The Compulsive Ramblings Of A Philotherian: Let the summer road trip begin!

Sadly, it's coming to an end almost the same day that it began. More than likely, we wont take anymore trips this year, which is sad, but it's something I'm okay with. After all, we just drove 565+ miles in just over 24 hours. Saying we're exhausted in an understatement.

Much to my surprise, we made it to the airport without a problem. We were cutting it a bit short -- we arrived just 10 minutes before the time limit. Everything went well, aside from me completely spacing on what flight he was going to be on. I tried and tried to think, but it was pointless, my mind was blank. They finally just got the paperwork and looked it up themselves. They got him 'signed' in and everything was a go, but for some reason the transaction wasn't showing up on the receipt. After about 10 minutes, one of the ladies finally just wrote everything down on out copy by hand.

We made it back on 270 and headed towards IL. The drive there was smooth and not one wrong turn was made. While we were in the midst of the 140 mile stint -- without absolutely NOTHING in sight -- I was dying to pee. I complained all the way from STL, so by the time we made it to Atlanta, IL (about 20 minutes from our destination) I couldn't take it any longer. We needed gas anyways, so it worked out.

We stopped at one of the creepiest Casey's gas stations I had ever seen! And the bathroom... you don't even want to know about how disgusting the bathroom was! It wreaked of piss, which was all over the floor. I kid you not, I had to hold my nose the entire time I was in there. I warned LaVaughn before she went in. I swear, I think someone actually pissed all over the floor, because there was toilet paper all over as if someone was to lazy to mop it up... sickening.

After that we were back on the road and headed to Normal. When we arrived in Bloomington, which is connected to Normal without 10 feet of space in between, we were both shocked as to how big that city actually was. We drove for over 5 miles (all the while going around 30 MPH) before we got to Petco. That's FIVE miles of city, traffic, and shops!

Jennifer had left me a message and said that they would be waiting just inside. Luckily, I knew what she looked like. It was easy enough to spot me, considering I had a bonding pouch hanging around my neck. Nothing says sugar glider owner like a bonding pouch. We talked for a few minutes about our drive there, even a little about The Walking Dead, then we went out separate ways. LaVaughn and I walked around in the pet store for maybe 3 1/2 minutes before we decided to leave.

We mapped out a few hotels and called about them. We almost stayed at this one really nice place, but neither of us wanted to drop $80+ on a room, so we opted for Motel 6. As I was going in to rent the room, I noticed around 5 very, very nicely dressed men were walking out. As I made my way into the lobby, there were about 6 more. It was pretty obvious that they were all there for some type on conference, and judging by their accents, they were from Nigeria. Trust me, I can spot an accent from a mile away, and Nigerians happen to have one of my favorites.

After they left, I got our room (a steal at $65) and headed back to the car. We pulled around and were able to park right in front of our door, which was awesome. And apparently the hotel is under construction, because all the rooms to the left of us were empty. Fine by me, that's a few less noisy neighbors that we have to deal with.

After we got settled -- and since we couldn't get the wifi to work -- we had to order pizza on the phone. Wanna know how much 1 pizza, 2 orders of bread sticks, and a cookie pizza from Pizza Hut was? $33!! I couldn't believe it. I have to say, they made up for it with the attractive pizza delivery guy. Yum-o!

After we ate and lazed around on the bed, I tossed around the idea of going to see a movie. We decided that we would scope it out and see how it looked first before we ordered tickets. On our way there, we were lucky enough to spot a Walmart. We so desperately needed water -- the chlorine filled shit in the room tasted awful! We ended up wasting well over an hour of time in there before we headed back to the room.

I mapped out the theater on the phone and off we were again. Since the movie didn't start until 10:15, we didn't leave until after 9. It was dark, we were in a strange city, and had absolutely no idea where we were going. We just kept playing the Wherenberg music in out heads to try and motivate us. Well, we found the theater, but what we couldn't find was a parking space. Can you believe that there were THAT many people there on a Thursday night? I couldn't! We ended up deciding against it and headed back to our hotel.

This is when things got interesting. Apparently there are 2 Motel 6's in Normal. Well, of course, I mapped out directions to the wrong one, which took us in a completely different direction. LaVaughn found it very funny, I did not. Since I was the one driving, I didn't find the humor in it.

Luckily, we were able to find the hotel. We stopped off for a terrible coffee before we got there, complete waste of money. We had soda and water in the room, so I was happy. We ended up watching Cops and Jailed the rest of the night until we went to sleep.

I was very happy to wake up the next day and get headed home. We packed up our stuff, took showers in their incredibly creepy bathroom that had terrible water pressure, then headed home.

Taylor and I had talked about this for some time leading up to our drive there. And since Taylor decided to get rid of her gliders (again), we decided to pick up Pax and Xander on our way home. Our drive didn't seem quite as long on the way back and we were able to find Taylor's house with ease. Of course, I interacted with all of the glider for a few minutes, then we were on our way, boys in hand.

I'm going to speed it up a bit now. The rest of the drive went smooth and... we're home! We got the boys settled in just a little while ago, started the gliders food, fed the cats, and then fed ourselves. Wanna know hear the bonus of the day? Charli's joey detached!! It's just as we suspected... a little ringtail girl! Since she already has a home with a dear friend of ours, we'll just let her name her.

And now, I'm going to enjoy what's left of my evening. I want to relax as much as possible so that I can rest up for an exciting day of work tomorrow. Until next time...

Love & Peace

-Megan

Getting things ready...