Day 13 - Hey Yaaa('ll)

So as I mentioned in my previous post, I really wanted to run into Paula Deen.

We ended up not running into her, but we did see a lot of other cool things. We left Skidaway State Park and then drove right into the city. The weather was absolutely incredible. Bright and sunny and about 70 degrees. We couldn't ask for better conditions.

Our first thing we did was walk along River St. This little street actually reminded me of downtown Chatham but only have stores along one side. I guess it goes without saying that the other side was the river. We took our time cause we weren't in any rush to go anywhere else.

Our next destination was a personal request of mine. The Lady an Sons restaurant. This is Paula Deen's restaurant and on any given day it'll be packed. We didn't eat there but I'm sure

I'll make a reservation the next time in I'm Savannah.

My favorite part about Savannah was our next stop of Ellis Square. It was essentially sunny anywhere you walked. Savannah doesn't have many tall buildings so the park was 100% sun! I also mentioned yesterday that in Savannah you can drink OUTSIDE! So naturally Emma, Andy, and I had that on our to do list. We spent about an hour just sitting/walking around the square with a beer in hand.

We eventually had to figure out what we were going to eat so we ended up walking further away from the main historic district and had what I thought was the best dinner we has so far. This place wasn't anything fancy but they cooked a mean burger.

The only way we could top off this awesome, awesome day was with good ol' s'mores by the campfire. Man, I could sure get use to this not having to work lifestyle....

.....but this is just a terrible fantasy that I need to constantly need to remind myself that I will have to get a job soon, so I just tell myself,

"Take it all in Timmy."

Aramis

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From the Carolinas to Miami

Since my last post we've spent wonderful days in Raleigh, Wilmington, South Carolina, Savannah, Valkaria, and just arrived in Miami. Let me just say the weather has been incredible, especially since it was snowing when we left Baltimore.

Raleigh was spent at Kim Shapper's house and we had a great time. Went to downtown bars, the restaurant she works at (Winston's), and a Hurricanes game (my first NHL game).

Wilmington -- we stayed with Sarah Bernert who was a lovely tourguide. She took us to Wrightsville and Carolina Beach, Fort Fisher, and downtown for lunch and later the bars.

Charleston -- with great recommendations from Sarah Sum we explored the city on our own. Hitting King Street (lots of shops), the Battery where you could walk along the water and look at Fort Sumpter, and had a lovely lunch/dinner at the Blind Tiger. Love love loved the city...and we stayed at a campground right on the beach called Edisto Beach

Savannah -- stayed at a campground about 20 mins from the city, Skidaway Island, (three camping nights in a row, GO ME!) and navigated through the city via recommendations from a park ranger. Savannah is by far my favorite city: River St runs along the water and has tons of shops, restaurants, and bars and Ellis Square has the same but drinking on the streets is legal, so obviously we enjoyed ourselves. I loved the size of the city, the beautiful weather, and overall easy-ness of it!

Valkaria - we stopped on our way to Miami with my family friend Ralph. He has a great house in a residential area, very calming and relaxing and nice to get a real shower and catch up on laundry :)

Miami -- we actually just arrived here about an hour ago, made reservations at a cheap"er" hotel in Miami Beach, and its definitely funky so far.....looking forward to the evening here

.....and more to come!!!!

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Day 12 - Charleston

Our first night of camping was a success! We woke up wicked early and packed up our tent and was off to explore the city of Charleston, SC. I had heard a lot about this city from our friend Sarah, so I knew that this city would not disappoint. With the list of recommendations from Sarah, we were off.

The first thing she told us to do was head to King St. It was a really beautiful street. This street had shops and all different kinds of stores, but you could tell that the overall look of the street

hasn’t changed much in a while.

The architecture was gorgeous. It was everything I imagined it to be; very southern inspired.

The market we walked through had three different buildings but was one strip of little stores and stands selling homemade crafts. All the tenants to these stands were all so nice and not down your throat about buying things. I definitely recommend this to anyone who likes to the style of strolling and shopping at the same time.

Charleston was a huge port city back in the late 1700s and later became the home to Fort Sumter, a huge Fort guarding the port during the Civil War. We didn’t get to go to Fort Sumter but we walked along the Battery, which was the tip of the peninsula of the historic Charleston. It had a great view of the water.

