July 14th - Tornado, Big O, Cooper and I hit the streets about 9am. It's Cooper's first road trip, so it takes him a couple hours to settle in. Overall, the day goes great and we arrive in Pooler Georgia around 4:30. We check into the hotel, take the dog for a walk, then head to the pool. After some splashing around in the pool, we grabbed some pizza at Lovezzolla's next door. This was the night of the all-star game, so we all tuned in to watch. During President Obama's appearance in the broadcast booth during a lengthy half inning, Big O says "Is this a talk show or the All-Star Game?" The girl loves her baseball! About mid-game everyone had fallen asleep getting ready for a long day ahead. All in all it was a pretty relaxing day 1...the next day...not so much.
July 15th - Ugh. We had planned on getting to my sister's house in Silver Spring Maryland around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. That would have required us to get on the road by 7 or so. Well, between taking forever to get the dog to go to the bathroom, making waffles in the breakfast area, getting gas, loading the dog crate, etc. etc, we didn't get on the road until well after 8. As I looked for a place to stop for lunch, the Tornado announces he has to go to the bathroom. Traffic had started to back up on 95, and in the middle of NC, there isn't an exit every other mile, so I knew we were in trouble. I finally find an exit and rush into the Wendy's parking lot, jump out of the car and whip open the door next to the Tornado's seat. Unfortunately, I was too late. The seat was soaked, as were his pants and shirt (the bottom half). I take him out of the car and instruct O to walk Cooper around the grass surrounding the parking lot. The Tornado gets his clothes off and decides he still needs to go! So BOOM! Here he is in the Wendy's parking lot, totally naked, holding himself and peeing!
Everyone, including me, decides that Wendy's isn't where we want to eat for lunch and head back onto 95. As soon as we get back on, the traffic comes to a halt. We pull off at the next exit and decide that we'll get chik fil a for lunch. Sadly, it turns out the chik fil a is almost 5 miles from the exit ("only 3 lights from 95"!!) We get our lunch and head back out. "I need to go poooooooooopies". AAAAAAAAARRGGGGGGGHHHHHH! We stop once again in the general Raleigh area at one of the strangest places I've ever seen. It was a multi-stall co-ed bathroom! O was mortified by this development, as there was another man in the room while we were there. She decided to wait. Meanwhile, Tornado is again taking his clothes off since he can't sit on the toilet with his pants on for some reason. Another 20 minutes down the tubes so to speak, and off we go.
But not too fast as the traffic is still ridiculous. 3 hours and 30 miles later we finally escape the Raleigh area. We manage to drive a couple more hours before entering the Gates of Hell, otherwise known as the Northern Virginia/DC corridor of 95. I call my sister and tell her we are "close" but probably still far away. We pull up to my sister's place around 7:30 - and filled with excitement Cooper starts to relieve himself in the car. Luckily I had blankets and towels all over the car so there was no damage to the car. The kids smell, the car smells, the dog smells, I smell, but at least we are there. I'm amazed at how well the kids did in the car. O liked watching the movies, but Tornado just likes "looking at the cars and trucks go by". No whining, no arguing..rather helping each other, some laughs along the way. One more day to go.
July 16th - We all got up at my sisters house had some breakfast and headed down to Sligo Creek. The kids love going down to the creek and playing in the water and on the rocks. It's some good ol' fashioned fun. We went back to the house had some lunch and we were on our way. Four and a half hours later we are in the Poconos, and everyone is excited! The long trip was over and it was time for fun.
July 17th - Not much happened this day, I was exhausted and just wanted to hang out in the house. I flipped back and forth from one side to the other on the couch, watching the British Open. The kids went outside and pretended they were riding horses in the woods, played horseshoes, went to the pool, just kind of a lazy day. Big day tomorrow.
