Day 4 and 5 of the Road Trip: The South

The saying is true, everything is bigger in Texas including the drive. 10 hours later from leaving Las Cruces, New Mexico, we arrived in Dallas where we promptly ordered pizza to the room and flipped on the tv. Our plan for the next day was to wake up early and begin our next 10 hour drive to Alabama to Scott and Emily Hawkins' home. The next morning began well....eventful. We definitely got up ready for a day of excitement. At 7:45am I (Carly) woke up to a blaring fire alarm. Normally 7:45am would be late for me to wake up but in reality it was 5:45am since we had fallen back two hours with the time zones. Chris screamed get some sweats on and we both headed for the door. As we were headed for the door the alarm stopped. We smelled smoke but there was no fire. We called the front desk and a nice lady came up to inform us that it was just the heater. Turns out Chris was had tried to warm up the room before I got up and was trying to turn the air conditioner up but instead the heater kicked on. Since it is blazzing hot in Dallas (in the middle of summer), the heater had not been turned on for months. So, the smoke came from our own heater that definitely woke up the entire hotel. Oh well! The next event during the eventful morning was flooding the bathroom. How does one flood a bathroom, one may ask? Well it is quite easy when your shower has the streamline of a fire hose and blasts towards the wall at 100mph. After I (Carly) mopped the floor I attempted a "take two" into taking a shower by putting the shower head at toddler height in attempt to direct the water towards the drain. After successfully power-washing the bathroom floor and managing to direct some drops to get clean, we were ready to head back on the road. This leg of the trip was gorgeous. We were on the Interstate-20 East freeway for about 600 of the 638 miles for the day, however it was beautiful. The freeway was lined with lush greenery and trees. Even the rest stops were nice (especially in Louisiana!!). We got to cross the Mississippi River which was enormous and pass the football stadium for the Independence Bowl. The best part of the day was ending the day and the warm embraces from Scott and Emily in Biringham, Alabama along with a hot plate of slowly smoked BBQ ribs. So good!