On the way home...

Once the summer ended and we were able to take our little season-ending New York trip (which I had ALWAYS wanted to do), Aaron, was able to do what HE most wanted to do: see Chapel Hill in North Carolina.

The trip from Baltimore to Utah takes about 3 days at a steady pace, traveling just through the days. We, on the other hand, chose the long route, and had driven from New York basically, so our return trip was 44 hours long, crammed in our little Honda civic! But we figured there wouldn't be any other time in our life that we could actually take our time seeing things on the east coast that we otherwise probably wouldn't. We took the southern route, stopping in North Carolina to see the Tarheels campus. Aaron was pretty much in heaven, since he is obsessed with their basketball team and blew a good amount of money in the gift shop! Aaron snuck into the basketball court while I sat in the car, protecting it from getting a ticket. I guess he tried asking to meet the coach, but that didn't really pan out. Too bad...
Yes, Aaron did buy this hair.

University of North Carolina campus, in front of the football field.


As we were leaving the gift shop, I spotted this picture of Tyler Hansbrough, and Aaron wanted to stalk him.. or at least find out where his classes were and get an autograph. That didn't happen either.

After North Carolina, we headed down through South Carolina where I hoped my brother Craig's mission president would let us see him, but he didn't. So we continued on to Atlanta. My cousin, Amber & her husband Brandon live just outside of Atlanta so we stopped and said hi to their family for a bit then headed to one of Aaron's best friend's house, Sam, whose family actually helped him get baptized. It was really good meeting them. We stayed the night there, then took off to Memphis.

We love Mississippi for this reason: we were looking for a bathroom break as soon as we crossed the state line, so we get off on the exit that says Rest Stop... and I have never seen anything like it. As this sign says, "Mississippi, the south's warmest welcome," they don't mess around. The "rest stop" was almost like a mini museum, with the cleanest bathrooms ever, and little old ladies inside, offering free soda! It was beautiful in that state too, and Aaron even entertained the idea of us moving there... but I don't see that happening.

You probably can't see this very well, but this is also at the rest stop, Aaron is gesturing at our EXCEEDINGLY full car, with all of our belongings crammed into the back and trunk! After that road trip, I didn't want to sit for 2 days.