I don’t know if it was the weather we were having, the people, or the feel of this city, but it was definitely the best one we had been to. Don’t get me wrong. The other cities were cool, but Charleston was the first time I felt like this city was totally different than anything I was use to. It seemed like such a foreign place and everything just felt right. If anyone is planning on going to the South, Charleston is a must to go visit.

We had to eventually leave the city to drive to Savannah, but not before eating at the Blind Tiger. We took advantage of the outdoor seating and had an awesome lunch.

Savannah wasn’t too bad of a drive. We booked a campsite at a local State Park. The guy at the front office gave us a whole list of recommendations and things to do while in the city. We could tell it was going to be a great time. What am I most excited about? Taking advantage of the law that you can drink alcoholic drinks outside as long as it’s in a cup. Only a couple of cities in the South have this and Savannah is one of them.

OH……..and I am also secretly dying to run into Paula Deen.

I’m staying hopeful of course though.

Aramis

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The Southern Adventures Continue!

It's been a while since my last post, since we have been camping for a few days! At Edisto Beach our tent was pretty much ON the beach. Near Savannah we stayed at Skidaway Island State Park which was also very enjoyable!

New City Ranks:

Savannah, GA

Charleston, SC

Washington, DC

Raleigh, NC

Baltimore, MD

Philadelphia, PA

The southern "cities" have been so enjoyable for me since Savannah and Charleston are not in any way cities by comparison to Boston. They are more like a warm, better organized Hyannis, with more attractions and things to do!

Writing from Miami for the night in our perfectly fitting Miami Beach sex palace of a room. Dimly lit with just enough room for two beds to be squished in. Miami seems to be massive and bustling so it will be a change of pace from the past two places we have visited.

Upcoming:

Cujo Key

Key West

Everglade National Park

More soon!

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Day 11 - Crusin'

So Wilmington was wicked cool and we really enjoyed our first day of warm weather. With somewhat of a long drive from Wilmington, NC to Charleston, SC we started up the car again and were off.

Emma and I were a little nervous for the sleep ahead. The reason? Our first camping experience....like outside. We booked a campsite at Edisto State Park in South Carolina. The best part about our campsite was that the only thing separating us and the ocean was a large sand dune. After we set up the tent which my friend Jerry's family lent us we walked along the beach. It was gorgeous. The sun was just setting and it was about 6 at night!!!

The night wasn't too cold. Only dropped down to about 60 degrees.

Welp, that's about it!

Aramis

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Day 10 - Out on the Boardwalk

Sorry that is not being posted on the actual tenth day. We we've gotten pretty sidetracked.

Anyway, Wednesday was an awesome day. We woke up to what seemed like a summer morning in Chatham. A little bit chilly in the shade but once you step out into the sunlight, you can tell it's going to be a warm and beautiful day. Plus one for Wilmington....make that the South in general.

For the second city in a row, we have our own personal tour guide. Sarah, who is a student at UNCW, drove us around a couple of areas. This included Wilmington Beach, Carolina Beach, Downtown Wilmington, and Fort Fisher. All these places were gorgeous, especially with 65 degree weather all day. Wilmington Beach and Carolina Beach really reminded me of Hampton and Salisbury Beach in New Hampshire. Emma, Andy, and I are use to a large parking lot where people can park their car and set up camp. But, like Hampton and Salisbury, Carolina and Wilmington Beaches have boardwalks and large 4 story beach houses right along the shore.

Next on our site seeing tour was Fort Fisher, which was an added to help protect attacks from Charleston. Nothing really remains there. A beautiful landscape nonetheless.

We walked along an enormous jetti and decided to go to a different location because Sarah only had a limited amount of time to spend with us during the day. She just so happen to score tickets to the UNCW basketball game with her parents who were headed down to Wilmington for a couple of nights. We set off towards downtown to grab a bite to eat.

I don't know if it was the sunlight shining on all of the shops and restaurants downtown, but I felt a lot of character from this quaint historic part of Wilmington. We ended up eating at a place called the Front Street Brewery. Their food was awesome and, yes, they brewed their own local brews which I obviously sampled. Don't worry mom and dad, I shared the sampler with Sarah.

Then we went back to the house and relaxed for a bit before we made dinner.

