College Tour, Part 1: From Home to Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Disclaimer:  I received a complimentary stay at the hotel mentioned in this post for sharing an honest opinion in my blog.   All opinions stated are my own.

An initial FYI–As you may know, I am all about “living and learning.” Saying that, I will often include links to other sites which provide additional information on a variety of topics or places that I think you might find interesting to read (because I do).   Additionally, this was a college trip. I likely won’t include, however, a lot of school specific academic/application/housing/etc information. The better source for that would be on-line at the school’s website or directly from those who work or live on campus or attend the schools as students.  I will share just some of our experiences during these tours and school visits. I also admit that I did not take many photos on campus–I was frantically taking notes (because I knew that by the end of the week I wouldn’t remember which information went with which school), plus my kids really did not want to see me taking pictures.  I don’t mind embarrassing them some times, but there are other times where you simply pick your battles.

We loosely planned a spring break adventure–my family of four was off on a expedition to visit colleges in the southeastern part of the country.  My son is a high school junior, so this break provided a good opportunity to see several schools that were farther from home. My daughter, an 8th grader, was stuck coming along.  She was less than thrilled, but her brother was EXTREMELY glad to have a partner and parental buffer. (As they get older, I do see them actually showing signs of liking each other more than I had in the past.  Yay!) We had a general plan–my son had scheduled five information/tour sessions at five universities in five different states over a five day period from Monday through Friday. In total, this was just over a 2100 mile trip!  We knew that these had to be scheduled in advance. The app “Waze’ would direct us on the road. With the exception of Sunday, we didn’t know where we would spend each night; we would “go with the flow.” I had the chance to set up something, though, for Sunday night which worked out WONDERFULLY (I will tell you more about that soon).

The Saturday that we left, we took our own sweet time and left in the late afternoon.  The original plan was to drive approximately halfway to Chapel Hill (approximately six hours), find a place to sleep, and then finish the drive the next morning.  My kids were hoping to add to the adventure by finding a spot to park somewhere during the night and sleeping in the car (plus saving some cash to use for fun). Ah, youth!  

We had a nice easy start to the drive.  I always find it interesting to see the wind farms as we pass through Indiana.  I don’t know which one(s) we saw, but they are mesmerizing (I wasn’t the one behind the wheel, so I didn’t have to pay attention to the road).  If you are interested in learning more about the wind farms (like I am), here are some links to check out for more information. (I know that one of my sources, Wikipedia, is not the ideal source for information, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that the content is mostly accurate.)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Indiana

http://www.indianaenergy.org/wind-power.html

https://www.in.gov/oed/2413.htm

https://www.energy.gov/maps/how-does-wind-turbine-work

All was going well until somewhere in Ohio near Columbus.  My husband’s phone, which had recently started misbehaving, decided that it was “done,” and when my husband tried “resetting it,” the phone had other plans.  He couldn’t turn it back on. He should have heeded the warning the day before (of course too late in the day to do much about it), when his phone stopped working.  After checking online, a strange suggestion he found worked–he stuck the phone into the freezer, and about 10 minutes later, it was back in action! Of course, while we were in a car in Ohio, we did not have a freezer.  We did have a cooler, so he tried putting the phone in there between some ice packs. It didn’t work. Do you remember me mentioning that we were using Waze on his phone for directions. Well, no phone equals no Waze. We tried to pull up the directions on my phone using the same app.  Although it seemed to work fine on my husband’s phone when we left Illinois, it would not find directions all the way to Chapel Hill on my phone.

