After having some very last-minute work done on the Modernmobile and despite the air conditioning at the new place not getting fixed (did I mention the air conditioning stopped functioning properly on the first day of summer, about the time that the temperatures in Knoxville reached the upper 90s? Yeah, that happened), the Modern Love Machine and I departed on Tuesday for our two week-long road trip.

The first day was spent on a really obnoxious drive between Knoxville and Nashville thanks to some really obnoxious traffic (note to the general public: in Tennessee, if you’re driving slower than the people around you, you should be in the right lane. kthanxbai). We stopped briefly in Nashville for a rendezvous with the Modern Parents and to-be Modern Mom in Law over chicken fingers and to distribute the Modern Pooches between the MPs and the MMIL. According to their reports in the past few days, the Modern Pooches seem to be suffering from separation anxiety, poor things.

Then we were off to Destin, Fla, for a wedding on the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, which you may or may not have heard is having it’s own sort of life crisis at the moment. The oil slicks have reached Pensacola Beach, which is about 50 miles west of Destin. Everyone here is talking about the oil spill leak. You can even buy T-shirts at the local Walgreens decrying offshore drilling and such. I personally have not seen any tar balls, though my dear friend the groom says he saw a few outside the condo where he’s staying. This is the scene on the beach where the MLM and I set up shop yesterday**:

That would be seaweed, I think, and a thick carpet of it to boot. Fortunately, that’s the worst it looks — there are parts of the beach that are significantly clearer, but the water does still have quite a bit in it. The black spots in that photo are not oil, just footprints to give you an idea of how deep that crud is. I’m not a fan of getting in the ocean unless it’s pristinely clear and calm, but the MLM coaxed me in anyway to the tune of, ‘Come on baby, I want to get into the ocean with YOU.’ It lasted all of about two minutes until a cresting wave knocked me on my butt and I ingested a huge noseful of salt water, which is precisely why I stick to the refuge of the sand in the first place.

We spent the day today at a amusementish park that my family and I used to visit during my childhood trips to Destin playing Putt-Putt and riding go-karts. I’m pretty sure I haven’t driven a go-kart since before I became licensed to drive a car, but I’m happy to report that they’re still as fun as they were then. And I’m good at leaving the MLM in the dust when I drive. But he’s pretty good at beating me at mini-golf.

The food has been pretty darn good though.

Tonight we attend the wedding of a dear college friend of mine, one of the first people aside from the BFF and my suitemate who befriended me as a freshman and who, as someone who was two years older than me and had a car when I did not, provided me needed refuge away from campus from time to time. And went to sporting events with me, which will endear you to me for life.

Speaking of sporting events and being endeared to for life, that’s how the MLM and I will be spending much of the rest of this trip. We’ll be taking in Major League Baseball games in the following cities: Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Chicago and St. Louis, which will include combinations of the following teams: Cincinnati, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Houston, Chicago (cough, spew) Cubs, Pittsburgh, St. (woooo!) Louis. In case you’re keeping score, that covers the entire NL Central, and therefore the only MLB division I really care about. And in case you’re wondering, the MLM is an Astros fan, having lived part of his formative years in Houston. I’ll forgive him for that, so long as he’s not a fan of that most hated and self-righteous team.

It’s going to take us a whole lotta hours in the Modernmobile to get us from one ballpark to the other, which means one of two things will likely happen by the end of our trip. 1. The MLM and I will hate each other. 2. We will elope. I’m entertaining bets on either.

**All photos taken on the iPhone as I forgot to bring the cord that connects my camera to the computer.