{PART I of my vacation with Ammon to Virginia}
For a few years now, I have been thinking about visiting my older sister Lisa who lives in Virginia (for the past 20 years, she's lived there and I've never gone out to visit her!). She has a son that is a year older than Ammon, so I've been thinking about taking him with me, too, to spend time with his cousin that he rarely gets to see. There were a few things that happened to make me realize that THIS would be the year that it would finally happen:
1. Ammon has been talking about going with the high school Travel Club to Europe next year, and I wanted him to already know what flying is like before then.
2. Josh & I didn't go on an anniversary trip this winter/spring like we usually do (since I postponed our proposed trip to Mexico to hopefully lose more weight before we go), but I still wanted to go somewhere because I get really antsy at the end of each winter.
3. I'd paid off my credit card and hospital bills, and felt like I could afford the trip.
When I finally made up my mind that I was taking Ammon this year, I made it be a New Year's goal (because I'm pretty committed to making my goals happen), and I began consulting with my sister and the calendar schedule. When I first told her in December that we were planning on coming out to visit her family this spring, she replied "Am I dying?!". I thought that was such a strange reply!!! She explained that she'd just recently had a dream in which she was dying and members of the Perkins family flew out to visit her and clean her house as she was on her death bed!
I knew I wanted to go some time in February or March--I wanted to go before it got too busy with Ammon's work schedule (he mows lawns and also works at the golf course), and I thought it would be best for him to go in between high school sports (basketball ended in mid-February and golf started at the beginning of March). We thought about going over spring break which was the last week of March, but didn't know if that would interfere with work and family plans for that time, too (we had considered going to visit my grandpa over spring break week, but that ended up not working out). On Ammon's birthday (Jan. 11), I finally booked our flight to Virginia. We would be leaving Salt Lake and arriving in Washington DC on Thursday, February 26, and returning on Monday, March 2. We were so excited!
I started making plans with Lisa about what we were interested in doing while we were out there. We basically had 3 full days there: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I wanted to see Washington, DC but didn't really have anything specific on my agenda other than the Lincoln Memorial. I was also interested in visiting the Luray Caverns in Virginia (I'd seen a blip about them in a magazine a few years ago, and I've been curious about them ever since). I'd also mentioned that it would be cool to see the Bay as well. She started working on the itinerary, and I left that totally in her hands. I've never gone on a trip as an adult where someone else planned my vacation for me; it felt strange, but since she lives out there, I knew she could plan it better than I could.
On Wednesday, February 25, Ammon and I left after school to drive down to Tremonton to spend the night at my parents' house. The next morning, my dad drove us to the Salt Lake airport. Our Delta flight boarding time was 9:00am. We left the house about 6:30am, and I was so nervous that we weren't going to make it in time once we got to Ogden, because the amount of morning commuters slowed us down, and my dad wasn't interested in driving over 65mph. Thankfully, when we arrived about 8:15, it wasn't too busy yet, and we were able to go through the security check without a line. We waited about a half hour in our terminal, and by then, the airport was super busy.
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| I thought the charging station was super handy! Also, I didn't realize until just now that Ammon's shorts, socks, and bag all matched! |
I reserved Ammon a window seat on both flights. I remembered my very first flight, which was in 2008: I was stuck in the very center of the middle section, and I hated that I couldn't look out the window, and I wanted Ammon's first experience to be different than mine! He was happy with the window seat, and he was nervous for the take-off. Once we were in the air, he said it was much better than he'd anticipated!
We loved seeing the beautiful blue skies, and looking out over the ground below when there wasn't clouds covering it. We saw lots of the flat mid-west, with farming acreage and towns, and most of it was partially snow-covered.
The flight there was 4 hours. It was pretty smooth and we didn't experience any rough turbulence (which I was so grateful for, because on my first flight, I about puked from extreme turbulence). We watched the in-flight movie "Big Hero 6" and I just loved it; it was a nice story and it made me cry! And then for the last hour, I worked on a crosswords puzzle. The guy sitting next to me was kind enough to lend me his pen, and I got about 1/3 of the way done with the puzzle before we had to land. I didn't realize until Ammon showed me that all the answers were listed about 20 pages earlier in the flight magazine (I only used it for reference once, though).
Because of the time difference, we arrived at the DCA (Washington-Reagan airport) at 3:40pm. Lisa took the day off work (she works in DC), and she picked us up from the airport. She said "I hope you like snow", because it had just snowed there that day. The snow was already all completely melted from Salmon and Utah when we left there, but we were fine with it! She's used to taking the train from Manassas to DC every day, so she was unfamiliar with what roads to take to get back home from the airport. Her Garmin gave her the wrong directions on our drive back, and we ended up taking a little detour through a section of DC on the way home! I thought it was a fun detour!!! See the Washington Memorial in the photo below?! We drove around it and saw it from 3 different angles!
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| Here's Lisa doing her "OH NO! Where am I supposed to be going?" face! |
It took us about an hour to get from the airport to Manassas. We drove around the Manassas Battlefield when we first arrived.
We went to her house only long enough to drop off our bags and pick up Quinn, and then we headed to their favorite local pizzeria for dinner (apparently they've taken several other of our family members there when they've visited so now it's tradition). Mack joined us there since he'd just barely gotten off work. We had nice pizza and salad, and then I ordered a canoli for dessert because I'd never had one before.
For our sleeping arrangements, I slept downstairs on the couch, and Ammon slept upstairs in Malcolm's room (who was away at college). It was nice that we each had our own space.
It was nice to relax at their house after a long day of travelling. And with the time change, I felt a little off, too. We went to bed a little early that night to be ready for an early start the next morning to have a full day sight-seeing in D.C.!
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