Friday, July 13, 2018 - Birmingham, AL (Travel Day and Bowling Green, KY)

With a long day of driving ahead of us and a great desire to avoid Chicago rush hour, the alarm went off at 1:30 a.m. so we could be on the road by 2:00 a.m.  We took the 2018 Kia Stinger GT2 AWD which is rated at 19/26 mpg.  I took the first shift through Chicago and managed to get 32.5 mpg!

We saw a great electronic sign in the Chicago area which read, "No Texting No Speeding No Ketchup."

On our way down, on a whim we planned to stop at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, which was just a mile off our route.  So we plugged in the address in our GPS and noticed something a bit strange as we got close.  Check it out.

Once we looked at our watches, we discovered that we must have driven into eastern time briefly and the car clocked changed to that but knew that the Museum was back in central time.

The National Corvette Museum was really worth the stop.  On display were so many unique Corvettes plus they had an entire display on the sinkhole that swallowed 8 Corvettes in 2014.  The Corvette plant nearby is not currently offering tours (they plan to again in 2019), but they did have a neat video on how Corvettes are produced. Finally, they had three Corvettes that you could ride in, for an additional fee. 

On February 12, 2014, a sinkhole swallowed eight Corvettes located in the Skydome.  No one was present when the cave-in happened but the security cameras caught it all on camera.

This concept car really caught our attention.

Here are the three cars you could take a ride in:

After leaving at 2:00 a.m., lunch, two gas stops, and the stop at the National Corvette Museum, we made it to our hotel, the Sleep Inn in Pelham at 5:06 p.m.  Total drive time was 12 hours and 49 minutes.  We didn't deal with a lot of traffic (although a fair amount of construction with a 55 mph speed limit) until we reached the northern side of Birmingham.  Traffic on I-65 was stop and go from that point on and even getting off at our exit in Pelham, traffic was crazy.  We later learned there was a big concert across the street that evening which added to rush hour traffic.

As we drove into Birmingham, we encountered some familiarity in a billboard.  Whoever came up with this slogan must have made a fortune.

We traveled 787.8 miles and averaged 30.1 mpg (as calculated by the trip computer).  We paid $2.89/gallon for gas in Indiana and just across the border into Alabama we paid $2.47/gallon.

Our Sleep Inn hotel was a really great hotel with one of the best breakfasts we have ever had at a Choice Hotel and a beautiful pool.  Plus the staff was so friendly and helpful.