Traveling to South Carolina
We left for South Carolina as soon as school ended yesterday. Luckily, we hit very few spots of traffic and made it to my cousin Carolyn’s house just outside of Washington DC in just 8.5 hours. It was so nice to visit with her and her sons Andrew and Teddy. I can’t get over how big they are both getting! Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay long this morning because we had to get to South Carolina.
After playing with the boys for a bit, and packing some lunch, we started our next leg of the journey. We were pleasantly surprised to find that Ivan, who had left after us and driven through most of the night, was just ahead of us on 81 South. We met up with him at Edelweiss, a German restaurant Kendra’s parents introduced us to a few summers ago. Just a mile or so off the exit for Greenville, Virginia, we feasted on schnitzel and a variety of other German delicacies that brought me back to our trip to Austria last summer.
It rained for most of our trip today as we headed southwest through Virginia, eventually stopping for a moment in Tennessee. I was rather excited, as I have never been to Tennessee before. Ivan and Kendra seemed considerably less impressed. Nevertheless, it was breathtaking to drive through the Appalachian mountains. We even got some phenomenal views of the Blue Ridge Mountains as we entered into North Carolina. As we closed in on the final hour of driving, we continued to trade phone calls with Janet, who was driving with her Dad to Ohio to meet up with family. We had an ongoing game trying to see who could fins the most license plats from other states. On our last call, we’d pulled ahead with 40, but Janet and her Dad have another day of driving tomorrow, so I have a feeling she”ll catch up.
It was so nice to pull in at Laurie and Ellie’s at 6:30pm. We visited for a bit, met Colin’s friends Michelle and Heather, and I finally got to meet our flutist – Martha Kitterman. The whole lot of us decided to head into downtown Greenville to grab dinner. We went to Barley’s, a huge pizzeria/pub with an enormous selection of beer on tap. It was so nice to just sit, chat, and eat food. After filling up nachos and Philly cheese steaks, Kendra and I headed back to her parent’s house for some much needed rest.
Tomorrow is Tonia and Colin’s wedding, so we need to get as much sleep as we can so we won’t be too tired during the whirlwind events of the day!
