Surprisingly, waking up at 3:30 in the morning wasn’t as bad as I imagined, even on only three hours of sleep.  It may have been the anxiety of missing my flight, or being anxious to see my unknown family in Arkansas, or my dad yelling at me because he hates to be late, either way, I was up and it did not bother me.

My best friend had spent the night and offered to take my dad, my brother and I to the airport at that insane hour (really our flight left at 6:40am, but my dad is so paranoid about airports and being on time that he would rather get to the airport ten hours early rather than five minutes past the two hour “arrival time”).

We arrived at the airport (boarding passes printed from home), my brother checked his bag (my dad and I prefer to have carry-ons to avoid the hassle of missing luggage and waiting?).  To my surprise (or not) once we had sat down (meaning we had already been through security, gotten our coffee, and used the rest room) we STILL had two hours before our flight was even going to board, thanks dad. 

We were flying on Southwest, and apparently since we didn’t check in at exactly 24 hours in advance (my bad) and checked in 12 hours in advance, we were now in group B² (at the end of group B), which meant it would be pretty impossible for the three of us to sit together.  I wanted a window, my dad didn’t care, and my brother wanted and isle (he’s 6’6 and needs extra leg space), so luckily once we boarded, about 15 rows back, there was a window and middle seat open together (for my dad and myself) and the next row back there was an isle seat (in the emergency exit row – more space for brother long-legs).  The first flight seemed long, it was really about four hours, which is long for me (I badly want to go to Europe, but I’m not sure how I’ll be able to sit THAT long).   We had a three hour layover at Midway in Chicago.  That layover sucked.  I was forty minutes from the man I love (he’s currently in pre-BUD/s aka Navy Seal training) and I couldn’t even see him for a second, AND I had three hours to torture myself about it.  Our second flight was much easier, about two hours to Little Rock from Midway, I slept the whole way.

 I started to get slightly worried, my dad had not eaten since breakfast (3:30am) and when we landed in Little Rock it was 5pm (or 3pm in Seattle), so it had been 12 hours since he had eaten last.  Once we had our rental car (that’s a whole story in itself³) and drove to our friendly 4 Super 8 hotel (in Searcy, 50 minutes away), and checked in there, my dad was finally ready to eat something.  We found a few restaurants one exit off the freeway away and decided to eat our first southern food at the Dixie Café.  Before the trip my dad kept bragging about how great “hush puppies”, catfish and the cornbread are.  The first thing we ordered at the Dixie café was cornbread (they did not have “hush puppies” or I would have ordered them based on their name alone).  The cornbread was not as I had hoped or expected though, it had jalapeño peppers in it, so it was a little spicier than I wanted (I did not want spicy at all in my corn bread).  The wheat roles on the other hand were delicious!  My dad and brother had ordered Sheppard’s pie, and I ordered baked chicken.   Each of our meals came with side dishes.  I love corn on the cob so as soon as I saw it, I had to get it 5.  Once our meals arrived we all dug in. I was shocked to see my corn on the cob, breaded and deep fried (I had forgot that the south deep fries and breads EVERYTHING).  I tried it, but I only had a few bites, I’m not into fried food 6.  My brother ate about ¾ of his Sheppard’s pie when he realized that his meatloaf was still very red, we quickly exchanged that for chicken strips (although by then my brother had lost his appetite).  Our waitress was cute, she kept laughing at everything we ordered, and admitting that she was new and she had not tried anything on the menu.  She did not even know how to make my sweet tea (half lemonade, half ice tea).  She also laughed (surprise, surprise) when she brought out my dad and brother’s milk shake in a glass and the metal mixing container that contained about one spoonful of ice cream.  She thought it was ridiculous that they made her bring out both, when really there was nothing left in the metal container in the first place.  We finished our meals, and my brother asked for a to-go container for his chicken strips (since he had 6 of the 8 left that they brought out), even though we all knew that he would never eat them 7, he just felt bad that they had brought him out a new meal and he did not eat it all.

It’s now getting late, so we head back to our super friendly hotel to crash for the night.  We are meeting our dad’s dad side of the family in the morning and we want to make great first impressions.

?We have no patience.

²Southwest has three groups: A, B and C. They do not assign seats, so if you’re in group C, you are screwed – middle seats only. 

³NEVER rent from Thrifty, the customer service reps are s-t-u-p-i-d!  The woman had NO idea how to use a computer and kept telling my dad that his debit card would not work because it was not a credit card, although they run the same as a credit card as long as you have the visa or master card logo, which he did and the attendant when we dropped the car back off confirmed.

4Everyone is friendly in Arkansas, unless they pull out a shotgun on you, which happened, see day 3.

5My other side was apple sauce in case you were wondering.

6Clogged arteries… no thank you!

7For some reason, my dad and I and most of the time, my brother too (but not my mom) never eat left-overs, the food is never as good.  Plus I’m a freak about even day old food.