Vacation in Bullet Points - Part 1

Since I have a tendency to write and write and write about these kind of things, I decided the fastest way for me to blog about our vacation would be to do it really fast, and in parts. In all, we drove a little over 4,300 miles. I became TOO familiar with the way the passenger seat in the Buick rides, all it's imperfections, and how my "car pillow" doesn't work so well with that seat - it's a bit too big :( The Buick is a very nice car, though, and rides like a breeze.

We started off with a wedding in the Shenandoah Valley. These are the mountains that I grew up looking at every day, and I miss them :(
One of Daniel's college roommates was getting married and Daniel was asked to play his guitar for the music for the outdoor wedding. My 1st cousin once removed played the flute and the guitar and flute together sounded very pretty.

Instead of hotel-ing our way across America, we friended our way :) It wasn't the straightest, most direct route to take, but it wasn't too out of the way, either, and the opportunity to spend a little time with friends and family that we don't see very often was so worth it.

We spent Sunday night and Monday morning with Aaron, a good friend and fellow guitarist :)


Earlier this year Phoebe mentioned that she was going to need to buy canning jars for her first canning season. The wheels in my head started turning. I have waaaay more canning jars that I could ever use at one time... she needs canning jars... she lives almost right in the middle of road we were taking from Alabama to our next stop... We talked about it in the weeks leading up to our vacation, and decided to take the risk that neither of us were phony goons, that we really are real people and who we say we are, and meet!! (And we took her several dozen jars.) I assured her that if she did, indeed, turn out to be some crazy internet stalker/kidnapper, that I would have my big, hulking husband along protecting me! Just as I thought, Phoebe are her family are just normal, everyday human beings. It was so fun to meet my first bloggy friend in real life, and I really appreciate her letting us stop in after such a crazy weekend of theirs. On top of that, she fed us a huge, delicious dinner! It was fun to be able to jump right into conversations with each other like we've known each other for a long time!

Sidenote - that shirt that I'm wearing? My MIL gave it to me a couple days before we left on vacation. It was comfortable and I hadn't worn it before. I had no idea it looked like a balloon on me. I haven't worn it since.

That night we drove a couple more hours and spent the night with Daniel's Aunt & Uncle. Tuesday they took us all over their town, one of the stops was the George Washington Carver National Museum. Daniel's uncle works there, and it was a really cool place to see.

As for the rest of the story, you'll have to wait. Right now I need to go take care of the umpteen things I need to get done today.