right behind him and he would pass a piece of food to her and then stare at us and chirp menacingly, as if he was warning us not to touch his woman!

035 - New Jersey

Mom continued to defy the "Don't Feed the Animals" rule and gave Oreo a few pieces of the egg from her sandwich.  Oreo loved it and gobbled it up in a New York Minute.  It was actually a New York Second but not as many people are familiar with that phrase.  As we finished our last few bites of breakfast we noticed that the same couple had walked past us a good three or four times, taking in the sights of the rest stop.  We didn't pay any attention to it, though, and when we were done eating mom, dad and I ran back into the rest stop to go to the bathroom while Mike sat with Oreo, and then we were back on the road by 7:10.  We found a good New Jersey classic rock station and sang along to as much Bon Jovi as we could handle until we reached southern Jersey and lost the station.  We found a Philadelphia station, though, that was broadcasting a Phillies vs. Mets game.  As soon as we turned on the station they were announcing all of the Mets players so we thought that maybe we had made a wrong turn and were heading back into New York.  Nope, they soon announced the Phillies and we were still in Jersey.  Go Phillies!  I hate those Mets.  Better yet, go YANKEES!

045 - Delaware

Anyway, we reached the Delaware Memorial Bridge at exactly 8:00.  I usually get up for school at 8:00 and we were already in Delaware.  Awesome.  If we drove down to Orlando every day I wouldn't mind getting up at 8:00 so much.  Getting up at that time for school just kind of sucks the life out of the day.  Yes, I'm in my second year of college and I still get very sad when school starts.  I'll grow up eventually.  On a brighter note, just as we were crossing the bridge "I've Had the Time of My Life" by Bill Medley came on our newly found Delaware classic rock station.  I don't know if the theme song to "Dirty Dancing" constitutes classic rock, but it just so happens to be one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite movies so I was psyched.

070 - Maryland

It was a short drive through Delaware and we reached Maryland at 8:15.  At 8:30 we stopped at the Chesapeake House rest stop.  I remembered stopping at a really nice rest stop in Maryland the year before that had a big store and I wanted to get a few key chains from the surrounding states.  I could have sworn it was this stop, but it wasn't.  I was pretty upset since I really wanted to add key chains to my travel key chain collection but it's probably better to get key chains from states that I've actually visited, rather than just drove through so I'm not too upset.  While this wasn't the rest stop from last year it wasn't a bad alternative.  It wasn't clean, but it wasn't as filthy as most of the rest stops along I95 are.  Mike and dad ran in to the bathroom while mom and I walked Oreo in the grass.  The mosquito-infested grass.  It's usually hard to see mosquitoes but these were huge!  We walked Oreo quickly before running out of there, escaping with only one or two small bites.  Whew.  When dad and Mike were done they took Oreo so mom and I could run into the bathroom.  The rest area itself was pretty nice; it was just like the ones in Jersey.  We bypassed the restaurants and travel information booths and high-tailed it to the bathroom before meeting dad and Mike outside.

067 - Maryland

Next to the rest stop was a cute little country store.  I love cute little country stores!  I also love farmer's markets and other stores and shops that you can't find in the urban metropolis that is New York City.  We had to look around!  Mike waited outside with Oreo while mom, dad and I went in to see what we could find.  There were lots of stores like this up in Lake George that we always loved.  They usually have cute little statues, wind chimes, antique jewelry, incense and nature-themed incense burners... all that good stuff that we have absolutely no use for but feel the need to buy anyway.  Well, temptation was no threat here since there was nothing in the store.  There were a few zipper-decorations (that's right, charms and other decorations for your pants zipper), key chains and wind chimes but nothing was cheaper than $10.  You could get a nice decoration for your zipper for $15 if you felt the need.  Which I didn't.  Do you really want random strangers checking out the charms hanging from your crotch?  Also, the woman running the store wasn't all... there.  She sat back on an extremely small stool and just stared off into space with her mouth hanging open.  Every once in a while she would follow us out of the corner of her eyes, and as soon as we looked at her she would very quickly turn her eyes back up to the ceiling, mouth still just hanging open.  Great, we were only in Maryland and we were already entering "Deliverance" territory.

