The last leg

In conclusion...

We left New Orleans early on April 11th. After driving for awhile we were needing a break and coming up on a Bass Pro Shop. My friend Joe from Clovis had told me about how cool Bass Pro Shops are, so we stopped there and had such a good time! If you've never been to one I would highly recommend you check it out, so fun and cute! Who'da thunk?!

Awesome boat! Our next big purchase! ;)

We meandered kinda slowly most of that day and got to Seagrove Beach, Florida around 6:00, just late enough for some of the cute shops to be closed. :(

But we were able to get a cute magnet and some pictures before the sun went down.

(In case your wondering why we stopped there, Seagrove is my maiden name)

We thought this sign was wicked awesome!

Amy lived in Florida when she worked at Disney World so she had been telling us all about the Atlantic Ocean and how the warm water feels like bath water, really getting us excited to go to the beach. So we stop, the kids run out to the water only to run back and tell us how cold it was! "Oopsie" Amy said. "I guess this the Gulf of Mexico, not the Atlantic Ocean." Hee, hee.

When Amy told our dad about the route we would be taking he had 2 requests for us. He asked that we eat at a Krystal Burger and a Waffle House. I think Amy must have the Waffle House pics, but here we are dutifully eating our Krystal Burger, which was actually pretty good.         So here ya go dad.

Anyways, we stayed that night in Panama Beach, Florida. The Easter Bunny somehow found his way to us and, among other things, left Addie a sugar-free chocolate bunny that Auntie Amy so wanted to let her have at! Mean mama vetoed that one and after Auntie left Alexis and Christian ate it. 

By that point in our trip we were pretty tired of traveling, still having fun seeing new things, just tired from the work of traveling with 3 kids and lots and lots of stuff. It seemed like even though we tried to leave early each morning, our mornings kept getting progressively later... which meant we were going progressively shorter distances... but man it was a long trip!

The kids still wanted to frolic and play in this "warm bath water ocean" Amy had told us about, so we stopped at another Florida beach to let them play. A storm was a-brewin though and it was kinda cold and windy. Don't worry though, that didn't stop Alexis and Christian. And the water, though noticeably warmer than Pacific Ocean water, was most decidedly not warm. Amy still claims that during the summer the water is warm, I just don't know if I can believe her anymore. ;)

So. Cold. 

That night, even though we'd only driven a few hours, we were sooo pooped! So we stopped just over the Florida-Georgia border. The next day we headed up to Savannah. So darn cute! Every block (or every few blocks, I don't remember) there are these cute squares, little parks with benches, statues, gorgeous trees and flowers, very neat!

Even though Amy and I would both like to go back to Savannah, there wasn't anything we really desperately wanted to do while we were there, just because we were all so tired, things were expensive, and it was rainy. But definitely a cool city to go back and explore at another time. And with more money. 

Anyways, at the visitor center where we parked they had their own "Whistle Stop Cafe" that serves their very own Fried Green Tomatoes and the "best Peach Cobbler you'll ever eat!" according to the gift-shop girl. We walked around all afternoon, dodged some rain, and finally decided we were ready to get going, so we started walking towards the car and the Fried Green Tomatoes - a girls gotta have priorities!

Anyways, as we were walking we heard this loud siren going off. "Just a tornado warning test,"I assured the group. They did it every Wednesday in Clovis, I know all about that. But after a few seconds it didn't stop like it did in Clovis. Hmmmm, no one else looked panicky so we just kept on walking. Yeah, as soon as we got to the visitors center they were boarding up their windows and evacuating everyone to the theater for an actual tornado warning! Kinda exciting! They ended up playing a 30 minute movie about Savannah for us and then telling us we were free to leave but there were still warnings going on all over. 

Not to be deterred, we headed over to the Whistle Stop Cafe and ordered our delish Fried Green Tomatoes and, that gift-shop girl was true to her word, that was a darn good Peach cobbler!  

Because the rain was so bad we didn't get far that day either. :( We stopped at a hotel off the freeway and let the kids swim in the indoor pool. Not the warm Atlantic Ocean, but still fun. :)

The next days agenda included a small detour from the shortest route to Southern Maryland so that we could drive through Seagrove, North Carolina. Turns out that Seagrove, NC is the self-proclaimed pottery capitol of the world. That's right people, it's big time. You know what a fool I am for anything personalized, so imagine my delight at seeing my name all over town! So happy!

I took these pictures and then...

...my camera battery died!

Merciful for anyone that has managed to get through these loooong trip posts, but sad for me. 

We searched all the pottery shops for cute postcards but finally settled for the plain ones the post office sells so that we could send everyone in the fam a postcard postmarked Seagrove, NC. (we did this for Alexis when we went through Alexis, IL a couple years ago.) All that work of searching for postcards, searching for the post office, writing them all out, and then my dad tells me they weren't even postmarked Seagrove! Ugh! We tried...

We rolled up into Maryland late that night. Finally. And even though I was super relieved to finally be here, I was sad that our fun trip was coming to an end. And that my fun henna was going back home to Seattle. We really had an awesome time. We got to hang out more than we have in lots of years. Amy is someone I have always been able to talk and talk and talk to, and never run out of things to say. She is one of my very best friends and I am soooo lucky to have her for a sissy!

Thanks Amy for coming with me on that crazy voyage! Thanks Matt for letting us! I know Matt wanted to come, to help, to make sure we were safe, but he trusted me enough to let us do it and we really did have a crazy awesome time. Thanks Lex and Chris for all your help with Addie! They all 3 did awesome!

And thank you Heavenly Father for letting us make it here safely and be all together again. 

I'm hoping next time I cross the country it will be just a little less stressful!