The trip ended happily, at least. Schuyler chipped and chirped the whole ride, Willow rode pretty nicely, we were able to stop and stock up on sugarless candy at the Russell Stover store south of Nashville (we also found gas there for $3.81⁹, so we filled up again!), and the house was okay when we got here. Me, I'm in less good shape. When we stopped at the Georgia Welcome Center, I developed terrible stomach cramps and nausea. We made it to Acworth before I had to hit a bathroom again for a few minutes, and have been in and out since we got home. It doesn't seem to have to do with the acid reflux/food sensitivity issues this time...I came home with a low-grade fever and now my temp is almost 100°F, so it seems I have picked up some sort of bug.

We had no trouble packing up this morning, although you should have seen Willow's face when we collapsed the breakdown crate. We have been accustoming her to it since we bought it, but she seemed to consider it a punishment to have to go into it. However, when we set it up in the hotel room, with her usual towel and fleece for padding, and a towel over the top to make it into a den, she went right inside, understanding it was her place. (She also liked it under the bed!)

Incidentally, we had a pretty nice room, although our reservation said we were supposed to have a king-size bed. James claimed it was a full and it didn't look like a queen, but we didn't bump together or hang on the edge like we do in a full. It was a handicap access room on the first floor right near an exit door (though our card keys never worked properly in it), so we had a shower with all the handles and a seat, and a removable shower head, which I loved. I don't know if they don't have water-flow restrictions there or this was a special shower, but the water pressure was excellent. The room was clean and neat, and although the rug was a little worn, everything else was nice and they had new, flatscreen HD LCD televisions (Schuyler was happy!). The free breakfast was very small, but did have mini muffins, waffles, bread for toast, tiny Danish, regular oatmeal, orange and another kind of juice, three kinds of cereal, biscuits and gravy, and egg patties. So we were pleased, even if it wasn't the Drury Inn. :-)

We had a pleasant time "revisiting" the parkway that led to Bowling Green since there was little traffic. Makes me wonder if wild carrot is Kentucky's state wildflower, there is so much of it along the roads.

We swapped off at the Tennessee Welcome Center, where Schuyler didn't even exhibit any panting behavior as on the inbound leg, nor did she exhibit any stress upon loading this morning. Maybe she's finally getting the hang of this? It was a good thing we swapped off because just south of Nashville I got a phone call from a friend I hadn't heard from in ages and we had a delightful chat (James even got to chat when I finally remembered how to turn the dang speakerphone on). We had no trouble with "Bonnaroo" traffic (apparently this is some sort of famous music festival). Then we stopped at the Cookeville (TN) Russell Stover store (I got a cute "sisters" photo of Willow snuggled up next to Schuyler's cage while James was in the store) and finally entered Eastern time again just west of Chattanooga.

I started driving again in Georgia despite the bathroom annoyance and we got home a little after five despite the stops.

The only fly in the ointment of coming home was discovering a note from the place we purchased our converter boxes. They are not going to be able to sell them after all. They are not charging anything to our card and we can reuse the coupon codes...but we have to find the coupons; I know we put them up, but where I don't know.

We watched America's Hanger from the Smithsonian Channel, which we recorded on the DVR, and are now watching the first part (also on the DVR) of When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions on Discovery HD while the next part records. Wow! Super color footage of the Original Seven and Mission Control.

Labels: events, pets, sickness, television, travel

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:38:00 PM

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