Wednesday, August 12, 2009

On The Road

So, every once in a while I have a bright idea. The most recent one was that since we were planning to drive the 1000 miles from home to DS#3 in MD, we would take a nap in the afternoon and start our trip at around 6pm. That way we could drive all night, miss rush hour traffic in Atlanta and DC and arrive at a reasonable, visiting, hour the next day. And, unlike some of my other bright ideas, this one worked perfectly.



On Monday we packed the car.









The boxlike structure in the back seat is our travel refrigerator. This is a wonderful invention. We carry canned drinks, fruit, and can store the second half of Subway footlongs to have later. The large bag in the back is my “handwork:” a little hand embroidery project and a large (Alabama Escargot) quilt to finish binding.


Except for one small 22 mile detour to get back on the right highway, the trip went smoothly and was uneventful. We didn’t even encounter any crazy drivers: not bad for 17 hours. I, unfortunately, didn’t think to take pictures of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley as we passed through it: maybe on our way home. And we arrived in good shape (DH was walking a little funny).
DS had taken the day off from work to be here for us and, after a trip to Best Buy, he and DH were busy working on a computer project.
NOTE: All three of my sons are computer whizzes.




While dinner cooked I presented DS and DDIL with their somewhat late wedding gift, now a wedding and new house gift.
This quilt was started in October 2007 for the wedding in March 2008. I had gotten 3 flower blocks done when the fiancé told me her grandmother had commissioned a quilt pro to make a wedding quilt for them. Well, I was STRUGGLING with the appliqué and somewhat overwhelmed with how many I still had to do and the whole project came to a halt: I machine embroidered a table cloth and napkins for them and put this quilt away. Then sometime this past spring I started working on it again. Later I will blog some of the pictures and what it was like but, again, the further along I went the more I loved it.
When it was almost done I did make the decision to machine sew the label into the binding thus ensuring that I gave it away rather than keeping it for myself. LOL


Today, both of our hosts are working so we are resting and will do a little exploring on our own. I have heard there is a great quilt shop not too far away so, with my GPS, I hope to do a little fabric shopping. Yea!!

5 comments:

Wilma Lee said...

Sounds like a really fun trip! I love traveling. Will have to remember about the little fridge. That's a good idea.

Twisted Quilts said...

What a great trip. I love driving through the Shenandoah Valley and the horse country in Northern Virginia. I never thought of car fridge.

Gretchen said...

So glad you got through Atlanta and DC around rush hour traffic. My boyfriend's parents live in MD and that's how we travel too. I love that in one area the Beltway is called the "Mixing Bowl" and is similar to Atlanta's "Spaghetti Junction". Have a great trip and hope you find those quilt shops!

Mary Johnson said...

When the boys were young we lived in Florida and when Keith came along to visit my family in VA we always drove through the night to miss traffic.

When we lived in Atlanta I would leave for VA at 5:30AM to miss it.

Have fun!

Carrie said...

Beautiful job on the applique. I'm sure that will be a quilt to treasure for years to come.

Can't wait to see some pictures from your trip.