Day 20 (July 23): Home, Sweet Home

Total Driving Distance: 800+ miles

( TRIP TOTAL: 6,709.6 MILES )

States Traveled To: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia

Main Activity: Driving

We woke up early on our last day on the road (for a couple of days at least) because we still had more than 800 miles to drive. The GPS said we would be back in Powder Springs, GA, by around 9:15 PM, but I was skeptical. We still had an hour to gain when we crossed into Eastern Time Zone and after already haven driven over 1,300 miles in the past two days I thought today might be a little slower.

Two cups of coffee at Love's gas station woke us up and we were ready to once again conquer the road. I put on my cowboy hat that I had purchased out west and fastened my American flag bandana around my face (this was my I-40 driving outfit) and put the pedal to the metal.

We still had about 450 miles to go on 40 and as you can imagine we were pretty tired of this road (although there was some spectacular scenery along it - look out the window in the picture above), so we tried to pass the time as best we could. Liz played The Sims 3 on her laptop and attempted to complete her multi-billion dollar house that she had been working on since the beginning of the trip and I listened to some tunes and podcasts that I downloaded free off of iTunes. I highly recommend downloading podcasts for long trips. Liz and I listened to countless episodes of Chicago Public Radio's This American Life, NPR's CarTalk, Planet Money, and Fresh Air, and The Moth Storytelling Podcast. All of these kept us engaged and distracted whenever we were about to go crazy from driving too long.

When we finally, finally, finally got off of I-40 in Memphis, I was drained. It was almost 4 and we still had more than 6 hours of driving ahead of us. After filling up, we got right back on the road only to run into bumper-to-bumper traffic. Getting on Highway 78 involved driving through miles and miles of road work, one-lane roads, and traffic lights. This was the first real traffic we had seen since we left LA and it couldnt have come at a worse time. I was ready to get home. The icing on the cake came when I saw the sign on the side of the highway reading "Welcome to Mississippi" (no offense, Mississippians).

Some more coffee and talking with Liz made the drive through Mississippi quick and painless. I was back in my driving groove and ready for the home stretch.

Somewhere around Jasper, Alabama, the GPS started acting funky. It stopped reading the road we were on and led us down some back roads. After a few minutes, I decided that we were best to stick to the highway we had been on until we reached Birmingham and got on I-20 to Atlanta.

However, before we could leave Jasper, we got to drive through it. And as we drove through the town, we saw signs for one thing and one thing only: BINGO NIGHT! Everywhere we looked, there was a sign for Bingo. At every church, every school, every store, every building, there was a sign for Bingo. It was hilarious. I really wanted to pull over and ask someone if there was anywhere in this entire town that we could find a game of Bingo.

So we drove through Birmingham and got on I-20 and were finally on the real home-stretch. I could now turn off the GPS because I knew which exit to get off at and I knew how to get home from there.

We stopped to get one more cup of coffee (I filled up the travel mug that Liz had bought me earlier that day at a Love's gas station), some Krispy Kreme donuts (I wanted Chick-Fil-A but we couldnt find it!), and were not stopping again until we reached home.

And we didnt. We trucked on and on and on. And it got dark and we kept going.

And, at long last, we turned onto my street, I clicked the garage door opener, pulled inside the garage, and we were home.

If you'll look closely, you can see in the bottom left hand corner that the "MAINTENANCE REQUIRED" light has come on (it had been on all day), gas is almost at empty, and the mileage is 6,709.6 miles higher than when we began our trip.