Shame on me. Shame on me for only thinking of myself and how my SIL's hostess anxiety affected me instead of thinking about how stressed out she must feel and how important it must be to her to make a good impression. I mean, I know it was an important visit to her and I know she was knocking herself out to make that good impression. But I guess my whole thought process is that we are nice people who already like and accept her and were very appreciative of her hospitality. Her going overboard was not only unnecessary but made us feel uncomfortable but there was no way to make her understand that it was unnecessary. I will be sending her a nice thank you note and a gift in appreciation for her hospitality. Thank you, Plankton and Maxiegirl for reminding me to look beyond myself.

One of my favorite parts of the whole vacation was driving north from South Carolina to Virginia via the Outer Banks. Some of those islands off the coast of North Carolina are so skinny! One was about 40 miles long and about a half mile wide (though it did bulge out to about 2 or 3 miles wide at a few points). That's the one where Cape Hatteras is. We went to the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. It felt very New Englandy.

We had to take a 2hr40min ferry from Cedar Island to Ocracoke Island over very rough and wild waters. There were times when the ferry was rocking so much that I seriously thought the top-heavy SUV in front of our car was going to topple over. It was quite scary and quite sick-making. I was fine as long as I lay back in my passenger seat in the car with my eyes closed and told myself I was just rocking in the hammock. In the last half hour, the wind died down enough that I was able to open my eyes and even walk out onto the deck and watch our approach to the island.

On Ocracoke Island, we ate peel and eat shrimp that was boiled in spicy Old Bay shrimp boil. We were sitting in an open air restaurant with a cat seated in the chair next to me. The clouds opened up and rained on us a bit, but we huddled under the umbrella and kept on eating. The cat had to run for better cover. After the shrimp (why do I have such trouble typing that word???), we drove down Route 12 to the next ferry, gratefully a 40 minute ferry on calmer water, and continued up Route 12 to Hatteras and on through tiny towns to the end of the island and then drove across a really big bridge (though not as big as the St. Petersburg-Tampa bridge across Tampa Bay) to the next island where Nag's Head beckoned.

We spent the night in Nag's Head and ate dinner at a very busy and popular restaurant. I had some really great crab cakes, though. I liked them very much. The hushpuppies weren't as good at the ones we had in South Carolina, though. (Those rocked!)

Our hotel was tall enough that we could see the Sound on one side of the narrow island and the open ocean on the other side of the island. It was a gorgeous view, with Roanoke Island in the distance.

The next morning dawned bright and sunny, a perfect day to visit the Wright Brothers' Memorial in Kill Devil Hills which is the actual town where the historic first flight occurred. The field where the flight happened has been preserved with the hill in the background. They have the take off and landing points for the first four flights marked. The first flight was 58 feet and took 12 seconds. Joey ran it in 8 seconds. She thought it was really kewl that she could run faster than that airplane. While we were standing there reading the monuments, a modern plane lifted up into the air from the trees beyond the field. It seemed just so very fitting to be there celebrating the first flight as that plane flew off into the distance.

I realized later that we had experienced two extremes with the Wright Brothers' Memorial and the Kennedy Space Center. I liked that. The past and the future.

It took nearly 18 hours to drive from Myrtle Beach to Vienna, VA along the Outer Banks (OBX). If you drive in I-95, it takes only 8 hours. But the OBX route is so much more interesting. I wish we'd had more time (and money) to stay there. I'd love to have rented one of those behemoth island beach houses we saw. They were incredible! Maybe some time we'll go back there with Val and DeeAnn and stay longer. It certainly is a windy place, though.

This evening Bailey spent the night and the four of us went to the Family Fun Center to ride the Go-Karts and the squirting bumper boats. It was lots of fun and we got totally soaked! The girls loved having free rein to squirt us and they sure got us wet! It was lots of fun. We played some games and cashed in our tickets (a la Chuck E. Cheese) and then went to Baskin Robbins for ice cream. It was a nice evening.

Joey has been having trouble going to sleep since we came back. All that therapy and work we did with going to bed on her own was just shot to hell because she spent 3 weeks sleeping with other people (friends, cousins, parents). It has been so frustrating and my patience has been extremely slim on the subject. Argh! Tonight I told her that if she could put herself to sleep for 5 nights in a row, we'd take her to the dreaded Chuck E. Cheese. (Bailey was sleeping in the guest room because they can't sleep together very well.) Still, she couldn't sleep. She was so upset about it, still fearing monsters and Basilisks (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets), so I said that I had some monster repellant. She knows it's just body spray but she liked the idea of spraying under the bed, around her door, out the window and on her pillow. She liked the smell (Pearberry, from Bath and Body Works) and we decided that the monsters didn't like that good smell so they'd stay away. I left it with her in case she needed another shot of it, then I turned on all her lights and left her in bed. A minute later she came down the hall and peered into the family room. "Does it help you fall asleep, too?" she asked. "Yes," I said. She flashed me a big smile and a thumbs up and that was the last I saw of her. I guess we can find out on Thursday at therapy if my Monster Repellant idea was a good one or not, psychologically speaking. Of course we've spent days talking about how there really *aren't* any monsters and that they are all made up and figments of the imagination, but somehow she liked taking control of the room and marking her territory. I'm just glad the body spray worked well enough that she didn't have to pee on anything.

--L