The Wheels on the Bus (reprise)

Another 20-odd hours ahead of us...

Everyone on our little bus was all packed and ready by 9:00, so we left before the coach bus. Since we had been cold on the way down, and the people in the back had been complaining that they were too hot, we volunteered to take the "hot seat", the very back bench seat.

Watched "Catch Me if You Can" right off the bat. I had seen it before, but it's very good.

11:15 - rest area near Castleberry, AL

Watched "The Truman Show", which I had brought on VHS (which took a while to figure out, since all the others had been DVDs). It's one of my all-time favorite movies, but the others didn't seem to like it so much.

1:40 - fuel stop in Calera, AL. We elected to get take-out fast food for lunch, and save our sit-down meal for dinner. Some chose McDonald's, some chose Subway, and Al & I got border bowls from Taco Bell. After getting underway with our food on our laps, I was taking umbrage at having paid extra for guacamole and not finding a container of it in my bag, until I discovered it was already right there in my bowl. Heh. We got back on the road by 2:15.

Watched "Bruce Almighty" between catnaps (not one of my favorites).

Entered Georgia around 4:30, and the time changed back somewhere around here.

Entered Tennessee around 6:00 eastern time.

Watched "The Italian Job", the newer one with Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron, which I'd seen before and like.

Oooh, very hot seats! But we asked for it...

8:30 - Fueled the bus and ourselves in Knoxville TN. We had dinner at another Cracker Barrel: I had "beans & greens", which wasn't quite what I'd expected, but good, and a tall cold mug of apple cider (so yummy!), and a peach cobbler for dessert (before I realized no one else was getting dessert and that our table had been the very last to be served, so I had to kind of gobble it down). Al had a turkey salad & iced tea. We got Pens updates again via Gene's Blackberry and Alex's text messages. We didn't get back on the road till 10:00.

Watched "She's the Man". I thought it was pretty lame, till Laura explained to me later that it's based on Twelfth Night; I still don't like Amanda Bynes, but now I see that some of it was actually humorous.

11:30 - rest stop at Virginia Welcome Center (getting quite cold out).

Hot, hot, hot seats!

"Gone in 60 Seconds" was playing, but I was mostly sleeping.

It was dark of course, and we were trying to get some sleep, but we think we got back into snow-country around southern West Virginia.

3:00 - stopped for fuel at the station on Rt 19 in West Virginia where we often stopped on our way back and forth to Savannah.

Sweating like a pig!

6:30 or so - stopped for a rest stop at the Pennsylvania Welcome Center.

7:30 or so - dropped off the two guys we picked up at the Bridgeville rest area on Sunday. I called Mom to say we were coming in earlier than expected, and would be back at the Synod office in another 45 minutes or so.

I helped guide Rob (the current driver) from 79 to the Synod office, since I was the only one on the bus who knew the way there. We got in shortly after 8:00, and Dad showed up shortly after that. After saying good-bye to all our new friends from Sarver and Meadville, we headed back to Mom & Dad's house for some coffee and cereal. I showed them all our photos on their computer, and we told them a lot about our trip. Then we headed for home to see if the pipes had frozen (they hadn't), and to get a few groceries (since we'd eaten or thrown away everything before we left).

Home Sweet Home!