D.C. Trip ~ Day 2...

Day 2:


We slept until just after 9 a.m.,...which is when we realized the “free breakfast” ended at 9:00. With no coffee breakfast in my system, we hit the road.  Breakfast consisted of a small slice of homemade rosemary bread, a few blackberries and some applesauce – no doubt much healthier fare than if we'd eaten at the hotel.  Now I don't know about you, but I LIKE to have my coffee when I wake up.  I just do, some may call me an addict, but I always shoot back with "it's half decaf!"... :).  However, I am married to a man who needs NOTHING to get going, he does not drink coffee, so he doesn't share my addiction preference.  We needed to fill up shortly after we hit the road, so I quite happily sucked down a Starbucks Iced Mocha Frappuccino (one of those little thingies in the glass bottles you can buy at the store), which to my glee I found did not contain corn syrup (which I try to avoid at all costs).  It was just the little bit of kick I needed to get me going.

Don't go thinkin' that he doesn't have his "desires"...here we are in liquid form...

he is Sweet Tea, I am a Grande Mocha! :)

When we travel we always make a point to find out if there are any Schlotzskys Deli’s on our route, we’ll even go a little off the beaten path to eat at one. We found one in Fayetteville, NC and headed there for lunch. We LOVE us some Schlotzskys!!! So does our son.  We sent him a text, offering to bring him a BBQ Chicken Jalapeno pizza…it might be bit worn out after 5 hours, but I don’t think he’d care at his age.  We didn't hear back from him, and figured he hadn't gotten the message since he was in a meeting that day, so we hit the road.  THEN we got a text back "YES!"...ooops.  No more Schlotzskys were anywhere near us for the remainder of the trip...sorry son.


By 3:00 p.m., we were driving through Dunn, NC, back on the road with happy tummies. We split a  Turkey Original on wheat (no salami or mayo) and a BBQ Chicken Pizza…yum! Snagged a couple of cookies from the bundle I had baked Cris for an after lunch snack.

I always love driving through or visiting North Carolina, it's a beautiful place.  The roadsides at this time of year were covered with wildflowers in pink, purple, bright yellow and white, several different varieties were evident, and they made me smile.  I love to look at things while we drive, my eyes just eat up everything, and I loved seeing all the pretty brick and wooden older buildings that can easily be admired from the interstate through N.C. 

I feel like we’ve been driving for days, I’m sure Mike feels that way even more, since he’s been doing all the driving so far. We did manage to stop at Dicks Sporting Goods and get him some new shoes.  Incidentally, that's the first time we've ever bought shoes there and I didn't like the way it was set up AT ALL, it was confusing. You go to the wall and see the shoe you want, then you have to hunt the store for where they are stored????  Who designed that???  Oh well, happy feet, happy tummies, on the road.


At around 5:00 p.m., My Hero spotted the “little round green sign”…and though it does NOTHING what-so-ever for him, he did suggest I pull off to get a little Java Boost.  A Tall Iced Dark Cherry Mocha was the perfect driving accessory – woo-hoo!


Entering Virginia, (we had the windows rolled down), we began to smell a sweet smelling white flower that was growing along the highway, it reminded me of the boysenberry bush that we had in our backyard in England when I was a little girl.  So, I have determined that Virginia smells like boysenberry blossoms, and campfires.


We finally arrived at our hotel in Laurel, MD around 8:45 p.m. I was pretty anxious to see Cris, and he was close by….in addition to that, we hadn’t had dinner.  We met Cris at Olive Garden.  When he walked in, I felt my little baby boy wrap his big boy arms around me and squeeze me and lift me off the ground...I kissed that face and hugged that boy, I love him so much.

Each time I see Cris, I am reminded of  “our” favorite book – Love You Forever.  "...I think we are in this "chapter" now...

"...That teenager grew. 

He grew and he grew and he grew. 

He grew until he was a grown-up man. 

He left home and got a house across town.

But sometimes on dark nights, the mother got into her car and drove across town.

If all the lights in her son's house were out,

she opened his bedroom window,crawled across the floor,

and looked up over the side of his bed.

If that great big man was really asleep

 she picked him up and rocked him back and forth,

back and forth, back and forth.

And while she rocked him she sang:

I'll love you forever,

I'll like you for always,

As long as I'm living

my baby you'll be."

It doesn't matter how many times I've read that story through my life, I always cry when I do...*sigh*...
At Olive Garden, we each had a bowl of soup, some salad and breadsticks, plus water with lemon. Tomorrow we will spend the day in downtown D.C., ...