Let the Journey Begin!

          Usually my day-to-day life is nothing to blog about…work, eat, sleep, spend time with hubby and puppy--repeat. But I think setting out on a 12 day cross-country road trip with my 2 friends Allison and Meredith (we will see if I'm still saying that in 12 days!) to L.A. is blog-worthy. Plus, Allison and I like the idea of having dueling blogs! Speaking of Allison, she is the reason we are on this adventure! She is starting a 1 year social work/community organizing internship with The Episcopal Service Core in Long Beach, California at the end of the month, so Meredith and I decided it would be awesome to tag along with her on the journey and then fly back to North Carolina. We spent many hours figuring out the best route, places to stop and the best things to do at each place since we don't have much time in any one place. 

   So here's the route we chose: Raleigh --> Atlanta, GA --> Birmingham, AL --> New Orleans, LA --> Austin, TX --> Dallas, TX --> Amarillo TX --> Teec Nos Pos, AZ --> the grand canyon --> Las Vegas --> L.A.!!

Day # 1- Atlanta (after passing through South Carolina and Georgia)

         We left Raleigh around 10:30 am (once Meredith decided to join us-she overslept) and headed for Atlanta where we planned on staying with Meredith's grandmother "Mimi" for the night. First activity in Atlanta was a trip to Sweet Water Brewing Co which is the 2nd largest brewery in the south. For $8 you got a pint glass and 6 drink tickets which you used to sample the different kinds of beers. The brewery itself was a fun atmosphere and there were a TON of people there…it was happenin', but it was also real hot in there! That seems to be a theme of the trip…dripping sweat and frizzy hair, so we have been lookin' good to say the least! We actually didn't even end up going on the brewery tour itself because they crammed about 20 people into this small, ridiculously hot area to start the tour and once we were in there we realized we'd rather drink the beer than hear about the history of the beer!

Breakfast at Mimi's

            After having dinner with Mimi, we headed to the Starlight Six Drive-in movie theatre, the only drive-in theatre in Atlanta, which was cute and also very crowded! Mimi was NOT a fan of this activity and made us promise to keep the mace handy and call her every hour on the hour! Apparently she thought the theatre was in a bad area, but it was very nice and seemed safe because there were so many people around, so nobody got maced…..yet.  Funny that we chose an activity that included sitting in the car for an extra 4 hours after already being in there so much that day! There were lots of different screens set up with different movies playing, but we chose to see "30 minutes or less" and "Friends with benefits." 30 minutes or less was real dumb, and I had already seen FWB, but it was pretty good so I didn't mind seeing it again. By the time the movies were over it was after 1:00 am, so we headed back to Mimi's and called it a night. 

Thanks Mims!