AA^2: KOA Kamping Kabins & Updated Route

5 weeks until we leave on our next awesome adventure! 

Stella and I met last night at Amazon Grill last night to plan some more of our trip.  I love Amazon Grill.  They make a delicious Tres Leches with a marshmallow like topping.  Yum!  I had the PUNTAS JALAPEÑA dish minus the beans and rice, sub grilled veggies.  I wasn't a huge fan of the creamy jalapeña sauce but I easily ate around it.  Delicious.  Stella had the Skinny Fish Tacos.  I assume they were VERY tasty since she didn't have any leftovers.  They also have FREE WIFI so it made planning so much easier. 

My Macroeconomics professor is allowing me to take my final sooner, which is awesome!!  Although we still may or may not leave until after 3pm because Stella's family has a christmas get together that she wants to go to to see some family that will be here from out of town.

AA^2 Road trip Route
So we've decided to go with route option #2. 
Houston, TX > Baton Rouge, LA > Toomsuba, MS > Birmingham, AL > Nashville, TN > Townsend, TN > Blacksburg, VA > Frederick, MD

 

While planning our road trip, we asked ourselves a few questions:

• What cities are we interested in driving through/visiting?
• How long will it take us to get to that city?
• Do we want to drive through the night or find a place to stay along the way?
• If we stay somewhere along the way, what time we would arrive?  How long will it take us to get to the next point on our trip? Is it worth it to stay the night? Do they accept pets?
• Should we skip Nashville all together?  It's out of the way and adds a few hours to our trip.

Through trial and error, we decided that we would like to stop and sleep instead of driving through the night because we were exhausted last time after doing that.  We also decided that it would be fun to stay in a KOA Kabin again.  It's a different experience than a hotel room, they have heated cabins and some are pet friendly.  They are also about half the price of hotel rooms.

 

AA^2 KOA Kampgrounds:

• Meridian East/Toomsuba, MS KOA

We plan on leaving Houston by 3pm (hopefully earlier) and we will be staying in Toomsuba, MS.  I have no idea how to pronounce that.  We will have to ask once we get there.  This stop is more about getting a good nights rest than sightseeing although the pictures make it look like a nice place to stay.  It's about 8.5 hours away from Houston and they have pet friendly cabins for only $50/night.  We will be staying in a one room cabin like the one we stayed in at Black Canyon City KOA on our last trip.

• Townsend/Great Smokies KOA

We will be staying in the Great Smoky Mountains night #2.  I'm very excited about that.  I've never seen the Smokies.  I've heard it's named the Smoky Mountains because of a blue gray haze that is sometimes over the mountains.  The only thing I am a little worried about it snow.  I love snow, I'm just hoping that it won't be on the roads to get to this KOA.  This KOA has a dog run, and you can make your own souvenir tie dye t-shirt. 

All the one room cabins were taken so we snatched up a 2 room cabin overlooking a river for only $65/night.  I can't wait and it sounds like Kobi will have fun here too!  Should I get Kobi a doggie jacket??  I'm making sure to keep his hair longer for the winter, but he is use to warm weather.  Do dogs get that cold?

We won't have any more nights out on the road until my trip back to Houston.  Townsend is close enough to Frederick that we can make it there in a day even if we stop in Blacksburg, VA along the way. 

 

Is it December yet??