Jersey girl in Jersey
We're in north New Jersey tonight, happily off the road after some early holiday weekend traffic. The roads will be thick the next few days, we expect, with beach goers and partiers, patriots and escapees from the daily grind. Or those, like us, searching for the perfect grind (of coffee).
Tonight we had dinner at The Office on Bloomfield Ave. in Montclair. We've managed to have some missed connections with friends in the last two days, but it's OK. We came into this adventure knowing we wouldn't be able to mesh our schedules perfectly with everyone we hoped to see.
On our way to our hotel, we saw some poor person's car on fire, and I mean a raging fire. The flames and smoke were pouring out on the other side of the highway. And traffic was stopped for miles. Also yesterday we saw the machinery that moves the concrete barriers on the D.C. highways to grow or shrink lanes going in certain directions for rush hour. And, being in Jersey, I'm talking faster, interrupting my poor husband and generally pointing out every tiny landmark from my childhood (piano teacher's house, old bowling alley, flute teacher's place, etc.) with much excitement.
We spent a few days with my parents, my aunt and uncle and my grandmother in the great state of Virginia. It felt strange taking off for the next part of our trip this morning, clean laundry and finished projects in tow after our road break. I had to let go of the idea of bringing every single thing in my old room back to Portland in our minivan. Like that would have worked. I managed to tuck a few old yearbooks and my diplomas in the van, at least.
Last night, we went to the Kennedy Center to hear the National Symphony Orchestra perform highlights from next year's season. The free preview encouraged people to buy season tickets. It was a great, varied concert of numerous small pieces. I loved Leroy Anderson's "Typewriter," performed by a percussionist on, yes, a typewriter. Also of course, I loved the piece of the last movement of Mahler's First Symphony, one of my favorites.
This New England trip is going to go fast. Well, the cars might go slow. But the time will snap by, and we'll be back here, in New Jersey, watching my friend Chiara get married and wondering where half our summer has gone.
Where's Jonathan? Part Four
Is he:
a) On a llama photo shoot in Oregon
b) In a hedge maze in Tennessee
c) In someone's yard in Mississippi
d) At a city park in Florida
e) None of the above
In Where's Jonathan part three, he was not at a faux rest stop, in Battle Creek, in a pink flamingo park in Florida or in jail. The correct answer, as Le Sigh wrote, was Whiskey Creek in Kentucky. The picture was taken at the Maker's Mark distillery in Loretto. She'll be getting a prize on her doorstep sometime soon (if/when she sends us her new address).
One rule: If we come visit you, and you happen to see a future "Where's Jonathan" photo amid our growing collection, you're ineligible for the prize! That just wouldn't be right.
Food and family
Time has blurred in the past few days. Probably due to the blurring of the windshield during several days of deluge. We've driven hours in the torrential downpours and flooding conditions on the East Coast, starting in South Carolina on Sunday and continuing yesterday during our adventure heading to Virginia. We had to take a several-hour detour yesterday around the D.C. metro area, due to a closure on I-95, during the downpour and rush hour, no less. When we pulled into my parents' driveway last night, the sound of rain was still pounding in my ears. Between the wind and the amount of water on the road, it took us both concentrating and switching driving shifts regularly to stay safe and focused. It was definitely the most stressful driving so far.
We spent two nights with Alex and Julie in Fayettville, North Carolina, and met their friends one night for Thai food. One afternoon for lunch, Jonathan and I checked out Smithfield's Chicken N Bar-B-Q in Fayettville and had delicious barbecue sandwiches, fries and banana pudding. We've been gorging on barbecue and sweet tea for the past few days, getting our fill literally of the south before heading to more northerly climes.
Alex and Julie have a great blog,
Malleable Truth, and many of the posts are from when Alex was doing military duty in Iraq and Julie was in France for school. Alex is stationed at Ft. Bragg, and he and Julie finally get to live together this summer, even though they were married a year and a half ago. She'll return to school at the end of August.
Next up: New England. The photo is from St. Augustine, Florida.
New Orleans reality check
On the Weather Channel in South Carolina, we saw a promo for the station's hurricane coverage, with a meteorologist reporting from this very spot in New Orleans. We were there this month. This is how it still looks, 10 months or so after the hurricane and devastating flooding.
Some of the things we've missed
We bypassed Mammoth Caves in Kentucky due to wanting to get to Nashville and have coffee with Melody Guy. It was a timing thing. Maybe we'll get back there. We've heard great things about it.
The water in Ft. Lauderdale was so blue and inviting, but we didn't have our bathing suits on, plus there were no parking spaces or places (we knew of) to change. So we didn't swim in Florida. We did walk on the beach, though, in Boca.
