Thursday, November 18, 2010

Where I left off....

I think I left off telling everyone about our unaffordable apartment that we love.  After we decided we wanted this place and signed the lease the world was our oyster.  It took me a second application and lots of white out to complete the application since I hadn't eaten and was done like a turkey on Thanksgiving.  It was really quite embarassing and Andy was no help because he was even worse off than me and he doesn't know my ssn.  It was just easier since at least I knew both of ours for the application. 

We drove to a delicious Greek restaurant that had a Salvadorian section on the menu called Dehlia's.  Did I mention yet that the food choices here are unbelieveable?  We had a great lunch and called back in with the leasing agent before officially leaving town to make sure that everything was on the up and up.  I was a little nervous with the mortgage still on our credit and if other stuff hadn't registered as being paid off yet since the auction that our debt/income ratio would be bad.  We got confirmation that we got the place and hit the road. 

Our general idea was to go south and head to Richmond and go west from there.  It looked like more of a straight shot that way through all of the mountains.  We got stuck in traffic almost instantly and had a sort of head start only because of the carpool lanes for 10 miles of it.  I think it took us 2 hours to go 20 miles, seriously.  We made it through Richmond and then it started getting dark.  Those of you that really know me, know how paranoid I am about driving at night or being a passenger in a car at night.  We were doing great until we were on the 2 lane highways that were up and down and curvy.  All I could think about was huge deer.  About 4 hours into our drive we pulled off at a town called Farmville.  No joke.  We found a sleezy motel and got one of the last rooms since it happened to be a college town (who'd of thunk) and it was homecoming. 


We tried to plan the next day and since Andy bought a book at that fly fishing store a couple of days before, guess what we did?  Found a place to fish or really I should say for him to fish.  After driving on the BlueRidge Parkway for a while and enjoying the scenery, we got to where we were going.  We drove to the cute little town of Buchanan and found where we could camp at the North Creek Recreation Area and did a little hike.  Hiking in VA reminded me of some of the places we would bikeride in Southern Illinois with a lot more up and down.  It was really pretty and there happened to be an Adventure Race of some sort going on.  I had just started hearing about this kind of thing.  They involve 3 events and are usually done in teams from what I can tell.  It was neat to see all these people, some of them families, mountain biking after orienteering their way to their bikes.







Camping was the usual fun except it was cold.  I am such a wimp when it comes to cold.  It got down to 42 and I have a not so insulated bag, so I really wasn't warm until Andy went fishing in the morning and I put myself and my bad inside of Andy's and the sun was out.

We got going that day and went to get directions from anyone that would offer them at the local gas station/Burger King.  I literally got the "you're not from around here are you?"  What do you think goofball that I am and just need to know how to get out of here.  I really wasn't offended because it was a sweet old man that asked me this and gave me great directions that I had to decipher once I got back in front of our map and could makes heads or tails of what words he was saying.  On the way to our next stop, we stopped and ate a cute little restaurant in a small Virginia mountain town.  Ma and Pa's:

We drove north and enjoyed the scenery and decided to stop in another town for the day and fish.  This time we got a hotel room and cleaned up before heading out to fish (I actually just read mostly, while Andy fished).  Andy fished at a spot on the Jackson River called Petticoat Junction!  The town we stayed at this night was Covington, Va and boy the town was stinky. I don't know if it was just where our hotel was, but it stunk.  I have a feeling there was a paper processing plant around. 








From Covington, we decided we should probably get back to our kids and we drove the rest of the 6 hours to Indiana and were grateful that they were in such good hands while we were gone.  During this part of the drive, Andy managed to rip the handle off the drivers side back sliding door, which has yet to get fixed.  The kids were happy to see us and we had a great time staying and visiting in Indiana for a few more days.  It was nice to not drive anywhere.  Next time:  Chicago.

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