Now I knew that riding in the car with Scott for 5-6 hours was not going to end well. I just threatened to stab him with a corkscrew. But let us rewind.... I drove, which meant I control the radio. Car rules. But let's be honest, my crappy iTunes playlist would have played regardless. I drove all the way until we got out of North Little Rock, then Scott took over. And tried to kill us. When I rolled into Arkansas, I gave him my phone and said "oh, take a picture of the state line for my blog." He tried. When we changed seats in North Little Rock, (aka when he tried to kill us) Siri routed us 4 miles in a different direction to get back to the interstate. I can't stress how absolutely beautiful this was. I didn't take but a few, but I could have spent the day in this four mile stretch taking tons of these. In true Siri fashion, he took us through Shanty town. Two hours later.....Memphis. Our hotel is very nice. Different, but nice. It is set up like individual apartments. Nowhere near the main lobby. Scott will devastated when he can't plunder. Also, #noelevator. My beloved cousin Troy worked at a hotel with no elevator, and man did he come up with some Guest stories, I wish he was here so I could share this with him. The rest of Day 1 was pretty uneventful. We pigged out on Krystal's and Krystal chicks, drank too much, and watched the Superbowl. Day 2, ya'll. Now. If you have been around me much, I may be on the tad dramatic side. I am totally chill if one thing goes wrong, okay, let's fix it. Two things, I'll deal. Three, I am pretty much an octopus yanking off it own tenticles. Now you know who my employer is. I will not name names, but a blonde heiress' grandpa started this chain. There are different brands within this franchise, mine begins with an H, the one I am staying at also begins with an H, but I will not name names. I always pick this particular chain 1) because it isn't where I go to work everyday, and I like to see new things, and 2) it is very consistent and I totally dig it. **rant** Let me begin saying, none of my complaints are this particular hotels fault, it just isn't what I have come to know and love. The layout is weird, we are in separate buildings, not all in one hotel building. If we want breakfast, it's 4 buildings down, you have to go outside and walk 100 yards, or drive, but you can't just drive the way you came in, you have to get out, get on a roundabout, then come back in the entrance that way. The room we are in is and has always been nonsmoking. The room below me isn't. Cigarettes and weed travel up, yo. You can hear every. single. thing. I'm not talking about the interstate 20 feet from my window, but the guy above me, the people next door that are cooking gumbo, or the people on the other side that are currently taking a shower. Housekeeping does not clean your room everyday. Only the check outs. No worries, I brought my own trash bags, and I can just hang up my towel. The bedroom and living areas are separate with 2 tv's. Awesome. Only one of them works though. I even put my own batteries in the remote and it still doesn't come on. When I tried the bedroom remote it works, but the channels only work for a second or so. Something is fishy with our electronics. My hair straightener is pretty expensive, I have had it just over 2 years. Works great at home. Doesn't work at all here. We tried multiple outlets, and even the extension cord I brought (I am that kind of packer) does nothing. My Kindle Fire had 87% yesterday. When I do not use it, it will only lose 1 or 2%. I plugged it in anyway, and when I grabbed it tonight, it was a 0%. NEVER has it lost more than 10% in a 24 hour period. Scott's phone will not hold a charge in any outlet. My Kindle isn't charging either. My travel fan works, so #bless. Did I mention #noelevator? We have light switches that operate nothing. When the a/c is on 67° it feels nice, but just a tad chilly. When you put it on 69°, the heat kicks on. Like....the fires of Mt. Doom. The tv has 39 channels. The channels listed in the room directory are farce, there are no such channels. The channel guide on the tv also list channels we do not have, AND if it says this channel is 29, when you type in 2, it goes to channel 2....forget trying to get to 29 unless you clickclickclick. And when you finally get to 29, it is not the channel that the scrolling guide channel says that you should have. Reminder that the guide channel takes 4 minutes to scroll from beginning to end, so if you missed what you're looking for, you either wait or you're SOL. But you know what? We survived. I rated the hotel as high as it would let me, and I know they're doing the best they can. I am sure they have a budget and can't afford new duvets without stains, or shower heads that adjust and don't spray directly towards the wall. I GOT CLEAN! That's all that mattered. Most importantly, I never sleep well in hotel beds. This bed and the 6 pillows were heavenly. So what if the guy above me woke me up at 7:12am every single morning! I was comfy lying there listening to him walk! The following is one of the most dumbest things that I have done. It isn't SO bad, but let me remind you that just going a couple of miles in this traffic, where we are located, is insane. Just going to pick up dinner took over an hour, and it was less than 5 miles. Every where you go is one way, and if you just need across the street, that's 2 roundabouts and 4 U-turns. I found a pizza place on Facebook that looked SOOOO good. I researched it, found one here, just a couple of miles from the hotel. Read the literature many times and you have to call or place your order ahead, then go and pick it up. We did so, paid online, finally got to the place, Scott comes out and.... They make the pizza for you, but you have to cook it. Our hotel room doesn't have an oven. Our oven is 7 hours away. Using the hotel kitchen