Oh my is the trip from Atlanta to Boston long when you DRIVE
it.
With a kid and 2 dogs, flying was a bit out of the question,
so we loaded up and drove from Atlanta to Boston. It was long, but we made it! :)
The rest of this post may be more so that we can remember
the details. If you aren’t interested,
feel free to tune out now and check back later for more (fun) posts!
Day 1
We left Atlanta on Wednesday afternoon right around 5pm in
hopes of making it to just-north-of-Charlotte to spend the night. We’d had our carpet replaced that day and
knew we couldn’t make it much further, but at least wanted to get a little bit
of the drive in on Wednesday so that Thursday and Friday wouldn’t be QUITE as
long.
I was SURE that we were going to have horrible traffic
heading up 85 as we left, but it really wasn’t bad at all. We made it just across the state line and
stopped at the SC welcome center to eat dinner, then drove the rest of the way
to Charlotte.
Eating some french fries...
Sydney slept in the car for a couple of hours and was quite
content when she was awake.
She was SUPER EXCITED to get to the hotel. She even did a little happy dance around the
hotel room as we got ready for bed
Miles Driven Day 1: 230
States Visited: GA, SC, NC
Day 2
Sydney didn't realize how long the drive was that we had in store for us, so she was excited to get going. "Come on, I have the keys and the suitcase..."
We grabbed some breakfast and headed out around 9:15. We drove with some light rain for most of the
trip, but as we crossed into Virginia we went through the foggiest fog (hmmm,
not sure how else to explain that) that I’ve ever driven through. Not sure if that was due to the rain or if
that’s normal or what, but it was certainly crazy. We stopped for lunch at a rest stop near
Blacksburg. Bella was polite enough to
save her puking for OUTSIDE of the car at the rest stop. Thank God.
I can only imagine how bad Dan’s car would have smelled for the rest of
the trip if she had done that IN the car.
After lunch we hit the road again. And I learned that Virginia is a very big
state. It really didn’t help the drive
that there were no ‘new states’ to break up the drive. We drove through
Virginia forever. It didn’t help that
there had been an accident and it took us 45 minutes to go a mile and a
half. Literally. It was miserable. But thankfully it was the only really trouble
we had.
FINALLY we crossed into West Virginia and then into
Maryland. I can’t tell you too much
about these states as I spent much of my time in them singing the Itsy Bitsy
Spider and the Wheels on the Bus over and over again in an attempt to keep
Sydney from screaming the entire time.
My efforts were only mildly successful.
We crossed into Pennsylvania and made it to Harrisburg
around 6:30 that night. We walked into
our (supposed-to-be-a-one-bedroom-suite) hotel room to find that we have been put
into the room that has the Jacuzzi tub in the middle of the room and a
fireplace. Sydney, the dogs and I stayed
in that room for about 5 minutes while Dan went to get things fixed and Sydney
only put her hand in the fireplace twice and got herself stuck while trying to
climb into the tub once. So I called it
a success and we moved to our ‘upgraded room’.
Miles Driven Day 2: 470
States Visited: NC, VA, WV, MD, PA
Day 3
The end was in sight. One way or another we were going to be
at our new place by the end of the day. We left around 9:30 (there was a bit of
a delay in finding a Starbucks before we hit the road and we weren’t about to
hit the road without coffee!), drove up
through Pennsylvania and into New York.
The light rain that we had been driving with finally let up for a while
and we were able to enjoy some leaf-peeping as we drove. We stopped for a late
lunch at the NY/CT border. Turns out
that Dan’s dad worked for an electrical contractor one summer back when he was
in high school or college (so just a couple of years ago, right Larry? :) ) and one of the
projects that he had worked on was this particular rest stop. I must say, the lighting was perfect :)
A little light reading in the car.
It was after this rest stop that Sydney decided that she was
done being in her car seat. As I went to
put her back into her seat she started screaming “no, no, no, no, no”.
After lunch, we took a bit of a detour so that Dan could
visit memory lane. His grandparents had
lived in Middlebury, CT many years ago and Dan hadn’t seen the house in about 20
years (I think). So we hopped off the
highway and drove by. Turns out the
house is for sale, so I’m sure we got somebody’s hopes up as we parked on the
street out front and walked around and peeked in the backyard, all the while,
taking a few pictures. Sorry to the
current home owners, it was a lovely house, but the commute might be a bit
much.
We hit the road again, just in time to catch Hartford’s rush
hour. We crossed into Massachusetts.
(FINALLY) and hit Boston traffic. Plus
it was raining again. It felt like the
closer we got, the longer it was taking. We ended up hopping off the interstate
and taking some back roads.
But we made it.
Sydney and the dogs (and Dan and I) were definitely ready to
be out of the car.
Miles Driven Day 3: 430
States visited: PA, NY, CT, MA
1130 miles and 10 states.
Not sure if I want to do that drive again anytime soon. (ok,
except for maybe Thanksgiving, ‘cause we’re not sure if we’re going to fly or
drive that trip yet. BUT at least we’ll
have 2 drivers to switch off the driving if we do end up driving….)
