Friday, August 8, 2008
Patricia had been working on packing during the week and had most everything ready. She had heard about using Space-Saver Bags bags to reduce the amount of luggage required. Remarkably, we were able to get all of our clothing into a medium size suitcase. We took two Pack-n-Plays for the babies to sleep in as most places we contacted indicated that they could only guarantee us one crib. We thought this was very strange so we took matters into our own hands. We actually took less this trip with two more children than we have in the past with one. It may be a function of getting older or maybe we are just getting lazier, I'll call it wiser, but we seem to pack less each time we travel. We used this day to prepare the house for our vacation, Patricia doesn't like coming home to a disorganized house, so we spent the day cleaning, doing laundry, changing water in the fish tank, washing and packing the Expedition. We also found time for me to make it to my appointment with Dr. Wells. Since I would be driving overnight, I took my shower and went to bed at about 8:30 PM. After an exhausting day, it didn’t take me long to fall asleep. I would find out later that our neighbor Judy came over and helped Patricia finish the sweeping and cleaning and I didn’t hear any of it.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
We got everyone up, into the Expedition and left at exactly 12:00 AM on Saturday August 9, 2008. This vacation we are spending it with Patricia's Grandpa Don, Aunt Donna, very good friends of the family Carol Ann and Terry Armbrust and their grandson Reece. We planned this trip earlier this year before Patricia’s Mom, Myrna, passed away. Myrna loved Myrtle Beach and more recently loved to spend time watching Morgan in the pool and on the beach. Myrna knew this would in all likelihood be her last vacation due to complications from Rheumatoid Arthritis. Grandpa and Donna met us at our house and we drove to Wooster, OH to pick up Carol Ann, Terry and Reece. The intension was to drive through the night our girls, Morgan age 4 and our twins, Madison and Mackenzie age 11 months, were sleeping. This theory worked fine until we needed to make our first stop just north of Beckley, West Virginia slightly after 4 AM. Remarkably this was not for gas the Expedition does exactly get the greatest gas mileage in the world. Unfortunately, Morgan and the twins woke up soon after the truck stopped moving. Knowing that the twins would need fed sooner rather than later, we tried to keep going but to no avail, the twins did not fall back to sleep and we need to stop for food. We used the GPS in the Expedition to find the nearest restaurant that served breakfast and found a familiar place, Bob Evans in Wytheville, VA. After breakfast, we started back down I-77 into North Carolina where we would soon find out that the AAA Trip Tick recommendations on routes are not always the best way to go. We ended up traveling on state routes and through some smaller towns in North Carolina and South Carolina and while the scenery was very nice and we were not exactly in a hurry due to a 3 PM check-in time it became evident that the twins had enough of being strapped in the car seats. We ended up stopping to give them a bottle and again for lunch. In the future, we will plan the trip around major highways as the lack of selection on places to stop along the routes AAA sent us made the trip especially difficult. At one point in the southern part of North Carolina and northern part of South Carolina, we drove for well over an hour with very little in sight. Upon arrival in Myrtle Beach and at Beach Colony Resort at exactly 3 PM, we checked in only to find our room had been trashed by the folks that had just left. While we waited the cleaning crew finished and we were finally able to get settled in to our home for the week. We were all pretty exhausted after the 15 hour journey from Ohio and decided to get pizza for dinner. Not much activity the rest of the evening, we scoped out the surroundings and were all in bed early.
Sunday, August 9, 2008