Bloggers Mark McPhillips, ‘20 and Daniella Maney, ‘20 embarked on a road trip this summer with their friend Samuel Piller, ‘20 before coming back to Conn. We will publish a series of posts about what they experienced along the way.... (Read Post 1)

We awoke to the sound of people knocking on our hotel room door.

The Baymont Inn & Suites in Jackson, Mississippi, was similar to the Comfort Suites in Harvey, Louisiana, in that the housekeeping staff really wanted us out of our rooms sooner than later in both of these places. By the time we got up, we had about an hour until check-out. We gathered our things, got ready and Dani got behind the wheel to take us on the road to Memphis, Tennessee.

After about 10 minutes of driving on Interstate 55 in Mississippi, we stopped for lunch at a Panera Bread then continued the journey to Memphis. We stopped once more at a Pilot Travel Center to get Mississippi souvenirs. Unfortunately, this rest stop did not have postcards so we got a magnet to commemorate our time instead. We got back on the road and did not stop again until we got to the La Quinta Inn we were staying in for the night in Memphis.

Usually, check-in at our hotels goes pretty smoothly. I booked our rooms about a month in advance so that we could save money and not have to worry about lodging after a long day of travel. Unfortunately, I struck out with this particular La Quinta. I went up to the man working behind the front desk, told him I was checking in for my reservation, and handed him my driver’s license. It turns out that in order to check in to this particular La Quinta one must be 21 years of age or older. I was a little frustrated because none of the other hotels had given us an age issue (most noticeably the La Quinta we had already stayed in during our time in Wichita!). I made sure I could cancel my reservation at no extra charge and told Dani and Samuel the frustrating news.

We got back in the CR-V and did a quick search for affordable lodging nearby. We settled upon the Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott which happened to be right down the street. Samuel went inside to get us a room while Dani and I unpacked the car. We went down the hallway to our room and Dani napped. I caught up on my language-learning website, Duolingo, and Samuel read in an armchair in the corner of the room.

After a while, Dani found us a restaurant called Central BBQ located in downtown Memphis. The three of us were hungry but also on an ever-dwindling budget so we decided to split a slab of ribs, which also came with four sides. We enjoyed our Tennessee barbeque and ended the night with some local ice cream. We took a quick stroll down historic Beale Street and saw several tourists, live performers and interesting restaurants.