The Road Trip to Florida: Day 7

We arrived by 8:15 and Sam was the first into her dorm room.

This campus is just gorgeous.

This is the freaking dining hall:

Lots of students on hand to help carry things from the car to the dorm, so it went quick. We unpacked all her stuff, then headed over to Walmart to get more stuff: groceries, toiletries, and a few other dorm essentials. Then we went back and unloaded all of that.

The finished product:



She sent me this photo later, when they'd delivered the MacBook Pro, loaded with expensive art software, to every student. 



We'd skipped breakfast and it was now 1:30, so we finally left for lunch. We ate at Yummy's Chinese right down the street and Sam has declared it her new go-to Chinese place. 

From there, we headed for Tampa to get me to the airport so she could get back and get to doing new student stuff. 

The bridge on the route:

I'd been pushing the thoughts down of the end of our trip. Tuesday morning, I'd woken up with the weight of the realization that we'd be saying goodbye the following day, and somewhere along our Florida route, when "House at Pooh Corner" came on the ipod, the tears had started flowing, with images of her refusing to stay away, throughout the years. Luckily, she was busy reading and didn't see me silently weeping. 

On the way to the airport, those images came on again, and I was fighting to hold it together. We snapped one last selfie

And then promptly lost it. She's crying. I'm crying. Neither of us can speak. 

I've leaving my girl. 

And she's going to do fan-freaking-tastic on her own. 

You can't see it here, but the pin on my hat is the one from Up. We each have one. And we say, "Adventure is out there!" pretty often. You and me? We're in the club now.

Here's her first blog post, on our last moment together and after:

A Small Adventure

I got through security, tears flowing, and had four hours to do my work for the day before flying in to Houston where Steph met me at Hobby Airport and we headed to her house. 

I'll have the week to do some more research and scanning. And to avoid going home to the two empty rooms where Nick and Sam filled up the summer, as well as my heart.