We decided to rent a car. Our Santa Fe, whom I am now calling "Jondiss," has 115,000 miles on it. And we're driving on borrowed time regarding the timing belt. And I'll be crunked if I'm going to need a new timing belt in the Middle of Nowhere, AR at the end of August with a 6-week old and a dainty wife in the car.
So we rented a car. A Chevy Cruze, in which they sacrificed common comfort for gas mileage. Here's the conversation I had with the rental car lady at 7:10am on Friday, before going to work for four hours:
Rental Car Lady: "Where are you headed?"
Me: "Oklahoma."
Rental Car Lady: (Checks my license) "Do you still live in Hermitage?"
Me: "Yes, ma'am."
Rental Car Lady: "Do you need a map of Nashville?"
Me: "No, ma'am."
Rental Car Lady: "Why not?"
Me: "Because, as I said, I live here. And I'm going to Oklahoma."
Off we went, about noon. Given that we were going to need to stop every few hours for Emsley (and mommy and daddy) to stretch, eat, burp, hold her butt up in the air so I could change her diaper, and get back on the road.
In Plumerville, Arkansas, we stopped so Emsley could eat. Plumerville, Arkansas, if you didn't know, is in 1963. A gentlemen in a Jewish Games t-shirt and cut-off jean shorts (he was a goatee away from a George Michael tribute show) told us how it cost him $500 to have three teeth removed - which means he was three under par among people in Arkansas (HEY-O). He had seven kids, and nine grandchildren. We know this, because he told us, unsolicited. (There was also a four-year old girl, who waited outside while her mother loaded up an armful of beef jerky. Seriously we couldn't have been in Arkansas more. The girl said she was dirty. When Kami asked why, she replied, "Cuz I rolled around in dirt!" And this is the state boasting the allegedly fourth-best college football team in the country.)
On Friday night, our options were as such: Drive until 2am to Duncan, or stop in Sallisaw with Kami's uncle at 10pm. We voted for the 10pm option, and stayed the night. Kami slept about an hour and a half. Why? We don't have a Pack 'N' Play, so Emsley slept in the bed while Kami obsessed over the remote possibility of rolling over on her. (Of course, she would never do such a thing. I, however...) I slept in a different bed, and don't remember anything about that night.
We left Sallisaw at 6am Saturday morning. And what do you know? Guess who forgot the diapers? We had to stop at a Wal-Mart in Shawnee, Oklahoma to get more - delaying us further. Ultimately, we made it to Duncan at about 11am Saturday.
It was a great visit. Everybody from the family was there, and it was truly a celebration of life, with Kami's grandparents, five kids, eight grandkids, five great-grandkids in attendance. I took a nap.
There was a period of time where we thought Kami might stay in Texas for the week. Kami's brother and his wife are planning on driving to Nashville with Harper, Emsley's six-month old cousin, for Labor Day weekend. So, for long enough that I completely unloaded the car, Kami and Emsley were going to stay in Texas and hang out while she didn't have to work. But then, with the realization that Kami's parents have the first week of school starting today (Monday), and the possibility that we would be faced with a last-minute plane ticket from Dallas to Nashville should they not be able - for whatever reason - to make the trip, she decided to come back with me.
As an aside, the best pancake syrup - ever - is Griffin's. It's only sold in Oklahoma, presumably because the don't like money. Or "Market Share." So I went to Goodner's Grocery Story in Duncan to buy a bottle of Griffin's. If I may, I dubbed the Goodner's as the Most Depressing Place on Earth. If you move the frozen boxes of fish sticks on the sixth of eight aisles, you may very well find a portal to hell. The most premium alcohol sold at Goodner's is Smirnoff Ice.
Sunday morning, 21 hours after we arrived, we got in the car to drive off, back to Nashville. I thought I knew what lay ahead - Google Maps said it was 12.5 hours from Duncan to Nashville. That's preposterous, and we knew it. I know for a fact that there are two Starbucks off the interstate in between Oklahoma City and Nashville. The first is in Oklahoma City, just off of I-240. The other is in Conway, Arkansas. At Oklahoma City, I had to go to the bathroom. Kami and Emsley were asleep. We still had about 13 hours in front of us, and I could use 20 ozs of coffee. I thought I was in the clear.
I was wrong.
In the four minutes it took me to get a coffee and go to the bathroom, Emsley woke up and got fussy. "Nuclear" would appropriately describe Kami's reaction to my actions. The combination of the timing of the stop - a mere 90 minutes after we left, Kami being in the middle of a very emotional weekend, a combined five hours of sleep over the previous two days, and my douchiness were the detonators.
An hour later, after Emsley had eaten, and had a diaper change, we were off. Some jacknut trucker had driven his transport truck into a guardrail, and I-40 east of OKC to one lane. We stopped off again in Sallisaw to show off Emsley to Kami's other set of grandparents, and spent two hours there. There was a six-mile stretch in Arkansas where Emsley simply couldn't get enough to eat, so we stopped at two McDonald's to feed her. Oh yes, and 22 mosquitoes found their way into the car when I opened the door - eight of which bit me on my toe knuckles. There's nothing acceptable about Arkansas.
When I got the rental car, I pre-paid the last tank of gas, which they were offering at $3.15/gallon. Considering that the cheapest we paid the whole trip was $3.49/gallon, that was a good call. It also means that I was very interested in letting the car run out of gas as I pulled up to the drop-off. So in an effort to keep Emsley asleep (with Kami next to her in the back seat), I didn't stop from west of Memphis all the way to Nashville. This stretch of highway is the pit of hell. Thanks to barbeque sunflower seeds and MLB Network Radio, and seven hours of sleep the night before (because Emsley slept through the night), we made it back home at 12:52am - 16 hours after we left. And the alarm went off at 5:50 this morning. I returned the car with 8 miles left in the tank.
The final tally: 1600 miles in 61 hours with a six-week old. That's 26 miles per hour, even while we were stopped, visiting, and sleeping. And I got fussier than Emsley did - she was an absolute angel. It was a quick trip, but a necessary one. Emsley may not remember the weekend we spent with Poppy, but we all will.
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