oven is a no, because 1, you have to cook it directly on the rack, and HOW to we transport this back to our room, 4 buildings and a football field away? I wanted to cry because I messed up dinner, and our main reason for going to new places is to try new food. No worries, the room has a full fridge/freezer so it'll stay frozen, we can put it on ice in a cooler, and take it home. $40 for nada. We had Chick-fi-la. I wanted to cry again because SOMEtimes Siri will say something is 900 feet and then zero, boom, should have turned, rerouting. Scott gets aggravated because we're in bumper to bumper traffic, no clue where we are, and I can't drive because I can't navigate via speakers, I have to read what's on the screen or I don't comprehend it. He assures me the yelling and cursing isn't directed at me, but I take it that way. That's it! No more negativity. I think it's my hormones, forgive me. We shopped all over today, and went to the Pyramid thingie. We did not go to the top of this thing. Lunch was awesome. You can never go wrong with Greek food. This place was small, and the owner was amazing. He stayed with is the majority of the time, talked bull, and brought us free dessert. I promised him that I would write a nice Google review. After our Chick-fi-la dinner, we pretty much just chilled and watched tv. I felt responsible for ruining dinner, but I swear it said nowhere on the entire website you cooked the food yourself. We did take a selfie! Day 3. Much better. Before 2:15pm, we had walked almost 11,000 steps. In a nutshell, I got directions to Beale St. Siri took us to the Fed Ex massive center thing, there was a parking pay lot, we paid, and when I looked to the right it said B.B. King , so Beale street had to be on the left, correct? The only other directions were Fed Ex and the Mississippi River. So we walked.... We walked along the tracks, along the River, on streets, on sidewalks, down alleys. The wind chill was 12°, and both of our hip sockets were throbbing from the cold, so I finally said forget it, let's just go back to the car. And then....Beale St. We know now that the street begins as B.B. King and then connects to Beale. Siri was right trying to keep us where we parked. I was the worst souvenir shopper. I ran in, and just started looking for sizes snatched and grabbed, then ran out. Onto the Memphis Zoo! Now my phone battery was dead from Siri's relentless directions, so I used Scott's phone for pictures. He had maybe 30 pictures on his phone, and when I was finished, a couple of hundred. I will spare you all the animals, but I have to put a few of my favorite. This is the absolute best zoo that I have been to, and we only got to see maybe half of it, due to, well it's February and some exhibits are closed, and the animals that were out and out were hiding trying to keep warm. I was still grouchy and hormonal, and I said, "oh I am loving the architecture", and Scott was like "do you get it?" I said yessss.....he said "Because of Memphis?".....I get it Scott......"you know because.." I SAID I GET IT!!!!!!!!! Let me reiterate how absolutely freezing it was, and then the freezing rain came. I spent entirely too much time at this one exhibit to be completely terrified of this thing: I found the biggest, slimiest bullfrog there and tagged my mother in it. I never saw the snake that this was attached to, so I am concerned.... And then....the Asian exhibit. And then....the African exhibit. This is about the time that the freezing rain came....but do you know what I found??!?!?! We missed the bears, the wolves, the monkeys, and an entire aquarium, but it was time to get out of the rain. I want to go back in the spring, there were so many food trucks!!!! LOL!!! None were open! After we thawed out in the car, we headed back towards the hotel to find food. This place was SO good, and while we were eating, we see that it was featured on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives! That is pretty much the extent of our trip. We got back to the hotel and got straight under the covers, napped for an hour or so (the only nap, I am impressed), and when we woke up, went on a search for food. None of our legs worked, and a storm was coming, so we searched for delivery. After digging and finally finding what we wanted, placing an order THREE times on three different food sites for it to tell us we were out of delivery range, we settled for Jimmy John's. They had it to us in just minutes, and it was better than what we originally had picked out. BBQ was our first choice, but there was a 3-hour wait, and we were famished. I soaked in the tub, he soaked in the tub, and nothing helped the tightness, so I just popped 3 Ibuprofen and went to bed. We got up the next morning (when upstairs guy did at 7:12am, LOL), and headed home. I took a different route, I went through Jackson, MS, time wise it was the same, and I have taken that road many times coming to and from Birmingham. Siri decided to punk me one last time, I was cruising down 55 South and he told me to get off of the highway onto this backwoods, hillbilly hee haw road for 15 miles. When I merged back onto the Interstate, Siri had taken me completely around Jackson. I don't think it trusts me in traffic..... But we made it home, I gave out my souvenirs, and I think Lily liked hers :) Normally I am already planning my next trip, but right now, I am going to stay on the couch.
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Lisa DoddI enjoy sports, binge watching TV, food, reading, and slightly bearded men. Most popular blog posts from my previous Blog:
How I Died (Again) Lily is Here! The "Miracle" Diet Zesty Lemon Shrimp My Apologies to Shelby County, AL The Evolution of My Hair My Night Stalking Dale Murphy The Worst Late Night Snack Ever Questions from God Louisiana! Archives
December 2023
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