Time to put the kids to work.  Of course, my son had just removed the very same Waze app from his phone that morning to make additional space on his phone for photos on the trip.  My daughter’s phone had Google Maps on it, and she tried to help out. We pulled off the highway to try to sort things out. Shortly afterwards, we realized that this exit ramp did not have a corresponding entrance ramp.  Suddenly, our expected time of arrival in Chapel Hill (that appeared on my daughter’s phone) had changed to TWO HOURS later than what Waze projected before we got off the highway. Keep in mind, at this point it was getting late at night in the dark somewhere in rural Ohio.  As a bonus, the “check engine light” appeared on the dashboard. Usually my husband can use an app on his phone to diagnose the problem. (He is very techy–he understands that sort of stuff.) Do you see the issue here? Let’s review–we are somewhere in Ohio at night with a check engine light, one phone down, my phone not cooperating with the Waze app, and the kids trying to find directions with their phones.  My son eventually did get the Waze app back on his phone and served as a navigator. We followed a combination of Waze and, from my phone, Google Maps (neither of which agreed with each other). Between the two, we figured that we would at least head in the right direction. Oh, by the way, the car’s built-in GPS had also decided to go “belly up,” by insisting that there was no Map DVD inserted in the system (even though we knew that there was).  By now, we were getting crabby, my husband was annoyed and worried that if he stopped the car somewhere, it might not start, and he was now reenergized. No plans now to stop at a hotel for the night; we were going straight to Chapel Hill. (This was not quite the kids’ wish, to “overnight” in the car, but it did add to the adventure. Of course, it is much more entertaining to describe after the fact than it was at the time.)

The evening as a whole, though, wasn’t all bad.  Once we got off the highway and started following (with fingers crossed) one of the routes provided on one of the phones, we had a GORGEOUS view of the moon rising!  It was low in the sky and HUGE! (Did I take photos? Of course not. I did not dare touch anything on my phone that could potentially affect the map that we were using to help guide us to North Carolina.)  Perhaps the GPS/direction chaos was the universe’s way of saying, “LOOK AT THIS!! Trust me, you don’t want to miss it!” There was a supermoon on March 20, and this event occurred on March 23. The moon wasn’t quite a supermoon, but it was close enough and was quite awe inspiring!

By morning, we had made it to Chapel Hill, safe and sound!  (Do you hear the cheers?) Once we arrived, we did take a moment to appreciate that, despite the hiccups on the way, we were still very fortunate.  During our drive, we had seen one pick-up truck in a field–we are guessing that the driver dozed off and drove into the field. We saw a house engulfed in flames at one point and heard and saw the emergency vehicles.  We also witnessed a semi-truck veer into the shallow ditch between highway lanes, and the driver managed to get himself back onto the road. We literally watched the truck teeter from side to side as it pulled back onto the highway.  It is almost unbelievable that it didn’t tip over either while leaving the road or bouncing back up onto it. I am guessing that the driver fell asleep and then WOKE UP really fast! My husband was genuinely impressed by the truck driver’s ability to regain control and avoid disaster!

I was so glad that we had a place set up to stay on Sunday.  I was able to arrange a stay at Residence Inn by Marriott in Chapel Hill for one night. This place was WONDERFUL!  (I am not saying this as an attempt to “sell” the place.  It was truly great!) First of all, the service was terrific.  When we arrived, the room they planned to have us stay in was not yet ready.  (Why should it have been ready? We arrived at 7:30a, approximately 7-8 hours before we had planned to be there.)  The staff at the front desk took pity on us; we were a fairly pathetic looking bunch by the time we arrived. They offered us a room to use for a few hours so that we could rest until our assigned room was ready.  We took them up on that offer. We first enjoyed a delicious breakfast at the hotel’s breakfast buffet. After noshing in the car and eating some fast food overnight, this was a welcome meal, and it hit the spot!   Once we entered the temporary room, we were out like four lights!

