Sweet Home Tennessee

We made our first stop for gas earlier and checked on the pups.... we still have a van full of happy campers!



Update: We are now going through Knoxville, TN! We are only a little over an hour from our hometown , Kingsport, TN! If you have been reading all of our posts, you will know about our excitement about our favorite fast food restaurant- PALS! We have been snacking on healthy foods so far, so we have plenty of room for a fabulous dinner! Dont worry.... we WILL be posting pics of Pal''s!

New Hampshire Bound

Hello from the road! We finally got settled and thought it was time for a real post with pictures and details. Brooke is driving... so, heres to my first official post!

First of all, we would like to say a huge THANK YOU to a few people:

Our friend Rodney Hightower, who so kindly let us borrow his Verizon Wireless air card so we would have internet access on the road! This is priceless! We are currently blogging while trucking down Interstate 59! Isn't technology amazing?? Thanks Rodney!!!

On our way to the shelter this morning, I surprised Brooke with a 'Shout Out' from my friend Reg who is the morning DJ on Live 100.5. I emailed Reg about our trip yesterday and asked if he would play a Guster song for Brooke and he came through for us! He informed all of the Live 100.5 listeners about the Shelter Partners program and played the Guster song "Happiness" for Brooke! She will thrilled and surprised! Thanks Reg!

We arrived at the Shelby County Humane Society this morning at 9am to find the van already loaded with the pups! Sara at the shelter gave us a notebook with information about the trip as well as a list of the 31 dogs who will be traveling with us.
So far so good! We have been on the road for two hours and the dogs have been extremely quiet! They all look very comfortable and relaxed! There are a couple of barkers, but even those have settled down and are napping now. Out of all the dogs, about 75% of them are young puppies (under 4 months old!). They are all beautiful with sweet personalities and we just cannot imagine how none of them have been adopted!

Just in case you are curious.... the van is very nice! We have way more room and comfort than we had anticipated. The CD player is already coming in handy for the mix cds all of our friends made for us! Logan (Brooke's co-worker)- we are already on track 15 of your cd and we LOVE it!

Please pray for good weather- it's looking like it might be a little rainy up north!

Here are some photos.... more to come later:

We will leave you with a pic of our two friends, Happy Harold and Positive Polly the Parrot (compliments of our friends Valerie and Lauren) who are here to keep us in good spirits!

P.S. About to cross the GA line!! Please feel free to comment- we will be checking often!

on the road!

so here we are... officially on the road! the 31 pups are doing great and so are the drivers! we will post again soon once we get settled.

We're Off!

Well, I’m sitting here at home waiting on Brittany to pick me up to drive to Columbiana to pick up the pups and the van. I just wanted to share with all of you some amazing news…. We were able to raise $1,122.57! Wow! When we set up the paypal account I really thought we might get a couple hundred dollars from friends and family but man, you guys sure did step it up. I cannot express to you the feeling I felt every time a donation came in. Especially those from people all across the country who don’t even know us. We will never be able to thank you enough. The average cost of the trip is around $800 but that is including food which Brittany and I are planning to pay for ourselves so I hope that when we get back, we will be able to make quite a nice donation to the Shelter Partners program.

We also have felt so unbelievably lucky to have such wonderful friends and co-workers who made us CD’s and care packages. A big shout out to all of you, whom I’m sure we will be calling and harassing as we make our way through all the wonderful music.

P.S. We got a sweet note from our friend Kristen asking us to show all of you this cutie which is available for adoption at the Greater Birmingham Humane Society. If any of you are thinking about adopting, I think she'd be a great candidate!
www.gbhs.org

I have figured out how to post from my phone so look out, you'll be getting a post with each state line crossed. And probably quite a few in between!

testing sending text and photos from my phone

Pal's

Ok, so I know that we talked all this big game about eating healthy on our trip in an attempt to keep our energy up. But, there is going to be one exception..... Pal’s. Lovely, glorious, mouth watering Pal’s.

Pal’s is a fast food restaurant in our home town of Kingsport Tennessee which we will be passing through. In 1956 Pal Barger opened the first Pal’s restaurant and he now has 21 locations throughout East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. Pal’s is the most efficient restaurant you will ever visit. A drive thru line that might take 20 minutes at McDonald's will take about 5 at Pal's. They even won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality award in 2001 which was presented to them by President Bush. This was (and I believe still is) the first time this award which is usually reserved for manufacturing type companies, was awarded to a restaurant. Unfortunately for us (and you), Pal’s has no plans to franchise. Most of the time, when I go to Kingsport for a visit, I’ll stop by Pal’s before I even go home. My personal record for the most Pal’s eaten in one weekend is almost embarrassing. Especially since they added breakfast items. Whenever Brittany and I have a friend that we know will be passing through Kingsport (a very busy south/north interstate passes right through K-town) on a trip, we make sure that they stop at Pal’s. They are never disappointed. We even got an e-mail from one of those folks when we sent out our blog information. He asked if we would be stopping to get Pal’s for all the dogs. The pups are out of luck but Brittany and I certainly will be enjoying it on our way up north and probably again on our way back south. We suggest that if you are ever around those parts, that you do the same. If not for the food, at least to check out the amazing architecture!

http://www.palsweb.com/

With the exception of the two original locations, they all look like this!