Mommy's Memories: Washington DC bound!

Wednesday, July 23

We are on our way to Washington, DC! Our new little car surprisingly has enough room to take the four of us camping. We have reservations at a KOA campground in Maryland, and we rented a 1-room cabin, so we didn’t need to bring a tent or beds, just sleeping bags, a sheet and pillows. We unrolled our sleeping bags and sat on them to save space. That helped Morgan when we had the windows open and she got, um, cold?! She just wrapped up in her sleeping bag! We also didn’t bring any food along, thinking we would buy it when we get here. That way, we could use the cooler for storage. And since we’ll be traveling for a week and a half, and I will have Masters work to do, I decided to spend a day midway through and just study and do laundry. So that meant we didn’t need to bring so many clothes. Trim where you can, I say! Of course, we brought the ESSENTIALS: two laptops, three Nintendo DS’s, and five cameras between us!

During our trip, my family was planning to have a “welcome to the world” shower for Heidi, Darren, & Janelle, and a birthday get-together for my three July-birthday sisters. I really hate that I’m going to miss it, but we needed this vacation. So we also packed our shower gifts, birthday cards, some lotions I had cleaned out of our closet, and some baby clothes we found at a garage sale. Poor Morgan had to ride to Columbus with a Diaper Genie on her lap!

As we filled up the gas tank before we left town, Bob asked me if we had done the 1,000-mile checkup on the car (we had just turned over 1,000 miles on it over the weekend). Of course, I had not, and since we were coming through Columbus anyway, I called to make a quickie appointment at Buckeye Nissan. We were in and out of there in about 45 minutes, and then went up to Heidi’s to drop off the gifts, etc. Heidi & Janelle had left to go to Marion, so Darren filled us in on the latest on Eva.

It’s possible she’ll be released today (yay!), but lots more tests are in store for her. I know Dad needs our prayers. Darren said he woke Erica up at 6:00 to get ready to go back to the hospital. I’m sure that means he didn’t sleep at all. This has been so sudden, it just makes you realize how fragile life really is, and we never know when the Lord will call us home.

Back on the road, this time for the long haul!, at 1:30. After hopping back onto I-70 and stopping for gas and lunch just inside Ohio, we crossed the Ohio River into the upper arm of West Virginia. Shortly thereafter, we then crossed into Pennsylvania. We were in PA for a short time, too, before we crossed back into the main part of West Virginia. That took a little while longer. Finally, we crossed into Maryland, where we stopped at a beautiful overlook rest area for a bathroom and stretch-the-legs break. After another couple of hours of driving, we stopped for gas ($4.08/gal.! – it was around $3.77 when we left!).

I called for an update on Eva, and talked to Erica. She said everybody was home, and she was resting. They will be visiting several doctors in the near future, including very possibly the James Cancer Research Center at Ohio State. I asked if they thought there was a possibility of the tumors being cancerous, and she said they were “being prepared for that possibility.” Prayers will definitely be needed in the next few months.

We finally reached the campground at 9:30, after driving through a horrific thunderstorm. It rained so hard at one point I couldn’t see in front of the car at all! But since I wasn’t driving, I just had to hope for the best.

My first impression of this campground is that it’s very nice. The man at the desk was very helpful and pleasant, and the cabin is nice. At first, I was worried about how far away the restroom is (there’s only one restroom building for the whole campground), but it turns out it’s not that far at all. One thing, though, the whole campground is supposed to have free Wi-fi, but the signal is extremely slow and weak in our cabin. This is important since I will have a couple of papers to write and other assignments due while I’m here. I’ll have to see if the signal is better in the laundry area.

Here are some pictures by Morgan (I didn’t break out either of my cameras during the ride). Something is up with her camera and it isn’t focusing very well, so they’re a little blurry, but you get the picture (literally – ha!)

Aidan, all packed in! No, we didn’t pack everything under the sun, this was his choice to sit like this!