My First Solo Road Trip

I am surviving but I couldn’t have without my daughter Chris and her husband from Virginia and my granddaughter Alex and Lia. They were all with me the first week of April helping to plan Rich’s funeral and just being here to pick me up. I made it through three weeks of April and then Chris surprised me and came down again for a few days. Half way through May, Chris asked if I wanted to come up to Virginia for a week. She had been checking airlines for dates and times to fly into Dulles airport. But the more I thought about it, I told her I would drive up with Snowball as my co-pilot. It’s about a 7 hour drive but mostly all major highways. I can do this! So bright and early on May 20th, Snowball and I started on my first road trip without my love. I took my time, stopped a few times for Snowball and arrived at Chris’s house shortly after noon.

After hugs and more hugs Chris showed me the “bed and breakfast” room. When I walked in she had a table full of goodies! There was a huge box of candy, some delicious Coastalberry trail mix, shower gel, rose fragrance hand cream, a Yankee Candle car air freshener, a travel hairbrush, notepad and pen plus a big fluffy bedrest pillow with arms! But that’s not all, she had a big container of her homemade chocolate chip cookies and a bouquet of her beautiful roses.

Snowball and Chris’s two dogs and her cat got to get reacquainted from when they were down in April and early part of May. Now most of my steady readers know Snowball is an “only child” and hasn’t been around other animals much. Chris on the other hand has two “special needs” dogs. Crimson is 11 years old and has epilepsy along with other health concerns and little 14 year old Balto is blind and deaf. As for Bella the cat, well she and Snowball had a few issues but all ended up okay in the end. LOL

Snowball did butter up to Chris, I think he was trying to get her animals jealous or maybe just show them that he did have a good side.

Have you ever tried to get three children sit still and smiling for the camera, there always seems to be one that just doesn’t listen. Well that was Snowball when we tried to get a group picture of them all together. Balto and Crimson were being so good waiting for the silly child to sit still but it wasn’t happening. Snowball just had to be the center of attention like any other three year old! LOL

Chris works at Costco and had to work evenings the day I arrived so I surprised Bryon by bringing up some wild caught Alaskan Sockeye salmon and made him and I dinner.

The next day when Bryon got home from work they took me to Great Falls on the Potomac River. Virginia is on one side and Maryland on the other. The falls were beautiful and I was thinking how much Rich would have loved to be there.

Chris and Bryon live in Manassas, a city rich in Civil War history. We stopped where both the 1st Battle of Bull Run at Manassas took place and also the 2nd battle at Manassas. The Confederate army was victorious in both these battles. As we were hiking the trails at Bull Run, I noticed that Bryon had a Bull Run t-shirt on!

I also made a meatloaf on Sunday and froze it to take that up to surprise Bryon. Chris has her own menu so I took up some plain frozen burgers while Bryon and I had delicious meatloaf, there was enough left for Bryon to take meatball sandwiches to work and another meal for both of us.

I had such a good time with Chris, walking around her beautiful back yard with so many roses, watching all her birds and just sitting and talking.

Oh and I can’t forget about going to Amazon Fresh market. I’ve never been to one of them but that’s were I found the TAZO Chai latte tea concentrate for $3.00 a carton! That’s enough to make at lease 7 hot or cold Chai drinks! Chris also got me a bag of coconut rolls from Costco and the other day I dipped them in my cold Chai latte, was that delicious!

The week went be so fast, too fast and soon it was time for the fur friends to say good bye until next time. By now they were all pretty much friends. Bryon made us all French toast before I left and that was so good!

Chris, Bryon and I had a group hug and as Rich would always say, it’s not good bye, it’s we’ll see you later. As I got in the car, Chris had a bouquet of roses for me and I still have them! Snowball and I made it back home around 7pm and I couldn’t wait for June 5th when Chris would come back to visit me again for another week. Now I’m looking forward to going to Cherokee with Chris and Bryon the end of July to celebrate Rich’s and my 57th anniversary and Rich’s heavenly birthday. So many memories, so much heartache but so much love to hold us all together.