I’m going home to Maryland for Christmas. A nice long visit with the family and friends. With Big Orange packed to the brim, Elvis, Cilla and I left Memphis just before 8am this morning, central standard time. Our goal was to be in Abingdon, Virginia by dark – we almost made it. We drove a little over 8 hours, 516 miles, stopping only once and arrived at our hotel in Abingdon just after 5:30pm eastern standard time.

The first day of driving home is always enjoyable because it is on route 40 East driving through the entire state of Tennessee. It is such a relaxing, pretty drive. Then there is Virginia. Tomorrow’s drive will be almost all in Virginia driving route 81 north, but the last hour or so of today’s drive was in Virginia. As soon as I enter Virginia, I get a completely different vibe. People drive crazy and route 81 is more annoying and not as relaxing as route 40 in Tennessee. Needless to say, I’m not a fan of Virginia.

So it’s 7pm, and we’re relaxing in the hotel hoping to get a good night’s sleep for our 6 hour drive tomorrow to Ellicott City. Please watch the video of our drive today http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JusDw4ccZ4A