Vacation 2013 - Post #1, Travelling

The vacation photo's are finally sorted out thanks to my bride, who to nobody's surprise, has more patience than me.

I decided that since we didn't take a lot of photo's on the drive out East, and to my knowledge, only one on the way home, that I would simply combine them in a post to get things started.

What I'm really saying is that this buys me time to go thru the rest of the photos chronologically so I can continue to do a vacation post every couple of days or so. 

So off we go.

I left work on Thursday, August 8th at my normal time. We had the car packed up and ready to roll.  We still didn't make it out of Pleasant Hill proper until right at 5pm as I wanted to go to the local grocer and get some Iowa micro brews to take to our "host" family once we arrive in Gaithersburg.

So the first night, we drove to Joliet, Illinois and crashed at the first hotel we found. 

Unfortunately for the Aqua Man Robby, we got to Joliet too late for the Chaos Unit to go swimming when we know we have roughly 12 - 13 hours in the car the next day. So off to bed we went.

We drove well into Ohio when it was about lunch time so we decided that we would have lunch on the shores of Lake Eerie.

This is Lake Eerie, where we decided to get off the interstate and have a picnic lunch next to the lake. It was nearly impossible to find a spot along the water's edge that was open to the public. They apparently aren't interested in tourism on the lake.



Another shot of the shore line on the lake.

Note the color of the water...  It's a sort of dirty-clay brown until you get out nearly to the horizon where it changes to a lovely blueish-green.  Not sure if that was of any significance, but right up by the shore line, was a darker colored stuff in the water that almost looked like spilled paint at first glance, or perhaps a small oil spill.

You can see the "spilled paint" behind us in this photo that Robby took of us.  It was some sort of algae bloom that they warned any would-be swimmers about on a sign.  Didn't stop some special folks from getting in the water though.

The varmints hamming it up on the shore of shells.

Once we were back into the car, it felt like we drove for another full 2 days by the time we got to Pennsylvania. Then, crossing Pennsylvania seemed like another 2 days...  It was a LONG day.

This is what happens when little boys have their own cameras and are cramped up in the back of 4 person sedan for 11 - 12 hours.  They take "artsy" photos of their trail mix.  This is Caleb's cup.  How can I tell, you ask?  Because he has eaten nearly all of the peanuts, sunflower seeds and some of the raisins out of the cup and left the m & m's behind.

This is Robby experimenting with his new camera that we got him just prior to vacation.  This is, I believe, somewhere in Pennsylvania, but I could be a state or two off.

And another one, taken out of the car window whilst travelling the fine Eisenhower Interstate System.

So we got into Gettysburg fairly late in the evening on a fairly spooky drive thru some very narrow, curvy back roads without a lot of traffic on them.  It was a sort of uneasy feeling that we seem to come across about once every vacation.

We got to our hotel in Gettysburg and much to the dismay of Aqua Man Robby again, there was an accident in the pool and thus, it was closed until sometime the next day. 

He was not happy.

They did not expand upon what the accident may have been, but since we did not see any type of emergency vehicles or police tape, we guessed the someone expelled something from their body that should have been properly deposited in the public restrooms supplied nearby.

Again, just a guess...





This is on the way home.  It could very well be the only picture we took on the journey home as we "just wanted to be there".  That's Robby under the pillows.

Next up will be Gettysburg...   hopefully in a couple of days or three.