Bless Your Heart

Monday May 26th

Today we woke up early and got the condo all cleaned up. We packed up our bags and hit the road for Baltimore. Lisa drove us home through Delaware (such a teeninie state!). I’ve never been to Delaware so it was cool to go to another new place. We stopped at Rehoboth Beach for lunch and a little sight seeing. We had lunch at Louie’s Pizza. It’s another place Lisa has been going for her whole life. I was so excited to finally see all these places I’d heard about for so long. We picked up some caramel popcorn from Dolle’s before getting back in the car. Then we stopped at some great outlets. Delaware doesn’t have any sales tax and these stores were true outlets (not those fake ones that trick you into thinking you’re getting a good deal) so we scored big time. I got CSP a swim suit for the cruise. Michele & Lisa made out really well at the Disney outlet. Then we hit the road again. We picked up cherry limeades from Sonic on the way home. Why there isn’t a Sonic in Baltimore is beyond me. I have 2 within 5 miles of my house and poor Lisie doesn’t have a single one!

(this is a long one, so settle in and I’ll see you after the jump)

We hit soooo much traffic on the way home. It only took us 2-3 hours to get to OC & almost 8 to get back! Crazy! At one point we only drove 10 miles in one hour. It sure did give us time to talk though! While email and the phone are nice, there’s nothing like face time with your girlfriends. Ooh, and we saw black and white cows! Like on tv! The cows we have here are brown. Lisa was convinced all the napping cows were dead. What could have caused a mass cow genocide was beyond me but she was not buying it that maybe they just all decided to take a rest at the same time.

While on the road we made plans to meet up with Pete, Laura, Brandon & Alyssa at Gunning’s restaurant for dinner. And we had…yep, more seafood! We all had cream of crab soup. Yum! I had a crab cake and Michele had more shrimp with Old Bay. She’d never had Old Bay until this trip! While at dinner Brandon told us all about the crazy things he sees as a policeman. They found a man who’d been dead in his house for a while. His dog was trapped in there with him and had eaten his face. Awful.

After dinner we all went back to Lisa’s house. Michele and I had gifts for Alyssa. Michele got her tons of cute clothes and crocheted her a blankie. I made her a growth chart to match her room. We took tons of pictures and got in some good snuggly time with her.

After Laura, Brandon, & the baby went home Lisa, Michele & I got back in the car and Lisa toured us through Baltimore so Michele could see it. It would have been during the day, but for the traffic. We saw all the usual touristy stuff and landmarks and even drove by Charm City Cakes! Then we went home, visited some more and went to bed.

Tuesday May 27th

We woke up and went out to breakfast at Cookie’s, a place Lisa takes me to on every trip up there. This time I tried scrapple. OMG that was like putting a dead raccoon in your mouth. Once I recovered from that culinary trauma we went to the grocery store to pick up Tasty Kakes for CSP. He doesn’t mind if I go on girl trips as long as I bring him home treats! Then we went back to Lisa’s, packed up the car, exchanged sad goodbye’s and hit the road. I missed her before we even hit the highway.

Well, Michele had never been North of Charlotte (on the East coast) and she really wanted to see DC so I planned our route to cut through. By the grace of God and Google Maps we managed to see quite a few of the major DC landmarks- Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Capitol Building, Smithsonian, WW2 Memorial, and a traffic incident involving a pedestrian. He’ll be fine. He was like 5 feet from me when I was being directed through the intersection. We were able to get some pretty good pictures too. By we I mean mostly Michele as I was driving. I think I did pretty well for a quickie 40 mph tour of the Nation’s Capitol.

We got back on 95 and stopped for lunch and shopping at IKEA! Oh IKEA, how I’ve missed thee. Michele was gobsmacked at the Swedish superstore and is already making a wish list for her next trip. We did very well- only spent a little over 2.5 hours and not much money. We packed up our goodies and got back on the highway. It rained cats & dogs on us all the way home, which was fine because we enjoyed such amazing weather the rest of the trip. We finally made it home just past midnight.

Wednesday May 28th

The next morning we woke up and met up with my sister for lunch. <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/heyshanny/2550431328/&#8221; title=”How cute is this little soy sauce dispenser?!? by heyshanny, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3035/2550431328_0650fd903c_m.jpg&#8221; width=”238″ height=”240″ alt=”How cute is this little soy sauce dispenser?!?” /></a> We then made a couple more stops for supplies for Michele’s bus ride home. Then as we were approaching the highway we rode past Lowe’s Motor Speedway so Michele could get some pictures for her Nascar loving husband. I noticed this gate was open so I drove through it.  Then I drove through another gate. And next thing you know I had driven all the way up to the stands! We were right in the middle of the seats & the bathrooms! <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/heyshanny/2549608845/&#8221; title=”Doing some illegal driving at Lowes Motor Speedway! by heyshanny, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2319/2549608845_8f4cfb8052_m.jpg&#8221; width=”240″ height=”180″ alt=”Doing some illegal driving at Lowes Motor Speedway!” /></a>Michele jumped out and took some pics of the speedway <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/heyshanny/2550432184/&#8221; title=”Michele snapping some pics at Lowes Motor Speedway by heyshanny, on Flickr”><img src=”http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3073/2550432184_75cedb7e55_m.jpg&#8221; width=”240″ height=”180″ alt=”Michele snapping some pics at Lowes Motor Speedway” /></a> then this truck started following us. I lost him by the ladies room near turn 2 and we got out of there! I felt like Thelma. Or Louise.

I dropped Michele off at the bus station and went home for a much needed nap! I love a good road trip! You can see all my pics here.