day eleven

memphis, tennessee, to pensacola, florida, 497 miles.
FROM SCOTT:
what a day. by the time it ended, far from where we expected to be, we'd almost forgotten about the morning's high point: the home elvis lived in when he was a kid in tupelo, mississippi. all elvis all the time. and nice women with syrupy southern drawls helping everyone inside the gift shop. but on down the road, through mississippi and alabama. originally, we were going to spend the night in mobile, alabama, but the place was full. so we motored on down the road to pensacola, figuring we were going to see my cousin danny and his wife tabby and their family anyway, so it wouldn't hurt to be closer. we decided to go out to the little islands off the coast of pensacola and get a room there. we hadn't figured on a three-day fourth of july weekend drawing everyone in the entire south to this one spot. it was a zoo, a madhouse and everything else. a resort area full of people. more than full. the parking attendant at the first hotel we were going to try nicely informed us the closest available rooms were probably in northern pensacola, quite a ways away. so we headed out again, me driving and olivia calling hotels and motels. no one had a room, and no one knew of anyone who had a room. after umpteen attempts, we finally found a room at a howard johnson's on the west side of town. got there and checked in, took our stuff up to the room, opened the door and almost gagged. it was hotter inside the room than outside, it had a nice view of the motel's garbage area, there was some loud intermittent noise coming from the laundry area just outside the window, and it smelled like a bunch of large animals had either died in the room or had just spent a few months there. it was awful. we headed out to get something to eat and ponder our options. going down the road, we saw another place, and stopped in to see if they had a room available. they did, we took it, then went back to howard's and told them we couldn't stay in the room because it smelled so bad. they said ok, canceled our bill, and we went to dinner. i'm sure they rented the room to someone else. so we would up in a room that was cool, clean and quiet. ahh. all in all, a decently adventurous day for olivia's first one on the road.
FROM OLIVIA:
If this is what every day on the road is gonna be like... im thinking about calling it quits. 8 hours on the road wsnt that bad.. its better then being in a plane for like 10 hours straight basicalllyy. and theres a lot more to see. so basically im kinda upset everything on Pensacola Beach was booked.. because the beach there.. was ASTOUNDING <: haha so dad basicaly summed it up.. it was really nince on the road though. and i got a very nice arm tan... :D well im gonna go.. byeeeeee
TOMORROW: pensacola to probably somewhere in the tampa-st. petersburg area, unless we get slowed down by playing on every beach we see. good night, heather; good night, nicole, who is taking care of willy the cat while we're gone; good night, linda and george, who are playing at ocean shores this weekend...O:good night, emi!; good night, all of my friends who i have to go another 2 more weeks away from.. yeah you know who you are.