Notes of a Newlywed

"I smell frost on cotton leaves, and I feel that southern breeze"

, Friday, July 9 10:42 PM

G.I. Joe was given some time off work, so we decided to take a huge roadtrip. Johnny Cash was one of our many roadtrip sing-a-longs.



We went up to Pennsylvania to visit his family (both sides), saw our friends' play in West Virginia, visited with our newlywed roommates (the bride was my roommate in college and the groom was G.I. Joe's roommate), then headed to the outer banks for some camping fun.

To save on money, G.I. Joe built a tent-sorta-type thing in the bed of the truck out of PVC pipe and bungies. Which, sidenote, bungies are just about the most handy and versatile object you can possibly have in your car. Just saying.

This is my handsome husband next to the truck bed with the tent frame.



Here are pictures of the inside of our "tent".




Everything was going great, until the tropical storm hit. The wind was about 30mph the first night, then it rained (and I mean rained) the second and third nights. But, we were determined to keep a good attitude, so we figured on the second day, since it was raining, we would go see the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. Originally, we thought it would be a good idea to leave the tarp covering the bed, like the pictures I just showed, because it would keep our bed dry for that night, and it would be easier to put up in the rain. Fail.

Here is G.I. Joe putting the tarp up in the rain on the side of the road:



And again:




Well, we got lost. I mean, we didn't get lost, the lighthouse did. We passed it (I have no idea how) and kept driving down Hwy 12 for at least 30 minutes before we realized we had passed it. So we turned back around and found it. When we pulled into the parking lot, we saw the hours and had 20 minutes until they closed. Which was okay, because we just wanted to run up, take a picture from the top, and then go. A great plan until we got out of the car. A "hssssss" sound stopped both of us in our tracks. In our rear tire was a nail, a massive nail, tilted just right to let the maximum amount of air out of the tire while still managing to catch a ride. So instead of racing up the lighthouse stairs, we jumped back in the car, after I begged G.I. Joe for one picture:



I think his face portrays our mood perfectly at this moment. Thankfully, there was a car parts place just outside of the Cape Hatteras park, so we were able to park under the awning of a gas station while G.I. Joe repaired the hole with a tire repair kit. The gas station also just happened to have free air, so the Lord was definitely taking care of us. We only had to fix the tarp once on the way back.

The rest of our trip went really well. We got to fly kites on Jockey's Ridge (my favorite part of the vacation):



play in the ocean:



and watch sunrises and sunsets:



We did quite a bit more, and I took plenty more pictures, but those will have to wait for another day. This post is already too long!

Here is one last picture to commemorate a great, if not eventful, trip: