Location: Birmingham to Bryson<\/p>\n
High point: Meeting the Hoover Fire Department and being escorted out of town<\/p>\n
Low point: Crossing a time zone and losing an hour on a drive that was already way too long<\/p>\n
No point: Being in a rush<\/p>\n
Pen point: Whilst purchasing cab snacks we picked up a copy of Lock Up Magazine which features the latest crims that have been thrown in the can, it\u2019s a riveting read I can assure you, and great for our new game \u2018guess the crim crime\u2019.<\/p>\n
<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\nAfter spending two nights sleeping in a hurricane trailer in New Orleans it was like all our Christmases had come at once waking up at the Wynfrey in Birmingham, anyone would have thought we\u2019d never seen a duvet or fresh towels before.\u00a0 The General Manager Andy Peters had kindly arranged for the local fire department to meet us at the hotel with their rig.\u00a0 Why do they always send the biggest fire trucks that make Martha look like a midget and why do people in the US describe her as cute, she might be small but she\u2019s perfectly formed.\u00a0 The fire fighters weren\u2019t there long before they had to head off on a shout.\u00a0 In the meantime we happened to mention we needed diesel, the next thing we know we\u2019re following Fire Inspector Richard Linn to Hoover Fire Station where they kindly donated a tank of fuel.\u00a0 Thank you guys, we weren\u2019t even hinting! \u00a0We couldn\u2019t leave without obligatory photos with the life size cougar (also known as a bobcat or mountain lion) that had been \u2018borrowed\u2019 from one of the other fire fighter\u2019s gardens.\u00a0 If you look at the pictures it will hopefully make more sense\u2026<\/p>\nIts hard to know what to write about when you pretty much spend all day in a big red truck.\u00a0 Today was another long day on the road and a hard day for the nav as key roads had been closed off just to confuse us.\u00a0 Veteran James Morrow came in for a lot of obligatory \u2018nav bashing\u2019 as he tried to redeem himself from directing us in a circle when leaving Birmingham, he couldn\u2019t really come back from that to be fair.\u00a0 To keep the excitement levels up in the cab we counted the number of McDonalds restaurants and huge US flags we saw on the road.\u00a0 The yanks love their flags, they\u2019re everywhere. \u00a0There was much debate around whether certain flags met the criteria to be included in the count, i.e. were they big enough.\u00a0 What can I say, you run out of chat spending over 10 hours a day in the back of the cab\u2026<\/p>\nLuckily we have our new kid on the block, Steve Shoppman, who is not only teaching us about all things American (\u2018\u2019Steve what\u2019s a corn dog?\u2019\u2019, \u00a0\u2018\u2019Steve what are grits?\u2019\u2019, \u00a0\u2018\u2019 Steve what\u2019s a la mode?\u2019\u2019) but has also brought new chat, tunes and comedy podcasts to the table.\u00a0 Apparently meat loaf is a loaf made of meat. \u00a0Thanks Steve.<\/p>\nThe thing about being on such a tight schedule is that we really notice how diverse the US landscape is, we\u2019ve gone from oceans to mountains to deserts to forests and back again.\u00a0 I\u2019ve really been amazed at how much the US has to offer and how much we\u2019ve fallen in love with this land of opportunity.<\/p>\nArriving in Bryson we found a friendly Motel called the Relax Inn that looked like the Motel out of \u2018My name is Earl\u2019 but had a 95% cleanliness rating. \u00a0The trouble with waking up somewhere uber nice is its always back to reality with a bump\u2026<\/p>\nAmy<\/p>\n[flickr album=72157626070519481 num=30 size=Square]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Location: Birmingham to Bryson High point: Meeting the Hoover Fire Department and being escorted out of town Low point: Crossing a time zone and losing an hour on a drive that was already way too long No point: Being in a rush Pen point: Whilst purchasing cab snacks we picked up a copy of Lock […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-expedition-updates","category-stage-8-phoenix-to-new-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5107"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5122,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107\/revisions\/5122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
After spending two nights sleeping in a hurricane trailer in New Orleans it was like all our Christmases had come at once waking up at the Wynfrey in Birmingham, anyone would have thought we\u2019d never seen a duvet or fresh towels before.\u00a0 The General Manager Andy Peters had kindly arranged for the local fire department to meet us at the hotel with their rig.\u00a0 Why do they always send the biggest fire trucks that make Martha look like a midget and why do people in the US describe her as cute, she might be small but she\u2019s perfectly formed.\u00a0 The fire fighters weren\u2019t there long before they had to head off on a shout.\u00a0 In the meantime we happened to mention we needed diesel, the next thing we know we\u2019re following Fire Inspector Richard Linn to Hoover Fire Station where they kindly donated a tank of fuel.\u00a0 Thank you guys, we weren\u2019t even hinting! \u00a0We couldn\u2019t leave without obligatory photos with the life size cougar (also known as a bobcat or mountain lion) that had been \u2018borrowed\u2019 from one of the other fire fighter\u2019s gardens.\u00a0 If you look at the pictures it will hopefully make more sense\u2026<\/p>\n
Its hard to know what to write about when you pretty much spend all day in a big red truck.\u00a0 Today was another long day on the road and a hard day for the nav as key roads had been closed off just to confuse us.\u00a0 Veteran James Morrow came in for a lot of obligatory \u2018nav bashing\u2019 as he tried to redeem himself from directing us in a circle when leaving Birmingham, he couldn\u2019t really come back from that to be fair.\u00a0 To keep the excitement levels up in the cab we counted the number of McDonalds restaurants and huge US flags we saw on the road.\u00a0 The yanks love their flags, they\u2019re everywhere. \u00a0There was much debate around whether certain flags met the criteria to be included in the count, i.e. were they big enough.\u00a0 What can I say, you run out of chat spending over 10 hours a day in the back of the cab\u2026<\/p>\n
Luckily we have our new kid on the block, Steve Shoppman, who is not only teaching us about all things American (\u2018\u2019Steve what\u2019s a corn dog?\u2019\u2019, \u00a0\u2018\u2019Steve what are grits?\u2019\u2019, \u00a0\u2018\u2019 Steve what\u2019s a la mode?\u2019\u2019) but has also brought new chat, tunes and comedy podcasts to the table.\u00a0 Apparently meat loaf is a loaf made of meat. \u00a0Thanks Steve.<\/p>\n
The thing about being on such a tight schedule is that we really notice how diverse the US landscape is, we\u2019ve gone from oceans to mountains to deserts to forests and back again.\u00a0 I\u2019ve really been amazed at how much the US has to offer and how much we\u2019ve fallen in love with this land of opportunity.<\/p>\n
Arriving in Bryson we found a friendly Motel called the Relax Inn that looked like the Motel out of \u2018My name is Earl\u2019 but had a 95% cleanliness rating. \u00a0The trouble with waking up somewhere uber nice is its always back to reality with a bump\u2026<\/p>\n
Amy<\/p>\n
[flickr album=72157626070519481 num=30 size=Square]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Location: Birmingham to Bryson High point: Meeting the Hoover Fire Department and being escorted out of town Low point: Crossing a time zone and losing an hour on a drive that was already way too long No point: Being in a rush Pen point: Whilst purchasing cab snacks we picked up a copy of Lock […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-expedition-updates","category-stage-8-phoenix-to-new-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5107"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5122,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5107\/revisions\/5122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.followthatfireengine.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}