About Bees and DRIVING... Lotsa Driving

So, for my 4th of July weekend, I took an extra day off, on Thurs so that I can enjoy a 4-day weekend. I drove down to Richmond, VA to meet up with my uncle and aunt, who were visiting my cousin.

I thought leaving at 8am will allow me to most of the traffic, but I was half-right. I managed to beat the traffic in New York and most of New Jersey turnpike, but, it was about 3pm, when I was clearing Washington DC. The traffic in Northern Virginia was bad, really bad. I was pretty much crawling at 20-30mph for a good hour. So, my 8.5 to 9-hour drive turned into a 10 and a quarter hours.

It was great to see my uncle and aunt, and of course my cousin, and cousin-in-law and niece. I really enjoy hanging out in Richmond, VA. More like, hanging out with family. Too bad, I was suffering from a minor cold. Started feeling a parch-throat on Wed, stuffy-nose on Thurs, droopy-nose on Fri, and the rest were history... But, that didn't stop me from enjoying all the good food. All the grilling and roasting...

So, the next day, Independence Day, we went to the Botanical Garden. Weather was hot, but, we went there anyway. The garden is of good-size, but well-maintained. The colors were so breathtaking, and just the sight, sound and smell of nature were really overwhelming. And the lunch at the tea-house was great. Amazing food. The Baja beef salad I had was delicious. I took a bunch of pictures, and here there are...
Bees... pretty huge ones...
More of them...
The colors....
Looks artificial sometimes.
Flower... flower... ORCHID-Lah...
More flower... oops, i meant more ORCHID-lah
An interesting-looking orchid. Just like a pitcher-plant.
A giant hibiscus, like the size of a soccer ball.Dragonfly...
The conservatory, reflected upon the lake.
More bees...
And another...
Very last one...

So, that was fun. Then, we had a great dinner on Friday. Always do when I was in Richmond, VA. Always some kinda holiday or celebration. Grilled lamb... seriously...

On Friday night, we planned to watch some fireworks in the city, but, the event was canceled because of bad-weather. And, we drove to the other part of town, more like another town, hope to catch another firework display, but apparently, it was canceled as well. My poor niece was very disappointed, as all the anticipation to her first 'LIVE' firework display was called off.

The next day, we drove up to Washington DC, to attend a cook-out of my cousin-in-law's relative. Well, it was a great party. We spent the night at Westin Hotel, in Arlington, VA. It was a nice hotel. The next day, we drove to Silver Spring, MD for lunch. I found a highly-rated, well-reviewed dim sum place, and true to the words, the food was pretty good. And we waited about an hour for it. Probably, 'value-added' in that sense too.

Then, a good drive back to Shrewsbury, MA from there. We left the restaurant at about 1.30pm, with them heading south to Richmond, VA, while I head North. On paper, it should be 7 hours. But it turned out to be a 11.5 hours monster. Again, the driving through New York was actually not that bad. With my fastlane tag, I managed to skip all the queue of cash-paying drivers. But, the traffic came to a standstill on I-91, right outside of Hartford, CT. Apparently, a fatal accident had occured and the police closed down the highway, and it wasn't 3 hours later that I was able to get out of that. When I google-news the next day, I found out that it wasn't until 6 hours later that the freeway was fully reopened. It was like something I thought would only happen in some movies, where people turned off their car and walked on the highway. But, what can you do?
Looking back...
Looking ahead...
So, I got back to my apartment at about 1.10am. Starving and exhausted, I assembled a quick bite, took a quick shower, and went to bed at about 2.30am. Woke up 4 hours later to go to work...

Did I mention that my house-warming gift from my cousin survive the entire journey. It's a plant. I'll get the picture up soon.