The Best Travel Awards

In just five days, I traveled across ten states.  I moved from one coast to the other coast.  It was the longest road trip I've ever experienced and who better to accompany me, but my mama! We started from our lovely home in California and ended our trip in Georgia, my new home for the summer.  Along the way. we wrote down some of the funny or unique things we experienced and by the end of the trip, we had one long list of travel awards to help us remember our trip!

Y'all ready for this? Here are some of the best awards: 

Most historically infamous part of the trip: Route 66

Craziest hotel lights: Ramada in Barstow, CA  -auto sensor lights that wouldn't stay on when you would want them to but came on when you didn't

Second armpit of California: Barstow, CA

Weirdest hotel breakfast: Pancakes coming out of a press with a push of a button -Ramada in Barstow, CA

Best hotel beds (especially for jumping on): Best Western in Albuquerque, NM. 

    

Coolest freeway lights:  Albuquerque, New Mexico - rope lights lit up the underneath of freeway ramps.  

Best food:  Veggie Enchiladas with green sauce in Barstow, CA

Most interesting dessert: Nutella Cheesecake

Most times we ate Mexican food on the trip: 3 times in two days! We love our Mexican food.

Best hotel greeting: Unlimited cookies upon arrival at 1:00 AM! -Country Inn, Arkansas

Funniest thing we saw: My mom watching me jump through the sea of grasshoppers to our hotel. 

Most random side trip we took: to see the Infant Baby Jesus of Prague National Shrine in Prague, OK

Most state abbreviation jokes: OK! The whole car ride through Oklahoma, we told funny jokes using the state abbreviation. 

Prettiest thing we saw: Bricktown in Oklahoma City.  Shops and restaurants situated along a canal of water all on brick streets. 

Most surprising city: Oklahoma City - it was greener and had more high rises than expected. 

Favorite city:  Atlanta!!

Weirdest creature: The sea of flying grasshoppers that we had to fight off with our suitcases while we headed into our hotel -Albuquerque, NM

Funniest pee your pants moment: hmmm hard to say, seemed like my mom peed her pants on multiple occasions.

Most random roadkill: An armadillo upside down on his back with his feet up in the air! -Oklahoma

Creepiest town: Hands down... Gallup, NM  (McDonald's and Sonic)

Only person that can snore when they nap in the car: My Mom!

Scariest moment of the trip: When I was almost abducted by an Indian in New Mexico while my mom was in McDonalds using the restroom.  

Best item we saw being towed: a homemade flying chair, yep it was exactly that!

Best jolt awake while sleeping in the car: Pulling over for the state sign for OK!

Most somber thing we saw: The memorial of the Oklahoma City bombing.  

Most frustrating city: Little Rock, the signage and tourist information was misleading

Most trees: Georgia! It feels like you are in a dense forest!

Quirkiest sightseeing attraction: Peabody ducks! They march in and out of the hotel every morning and evening.  We watched them march out of the pond, down the steps and out of the hotel to music at 5:00 p.m. every night.   

MOST amount of sleep I got because of my mom snoring all night: a measly 4 hours

Fastest drivers: Georgia! 

Most traffic:  Little Rock, AR

Least traffic: Oklahoma City, it was practically a ghost town. 

Saddest thing:  Seeing a poor pig in the stockyards of Oklahoma City limping in the pen. 

Smelliest state: Arkansas -smelled like cauliflower, stinky feet, musty dirt. 

Biggest sightseeing let down: Old town Albuquerque- small and everything was closed

Longest day in the car: About 15 hrs on day three.  Our car reeked of body! (and we had eaten too much Mexican food)

One of the more unique sights: Beale St in Memphis.  We loved the atmosphere with the music, lights, and bars!

First sighting of fireflies: along the highway in Alabama, just after sunset.

Place that's better than Disneyland: The World of Coke! They take your photos, have a cool polar bear to meet, and fun tasting room of all different kinds of coke.  

Best Decision: When my mom finally decided after debating for half an hour to not buy a glass encased jellyfish from the Aquarium gift shop.  She found one the day after she got home for 1/4 of the price.

Grumpiest day: Day four - we were exhausted from all the traveling and getting sick of the long car rides.   

Worst weather: In between Arkansas and Tennessee.  -torrential downpours, thunder, and lightning.  We were on the look out for funnel clouds. 

Most church sightings: On a side road in Mississippi! There were yellow diamond signs to notify you of every church building. 

The hardest state sign to find:  Mississippi! We thought we had missed it since it was so far after the state line. 

The best named river:  Holy Moses Wash, Arizona.  

The worst freeway signage: Birmingham, Alabama - the freeway all of a sudden closed and made us back track on a detour. 

Favorite state sign: Arkansas

Most painful state sign:  Tennessee, stepped on an ant hill and my feet were eaten alive and I accidentally brought them into the car after.

Longest pit stop:  Graceland

Most cops:  Arizona - literally 30-40 cops pulling over semis - must have been doing some sort of sweep looking for something specific

The most diverse topography:  AZ - from desert to mountains with trees  

The funniest accents we heard:  These girls yelling up and down the stairs to each other about a woman who was wearing multiple animal prints, saying doesn't she know she can't mix all those animal prints  - overheard at Graceland.

Best sight of relief: Seeing the city of Atlanta and knowing we had completed our journey!

Funnest part of the trip: Being together and making memories!

Hardest part of the trip: Having to say good-bye to my mama after such a fun trip!

-These awards have been documented and awarded by Latina and Brick.