Each city seems to getting better an better.

Aramis

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Day 9 - On the Road Again

While it was amazing and relaxing staying in our temporary home in Wake Forest, NC with Kim and her mom, Jeryl, it was necessary to keep on moving. I can safely speak for all of us when I say that Jeryl and Kim were incredibly hospitable and that they showed us great time. We were so happy that they let us stay there for what must have seemed like forever to them.

But, like I said, we had to move along. We currently reside at yet another mutual friend's apartment whom we all know from Chatham summers. Her name is Sarah Bernert and she lives in Wilmington, NC and is a student at UNC-Wilmington. So far we had a great home cooked meal and plan on staying in tonight. Tomorrow is going to be jam packed with what Wilmington has to offer. We have already heard beautiful things about it so far.

But what we are all even more excited about, is the mid 60s and sunny weather we get to experience the city in. Cheers to winter in the south!

Aramis

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Day 8 - Hurricane

Well after being completely re-energized from from our lazy day on Sunday we all woke up casually and made some breakfast.

I have been trying to eat non-stop because my overall goal of this trip in terms of my body is to become more in shape and gain more muscle mass. Having this goal in the long distance, I have that much more motivation to work out and up my caloric intake. We did another workout DVD again this afternoon. So this essentially means that I already look and feel like a body builder (I may be exaggerating on the "looks like" part, but I sure as hell feel accomplished).

After the workout we went to Kim's restaurant that she works at for a late lunch before the game. The restaurant was gorgeous and the food was just as amazing. Since Kim worked there she snagged us a 50% off deal, so we got great food at a steal of a price. Our service

was really great as well. And it was in this location that we heard our first authentic Southern "y'all". I'm tryi

ng to listen very carefully to the different dialect down here. I want to come home with the ability to talk like any person from all over the country.

The Boston accent is pretty easy, I think. A

ll you really need to do is mention a hypothetical buddy from Southy and drop one too many F-bombs in an aggressive manner while wiping out the letter "r" from the english alphabet.

We stuffed our faces at Kim's restaurant because we knew it was acting like a late lunch/early dinner meal. This is all because we were going to the Carolina Hurricanes game. This is the local NHL team and our friend Kim was able to get tickets last minute for a fraction of the cost. It felt very strange entering another arena besides TDBank. My eyes were so unadjusted to the change that all I could see was red spots. Well, maybe that's because the Hurricanes' colors are red and black. We had wicked good seats (as you can tell from the pictures I took with my phone). That night the Hurricanes were playing the Winnipeg Jets. We, as in the temporary team

I was acting a part of, won 2-1. It was a great game and we had a ton of fun.

Tomorrow we are off to Wilmington, NC! Y'all take care now, ya hear!

Aramis

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Day 7 - Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon

"...and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done."

Well that just about sums up what we did today. Andy, Emma, and I have been going non-stop since Monday traveling to a total of 4 cites. So we really didn't leave the house for that long. The only time we left the house was to get snacks and groceries for the football game and dinner.

Last night even though we were kind of tired, Kim brought us out on the town. We drove to downtown Raleigh and went to the local bars. We all enjoyed ourselves since it was the first time we got to really experience the nightlife of a city.

As we drew some inspiration from the Bible, we decided to not really do anything today and enjoy each others company while watching some football. Just like the Bible tells us to do on Sundays.

The start of our second week on the road officially begins tomorrow.

Aramis

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City Speculations

City Ranks so far:

D.C.

Raleigh

Baltimore

Philadelphia

D.C. was fantastic. Segways are the bomb. Their metro is incredibly fantastically easy to use. I think Timmy disagrees on this fact, but I always thought that the "T" in Boston is insanely confusing. The D.C. metro took half a second to use and was both clean and well put together!

All that being said, I can't help but continue to rant on how the city is not for me! It is such a sullen place! The very "code of the metro" embodies the feel of the city for me. The "code of the metro" being that nobody is to look at anyone else or smile. Pick your spot on the floor, a newspaper, out the window, and then get off. I was given many a stern eye since I am a far too avid people watcher. My roving eyes were given a stern lashing and that city feeling was strong. We had a lengthy enjoyable, albeit troubling discussion tonight at our friend Kim's house about the city. The words that came to my head when we were actually IN the city that describe my feelings and relate to the arc of our conversation were, "this is what class warfare looks like." The haves and the have nots are in close proximity and are thrown into stark contrast in the city. The tension was very real to me and the anger latent. Since this is an epic topic of discussion I'm just going to stop before I really start. Those thoughts accompanied me on the long drive all the way to Raleigh though.

