Visiting Children and Driving Home

Staying with our Daughter January 5th

We watched some TV and talked to our youngest daughter and her family on some kind of TV device which hooks up to the phone (we played Jeopardy with Alexa) and then we met our grandson and his fiancee for dinner at BJ's Brew House.

Son and fiancee at BJ's Brew House

When we got back, we had a choice of 3 places we could sleep as no one was home except our daughter. I said I wanted to sleep in the guest room, but the Murphy bed came off the wall when they got it out. Bob fixed it. Then he said he would have to crawl over furniture to get to the bathroom, so he went and slept in our granddaughter's room and I stayed in the guest room.

Sunday January 6th

On the sixth we left our daughters about 11.

Leaving our daughter's house

We were going to drive to St. Augustine and wanted to avoid getting there too early, but I had not actually looked at the mileage so I didn't think it was as far it really was. We stopped to eat at the Cove restaurant at Harbourtown Marina in Fort Pierce at about 1.

Cove restaurant

We each had an appetizer - Bob had half pound (5) peel and eat shrimp for $10 and they were good sized shrimp (the shrimp on the ship were tiny until the last couple of days when they broke out the bigger ones).

Bob's shrimp

I had lobster mac and cheese with asparagus and sun-dried tomatoes ($16) and could not eat all of it.

Lobster mac and cheese

We got to the hotel in St. Augustine

Trans Florida Central Railroad Trail across I-95

after a total of 355 miles a little after 4:30. I had preregistered for room 204 and they switched us to 203 because 204 was not ready and then switched us again to 205. They were dealing with an A/C that did not work (although it was quite cool and A/C was not really needed IMHO), and the door from the parking lot did not work.

Hotel room shades

Bob went out to Burger King and got himself a milkshake and burger and brought back a small salad for me. I tried to eat the leftover lobster mac and cheese but I couldn't eat much of it so I just had the salad.

Monday January 7th

Bob brought me up some eggs, bacon, cranberry juice and a bagel and cream cheese on a foam tray. There was also a banana but I didn't eat that. I just put it in my pocketbook. We left the hotel relatively early (about 8). There was some fog, and then as we approached Jacksonville, there was smoke. Everyone slowed down to look at a car that was on fire in a ditch off I-95.

Car fire

Traffic was slow through Jacksonville.

Jacksonville

Lighthouse sign

Carvana tower

Bob stopped about 10:30 and went to the bathroom and got a milkshake at Burger King.

Bob's milkshake

This was the same place we stopped for lunch on the way south but it was much nicer weather today. We got to SC about 11:30.

Entering SC

Jean our cat sitter called about the thermostat being set down to 60 and we talked to her about how to reset it. I was finished the call but was still looking at the phone when we got to the turn in Walterboro. Bob was so upset by the call that he missed it as he thought that the pipes would freeze if the thermostat was down that low - overlooking completely that the temperature outside wasn't much below 50 even at night and the pipes will not freeze at that temperature. Then when I tried to direct him back to the route he claimed irascibly that he had never been on that road before and that I did not know what I was doing. Then he decided that we would go to BJs and get gas and also go to Walmart and have lunch before we went to our son's. I was trying to get the map in the car to take us to BJ's and was unable to do it and he said he couldn't see that anyway. And then he had to use the bathroom and went to Walmart first. He bought Listerine to replace the bottle (almost empty) that he left at our daughter's. Then we went to BJ's where gas was $1.80.9. We got 44 mpg

Gas prices at BJs

It was now 1:30 so I thought we might go to Newks for lunch.

Newks

I found out it was a pizza, sandwich and salad place, and I asked for a Cobb salad,

Cobb salad

and Bob got a roast beef sandwich.

Newks chips

The salad was way to much for me to eat and Bob also ate only half of his sandwich so we put them in take-out containers.

We went to our son's and I knew the combination but Bob had to help me figure out how to open the door to the apartment which our son rents out on Airbnb sometimes. The apartment is really nice,

Bedroom at son's Airbnb

and the bathroom was right opposite the door which was very convenient for me as I had not used the bathroom on the stops that Bob made.

Bathroom

We talked to our daughter-in-law until our got home, and then they took us out to the Shuckin' Shack Oyster Bar for dinner.

Shuckin' Shack Oyster Bar

Bob had the

Crab ball appetizer

(there were five of them) and I had the

Mini corn dog appetizer

which I thought would also be five, but there were 10 of them.

Our daughter-in-law had a lobster roll

Lobster Roll

and our son had the combination platter. Our son and daughter-in-law said their key lime pie was very good but the lady that made that had left, so I had a

Creme brulee cheesecake

and Bob had the triple chocolate cake.

Sunset on our son's street

After dinner we went back to the house and talked - I showed them some photos of Nassau - especially the aquarium as they are taking an anniversary trip there. And also some photos of Bermuda and the Grandeur of the Seas in advance of the June cruise. We watched the Alabama Clemson game with the sound off.

Tuesday January 8th

This morning we had a lovely breakfast -

Kitchen

Breakfast area

Our daughter-in-law had gotten grapefruit, cranberry juice and oatmeal for us. We took the grapefruit with us as they do not eat them- they were very good. We left about 9.

On I-95

South of the border

We crossed into NC at 11:30 and stopped to use the bathroom at the Welcome Center.

I had meant to pre-register for the hotel in Rocky Mount but I forgot. So I tried to do it from the phone, but Safari kept saying that it wasn't a valid address, so I tried to log on to my Hilton Honors account and it wouldn't take any password that I remembered, so I tried to reset it. After three times around, I managed to get it reset and and registered.

Bob stopped at a Burger King about 12:15 and got a milkshake and asked them for a fork so I could eat my salad from last night. He said they didn't ask him why he needed a fork for a milkshake.

Bob's milkshake and sandwich from Newks

Burger King receipt

We were going to get to the hotel about 2:15 so first we went and got gas - the cheapest I found was $2.07 at a BP station about 6 miles off the interstate. We got back to the hotel about 2:45 and the room was ready. It is a handicapped room with a full roll-in sit-down shower, and an extra sink in the main room.

TV in hotel room

Door to parking lot

The restaurants near here are Cracker Barrel and Outback, and neither one of us wants to eat at either of them, so Bob is eating chips from the machine. He can't find his box of Lactaid pills, but he still has two pills to carry him over until we get home. It turns out that this Hampton Inn serves dinner on Tuesday and Weds so we had dinner here. It was salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, corn, a roll, cookies and lemonade or (I think) wine.

Rocky Mount breakfast-dinner area

Hotel dinner

Cookies

Wednesday January 9th

We left the hotel about nine and stopped in Dalgrin at the Burger King for lunch. Last time, Bob didn't stop on the way home. So we got here about one instead of at noon. Crunch greeted Bob, but when he saw me he ran and hid. The mail was all crammed into the mail box, so I sorted it. Bob has unloaded the car, got the TV back in operation, taken down the Christmas decorations, and done some loads of wash. I started the modem back up. We are more or less back to normal. Bob went to KFC and picked up dinner

Our gas mileage book

After this trip, I was intending to have breast reduction surgery, but I had an infection in my elbow, and then they wanted me to go into the hospital for testing (which the result was "Your heart is as normal as can be"). And then we had our brother-in-law's funeral. (Bob's sister's husband - the last one was my sister's husband) So our next trip was a 60th anniversary cruise with our children to Bermuda