Tale of Triumph

The story of how I spent roughly three days studying for the bar exam between packing the house, driving across the country, unpacking the house, meeting the Judge's past clerks, attending the wedding in Austin and then getting my tail back to Maryland will be a much better story if I actually pass the exam. I'm hoping to be "a tale of triumph against overwhelming odds," instead of my usual "cautionary tale." We don't find out until November.

Dan and A.J.'s wedding was quite gracious, and A.J. was a lovely bride. The day after the wedding, Joey and I flew back to Maryland, so he could visit his dear pal Caelin for the week and I could take the bar. I decided that the bar was going to go just fine when I arrived at Martin's Crosswinds in Prince George's County, and found this:



It's a freestanding facility for large events -- if you grew up nearby, you had your prom there. Sadly and ironically, the bar was closed for the duration of the "bar exam," but the giant cocktail cheered me every time I saw it.

I'd missed getting a picture of this sign on the first trip out to Fargo, and was on the lookout this time around. We stopped, but it turns out that such promising signage was attached to a liquor store that also had cheese, and kinda tired cheese at that.

So we skipped it and instead went to Carr Valley Cheese a few miles up I-94, which makes up for in giant rodentage what it lacks in stark black and white highway signs. We picked up a 10-year-old cheddar, some string cheese (smoked and regular), cheese curds (of course), summer sausage, a goat cheddar, and a double Gloucester. We haven't cracked most of them open yet.

Joey was a great traveller, and spent his time either reading (he plowed through an entire box set of "Captain Underpants" books), playing with the iPod (I never before realized the hold that Queen's discography has on six-year-old boys), or sleeping.

We left Maryland around 1 p.m. on Friday, and drove until about 11 p.m. We got off to a leisurely start on Saturday, around 8:30, and arrived at 1 a.m. Sunday morning (2 a.m. Eastern time), just in time to help Ellie celebrate her 4th birthday on Sunday. So about 27.5 hours total -- not horribly grueling. Interestingly, it turns out that according to Google Maps, Atlanta is only about 100 miles further from here than Rockville is (1,435 miles versus 1,328). Perhaps we can make it back East more often than we had thought.