A short drive and the chance to catch up with the cousins. Awesome. As i5 was going to be a short drive we woke later than usual and headed off to Clarion, driving alongside a river for the first part of the way, once again commenting on the amount of water on the ground in the US. The scenery again was spectacular, and some of the cliffs that we drove past had huge icicles hanging from them, there was still snow on the ground in places, and not a lot of traffic.
We stopped off at a small town just off the interstate and grabbed lunch at ‘The Pumphouse’. It did decent toasted sandwiches and coffee and the weather was that nice that we sat outside and enjoyed the sunshine. We continued the drive and arrived at Clarion in the afternoon, and as we walked into the hotel Nick jumped out and tried to surprise us. I think the only person who got surprised was the receptionist. Nick had arrived before us and put some flowers in our room for Sue, and we sat in the lobby before the fireplace and caught up on our trip so far and how he and Ann were going.
Sue had been in contact with Judy and they had made arrangements to have dinner at a local Mexican restaurant that Pete and Judy frequent. It was also very close to the hotel so we made our way over and the twins met Pete for the first time. I think that were both slightly intimidated by him for the start, but certainly warmed up over dinner. We made plans to head over to PJs in the morning for breakfast and finalise what the plans were for the Christmas period.