A long road trip

Nicole, Madeline and I drove to North Carolina last week to visit SQL Sentry.

Here is about the only interesting thing I notice every time I pass through New Jersey:

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We left Sunday morning and headed straight to Washington, DC. We walked around for a few hours, taking Madeline to the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the White House (where we saw Robert Plant stepping out of a limo, but weren’t quick enough to get a pic).

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We stopped in Lorton, Virginia for a visit with the Oktavecs. I remember some great chili, lots of rum, and a very comfortable bed.

Next stop: Huntersville, NC. I did some work, we had our annual Christmas party, and the company met Madeline. We also went to the Biltmore House in Asheville. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, but I’ll just give you one stat to give you some idea of why this tour took 2 hours: this is a 179 thousand square foot home. Pretty interesting example of affluence, abundance and a time when some people had more money than they knew what to do with.

Some random shots from the week:

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On Friday we left Huntersville and drove to Virginia Beach. We got there in time to eat dinner at Mahi Mah’s and check out the Holiday Lights at the Beach:

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On Saturday we left Virginia Beach and headed north to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. This is a pretty cool engineering project if you’re into that kind of thing. We didn’t get any pictures because it was really foggy, but it was a cool drive nonetheless.

I’ve always liked the architecture of the GW Bridge, but I think this is the first time I’ve ever made an effort of taking a photograph. It didn’t turn out great – someday I’m going to get out there on foot.

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Sunday we visited with the Messiers – had a great brunch and reunited Madeline with her Pepe.

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Today, Madeline had her two-month check-up and her first round of immunizations. Some stats (with percentiles):

  • Height: 24.25 inches (93.74%)
  • Weight: 13 lbs, 2 oz (88.42%)
  • Head circumference: 16.25 inches (91.52%)
  • BMI: 15.7 (29.25%)

She also has a bit of the sniffles, the doctor agrees probably from climate and humidity changes. My new household title: “snot remover (using the blue bulby thing we stole from the hospital).”

Now we are watching the Patriots slaughter the Texans, about to see their record go to 10-3. If Owen Daniels stays under 70 yards and no scores, I just might pull off a very unlikely fantasy win too:

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And I think that leaves you pretty up-to-date!

5 Responses

  1. Edward G. LeBlanc says:

    Nice! Trivia question: Why are there two different shades of granite on the Washington Monument? (one shade on the bottom 50 feet or so, another shade on the rest of it)??

    Also, the photo of the oil tank with the message “Drive Safety”…did you take that photo, or did you steal it from the opening credits of “The Sopranos”??

  2. Well I think they had to abandon construction to fund the military (War of 1812?) back when they couldn’t just borrow 12 billion dollars from China, and the color couldn’t be matched perfectly when construction resumed.

    I took the photo but only because of the Sopranos credits.

    • Edward G. LeBlanc says:

      Civil War. Clearly, we have a lot of U.S. history to cover with you over the coming years. It’ll be fun.

  1. December 27th, 2012

    […] Her third month was a busy one. At the beginning we drove to Washington, DC; Charlotte, North Carolina; and then Virginia Beach (I blogged about that). […]