Staying in Baltimore with the sis was outrageously wonderful. Her presence, ever a calming one in my life, provided this beneficence again for me. And I think it was difficult for all of us to leave behind little Lucy!

We continue on to what has already been our third pampered stop in a row. "Roughing it" is the opposite of what we are doing. Hahaha. Prepared beds. Booze in hand right through the door. Etc and so forth.

More on Raleigh and "the South" as we experience it.

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Snow snow go away!!

On Friday after a relaxing morning and an intense Jillian Michael's workout we headed into the surprisingly cute city of Baltimore. We started with the tattoo museum, then headed to the inner harbor, very similar to Boston. We had dinner right on the harbor and then headed to the underwhelming aquarium. The sharks were cool, but other than that nothing too exciting. We headed back to Julie's in time to celebrate her new job!! (s.o. congrats again julie!)

We woke up on Saturday prepared to head to North Carolina with a stop in D.C. to see a last few museums but were suprised by the snow that had come overnight. We packed up to our things, said our goodbyes to Julie and Lucy (her pup) and hit the road. With my expertise in bad driving conditions, we made it to D.C. with no problems. Oh wait...except the main highway that was blocked, most likely due to an accident. Somehow whenever I drive we always have detours, but Andy whipped out his iphone and directed us to our destination.

After a few hours touring the art and natural history museums and visiting with Kristen, we headed to Raleigh to see our girl Kim Shapper!! I am very excited to continue down the coast and get a little out of our comfort zone. These next few days in Raleigh should be interesting and finally make us feel like we are out of New England (and hopefully some warmer weather!!!)

A Raleigh post soon to follow..... :)

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Day 6 - Carolina in My Mind

Today we woke up to the sound of the ever so familiar sound of snow-plows and the scraping of metal shovels clearing snow from the walkways of the apartment complex we were
staying at. My initial instinct was, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I thought I was going to have a full winter season without snow. I guess since we narrowly escaped it’s coming right when we left New England on Monday, we were just meant to cross paths with snow on our way down South.

We drove our car across the boarder to Alexandria, VA and took the Metro back into D.C. We had some museums that we still needed to check off our sight seeing lists. The first one on our list was the Smithsonian Museum of Art. It was huge and the paintings were great. They had one painting by Leonard da Vinci, which was the only painting by him in the Western Hemisphere. I thought that was pretty cool. We skipped a lot of exhibits in that museum because we were much more excited about the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. This one was the one with all the animals and dinosaur bones on display. The great thing about this museum is the atmosphere. I could have taken a nap in the art museum, but all the little kids who were with their parents were so excited about seeing all of the animals and bones that you could help but have fun while looking at the exhibits.

We added one person to our group when our friend Kristen, who we all worked with at the Chatham Candy Manor and a current student at Georgetown University, met up with us in the Museum of Art. She stuck with us and became somewhat of an unofficial tour guide telling us about cool facts about the National Mall in the Summer time. Apparently they host a bunch of free musical concerts. We walked around for a bit but eventually had to get moving onto our next destination.

We are staying at our friend Kim Shapper’s home in Wake Forest, NC. She is also a mutual friend that we all have worked with at the Candy Manor. She says she’s excited to have us stay with her and apparently so is her mom. It’s always a good sign when a mom is excited to host people over, although it could just be a polite front like most moms do. We’ll just have to see what comes of it!

Aramis

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Day 5 - Good Morning Baltimore!!!

We had an awesome day today. We got up at a wonder 10 a.m. time and all read our books. We did this for about an hour. I guess this is one of the times when it's okay to do what everyone else is doing.

After reading for a bit we all worked out to a Jillian Michaels DVD. Holy Moly! I think I may be sore for the rest of January...no joke. After the workout we all got ready for the day and had a small lunch at Julie's apartment. We then headed out for a day in Baltimore (well more like an afternoon). The city is extremely cute. It reminds me a lot of Boston because it's kind of a small city, has a lot of character, and has a great harbor at it's center. In Baltimore, we went to a tattoo museum, walked along the Inner Harbor, and went to the National Aquarium. The Aquarium was kind of underwhelming. I mean if I want to see a shark, I would just go swimming at Lighthouse Beach in Chatham during the summer.

