I can't believe it's over but here's our final installment for this years trip.
Saturday
After arriving in Savannah we were expecting a straight drive home. Looking at the weather for the next 2 days in America it looks clear, warm and sunny for 95% of our driving time. Great driving conditions. Some rain is expected during the evening however we're either going to be long past where it hits or shouldn't have too long a drive in it before stopping for the night.
8am rolls around and we already know we don't like the breakfast here at this hotel so off we go to find Mickey D's before heading out to the interstate highway. Since our stop in Canonsburg PA is further then we thought, we decide to get our breakfast in the drive through and keep going. We have a great set up for Cassie with a collapsible table that when she's not using as an eating table she can use to draw on, look at a book or bang into the back of my seat
It doesn't take long to get on the highway and get the cruise control flipped on to make driving more comfortable for me (I say for me because of my motion sickness I can't sit in the passenger side for much more then 15 -20 minutes before needing to get back in the drivers seat so I do most if not all of the driving on all our holidays).
Normally a day of driving is not really note worthy but today is different.
We stop for lunch around 1pm at Sonny's which I had never been to before and was pleasantly surprised. Cassie decides to through caution to the wind with her order of............ Grilled Cheese. At least she got a corn on the cob to go with it. Being disappointed in Savannah with Southern BBQ I wasn't sure how this would go but i chose the BBQ ribs with corn bread and a baked sweet potato for my lunch and Patrick opted for the BBQ pulled pork and chicken combo with corn bread, mac and cheese side and bean side. The amount of food that came could have fed a family of at least 5. It was very good and is a place we would stop in at again.
and my lunch time entertainment of silly faces
After lunch we were off and running again. And with no plans of stopping for dinner we should make it in to Canonsburg around 9pm. A long day of driving but we knew that today would be our longest day of driving because we wanted to get through the mountains in the day light and pop out on the other side just as evening was descending. This was unfortunately not going to happen.
Traffic started slowing down around 4pm, which was unusual, at least for us. All the times we've driven down to Florida we've always done it on the weekend and never had any problems on the interstates. By the time 5pm rolled around and we were only travelling about 10 miles an hour we were starting to look for options. The GPS was now saying that we should arrive at our hotel around 10pm but looking forward and seeing the miles and miles of cars lined up in front of us that didn't look very likely. I decided to change the setting for the GPS from "fastest" to "most direct". If we got off I77 and took the more scenic route it would get us in around 10.45. Now the debate. What to do. Stay on I77 and hope that the miles of stop and start traffic clears soon and we're on the road again or get off and go on the slower speed wise but more direct route. Too late, we miss the exit but the option is still there if we get off at the next exit 5 miles down the road. It gives us a chance to see how slow this traffic is moving and pick a route.
When it takes more then 30 minutes to get to the next exit we decide to get off. 11.30 is not our target time. This turns out to be a HUGE mistake. Never EVER get off a major interstate highway for a local one.
As beautiful and scenic as they daylight driving was turned into a nightmare pretty fast when the sun went down. Oh and GPS doesn't know when a connector road has been closed and is now a private road with a sign that says "Trespassers will be shot then questioned"
As Canadians with a 4 year old that scared the crap out of us and we quickly turned around and high tailed it out of there.
After finding the highway again we were winding our way through the mountains until all of a sudden from behind me a little voice says "mummy i don't feel well". Oh honey I know. We're in the middle of no where winding our way through the mountain, when we can we'll stop for a stretch. Not soon enough and she throws up. Faster then you can say STOP we did. 15 minutes to clean up Cassie, the seat and the floor and off we go again. Poor child. Not sick from the twisting and turning but I think a bug invaded her little tummy.
It's not long before Cassie is sleeping and it's a good thing. As night falls, the vast darkness becomes apparent. Even with the headlights on it's frightening thinking about just where we are. To add insult to injury the heavens opened up and the rain that we knew we would either miss all together or just hit the tail end came. Eventually, and after hours of being alone on the road, signs of life could be seen in the rear view mirror as 2 cars come into site and then pass us. As long as i can see their little red tail lights I'll be happy because it will give us an indication of the way the road is twisting. Every once and a while someone in the other direction would come screaming passed (gotta love the local drivers) and blind us with their bright lights then vanish again in the rear view mirror just as fast.
Eventually the rain stopped and we all stopped for gas. I thanked what turned out to be a couple of families travelling together for helping me navigate the roads even though they didn't know it. The families stayed behind as we left and hopped our drive along this twisty road wouldn't be much longer.
Ahhhh what's that ahead??? A little town. Ohhh and a police man. And hundreds..... no thousands of cars coming at us in the opposite direction. What on earth is going on here. Oh don't tell me the highway is closed. Nope, Apparently there was some celebration going on in the town we just passed through though we never saw anything and all these cars are heading right for it. Fine by me as long as it's "THAT" way and not our way.
When we finally wind our way to the highway we are very glad we are heading out of town and not into it. The line up of cars to get off at that exit literally numbered in the hundreds and the amount of headlights we could see heading off on the side we were on must have been the same. We never did find out what was going on but I bet it was amazing.
Now off the 2 lane windy road and onto an actual 6 lane highway with cars and people I'm starting to feel better about driving through the mountain. A few more hours driving and I'm exhausted so even though I almost never do it I ask Patrick to take over. It's now 12.00am and it's pretty straight driving. I just need to close my burning eyes for half an hour. It wasn't long before I was sound asleep and dreaming of a nice warm bed. Turns out we were not too far from our hotel in Canonsburg and in a little less then an hour we were pulling up the very long driveway of the Homewood Suites. While you could see the hotel (in daylight) from the Interstate it is a bit off the road. Infact it took over 10 minutes to actually find our way to it once we left I79
We really liked this hotel. It's very family friendly and each room is like an apartment. Our room was very spacious and in a beach location or in a down town city location it would be a great place to stay for a few days but since Canonsburge is a drive thou city for us we don't see it being more then a first night stop if we got a jump on our trip and left late one day instead of early the next morning. It is only 6 hours from home and that includes the wait at the boarder.
Since we were only 6 hours from home a nice sleep in was in order. With a 9.30 wake up call ( just enough time for breakfast) and less then 30 minutes after we pulled up the driveway and we were in our room and fast asleep. It doesn't take long for 3 exhausted travellers to go down.
Sunday.
Of course sleeping in depends on the person. While Patrick and I would have liked nothing more then to be woken up with a telephone call telling us it was 9.30 and this was our wake up call, Cassandra had other plans. 7.30 and she's up and looking for the tv remote. It doesn't take long for her to find it and figure out what button turns on the TV and up the volume. What's the saying? oh ya. "I'll sleep when I'm dead".
Now that we're up we might as well shower, dress and head down for breakfast. When we were finished we headed back up to collect our things and head out for the final leg of the trip home.
On our way home we stopped into the Deny's off the I95 in Angola NY. A great place for us to stop as it's about 2.5 hours from home. Plenty of time to get out, stretch, have a bit to eat and relax knowing we're almost home.
Here's a few pics from our stop
Thank god today was pretty uneventful and we arrived home just about dinner time like we had expected.
A very hot, tiring, packed and eventful trip but looking back......... totally worth it.
Weeks later and Cassandra will mention some part of the trip be it something we did in Disney or one of the other cities we visited.
Lessons learned. While eventful trips may be hard on the patients they are the ones that are remembered.
Hope you enjoyed our Quebec and Disney trip report. See you in our next one
Karen
