Safe and sound on the road

Well, we made it safely to Winchester, VA.  This is our traditional layover point when we drive from Nashville to Philadelphia.  The drive was actually pretty easy today.  My knee was feeling better this morning, thanks to Advil.  And I was surprisingly awake for the drive, which I hadn't expected to be after waking at 3am.  Part of that could have been the huge mug of coffee I had on the road.

As per usual, I did all the driving.  I honestly don't mind it unless I'm so tired or in so much pain that I think it's unsafe for me to be the one behind the wheel.  I particularly love long drives on the Interstate because I can put the cruise control on and just go.  Today, we listened to most of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  We have a little of it to finish before we make it to my in-laws tomorrow, then we have one of the books from the 39 Clues series that we can listen to.  Though I suspect tomorrow will be music after the audio book is finished.  What pleases me most of all with Sorcerer's Stone is the fact that Teddy was enjoying it.  I'm going to try to get the rest of the books out for our trip north this summer.

We made a couple stops along the way - none for very long.  A couple rest areas in both TN and VA, a couple stops for gas... that kind of thing.  The cost of gas is just depressing me, though.  At one of the stations we stopped at, gas was $3.42/gallon.  *eep*  Thankfully, I get pretty decent highway mileage in the van (between 20 and 25 MPG, most of the time).

Teddy was actually feeling ok through most of the trip, but near the end he was feeling pretty punky.  I was just glad that we made it to Winchester before he started feeling pretty bad.  I really like doing most of the driving in one day and only 3 or 4 hours the next.  Resting a bit seemed to help Teddy, though.  And he didn't have the stomach upset that he'd had yesterday.  So I'm seeing this as a positive.

We ended up going out for dinner while we were here.  It was a place we'd visited before when we'd stayed at this particular Red Roof (one of the least expensive places on the drive up, thanks to coupons).  It's an Italian place called Umberto's.  They've got what would be courtyard seating, if it wasn't in a mall.  Kinda nice, and the food is generous and good.  And, thankfully, tonight was "Kids Eat Free" there.  Which helped our bank account by a small amount.

I'm the only one awake at the moment.  Pete was getting particularly rambunctious tonight and Teddy was getting kind of tired.  Since the four of us are sharing a room, it meant the lights had to be off for the whole family.  Rich and the kids are all asleep in the king sized bed (thanks to me not having remembered that the air mattress that we brought for the kids was broken so I never checked it before we left).  I tried to sleep, but it's too quiet in here.  I'm one that normally needs noise to sleep - a TV playing something I'm familiar with, music, audio book... something.  Because without it, my mind works too much and I can't seem to fall off.

So, knowing that the light from the netbook wouldn't wake Rich and the kids, and knowing that I'm probably not going to have a lot of computer time over the next couple of days, I decided to be here until I can fall asleep.  Hoepfully, it won't be too long.  Though, I'm sure another part of my problem is the fact that it's only a bit after 8 back at home, and most nights I'm not asleep until 11 or later.  As long as I get a decent night's sleep, that's all that really matters.  Tomorrow shouldn't be too busy of a day after we get to my in-laws (at least, I don't expect it to be).

I've been trying to take more pictures on this trip.  I have a tendency to forget that I have my camera.  Of course, I don't ever manage to get the really cute shots... my kids are cute for too short of a period of time.  Wait, that's not right.  They're (almost) always cute.  But whatever they do that I want to snap a picture of happens far too quickly.  I'm hoping I'll have a few more opportunities before the trip is over.  We'll just have to see.

I've just downloaded a couple of audio books from the library (gods, I LOVE Overdrive!!!), so I think I'm going to play on Facebook for a few minutes while listening to Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, then go back to bed, turning Pete back around so his head's on the pillow, watch him try to grab at things in his sleep, then snuggle up with my boys and drift off to sleep while continuing to listen to my audio book.

Good night, all, and my Thursday treat you well.