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.

Posted in: Timmy