On the Road Again

About a year ago, my best friend and her sister came for a visit, and we took them to Jamestown. Before we went, Mama read aloud from "The Light and the Glory" some of the experiences those first settlers had. And, after telling of some of the hardships that they experienced, it shared how things got slightly better... and then continued, "BUT, Virginia was still Virginia." I'm not kidding, Mama had to have laughed at that for three minutes solid. Who am I kidding, she still laughs at that. Just not continuously. Haha :). While VA is beautiful, the weather is nicer than here, and the friends we made were a blessing, things usually didn't go well whenever we tried to do anything VA-specific. For instance; both times we went to Jamestown, our car broken down (thankfully easily fixed-but still, it did), and you can never seem to get where you want to go from where you are. Mama's favorite story, though, I think, is how, when those friends came down again with their family a couple months ago... both welcome centers were closed. Lol.

So, our last day in VA, Mama had planned to pick up some Chick-fil-a and have a picnic, and then visit Hollywood cemetery. We were supposed to have plenty of time, but everything took longer than expected. We had to pick something up from CVS; but every one we found, of course, you couldn't get to from our route. Daddy finally found one, and we headed on to find a ckick-fil-a. The nearest one was past Bryant park, and it was so late, Mama decided that we should probably just eat in the car on the way to the cemetery. And then the GPS said "Arrived". And we couldn't find a Chick-fil-a.

And at that, Mama sighed, laughed, and announced, "It's true to the very end. Virginia... is still Virginia!!!" We did eventually find Chick-fil-a (a teeny tiny one). And we did have a good lunch. And we did get to the cemetery. So it wasn't a complete disaster, lol!

Tori wanted to know why it was called Hollywood cemetery, and nobody could quite answer. Mama read the pamphlet Daddy had picked up, and was relieved to find out that it was because there had been a lot of holly wood trees when it was opened. "That makes it so much sweeter," she said.

We walked for the first little bit, as Mama figured everyone would be sitting enough later on. But, lets just say that the little boys are not big on the whole idea of "walking". And are heavy. And Josiah had been cranky for about two months at this point (the boy needs his naps, and I think too many changes happened a once! I'm so glad that he seems to have become himself again over the past month!). And then, I shifted Josiah's position while I was carrying him. And it made him so upset! So I put him down, and told him he could walk until he would let me carry him nicely again. But he wouldn't walk, and so Daddy took him, and told him as soon as he walked he would pick him up. And I have not seen anything like Josiah's "pleas for mercy" before, haha! Where a two year old gets the idea to kneel down, clasp his hands, and wail for what he wants, I'm not sure, but get it and execute it he did, and it was priceless, haha. But he finally saw it wasn't working, and just got up. When he's done with something, he's done, there never has been any unwinding for him, haha! Daddy went back for the car, and I tried to figure out the map to meet him (which was pretty humorous in itself for a while), and we just drove the rest of the way, haha.

After we left, everybody was tired and hot, and we stopped to pick up some milkshakes and coffee, and Daddy made reservations for our hotel. This was easier said then done, because it seemed that all of the hotels were booked, and his ipad was running low on battery. The drive was actually really nice down. We listened to our customary cd which we were able to find in between the house hunting trip and when everything was packed up ("Bob and Larry's "On the Road Again") and ate our traditional Twizzlers, and spent like an hour looking for our usual road-trip Arby's ("per Andrew's request"- he's as big a tradition lover as Mama and I!). Daddy finally decided that if he didn't pull over and get something now, everything would be closed before we found one, so he decided we'd just have to grab something else. And the next exit just happened to have an Arby's, haha :).

We finally got to SC, and Daddy pulled into a hotel parking lot. It wasn't ours, but nobody could remember where he had found rooms at, so he took his ipad in and plugged it in long enough to turn it on and find out where we were headed. We got into our room, and it was actually really nice! It had a kitchenette, and a full fridge, which was nice with all the food we had had to bring ourselves! Josiah was so funny, he LOVED the picture of tomatoes on the wall above the kitchen sink- "Bisketti!!!" (spaghetti) he pointed out to everyone :).