We drove ten hours today. Hi.

On one hand, Nashville was awesome. On the other hand, let me tell you how draining it is to leave the hotel before 9 am and get home at 7. If you've never done a big road trip, you might not think sitting in a car is that tiring.

It is so tiring. Being bored is tiring. If you're in the driver's seat, then you have one thing to focus on pretty much the whole time, and that is boring. If you're the passenger, you don't even have that, and that's boring. So while we'd planned on making a couple stops on the way back, that didn't really pan out because we just wanted to get home. The most we really did for fun was do a driveby of Dinosaur World, which I figured would be like the Cabazon Dinosaurs, and I think I was right? We got up closer and it's weird to say that they didn't look as authentic, though. They were smaller, and it looked more like they'd been colored with spray paint, and I wasn't hugely inclined to spend $19 there.

It was also part of a section of roadside tourist traps in Cave City, KY. There was a large strip mall-looking Olde General Store, something called Guntown Mountain, a haunted hotel, and one of several cave exploring things. You see a ton of billboards for things like cave explorations and zip lining underground, which if we had more time, I probably would have been all for it. My boss' daughter just did it and they seemed to enjoy it. But if there's one thing I'd definitely want to do next time, it's Kentucky Down Under, which is an adventure zoo where you can hang out with several different animals and pet kangaroos and such. I'm iffy one some of these places because I'm all for animal refuges (one will get excessively pimped when I get around to writing it), and I like to be reassured that they're being taken care of well and not being exploited, and I know some of these are not on the level, but this is one I'm hopeful about and want to check out.

Aside from that, our stops were at gas stations and rest stops, which got more frequent the more tired we got. And then when we got to northern Kentucky it started raining and didn't stop until we got all the way back to my place. But I absolutely will not complain, because we also saw a car fire today, and no matter how tiring our drive can get it's good to remember that at least we're not that guy.

Anyway, safely home. Nick's staying the night here rather than driving even more tonight, and there's pizza and Star Wars and that's all that matters. Oh, and pajamas at 7 pm, because we earned it.