After Court and Abby arrived back from their trip, we packed the remaining items and went through the rest of the checks to make sure that we were ready to go. With Gideon now having his permit and it being early, we decided to have him drive us to the gas station for our top off before we really hit the road. The whole time we were driving there he kept telling us how he was going to kill us but he did it well. We got our gas and a couple of breakfast snacks before driving over to Starbucks for Abby and now Court's new obsession. Then we are on the road.
As we got onto the Mass Pike, Court has the intrusive thought that she packed her power cord for her laptop but not the laptop itself. Normally this would have been a whatever kind of situation. She would use one of the other like four that we are bringing between the kids and I. Of course, she is both expected to work a little on the trip this time but more importantly, there's a meeting scheduled Monday afternoon with an important potential client so we cannot not have the laptop. We pull over at the first exits on the Pike and I go to the back to check her backpack. Yes, it's there. I get photo evidence because it will be there if needed again later.
Away we drive with the intent of getting to wherever we might be able to make it tonight in the hopes of getting a little bit of a jump on things and with no strict plans until Dry Tortugas, getting some miles down will make our lives easier later. Things go generally pretty well. No real traffic to speak of, weather is nice although there is that eerie redness to the sky due to the fires in Canada, the kids napping. Abby because she was up with Court so early, Gideon because he's a teen boy fresh back from Philmont. Then sometime in Maryland we get rain. I mean southern rain which I can say since Maryland is the first southern state according to Mason-Dixon. We manage to get through a small band of it and as we keep driving the redness in the sky clears up and things look really nice. Then we cross the border of Maryland into Virginia and the skies open up again. Check the other blogs for the video but hilariously as Google Maps welcomes us into Virginia, it is pouring out our windows. We go through a couple more small bouts of this and things clear up in general.
We stop for lunch at a Red Robin that has a bunch of the claw machines in the entry. These are Court's weakness. After eating, she selects a machine that has a mix of rubber ducks and cows. Court puts in a $5 expecting that she would need a few rounds but apparently one credit in this machine is like 6 tries. She goes through one set of the six and we assume that it's done. We start talking and then realize that the machine is playing itself because there are still tries remaining. Court keeps going and we end up with a small pile of these little rubber items including one rubber duck. Our goal in this trip was to try to do one good deed a day and we see a jeep outside. We decide to leave them the rubber duck since they have one of the dashboards full of them and head off on the road again. Abigail decides she wants a turn at the wheel to keep herself busy and have her music on the car sound system and it remains clear weather wise. Court gets a chance to take a nap which is great considering she's been up for so long today already. Then comes the traffic.
For some number of miles there's been a bunch of signs warning us that the right two lanes are closed and we would be down to one lane. Since it didn't seem to be coming, I just kind of assumed that maybe they weren't working on it for the weekend. I was woefully wrong. So, everyone is trying to merge down into one lane. We are eating our cheeseball just hanging out when Court decides to start offering the cars next to us crackers with the cheeseball. Generally people ignore her but the truck drivers are having a great time with it and there is one older couple that are exceptionally disgusted by the offer. Court keeps offering it, and the man driving keeps waiving her off which just makes her want to offer it more. Court then decides that if someone were to take her up on it, there would be no way for her to get the cracker to them so she switches out for some of our small bags of chips. Still no takers and still the older dude is disgusted at the idea and waiving her off. Tired of no one playing along, Court decides to try to recreate one of our memories from the first road trip outside of Reno where she lassoed
a truck and the dude played along with us and had a great time. She leans out the window, finds the truck behind us and throws. She tries to pull him but nothing happens. I must have missed him
she said exasperated. I'm going to try again. She lassoes out and tries to pull him in. This time he plays along and inches forward while he can. They go on like this for a little while until he managed to get up along side of us. He rolls down his window with a big smile on his face and thanks Court for giving him a laugh. We make it through this and keep going.
We decide that we will stop in Charlotte for the night based upon the time of the night that we will arrive and the fact that they have a Steak and Shake which is one of the whole family's guilty pleasures. We attempt to pull into a Drury for the night and find that they are booked. Apparently there are like three different things going on in the city this weekend and we need to head another 30 minutes out of the city to get a place to stay. So we get the Steak and Shake and drive on. The whole car chomps down on Frisco Melts with extra Frisco Sauce on the drive. We get to the Holiday Inn for the night and as Court is checking in she hears that even here there is only one more room for the night as another family going through the same thing we did was trying to book in. Thank goodness Court booked it already for us. We got all of our stuff and retired for a night sleep after a long day on the road.
Tomorrow, Abby's medicine and Congaree National Park!