Day Eighty-Four- All Truths, No Lies

After talking to Luke last night, our plans changed. We were planning on heading up to Pittsburgh, but, unfortunately, it didn't work out. Kind of a bummer because we would have gone driving today, which turned out to be a much nicer day. Anyway, we decided to head home. After 80+ days on the road, the idea of sleeping in our own beds was so tempting! Before we left, we texted Mom and told her what our "plans" were. We told her that we were going for a drive through West Virginia. Not a lie- we just went a little farther. And longer. But, Mom said she wouldn't bother us today. Aunt Debbie played along with us, and just told us to e-mail her when we got to Connecticut. She also said she wouldn't answer if Mom called her. So, at about 9:00, we headed for home. The drive wasn't too bad. We were on back roads for much of the drive, until we got near Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. From there, we got onto I-84 and it was a straight shot home. There wasn't that much traffic in Pennsylvania or New York, really. I think Mom texted once and asked where we were. We told her we were still on the road (also not a lie), and then left us alone again. It was amazing when we got into Connecticut. Not because we missed it so much but because the amount of traffic increased greatly. People were honking for no reason, etc. Such a friendly place... We stopped at the Danbury rest area, which is actually pretty nice (but apparently they're shutting it down. Makes tons of sense...) At around 7:30, we pulled onto our street and decided to give Mom a call. I started talking to her and couldn't stop laughing. It wasn't even that funny. We kept talking until we pulled in the driveway and knocked on the door. All you could hear was, "Bob, get the door, I'm on the phone!!" Dad didn't sound too happy, but answered it anyway. He was quite shocked to see us, and then Mom was like, "Who's there??" and then she realized it was just us. She wasn't very happy with our "lying", but everything was the truth, but she got over it. The rest of the night was spent talking, which went much better than expected. There weren't too many interrogating questions. Now, it is time to sleep in our own beds!! Hopefully we won't be woken up early tomorrow!!

Day Eighty-Three- The Mountains of West Virginia

We woke up to some rain this morning. It really felt like a fall day today- which is great! Aunt Debbie showed us the many projects she's working on and gave us some tips for our sewing. She also gave us her old one, which found a nice snug place in the car, for the trip home. There's always room in the car!! Uncle George took the day off and we took a drive around town. Our first stop was a tour of Elkins. We saw the post office, courthouse (in the same building) and the college. We also saw where Uncle George works. We continued out of Elkins and into even smaller towns. They tried showing us the windmills, but it was so foggy, we couldn't see them. It turns out that they were right in front of us and we still couldn't see them. Pretty neat, actually. We drove through a few ski areas, including a state park that had a ski lift, etc. in it. We saw Seneca Rocks, which is a set of rocks that just juts out of the landscape. Apparently the Army used it way back when to train troops on how to rock climb. Eventually, we got back to Elkins. It was a long car ride, but it was nice to not have to worry about driving, or at least Robyn didn't have to worry about it. We went out to dinner on Uncle George's "Golden Apple". When we got back to the house, we watched the Forest Festival tape from 1998. We saw Becky laugh at the guy singing. Typical. But we laughed along, too. We watched Project Runway and criticized their work, and Dance Moms, which was absolutely ridiculous, in my opinion... After a long day, it is time for bed.

Day Eighty-Two: Next Stop: Wild, Wonderful West Virginia

Today looked like it was going to be another day in North Carolina (not that it would be a bad thing.) Around 10:00, the mechanic called and said they had to put the tires on, still. Who knew it took so long to put two new tires on?? At 2:00ish, he called again to say that the car was all set. We went to pick it up. They were very friendly- they didn't charge full-price for them fixing it. Luckily, everything worked again! When we got back to the house, we decided to head for West Virginia. We packed up the car and said our good-byes. Our first stop on the road was to get some coffee. There aren't many coffee shops between Raleigh and West Virginia. We put the closest one in our GPS and passed one that was even closer. A little disappointing. We ended up stopping at a Dunkin Donuts on the Duke campus, near their medical center. Wow! One we left the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, there wasn't much to our ride. We went through rural Virginia, back through some areas we already drove through. We crossed into West Virginia before sunset. It was a gorgeous sunset, so at least we had something to look at. It got dark pretty quick, which was kind of scary, driving through the mountains. At about 9:30, we made it to Aunt Debbie & Uncle George's house. Or, at least their town. After getting (and giving) "Hudak directions" (their's is not the road right after the church...), we made it to their house. It was great to see them again. And the cat, Rudy-begga!! He was on his best behavior for us! We spent the night catching up and telling stories.