We didn't mean to go to Leesburg

No, seriously. We didn't. We meant to come straight-ish back from New Jersey, where we'd been having Thanksgiving with Jonathan's family. We were on the Beltway, looking for the Route 7/Tyson's corner exit. But instead we were deceived by signage into taking the "straight road to Dulles Airport" exit, from which there are no exits until the airport itself, except for toll roads which we were just not motivated to take. I had not been aware there was a straight road from the Beltway to Dulles; but so there is. We'd been making really good time on the trip and had hoped to be home by two.

The Straight Road to Dulles was rather insult to injury, as it happens. It was the second time that trip we got stuck on roads with no exit for miles. Grr. The first time, we were nearing Jonathan's parents' house. We could almost reach it. Yours truly, Navigatrix, thoughtlessly told the Driver we wanted Exit 3 and settled down with an Anne book, when in fact we wanted Exit 2. The Driver actually believed the Navigatrix, which is sort of scary. We pass Exit 2 -- "We didn't want the Swedesboro exit, did we?" "Yes. OH NO!" --and call up his mother for directions home, as neither of us had the foggiest notion where the next exit might land us. Sigh. Fortunately it spat us out close to his old church, but still.

So there we were, at an entirely unnecessary airport. We figured, while we were so close, we might as well call up my sister and have lunch. So we met her and Danae and had a glorious time. We also tried to call Kay, but couldn't get a hold of her. But all good times must end, even barbecue, so we steeled ourselves for the three-hour jaunt south across Virginia.

It was all right. 15 and 17 were actually decent regarding traffic, and we had fudge sundaes around 3:30. But then we got onto 95 south. Whimper. I prayed for a spot to merge into, and it's a good thing, because the traffic was bumper-to-bumper. It cleared out a bit after Fredericksburg, enough that we could go the speed limit, but the traffic coming north was much worse. We had a solid ribbon of taillights going 65, and they had a solid ribbon of headlights going about zero.

We got home around five, and discovered a certain lack of milk and eggs and bread in the house. We seriously debated having Chinese leftovers for breakfast, but dismally concluded we ought to get groceries. So off we go. Again. They were nice to us at Ukrops, and we came away with the eggs and b.

And I checked my phone, to discover we'd missed a call from Ben and Lisa. They were driving up through town today from the Deep South and wondered if we were interested in company. We'd missed them by about half an hour. Argh! And I had another message from Kay calling back. She hadn't gotten my call because she spent today flying home from Italy.

Isn't this an amazing life we live? We can, literally, get from almost anywhere to anywhere in a day, and know people who do.

But some days the road seems really, really long....