H - O - M - E

We are home.  I hope I don't jinx Debby.  She isn't quite home yet.  She is at the airport and should be boarding her plane within the next half hour for the flight home.  Denise, Matt and Emma will be picking her up at the airport.

I imagine Emma will be thrilled.  When we talked to Denise last Sunday afternoon she told us Emma had gotten up Sunday morning saying "It's Sunday; Debby's coming home!  It's Sunday; Debby's coming home!"  She was quite disappointed to learn that it was the FOLLOWING Sunday that Debby would be home.

The drive from Ocean City yesterday was a good final day trip of just under 350 miles.  I had not briefed Debby on the route via the Chesapeak Bay Bridge Tunnel.  I figured there was no reason to cause premature angst about the tunnels.  As we were approaching the toll booth, we were fishing for money, but the signs had not stated the toll amount.  I told her it would probably be at least five bucks.  She asked why it was so high since most tolls we had encountered had been about a buck.  I mentioned that the bridge and tunnel were big.  When we got to the toll booth and the sign said $12.00 she was surprised.  I mentioned again that it was big.  Then we got to the bridge and you can't see the end.   Ok, so far.  Then she asked whether we would be only taking the bridge or the tunnel.  I said both and that they are big.  :-)   Once we got in the first tunnel, I couldn't resist -- I told her to let me know if she say in water leaking down the walls.  Debby's description of going into the tunnels was "a descent into hell."  I told her it wasn't fire she needed to worry about, it was water!  In a nutshell, the bridge/tunnel is 20 miles long and each tunnel is about a mile long.  It made the phrase "light at the end of the tunnel" a lot more meaningful.

The evening was full of visits.  Mom H. came over for a little while and we got "welcome home hugs."  Then we had dinner out with Michael and Natalie.  We stopped by Michael's home to check out his little garden that I had watered while he was at camp (before our trip).  They have harvested a few tomatoes and jalapeno peppers.  The green pepper plant and the cantaloupe vines haven't produced yet.  They have basil overtaking the oregano and one of the sunflowers has bloomed.

At home we played pinball.  By the time we headed for the airport this morning, Debby had regained her pinball playing form and was winning some free games.

What's next?

The immediate future is back to work for both of us.  We gotta' pay the bills.  Debby has been instructed by me to stop working those 12 hour days.  She will be working on getting her house on the market with her official move to Denise's house.  My church has it's first "Children's Church" next week.  I'm supposed to help so I need to check in with our Family's Ministry director and find out what I am suppossed to be doing.

The short term future is our Brockett Babes Beach Trip in just 2 months.  So we'll be back together for a week in September.

And next year's trip?  We're not sure yet.  With Leslie's location in Couer d'Alene, Idaho, there are two routes that could be possibilities -- parts of US Route 2 (Theodore Roosevelt Highway/The Great Northern Route) from Seattle, Washington to Bar Harbor, Maine or parts of Highway 93 (Border to Border) from Jasper National Park in Canada to Nogales, Arizona (and Mexico).  Or we might just plant our bottoms on a beach somewhere.

So happy trails to you for another year.

I'm out of shower gel

So it must be time to go home.

We now know why we have an itinerary.  If we don't, we are totally lazy!  We didn't even manage to read our devotions the last two mornings.

But we are back on schedule and headed south.

Beach and balcony time,

with a little geocaching thrown in (found 3 out of 4).  A  nice relaxing day, lying on the beach, bouncing in the waves and sitting on the balcony (in the shade).  There might have been 15 minutes too much lying on the beach time because the backs of both of our thighs are a little pink.  Not like this -- but still pink. 

Which brings me to my next point -- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GEORGE.  These pictures are just for you.  We ran into a small car show in Lebanon, Illinois at the Maid Rite two weeks ago, this coming Saturday.


 And now, back to the hard work of relaxing.

The waves are crashing outside my balcony door.

We are in Ocean City, Maryland.  We have completed the cross-country drive on US Route 50.  What a drive!  Starting with the hills of San Francisco, California, to the desert of Nevada and Utah, the canyons of Colorado, the beauty of the plains of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana (with all kinds of specialties for each state thrown in), the twists and turns of West Virginia, the horse pastures of Virginia, the patriotism-inspiring sights of Washington, DC, and finishing with the waterways and oceans of Maryland.

We made a quick visit to Arlington National Cemetary this morning and due to time constraints, our main stop was the Tomb of the Unknowns with a viewing of the changing of the guard ceremony.  Then a mad dash to make it to the Capitol in time for our tour courtesy of my representative, David Price.

