Alabama trip day 1: Notes from room 13

• Sometimes it is best to sleep through the final steps of preparation, especially if they tend to take the entire night.
• If you plan to leave the morning after high school graduation, don’t be surprised if the graduate is too tired to remember basic essentials, such as a cell phone.
• The bass line of rap music is not conducive to sleep.
• When the Check Engine Soon light comes on, it’s not good to assume that means “after the vacation is over and we have put an additional 4500 miles on the engine.”
• Pine Bluffs, Wyoming does indeed qualify as the middle of nowhere.
• If you break down somewhere other than the parking lot of the Days Inn where you booked your reservation, make sure you do it before 4:00 24 hours before your reservation unless you want to pay for the stupid room anyway.
• Car rental companies in Cheyenne close at 2:00 pm on the Saturday before Memorial Day and don’t open again until the following Tuesday.
• You can indeed buy a van on first sight, no research, without your wife present, without a penny in your pocket.
• A dead van is worth $50 dollars in Wyoming if you are only passing through.
• A Pontiac Montana hold half as much travel junk as a GMC Safari.
• The bass line of Mexican mariachi band at a Spanish wedding is not conducive to sleep.
• Is 13 really the only available room left at this motel?