Day 1 (Mount Hope, WV)

Preparation
Three full straight days of workshops, what better way to prepare. So, of course packing took place mostly in the morning of the take off. Wilmer had packed all the essentials days in advance in his backpack, to name few, his baseball bat and ball, couple books, Lightning McQueen, formula one cars, binoculars, camera, water cup, and a frying pan. What else could you possibly need? Well, yesterday morning the rest of us got ready with a few more useful items. Maaret had herself checked at the doctor’s and she was given green for the trip. Meanwhile Wilmer and your humble captain, fed the cat, watered some tomato bushes and packed the car to the brim. Why do you always have more stuff than space for it? Eternal paradox.

Take off
The trip commenced just after lunch, Maaret behind the wheel, not because of her race car experience but rather being the only one licensed to drive legally. I had tried to renew my license a week prior only to find out that some bright individual in the government had managed to feed a wrong birthday for me in the computer and I had to wait for a confirmation from the Pennsylvania capital that I am not trying to be a terrorist by supplying false information to the authorities, which was out of my control in the first place! As Murphy’s Law would say, of course the confirmation arrived in the mail 20 minutes before we left for our trip. So, the first stop was south of Pittsburgh at the last Pennsylvania DMV. Come on, can you think of anything better than to spend an hour in the line at DMV when you only have 1200 miles to go? Can you really?

First pitstop
The goal for the first leg of the trip was to make it to our tribal home land, North Carolina, where Missy and Danny would anxiously be waiting for their godson and hopefully for our yearly migration to the South for the Memorial Day. North Carolina has and always will be our home in the US, no matter where we live. That is the place where we grew up and became adults. Well, some of us at least got a little closer to that stage…

We spent the first night in the wild and wonderful West Virginia. We happened to have a hotel next to all of the world-class whitewater rafting that we did once in the same place, oh so many moons ago. To work on the appetite we embarked on a brief excursion to see the seco\nd highest bridge in the Western hemisphere. It was still as grand and high as the last time we had seen it. O cap the evening off we had the pleasure of enjoying some local authentic food. We had the best Grande Burritos ever, full of white chicken and as large as Arnold’s bicep. To cap the day, we watched some NBA playoffs in the hotel. Well, Wilmer and I saw the Lakers lose to Denver in a great game. Maaret appreciated the game by turning to her side and by some snoring few minutes in to it.