A fun thing we didn't really participate it, was Ravens Rally day. There was a small little rally in Baltimore and if you were wearing purple then a lot of stores gave you a discount. I was kind of funny to see all the support from the city for just one team. I don't care how well the Sox, Pats, Bruins, or Celts are doing. I feel like even if one team is in the playoffs, you see just as many other people supporting the off-season team. Well, that's at least how I feel about it.

I made a video! I hope you like it!!!!!!

The song is "Good Morning Baltimore" for the movie Hairspray.

Aramis

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Day 4 - I'm just a Bill

Did you know that the White House wasn't originally white at all? Did you know that there are only 8 female names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall? Or did you know that the 38 columns around the Lincoln Memorial represent the 38 states in the Union at the time of Lincoln's assassination?

....Well I do!

How do I know this? Well, that's actually a good segue for me to discuss what Emma, Andy, and I did today. It all started last night when Andy's sister, Julie, recommende

d we take a guided Segway tour of Washington DC. We thought it would be very fun and a great way to see the all the sites of DC without having to walk. Plus, it would be wicked fun because none of us had ever ridden a Segway before.

Due to major traffic on I-95 this morning, trying to find a parking spot at the Metro, and finding our way to the tour company, we were a bit late for the briefing and instructions on how to ride the vehicle. Luckily, there was only one other person signed up for the 10 a.m. tour. Surprisingly, getting the hang of the machine was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. In fact, it was pretty easy for all of us and we were off on Pennsylvania Ave before we knew it. Being the scientist that I am I have come up with an equation that predicts how fun riding on a Segway is. The amount of fun you are having on a Segway is equally proportional to how

ridiculous you look while riding it. Since we looked pretty darn ridiculous acting as if we were on our daily commute to the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue on a SEGWAY, we were non-verbally screaming "nerdy tourist!!!" But we were having a BLAST! It was such an awesome sensation just being able to adjust your body we

ight to the balls of your feet and cruise along the streets of DC without breaking a sweat. What would normally take the average tourist to see in a full day of walking, only took us a total of 3 hours. I would recommend this to anyone who has already seen the sites of DC but would just like a quick overview.

The fourth person with us is Nozomi from Japan. She is 20 years old and is by herself in the U.S. traveling all over. She was the sweetest girl. She also is planning on celebrating her 21st birthday in Vegas next week. She is just one of the many people we hope to meet on our daily adventures.

After that we grabbed a pizza and headed to the National Air and Space Museum, which is part of the 19 free admission Smithsonian museums. We plan on hitting up some of the other museums later on in the week.

Today was fun, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Aramis

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Segwaying we go!

This happens to be my first blog, mostly because Andy and Timmy have been dominating their computers (just kidding :)) ) I've had a great past few days with all the adventures in Philly and Amish country. But today marked my favorite day by far.

Andy made reservations to do a tour of D.C. this morning on Segways, which I'll admit I was very skeptical of at first. Me, operating a small motor-like contraption around the city scares the daylights out of me. But I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. I had some difficulties getting on and off the sidewalks, as Timmy can vouch for, but overall it was very successful. We went to the majority of the monuments, museums, and buildings in D.C. segwaying in the middle of Pennsylvania Ave (ahh!). It happened to be about 30 degrees through most of the morning so it was veryyyy chilly to be riding around. I thought it would be a little warmer down here by now :( but I shouldn't complain, we'll be in warmer weather soon!

After the tour, we got a bite to eat, some coffee to warm up, and then headed over to the Air and Space Museum. I was there when we went to D.C. back in middle school, but it was much more interesting now. Then we headed back to Baltimore, with Andy's fantastic navigating I may add.

Looking forward to going to the Baltimore Aquarium tomorrow! yaya!!

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Amish/Mennonite Country

As we drove into Amish country I couldn't help but laugh at these new surroundings. It seemed like the freshest example of religious strangeness to me. Another moment when I would be overwhelmed by the ridiculous things people do in the name of their faith.

