On the road again..

1,200 miles, 19 hours, 4 tanks of gas, 2 bathroom breaks...and at 3:30 AM WE FINALLY MADE IT!!

After setting my alarm to PM, not AM.. I was pretty sure we were in for a loooonnggg day. We pulled out of the driveway, after many goodbyes and hugs, at about 8:15 and headed on our way to Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

Obviously the first thing we did once we got in the car was plugged in the GPS, which calculated us getting to LBV, at about 2 in the morning. We both just looked at each other with hope in our eyes that we could possibly make it all the way in one trip. We had discussed stopping at Greenville NC, where I have family, but that put us 4 hours out of the way.. then we discussed possibly stopping in Savannah, GA where my brothers live, but ultimately decided that we would assess our situation once we got to Savannah.

Zach drove for the first 5.5 hours and then we switched and I took over for about 5 hours. The first hour or so was pretty quite as we had just said goodbye to our families. After that we got to reminiscing about all the memories we had made during the summer with everybody, and how quickly time seemed to go by. All morning we had been listening to the weather and keeping an eye on it, as there was a nasty rain/snow system moving across the entire belt of the east coast. We didn't hit rain until about 3 pm, and even though it was coming down pretty good, we didn't stop. If it was unsafe to keep going we would have but, as I described it, the roads here feel very grippy. I was never worried about driving in the rain. We stopped outside of Raleigh, NC and grabbed a bite to eat at about 6pm, the first time we ate all day besides a granola bar in the morning. After we ate, we rain into some pretty heavy rain. Zach was driving, which I was thankful for. I kept track of the rain and after about an hour or so, the rain subsided and eventually when we got into South Carolina, it was like a desert that hadn't seen rain in months. We switched again, and made it into Savannah at about 11pm. We had both just been laughing so much that I had a wicked case of the hiccups, and we were still in good spirits so we decided to keep going. Jacksonville is only 2 hours away and we would again decide what to do once we got there. Again we decided to keep going. It's now 1am and we are both doing good. At 3:21 am we pulled into our hotel, Sunspree Holiday Inn Express, Lake Buena Vista. After checking in, we both crashed into bed.

After a long drive, I thought we would sleep until easily 12, but at 10am we were both awake. We showered and then went to get some breakfast. Now we hooked up Zach's XBox to the TV in the room and are now watching Finding Nemo...of course! Time to rest up a bit more and then go explore Orlando/our new home. Pictures to come soon!
~Olivia