An Old Friend Saves Thanksgiving

My wife and I left for Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. Like the other 10 million drivers who decided they would take 95 north from the Baltimore area to Philadelphia, we quickly realized this would be one of those painful East Coast trips. There are simply too many people, too many cars and too few roads on this side of the country. The red lights stretched for as far as the eye could see.

What is a family to do but soldier on? Then it happened, my three year old, Tiny Roast, innocently declared, "my throat hurts." Then he frantically blurted, "I think I am going to throw up." Four upchucks later, his job was complete. The lights ran on as far as the eye could see and our car was beginning to smell rather pungent. So we pulled into the parking lot of a Weis Market and bought two rolls of paper towels, two gallons of water and garbage bags.  We washed the child, the seat and everything else the best we could and then wrapped the seat in black heavy-duty garbage bags for the remainder of the trip (it didn't look very comfortable).

We were now more tired than ever. In two hours we really hadn't made very good progress. Ms. Darkroasted and I both needed a pick-me up and we knew we could find one at the Chesapeake House Service Area only a few miles ahead.

As you can see, we were not alone. Fifteen minutes later, we drove down the road with a tall caramel macchiato and a venti cappuccino in tow. This old friend perked us up instantly (side note: if you hold a cup of Starbucks under your nose you can barely smell your child's vomit in the backseat.) Our sweet little son finally fell asleep and there was peace in the car again. Coffee coincidence...No such thing.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!