Left Erie early on the 29th and it started to rain as we passed by Pittsburg. Hard rain, slippery roads, heavy traffic and winding mountain roads did not make for a pleasant trip. But, as we were coming out of the mountains of Virginia it was still raining with heavy traffic and it was backing up and Google said it could save us a half an hour of an hour delay with a detour. Well, we wish we would have accepted the hour delay. It was still raining and now dark and we were on narrow, winding, steep and wet side roads with no guard rails but we made it. We stopped just above Charlotte to stay with Lois, a past Village neighbor who stayed at our house while we were in Arizona for Thanksgiving. She also totaled her car the day we left her at our house but that is a whole other story. We were sick of driving so we ate at a Bob Evans just around the corner from her house. We had a nice evening with her and left early the next morning to get through Charlotte before the rush. We did beat the rush it but rained with heavy traffic all the way home. The next day I played water volleyball and we went shopping for milk and came home with a turkey, a ham and spare ribs because they were on sale. The neighborhood has a New Year's Eve ball drop at midnight and an earlier one at 9 for those who can't stay up. I have always gone to the midnight one but not this year, but I did stay up until about 12:01. We both played volleyball yesterday and continued to settle in. We had the Maloneys over this evening for a turkey, ham and rib dinner. We haven't seen them since April because they go back to Erie for the summer. They are usually back by November but Tim had detached retina surgery and couldn't travel until just before Christmas. They are selling their home here and moving back to Erie permanently this April. Alesa lost a crown during our trip and she had it replaced this morning.