Longest Day Ever!

Ok, well, maybe not the longest day ever, but it was certainly a long day on the road coming back from Hilton Head! We started very early, I would say bright and early, but there was not bright. The sun wasn't up and wouldn't be up for a few hours yet. We got out of bed about 4:30 am to try to get on the road by 5 am. It took a bit longer to get the remaining things packed up while being quiet so we didn't wake anyone up, including Gavin. By 5:30 we were on the road home. Gavin even slept the first couple of hours. He was up around 7:15.

We were off to a good start. No traffic, Gavin slept and was in a good mood, we were hopeful to make it home before it was too late and we were enjoying our time together.

The morning went fairly well, we knew we would be eating mostly fast food because we didn't pack and cook for the drive back like we did for our drive down. We decided to look for something other than the typical fast food (burgers and fries) and settled on Subway. It isn't ideal, but it was a good alternative. Luckily we found one. There are not many right off the highway. Things were still looking good after lunch. We hadn't hit any traffic yet, Gavin was doing surprisingly well being cooped up in the family truckster and was even napping pretty well.

We were expecting our drive through South and North Carolina to be fairly smooth and were glad that they were. We were not sure what to expect when we got into Virginia, especially approaching the areas going around Washington DC. That is where we hit the worst (and only) traffic on our way down. We were hopeful that by leaving so early that we would manage to go through at a good time of day and not have to deal with any heavy traffic, but were trying to prepare ourselves with the likely reality that it didn't seem to matter what time of day or day of the week you went through, it was always bad!

As we got closer, we noticed the traffic hadn't picked up yet, but it was clearly congested and often slow/stopped going south. We were trying not to be too happy, just in case we jinxed our good luck! We made sure to get on the HOV lane this time, just in case things got backed up, we were pretty sure the HOV lane would be safe.

When we finally made it past Washington DC, we couldn't believe that we had escaped without sitting in traffic. It had gotten a little heavier, but not much. We were excited and definitely glad we had left early!

After making it through Virginia, the rest of the drive seemed to fly by. Until we got to around Allentown, PA. We hit our yearly rain. It seems like every year we hit some major rain. That slowed us down a little bit, everyone always wants to slam on their brakes whenever they see a rain drop. Once we got through that we were on our way again. We didn't have any other traffic issues, Gavin was in a good mood still and had taken a couple of good naps and we were so close to home that we were sure we would make it there and it shouldn't even be too late.

We decided not to stop somewhere for dinner. We didn't want to spend that much time stopped when we would have only been an hour or two from home by then. We decided it would be better to make it home a little earlier, get Gavin in bed and then figure out what we wanted to do. So I made sure Gavin was fed, entertained and comfortable so he would hopefully fall asleep in the family truckster. Scott and I decided that after we got home and got the family truckster unloaded, we would order and he would run out and pick up dinner from the diner. A much better dinner option than fast food and totally worth waiting until we made it home to eat!

Then we got even luckier. Gavin passed out when we were only about an hour away from home! So we decided that we would just call and order when we were close and would stop to pick up dinner and then head home. Even better than having Scott have to run back out! Gavin slept through us stopping and being transferred to his crib when we got home.

We made it home in about 15 hours! We made excellent time between no traffic and minimal stops! We unloaded, ate dinner and even though I would normally start unpacking, we were too exhausted and went right to bed after. It was so nice to be home in our bed! Getting up at 4:30 and 15 hours on the road was all worth it! It was nice to wake up the next morning and not have to get up early (well, earlier than Gavin at least) and spend the whole day on the road. Instead we were able to relax, hang out together and I was more easily able to get unpacked and organized so that I could get laundry done and put away. I do not typically put that off, but it was even more important this time since I only had a few days before I would be working on packing things up again for Gavin and I to fly to Utah.

A great end to a wonderful vacation!