Quite the contrary occurred.

I thoroughly enjoyed our horse and buggy tour with Tom and Bonnie (horse). An explanation of the two religions and their different sects from a first hand source proved to do away with all false stereotypes prevailing in our group.

To be honest, except for the Jesus stuff, part of me could really get down with the Amish simplicity, the community, the self-sufficiency. If there were three things to describe the most important values of Amish/Mennonite life I gleaned from Ted it might be those three.

His explanations about everything made perfect sense when it came to modernized Amish ways, but I can't say the three of us weren't a bit surprised when his cell phone rang...

Highlights: Bonnie taking a massive steamer two steps out of the gate... to which I could barely contain my childish laughter...

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Day 3 - Amish Paradise

That's right Amish Country. We had no intention in visiting this strange and backwards world until Molly mentioned it the day before.

In the morning I got up a little earlier than Emma and Andy because I asked Molly if she could walk me around Villnova a bit. I guess I have been curious to see this school every since I started becoming indirectly connected with it due to Merrimack being a sister school of Villanova. In fact, Villanova and Merrimack are the only two colleges in the country with Augustinian backgrounds. So Molly was nice enough to wake up early along with me and show

me around before she had to go off to babysit.

On the right is me in front of their main church on campus. As you can see it looks beautiful. For anyone who can't tell, I'm wearing a Merrimack t-shirt. While I was taking pictures, I kept the shirt visible so the student's didn't think I was senior in high school bringing pack pictures from my visit to a perspective school. I did find it interesting that Villanova's science building is also named Mendel, that Austin Hall also had the admissions offices in it, and that there was also a Cascia Hall on campus!

Once back at Molly's apartment, Emma, Andy and I packed up our stuff. Molly had to go and babysit but she left us there to make sure we had everything we needed. She didn't want us to feel rushed.

It only took about an hour to get to get to Amish Country. We had a list that Molly helped us compile with different things to do in the area that she recommended. Molly was raving about taking a horse and buggy tour so we just had to do one. We pulled into Aaron and Jessica's Buggy Rides and took the 30 minute 'cookie tour'. Our trusty tour guide Tom and his faithful steed Bonnie showed us around the area. Tom was actually a Mennonite but from what we learned, both Mennonites and the Amish are pretty similar with their views and ways of life.

The tour got off to a great start, but not before Bonnie could do her best to personally christen pavement that we rode on. Thanks to Tom, we learned a ton of information on the Amish culture. Although I was a bit skeptical on what it takes to be either an Amish or a Mennonite these days. We all know that they can't use electricity, but apparently they can use solar power energy, propane gas, and wind power air pressure. Tom's cell phone even rang during the tour.

That's our view from the buggy on the tour.

After the tour we went to the Lancaster Brewing Company. There we tried the 'beer sampler' which was 15 five ounce local beers. We even got to try an Amish beer, which wasn't as bad a we thought it would be.

We are currently in Baltimore now. Andy's sister, Julie, lives here with her husband and the apartment is very nice. It's been a long two days of constant traveling and prepping for the next days that I believe it's finally catching up with us. So tonight we sat around and watched TV and did some reading.

Tomorrow is another long day! But it'll be a great one!

Aramis

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Day 2 - Philadelphia Freedom!!!

After a wonderful first nights sleep of the road trip, Andy, Emma, and myself caught the 10:16 train into the city. We went to the Reading Terminal Market and that's where Andy had his FIRST Philly Cheesesteak! He said it was delicious. Unlucky for us, the weather was very rainy in the morning and early afternoon. This of course was when we were doing the bulk of our site seeing.

Other than the Reading Terminal Market, we also went to see LOVE Park (nicked named this because of the iconic L-O-V-E attraction there), which is of course relevant to in the city of brotherly love. From there we headed towards the Philadelphia Art Museum where we did our only cardio-exercise for the day. Enjoy......

.....note to audience: try not to mistake any of these three people for Sylvester Stalone

After we did the stairs, I was breathing a little harder and realized that my hypothesis about being out of shape was actually proved. Emma, Andy and I then went and walked around the Art Museum. I was thinking that I should have brought my 2nd grade watercolor art project with me because I could have sworn that there were many debatable 'works of art!' And my works of art would have definitely held up against some of the ones I saw in there. I mean, there is clearly a reason my mom had them stuck to the fridge all those years.

