Visiting with friends and other updates

by: Kat
We all have people in our lives that we've "known forever" I was lucky enough to visit two of my oldest friends with in a few days of each other. I also realized I forgot to mention that while in Rock Hall I got to visit a friend from college. Her grandparents live in the next town over and the 4th of July weekend was the same time as their annual crab fest. It was a happy coincidence that allowed me to visit and show off the trailer. Zoë already wrote about our visit to Meg's. We felt ridiculously guilty about rolling in late at night to a home that was currently coping with the arrival of not just one new human but two. But Meg and Dave were happy to see us and I did try to mitigate our annoyance factor as much as possible with delivery of  at least a basic breakfast and lunch and a few other odds and ends, including Little Trailer Project onsies. Meg and Dave seem to be doing fabulous in their new roles as parents of twins.
Kinsey did a good job of filling you in on our visit to Ohiopyle State Park, so I'll pick up with our departure the next morning. It was a wet night and a wet morning for our departure. Anyone who's been camping knows what a pain it is to pack up wet gear in the rain. We covered the girls bunk with a tarp and piled all the wet muddy gear on it and headed out. We had to stop for breakfast because we hadn't wanted to eat in the rain. We found a cute restaurant right on the edge of the park and enjoyed  some homemade food. We were headed to Sarah's house another of my oldest friends. Meg, Sarah and I had been quite the trio growing up so it was fun to see them one right after the other.The 4 1/2 hour trip to Ashley, Ohio ended up taking us over 7 hours. We arrived in Ashley around 4 in the afternoon in a steady drizzle. Despite Ashley being only a few blocks long we managed to drive past the house, but we figured it out and pulled in. We were greeted by Max, Sarah's 12 year old, followed closely behind by his seven year old sister Adelaide. Sarah had the youngest Issac (2) on her hip and her eldest Dylan(17) greeted us inside. We also got to see her mom Gwen who was visiting, and Paul her husband dropped in between work shifts. We had planned to get there around 1 so we would have time to hang out before they headed to the boys swim meet. Our later arrival shortened our social time but Sarah was gracious enough to let us invade her home while they were gone and get some laundry done, blog duties dealt with and sorting of gear. Adelaide stayed behind with us and helped educate the girls on "The hard life of a farm girl." It was pretty cute. The girls were played happily together all afternoon. Unfortunately the galley hatch was still leaking so this was causing quite a bit of angst for Ry. There's nothing worse than watching something you've spent countless hours building being ruined. All the while knowing you could fix it if you had your shop and tools. Our temporary solution was to throw the tarp over the trailer. That night the girls shared Adelaide's room and Ry and I slept in the tarp covered trailer. Around 4:45am I woke up for a bathroom trip and found that I was not able to fall back asleep. Ry was in the same boat. As we lay there we discussed possible solutions for the hatch. We needed something that would stick to the trailer, covering the hinge seam but something that wouldn't leave a sticky mess like duct tape. Finally it came to me, Press N Seal! I decided I would pick it up on our next Wal-Mart trip (which seems to be a near daily occurrence as we work our way across the country.) I have procured the Press N Seal but we have yet to try it as we've been rain free since. We'll let you know how it goes when we put it to use. We gave up on the idea of getting back to sleep and instead got up in the morning twilight and started organizing and cleaning up our muddy gear. I have yet to mention the insane mosquito population that hangs out in Sarah's yard. She told us they were bad but I didn't quite understand till we got there and were unhooking the trailer. We were swarmed and they were vicious. Luckily that early in the morning they were happily still asleep, actually we were swarmed again when hooking the trailer up to go and we think they are attracted by the exhaust. We were packed up and ready to go by 6:30, a record for us. Around 7 we woke up the girls, Sarah and her crew were already up as she had to deliver the boys for an early morning practice. We had breakfast and said our good-byes as it began to rain yet again. I realized as we pulled away from Ashley that we hadn't gotten any pictures. We had been so distracted by our water issues that we missed any documentation. Sigh. So, sorry for the picture-less post, but we'll make up for it later. A big THANKS to Sarah and her family for letting us invade. It was great to see you all!
A quick note, I've added a tracking link, it will show where we are each day but will not show the trip as a whole. If anyone out there knows of a way to show our trip over time let me know!