Back At It

Day 9--Tennessee, North Carolina

It rained almost the entire night.  Buckets and buckets of rain.  Where the rain didn't seep through the tents the night before, it breached all three of our tents and we had wet sleeping bags.  I laid awake from 2-4 listening to the rain pouring down and praying that it would stop long enough for us to pack everything up in to the top loader.

When it was finally time to get up, I put on yesterday's clothes and took my spot on top of the van.  We loaded it up the best we could with just a few drops of rain.  Whew.  I got the straps to work and Heather and I cinched those as tight as we could.  Maybe not the job the guys did, but close enough.



It was going to be another long day on the road to the Outer Banks, but we had a pit stop planned in Asheville, NC to meet up with Shanon's sister-in-law.  We stopped in a little town that has been totally glitzified for some donuts for breakfast seeing as we ate the bagels the day before. 



We then took a scenic, windy road through the Great Smokies and it was beautiful!  There were a lot of backwoods homes and it was so eye opening.  It was also the spot for our first carsick casualty.  Lila was the victim.  She is typically the one who doesn't do as well in the car on our own trips and I had anxiously been awaiting this to happen.  We caught most of it in a bag and it wasn't terrible.  Once we were on the highway, everyone felt good and we continued to lunch.

We stopped at an outlet mall for lunch and went to the food court.  There was a total of three restaurants to choose from and I choose Chinese.  Asheville probably won't be on the map for their Chinese food any time soon.  We all looked around for a while and then it was time to hit the road again.

We made a beeline across the state to the coast.  I downloaded a book and read the entire thing.  Shanon plugged in her headphones and listened to a book.  Heather did her thing.  The kids were really, really good.  We tried to stop every 2.5-3 hours to go to the bathroom and to stretch our legs.  Our food budget went out the window with the gas stations.  Oh well. You win some. You lose some.

We finally reached our beach house at 10:30!  YAY!  Heather's husband, Brett, and two of their sons were already here.  Wade and Shanon's husband would be flying in tomorrow.  I am ready for a break from the van!


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