SMOG!

August 3--Montgomery, AL

I slept OK last night; I kept waking up to make sure I didn't oversleep. Well, I didn't; I was up at 5:30 eastern time and out by 6:45 (subtract an hour for Central time, where I am now). I filled up with diesel, bought some McDonalds breakfast burritos and a sweet tea, and headed out.

Lots and lots of hills, for most of the day (until after Birmingham, really). It wasn't too hot for the first hour or so, and actually it was rather foggy. I did notice that my gas mileage was rather bad--I blame the hills. I stopped right over the Tennessee border to fill up, and kept going (after turning on the air conditioner, since it was 84 or so by then--8am local time!).

Nashville was rather smoggy, although the construction/traffic wasn't too bad. The temperature really ramped up when I crossed into Alabama, leading support to my idea that Alabama is a suburb of hell. We hit the 90's in Decatur, and by the time we got to Birmingham it was flirting with 100. I hate driving through Birmingham, between the traffic and the lousy roads, and this was no different. But we made it! I did lose a couple of years of life when some cars that had apparently had a bit of a fender-bender were stopped in the middle of the road, including my lane, and others were dodging around them and I slammed on my brakes and still don't know why I didn't get hit by someone driving like a maniac, since everyone drove like that all the time. But I'm feeling much better now!

I was going to stop in Birmingham, but decided to keep going to Montgomery; it's only about an hour and 15 minutes longer, and it had a pool. So I kept going, and got to the Motel 6 around 1:45pm. I'm in a handicapper room, which was the only single on the first floor. I got the cats unloaded, but not before the temperature in the RV reached 92; I shudder to think what the temperature must be now, but since I forgot to get clothes for tomorrow, I may find out soon. And I might need my umbrella as a parasol to go for dinner!

The room is nice, with a wooden floor, although when I let the cats out Nell discovered that she could indeed get under the bed, so I lifted the bed up to try to get her out, and nearly cut Puck in half when I lowered it, so after a few more misadventures they're both back in the kennel. Nell is meowing, most likely because she's hungry (too bad, so am I), and I suspect Puck is just glad he's not in that hot RV and/or cut in half.

I just went out to try the pool, but 1. it's somewhat dirty-looking, and 2. when I put my feet in I found out that the pool is about 95 degrees, and the water almost feels a bit slimy. So no pool for me. Which is probably good, because the sun is strong enough to reduce me to ashes in a very short period of time (and I'm not even a vampire!). It'd be nice if we got a thunderstorm and cooled off a bit, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm planning, when it gets cooler or I get hungrier, to walk to the Shoney's across the street. Yay Shoneys!

Only about four and a half hours to Panama City, and the weather there looks normal, which is damn hot enough--highs 90, lows 78 or so. If it doesn't get much hotter than that, we'll be fine until I can get an apartment (hopefully by this weekend).