088 - Maryland

We were out of there faster than you could order someone to squeal like a pig and we met Michael by the car.  Just then a couple walked by and asked, "Are you following us?!"  It was the couple that had walked by us countless times during breakfast in Jersey!  We ran up to them and exchanged huge hugs, telling them how much we had missed them and how glad we were to see them again.  It really was a joyous reunion.  For those of you who can't tell, I'm being sarcastic.  We smiled, hopped back in and car and drove away.  Who says New Yorkers aren't friendly?  We reached the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel at 9:00 and were driving through Baltimore looking for a good station on the radio by 9:02.  Did I take good notes or what?  Driving through Baltimore I again thought of Mr. Michael Mussina, one of my loves.  He first played for the Orioles before joining my beloved Yankees.  How many people have links to Baltimore?  Thousands, but I always relate Mussina to Baltimore.  I'm very easily amused.  Even more entertaining, though, was the fact that we found Baltimore's Jack FM affiliate!  Any sensible New Yorker knows that Jack FM is the only radio station to listen to, along with New York's only classic rock station, Q 104.3.  With New York's only contemporary rock station, KROQ, gone, it's the only station that plays a good mix of old and new rock. And now we got to listen to it in Maryland.  Sweet.

102 - Maryland

At 9:40 we stopped at the Maryland Welcome Center where only mom and I had to go to the bathroom so we went in and then met dad and Mike outside.  They were walking Oreo and as soon as we saw them mom started whistling.  Really loud.  And Oreo actually recognized her whistle and came running towards us before even seeing us!  It was the funniest thing ever and made up for all of the blank stares we got from other tourists trying to figure out who the mysterious whistling lady was.  By 9:55 we were stuck in traffic in Ballsville, Maryland.  I didn't find it funny at the time but looking back at it now, Ballsville is one of the best city names I have ever had the privilege of seeing.  Anyway, in this brilliantly named town of Ballsville, Mike all of a sudden said that he smelled Mertle, the turtle that we had when we were younger.  I remember Mertle having a smell but I don't remember what it actually was.  How he remembered, I don't know.  But he said that either the water he was drinking or his finger smelled like Mertle.  I really didn't want to know where his water, or his finger, had been to acquire that smell. I 'm hoping the smell was from the sinus infection he got two weeks into the trip.  Let's just move on...

107 - Maryland

At 9:56 Michael took the paper that I was writing my notes on and started adding his own.  They were all ridiculously stupid and all absolutely hysterical.  I took a picture of the paper just so I would remember it.  By 10:00 the traffic had cleared and I had "Hey Mama" by the Black Eyes Peas stuck in my head.  I just kept singing it over and over and over and over and over... "Hey mama, it's that beat that make you move.  Mama, get on the floor and move your booty.  Mama, it's the grand master flashing up the drama.  La la la la la."  That's the only part of the song that I knew, and half of the words were probably wrong, so there was a lot of la-la'ing going on.  Unfortunately, at 10:03 we reached some more traffic but we were out of it by 10:04.  It was the best traffic ever!

120 - Washington DC

We reached Washington, DC at 10:10.  By 10:20 we were driving along, minding our own business when we saw that the huge truck next to us had its turn signal on and it wanted to come into our lane.  OK, well wait until we pass you.  Nope, that truck wanted to move now.  It started cutting into our lane while we were still next to it.  We didn't know if the driver didn't see us or if he was just on some serious crack, but he came unbelievably close to running us off the road.  We slowed down and just hoped that the truck would speed up to miss us and luckily he did.  Then rocks started flying out of the back of his truck and hitting our car.  We had a few choice words for him before we turned into another lane to get away from this guy.  Washington DC was uneventful aside from our near death by dumbass truck driver experience, and at 10:25 we entered Virginia.  We connected my MP3 player to the car stereo and listened to the first few songs in the play list of over seven-hundred songs that I had created for the drive.  They were all in alphabetical order and included songs that all of us liked.  No one complained except for mom, of course, who wasn't hearing any of the songs she liked.  Well, it's not my fault if your songs start with later letters of the alphabet!

