DFT14 - Day 1
Originally when we were scheduling the trip we thought Daniel would not have football workouts on Fridays. If we left on June 18th then he would only have to miss one day. However, his off day this summer ended up being on Wednesday. So we decided we would leave a day early drive through Virginia, find somewhere to stay and be closer to New York for Thursday.
We had absolutely no plans for yesterday...so we had decided to drive through Shenandoah National Park. They have a road called Skyline Drive that runs 105 miles from the top of the park to the bottom. And it has 75 overlooks along the drive.
We stopped half way through the park and found a quick 1.5 mile hike to do. Basically we just wanted to stretch out legs, but we did get to see some pretty waterfalls.
As we got closer to the top of the park, we kept seeing signs for Washington DC. When we were in DC two years ago we loved it! Plus we didn't get to see the monuments at night and said one day we would go back to see them. It appeared to only be a little over and hour to DC. We went back and forth about going, and Daniel finally said if we get to this campground and they are full then we will go to DC. After leaving the park we drove to the campground. It wasn't full, but there were only about 4 campers in the whole place and absolutely no signs of life. Plus it was in the middle of a cow field. So we found a Hampton Inn close by. While driving to the Hampton Inn, we accidentally passed up the turn in and decided to go on and have dinner, then we would come back. So we are sitting there eating dinner at 8:00 pm, and we again start talking about how close we were to DC and how we should just go. Daniel said since it was only an hour we could go and drive back to the Hampton Inn. I thought that was a crazy idea because we would be back tracking. Surely we could find something north of DC outside of Baltimore to stay in for that night.
So we go to DC, we got there right about 10:00 and went straight to the Lincoln Memorial. I was pretty excited to see the Washington Monument in the reflecting pool, since it was empty when we were there two years ago. Then we drove through DC to the Capital Building.
After seeing the Capital we started our journey towards Baltimore. About halfway to Baltimore this insane storm hits. It was really heavy rain, thunder, and BAD LIGHTING. So we finally see a hotel and we stop...NO Rooms. We get directions to another one and the GPS tells us to park the car on the side of the road and walk to our final destination, keep in mind it's now 12:15am, NO Rooms. We drive through Baltimore the whole time we were calling hotels and there is nothing available. Decide to stop at a few more and again they have nothing but the lady finally explains why everything is booked, Oh just because every flight in the North East has been cancelled. We continued driving right across the Delaware border and at 2am we got off at the first exit. There were two hotels. One had a room for $199 and the other for $219. Needless to say we ended up in the room for $199. But I think the desk clerk felt bad for us because he did give me a discount....he might be my new best friend. Checkout isn't until 12pm and by golly I'm staying here until 12pm. Plus we are now only 2 hours away from NYC.
So much for having no plans!
We had absolutely no plans for yesterday...so we had decided to drive through Shenandoah National Park. They have a road called Skyline Drive that runs 105 miles from the top of the park to the bottom. And it has 75 overlooks along the drive.
We stopped half way through the park and found a quick 1.5 mile hike to do. Basically we just wanted to stretch out legs, but we did get to see some pretty waterfalls.
As we got closer to the top of the park, we kept seeing signs for Washington DC. When we were in DC two years ago we loved it! Plus we didn't get to see the monuments at night and said one day we would go back to see them. It appeared to only be a little over and hour to DC. We went back and forth about going, and Daniel finally said if we get to this campground and they are full then we will go to DC. After leaving the park we drove to the campground. It wasn't full, but there were only about 4 campers in the whole place and absolutely no signs of life. Plus it was in the middle of a cow field. So we found a Hampton Inn close by. While driving to the Hampton Inn, we accidentally passed up the turn in and decided to go on and have dinner, then we would come back. So we are sitting there eating dinner at 8:00 pm, and we again start talking about how close we were to DC and how we should just go. Daniel said since it was only an hour we could go and drive back to the Hampton Inn. I thought that was a crazy idea because we would be back tracking. Surely we could find something north of DC outside of Baltimore to stay in for that night.
So we go to DC, we got there right about 10:00 and went straight to the Lincoln Memorial. I was pretty excited to see the Washington Monument in the reflecting pool, since it was empty when we were there two years ago. Then we drove through DC to the Capital Building.
After seeing the Capital we started our journey towards Baltimore. About halfway to Baltimore this insane storm hits. It was really heavy rain, thunder, and BAD LIGHTING. So we finally see a hotel and we stop...NO Rooms. We get directions to another one and the GPS tells us to park the car on the side of the road and walk to our final destination, keep in mind it's now 12:15am, NO Rooms. We drive through Baltimore the whole time we were calling hotels and there is nothing available. Decide to stop at a few more and again they have nothing but the lady finally explains why everything is booked, Oh just because every flight in the North East has been cancelled. We continued driving right across the Delaware border and at 2am we got off at the first exit. There were two hotels. One had a room for $199 and the other for $219. Needless to say we ended up in the room for $199. But I think the desk clerk felt bad for us because he did give me a discount....he might be my new best friend. Checkout isn't until 12pm and by golly I'm staying here until 12pm. Plus we are now only 2 hours away from NYC.
So much for having no plans!
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