The persistent fever is gone and we’ve never found out what really caused it in the first place. But who really cares at this point when…

We’re going home!!!!

Yep, this time it’s for real! We’re cleared for departure from the Ronald McDonald House and our baby is in his seat ready for the trip back home.

I had plotted an escape route to I-495 to the northeast through Maryland but I decided that I may as well head straight for I-395 and then go through The Mixing Bowl (where I-95/I-395/I-495 converge southwest of Washington).

Well, it certainly was interesting. From the hospital, you head south on North Capital to New York Avenue, then southwest a bit until I-395. What made it interesting? Well, let’s see…as we’re waiting to turn right onto New York Avenue, a drug deal goes down right outside the passenger window. They didn’t even try to hide it…a bunch of bills go one way, a baggie of (presumably) crack goes the other. Then we get to I-395 and people are trying to make lanes of travel where none exist.

But hey…the tunnels were really cool and we didn’t end up in Anacostia so it’s all good. Even better, we got to use the express lanes southbound which meant we bypassed most of the traffic that was standing still on I-95 until we hit the big mega-merge of 10-12 lanes at Dumfries (Exit 152 in Virginia). There we sat for about 30-40 minutes until we cleared the exit. But that was still better than the people who were stopped just south of Springfield (Exit 169 in Virginia). Memo to self: never drive to or from Washington on a holiday weekend!!!!

I will say that spending a couple of weeks in Washington was interesting, if not bordering on the positively surreal. And whilst it’s an interesting place to visit, there is no way you’d ever convince me to actually want to live there. The traffic is congested, parking is nearly nonexistent, it’s not a terribly friendly place for the most part, and frankly there are too many people in a very small area. I’ll take the Raleigh-Durham area any day of the week and twice on Sunday! That’s not to say that there weren’t some enjoyable times there but it’s definitely a place to visit but not to live.

I’d say the weirdest part of it was when Congress was off making that law trying to interfere with Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube which had been pulled…it was surreal watching the story on the news and looking out Alexander’s window at the Dome which was obviously in business passing that very law. Then not too far from where we were staying, there was another anthrax scare at a post office and that really freaked out a lot of people. The first weekend we were there, they had the ACC tournament at the MCI Centre downtown.

Even the license plates seemed angry. Gone were the DC plates that read A Capital City! (I thought that one was a real clever play on words) or Celebrate and Discover!. In their place were plates that read Taxation Without Representation. I hate to break it to them but taxation with representation sucks just about as bad, particularly when you realize that Congress is hardly representative of we the people…

Like I said…weird and surreal. It was like Washington just didn’t seem aware of the same reality the rest of the United States has to contend with on a daily basis. I’ll definitely visit again (the Smithsonian museums are worth that…plus I usually stop by the National Archives and Abe’s place to remind me why we should keep fighting for truth, justice, and the American way even when they seem to be considered old-fashioned values nowadays.

Anywho, we stopped for lunch at Quantico just outside of the main gates of the big Marine barracks and the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful.

By the time we pulled into Zebulon, Mommy and Alexander spent some time with Grammy and Nicholas whilst I went home to unload the Escape. Then one more trip to Zebulon to pick everyone up to go back to the house.

Then it hit me on US-64 on the way back to Garner that second time.

This is the first time since 04 Feb 2005 that all four of us have been in the same vehicle at the same time!

After the last several weeks…that was a wonderful feeling (even if it was a real kick in the pants!).

We could get used to this, you know!