The Last Day Post is Always Late

So, I did make it home in once piece.  As always, my trip home is an adventure. 

I had planned to leave DC at about 10 am, but did not take into account the fun of moving your car for street cleaning.  Intellectually, I knew about this but as I am not a city dweller it did not take center stage in my departure plans.  I parked on the Monday "move your car by 9:30am" side of the street.

My hostess was kind enough to knock on my door to remind me at a bit after 9, which necessitated my throwing on yesterday's clothes and attempting to tame my terminal bed head before rushing out to move the behemoth. This pushed back my schedule about an hour as it took me 45 minutes to find another space. 

Got back, showered, finished packing, pulled behemoth up to front door to load up, and was on the road about 11am.  If you're curious to see where I stayed, this is the listing for it. I will be back to put up a kind review soon.

I also need to say that I miss my old Garmin GPS.  I now have a Magellan and it's incredibly buggy.  It will verbally tell you to go one direction, but the screen says another.  I got turned around twice by this.

I made my planned side trip to the Springfield Trader Joe's where I stocked up on important provisions like triple ginger cookies and six different bottles of wine made with organic grapes. There are rumors on the Internet that the staff there isn't really all that friendly.  While not rude, I didn't find them as nice as at some of the other Trader Joe's I've visited. 

Second stop was at the Plow and Hearth outlet outside of Charlottesville where I fell in love with an electric stove fireplace. Wanted it in white, but did not buy.  Still thinking about it.  I also saw this birdbath, but it was dinged up and they still wanted over $100 for it.  Notsomuch.

Then on to Whole Foods, where I picked up what I didn't at Trader Joe's (still forgot my oatmeal) and ate dinner.  Their prepared food bars are pricey, but totally yummy.  I got the most amazing smoked mac and cheese, 3 grain tabbouleh,  and their cabbage crunch salad.  I almost couldn't find the cabbage crunch as they made it with red cabbage this time...it was good, but not as good as the fine shred green cabbage I usually get.

Made it home at 8PM and hauled my crap inside through the misty rain.  Did laundry, unloaded groceries, cleaned up kitchen and collapsed into bed.  Good thing I'm on vacation next week!