The Duke game and going home

This entire North Carolina trip was the brain child of Olivia Grace and she was pretty amazed that she actually pulled it off. I was too. But, she was able to enjoy the fruits of her labor Sunday night along with Caitlin, Emma and Maggie as they watched the blue people beat Miami. Even though they sat on the top shelf in the stadium, they had a great time and kept pinching themselves to make sure it wasn't a dream. Emma took no less than 3000 pictures of the game, so just thank me that I did much filtering and put only a few on my blog. And even though I loved the trip and had a great time, it's definitely time to move on to other subject matter....whatever the heck that will be.

Pregame photo op for the Duke girls.


There are other top shelf people over there next to Emma, but look at my lovely daughters.


Yes....lovely.


How many places can you wear hair like this?


Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha this one just makes me laugh.


Maggie's trying to look dignified.....as if it were possible.


The girls were jealous of this lady's basketball hoop hat.


But they had their blue hair, even though the lady with the basketball hoop hat was ALSO a blue hair. See? See how I did that? Ha....I really do crack myself up.


Emma's only pretending to wear the blue hair.


Pregame warm up.


These people sitting in this section do really weird stuff, but I can't explain it.


Coach K....not even gonna try to spell his name.


Getting ready to start. Basketball people are usually tall. So, now, someone tell me, "Really! Thank you Captain Obvious!"


It's game on.






This place is tiny so even a top shelf seat is pretty good.


Shooting a foul shot but there's some fouling going on even during the foul shooting.


Talking strategy.








So at the end of the day, we made it safely to North Carolina, UNC won, Duke won, and Melanie was feeling really bad by Sunday night. The plan for the next day was to drive to Wilmington NC to see the Atlantic Ocean before heading home. After some discussion, we all agreed we were ready to go to the house. The next morning we FINALLY got our Chick-fil-a chicken biscuit for breakfast and began the drive home to Louisiana covering the last of 2100 miles with a steady 14 hour ride. The traffic was awful especially around Atlanta but it did offer us the opportunity to see the Olympic torch along the highway.


And then while I was driving, a man harassed me because he was an idiot. He did several things like slowing down in front of us and changing lanes when I did until Melanie pulled out her phone and acted like she was calling the police. Then the weasel got off at the next exit. I have a few choice names for him but none are "family fare" so I'll restrain myself. It never ceases to amaze me that people think the highway is fair game for however fast they want to go or for as much bad driving as they can cram in to one day. It's craziness.

In our keeping with Chick-fil-a all day all the time, we made it to Greenville South Carolina where we got Chick-fil-a for lunch and we were off again watching movies and Friends and burning up miles. Then we stopped for supper in Meridian Mississippi where we had Chick-fil-a for supper....and that's the story of Chick-fil-a all day all the time. Although I enjoy a nugget now and then, it'll be a while before I have the nugget special.

By this time of day, we were a little punchy and ready to be out of the car. In order to keep things from breaking down into bedlam, the girls found ways to try to break up the boredom as you'll see in the following pictures.






After a full day of driving, we made it back to Monroe safe and sound with lots of UNC and Duke clothing to prove it. I'm not looking for a road trip anytime soon, but we had such a fun time even in the rain and the fog and Melanie not feeling well. North Carolina made for a great memory with many events covered in a very short time. It gets an A++ from me.

The end to the NC stories for now.