Midwest Road Trip Day 9 – The Drive Home

Ah, we’re home.

We loaded the car, and hit the road at 7:20am. We had these grandiose planes to leave by 5am, but we were so tired, but that didn’t seem realistic when we woke up this morning. Even when we woke the kids up at 6:30am, they were so tired, they were teary-eyed. It would have been better to be on the road earlier, but you have to be realistic. Children often get dragged around from place to place, but you have to give them a little slack every once in a while.

We got some gas, drove for about two hours, and we made the Ohio border. I was so drowsy, we made a quick pit stop at a McDonald’s for coffee. Did I mention that I dislike long-distance driving? Gosh, I dislike it greatly.

For the rest of the drive home, we took turns driving through Ohio and Pennsylvania. Ohio wasn’t too bad. Since my my wife is a Waffle House fan, and we didn’t make it to one yet, we mapped and timed our trip to stop for lunch at the Waffle House in Girard, Ohio. Back on the road, we didn’t much traffic until Pennsylvania. In PA, the dreaded road construction began on and off. Most spots weren’t too bad, and we stayed on the highway.

Near central PA, there was a long stretch coming up that we saw was going to be pretty bad? How did we know? Using Num’s navigation app on her HTC Droid Incredible. Excellent, excellent GPS that was invaluable on our road trip. In central PA, this particular traffic patch stretched for miles, and we had no interest in sitting in traffic with two tired kids for who knows how long. We mapped out an alternate local route and skipped almost all of it. Fantastic GPS on that HTC Incredible.

We did pretty well the rest of the drive home. Of course, Lily kept soiling her clothes by spilling drinks on herself, but we kept the stops to the bare minimum. In addition, I drove the last few hours at…. uh, speeds faster than the posted speed limit. By 7:30pm, Lily woke up and let it be known that she had just about enough of sitting in the car, and cried the rest of the way home from just outside NJ to arriving home. There was no more point in stopping again. We just had to get home.

We arrived home at 8:30pm, picked up dinner from a new Peruvian restaurant in the neighborhood, and enjoyed being home again.

It was a great vacation. It wasn’t as relaxing as we thought it would be, due to all the running around from one place to another. Also, I kinda missed my HDTV! However, after all these years, I can finally cross Chicago off my list of places to vacation to. Of course, I’d like to go back with my wife without the kids, but I think we saw enough that it counts. Now I just have Boston MA, Austin TX, New Zealand, etc, still on my list.

So where should we go next? Is it too early to say……. a cruise to the Caribbean?

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