Road trip!

This weekend was a planned "road trip" weekend.  The agenda was Lancaster to visit some friends (which was ultimately detoured to Delta, PA) and Philadelphia for a birthday celebration.

Unfortunately, the driving on Friday night SUCKED... it was pouring down rain the entire time.  It was dark, foggy, raining and we were hydro-planing everywhere.  Dave drove, thankfully, since I hate driving in general (not because I'm bad at it, but because I do too much of it.)  The trip out was horrible and stressful and NOT fun at all....

Sooooo.... The pictures below are NOT from Friday night, and are - instead - from Sunday, on our return trip.  But since they are from a happier, more joyful time, I felt that they better represented the overall spirit of the road trip. And also because it's hard to take pictures in the car on dark, rainy nights.

Car fun!

In the picture above, you will see Murphy's preferred position when traveling in the car.  He wants to be in the front seat ALL THE TIME.  He sneakily tries to creep up to the front seat, and when I say "no," he stops.  But that does not stop him from keeping his front paws on the arm rest between the two front seats, and his hind legs on the back seat.  He will travel like this for hours.  Seriously.

We realize that it's unsafe and that if Dave ever has to slam hard on the brakes that Murphy will probably fly through the window.  But he is so insistent on being there, that we've given up trying to get him to sleep in the back seat.

My view when Murphy is on my lap

At some point, I give in, and let him come up front onto my lap.  He gets so excited and is SO happy when I finally say, "Ok, you can come up."  But, it gets annoying pretty quickly since my lap isn't exactly easy to balance two front paws on.

I go back and forth on how I feel about road trips.  There was a time in my life when I didn't think twice about getting in a car and riding to Orlando. Or to New Orleans. Or to Panama City.  I just went and it was fine.  Now, I dread the thought of having to be in the car for more than 2 hours.  The dread is usually much worse than the actual trip itself, but it's exhausting to "dread" so much.

Anyway, we were fortunate in that we did have nice weather on the return trip and we go to see a lot of rolling mountains with colored leaves.  Below is a picture from one of the turnpike rest stops.

The trees were definitely "past prime," but striking nonetheless

All in all, the drive home was much better than the drive there. Which is fortunate, I suppose. Tomorrow I will post some of the pictures from the weekend. Until then!...