South Carolina has always been my family's getaway of choice. My dad's parents live on the shore of a man-made lake and there's just enough space for us all to live together. I have not been down there in a few years due to financial constraints and some personal things like repairing Ayumi shortly after I bought her. I've accrued some paid time off and my parents are planning a first real vacation in a while with a stop in North Carolina for gem mining. Overall they will be down for two weeks and leave in three.

Now I'm happiest alone and still really want to fix the GMC and drive it down there so what I am considering is going down the week after they leave. This gives me four weeks to fix the GMC and trial it to make sure it's ready to drive for an extended period of time (8-12 hours). Or at least buy enough time to have Ayumi's transmission rebuilt. She's been knocking quite loudly lately in neutral and 4th, especially the AC on. I kinda don't want to drive Ayumi down because of her lack of power but I suppose I could make it work. After I put a muffler back on her... I hear I-95 cops are merciless and Ayumi is actually louder from her tailpipe than the GMC, which has almost triple the displacement, 80 more horsepower, a turbocharger, and no catalytic converter. Though overall Ayumi is quieter because of her well taken care of highway tires vs the GMC's neglected off-road tires. And four speakers are better than two.

Anyway transportation problems aside, what do I want to do down there? Well exploring is pretty high on the list, but also my grandparents have a few trailers and it would ideal to learn how to tow while I'm down there. It'll also be nice to not have to really put much effort into anything for a while. And it should give me plenty of time to decide if I want to leave Northern Virginia or not.

Let's face it, I practically live down the street from an equivalent of Beverly Hills. The county is one of the wealthiest in the country and so it's pretty expensive around here. Just rent in a bad part of a neighboring county is $500 per month. Maybe that's normal, what would I know. A lot of people here are also crazy and traffic is horrendous at peak hours, and even a few after that. Perhaps further south is a better place to move to...