130 - Virginia

At 10:45 we reached Richmond and hit some traffic.  We were out of it within two minutes, though, and we stopped at a rest stop five minutes later.  This was literally the most hideous rest stop ever.  EVER.  Dad and Mike ran in first and they could usually care less about the cleanliness of rest stops.  They usually don't even pay attention, but they ran out telling us how gross it was.  Great.  Mom and I ran in and it was even worse than we had imagined.  The entire bathroom was covered in flies.  When you gotta go you gotta go though, so we ran in and tried to be as quick as possible.  I just kept picturing the most gruesome scenes from "The Fly" and trying not to think about the hundreds of tiny disease-carriers surrounding me in such a vulnerable position.  Ew.  Have I mentioned that I have an extreme bug phobia?

141 - Virginia

We ran back to the car, literally ran, and continued driving.  At 11:52 we hit some traffic in Ashland and a few minutes later my Uncle Marc called to talk to mom.  We all just listened to the radio and relaxed, and at 12:50 Mike took my notes to write, "Virginia Sucks!"  Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  But it doesn't matter because you suck.  It just takes so damn long to drive through that freaken state!  I'm sure it's all cupcakes and kittens if you drive further into the state itself, but driving along the coast down I95?  It's some serious suckage.  There was nothing to look at as we drove through Virgina but trees, trees and more trees so we had to entertain ourselves.  What else is there to talk about on a cross-country road trip but road kill?  We kept joking around about it since last year on this same stretch of road mom kept seeing bags and boxes along the road and thinking it was stricken armadillos.  They must have been the special Virginian, non-desert dwelling armadillos.  The ones who live on a rainbow of Skittles with the Tooth Fairy and Pillsbury Dough Boy.  Anyway, we got a good laugh out of that until at 1:00 we saw it... our first actual cross-country road trip road kill - a possum on the side of I95.  It was really a site I would rather not have seen and all road kill jokes subsided after that.  It was sad.

144 - Virginia

At 1:25 we (finally) reached North Carolina and saw our first South of the Border sign!  We remembered seeing tons of them along the road on our drive last year and we were looking forward to seeing them again this year.  A lot of them had changed so it was fun looking for all of the new designs and slogans.  My favorite was still the one where "South of the Border" is written upside down and underneath it is says, "Too Moch Tequila!"  Silly drunks.

145 - Virginia

Mike and I kept getting random songs stuck in our head and at this point it was "Overhead Cable Car" by The Fray.  We sang it forty five times but we only knew part of the chorus so it was the same lines over and over.  "Everyone knows I'm in over my head, over my head.  There's eight seconds left in overtime, she's on your mind, she's on your mind.  Everyone knows I'm in over my head, over my head.  There's eight seconds left in overtime, she's on your mind.  She's on your mind.  Everyone knows I'm in over my head, over my head.  There's eight seconds left in overtime, she's on your mind.  She's on your mind.  Everyone knows I'm in over my head, over my head.  There's eight seconds left in overtime, she's on your mind.  She's on your mind."  I'll admit it got really annoying after a while and that's coming from the performers.  I can only imagine how our audience, or mom and dad, felt.  At 1:40 we reached Halifax, North Carolina.  Mike and I both like the band Halifax but I think they're from the Halifax in Canada.  Hm.  Anyway, we pulled off of I95 and stopped at a Mcdonald's.  Dad was hungry and wanted to get something for lunch but before we could eat we had to walk Oreo.  Wow, it was unbelievably hot out.  Ridiculously hot.  Brutally hot.  It was really, really brutal.  BRUTAL.

