Cross-Country Road Trip: DC to Atlanta

We got up the next morning pretty early so that we could get started and not get into Atlanta too late.  Now, you might be asking yourself, "Why the heck were they going to Atlanta?  That doesn't really seem like it's on the way to Seattle."  You're right.  It's not.  It is, however, where work was having training that I needed to take.  I had to take it and we did not have an apartment, so it seemed like good timing.  The hotel was paid for through work (as part of the training), so Marek and Claudius just stayed at the hotel while I was in class all day.

We had a long-ish drive in front of us (about 9 hours according to Google maps), so we left "bright" (or dark) and early on Sunday morning.

This was my view for most of the ride.  Marek did most of the driving between DC and Atlanta.  You can tell when I started driving because all of the pictures stop.  :) 

Here's how we kept Claudius comfortable.  The passenger had a fleece blanket on their lap and we had a thick, rather stiff pillow that we put on the floor of the front seat.  This let him stretch all the way out and rest his head on the pillow and sleep.  Sleeping Claud is a very good thing on a long drive!

There would be readjustments here and there of course as the road turned and twisted and the sun was too much, but he slept through most of the ride like a champ!

I guess during the drive we passed a Peterbilt sign, which I "had" to take a picture of because of Optimus Prime (duh).  

We made a pit stop at a gas station and ran into this little guy hanging out outside.  I didn't get to see him much because I was inside buying some snacks and drinks, but Marek managed to get a bunch of pictures of him before he scampered off.

The drive down to Atlanta was pretty - lots of green and it was a very nice day (no rain or anything like that), but similar to our drive down to DC, it was mostly uneventful.

When the sun became way too hot, we put up this blanket (held in place by the sun visor on the passenger side) to shield Claudius from the sun.  He tends to get hot very quickly - and coupled with the fact that we don't think he likes riding in the car very much - and so we went to great lengths to keep him cool and comfortable.  It definitely made for an interesting ride - not much to look at as the passenger when there's a blanket in your way.

Some mountains/hills on the way down south.  I'm guessing these were much prettier in person than they photographed...but it was over a year ago now, so who knows why we snapped this picture.

Along the way, there were these "Runaway Truck Ramp" signs along various points.  They were usually posted near the bottom of the hill, for - you guessed it - runaway trucks.  We'd never seen these before.

While Claudius got to sit up front, Eddie, our parakeet, sat in the backseat.  We collapsed his main cage for the journey and bought him this small travel cage, which fit very nicely inside of a shoebox (which luckily kept all of the little bits of corncob, feathers, and bird poop contained).  We adjusted his ladder so he had a little bit of space to move around in, and set him up in the backseat on top of the other things.  He chirped away (happily (I hope)) for the entire trip.

Once we made it to Atlanta, it was time for a little snack, and then Claudius was ready to get out of the car after such a long trip!