DC Bound!

Millennial Choirs and Orchestras is going on tour. Participants from all 5 locations are gathering in Washington DC to perform a concert and record an album!  The girls and I are thrilled to participate in that.  And we've decided to turn it into our summer vacation trip.  2 weeks total--this should be fun! 

We had a bit of an eventful time getting on the road.  Stephen had already more permanently fixed the bumper, changed the oil and air filter.  We'd had the tires rotated and balanced.  I thought the van was in good shape for a cross country trip.  But the morning we were scheduled to leave Stephen informed me he also wanted to change the spark plugs.  It was supposed to just take an hour.  But it didn't.  After changing them at first the car wouldn't start.  But then it did.  On the road.

Almost an hour down the road, Stephen realized he didn't pack his laptop which he might need for work reasons.  So we turned back to get it and ended up having lunch at home.  Not before checking the back of the van and ultimately leaving Matthew's Nerf football toy on the side of the road.

So on the road again.  Somewhere in about Sulphur Springs a really bored police officer decided to pull Stephen over for going only about 5 miles over the speed limit.  He wasn't so pleased with me taking this picture.  But he didn't get a ticket, just a "warning".  It was ridiculous.

At some point we stopped for a bathroom break and when we tried to start the van it kind of coughed to a start.  That made us nervous.  So when we stopped for dinner we'd deduced that the battery needed to be replaced.  So Stephen dropped us off at Burger King and went across the street to Wal Mart and got the battery replaced.  From that point on the van worked awesome.  Whew!

We got as far as Dublin, Virginia the first day.  Not as far as we wanted but considering our late start it was good.  We found a wonderful place to go to church about an hour down the road and it was great.

We took a bit of a detour to take a scenic route and see some of the infamous Blue Ridge Parkway.  To drive the whole thing it takes hours and hours but we hopped on and drove about 3 hours of it.  You have to go really slow and it IS beautiful.  But when we got off we were ready to be off.