Vacation!!! (last week)

Yesterday we returned from a week at the beach in North Carolina. In typical fashion, here we are loading the car for the trip home. Note that the Thule box is empty. Kudos to Janine, that's her pink rolling bag in there first.

It was a long drive, and everyone was very helpful. Every year Bobbie reads a young persons' book to pass the time in the car (and keep Dad from falling asleep at the wheel). This year's book was the Teetoncey Outer Banks trilogy by Theodore Taylor. Each book is about 125 pages, so it was just about the right length. All three move pretty fast telling the tale of a young boy coming of age on the Outer Banks in 1899. Raised by a widowed mother, one night he helps the Heron Point life saving crew with a shipwreck. The sole survivor is a young girl in a state of catatonia after loosing her parents as the ship is dashed on the shoals. The boy and his mother take care of the girl and become attached to her.

It may not be Tolstoy, but it helped keep me going for 12 hours yesterday through North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland (at it narrowest point), back into Pennsylvania. Bobbie even was reading by flashlight on the s-curves in the PA Turnpike just east of the Allegheny tunnel. I know my wife loves me when she does that.