We skipped Cumberland Island in Georgia, or at least I think it was Georgia, due to driving right by it before realizing oh yeah, that was the cool place we read about. We also hoped to drive westward toward Atlanta and to see Asheville and Athens, but we took the coastal route instead to see Savannah and Georgia. No dining at the Varsity or getting sick off too much free Coca-Cola or checking out the Biltmore. Sigh.
That being said, I don't have any regrets about this trip. We've had to make some tough choices about which direction to head, but I've loved everything we've chosen to do. When we started, I thought we'd have time and opportunity to do everything. But what we want to see keeps expanding, and the days keep chugging by. Soon enough we'll be headed west. Toward home and obligations and a whole other set of priorities.
In the meantime, if we see something interesting, or want to go visit a town, even if it's an hour off the beaten path, we shrug and say why not, then peel off toward the exit ramp. It's a nice way to live.
Indecent human behavior
OK.
We've seen a lot of inappropriate behavior this trip. Last night, on our way to Fayettville to visit Alex and Julie, we got slowed down in traffic on I-95. Someone, who apparently didn't like traffic, decided to pull out of the lineup and drive backwards up the exit ramp. It was about 1/4 of a mile away. He stayed on the shoulder of the highway, in reverse and going quite fast. Not to mention, once he got to the ramp, it was only wide enough for one car, so he'd be driving into oncoming traffic.
And, while in Winter Park, we saw a woman walk into a bagel shop, fill her cup with iced tea, then walk back out without paying.
Our most sleepless night was staying at a hotel outside Tallahassee during a major basketball tournament weekend. There were four or so buses of high schoolers there, and they seemed to communicate best in loud shouts in the middle of the night, the louder the better. Supposedly adults were patroling the area in shifts, but we found crushed beer cans the next morning and cigarettes all up and down the sidewalks by the rooms. Perhaps the adults were drinking while on duty. Who knows.
We've also tallied worst drivers in terms of aggressiveness, speeding and changing lanes. Florida has been the worst driving state so far. Our friend Doug, who grew up there, said it's because people move to Florida from all over the place, and all those varied driving mentalities clash. Or crash.
Where's Jonathan? Part Three
Is he:
a) At Whiskey Creek in Kentucky
b) At a faux historical rest area stop in Alabama
c) At Battle Creek in Michigan
d) In a Florida pink flamingo park
e) In jail
History is good!
On this trip so far, we’ve seen the world’s longest fishing pier, the world’s longest unbroken sidewalk, America’s oldest fort and America’s oldest European settled city. I’ve also seen three men in the women’s restroom.
Friday we finished visiting with Becca and Simon in Boca Raton, which means rat’s mouth in Spanish due to the shape of the coastline. We had breakfast in Ft. Lauderdale with Janett and Shane at the Floridian diner, then headed up to Jupiter where we had a meal with Lee, our former next door neighbor in Lincoln City. We spent the night again with Marjorie and Doug and Kyle, who were so kind to let us use their guest bedroom as home base for a few days.
Yesterday was a packed day as well. On our way out of Winter Park, we visited the Morse Museum, which has a huge collection of dazzling Tiffany works, then headed up the coast. Some of the museum’s usual exhibits are actually in New York, where they will be on view starting in November. I recommend tracking down where the exhibit is and seeing it for those of you who are in New York. The range and breadth of his oeuvre astounded me. Who knew he could paint?
In the afternoon we spent a few hours in St. Augustine, Florida, the aforementioned oldest European city in America. The architecture is really picturesque, and the shops on St. George Street offered an air conditioned respite. We saw the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument, which was a really cool fort (the oldest in America) with coquina walls. We could see the broken shells within the building material. It was beautiful. Plus we watched a really loud cannon go off.
To cool off, we popped into St. Augustine Coffee Co., a business that opened about a year ago in downtown, and my green tea frappe was the perfect blend of chill and flavor without being too sweet or artificial.
In the evening, we rolled into Savannah, Georgia, a beautiful southern city, where we explored and found a hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint, Wall’s BBQ, which had been running since 1963. Margaret helped us at the counter. She’s the daughter of the original owners, and now her daughter owns the business. I had barbecue chicken, fried okra and tomatoes, and blackeyed peas. Jonathan did the rib platter, with red rice and potato salad. We took our dinners to the local park, where we saw on a bench, savored the breeze and the last wisps of sunset and devoured our food. While we were eating a ghost tour started. Then we took a drive down busy River Street, which was like Bourbon Street in New Orleans, but with less of a smell of drunken people. Still crazy, though.