146 - North Carolina

When we were done walking Oreo mom and dad went in to get food while Mike and I waited at a table outside with Oreo.  They were back within five minutes and we all sat outside to eat.  Mom and I both got cheeseburger Happy Meals to get the Pirates of the Caribbean toys, Mike got a double cheeseburger and dad got a chicken sandwich.  I could hardly eat, it was unbearable out there.  It was actually hotter than it had been during our entire month in Florida the year before.  It was bad and we were the only suckers eating hot burgers and fries out in the heat of the day.  It was so bad that I could actually feel the sweat dripping down my face.  And I don't normally sweat... I glisten.  Damn it was hot out!  To make matters worse, there were tons of flies around.  I guess they were surprised to find anyone stupid enough to eat outside during the southern summer afternoon.  Yea, well, leave it to us Northerners to not know any better.  We were miserable and the flies landing on my fries certainly didn't help.  As you may know from reading about our Richmond rest stop debacle, I have an extremely bad bug phobia.  As soon as a fly landed on my fries I was done with them.  And then I spilled my orange soda all over my shirt and bag.  It was turning into a great day.

151 - North Carolina

When we were done eating I took my two Pirates of the Caribbean treasure chest toys, stickers and temporary tattoos and brought Oreo back to the car.  Mike ran into the bathroom while mom and dad went back into McDonald's to get two new coffees that McDonald's had been advertising.  I hate coffee so I don't get the whole addiction, but is it possible to be so addicted to it that you'd be willing to drink hot coffee when it was a hundred degrees outside with a hundred and twenty percent humidity?!  I didn't get it, but when Michael got back I ran into the bathroom and minded my own business.  I didn't want to catch the heat shock they were sure to experience.  Done at McDonalds, we pulled into a gas station by a Dairy Queen across the street.  Mike and I sat in the car while dad got gas and mom ran into the nearby convenience store to get a bag to use as a garbage bag in the car.  Then Mike and I saw a guy with long hair who was kind of weird looking... it turns out that was because it was a girl.  Interesting.  We spent a few minutes trying to figure out if this person was a guy or a girl before mom and dad were both done and we were driving back down I95 by 2:00.

154 - North Carolina

At 2:30 I drifted off to sleep for twenty minutes.  I was absolutely exhausted and kept going through phases.  For twenty minutes I would be unbelievably tired and unable to keep my eyes open, so I would drift off without actually falling asleep.  Then twenty minutes later I would be back up and full of energy.  Those twenty minutes of extreme fatigue sucked, but I really didn't feel too bad afterwards.  When I snapped out of my daze of exhaustion we were in Raleigh/Durham and listening to the radio. The weather girl was on and she said that the heat index outside right now was ninety-nine degrees.  And we had just been sitting outside eating McDonald's with the flies.  Oy.  At 3:30 mom had to go to the bathroom but there weren't any actual rest stops in sight so we pulled off of I95 and after a few wrong turns we reached the Days Inn in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Mom and I ran in to use the bathroom in the lobby, and wow.  This place was a bonafide dump.  It smelled disgusting and was ridiculously run down.  We ran in and ran out.

180 - South Carolina

At 4:20 we reached South Carolina and by 4:25 we were passing South of the Border.  I was excited since this was our first big attraction of the trip.  I took a few pictures as we drove by but we didn't even bother to stop this year.  Last year we had been given a discreet strip show by a local as we got gas and we really weren't in the mood for it this year so we just moved on.  At 4:45 we made another stop in Florence to use the bathroom.  We pulled over at a rest stop and the area was really nice.  It was pretty empty and there were huge trees and a few small bridges scattered around the property.  It was really hot out, but nowhere near as hot as it had been in North Carolina.  It really doesn't make much sense how it turned out that way, but it's the truth.  Maybe it was because it was later in the day.  Who knows?  We walked Oreo and hung out outside, stretching our legs and enjoying the weather.  Then dad and Mike ran into the bathroom while mom and I watched Oreo, and then we switched.  Yea, the bathroom wasn't as nice as the surrounding area was.  It wasn't as bad as the roach motel in Richmond, but it wasn't good.

181 - South Carolina

We were back in the car within ten minutes, and we debated whether or not we should even stop at the hotel in Hardeeville, South Carolina.  The Sleep Inn I had booked us into seemed nice and it had good reviews on Trip Advisor, but if I learned anything from last year it was that people write some pretty crazy reviews.  I had a feeling that a small hotel in a random southern town was not something we would want to experience and by the time we got to Hardeeville we would only be four hours away from Orlando and would be there by midnight.  After driving for so long what was another four hours?  We didn't want to commit to anything, though, so we figured we would just check out the hotel.  If it was nice we would stay, and if not we would get our money back and keep on keeping on.

182 - South Carolina

At 5:20 we pulled out the snacks again and had some pretzels.  Then Uncle Marc and Aunt Stacy both called and said that there were extreme storms back in New York which were causing massive flooding.  The MTA had shut down the entire subway system since the tracks were all flooded and hundreds of people were stranded in the city.  I have never been so happy not to be in Manhattan!  I love you New York, but I could do without your crazy weather.  We turned on a random weather station we were able to find and they were talking about the storms, saying that Long Island was getting it the worst.  We called my cousin Cari since she was at our summer home in Rocky Point on Long Island with my grandparents, aunt and uncle, but she said the weather wasn't too bad there.  Then we called my Uncle David who was stuck in traffic.  A normally hour-and-a-half long drive from Manhattan to Westchester had already taken him four hours and he was only in the Bronx.  Damn.

193 - South Carolina

By 5:45 I was completely bored.  B-O-R-E-D.  We had been driving for a little over twelve hours and while it really didn't seem like that long, I was sick of just sitting in the car and staring out the window.  I listened to some Taking Back Sunday on my MP3 player and, well, I stared out the window as we drove through some rain in Manning, South Carolina.  We decided to stop in five minutes to get some gas and for a bathroom break, and Michael fell asleep.  I put the camera under him to take a picture, and his neck was hanging down so his face was all distorted and he looked like a fetus in a sonogram, haha!  I know that sounds crazy but he looked just like that, and I started crying hysterically from laughing so hard.  I seriously couldn't breathe.  I was way overtired and as I said, I'm very easily amused.  And it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.  Ever.

187 - South Carolina

At 6:30 we stopped at a Mobil station in Watterboro, South Carolina.  Dad wanted to get gas but the Speed Pass wasn't working so he had to run into the gas station.  Mom and I also ran in to go to the bathroom.  It was a very uneventful stop and within ten minutes we were back on the road, after a small stop a few feet away from the gas station for dad to run out and throw away our bag of garbage in a nearby garbage can.   Don't you hate when you're in the vicinity of your destination, but you still have around an hour to go?  I do.  We were almost in Hardeeville, South Carolina but we still had about an hour to go... we were so close yet so far!  We noticed mile markers on the side of the road so we started counting down the miles to our exit.  We couldn't just count, though, we had to count in style.  Instead of "Ninety-nine bottles of bear on the wall" it was "Forty-five miles to go, forty-five miles to go."  We're so creative.

198 - Hardeeville, South Carolina

Finally, at 7:10, we reached our destination.  At least the first destination of a two-part trip.  The Sleep Inn was right near the exit so we were there within a minute.  The hotel looked nice from the outside, but the actual town of Hardeeville was not cool.  It was a dump and really stereotypically southern.  We weren't planning on staying for long, though, so we just pulled into the hotel's parking lot and brought Oreo in to the lobby with us to check in.  When we got to the lobby there was already a man checking in.  We waited for him to be done and then we checked in.  The woman at the front desk was nice, but again very stereotypical.  She had maybe ten teeth.  While we had hated Florence, South Carolina the year before, I knew that we had jumped from the frying pan into the fire.  At least people have heard of Florence and it's a popular stop along I95.  No one knows what or where Hardeeville is!  Oh well, dad finished checking in while mom and I walked to the back of the lobby to the vending machines, and she brought Oreo out to the back of the hotel for a walk while I waited by the door to let them back in.

199 - Hardeeville, South Carolina

Within ten minutes we had our keys and headed back to the car.  We pulled into a spot on the other side of the parking lot and went into the entrance by our room.  We were in closet 1226.  Oh, I mean room 1226.  This was the smallest hotel room I had ever seen!  As gross as the hotels were from the year before, at least they were big.  This room was small.  Tiny.  Miniscule.  There were just two double beds right up against each other, a dresser and a bathroom.  No table and chairs.  No television stand.  No room to breathe.  To make matter worse, as soon as we walked into the room we were hit by a wall of heat.  The air conditioner wasn't on and all of the clocks in the room were flashing the wrong time.  There must have been a power hit and the room was never fixed up for us.  Two thumbs down for service.  We turned on the A/C and tried to organize our stuff.  We didn't bother taking our suitcases out of the trunk; we just had our overnight bags and all of the bags that we had kept in the back seat with us.  We fed Oreo and took turns running into the bathroom before we headed out for dinner.

