Jul 13

Jul 13 ROAD TRIP: PART ONE OF TWO

Every year we drive to South Carolina to spend a week with Ted's entire family (and then some) on Edisto Island. Why? Because for some reason, Ted's mother and step-father have settled on this random island as the ideal vacation spot, despite the fact that it takes all of their children a minimum of 12 hours of driving to get there. You can fly, but last summer the tickets were $700+ EACH. Also, when you drive, you can bring more shit. Which is obviously awesome, because who doesn't love traveling with two small children and enough luggage for seven sherpas?

This year, we followed our finely-honed practice of leaving at 1:00 AM, so that the vast majority of the driving is done overnight - the kids sleep and there's no traffic: win/win.

As usual, I drove most of the way down (Ted is a fragile flower who needs a solid eight hours of sleep, or he just isn't himself. He also drives the speed limit, which means we'd get there halfway through the week of vacation).

Things started out swimmingly. We hit New Jersey at 1:30, Delaware at 3:00, Baltimore at 4:00 and flew into Virginia at around 4:45 AM. That's where things started going wrong.

Now, the speed limit in Virginia is 70 mph, which might lead one to believe that they take a carefree and relaxed approach to how fast you go on the roads there.

Interesting Fact #1: This is not the case.

As I blew by the state trooper, I knew I was fucked before I even saw his lights go on.

Interesting Fact #2: State troopers in Virginia drive Mustangs.

And those motherfuckers are FAST. Don't take my word for it - watch one kick a Camaro's ass on Consumer Reports' Auto Test Track:

I was doing close to 90, and he was up my ass from a dead stop in about 4 seconds. And Officer Peterson was, to say the least, displeased. Apparently he clocked me going 88, which is considered "reckless driving," and for which one must appear in court. In Virginia. When I told him that no fucking way was I coming back to fucking VIRGINIA on August 9th to appear in traffic court, he threatened to take me to jail on the spot. And it gets better...

Interesting Fact #3: It is NOT legal to drive with headphones on.

Though I personally don't think Officer Peterson had to be such a dick about it. "I don't know what state YOU live in that you think it's legal to drive with headphones. Ohhhhhh, New York!"

Interesting Fact #4: Southerners are apparently blind to the obvious awesomeness of New York. (I don't think Ted's Yankee cap helped.)

End result of our trip through Virginia:

Ted demoted me to "Passenger" at the next exit. But only for about an hour and 45 minutes, because he was still tired (I told you!). So I was back behind the wheel when we saw the first sign for South of the Border:

Usually when we go by South of the Border, it's not open. But since we left a little later this year (and had a small delay in Virginia), it was open for business by the time we got to the North Carolina/South Carolina border. So we stopped.

Interesting Fact #5: South of the Border is not exactly what I thought it was.

Thankfully, my kids are not rocket scientists and did not notice that South of the Border bears absolutely no resemblance to a "really fun amusement park" and had a great time.