Last Thursday, Megan, Sabrina, Nick and I piled into a car (a.k.a. “vehicular mullet,” courtesy of Nick - girls in the front, party in the back) and hit the road for Raleigh, North Carolina to visit the Staifers over the extended holiday weekend. We had started planning this trip a couple months ago and I had been anxiously looking forward to it for a while, so I was very glad to finally get on the road to see my buddy Lori.

It was an uneventful, if long, drive down. We packed lunch and plenty of snacks to save time and money. Bad part about that was the temptation to eat the whole way down. The roads weren’t very crowded at all and the weather was nice. It rained as we left northern Kentucky, but Buzz outraced it and we didn’t see another drop the rest of the drive south.

We arrived in Raleigh in time for dinner. Dan fixed us a good lasagna dinner, so we filled our stomachs and relaxed the rest of the evening. Kristi flew in from Cali for the weekend, too, so we picked her up from the airport later in the evening

Friday we hit the beach, something I had been yearning to do for a couple years. Dan took us to Hammocks State Park, which was about three hours from Raleigh. It was a bit different than your average beach, since it was a state park. There was no car traffic, no rows of beach houses, no novelty stores - just the beach and ocean. We actually had to take a ferry out to Bear Island, the main beach in the park. We expected it to be crowded, having heard the rangers talk about crowds of people lining up early to buy tickets for the first ferry; however, it was anything but crowded. We enjoyed the day soaking up the sun, relaxing on the beach and playing in the ocean. Most of us soaked up more sun than we should have and came away with painful sunburns…

Saturday, we slept in a little then went to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science. The museum was free, which was great, and was actually pretty nice. The Dead Sea Scrolls were in town, but cost extra, so we opted not to visit that part of the museum. We had fun with the butterflies at least. Afterwards, we had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, then spent the evening enjoying each other’s company and playing games.

Throughout the weekend, when we weren’t out and about, we enjoyed playing Rock Band, Shout About TV and Family Feud. We also made sure we got in several games of Euchre, which the Carolinians and Californian don’t get to play much.

We packed up and headed back north on Sunday, but not before going to church (Dan works at C4) and having lunch at The Gourmet Factory.

The trip was awesome,very much needed and entirely too short. Thanks, Lori and Dan, for hosting us. It was really great to see you all again!!!

Pictures of the trip - from me, Lori and Kristi - are in the gallery.