Some states require extensive planning and some just require the right mind set.  Let’s face it, no one really likes to drive 10 hours in one day.  After doing six states in 3 days, my perspective on driving shifted.  Don’t get me wrong…I still don’t like it, but I have accepted that driving is part of this adventure.  Weather is unpredictable and buying plane tickets in advance is a gamble.  It is so much easier to look at the weather and then make a decision to set out on the journey via car. 

As Thanksgiving approached, I kept checking the weather to see where we could go.   I also sent emails to Skydive Alabama and Skydive The Farm in Georgia to see if they would be open over Thanksgiving weekend.  I was most curious to find out rather or not they would be jumping on Friday.  Since Georgia would put us closer to home, it would be best to do Alabama on Friday.  I exchanged messages with Cristi R (Pink Mafia Sister - #138) from Skydive Alabama.  She suggested that we arrive early on Friday because she wasn’t sure how many loads would be going up.  They had tandems arriving at 10:00 AM.  Perfect!  We could do The Farm on Saturday.

This year, Emma would be celebrating Thanksgiving with her dad.  Since she didn’t have school on Wednesday, I took her up to his office on Tuesday night so I could avoid the holiday traffic.  Matt’s company was closed the day after Thanksgiving so we’d have an extra day for travel.

Every year, we have a standing invitation for Thanksgiving brunch with Matt’s grandmother and her side of the family.  There are usually no less than forty people at the event.  We planned to stop by and then hit the road for Alabama.  The drop zone was about 10 hours from our house.

On Wednesday night, we packed the car and started talking about the long drive ahead of us.  If we left Richmond at 2:00 PM, we’d arrive after midnight.  It would be a long day, but we could do it.  After some more conversation, Matt suggested we leave early and skip Thanksgiving lunch.  I’m not going to lie.  I secretly wanted to do this because I knew it would be easier for us, but I didn’t want to suggest it myself because I didn’t want to be the one that kept him from his family gathering.  I was relieved when he mentioned it as an option.  We finished packing the car before we went to bed.

When we woke up in the morning, we had breakfast then hit the road.  By the time we fueled up and bought some drinks, it was nearly 9:30 – not an early start, but much better than 2:00 PM!  Since it was Thanksgiving, there was barely any traffic.  Not so many of those huge trucks taking things from place A to B.  Our only concern was food.  We packed a bunch of snacks and some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches  We weren’t sure that we’d find a place for dinner, but we quickly discovered that lots of places were open and we stopped at Ruby Tuesdays.  Even though our bill was barely $25.00, I left a $10.00 tip.  I felt bad for our waiter.  He said that things were very slow which was evident as there weren’t very many people eating.

Matt used Priceline to locate a hotel north of the DZ.  For 86.93, we stayed at the Comfort Inn located in Decatur, AL less than 30 miles from the DZ.  At some point while we were driving, we realized that we'd be gaining an hour from the time change!  It was only 10:30 local time when we checked into the hotel!  Awesome!!!