August 2010 Trip!

Plenty of room in the back!

I've actually never been there but my boyfriend has. My skin tone is equivilent to casper the ghost so I tend to avoid beaches, Also, I won't go in the ocean so this is a first beach trip for me! I usually daytrip to the boardwalk for food and games.

dsoup & spaceace- I'll make sure I take lots of HP pictures and let you know about crowds and lines. I'm sure Ill have plenty of time to jot notes down while I'm standing in lines.

Trip just got better! Now we can participate in, "What are you celebrating?" We got engaged tonight! He was going to do it in Disney but the anxiety and waiting was killing him so he did it Disney style instead!

I got to his place and we love alice in wonderland and he had the coffee table all set up. He said it was a surprise since he had been away for work so much all summer and wanted me to be all excited for our two week roadtrip together. I loooooove cupackes. So he had one box that said, "eat me" like in the film and it had a red velvet cupcake, my fave, inside. The next was a glass of milk that of course like the film said, "drink me". So, I did! Last was a box that said, "open me". So I did and inside was...................Stitch! lol Yes, a Stitch doll since I love stitch and made him wear a stitch hat around for me before he even knew who stitch was. And while I marveled at stitch and pulled him out of the box, he was pulling out another box of his own! Of course, I said yes!

At first I really wanted it to be in Disney but retrospect, this was better. Now he won't be anxious on our trip, it won't be in front of thousands of strangers, and it was still disney themed so I can still Disney theme my wedding! lol. So very happy!

I leave in a few short hours! I may not be on and posting until I get back on the 15th but maybe I can score some internet access at some point. Who knows! I'll do my best to fill you in on wwohp, via napoli, and anything else I come across!

I'm back! I got back on Saturday from our two week extravaganza, had my great unlces 95th bday yesterday and spent all day today checking out wedding venues and will do the same tomorrow. I still haven't slept and I'm exhausted! I will hoever find time to start up my trip report this week- I know we are all awaiting HP pictures mostly and I'll fill you in on the ups and downs of wwohp!

Day 1

We left NJ at about 6 AM the first morning. I started the car ride with my vacation ritual that I have had since I was a little kid road tripping to Disney. I would always play Steady As the Beating Drum from Pochahontas out loud in the car before anything else to get the roadtrip started. When I was a kid I thought the chanting was cool and that I was somehow paying homage to the highway gods for safe passage. lol. Now, it's just a tradition!

I was driving the first leg of the trip from NJ to DC. It's about a four hour drive without traffic. But, seriously, who gets through NJ without traffic?! I live ten mins. from NYC and it takes me 45 to an hour to get there. I anticipated the traffic when I started driving and then...it didn't come! The ride from NJ to DC took a swift 3.5 hours. I think the highway gods appreciated my tribute!

At this point we had about 4 hours left to our journey. Lou took over in DC and continued the smooth sailing. And then.....VIRGINIA. Before I begin here you should know that we both have a mutual hatred for this state (sorry!) because no matter what anyone says about NJ traffic, Virginia is the worst. We pretty much parked the car on 95 at this point and sat....and sat.....and rolled a little bit. VIRGINIA! We kept yelling this the whole trip. Luckily we had taken Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows out on book on tape from the Library and it was keeping us calm and focused.

While rolling by at the rapid speed of 2mph Lou found a Panera sign and we decided to exit. We hadn't planned on stopping to eat since our mothers had loaded the car with food in fear that we'd starve but we might as well sit in Panera instead of traffic. We loaded up on some yummy goodness before hopping back on 95. Still a dead stop. We used my GPS to re-route us but in true VIRGINIA fashion, the back roads had traffic as well.

All total it took us about 11 hours to reach Raleigh when it should have been 8. Thanks VIRGINIA.

Tomorrowâ¦.our stay in Charleston!