Summer Trip 2017

Preface

Well, another year has flown by, just as the years before and another trip has been planned for Team Itchyfoot.  This year is a little bit different.  No camping--just boondocking at friends places and spending nights with relatives and close friends, while getting out and about to the cities they live near.  Our first stop this year will be in Virginia Beach with our good friends Otis and Emily, with a visit to another good friend of ours, Greg, who is also living in Va Beach nearby. The second stop will take us up the Delaware coast, from Va Beach via the Chesapeake Bridge Bay tunnel, along with stops in Ocean City, MD, and Rehoboth Beach for a Dogfish Head brewery stop, culminating with a stay at our good friends' home in Annapolis, Sheba and Jon. We planned a day trip to DC, a visit to a couple of Smithsonian museums, then a three day, two night stay in Philadelphia, finishing off our trip with a stop at the cousins house for a final five days in Williamsport. 

The times have changed in our household over the past year. Kids grow quickly, seem less interested in learning from museums and are more into their cell phones socially posting the continual selfie, snap, post, talk, etc.  We learned this after spending approximately 45 dollars in Fredricksburg Tx to visit what we thought would be a good thing--the Korean War/ WWII museum there.  So, planning on different stops, and as you know with two kids ages 13 and 17, there is never going to be anyone happy, all the time. Even though I know how old they are, they can really irk me sometimes!  So, that being said, Jen and I plan on boring our kids for the next 13 days, on what may be, our last itchyfoot adventure together. All we can do is see how things pan out over the next year. 

DAY 0.5--Home to Greenville, SC (halfway pt to Va Beach)

We planned a hotel stop on the first leg of the trip since we had time on Thursday after getting off work.  Since Va Bch is approximately a 15 hour drive from home, we figured 8-9 hours in would be a good stopping point. I booked a very cheap hotel in Greenville, SC, prior to leaving. 

The trip went without a hitch.  We were all home early that day from work, then were on the road by 3:30 PM.  The only interesting part of the drive was deciding to let Avery drive and get some experience in long mileage driving, because I like to take naps. We gave her the wheel just north of Montgomery, AL on Interstate 85, figuring she would be able to log 100 miles or so.  She did very well. We were slightly less inclined to keep low blood pressure however, with the rap music playing and seeing her dance one armed behind the wheel.  Then the rains came. The music volume was turned down a little bit (by me, not her) and I told her to start concentrating because driving a loaded minivan takes longer stopping time--it also has tendency to sway a little bit.  We were about 40 miles out of Atlanta when I gave her the option to pull over and let me drive through the metropolis. After asking multiple times, she told me she wanted to drive it, and off we went.  

She did great, I gotta say--she did hover on the dotted line a little bit from the weight of the van not perfectly centered over the rear axle, but it did take a little LONGER than expected because she wouldn't go over 50 mph. I told her on the way in that I'd much rather have the family arrive at our destination than not arrive, so that slowed her down a little.  Then came the traffic and she slowed down all by her self from 45-52 miles per hour.  Granted, traffic isn't so bad at 9PM (10PM central time in ATL), but there are much more vehicles on the road than to which she us accustomed. After a rest stop well outside Atlanta, I was able to take back over, not sleepy due to blood pumping pressure, and get us to our destination.  

Unfortunately, I am using a work laptop with limited permissions as far as adding an SD card with pics from my actual camera, so those will be added later.  Crappy cell phone pics like the one above will be added on a regular basis though.