A little thought...

Heheh

"Aidan, why don't you come into the living room with us?" "Oh, is it time for breakfast?"

Priorities...

Cuttthroat Uno at its finest!

Claire was very, very upset that she got 172 points on her last hand... Until we pointed out it still put her 38 points head of grandma. The kids found that hilarious for some reason.

 Dinner tonight was Cracker Barrel - not impressive compared to last night's meal, but still okay enough. The hamburger was a little bland, the pickles were sweet and not sour (dammit!), the waitress was a little flaky... But it was a pleasant meal.

The person stealing my chocolate cake in that picture, if you're curious, is Aidan. My Double Chocolate Fudge Coca-Cola Cake with Premium Vanilla Ice Cream.

And of course while waiting, we ended up drawaing. The cat is my father's; the second bird (in blue) is Aidan's. The dog, turtle, frog, snake, and first bird (in red) are mine.

I was told that my seagull wasn't a real bird, which is why Aidan had to fix it for me. :-)

Does the tooth fairy find you on vacation?

Aidan's first lost tooth! In the pool, when he hit himself in the face with a giant foam pool noodle. Luckily, we didn't lose it, and it's now sitting here with me on the desk...

Wait, that's not lucky. That's vaguely gross. Yeuch.

Lunch today ended up being only about 8 miles from our hotel for the night...

The dog (Bella) is a 1 lb 7 oz toy wire-haired terrier, that two women on their way to Myrtle Beach had with them. We shared a picnic table. They were friendly enough, but just a little weird... Which is fine, I suppose.

Also? Not even nearly enough shade. Get it together, North Carolina! Your visitors don't want to die from the evil burning sun-fire within the first mile past the border!

Well, the first rest stop is quite early today. It's only four and a half hours of driving today and tomorrow, give or take. My parents judge that as about the maximum the kids will survive in the car - probably because they'll be murdered if they get too riled up. At least it makes for restful days.

 I did find a rather large moth near the parking lot. ...Not 100% sure if it was resting or "resting", but, well, there you go.

All set to leave DC. I hate driving in cities...

And you know, it didn't taste like a tree at all!

We had dinner at Cedar, which is a delicious place.

We sat at the Chef's table, and started off with an amouse bouche, possibly because it was my parents' anniversary. The kids got a very tasty fried cheese rice ball of some sort, while the adults got a shrimp-radish-parmesan spoon.

 

IThe bread was excellent. I normally wouldn't have said anything or  but it was warm and crusty and tasty and served with butter and olive oil, and it was definitely a different taste to the olive oil. It tasted, and this sounds dumb to me, more olivey; like it was less processed than I'm used to. Which is entirely possible.

Claire, of course, felt required to test the structural integrity of the cheese from her lobster grilled cheese sandwich...

But my meal continued with a bison carpaccio with ground mustard, a goat cheese "crouton" (sortof more like a fried cheese ball), and cold ratatouille.

The main course was a rabbit sausage and braised rabbit leg with green pea agnolotti and morel mushrooms in a delicious gravy of sorts.

And dessert was (I'm still drooling over this...) a coconut tres leches cake with key lime ice cream.

Over all? Amazing. And very very expensive (upwards of $500 for the 7 of us), but very, very good.

Woohoo, second leg down!

Well, we're here, and here's my parking meter receipt to prove it:

Aidan got his birthday present from my sister, and decided the best possible thing he could do was decorate me. I'm... Uncertain I agree with the high quality of this plan...

Rest areas and truck stops aren't the most exciting places ever...

But we're further along. It's lunch time, more or less.

Incidentally, would *you* trust someone who used Truck Stop bathroom cologne?...

Breakfast...

McDonalds. Very exciting. ...well, not really. But progress.

*yawn*

Well, just about time to go. I'm sure three hours of sleep is enough, right?...