Off to See America: Traffic and Lightning Bugs

Tuesday morning was a change of pace. For once, Dad and Mom woke us up early –at about 4:45 a.m. -- instead of the other way around. Normally we have to climb into bed with them to get them to rise and shine. They wanted to set out early to beat the Atlanta rush hour traffic as we set out for the next leg of our adventure.

En route to Pennsylvania, our first stop was the Children’s Museum in Charlotte, NC. There was a great water table, where Turner and I would have been happy forever. But there was more to see. Hazel and I took off with Dad and Turner went with Mom to the toddler area. She had to drag him out of there eventually, and they moved on. They passed some realistic, life-sized stuffed bears that Turner really liked while they walked to the aquarium section. They saw lots of fish, jellyfish and an octopus. Turner loves fish, so he was very happy there.

Meanwhile, Dad, Hazel and I found something that took advantage of my excellent jumping skills. I had to jump on a circular platform that made air pressure that pushed a ball up. For most kids, including Hazel, it was challenging. But I got it up to the top, no problem.

We also found a tank where we could pet starfish and a horseshoe crab, and a fun playscape to climb. We crawled through a tunnel and went down slides.

After a couple hours of playing, we had a great lunch before hitting the road again.

The rest of our day was not so great. We hit a bunch of traffic on I-81. We were at a standstill for almost two hours because of an accident, so we made our own party. We rolled down our windows, blasted some fun party music and danced in our seats. A guy in another car with a different kind of loud music looked at us like we were crazy but eventually cracked a smile. 

Eventually we stopped for dinner at Pizza Hut and after hours and hours of driving through Virginia, we flew through West Virginia and Maryland, where there were so many lightning bugs they looked like fireworks, before arriving at Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Pennsylvania at about 10:30 at night. It was a long day, and we were glad we finally made it.

All of us kids were asleep when we got to Grandma and Grandpa’s. Grandpa came out to help unload the car and ended up carrying Hazel in.  She talked to him non-stop, even though she was still half-asleep, until we all went inside and said goodnight.