Day #214

This 3am blogging is brought to you by Burt, the owner of Black Penny, the bar underneath Alli’s French Quarter apartment. Because apparently it’s normal to come into your closed bar at 2am, crank your music, and get some work done. He did turn it down, and we do have the white noise machine going, but the damage was done, so now I blog. 

Anyways, we left L-town at 6:45 Thursday. Alli is officially moving out of her little apartment and into the White House on Pensive Street to ride out the rest of the pandemic with us. I am grateful for the space and the husband that allows for this to happen. 

We planned to power through the 1,085 miles from Maryland to NOLA (✅) in one day, pack up one day (✅), and then I’ll drive a rented minivan full of boxes back in 2 days. Matt was supposed to work Thursday but be off the rest of the time, so I didn’t even bother to figure out meals for while I was gone. But then... duh, duh, duuuuh! His new command sent out a notice for a mandatory drill weekend Friday and Saturday. This threw everything into a tailspin and created a few anxious moments. But lucky for us we’ve got the BEST papa and my most loyal blog reader, and also a pretty terrific bubba that live nearby. Alli’s move is an all-hands on deck process and I love that all hands are here willingly and lovingly. 

Our 2nd stop, somewhere in Virginia. 

The drive was beautiful! Not a lot of people on the road and gorgeous beginnings of fall colors. 

We listened to a whole book, The Dutch House, narrated by one Tom Hanks. I loved it, Alli thought it was ok. And Tennessee!

And Virginia across the freeway for good measure. 

We hit traffic from an accident that set us back a good 30 minutes to an hour, so we got off the freeway and got lunch - our one meal of the day. We ate road trips snacks the rest of the time. 

Alli was a little nervous to pull over on the freeway, but I assured her it would be fine! A huge gust of wind came mid photo shoot, so I’ve included both of these beauties. 

Alabama was the last welcome sign I could get her to agree to. After that it got darker and Alli, who usually goes to bed around 9 or 10, got a smidge crabby, or at least not not-crabby enough to stand on the side of the freeway for pics. 

We took short breaks every 2-3 hours and switched off driving each time so it wasn’t bad. The accident sat us back, and then we hit a little bit of roadwork that slowed us down to 60mph, so that made our 16 hour road trip a 20 hour road trip. We arrived at 2:45 and not a second too soon. Burt was jamming out last night too and I was anxious that I wouldn’t be able to sleep, but we were so tired that it was fine. 

Meanwhile back in leonardtown, papa to the rescue took the girls to Taco Bell and then to play at the park. 

The girls like to test their boundaries and I hear there was some “our mom let’s us climb all the way!” which I’m not sure is true and also what papa says goes. 

Dad had the girls and Tenkor till bubba got off work and took over at 7:30. Matt drove down and got situated in the lodge for his 2 night stay and our family went to sleep in several different states.

I’m less worried about the girls then I am about tenkor. She gets anxious when Alli is gone and has bolted out the door twice, so we left instructions (over and over) to put her in her kennel or on a leash every time they open the door. I think so far so good, otherwise they haven’t told us of any escapes. Which is probably for the better because no one needs any more anxiety. 

The girls love Tenkor and were super excited to be in charge of her and give her her last dose of medicine. They love on her and get right in her face, and unfortunately Laney got nipped on her eye. This little vet-to-be has taken all her bites like a champ, including this one. I wish T would stop with the nips and also that the girls would stop putting their faces right up in hers. 🤷‍♀️