Girls Trip Successful Start

For years now Carter and I have taken a road trip as a precursor to our family vacation. We have a few rules about the trip. First, is that there are no rules. Second, if we see something we want to do we stop and do it. Third, treats are allowed and there is no treat shaming.

This year our girl’s trip is up the East coast to Maine. Carter got to choose our first stop and she picked Baltimore. Neither of us could remember why she wanted to come to Baltimore, but it has been fun nonetheless. Not because we have done too many B’more things, but mostly because we are staying in a nice hotel, ate at a nice restaurant and did some major damage shopping. The Under Armour Brand Store is the bomb.

There are three great things about our trip so far. One is Carter can help with the driving. To keep the stress level down and the scenic value up we came up the northern neck of Virginia and skipped I-95 all together. Carter liked the towns like Frog Level and Bowling Green. The lack of big trucks makes practice driving less stressful.

Two, Carter is able to search the web in real time and find local, non-chain restaurants for us to eat at as we are driving through a town hungry. We originally thought we would make to the Charm City for lunch, but our meandering ways got us only to La Plata Maryland by 12:45. Carter announced that the number 2 rated restaurant in town, Marie’s Diner, was the place to go. The review that said, “Don’t be thrown off by the looks,” was good advice. I have to say that the crab soup was worth the visit. Carter did well.

The third good thing is that according to Carter’s snap chat story she posted at lunch “It has been five hours and we have not killed each other yet.” I can report that it has been fifteen hours and we are still both alive and on good speaking terms. Mother’s of teenage daughters will understand the significance of this.

One of the treats of our trip is that Russ made our reservation at the hotel chain he keeps in business. When we arrived they fawned all over us and asked when Mr. Lange would be getting here soon. I hated to disappoint them and tell them he was at a sister property in Chicago. They still gave us the “Russ Lange, You are the Man” upgrade, including the already in the room welcome fruit bowl, snacks, drinks and personal letter from the GM. They also upgraded us from a room with two double beds to a room with two double beds and a bunkroom with a TV and X-box. Carter declared she was taking that room and immediately took a nap on the top bunk.

Nothing says vacation like a nap.