The Last 3 Days of the Trip

So here's all that happened since I last had a chance to access the internet:

We left Mammoth Cave on Sunday and headed north to Louisville to hang out with Jordan for a few hours.  It was great catching up with someone I've been friends with since I was a young kid and who I haven't seen in over a year and a half.  We grabbed a bite to eat and got to catch up on everything that's been going since last Christmas.  We would have loved to stay longer but we really needed to put some road behind us, so we moved on toward Athens, Ohio.

Camping in Ohio was by far the worst night we've had on the trip.  We were very tired already and got to where we thought a campsite was just to discover that it was a ranger's station.  We hunted for a place to put our tent for about an hour until we finally located a crappy state park at the end of several miles of goat paths.  The only areas to set up were in a flood plain, but thankfully there wasn't any rain.  It was a moonless night and there were no lights anywhere in the park.  I was shocked when I noticed that even though my eyes had adjusted to the dark that I couldn't see a thing.  We got up and out of there bright and early the next day and enjoyed seeing one of the places Hannah grew up in.  

We parked outside her old apartment buildings and were able to walk right inside because the buildings were undergoing renovation and all the doors were unlocked.  We didn't really think too much about where we parked our car since we managed to park illegally and not get tickets in New Orleans, Houston, San Antonio, Saint Louis and Chicago.  The University of Ohio, though, takes parking seriously, and while we were only gone for about 20 minutes, during a time when most students are back home so parking rules are more slack, we came back to find a $30 ticked on our windshield.  There's not a thing that they can do to oblige us to pay it, so it will most likely go in the scrapbook Hannah will end up making.

(this is a candy shop Hannah remembers going to when she was little)

The New River Gorge in West Virginia was only about two and a half hours away and I really enjoyed seeing the bridge and driving all way down to the river's edge to go swimming.  It wasn't Hannah's favorite since the road down was only about 10 feet wide at most and had many tight switch-backs.  The bridge was huge and is actually 246 feet taller than the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis.  

Our campground was nice simply because we were able to find some showers after going without for 3 days.  This was the first time we'd been back near the Appalachian Mountains since the start of the trip and had forgotten how much dew falls at those higher elevations.  Thankfully this really cooled things down but the rain fly on the tent was a must.  

We got up early again and were very happy to be heading back towards Spartanburg.  We drove 4 hours south toward Archdale and got to spend several hours with Grandma, Grandad, and John.  They fed us lunch and dinner and Hannah and I soundly beat Grandad and John in 3 rounds of Sequence.  To be fair, we were on the ropes for the last game, but we still managed to pull it off.  We really wanted to stay the night and hang around a bit more, but we were just getting too tired.  Their house was our very last stop and it was one of our most fun visits!

The final two and half hours of driving were uneventful.  It was exciting to finally be on a stretch of road that was familiar and that we didn't have to rely on maps or a GPS to figure out where we were going.  Once again, we narrowly avoided a terrific storm and drove into Spartanburg just an hour or two after it passed.  There were plenty of downed limbs and even a few trees fell further down the street (or so 7 on Your Side has told me).  


We walked in the door, noticed happily that my car was still there and our apartment hadn't been broken in to, and went to sleep within a couple of hours.  

All told, we were gone for 21 days, traveled 4,911 miles, visited 17 states, slept in 14 different locations, and went into 5 national parks.  It was an incredible trip and we were amazed at the number of times that the Lord provided for us in terms of places to sleep, avoiding severe weather, and especially when it came to buying baseball tickets.  


Today we've spent plenty of time hanging up our camp gear to air out, unpacking our bags, and doing laundry.  We're mostly recovered from our exhaustion and are eager to get back in the swing of things at home.