Day 20: Pittsburgh to Scranton

Our day's summary:

- Breakfast and pack at Tom's parents'
- Drive
- Stop for potty
- Drive
- Stop for potty
- Drive
- Arrive in Scranton
- Wild goose chase for Olive Garden dinner
- Swimming at the Hilton pool
- Easy bedtime because the kids were tired

Today our destination was Scranton because it's about halfway to Boston. I had heard of Scranton but didn't think much of it. And then The Office came along and Scranton all of a sudden has a kind of celebrity status for me, as if I think I'm going to see Steve Carell or Jenna Fisher walk down the street. I did look for the sign from The Office (parts of Scranton are indeed as industrial as the opening credits make it look) but it seems like they might have updated the signs since filming although I don't think I ever saw the true location of the sign. Unless it's a fictional sign and then I feel silly.

This is how you know we are "just making time" on our trip now -- we saw an interesting coal mine tour, but we thought maybe we should just get to MA tomorrow instead of stopping for something fun -- we do have a full 5 hours to drive. But so long as our kids are still youngish, if we ever do drive to Pittsburgh, we probably will be stopping in Scranton (and at this Hilton if the rates stay this low and the pool stays that warm!) and have a chance to do the tour another trip. Speaking of coal, I saw a sign that said "Anthracite Museum" and Tom was like, "Oh yeah, that's one kind of coal. The other is biticul-blah-blah-blah." He said he learned it in school. That's a Pittsburgh kid for ya.

Curiously missing from our day's summary is "lunch". That's because we ate lunch on the road. We first tried it on our 6.5 hour drive from Indy to Pittsburgh and Auntie Pauline made us sandwiches for the car. That saved quite a bit of time, calories, money (if we were paying!) as well as grief. It worked well so when Tom's mom offered this morning, I took it. I used to think of our lunch stops also as a stretch break but sometimes the kids are so hyper about being out of the car that half of the conversation at lunch is "Eli, get down from there" or "Tobey, use your restaurant voice." It's almost easier to stay in the car. They don't mind so much staying in the car if they are busy eating. We take other short potty/stretch breaks, but skipping a lunch stop certainly helped us get into town earlier in the end.

I first thought, "Darn, we should have thought of this sooner!" But 1) who would make us sandwiches when we stay in hotels? Me? Ha! Grocery shopping and food storage was the last thing on my mind this vacation. And 2) we were making tons of stops and weren't necessarily needing to make up time on the road.

These last two legs of driving (Indy to Pitt to Scranton) have been smooth. We're not looking for anything in particular but I've found a pattern for the day. Eli konks out soon after we get on the road. Tobey can either absorb himself in a book, play car games with Tom, or like this morning, take a nap himself! So sometimes I get to catch up on a morning nap while Tom is fueled by his Starbuck's. After Eli wakes up, it's usually time for lunch. After lunch, we are all awake so we try to do car games, stories, general car entertainment, listening to VeggieTales for the 3rd time in 2 hours. When the kids start getting antsy, it's time for a surprise from Collin, who is a schoolmate who gave us a goodie bag of "little" goodies to keep the ride interesting. Not that other friends didn't give us great gifts for the trip -- some we also gave during the trip or I'm saving for when we are in Boston. But the goodie bag by Collin's mom just happened to be all wrapped (upping the excitement factor) as well as "little" surprises (she said so herself) that I don't mind giving daily. Some of the other surprises were actually so nice that I would wait for a bigger event to give those. Anyway, after surprise time, there's usually just an hour or so left and it's not so bad when we are all anticipating an end to the driving day.

I realized when we sat at dinner tonight that it was our "last supper" on the road. Sure, we will probably eat out tomorrow night after we arrive into our corporate guest housing in Newton just because we will have nothing to eat at "home". But it will be different because we will already be "home", in our new home area. Kind of weird to think that. And like I predicted in the middle of our trip, I am sad to see this vacation end. It has had its ups and downs but mostly ups, many big ups and little ups, and some great family time. I can't believe we've made it all the way across the country. You can see the distance we drove on a globe. The trip we've talked about for so long is just about finished. I'll savor our last day on the road. And then it's time to move on.