So, Lucy, my dad, and I were traveling to Alton, Illinois for Christmas to see my dad's side of the family. This means we would drive through Georgia, to Tennessee, to Kentucky, to Illinois. Altogether, about 600 miles. Anyways, our original plan to drive to Nashville, sleep there, and then drive to Alton in the morning failed in a plethora of ways. So, at three o' clock on Wednesday, my dad arrived at my house and we took off. When we left, it immediately began to rain like crazy. We had to turn the windsheild wipers on full speed to even see a blur. After we left, we drove awhile until we got to Tennessee, where there was a lot of firework places. I guess it's because fireworks are illegal in Georgia, but they had every name you could imagine. There was Big Daddy's fireworks, The Alligator Fireworks, Gorilla's Firework Jungle, Firework Bargain Bonanza, FIIREEWWOOOORRRKKKSSSS, Big Boom Fireworks, Extravagant Fireworks, Grandma Sue's Eccentric Fireworks, Fireworx, Big Ol' Fireworks, Big Bomb Go Boom Boom, Screamin' Fireworks, Explode Your Life Fireworks, DIEDIEDIE Fireworks, How Do I Use This Fancy JimJam Fireworks, Fireworks for Senior Citizens, Beginner's Store for Fireworks, Fireworks for Old Farts and Geezers (the cruder, meaner version of Fireworks for Senior Citizens) etc., etc., etc., I could go on for hours. Anyway, we were looking for a Walmart or someplace we could buy CDs for the car. We eventually ended up at a Walmart in some random town in Tennessee, and we bought a bunch of CDs. Anyways, my sister bought this thing called "NOW That's What I Call Music" and we listened to it in the car. It has a lot of good songs on it, and the one my dad is obsessed with is "Forget You" by Cee Lo Green. We left, and it seemed like every Redneck in the country and his hillbilly brother was there. Seriously, there were so many people in that Walmart it was as if you picked it up and took off the roof you could eat the people like sardines. Anyways, we got in the car, and we started listening to Cee Lo Green and we listened to that song over and over. We were going to stop in Nashville, but we decided to keep going. We stopped in Clarksville to sleep there, and we went to a gas station. Inside, my dad rampaged about my "unwise choice" to get a chocolate muffin. When we got to the hotel, I went into the bathroom to put our bags in there, and low and behold, in front of me, stands what could have been the most beautiful sight my eyes had ever seen. It was a tiny bottle labled "Mouthwash". I love mouthwash. If someone told me to choose between some Listerine and an Iphone 4s, I would choose the Listerine. So, immediately I emptied the bottle into my mouth. As soon as the blue liquid touched my taste buds, I knew there was something wrong. This didn't taste like mouthwash. It didn't have the wondrous, strong mint flavor I was used to. It tasted like the bottom of troll's crusty foot(quoting Ms. Woods) plus fried bread. Wet fried bread. I spewed the horrendous excuse for mouthwash (pause for shudder at the thought) all over the floor, along with many of the contents of the muffin. I didn't throw up, but I just spit and gagged a lot. I have a lot of bad luck with chocolate muffins. In the morning, we woke up, and I pretended to be asleep so my dad and sister would get me breakfast and I wouldn't have to get my lazy self out of bed. They were gone for, like, twenty minutes and came back with nothing. This meant I had to actually get up to go get my own breakfast from the continental thing at the hotel. I went downstairs, and pretty much all I ate was bacon. When I was sitting down at one of the tables, eating bacon, watching news, and sipping hot chocolate, I was completely content. That is, until, this loudly dressed man walks in dragging one of his children on the floor. He makes her sit all the way over by me, and I am deeply disturbed. I try not to concentrate on the daughter, but the father kept screaming at her at the top of his lungs from all the way at the other end of the room. Just when I think he's done, all the sudden, he gets up and screams at his daughter, causing me to drop my bacon on the floor. He runs, literally, runs across the room, grabs his daughter, who appears to be doing nothing, and pulls her legs out from under her to make her sit right. At this point I left, because I thought he would eventually agknowledge that I was making little screams in the corner and chuck me out of the window or abduct me and feed me nothing but Holiday Inn mouthwash and chocolate muffins. We left at about 9:00 and drove about fifty miles until my dad, all the sudden, ot of nowhere, yells "GAALEE!". Me and my sister were deeply perplexed by this, until, he told us why he yelled "gaalee" in the middle of Highway 24. He had left his phone at the hotel. We drove fifty miles, and then the guy realizes he forgot his phone. So, we had to drive all the way back to Clarksville to get his phone. On the way back, we were about to turn- when we missed the exit. We had to tun around again and again until we finally got back to the hotel. We drove awhile, and eventually we stop at a Wendy's in Mt.Vernon, Illinois. We walk in to get lunch. Normally, we would have chosen a more quality restaurant, but we were in a hurry. We run in, and we notice that the woman at the counter, a skinny teenager, was sagging and had three-foot long arms. It was very bizarre. We sat down to eat our food and we see this kid next to us who has this stuff all over his shirt. His mom looked at him with a heated expression, because he had spilled three frostys, three burgers, and pan fried crud in a box(fries) all over his nice black pants and white polo shirt. We hurried out of there quickly, me leading, for I was afraid of the pan fried crud situation turning into the loudly dressed screaming man situation. As we began to drive, we passed by a juvinile prison. It was so scary. I would rather memorize War and Peace than go there. It looked like an empty life there. I feel sad for the kids who have to put up with living in a place like that. And, doing an awful crime in addition to living in the scariest place in the world would feel as if someone told you to walk across water with an elephant on your shoulders. I also saw the closest thing to an insane asylum in the United States. It said "Mental Hospital", but my dad told me that when he was young, he used to drive by every day and the put people in straitjackets and they looked trough barred windows. When I got to Alton, we met up with my grandmother, and we went to a restaurant. Then, we went to a light show and as we were driving back, I noticed this massive, creepy looking painting on a high cliff. It was this.
Apparently, these Native Americans used to live near the Mississippi River. They have this one particularly creepy legend about this creature called the "Piasa Bird"(The thing above). This thing was like a satanic demon. It killed people and ate their insides out. It plucked out eyes and left only skin. Anyways, this one cheif guy really wanted to kill it, so he asked the"Great Spirit" how to kill it. He then presented himself as bait for the Piasa, and it came down to eat him. All the sudden, his men came out and stabbed the Piasa with arrows. Bleeding, it flew up into the sky and landed in the middle of the river. The blood of the Piasa gave the river a new color. Then, they painted it on this rock to celebrate their victory against the Piasa. Weird story, huh? It freaked me out a bit. So, the moral is, ask a higher power what to do if you have a problem, then kill it no matter what, and do not even try to make peace with it. Interesting story though. By the way, did you know that there are still orphanages in America? I saw one. And now, I leave you with this. 
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