Vacation Day Fifteen – Northward Bound

The Dream, back in Port Canaveral

We had googled the best way home and were a bit surprised to see that the computers (and it turns out, Dora the GPS explorer) thought the best way was to stay east of I-75.  Since this way home was a little different for us, we decided to go for it.

 

Dis-embarkation began at 6:30…I think we were off the ship by 6:40 and at the car by 6:50.  No problem in customs, and we were probably on I-95 by 7 am….

Let’s take this state by state:

Florida:  It wasn’t bad at first…..it’s early in the morning and there’s no traffic.  The family is out, asleep, every single one of them.  Stop for breakfast at Chick-fil-A and McDonalds near Daytona Beach and keep heading north.  Never saw downtown Jacksonville, both Google and Dora said to go around.

 

Georgia:  The traffic really picked up here and this state really really sucked.  We were stopped/slowed for about 20 minutes just north of Brunswick as one of the many going-80-now-going-60 left lane slow downs finally resulted in a rear-end collision.

South Carolina:  The I-95 part sucked just as bad as Georgia.  We ended up hopping off on US 21 (you can’t see the label on the map I’ve clipped out, but, it’s where the I95 shield is on the path and it ends up catching I-26 in Orangeburg).  This was a good, but not great, shortcut, I don’t think we gained any time but it was better doing 70 with nobody around instead of 80, then 60, then 80, then 60.   Finally broke through the heavy interstate traffic when we turned north at Columbia onto I-77.  Had lunch in Rock Hill at Jack-in-the-Box.  The family was under the Dad edict of must-make-time-and-miles-go-by and we ate in the car again.

North Carolina and Virginia:  It was neat going through/by Charlotte…I think Suzanne and I both didn’t realize how big the city is.  Should mention that we though the north suburbs (Rock Hill, etc.) were very nice.  Of course, no road trip would be complete without this type of map

This isn’t quite accurate…you need to picture yellow and red where the beige is….because that’s really how it looked.

As the signs for exits towards Melanie’s old stomping grounds show up, two things happen.  One, the topography gets *better*….lots of hills, lots of curves, it’s really a pretty drive.  Two, the weather goes completely south.  We’re driving through the Fancy Gap in the Appalachians and I’m in a cloud, we can’t see more than one hundred feet in front of us, and lightning and heavy rain are all around us.  It’s all good fun!

West Virginia:  The rain ends as we head through a few tunnels.  West Virginia, at least the part south of Charleston, is all hills and holler’s, big curves as you go back and forth in between these huge hills….finally made it to Charleston around 7:30 pm.  We priceline’d some nice rooms and Fric and Frac headed off to swim while pizza was procured for dinner.