80 Hours in a Car

25 + 15 + 6 + 9 + 25 = 80 hours in a car

A 25 hour car drive straight through the night landed us in Perrysburg at 7 am.  It was a wonderfully easy trip, but way too long.  Libby’s hometown is a very nice place.  I liked it  there.  After a quick day and a half “rest”, including a wedding open house and a day trip to Cedar Point, we were in the car again on a 15 hour drive heading out to North Carolina.

Because it was my first time on the family vacation, Libby took me around to see some of the sites and shops at the Outer Banks.  One place we went was the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.  It is the biggest lighthouse in the US, standing about 200 ft high.  This is really amazing because, when you are at the top, you are the tallest thing around as far as the eye can see.  Maybe it was that feeling of being “out there” that made Ben (Libby’s brother) so scared of being on top. The gusts of wind probably added to his uneasiness way up there.  I really liked being able to see forever.

The sand at the Outer Banks isn’t limited to the shoreline.  There is a place called Kill Devil Hills.  These hills are just big huge sand dunes.  People like to fly kites there, but mostly there are a bunch of crazies running and jumping off the steepest side of the dunes they can find.

Sandal tan lines are a Hannibal specialty

Libby and I decided that we needed to do something nice, so we went to lunch at Sugar Creek.  We had a great time and had some good seafood.  The restaurant sits on the water and overlooks the sound.  The water is much calmer there...but we still saw a crab in the water.  Weird!

The view from Sugar Creek Restaurant.

We split our drive back to Ohio in half.  A quick 6 hour drive took us to Washington DC, where we had the opportunity to stop at the temple with Libby’s parents and Ben and Becca.  It’s always nice to be in the temple with family.  An uneventful 9 hours in what seems to be my new home (a car) brought us back to Perrysburg.  It should be noted that toll roads are so stupid.  I’m really happy that they don’t exist in the western US.

Libby and I got an early 3:30 am start on our way back to Utah.  We toyed with the idea of driving all day and all night, doing the trip in one day again, but ultimately decided that 2 drivers probably shouldn’t do something like that.  Some highlights of our 25 hour return trip included: some tool driving in Iowa, partaking of the goodness of the Mississippi River, a cute gaze-bo Libby spotted at one of our pit stops, sleeping, and the saddle seats at a McDonald’s somewhere in Wyoming.