Too Long in Tuscaloosa

We fear that Brigit, our increasingly erratic GPS, has suffered some sort of stroke. We started noticing in Virginia that she was pronouncing the abbreviation "Dr", for "Drive", instead as "doctor" as in: "Turn left on Airway Doctor 95."

Then yesterday in Georgia she began phonetic pronunciations of some routes. For the longest time we were confounded by a particular road we were on that she kept pronouncing as "gatenbull". I thought at first I was hearing "gateau bull" which made a sort of cryptic sense. Bull cake anyone? Turns out she was saying GA-10-Bl. As in Georgia route 10 boulevard. Well why didn't you just say so!

Last night in Tuscaloosa she just came undone. We were searching for dinner options and plugged in a BBQ search. She found about 8 nearby options and we selected the closest one. Turned out to be a Mexican restaurant. Tried the second one which turned out to be a converted barn in a rural residential neighborhood -- and was also closed. Third selection was open but was a cinder block cell in a dirt patch and was no longer a BBQ place.

We gave up and braved the crazy traffic jam in downtown Tuscaloosa (WTF? In Tuscaloosa?) and had a surprisingly good Chinese meal in a place with all the ambiance of a urinal. Sadie was so unnerved by this point that she WOULD NOT EAT her dinner. We waved goodbye to Alabama and drove on into the night.

Later that evening we passed Chunky, MS. I am not making it up, it's on Route 20. Then after a few hours of us getting testy with each other we stopped in Jackson, MS. More snarking at each other as we unpacked the car. Sadie refused at first to enter the lobby or the elevator. Her whole world is disrupted. I awoke this morning with a fever and a terrible sore throat and, at last, an excuse for my previous crankiness. I am actually in a decent frame of mind today, I just want to lie in bed and watch cartoons. Olivia is tearing up the open suitcases and admiring herself in the full-length mirror. Aaron is showering in preparation for repacking the car. Today we push on to Dallas.