A Week of Non-Boating - A 1453 mile Road Trip

We went to the Northwest Creek Marina in Fairfield Harbour near New Bern to leave our boat for a week so we could go on a trip with a couple of our grandchildren.  We have made it a practice almost since we had grandchildren to create memories with them instead of giving gifts for Christmas and birthdays.  This year our ten-year-old grandson Owen wanted to go to a Baltimore Ravens football game more than anything else in the world, so that's what we gave him for his birthday.

We picked up a rental car in New Bern and drove to Cary, NC where we left the dogs in a kennel for the weekend and picked up Owen.  We then drove to a suburb north of Baltimore where my sister-in-law Claire graciously put us up for the weekend.  Claire's Wheaten Terrier Riley and Owen made fast friends and had a great time running in the yard and playing together.  Claire started calling Owen "Riley's boy" because he seemed to love being with Owen so much.

We drove in early on Sunday to M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore so we could tailgate before the game.

The Ravens played the Bengals, and even though we lost we all had a great time.

Monday it was back to Cary to drop off Owen and pick up his six-year-old sister Maria.  What Maria wanted this year for her birthday was a trip to the Great Wolf Lodge in Charlotte, NC.  So off we went to Charlotte with Maria and Raina, a friend of Maria's from school.  We had a couple of nice days playing in the water park and "questing" all over the lodge.

After a couple of days in Charlotte it was back to the boat in Fairfield Harbour. We were planning to stay the night in Cary and drive to New Bern on Saturday, but since hurricane Joaquin was churning offshore and the areas not too far from New Bern were experiencing record rainfall, we decided to head back Friday night in the rain.  When we turned in the rental car we had logged 1453 miles for the week!