It all started with getting the car on Friday afternoon. I got off work a bit early, headed to the apartment to grab a few more things. We arrived at the airport to pick it up, but got there JUST after 3 separate flights from Chicago, Atlanta, and somewhere else. So there was a bit of line. It was finally our turn, and I explained how we had booked the car through Hotwire.com. We just rented a standard sedan…nothing fancy. The clerk started looking for a car under our category to rent, but she said there was one available, but it still needed to be cleaned. We could rent it but would have to wait an hour. She said that there was a Cadillac SRX that we could rent NOW (without having to wait) for $15 more per day. They had already charged us the additional driver fee, so I wasn’t too keen on that. I said no, we will wait. So she looked again. Found one but it needed an oil change. She made the offer again… $10 more per day. Still I refused. She looked some more, and even called the guy that was detailing the cars…but to no avail. There still weren’t any available. Then she came back and said $2 more per day. And we were sold!! We could hardly believe it. We were going to be driving a Caddy on our road trip! It was also funny for me because that meant that the first car that I ever rented— a Cadillac!! It was awesome for the first couple of hours, until we realized that the thing got about 23 miles per gallon. That was not fun to realize…so much gas. But in the end it was worth it.
It was also funny because apparently, SIXT is only in the southeastern US. It is the worlds oldest rental car company (since 1912) and is originally a German company, but they came over to the US and are based out of Ft. Lauterdale, FL. The clerk was typing up and finalizing our order, and casually asked “So where are y’all headed?” We casually answered “Texarkana, TX on a road trip.” Apparently we couldn’t take the car there, because it was not a state that bordered Tennessee, she told us. I thought that would be a problem, but she let us proceed. She basically said “If anything happens, and you are in a state that doesn’t touch Tennessee, we can’t do anything for you. You’ll have to tow the car to the state line before we can help.” I thought it was interesting considering they are such an established car company but have restrictions of where you can and can’t drive it! But I would still recommend them, they did treat us pretty well!
We finally got on the road and stopped at Zaxby’s in Lebanon, TN to meet one of Jack’s friends. Got back on the road after not too long. The first night we were staying at our friend’s parents house in Atoka, TN (close to Memphis) and we didn’t want to get there too late. We finally got there around 11 or so, after getting turned around and apparently driving on one of the sketchiest/backwoodsy gravel roads in the town (Witherington Road) we finally made it to their house. They were super nice and hospitable to us. When they heard we accidentally drove on Witherington, one of them was like, “YOU DROVE ON WITHERINGTON!?!? I’ve never ever driven on that road. Those hills have eyes down there…” We had no idea at the time, though. After I got back, I looked at Google street view of the road…hard to believe it’s labeled on a map!! And imagine this in the pitch black dark!!
One funny thing that happened while we were there…our shoes were outside in the garage since we didn’t want to wear them in the house. So in the morning, I went to put on my shoes, and it felt odd in my right shoe. It felt as though the sock had crumpled up and was bunched up near the toe. So I took off my shoe, look in my shoe…THERE’S A FROG IN MY SHOE. Totally freaked me out! Couldn’t believe it! I dumped him out of my shoe and there he went, hop hopping away.
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