Officially we hit the road. The main goal is to get out of New England ahead of any weather as we can. Ultimately all I really wanted to do is to get through New York. I think anyone who drives anything 60ft long would agree; any time you successfully make it through the NYC area you gain a day of your life back. Leaving the the past holiday two weeks behind us, was not as easy on the girls as one might imagine. Two weeks filled with activities. Days filled with fun for the holidays, sleepovers, dance parties with cousins, presents, elaborate dinners with dessert… etc. Of course this is a little tough on all of us thinking about missing our friends; but the journey ahead is way more exciting than what we just left behind. As you can tell we were going a little stir crazy during the 6 hour drive to our destination of College Park, MD (right outside of D.C.) We’ve stopped there before, on the way down to Florida. We also spent a week there a couple of years ago in our maiden voyage with our Sunset Trail travel trailer. The cost per night there is a bit more than we anticipate paying throughout the country, but it is a campground we know so that saves some anxiety. The girls have some interesting stretching techniques to keep their flexibility in check. Most rest stops have this sort of behavior. An easy pull through site that we can set up and level in just 15 minutes really makes this campground ideal for our overnight stop.
Since we missed the opportunity to connect with Aunt Martha and Uncle Mike on the trip to Florida back in December; we made it a point to find a way to get together this time around. So after parking, setting up and washing up, we hit the road for about 40 minutes to meet them for dinner somewhere in the middle. We settled in on meeting at Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery 7900 Norfolk Ave, Bethesda, MD 20814 . The meals of burgers were fine, but from a brewery perspective is was just mediocre at best. Aunt Martha gave Leighton an awesome sketch pad and of course, she quickly went to work on a pretty impressive pencil drawing. I asked the hostess to take our photo before we left. She was a little out of her league using the Leica but on the 3rd try she got a good picture of us. (Yes Shayla fell asleep in Jen’s arms) First night was a little chilly and had frost covering everything. But we were up early to head into Washington DC to go to church at the National Basilica. We decided last minute to add an extra night to our stay so we could go to church, then come back and relax before another long drive. Why not try out the biggest church we can find? The girls aren’t allowed to touch their American Girl dolls in the church but they wanted photos with them along our journey. This is the first official American Girl travel pics I assume. As per Shayla’s request she asked that I get a photo of the “HUGE” wreath. After mass was over it kinda turns into a tourist attraction and people start flocking in to take photos. We had a nice relaxing afternoon once we returned to the RV. While the girls played on the playground I buckled down and edited some wedding photos until dinner. After Dinner everyone was tired and we all started to prepare our minds for the next day’s trip to Tennessee. All was well until Cole got one of his rear nails stuck in the floor vent. When he lept off of the floor it snapped his nail right off. Blood started gushing everywhere and the more he moved, the more it squirted everywhere. Frantically searching online for an emergency vet hospital, (of course this was a Sunday night); we found one twenty minutes away. The girls grabbed the medicine bag in hopes of finding something to help, but we knew almost instantly this was a trip to the hospital. So much for our relaxing night. We grabbed a sacrificial towel to put on Jen’s lap, carried Cole to the truck, and Jen held him tight so he wouldn’t move for the whole trip. Dog and Cats Veterinary Referral and ER was our destination. Not the most original name I’ve seen but they were open! Cole has a phobia of anyone touching his nails, so I knew right away they were going to have to knock him out to get this taken care of. After about 20 minutes the Vet came out and said, we are going to have to sedate him… lol I know I said. So about 40 minutes later our crazed, drugged pal; wobbled his way over to us in the waiting room. Sporting a bright green wrap and bugged out eyes, we consoled him and paid the $300 vet bill and we were off. I’ll spare you the involuntary bowel movement story; but in the end we were able to get relaxed enough to sleep and head out bright and early for Tennessee. Here are the girls after their schoolwork was completed and the still groggy Cole. We replaced most of the wide open vents in the RV with these more angled ones in hopes that this doesn’t happen again.
Here is map of where we are / have been