Day #27 –
Tuesday July 12th, 2016 – Pensacola, FL to Baton Rouge, LA
We got up early enough to enjoy some of the breakfast that
the hotel offered. Just as we did, it started to pour… just for a few minutes. We
waited for the rain to stop before heading to our room to pack. Soon enough, we
were off driving to Baton Rouge. We had no idea what adventures were ahead of
us. We drove through a big storm with lots of rain to get to Alabama. We couldn’t
believe how quickly we were in Alabama, it took us only 30 minutes. As we drove
through Alabama, we drove over several small bridges over water. Doryn and I
are lovers of water so we always spot them a mile away! As we approached
another bridge, we saw signs for a tunnel ahead and soon saw the even bigger
area of water ahead of us. Our bridge went over a large stretch of water, from
afar we could see other areas of land (not bridges) that cars drove over this
huge area of land, but we enjoyed the George Corley Wallace Tunnel and Bridge. These
bridges have been here for 43 years.
We took a stop at a gas station and a man suggested we drive
to Battlefield Park (20 minutes behind us) to experience boats from WW2. He
said he drives the Duck boats and offered to take us on a ride there. I thanked
him for the suggestion and he replied to me “I’d gladly accept a tip!” Lol. Since we had 200 more miles to go, we had good
reason to opt not to. I’ll put this stop on my list of places to visit one day!
We drove on and soon found ourselves in Mississippi driving
through Biloxi. It was still beautiful out, so many trees and gorgeous bridges
over even more water. Including one bridge that went over Pearl River. One
interesting thing we found out in Alabama and Mississippi is that they don’t
gamble and there are no sales of lottery tickets here! We quickly arrived in
Louisiana. Continued on until we took a stop, so Doryn could drive and get to
our hotel. This was the same hotel that Sarah (my former assistant and friend)
and I had stayed at 5 years before, so we were surprised at what happened next
for us.
We arrived at the hotel, I asked if we had a downstairs room
since we booked far in advance, she responded in a rude tone. I asked how far
the hotel room was and if they had a dolly, she didn’t know and just demanded
my ID and gave me a room key to check it out. So we did. We took the now creepy
elevator up to the second floor, it smelled bad. As we walked into our room
which was at the end of the long hallway on the second floor we walked inside
and the smell was foul!! It smelled like someone had urinated around the room,
we couldn’t believe it! So we went back down and Doryn said “We’re checking
out!” to the front desk woman. She told us that they had changed owners and she
honestly didn’t care if we stayed from the way she treated us. So there we were
without a hotel in an unfamiliar town. I called Travelocity right away and had
them cancel the reservation and help us book another. Once again I was able to
get a coupon for a new room. We choose a familiar hotel – the Red Roof Inn,
which was close by and luckily after the coupon only had to pay $8.47! (Even
though they accidentally double charged us and we’re waiting for the funds to
return to our account.) lol. I think on my next trip I may consider using
another company.
So we headed to the Red Roof Inn, a few blocks from the other
hotel. We checked into an ADA room. We got settled and headed out to Best Buy to
look for something to hold our camcorder on our dash. They had nothing, we went
to Walmart and bought one, but it’s not the right kind, so we would have to
return this and find another way. Luckily I had some duct tape and this was a
quick fix, like MacGyver style! We bought some items we needed which included
some food and fruit. We took a drive to get to Cracker Barrel and found
ourselves in an area where there were tons of Canadian geese. We stopped the
car and jumped at the opportunity to see them. I grabbed some bread out of the
car and we walked to the flock of geese. Some were a little ways away from us
in some tall grass and the rest were just hanging out watching them. We’d tear
off a small piece of bread and feed them. Doryn was having a field day feeding
them and taking photos of them along with videos. Too cute! One of the geese
was a squeaker and chased the other geese around that tried to get the food. We
spent some time here and then got the address for Cracker Barrel and had OnStar
direct us. We didn’t know that our trip to Cracker Barrel would be a long one…..
We followed the route that said it was close by and found ourselves on a
business road with no Cracker Barrel in sight… except for an old broken down
gas station. I looked up the restaurant again, both listings showed it as a
restaurant chain with a country store, so the choose the next address and gave
it to OnStar. We found ourselves on a road through a residential area and sure
enough ahead of us we saw a sign “Cracker Barrel”, instead it was a convenience
store and gas station. Grrrr… We were getting hungry and looked it up one last
time, this time through the website – down the street a little further was what
we wanted - our Favorite place with great food and cheap prices: Cracker
Barrel. FINALLY!!! We enjoyed a great dinner and headed back to the hotel to
get some sleep for our next day trip ahead of us.
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