on the road foreword

i am having a hard time trying to get more than 5 pictures uploaded per blog entry, so i am going to go the "lazy" route and just break everything up in a condensed story first.

so our little family of three went on a roadtrip this past week. the purpose of our trip was to go get pete's mom's car in tampa. his parents have a fancy little condo down there that they live in when the weather is yucky in minnesota, which means they are hardly ever here. so we packed a lot of bags and flew down to florida.

day one - fly into tampa. meet the infamous brenda and leo that the faleschinis talk about all the time. eat dinner at cheddar's. muy delicioso. sleep.

day two - drive up to st. marys, georgia where my parents live. had to make some detours for pack n' play and a cassette doo-dad to play ipod in car. arrive in st. marys at 8 pm. eat dinner with grandma and grandpa angel (my parents) and uncle gerald. sleep.

day three - walk around downtown st. marys. buy pepper spray for protection. almost bought a giant knife, but the sales guy talked us out of it. visit my childhood friend, laurie and her precious new baby, emma. eat at the scrumptios chick-fil-a. visit all my parents' co-workers. dinner at my folks. leave to head up to atlanta. arrive in macon instead.

day four - head up to atlanta to go to georgia aquarium. got lost in scary neighborhood. did not need to use pepper spray. got to aquarium and had to wait around for hours cuz spring break was in full force. ate at tasty burger joint by aquarium. got into aquarium and saw lots of sea kittens and cool jellies. drove into crazy storm and stopped to eat right before giant golf-ball-sized hail pelted the car. drove until we hit monteagle, tennessee. got a hotel. sleep.

day five - woke up to immense fog and cold air in the great smoky mountains (didn't know it was the great smoky mountains until i left). had breakfast at smoky house restaurant right by the hotel. izzy does not like grits so much. bought some jams, pops in glass bottles, taffy and a fried peach pie. off we go again. drive into paducah, kentucky and ate at harnden's old-fashioned bbq. disappointed at first when we walked in cuz there was only 2 bbq items, but the food was actually quite good and a great price. drive, drive, drive. happened upon metropolis. took some photos. arrive in st. louis, missouri. stay at matthew and tina anthon's lovely home. tacos a la matthew. chatty-chat. sleep.

day six - cranky baby. breakfast a la matthew. chat-chat-chat. bye bye anthons. drive to nauvoo. lots and lots of farms and nothing else in between. so so so bored. arrive in nauvoo and check out a few sites. visit the nauvoo temple. so glorious. make plans in our heads of when to come back to see everything else (since we missed a lot of the sites). back in the car until we reach iowa city. ate some okay mexican food. hotel in cedar rapids. swim with the bunna at hotel pool. sleep.

day seven - start driving and all of a sudden...stop! car coasts to a halt on side of road. husband forgets to gas car before we leave cedar rapids. no gas station for miles. blood boiling. biting my tongue for the sake of the baby. husband not living this one down. state patrol comes to check on us. triple-a sends someone with some gas. drive into nearest small town in iowa-dows-to get gas. fill up at smallest station ever. eat at tiny cafe in dows and look at lots of cool antiques. head out for minneapolis. arrive home tired and hungry with a half-clothed baby in backseat.