So I’ve had quite a number of family friends ask me, “didn’t you go on enough vacations this year?”. I did, but I’m trying to do this thing where I say yes more than no when good opportunities comes along.
Two weeks ago, a friend asked if I wanted to go on a road trip to North Carolina. Her aunt has a summer house that had a week free between being rented out and my friend wanted to reserve it for that week. I don’t have an excuse to really go south, so here was an excuse and opportunity. This year has been trip-tastic, so I figured why not go out with a bang and end it off with a rando road trip to the Old North State.
The total occupants for the trip: four. Our plan was to leave this past Tuesday, and as I always thought that it was just me having bad luck, turns out Mercury was at it again. Remember how my flight to Greece went all horribly awry? Well this wasn’t so awful as it was interesting and amusing.
The plan was to drive down, which meant renting a car, which meant we should have started our day early. Instead the day started pretty late, and there were complications with our rental appointment and the car and the paperwork and this and that. The day started six hours later than planned, which meant schlepping through traffic and possibly arriving pretty late into the night.
We just went with the flow even though we knew the trek would be pretty long. The supposed eight hours turned into almost fourteen hours with all the stops and adjustments we had to make.
Along the way we learned that New Jersey is actually really big, Delaware is really small, and Baltimore could have so much potential to be a great city if people actually cared to build it back up.
Baltimore was what really changed our trip. The original plan was to stop in Richmond, VA for dinner but because it was still three hours away and we were getting hangry near Baltimore, we decided to stop there for food. We all ate vegan meals which we were surprised to find in Baltimore. After leaving the restaurant, we came across a meowing near where we parked – the tiniest and friendliest kitten surfaced. Clearly it was alone, most likely abandoned. We couldn’t leave it behind so we decided to bring it along. Being that it was late at night, we couldn’t find a shelter or any place open around the area, so we drove and drove. We made it to southern Virginia where we stopped to pick up some cat supplies to make the overnight cat sleepover easy until we found a shelter in the morning. Poor thing was so hungry, and definitely infected and sick.
After the cat supply stop, we went five hours straight, no stopping, late late at night, to our destination. The E Street satellite radio station was on the whole five hours, with no repeated songs which isn’t too much a surprise. We arrived at five AM. We quickly emptied the car, settled in, set up the cat space, and went to bed. Woke up before noon, came up with a plan for the day, and brought the kitten to a shelter. We were quick and productive. At least, we really tried to be.
The trip was definitely a lot more amusing and neurotic than my summary, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
We’ll be in this North Carolina house until Saturday, with the rental car agreement until Tuesday, so we’ll most likely be trekking across this state or just somewhere that isn’t home. There’s been some talk of what to do and where to go after we have to leave, and I’m really excited to visit places I just have no rhyme or reason to ever visit – unless my reason is “just because”. Whatever the case is, I’d say this is a cool way to end my year of trips. I’m growing more and more fond of spontaneity. Don’t we have the right and ability to make our lives interesting?
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