I GOT UP EARLY

 to say goodbye to Kitty Hawk!  That's because, Reader Dear, I knew that goodbye would be a lengthy ordeal.  There would be tears* and last, longing looks.  And, oh, there would be all that food in the rental house fridge with which to deal; there would be dishes being sullied even as we ran the dishwasher; there would be the dirty sheets to be laundered; there would be the vacation paraphernalia to be collected from every far-flung nook and cranny of the rental house; there would be the trash collection process; there would be the loading of the cars.  On the plus side, there would also be the goodbye-final breakfast at a grits-and-biscuit-serving restaurant!

  
*Well, you know, there was a baby among us.

......
As for the rest of the day,  there would be a very long drive north through the watery Eastern Shore,
with numerous tunnels and bridges,



and the exciting exiting of the car for lunch.

Though I didn't know it ahead of time, of course, there wouldn't be much else on that eight-hour journey to grab my attention and beg to show up on a blog (Well, other than the billboard that I spotted saying Kiss Your Landlord Goodbye [realty company ad] which kind of made me cringe and wipe the back of my hand across my mouth).

......

Oh, and the frantically fluttering flags I noticed at a used-car lot as we sat at a red light.  "Hmm," I mused to The Yard Man, "looks kind of windy." 
I grinned a tiny grin.
"But who cares?"
......