We are finally in Orlando! After leaving NYC on Wednesday afternoon, we arrived in Orlando on Thursday evening.
It was a very rainy day in NYC on the day that we had to pack up the truck and leave. Luckily, our friend Will was there to help us load up the truck. We took turns taking a break to hang out with the truck.
Here is the view in the mirror of the type of day we were having:
Of course, we had to have H&H bagels for our last meal in the city! Yum!
We had elected to get a 16' truck solely for the reason that it could tow a car also. We figured that would be more than enough space and it would be nice to be able to tow my car so that we could ride together instead of having to caravan all the way down to FL. We ended up deciding not to tow my car, but it was very lucky that we had chosen the 16' truck! We had WAY more stuff than we realized.
This picture was taken about 1/3 of the way packed. We had this truck packed to the gills. My car was also very full and could not fit another person in it.
One more picture of our building! We'll miss that place!
So, we finally hit the road. David found a route that was a little farther millage wise, but it was going to be better in the long run because we wouldn't be hitting DC and other big cities right at rush hour on I-95. It turned out great and we had hardly any traffic at all.
I think we were in Pennsylvania when I took this picture. It was pretty gloomy for most of our first day of the drive. I'd like to say I was documenting the trip, but in reality, I just had to take the picture of the Bulldog on the billboard :)
We hadn't planned where we were going to stop because we wanted to be able to get as far as we could on that first day before we got too tired to drive any further. We ended up in Virginia about 45 minutes North of Virginia Tech. We got the last room at the hotel we stopped at and it turned out to be HUGE. It was probably as big as our apartment in NYC.
Here's one view:
The next day we woke up early, had some breakfast and hit the road. Virginia was BEAUTIFUL! I guess I had never really spent much time there before because I was amazed at how pretty every single town was. Since it was late October, the fall foliage was out in full force and looked gorgeous. I think I called David and my mom about 5 times each to tell them how Virginia is now my favorite state and how pretty it is.
Here was one of my attempts to take a picture:
Take 2 (taking pictures on your iPhone while driving is not the easiest of tasks!!):
As you can see, day 2 was much nicer than day 1. We had sun the whole way and it was actually the perfect temperature to drive with the windows down! Since the truck had a maximum speed of about 50, it wasn't a problem to drive with the windows down.
We stopped a few times along the way for a break and a meal, but we finally got to Florida at about 4pm!
Here is my attempt to capture the "Welcome to Florida" sign:
After a few painful hours (the last are always the worst!), we arrived at my parents' house to a very warm welcome!
My mom had made this sign for us and it was hanging on the garage door:
We had a nice dinner with my parents and then passed out. We were exhausted and knew we had another long day the next day because we were going to pick up our apartment keys at 9 am.
The next day, we woke up early again to get everything ready to go move in to our new apartment.
Booker was so excited to have us back that he couldn't stand it!
I'll post later about our new apartment and all the other adventures that we have had over the past month next week! We're off to Tallahassee for the weekend for FSU Homecoming. Go Noles!!