July 18th - The CEO is due in town around noon, me and the kids are going to Allentown to pick her up. We grab her and head to the suburbs of the Big Apple to see some close friends. They have 3 kids, all a little younger than ours, but 2 girls and a boy. Driving through the NYC was brutal, and we arrived a little late. But once there, all the kids were playing together and having fun. It's always great to see how kids, who really don't know each other at all, can just jump in and play together without any hang ups. One of the many beautiful aspects of children. The visit gives my buddy and I some time to plan our baseball trip this fall, hammer out a roto baseball trade (I got killed as it turns out), and play with the kids. We take off around 9 and get back to the Poconos exhausted about 11 and hit the sack. Great day.
July 19th - Sunday was going to be a day for the CEO to rest a little, I was going to watch Tom Watson at age 59 try to win the British Open and the kids were going to play around the house. We lounged around in the morning, as Watson missed a putt on 18 that cost him the title. He went on to lose in a playoff, and we went on to see the new Harry Potter movie at Split Rock. Yikes - was that bad. The girls seemed to enjoy it, but man, I fell asleep once, went for more popcorn once, tried checking baseball scores on the phone (no service), basically anything but watch the movie as there was next to nothing to hold your attention. With HP mercifully over, it was back to the house for some horseshoes (Bear and I beat O and CEO). Then we settled down for the night with a couple games of chinese checkers and Yahtzee!
July 20th - Monday the wife and I drove to the Lehigh Valley Gorge for a bike ride then to Jim Thorpe for lunch. The bike ride was wonderful, it was a spectacular day - and what's better than a day with my wife! (answer - nothing). We rode about 7 miles, not a long ride, but we took it slow. Then we walked over to the cave that is by the river, which is really cool. The CEO had not seen it before, she thought it was neat too. We drove the couple miles to Jim Thorpe to walk around and have some lunch. We had lunch at the Molly Maguire restaurant. Pretty decent, we ate outside on a 2nd story deck, it was nice. Unfortunately many of the shops were closed, so there weren't as many places to visit as we expected. But like I said above, I got to spend the whole day with my wife, so it was a wonderful day all around.
July 21st - Honestly, I forget what the heck we did this day. I'm sure it was fun. I do know we roasted marshmellows outside and made s'mores at night - hmmmmm s'mores. Oh wait - I just remembered - we went to Boulder Field. This awesome collection of giant boulders that we visit every time we come up. It is larger, much larger than a football field, of nothing but boulders. It takes about 30 minutes to cross with the kids, and this time with Cooper. There are blueberry bushes at the other end that the kids like to pick. Unfortunately this day the blueberries hadn't ripened yet, so there was no loot to haul out. But the kids and parents still enjoyed it, and Cooper was shot by the end of the morning.
July 22nd - Wednesday was Knoebels day. This is an old fashioned type amusement park that is about an hour from Grandma and Grandpa's house. We head out there in the afternoon and let the kids loose. Tornado went absolutely nuts. He ran from ride to ride, huge smile on his face, exclaiming "I wanna do that one!" over and over. O likes doing the larger rides, and I went on one of the old style wooden coasters they have. You get the feeling your life is about to end because of the noise the wooden coasters make, but it is a fantastic ride. She did many other of the bigger rides, mostly on her own. She rode one thing over and over, spinning fast, bouncing up and down, I could barely watch it. The Bear likes the calmer rides, but she seemed a little preoccupied for some reason, until the Ferris Wheel.
This was the last ride of the day, and was the only ride the five of us went on together. As we were going up the first time Bear says "I've never been on a ferris wheel before" with an ear to ear smile. She liked this one. As the workers are loading people at the bottom, and we are near the top, Tornado announces he "needs to go paaaaaaattttteeeeeee" and starts bouncing in his seat. We try to convince him he can hold it, but he thinks otherwise. The CEO makes a decision that he can go in the extra shirt we were holding for him in case he got cold instead of going in his pants. She tells him to take his pants off, on the ferris wheel, and to go into the shirt. Being three, and not yet a great shot, he does it as best he can, but it starts spraying all over the cart we were in. The girls found this to be beyond hilarious and were laughing hysterically, which in turn caused him to begin laughing, which caused his already questionable aim to deteriorate even further. We all got a good belly laugh, and when we departed the cart (we wiped it up) I had to laugh as he was leaving footprints on the exit ramp.
