Barry? Barry, who? Call Noah!

June 3, 2007
College Park, MD

Well it's been raining on us for just over 48 hours. Only 1,008 to go before Noah takes over. We've been in the "non-tropical" remnants of Tropical Storm "Barry" since Friday afternoon. When we got to Jacksonville, it started to rain. When we put The Weather Channel on, we heard all about how "Barry" (we completely missed, "Aaron", the "A" storm) was coming ashore near Tampa and how welcome the rain was. OK, we had heard about the drought and the fires, and had even driven through the smoke. We get it: they need a little rain.

Unfortunately for us, we're traveling in the basic track of the storm. It rained hard all Friday night. We drove almost out of it on Saturday, getting to Selma, NC a little ahead of it. It rained all night and all day driving up to the DC area. We arrived in College Park (on the north side of the DC Beltway) about 3 PM (spent about 1.5 hours within 15 miles of the place, stuck in traffic due to an accident) and it rained all the way. It rained while we hooked up. It rained while I went to the office to find a better spot than the one I gave us (the park's pretty big at over 350 sites, but they put us in the section where all the Carnival People are staying and we just didn't fit in -- not that there's anything wrong with Carnival People!). It rained harder while we unhooked and moved to a different spot and hooked up again. We just need to stay in and dry out at this point.

It looks like we'll have more rain overnight and into tomorrow. This is really a shock to the system for two people (and two dogs) who got used to the Phoenix sunshine really quickly. And to think we lived in NYC for two+ years, and had to be out and about (oot and aboot for our Canadian friends) no matter what the weather. How soon we forget!

All that said, we're happy to be here. I want to revisit many of the sights in DC (Geri's "just along for the ride" this stop) that we haven't seen in years. We hit DC for a wine tasting a few years ago, but we haven't done the Mall and the museums in a while. I'd like to get some interesting pictures (I'm behind on the photo front). If the weather holds, we'll be in good shape.

Speaking of good shape, we're continuing to check in on Mom each day by phone. Rick and/or Annette are doing the drive from Albertville to Gadsden each day as well, and it's a lot more of a drain on them. Mom's sounding better, even though she's still confused about what she had for dinner. :-)

After driving the coach since the alignment, we have mixed reviews. I can definitely feel the difference in the smoothness of the ride. Whether it's the alignment or the wheel balancers, who knows. On the other hand, we have a little bit more "play" in the steering at the center position. I'll have to do some more research to see what moves we make next to help. It's a constant process, of course.