it's oh so nice to wander back
T-day weekend over. Travel both ways was mostly good with periods of utter craptacularity. We'd made excellent time going up Thursday morning (left here at 5am) until we hit a killer traffic jam on 95 just north of Bawlmer. Fortunately, when we stopped at a rest area Sarah found out there was an accident ahead and got a map and a suggested detour. So we cut back a bit and over to Rte 1 for a while. A nice drive thru the country and it took us past the awesome dam and hydro plant pictured here (image yoinked from the internets), at Conowingo on the Susquehanna. Very much in the high WPA style. As always, a pleasant visit with Sarah's folks. What is there to say, really, about visiting family? The point, after all, is not to do but to be. And we all were. (or maybe I'm just saying that because I slept a lot... did I mention that it was a really long drive getting up there?)
The non-turkey-related food highlight of the weekend was lunch yesterday. Sarah, Laura, and I went to the Charcoal Pit. Which is beloved not just by Wilmington residents but roadfooders far and wide. A damn damn fine burger, my friends. Not quite up to Shake Shack levels but ahead, I'm afraid, of all local-to-Durham burgers that I've sampled. We got an early start today and were able to stop at Ikea (which is always fun) and had some killer pancakes at the Silver Diner just up the road from there (sure it's probably a chain and aggressively branded and aggressively noisy) but it's still good food. Alas, the shopping/eating delay caused us to run into a nasty accident-related traffic jam just north of Richmond and spend the last 90 min. of the trip driving thru heavy rain. Ah, the sacrifices one makes for affordable Swedish merchandise...