Christmas Road Trip Part 2 – Fayetteville to Savannah

From Fayetteville (see part one here) our goal was to make Birmingham, Alabama for an overnight before continuing on to Savannah. It would be a full day of driving and we didn’t get an early start.

Even though we didn’t leave at the crack of dawn we didn’t feel like we were in a rush, we should have plenty of time. Jenn had one thing on her mind, to get dinner from a barbecue place in Birmingham that night.

It was the morning of the World Cup final, and even though I’m not a big soccer fan, I do usually get pretty excited about it every 4 years. Most of the drive, and especially the section during the game, was through rural areas with spotty service and barely even any radio stations.

Somehow though, I was able to find a trial through Fox Sports (or something like that, it has been a while) to watch the game. Streaming would work for a while, then pause, then pick up again. And if you watched the game, you know that’s a terrible scenario with how it played out.

It was incredible…absolutely incredible…even watching from a poor streaming phone in the middle of nowhere. It was a great start to the day, setting a strong tone.

I don’t really remember much of the rest of the day until we started passing through Mississippi, almost to Alabama. I was driving, it was starting to get dark, and light rain began to pepper the windshield. Then I heard something that sounded like it hit the side of the van, and then a soft hissing.

Right away I knew something was off, and sure enough a few seconds later the tire pressure light came on. The next exit was 8 miles away, and we could start to feel the flat wobbling so I pulled over to the shoulder, just in front of a bridge. A bridge that just so happened to mark the border between Alabama and Mississippi.

In fact, we were so close that we could see the Welcome to Alabama sign directly in front of us, and on the other side of the highway the Welcome to Mississippi sign was behind us…we were in state purgatory.

Jenn called AAA and they couldn’t get someone out there for “a while”. That’s when the real anxiety kicked in. While I was worried about getting slammed into by a semi (the van would shake every time one passed) Jenn was concerned about the restaurant being closed before we could make it.

While I watched headlights quickly approaching over and over Jenn coordinated with different restaurant employees to have them hold the order until after close. Finally someone did show and they were able to get us back on the road – the front driver side tire was shredded.

Now it was a race to Birmingham, which we barely made. Getting the BBQ was well worth it, and it helped salvage the night. We drove to the Bass Pro Shop where we quickly ate and went to bed.

We had pulled into a mainly empty parking lot and awoke to the sound of cars, car doors, and a lot of people. The store was already packed, everyone getting their Christmas Shopping done.

I walked around the store for a bit before we left and felt like we were truly in the south now. I don’t remember much of the drive from Birmingham to Savannah, except stopping about 45 minutes out to change because we had fancy dinner plans at The Grey.

They were late reservations, so before dinner we stopped into a cocktail bar located in the basement of a building nearby – The Alley Cat. The cocktails were incredible, and the bartender was friendly, making a spinoff of a Manhattan that was delicious.

Then it was off to dinner, which was also delicious where we were able to enjoy some more drinks (or at least I was while Jenn had her mocktails). Our welcome to Savannah could not have been better and we both really liked the city so far.

We went back to the van all dressed up to find our “camp” spot for the night, which was in a park downtown. My family was getting in the next day and we would be checking into the Airbnb.

Click here for Part 3