July 8, 2008

Today we travel from our home in South Carolina to New Jersey to Lori’s aunt Linda’s house. We will be spending the night there before taking him to the US Merchant Marines Academy. I woke up at 2:30AM to get ready to leave. Allie had already been up and we were ready to leave at 3:30 after t time of prayer and all the hugs before leaving for Lori and Malorie. They are staying behind to keep things going on the farm and I am so thankful to be married to such a quality woman.

The road trip to NJ was long but uneventful and T.J. and Allie got a chance to catch some sleep which they availed themselves of generously. Allie claims she was simply dozing but she obviously did not realize the depth of dozing she was a participant of. We made it into Aunt Linda’s just fine (with the obligatory stop at Cracker Barrel) with the help of a GPS we named Karen since that was the instruction voice we changed to. She had a pleasant Australian voice and added a bit of exotica to the whole experience. T.J. seemed to especially like this voice (I never really knew he had a thing for Australian women). The first voice programmed into the GPS must have been from a middle aged retired military woman working a day job as a demolition derby taxicab driver and diesel mechanic in NYC and nights bouncing at a biker bar as the instructions from her seemed quite coarse at 3AM in the morning. Karen made the trip much more pleasant. Anyhow, we made it there all right and got a good nights sleep before visiting NYC.