Day Four - "Homeward Bound"

Sunday, June 17th


State College, PA to Albany, NY: 316 miles, drive time of 5 hours and 43 minutes.

Potty breaks: 2; "Gummies": cutting back to a small handful; Exercise: Flying around like a Butterfly Fairy (more her than me); Tears: minimal.


Something about coming up over I88 and descending into the Hudson Valley makes me warmly nostalgic every time.



The drive up from State College almost the entire way to the New York border was through rural, Amish farmland on two-lane state and US routes. It was a welcome break from the monotony of highway driving and stale car air conditioning, as we bumped up and down hilly roads and twisted around windy corners with all the windows completely down. Something I'm glad I was able to enjoy, as I watched today's heat indexes rise into the 100's.

We arrived in Albany just in time for some delicious steak, shrimp, corn, beans and potatoes prepared by our awesome friends. I wish I had snapped a picture of their plentiful bounty but a certain toddler was tired of hummus and yogurt and needed to dive right into some real food.

Then, it was dress up time.



I mean, what else do you do when you've kept a kid locked up in a vehicle for nearly 24 hours in the past four days? You give her wings and let her fly.



While I didn't run around nearly as much as she did, we did do a few of those spin maneuvers, when you lock arms and the one person starts revolving, lifting the other (smaller) person into the air. That fired up my deltoids REAL fast, getting her 33-lb. butt into the air!

When we reached the hotel, it was time to collapse and treat myself for all of the hard hours clocked burning rubber through seven states and counting. If I were to find the energy to press onward and share my favorite places in my home town with my little girl, I was going to need some fuel of my own...



Let's ignore the fact that I'm a wanna-be health professional for the moment. If you can't tell from the glare, this is "Chocolate Therapy" from Ben & Jerry's. I mean... how could I pass that up on the shelf. And even if I didn't have a freezer to put it in and it would go to mush in our cooler, forcing me to eat 3/4 of it then regretfully throw the rest away so I wouldn't hate myself in the morning... it was therapeutic, and totally worth it!

Tomorrow: What happens when you're a little too frugal, and why you shouldn't go with the cheapest hotel in town...

Have you had "Chocolate Therapy"? Is it not the best ice cream ever?

How hot was your heat index today? Did you grin and bear it in the heat or move indoors? Did you eat ice cream afterwards?