After dropping the girls off at the Tampa airport and spending the night in a hotel, Emerson and I got up somewhat early and hit the road. It was strange to be headed north. It was sad to see the “Thanks for Visiting Florida” sign at the Florida/Georgia border. We stopped for lunch at “McDongles” in Valdosta, Georgia.
Emerson fell asleep soon after lunch and missed the 1-hour full stop on I-75 through Atlanta. Apparently, a crash shut down all northbound lanes. It took over an hour to clear the road, fully stopping the flow of traffic. Luckily, we had our stay planned for just north of Atlanta in Kennesaw, Georgia. He loved the hotel. It had a giant version of Connect 4 we played for quite a while. Then we went to 1000 Degrees, a Blaze-styled, create-your-own pizza place. We got word from the girls that they were loving being home. They saw a great sunrise and fell in love again with our house.
In the above picture, Emerson could have chosen to sit anywhere in our room. The couch. The bed. The floor. And he chose my lap. After a full day of sitting in a car, I wanted to stretch out and have some space.
We got up the next morning and had breakfast at the hotel. Another big day of driving awaited us. The plan was to stop somewhere around Nashville for lunch, but Emerson fell asleep. He missed another traffic incident that shut down the interstate. This time, a semi-truck crash lead to both the northbound AND southbound sides being shut down. We came to a full stop for about 45 minutes. They cleared our side of the interstate. As we started moving, we saw southbound traffic being directed to an exit and heard on the radio that a criminal investigation would likely shut down southbound traffic all day. We got lucky!
Emerson woke up somewhere near Metropolis, Illinois, and chose “McdDongles” for lunch again. After the late lunch, we drove for just one more hour to Mount Vernon, Illinois, where we lucked out and got a hotel with an indoor pool to burn off energy. Emerson thought it was hilarious that he could touch the bottom of the pool.
We woke up at 6am Central Time, 7am Eastern – which is a little early, but not crazy early. Had a wonderful breakfast buffet at the hotel. And hit the road with just under 5 hours left to be home. He fell asleep pretty early and stayed asleep until we were 45 minutes away. We were excited to be home. He loved being greeted by our dogs – who were happy to see us after 3+ weeks away.
The first thing Emerson did was to make his bed. He’s a pretty neat kid and likes order. Then, we decompressed a bit before Mommy and Adelaide got home from school.
When they got home, we went over to Grandma Cathy & Grandpa Loren’s house for the kids to open gifts. We never got to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family and Emerson knew there were more gifts for him to open and couldn’t wait. We had a fun night over there and the kids got too many gifts!
So we’re home! We had a wonderful (and safe) trip to Florida and back. We’ve got the bulk of winter ahead of us and need to get back into our “normal” life of school, work, and all of that kind of stuff.