200 - Hardeeville, South Carolina

Before we left home I had looked into restaurants around the hotel and the only sit-down restaurant was a Shoney's.  The Shoney's in Florence last year hadn't been great so we left, but the Shoney's in Orlando had been really nice.  We figured they were hit or miss so we decided to try this one.  It was right across the street from the hotel so we drove over there and headed inside... Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew.  This wasn't only worse than the Shoney's in Florence, but it was the grossest restaurant I had ever been in.  Ever.  The place was dark and dingy, smelled sour, and was absolutely packed.  Usually you'd figure that if a restaurant is crowded it must be good but this place was packed with so many women who were literally barefoot and pregnant.  And braless... in a restaurant.  It was like stepping right into the Twilight Zone.  The Redneck Twilight Zone.  Get her done.

205 - Hardeeville, South Carolina

We waited around for a table.  And waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Tons of employees kept walking by but no one would stop for us.  I had my "Zoo York" shirt on and I know a lot of people from small southern towns aren't too fond of us Yankees, so that could have had something to do with it.  We were eventually seated at a table covered in grease and crumbs.  Ew.  We practically ran out of the place and hopped back in the car.  We drove down the main strip and saw a McDonald's and a Wendy's, as well as other barefoot and pregnant woman walking around town.  Barefoot.  Pregnant.  And braless.  Maybe we should have just kept driving.  We eventually figured that we had to eat so we might as well just go to Wendy's.  Wendy's is Wendy's, regardless of where you go, right?  We parked and went inside, and the place wasn't too bad.  It wasn't dirty but the clientele was extremely, extremely stereotypical.  I started thinking that stereotypes don't just come out of nowhere; they had to be based on something.  And the entire southern redneck stereotype must have originated in Hardeeville, South Carolina.

202 - Hardeeville, South Carolina

We all ordered our food at the counter before mom and I went to get straws and napkins and to get a table.  We all ate and just tried to make the most of it.  I got a chicken sandwich and fries, dad got a chicken sandwich and a baked potato, mom get chicken fingers and fries, and Mike got a spicy chicken sandwich with fries.  The food wasn't bad for fast food, and we were on our way back to the hotel in no time.  When we got back to the hotel we hung out in the room for a little while before I took a shower.  Mike sat with Oreo and watched TV while mom and dad walked to the convenience store next to the hotel to get some bottled water.  They only had two bottles of water in there, though, so that's all they were able to get.

203 - Hardeeville, South Carolina

I took a shower and was completely grossed out by the bathroom.  There was a ton of hair in the shower and on the floor, none of which was mine.  I just stood in the shower and tried not to move, and was in and out of there in five minutes.  Then Mike took a shower while dad laid in his bed and I laid in mine, and we watched the Top 100 Rock Star Wives and Girlfriends countdown on VH1.  Mom hung out in the room and Oreo just kept barking at the door.  I don't even want to know what she saw or smelled under there, but she wanted out!  When we were all done getting ready for bed we decided to try to fall asleep.  It was hard since it was only 9:30 and the beds were small, but we made the most of it.  Mom, dad and Oreo slept in one bed while Mike and I slept in the other one.  The beds were horrible and the room was gross.  To make matters worse, I was getting dizzy from being so exhausted and the beds kept squeaking and swaying.

At 10:00 mom asked if we wanted to watch The Soup on E but I was really tired and not in the mood.  I finally fell asleep at 10:00, before waking up at 12:00 and seeing that mom was up.  She asked me if I had Chap Stick, and I told her that she could find my Burt's Bees chap stick in the front of my toiletry bag.  Then I fell back asleep.