Eclipse Vacation - Tuesday

I felt rested enough to take over driving for the day. I woke early before 6 and began tidying the car, putting the carseat back in, and bringing things out to the car. I set out clothes for the kids and put their bags in the car. Julie and Thomas woke, joined soon by their older daughter Mercy. Eventually the other kids woke and everyone ate breakfast. 
Thomas left and Julie took pictures of everyone on their new couch once the car was completely loaded. It was all over too soon, and we herded all the children out the door and back into the car again by 8:30.
We said goodbye and started out. There were far too many stops as the needs of several bladders made it difficult to go far without needing to stop again. We first went to Aldi and loaded up on food for the trip. By the time we were done there it was around 11 so we went ahead and had sandwiches in the car for lunch. 
Another stop we had to drive a mile through the country to find the gas station, and it turned out had several large colorful animal statues in the front, which turned out to be, of course, a pokemon gym. Mike weakened it and I finished it off while he took the kids to the bathroom. Across the street was a church where we saw several longhorn steer hanging out (behind a fence, of course, but pretty close).
During the trip the kids mostly listened to music on the ipods and played on tablets. They were in better spirits than the last trip but they got tired of being cooped up so long. The trip from Columbia to College park was about 500 miles, still another 350 from our home in CT. The drive between Maryland and South Carolina took about 12 hours each way.
We picked up sushi about 15 minutes away from our destination. We ended up deciding to crash at Robin's apartment for the night. After eating sushi and pizza, everyone was tired and we wrangled the kids into their sleeping arrangements and fell asleep. This time Mike and I slept on the floor since Josh and Robin were around and in their own bed. It was tight but we were thankful to have a place to rest from the day's travels.
On Wednesday morning we took our time having breakfast, packed up the car, said our goodbyes, and left. We had a fairly uneventful trip back to CT (about 8 hours) and were glad to be back in our own beds.