Hi Everyone,
I havent been here in a few weeks, but I wanted to give you all an update on our trip.
We left Saturday morning August 15 at 7:00 AM. Everything went really well, until we hit Virginia around 10:30 AM. As many of you know, 95 in Virginia can be really BUSY! Our XM traffic told us the backup was about 3 exits in northern Virginia, so we figured we would stay on there and put up with it. Well, within an hour, the traffic backup stretched to Richmond. We couldnt believe it we really werent prepared for that. We stopped at wait for it CRACKER BARREL and had lunch, then got back on the road. The GPS detour tried to take us back north. I dont know what I did when I asked for the detour, but that lost us a good 40 minutes. Then we finally got onto Route 1. Well, so did many of us and the wait at each light was around 15 minutes. Needless to say, we didnt get out of Virginia until close to 5 pm. We were in driving hell!
All rest stops were lovely every place we stopped had attendants cleaning up. I can honestly say the rest stop bathrooms were MUCH better than the Disney bathrooms, which on this trip were in HORRENDOUS condition most times.
But, we pressed on and forced our way to Walterboro SC. Checked in to the Quality Inn and Suites, behind the Waffle House around 10:00 pm, so it took us an extra 5 hours.
That brings us to the second ring of hell the hotel. This was an outside corridor but the doors opened to an inner courtyard with a pool. Along with the broken ice machine that soaked the rug in the hallway from the parking lot, there were HUGE moth, spiders and webs everywhere. Like no one ever cleans outside.
The room was actually a nice idea two separate rooms, one living room and one bedroom with two bathrooms. The remote for the TV was missing, the fridge and all the lights were unplugged (I was so scared to reach behind furniture in the dark!!!) and there were unknown dark smears on the walls in the bathroom, on the doorways and randomly throughout the rooms. I wouldnt let anyone change their clothes or take their socks off. We decided sheets would be better than sleeping on top of the beds, kind of slept, then got out of there real quick. I wouldnt wish that hotel on my worst enemy. Breakfast was not very good either. The scrambled eggs ran out around 7:45 and were never refilled. I felt bad for all the people who came to breakfast after us.
The rest of the drive was quick and uneventful. Thankfully the kids were happy to be doing to Disney World so there wasnt too much whining, and the DVD player really came in handy.
We arrived at Fort Wilderness at 2:00 on Sunday and left to come home on Friday 8/29.
The drive home was almost perfect. We stopped in Lumberton at the Comfort Suites overnight, and the room was lovely. Breakfast not so great. Yeah, technically hot, but it was hard-boiled eggs in a steam tray and little sausages in burger buns. Very stern attendant who yelled at my daughter when she dropped a plastic fork and didnt pick it up quickly enough.
Traffic was great, except we hit Washington around 3:00 on Saturday. Usually a good time, except the motorcade for Ted Kennedys funeral was hitting town at that time. We had to detour a little, going through town, which added about 45 minutes, but it was okay. I showed the kids the mall, Washington monument, Smithsonian Institute and Capital Building out the window.
We got home on Saturday around 6 tired but not miserable. Total miles 2,400 EXACTLY (including all the driving around town in Florida). We had no problem with the drive and will do it again in February.
