Vermont Relocation Vacation {11/1-11/2: CT to VA to NC}

On Sunday morning, we woke up, read books, ate breakfast, and had a family sacrament meeting in the living room. Then, we loaded up our stuff again in the back of the ol' sube and waved goodbye to the Farrer fam. What a great time we had with them! Can't wait to do it again without the virus bit.

It warmed the cockles of my heart to see these kiddos
reading all the time!

Our next destination was Ryan and Lea's home near Charlotte, NC. Again, we figured, if we're this close (13 hours away - ha!) we might as well stop, right? Luckily both of Gregg's sibs and their fams on the east coast were willing and welcoming to us as we journeyed through. We drove out of Connecticut, into New York, across the Mario Cuomo Bridge into New Jersey, which happened to be the site of a pro-Trump parade that ended up clogging the entire bridge not long after we passed through! We noticed a handful of vehicles with Trump flags and signs driving slowly with their flashers on and their license plates covered over with tape. A few were pulling over at the end of the bridge as we passed by. It seemed odd at the time, but after hearing about the traffic jam that happened only shortly as we passed through, I was sure glad we left when we did! The bridge was cool, though.

Mario Cuomo Bridge - pretty impressive, I must say!

It started raining somewhere in Pennsylvania. Luckily it also stopped in PA so we could get out before sunset for a quick park visit. We passed through Maryland (took us 11 minutes) and West Virginia (all of 25 minutes) and finally into Virginia all in the dark (thanks time change for that early darkness!). We stayed Sunday night in a town called Staunton near the start of the Blue Ridge Parkway (one of our reasons for taking this more inland route south, but also we didn't really feel like hitting all those big coastal cities of NYC and Philly and Baltimore and DC during a pandemic and two days before the election).

Somewhere in PA. It was pretty soggy.

Frog and Toad kept us company for
a stretch of our drive.

We found a great park in Greencastle, PA to stretch our legs.

And two trains passed by right next to the park while
we were there!

Monday morning (November 2nd) was chilly but clear. We spent a few hours in our hotel doing work and school before hitting the road. (Thank heavens for remote work and K12 online school! It has been the best combo for us!)

Digital nomad life.

We had to drive 17 miles southeast of Staunton to enter the Blue Ridge Parkway at the North Entrance in Rockfish. We were a little disappointed to have missed peak colors on the parkway, but the drive was spectacular nonetheless. The views into the Shenandoah Valley were amazing and I was singing Country Roads the entire time (I still have it in my head as I'm writing up this post!). We pulled over to look at the views but didn't do any hiking or even get out of the car because it was COLD up there on the ridge, windy and 20s. Brrr! And as we got lower in elevation the trees started having a bit more color on their branches, which was lovely. Unfortunately the windy road didn't agree with Sam and he threw up about an hour into our drive. After we got him cleaned up we ditched the parkway (we'll be back someday - I would love to travel the entire thing from Shenandoah National Park to the Great Smokey Mountains!). 

Stuffed to the gills.

We drove south through Lynchburg, VA and arrived in Davidson, NC at Ryan and Lea's around 5 pm. Lea made us a delicious German meal (her favorite!) that I can't remember the name of, but was made with ground beef, onions, tomato paste cooked up into a thick sauce and layered with sauerkraut in a casserole, then topped with cheese and baked and served with potatoes on the side. It was spectacular! She also had a giant stack of library books checked out for the kids waiting on the coffee table in the living room. (She had texted me earlier in the week asking for a list of books we might want to read that she could put on hold for us. So thoughtful!) So we read and ate and went to bed.