Conclusion, Or How We Finally Left Shallotte, NC

Before I fill you in on the rest of our Road Trippin' adventures, I want to take a minute and just be super grateful for my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I mentioned in my last post that we had looked up the number for the local congregation's leadership, and although the bishop did not get back in contact with us in enough time to solve our immediate need of getting from one place to another he did arrange for us to get a ride to church on Sunday. At church, no less than four people offered to let us stay in their home if needed, and particularly one family took up to the store and invited us over for dinner and was just so kind and generous toward us. I was still very shaken up Sunday morning, and some of the brothers gave me a priesthood blessing, and just being at church in general was very soothing. It was one of those moments when I was like, "Even if the Church totally is a giant fraud, if it produces people like this, I want to be a part of it." So even though I don't know that I will ever feel fondly toward Shallotte, NC, I will always have a fond part of my heart for the Shallotte Ward.

Anyway. We took it easy on Sunday -- we went to church and then we sat in the hot tub for a while, which felt SOOOOOO good. I spent a bit of time on the phone cancelling reservations and talking with friends, we laid down for a bit, and then we went for spaghetti dinner at S's house. She and her husband were just absolutely delightful. An example, the spaghetti had both meatball and just beef chunks in it. When I mentioned that I particularly enjoyed that, her husband, totally straight faced, says "It's raccoon." He was kidding, but that's pretty funny. We had a long wonderful conversation, and S had even done our laundry for us, since we were only packed for a few days.

Monday morning we discovered that one of the two rental car places in Shallotte no longer existed and the other wouldn't allow us to do a one-way rental, which meant we would have to go up to the airport in Wilmington, NC which is about 45 minutes away. Luckily, the previous evening S had offered to drive us up there, which, again, was just incredibly generous. If we had known we would have to rent from Wilmington, we could have left on Sunday, but I don't know how we would have gotten up there; spending the day with S meant that we didn't have to feel as bad about asking her to take an hour and a half out of her day to take us there.

I had to be "that person" with the rental agency because they first assigned us to a Mazda 3, and a.) I kind of hate that car, b.) the trunk is really, really curvy so there was no way the bike rack was going to fit on it, so I had to be all "I'm sorry, I need you to give me a different model of car." We ended up with a Toyota Corolla which wasn't terrible. Then we had to drive back to Shallotte to unload my car and pack the rental, which was hot work at 11:00 am. We were super hungry, so stopped for lunch before heading out and finally got underway around 1pm. We had planned to try and salvage the road trippiness, but by then, both of us were ready to just be done, so we basically headed home in a straight shot, though we did stop for an hour or so for dinner at this Italian place near Richmond, VA where I had an incredibly delicious red pepper bisque.

We made it to Amy's house around 8:30 pm. For the moment, I'm planning on staying here until probably Sunday while I figure the car thing out and celebrate my birthday with friends and stuff. Then I'm hoping to still see my dad, my uncle, and Maine. A lot will depend on $$, since crashing your car is not a cheap thing to do. And, for all of you who are wondering, here are a couple pictures of the damage:

The appraiser called yesterday and said he's planning on totaling the car for sure, which means its car shopping time for me! Ugh. Anyone have any recommendations on what I should get?