Meet Me at the L&R Bar

Benson had a Food Lion right next to the McDonald's (and presumably still does). Mrs. F. was still on her Burgers and Fries all the way to Florida kick but I was ready for some real food.

Outside the Food Lion I spied what might be the tiniest bar I've ever seen - the L&R. Although I thought I would 'blend in' or at least be welcomed as warmly as they welcome the local regulars with my Saskatchewan Roughriders hat and replica Bernie mitts, I decided not to die a death of multiple blows to the head, and made a beeline for the Food Lion.

The Food Lion had all the needed supplies for my Advanced Room Camping techniques - aka groceries. Buns, mayo, cheese, meat slices, and actual living things.

So it was shitty burgers for the Quad Queen and the most amazing hot sandwich plate pour moi. Behold!

The Hampton Inn thingy outdid the La Quinta thingy for breakfast - they had these little western omelettes and they were goooood. And I made a rotating waffle in their rotating waffle-maker and it was good.

Back up in the room, we were getting packed up and Chippy was fussing a little bit. Uh oh.

She'd already eaten and been out but was pacing back and forth, glancing at me, glancing at the Quad Queen, and glancing at built-in desk.

We couldn't figure it out and told her to settle down and got almost everything packed and ready for day 3 of the journey.

Then we noticed Chippy with her snout in the dog bag - nosing at little brown plastic bottle that contained the Gabapentin. 

The way her bloodshot eyes looked at me, she seemed to say "I'm hurtin', man, I need a fix bad. You holdin'? You sellin'?"

A little peanut butter and a hit of Gaba and she seemed to relax a little.

This next day of driving was so much easier than the previous two. It was pretty much a straight shot down I-95, winding up in the Georgia town of Brunswick.

I'd made extra sandwiches, so that was my lunch. When we stopped at some nondescript town at some nondescript lake, I stood outside the open door of the Tercel, and reveled in the warm, sunny weather. It was 75F and I was McLovin' it.

The Burger Queen decided to get both lunch and dinner at McDonald's and trundled off to get her goods while I minded Chippy and ate my sandwich and the remaining chips from the previous night.

For some unknown reason, QQ returned with her bag of McHeart Disease and... four gigantic drinks in four gigantic cups.

"Why do you have forty gallons of diet Coke???!" I asked.

"Well, she asked me if I wanted large Cokes, so I said yes. And she gave me these cups, so I filled them."

I did a little facepalm and she began to giggle a bit.

"How are you going to drink, let alone transport, let alone place somewhere in the car where you won't end up wearing them, all those Cokes? What were you thinking? Did you get the meal version?"

"I don't know. It just sort of happened. Then I had these Cokes."

She found a way to secure the damn things and we continued southward, through the friendly states, so friendly they fly the welcome flag and put up amusing giant things to observe as you motor through.

Welcome to Tourists! Please stop at the upcoming Giant Sombrero!

Southern Hospitality and Culture on dramatic display of a giant Sombrero!

With only 45 minutes left in the day's drive, we were excited to have made good time and seen a giant Sombrero. Well, all of a sudden, the charm was gone from the south, and we hit traffic. Huge traffic. Jammed traffic. We crept along for an hour, reducing our much needed downtime. When we got to the problem, it was construction - construction that was in the process of packing up just as we got to the bottleneck.

I felt like heading straight back to Exit 21 but didn't.

Instead, it was Brunswick, Georgia, home of the worst hotel of our trip.