 

We finally found our way out of Washington DC via Route 50 and headed for Annapolis, Maryland.  I was struck by the quaintness of historic Annapolis and almost used Debby's favorite line "I could live here" before I remembered how cold it gets "up north."   Besides the courthouse in Annapolis, we toured the Maryland State House (capitol building).  The Maryland State House is the location George Washington used to resign his commission.   We had several courthouse stops in Maryland.  It has been interesting to see historical progression (in reverse) of the courthouses and their ages as we have travelled from the west to the east.

This is the courthouse mecca -- the Supreme Court: 

Now we are in Ocean City and I have just finished my first experience with eating steamed crabs Maryland style armed with a mallet and knife.  Yum!   The "hands on" work was a little more than Debby wanted to experience so she went with the safer choice of chicken and shrimp. We have two days of beach relaxation in front of us.  Nice!!

A lazy day

Laundry, the swimming pool, a somewhat aborted visit to Arlington National Cemetary, an accidential drive in a little bit of rush hour traffic, topped off by a feast at Legal Seafood.

All in all, an easy day.

Happy birthday, Dianne!

We are in recovery mode...

It is 9AM and we are still lying in bed.  What slugs!  But yesterday was grueling.  We laughed at the end and said, we sure knew how to kill ourselves having fun.

We arranged a daytime trolley tour in which you could jump on and off at various points of interest and a night time trolley tour with specific stops at monuments and memorials under the moonlight.  They were both good.  The problem was it was about 300 degrees.  So there were several times during the day and night that we simply melted.  We left the hotel about 8AM and got back about 11PM.

Today will include such exciting activities as laundry.

Catching up...July 4th...part 2

At breakfast, we were talking with our waitress and I told her that although we would be in Washington DC by the evening on the 4th, we wouldn't be going down to the Mall to see the fireworks because we probably wouldn't want to get in the crowds.

Well, once we got to the hotel and had a refreshing float in the pool, we decided that it would really be a shame to pass up such a wonderful opportunity as being in DC on our national birthday and not see the official fireworks. So we jumped on the metro down to Washington Monument and joined in the festivities. The fireworks definitely were good, but I'll admit, we did not anticipate the extent of the crowd when it was time to leave. Those people who had trickled in over the last several hours, ALL tried to leave at the same time, including us. We were in a real crush of humanity. Just before we reached the point of no return in entering the metro station, we both agreed we could not take the continuing and thickening confinement. We stepped out of the mainstream for a while, trying to catch a breath. We were prepared to stand, letting the crowds flow around us, but another family decided they had to exit the crowd. We fell in behind them and beat a retreat. We looked for a cab for a very short time and quickly realized that wasn't a realistic option. So we walked to a metro station further away from the crowd and relaxed on a bench until we could go directly onto a train. The train did overcrowd for part of the ride home, but we survived that too.

We agreed that we were glad we had experienced the July 4th celebration in DC, but that we really never wanted to enjoy such an exiting crowd again.

Catching up...July 4th...part 1

I woke up on July 4th, finally figuring out what had been running around in the back of my mind since the preceeding evening.  It was a song that described the first battle at Manassas (or Bull Run as the Yankees called it) found on the old "Johnny Horton Makes History" album.  I can't tell you how many times I listened to The Battle of Bull Run as a kid.  Although we had considered skipping a visit to Manassas, once I realized the connection to this classic country music song, a stop was definitely required.

We were glad we did.  Although we didn't have time to do everything there, we took the walking tour with a ranger guide who provided a great description of the first battle of Manassas (which was also the first battle of the Civil War).  We also looked at the exhibits for that battle and the audio visual display about the battle.  We only viewed the audio visual display and the indoor exhibits about the second battle because it had gotten late in the day and really hot outside.

The drive through northern Virginia was lovely.  Debby said it was exactly what she thought it would look like...lots of grassy fields, fences and tree.  We rolled into Fairfax and essentially, we were at our stopping point for the day.

She'll be coming around the mountain...

West Virginia lives up to its name -- wild and wonderful.

From Clarksburg to Winchester, we "snaked" our way through.  I say "snaked" because of the constant road signs warning of curves ahead.  These were the "15 miles an hour" type curves in which you can see your own tail lights because the car is bending in the middle to make it around the hairpin!

Debby really liked Grafton, West Virginia and said "I could live here."  Don't get too excited; she says that about everywhere we go.  But Grafton was a great example of a small West Virginia town.  The broader streets run horizontal along the side of the mountain with tiny alleyways running vertically between them.  Turning up or down one of the alleyways was a real act of faith.  I don't think anyone could possibly drink alcoholic beverages in Grafton because if you had just one too many and stepped out your front door, you would be rolling at least half way down the mountain and land in the road a couple of streets below, unless you hit the neighbor's house in front of you.

After an intense 150 mile drive, we got to the hotel a little early and had a really relaxing float in the pool.