On the road again...

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….)