Williamsburg Arrival

Why is the work week prior to a vacation ALWAYS filled with absolute misery? Meetings were scheduled, meetings were canceled, deadlines were missed...chaos. I couldn't be happier that it's over. By the end of the week, I would have rather severed my own head than work another day, and thus, we set out for Williamsburg, by land and by Kia.

We got a late start on Friday, so we found ourselves eating a quick dinner at the Spiceland Family Restaurant in Spiceland, Indiana. If you've never heard of Spiceland, you wouldn't be alone. It's just a bump in the road, but we always try to eat in locally owned places on vacation, so we ventured into what turned out to be a very typical, rural Indiana greasy spoon. I was again reminded that now that we are a tri-racial family, we are instantly noticeable in little places like this, always in a good way thus far. Everyone was very friendly, and Grace only threw a small portion of her food on the tile floor.

We departed Spiceland and headed for Dayton, Ohio. Since it was already dark, we were very aware of how late it was, and we were also very aware that we had a non-refundable reservation (it was free using points, but non-cancel-able anyway) in Beckley, West Virginia. Oy. We made a quick stop at the Root Beer Stande for shakes and root beer, and then began a long evening crossing southern Ohio via U.S. 35.

In the end, we cruised into Beckley around 12:30am. I wasn't in bad shape, but the kids had slept on and off for the prior few hours, leaving them in a weird state. Grant thought it was morning, Grace thought it was the middle of the afternoon. They both fell asleep, but both were up at various points during the night. None of us got a lot of sleep.

This morning we got up, ate Cracker Barrel (so much for my chain restaurant ban), and headed for Williamsburg. It became apparent fairly quickly that nobody in Big Whitey (our beloved minivan) had had enough sleep. If each of us had been handed a pointy stick, I'm pretty sure nobody would have escaped the van alive.

We got checked-in around 4:00pm, went to dinner at Ruby Tuesday (it was quick and close), did some quick grocery shopping, and now we're crashing. Tomorrow is a BIG DAY at Busch Gardens, featuring Lunch with Elmo. Frankly, Tickle Me Elmo's laugh makes me want to introduce his furry little paw to the garbage disposal, but hopefully if I get some sleep, things will go OK. G'night.