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Look Out Southwest Virginia, Here We Come: Day 1 Of My Cross-Country Road Trip

So, I have big news. I haven’t told a ton of people, but I am moving to Chula Vista. USA Rugby is starting a residency program for 15s players and I was one of the first five to be invited to that. Of course, I accepted the invite, and now I am moving my life to the west coast. After talking with friends who live or have lived in Chula, I decided that I’d like to have a car there, so I’ve convinced my mom and her husband, Merle to accompany me in trekking across the country.

Obviously this is a wonderful opportunity for me to improve my game and get in quality training with the women I play with on the National team—something that doesn’t happen a lot in the US. However, I am very close to my family, so moving ~2,800 miles away will be difficult. This cross-country journey will be a good chance to spend some quality time with my mom before I am no longer a few hours away. I thought I’d chronicle our trip in a few blogs, so that in years to come we could read them and activate our little nostalgic heart strings, and in case any of my friends and family were interested in our adventures.

We started our journey yesterday evening, leaving Buckingham, VA and traveling to Fincastle (near Roanoke) to spend the night with my aunt, Rhonda. We’ve done that trip about a hundred times. As always, it was a beautiful drive through the hills and mountains of Virginia, but there was nothing new to see or eventful that happened, with the exception of most of the boxes in my car toppling onto my mom when Merle made a fairly sharp left turn. Seems the most treacherous part of our journey has proven to be inside the car. To ensure mom’s survival, we’ve since strapped the boxes to the seat.

Since we made such good progress on the first day (~100 miles in the book, ~2,700 more to go!), my aunt Rhonda treated us to a delicious dinner—crab cakes, shrimp cocktail, pickled beets, sweet potato salad, corn on the cob, her family-famous broccoli casserole and a grilled peach with ricotta cheese and honey dessert. With such progress made, my uncle Bill, through his big grin remarked that we’d probably make Bristol, VA by today’s end and California by October.

While we didn’t make it out of Virginia on our first day, we got ourselves started, and I had a chance to visit with my aunt and uncle before there are 6 or 7 states between us. I also learned from Uncle Bill that genetic testing has revealed that Michael Phelps’ father is indeed a dolphin, and I picked up a wonderfully Southern phrase from Aunt Rhonda—“He/she sits too close to the biscuit.” All in all, a great first day.

Today, with a good night’s sleep under our belts, bellies full of bacon and fresh fruit, and well wishes from my awesome aunt and uncle, we set out again. Onward to Bristol!

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