This morning Andy headed off to Annapolis to argue a complicated case in the Court of Appeals (essentially Maryland's Supreme Court.) The case is very involved, and preparing for today's hearing has sucked up a huge chunk of time.  We all have confidence in his abilities and expect it to go well.  I know he'll be relieved to have it over and done.

Then I whipped up a cheese and salami omelette for Sandy, Marilyn and me, and we also managed to polish off the last of the strawberries and blueberries.  With a good breakfast under our belt Marilyn and I started off on our long schlep to Texas. We're Listening to one of her audio books: Being Mortal - Medicine and What Matters in the End, by Atul Gawande.  Excellent!!!

It's a little over 1600 miles, so there's no dilly dallying allowed.  Since I'm limiting my water intake to cut down on pee stops, I lasted 3 hours before I "suggested" a rest stop.  After everyone took care of business we got right back on the road, but this time with me at the wheel.  And wouldn't you know it 5 minutes later there was road construction, so it was stop and crawl, stop and crawl - for an hour!  

After three hours In the driver's seat I pulled into another rest stop (it looked exactly like the last one, so maybe all the rest stops in Virginia are clones?) and while we were walking Frannie something fell from the tree and really bonked me on the head.  At first I thought it must have been a nut, but when I put my hand up there I came away with something (!) that made me get a water bottle and give myself a mini shampoo.

Marilyn drove the rest of today.  She said I'm a good driver and she was very comfortable with me at the wheel; she even closed her eyes and caught a little cat nap while I drove.  So she was good for a while even though she was up well before me (and I got up at 5:30.) I had made sandwiches this morning (we grabbed those at the first stop) and hard boiled some eggs yesterday (grabbed those and the bananas at the second stop) so we only need to stop when Nature calls (unfortunately that mother has me on speed dial...)

We've stopped for the night in Kingston, Tennessee while it was still light so Frannie could get in a good walk.  She didn't complain at all today about being cooped up; possibly it was somewhat of a relief after two days of energetic play with Pippa?

The first room they assigned us was was clearly marked as non-smoking, but the last occupants of that room had obviously ignored that and it reeked, so we ended up switching rooms.  A light 'dinner' of apples and cheese filled me up, and I'm going to spend the rest of the evening relaxing on the heating pad.  My back is never thrilled to sit all day, and with two more days of driving ahead of us I'm trying to be pro-active and keep it happy!