Final beach ramblings...

We arrived home LATE Monday night. The ride home was difficult; everyone was cranky and just wanted to get home. We went home a different way, just for kicks and grins. We stopped by the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC to see that beautiful estate, but it was closed. I was disappointed. We drove through the beautiful Smoky Mountains, and you can tell I was tired because I took not a single picture of the beautiful mountains with fog settling in.

We traveled about 2800 miles, through 8 states, and slept in 4 different states.

Had the girls been high school seniors, we would have just gone on the perfect college tour for them. We drove by all the following major universities, in addition to countless smaller ones and community colleges.

University of Tennessee in Knoxville
Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL
University of Missouri in Columbia
University of Louisville in Louisville
University of Kentucky in Lexington
College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA
North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC
Duke University in Durham
University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill
Wake Forest University in Winston Salem

I have no idea why people smoke, and never will. It is the most disgusting thing to me, and that point was brought home to me this week when the girls would bend down to pick up a seashell, and instead pick up a cigarette butt. Seriously? You are on a gorgeous beach, watching the waves roll in, why on earth would you feel the need to leave your cigarette butt on the beach? Just gross. And Kaylin would say, "Look, someone was cigaretting."

I developed some sort of sun-allergy and broke out with a rash all over my arms, my neck, and my bottom lip swelled up. Strange.

I fell in love with North Carolina! I could move there in a heartbeat. Illinois and Indiana...not so much.

Macy is quite the environmentalist. Someone left a Subway wrapper on the sand that started blowing into the water, and she fished it out because "It will kill the fish!"

I read 4 books. And drove not a single mile the entire trip.

Now, it is back to reality.