Trip Out East

Well, busy couple of months in the Groesser household. Tracy took a trip to DisneyWorld and my Mother came to visit by bus. Disneyworld is best addressed by Tracy but a week before my mother came to visit, I took Ellie and Hayden to see where the bus station was. The side benefit was that we went to the Public Library and got sucked into some community thing that was going on there. That kept the kids occupied for a few hours and then we went to Millennium Park. I’ve never been there so it was interesting for me too. We finally got to see The Bean. Interesting piece of work. It was very cold during my mother’s visit and it took some time to get the busses running after the cold and some storms. She left a few days later than she expected to.

In early January, I took Madsen on a trip out East. I did it to visit a friend of mine as well

as go to three states that I never visited before. I now have only 4 states that I haven’t visited. Maine, Oregon, Alaska and Hawaii are the only remaining ones.

The trip out was uneventful and long. I did finally get to West Virginia and the snow hit. It was rough going until mid Maryland.

You know, the panhandle of Maryland is a lot longer than you would think when your top speed is 40MPH. After a day of visiting with Doug and Marivel, I took off to get to Delaware. We visited the Temple there and then we hit the road again. Flat tire on the Beltway. Oh Joy. After a few hours waiting for a fix at the Firestone, I learned that the wheel was actually punctured. So…off I was on the road with a spare. Delaware was uninspiring. Cool bridge getting there though.

 

The bridge-tunnel across the bay was very cool. http://www.cbbt.com/ I wish I did it during the day though. As it was, it was around 9:30. After crossing, I stopped at a 7-11 for some gas. After filling up, I looked at the map to see what I needed to do to get to North Carolina. As I set the map down, I noticed a very angry woman running at me and stopping in front of my car. “I want my s*** back!” I looked at her with

my hands up and open, wondering what the issue was. After being sworn at for a few moments, I wondered if the gas meter didn’t charge the card, as I noticed that she appeared to be an employee. Another woman was back towards the store with a phone in her hand. “Great, now I’m going to spend the night in jail.” Was my only thought. She started reading off my license plate and then stopped, looking in the car. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” She then ranted on to the other woman and I decided I better just get away from the situation.

After a wonderful 3 hour nap at a Motel 6 in North Carolina, I headed on the road again at about 5am. I traded the car in Charlotte and headed to South Carolina. I finally got to head home around 1pm. Long, long drive back. I-40 was closed by a rock slide and I took a long, winding US 25 through the mountains. Fun road. I did get home around 1am. All told, I drove a very long time. Glad it is done.