South Carolina or Bust!

Our first-ever-escape-the-despair-of-winter vacation

Sing with me: We’re off the to see the Wizard! The wonderful Wizard of Oz!

--Doug and I left Newark Valley at 8:30am on Friday, February 19, with a car packed so full you couldn’t squeeze in another Field and Stream magazine.

--We stopped at Tami’s for a cup of tea and gentle hugs after her recent surgery (Blasted gall bladder)

--We made one more stop at Ryan’s office building to get his TomTom which, we sadly discovered, will not charge in our we’ll-be-forever-grateful-for Honda Civic (an important detail to remember for my Day Two post).

--We tried to sneak past the Dunkin Donuts in Great Bend, but the Silver Bullet lurched to the right and zipped down the exit ramp, refusing to get back on 81S until an iced caramel latte was standing tall in the passenger cup holder.

-- We were counting the minutes--like so many labor pains--to get to our grand-kids, but Doug was belting out “You’ve Gotta Have a Made-Up Mind” with such zeal that he missed the Quakertown exit. Wes then spent a significant amount of time on the phone, tracking our location on the computer, and then telling Doug every right and left turn he needed to make to--finally--get us to Washington Ave., Souderton, PA.

--Soon after our arrival, Doug and I squeezed in the Ehret car along with Kaley, Griffin, and Lincoln and hung out for a couple of hours in a coffee shop at Calvary Church. [Lincoln likes me! He really likes me!]

--Upon our return, Kaley and I grabbed our stash of coupons and headed to CVS, while Doug snored loudly in the guest bedroom. (The boys were also supposed to be snoring, but indications are that it never happened.) Wes stayed in his bedroom doing school work (trying feverishly to make up for the time he lost getting his father-in-law through the winding streets of PA.)

--The Philly Hills arrived at dinner time with arms laden with take-out smelling of garlic and hot peppers. The door was unlocked, but the house was dark and even when they called out, no one responded. Suddenly they heard a distant cry and, for a brief moment, Todd thought, “Did they all go out and leave that baby alone?!”

--With the banging of a few doors, the house came alive, and Kaley and I returned with our CVS-steals (oops, deals). We filled our paper plates from Styrofoam containers of Thai, Chinese and Vietnamese, and topped off the meal with Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup ice cream. [I like ‘cation!]

--The grand-kids invited us downstairs to see a show that they had been preparing for our entertainment pleasure. They told us that it was called “The Relaxing Show,” but as we walked down the stairs, Ethan cautioned us by saying, “Warning—violence is allowed.” [Sidebar: “The Relaxing Show” was a misnomer indeed; more realistically, it should have been Rated R for V.]

--The rest of the evening was spent with our kids helping Doug and me with last-minute details for our two-week adventure. Our kids amaze us with the respect they show us and the way they serve their parents. With the dining room table piled high with cords, instruction manuals, and computer print-outs, Wes and Young-Mee tussled with charging the TomTom and teaching a deer-in-the-headlights mother-in-law how to use it. Todd tangled with the Fandango coupons they gave us for Christmas and figured out how to access them, while Kaley printed out coupons and such things as Jonathan’s condo instructions.