Let me share more about our great hotel experience.  When the other room was ready, we were moved to a two bedroom suite.  After spending MANY hours in a confined space with the kids (we do love them, but our vehicle with all of the assorted travel “stuff” quickly started to feel a bit crowded), it was nice for all of us that my husband and I had one bedroom, and the kids each had a bed in the other bedroom.  I think that they were happy to get a break from their parents as well. Each bedroom also had its own bathroom. Additionally, there was a kitchen with all the usual food prep utensils. We didn’t have the time to take full advantage of it, but we did use the full size fridge and freezer, plus we used some of the dishes for making sandwiches.  For any additional relaxing, we had a small living room space, too. The suite had 2 desks which were very helpful. Unfortunately, we could not really play tourist upon arrival in North Carolina because my husband had the task of replacing his phone. (Despite all of the associated phone hassles, his quest for a new phone was a success!) He was able to sit at a desk in the bedroom while I was able to do some work on a spacious desk in the living area.  The space looked beautiful, and the beds were extremely comfortable. To quote my son, “It was the most comfortable sleep EVER!” This is from a kid who loves his sleep. Although he didn’t want to get out of bed the next morning, we all enjoyed another breakfast buffet. This included eggs, biscuits and gravy, yogurt and toppings, bagels, make-your-own waffles, oatmeal, fruits, juice, coffee/tea, and more. It was filling and delicious! We all enjoyed very different breakfast meals prior to our FIRST EVER COLLEGE VISIT–we were going to see University of North Carolina.

It was a shame that we had such limited time at this hotel.  We did not have the opportunity to take advantage of the 24 hour fitness room or outdoor pool.  The facility also has a very nice outdoor seating area. I wish that I had the opportunity to have spent more time just relaxing out there.  Not only did we really enjoy the space, but the staff was terrific from the moment we arrived (special shout out to Alena, Eileen and Rushell who helped us out during our stay).  They, plus the rest of the staff, were great. They were friendly, with a very positive attitude.

Just to back up a little, we did try to have some fun in North Carolina on that Sunday.  While my husband was out phone shopping, the kids and I did spend a little time outdoors.  The weather was gorgeous. It had been too long since we could comfortably go outside and simply enjoy fresh air!  My son always loves to play catch. Of course, any balls he packed were left in the car which my husband had on his phone expedition.  I give my son credit for being creative. He took the aluminum foil off of a food item we had brought, and crushed that into a ball. It actually worked really well!  There is a lot of value in a relaxed, outdoor game of catch. He and I played; my daughter sat and enjoyed fresh air.

A few weeks prior to our trip, my son told us that there was an NHL game scheduled for that Sunday night in Chapel Hill.  He had never been to an NHL hockey game and REALLY wanted to go! (Like his mom, he wanted to try something new! True to form for him, he wanted to attend a sporting event.)  Because we were not completely certain as to how things would be going, we did not order tickets in advance. That evening we finally decided to try to get tickets for a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game:  Carolina Hurricanes v Montreal Canadiens at the PNC Arena at 7p. The ticket costs and fees on-line were getting ridiculous, so after calling the arena to see what the chances might be of getting less expensive tickets, we decided to take a chance and buy tickets at the site.  We arrived with a whopping 30 minutes to spare, were happily assigned and found our nosebleed seats, and enjoyed the game! We opted to cheer for the home team. (In some situations, my son likes to tempt fate and cheer for visiting teams, but that night we cheered on the ‘Canes.)  I always love the feeling of camaraderie that you have at sporting events, even if you are not watching your home team. (Even if I really don’t care who wins, it is always fun to choose to root for one of the teams. ) It was a great night – Hurricanes won in overtime! For those who don’t know (I did not know until it occurred), when you go into overtime in an NHL game, you go down to 3 on 3 (plus goalies) for a 5 minute period.  First team to score wins. If there is still a tie after that period, the game goes to a shootout. If you want to read a little more about overtime rules, click here.  Hurricanes won that night, 2 to 1!   (As an aside, there were cheerleaders at the game.  I don’t really understand why. They didn’t do much, not even some sort of performance between periods.  Maybe I’m missing something.)

On Monday, we went to visit University of North Carolina.  The journey of visiting colleges was officially beginning!

Addendum:

If you want to jump around or look ahead, here are the links to all 5 of the college tour posts.

College Tour, Part 1: From Home to Chapel Hill, North Carolina

College Tour, Part 2: Carolinas on My Mind–University of North Carolina and Clemson University

College Tour, Part 3: Peachy Keen–Visiting the University of Georgia

College Tour, Part 4: Time for Tennessee

College Tour, Part 5: Last Stop–University of Louisville