July 23rd - Our last day in the Poconos, and I decided that we should go to Bushkill Falls for a hike. we had not been there before, heard my Uncle had proposed to my aunt there 50+ years ago, and heard it was a nice place for a day outdoors. we took Cooper, and GMA decided to come too. Once there we decided on the long route - which was about 2 and a half miles. Midway through we found out that we went in the more difficult direction causing us to have to do more climbing. It was fantastic though! The falls were beautiful and the hike was great. All the kids were fantastic, Cooper climbed without problems, and GMA held up well too, was proud of her.
It took us about 3 hours to make it all the way around, and a great 3 hours it was. The kids even got to "mine for gems" and came away with some goodies there.
July 24th - Today we hit the road and leave O behind with GMA and GPA. We took off at about 7:15 in the morning. Oh, I forget to mention that the A/C in the car stopped working the day before, so were heading back without it. No problems making our way through PA and the northern part of Maryland. You know it's coming though. You can't avoid it. You pray it won't be there but it is...the ramp onto 95 in Northern Virginia. Words cannot describe how awful this part of any drive is. I cannot ever remember driving through this 15 miles stretch without cursing everyone and everything in sight. This time was no different. There we sat, barely moving, passing a sign that reads "Speed Limit 65", and I laughed out loud. The windows are down, exhaust fumes from the large trucks filling the car, dog panting, it's reading 94 on the car thermometer, good times. If only we knew just how good. A few minutes later, Tornado gets a "my belly hurts" out just in time to say he let us know before he vomited all over himself. Out of wipes? Check. Out of trash bags? Check. Out of towels or napkins even? Check. The CEO hops in the back to clean him up the best she can before we get to a stopping place. But alas, with us going less than 5 miles an hour, and a flashing sign reading "expect delays...next 14 miles", who knows when we will get there. Finally we find an exit with a gas station about an hour later, get some water and stuff to clean him up, then back onto the parking lot that is 95.
The plan was to head to UR and have lunch on campus. The 2-3 delay had us wavering, but I decided i was not going to let the miserable part of the trip ruing the good part. So we stopped at the Ukrops down the street from campus and got some more cleanup supplies and lunch and made our way to UR. As always campus was beautiful. Lots of construction going on, building the new football stadium and more residence halls/academic buildings. We ate lunch and walked a round a little. I went and checked out Freeman Hall where I spent 3 wonderful years. It was locked and thus couldn't get in to see the old rooms - kinda bummed out by that, but oh well. We walked down to the commons, showed the Bear the bench where the CEO and I discussed gettin' serious, and Boatwright Beach where I lazied many a day away. A stop at the bookstore for some goodies, a chat with a prospective and her Mom, and we were back in the car and on our way.
We found our resting point in Fayetteville, NC. Finally. Got some chow at the Cracker Barrel next door to the hotel and of to sleep. What a day.
July 25th - ON the road by 7:30, staring down a 12 hour drive with no A/C. But wait! The travel gods were with us as the A/C started working sporadically, which was enough to be able to keep the windows shut and keep the fumes out. Today was much less eventful, no vomit, no traffic, all good. We make it home just before 8, and the trip is officially over. It was another great trip to the Northeast, even if there were some pitfalls, but those are to be expected. We made it up and back safely, had lots of laughs while we were there. One of the things I like the most about the road trips is that we all really get to spend some time together. Life is so hectic, everyone so busy that we rarely get to share time together, all enjoying the same thing. We are blessed to be able to have that time together, and for that I am very thankful. I've got some ideas for a road trip for next summer, but those plans are for another time...
