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July 28, 2013 - 10:57 p.m.
"a long drive home"

Hey Journal!

We have arrived home from our long day of driving back from Niagara Falls! It was a fun day, but I am certainly exhausted and ready for bed! I can't believe I have to get up for work tomorrow... Ugh!!

This morning we woke up at 8:30 and got out of bed, gathered our belongings, and packed up the car for the trip home. We planned to go to Perkins for breakfast, but when we arrived... we had second thoughts. The reason we didn't stay was that when we looked at the menu the prices were exorbitant. They were about double what IHOP prices are at home. I know that tourist areas have higher prices, but I got a bad feeling that the food was going to suck. The reason I felt like that was that last night's experience at Macaroni Grill seemed like these restaurants in hotels are just like...quick and smaller versions of their real chains. Like the name and menu have been licensed by some other company and the food just isn't as good.

I dunno... we decided to just find somewhere else to go on the way home! We left and stopped at a 7-11 to buy a Canadian Lotto scratch off! Sadly, we didn't win!

Instead of taking the Rainbow Bridge back, we took the Peace Bridge.

We stopped at Duty Free and I got a bottle of Absolut vodka and Dan got some kind of weird liquor. We ate breakfast at the Tim Horton's there. Before we left, Dan went to the bathroom and Re held his coffee. She was looking at one of the weird green things that separate the bottles and she spilled the coffee on the counter! Ooops!! I ran to get some napkins, and we cleaned it up!

When we left, we crossed the bridge and there was a long line for the customs booths, but we made our way up! As you know, Lau didn't have a passport and so we were a little nervous about the reaction of the border agent. They are never very nice or fun people. I'm sure they have to deal with a bunch of really annoying people all day every day!

Meanwhile, we got there and handed him all of our documents. He saw that Lau only had her license and birth certificate and asked her if she had a passport. She answered no, but clearly we weren't just hiding the passport! Oh yeah, Here it is... GOTCHA!

He asked her a bunch of questions about where she was born, where she worked, where she went to school, and then he let us back into the country! Phew!

He didn't ask any questions of any of the rest of us, but I do remember back before you needed a passport, they used to ask those kind of questions to us, too... so it wasn't really anything too intense.
Oh, and one more thing... he looked at Re's passport and said, "Kristen." and that was it. We all thought it was funny.

We stopped for gas at the next rest stop we passed and then we continued on to our next stop... Wegman's in Syracuse! Woop! LOVE WEGMAN'S! It's the best store ever and we NEED one around here! I stocked up on my Wegman's cereal and bread, and we all got some snacks for the car. I got watermelon and carrots.

Dan got a box of chocolate chip cookies. I carried our bags out to the car, and when we got there, Dan put some in the trunk, and the rest in the car. When we were on the road, Dan wanted his cookies, and they were nowhere to be found. He accused me of leaving them behind at the store and told me I had insisted that I had "all the bags." I did not say that. I said I didn't need help carrying the bags I had been carrying!

We had a little trouble because 81 was closed in the direction we were going due to construction. We had to get off the highway and go through a sketchy town and make a huge detour! Ugh!

Once we were back on the highway we played some MadLibs and other games to pass the time!

Lau introduced us to a game called "Ghost" that she said her family had always played in the car. Each person takes turns saying a letter and you have to spell a word, but you don't want to be the person to complete an actual word. If it ends on you, you get a letter. "G", "G-H", until you've spelled GHOST, and then you're out! It was a fun game. We played a couple of times along the way.

We stopped again to go to Cracker Barrel in New Jersey. It took us a while to get to it because there were a couple of areas of intense traffic. Dark red on the map! We took a slight detour to avoid some of it, and I think we did save some time.

When we got to Cracker Barrel, they had a 20 minute wait! I was shocked because I don't think I've ever seen a wait at Cracker Barrel! We waited outside and Re and I played Checkers, and Dan and Lau played, too.

Re gave a refresher on the rules because I don't think I never really understood the rules of checkers. I always used to play on Yahoo Games but I only made the moves it would let me make and I don't think I won very often! I miss Yahoo Games! :P

Anyway, Re beat me, and our game ended just as they called our name!

Dan, Lau, and I wanted to get the Chicken and Dumplings and our waiter told us they were OUT of dumplings! Are you serious!?!? He did say they would be ready in about 30 minutes, so we decided to sit and wait. He said he had to ask his manager if that was okay, and I was ready for a fight! lol I mean, what the heck? Run out of food and then NOT let us wait for you to cook more? But it was all okay, he took our order, and we waited. It didn't even take 30 minutes, it was much less!

I thoroughly enjoyed my meal, and then we hit the road again. We got some gas in New Jersey to take advantage of their low prices and then we were back on the road. As we approached the George Washington Bridge, we hit a lot of traffic. We creeped up to the tools, but after that, it was smooth sailing.

We got home around 9:45pm, and all in all it was 12 hours since we left, though we did make some stops. We estimated about 9 hours of driving time. A little longer than our trip there, but not terrible.

We brought our things in the from the car, I took a shower, and now I have to get to sleep so I can wake up for work tomorrow!

It was such a fun weekend... we all had a great time and I can't wait to do another one of these type of getaways soon! Now it's time for bed and I can't beleive I have to get up for work tomorrow! Ahhhhh! Luckily, it should be a quiet and calm day. (Famous last words!)

Until tomorrow...

Goodnight. :)