From there I made my first boo boo by hopping on the wrong bus outside of the Art Museum. I was in such a rush to catch the bus that Emma and Andy had no problems following me....or should I say keeping an eye on me. So we ended somewhere in West Philadelphia. I know what you're thinking. But sadly Will Smith had already left for California.

We eventually made it back to downtown and went to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.

Flash forward to the evening. Andy, Emma, and I all made Molly a spaghetti dinner with salad and garlic bread. It was very delicious if I don't say so myself. We had a great time spending the rest of the night around the table and playing cards. Molly has certainly made our time even greater in the Philadelphia area.

Who knows what crazy memories we'll bring from tomorrow? We sure don't!

Aramis

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Philadelphia

Accidental honk count in the Hyundai Tucson --> 4.

Philadelphia has firmly reassured me that, at least in regards to northeastern cities, the city-life is not for me! Too fast! And people tend to be kind of crazy...

Rocky steps and Museum of Art were both rad.

A lengthy accidental incursion into West Philadelphia gave me an idea of how the Prince of Bel-Air would have gone down in real life...

A Philly Cheese Steak IS the same as a New England Steak n' Cheese despite Philadelphian elitism (albeit delicious indeed with dat provolone...)

The Liberty Bell was underwhelming? However, the history and factoids surrounding it were pretty darn rad.

Tomorrow: Amish country and getting to Baltimore...

A longer post to be had in the future!

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Day 1 - Life is a highway (only if you pass inspection)

So after months and months of finally talking about this, it has finally arrived. January 6th has certainly come faster than we thought but as the date grew closer, I was just ready to leave and get this trip started. Andy and Emma started the day in Chatham and picked me up at my house in Needham around 1:30 pm. I was a little nervous if the things that I had packed would be able to fit in the car because I didn't know how much room there was left until they got there. Luckily there was enough room in the car for just about everything that we had packed. Although, 4 rolls of toilet paper were left behind and also a cooler. There just wasn't enough room. The picture on the right is of us trying to just make sure it gets in the car. Accessibility when in the car wasn't that big of a concern. As long as it was in we were satisfied with our progress. It just meant that we were one step closer to officially starting the trip.

We sad our goodbyes to my mother and father. I knew that once my mom started choking up while telling Emma packing instructions, the actual goodbye part wasn't going to be pretty. She faired better than I thought she would. I mean, how would you feel if your favorite (yes Jeff, I said favorite) child was leaving for 4 months and you weren't going to see him?

Before we left Needham we had to get the car inspected because it had failed inspection earlier that morning in Chatham. The mechanic at the gas station told us that everything looked fine but he couldn't connect to the computer because the car wasn't 'warmed up' enough. I actually have no friggin clue what he meant. We ended up driving along the MassPike and getting off an exit near Amherst (Andy's old stomping grounds). We tried a place there and we were lucky enough to have the car pass inspection. Plan B? Andy was going to call up a friend and we would have spent our first night at UMass partying it up with the undergrads.

Back en route to Philly (which is our first city stop), or should I say Wayne, PA we traveled through a total of 5 states. You might think that this isn't that big but as we travel further, states get larger. My good friend, Molly Wiseman (Merrimack '10) was letting us stay at her apartment right down the road from Villanova. She was so accommodating. When we walked into her apartment she had already laid out three mattresses for us in the living room with pillows, blankets, and of course a complimentary towel (not a bad way to spend your first night 'crashing' at someone's place).

Even though we had some bumps in the road the first day was a major success. I'm going to try and post on this every day. The other posts won't be as long and descriptive. I need to work on my paraphrasing.

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two weeks!!!

Well since it is getting that much closer and reality sets in, I've come to finally write a pre adventure post. We have been talking about this since graduation in May and it doesn't seem real that we are leaving in less than two weeks. I'm very anxious, nervous, and excited for this finally to happen. Along with Andy and Timmy, I really have not been to many other parts of the country besides the northeast and have much to learn. My main goal of the trip is to explore and enjoy different landscapes among the company of great people, learn a lot about myself and my wonderful travel-mates, and make the most of this journey. Bon voyage!!! :)

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