We also saw about three weddings yesterday. It must have been a good weekend for love.
I’m writing from Port City Java in Charleston, a similar old-south city to Savannah. Last night we stayed in Hardeeville, South Carolina, in the same Super 8 as a class reunion from 1956. A sweet weekend, indeed.
Surreal St. Pete
We took our Salvador Dali to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, where our Dali dolly met his maker. Oof, I mean his namesake. He also met a lot of twin brothers that looked just like him, but a little off. Ours is more rumpled, more authentic and a bit nuttier. Plus he's from Michigan.
The museum is full of rotating exhibits. It's coincidentally across the way from journalism's Poynter Institute. For more information, check out the Web site
here.
The photo is proof that our Dali met Dali, even if it was a black and white version of him hanging out in the heat. Neither of them look too scarred from the experience. But it was surreal.
Danger danger, overload zone
Pardon us for the lack of updates in the last few days. Our brains have been on overload. Not only have we been traveling for three weeks, we've been seeing lots of scenery and visiting with lots of people. And then there was New Orleans. Which has stilled my pen, so to speak. There's so much there it's hard to wrap your head around it, yet alone find the time and bandwidth to post something worthwhile. Still, it's coming soon. We promise. With some photos. It's such a huge story, it's hard to figure out how to make the pieces we saw firsthand into a narrative that makes sense. Because it doesn't really make sense.
We've hunkered down in Orlando for a few days, with friends Marjorie and Doug and their 3-year-old son, Kyle. Before that, we spent the night in Tampa with Caroline and had dinner with her brother and sister-in-law, Tom and Jonti. They'll be on the road this summer, too, with their son, the Juice. Today we're in Boca Raton, just arrived, to see Becca and Simon, then Janett and Shane, Lee from Lincoln City, then back to Orlando.
In Orlando, we've indulged in the unglamorous part of road tripping: paying bills, catching up on laundry, staying in one place until the rhythm of the road becomes a faint calling outside the door, but not loud enough to make us charge out there, keys in hand, ready to go again. I've even taken one luxurious nap. It's nice to put on the brakes and great to catch up with Marjorie and Doug. Kyle is highly entertaining, as were the turtles visiting their kitchen.
Today was a four-hour drive, easy with a few stops, including the legendary Ron Jon's Surf Shop at Cocoa Beach. We've noticed people drive fast and zip to switch lanes without turn signals in Florida. The further south we've gotten, the worse the other drivers have behaved. Still, my New Jersey instincts have kicked in, and it's a relief to know they're still there, buried under the miles of polite Oregon driving I've done.
We've had lots of coffee. On the way to Tampa, we witnessed what was surely a fatal accident, although we haven't found any news reports. Four cars. One man's body was motionless, 35 or 40 feet from his Geo Tracker, which had rolled. He must not have been wearing his seatbelt. His companion, still in the car, didn't look much healthier. We passed so close to it, timing wise, that Jonathan was the first person to call 9-1-1. It was a sober moment. Between seeing that and noticing the crazier driving, we've been even more cautious and wary on the road.
I've been working on fixing photos from Gary and Marisa's wedding earlier this month, although I have yet to start my scrapbooking. At some point, we'll arrive back home, road weary and sleepy, smelling of miles of America, grease and laundromats mixed, dropped chips under the seats, and then it'll be quiet. And then it'll be so quiet and so stable after so many weeks of excitement. I don't want to think that far ahead.
An update: Tamara won the prize for part two of Where's Jonathan? We have the prize, but once we track down a post office, etc., we'll get it to her.
Black, white and lots of gray
I was surprised, when looking at my photos of New Orleans, how most of them turned out monochromatic. There are some you'd think were taken with black and white film, even, like this one of graffiti near Jackson Square.
We're processing like mad about New Orleans and plan to post our thoughts about the devastation we saw very soon. At the moment, we're leaving Caroline's in Tampa to head to Orlando, where we'll tuck in for a few days, do laundry and get our heads around all the things we saw there on our amazing tour of some most-hit neighborhoods.
In the meantime, I wholly recommend going to New Orleans yourselves and checking it out. It's an experience you'll never forget. The media can't begin to portray how widespread the damage is, even 10 months after Katrina. And a lot of businesses are open, especially in the French Quarter, and hoping for more people to drop some dollars into the economy. We did our part on that front, at least.
Delicious days
(This was written Friday, June 16, with more to come about New Orleans soon.)
The last day and a half have been an indulgence in beauty, an overloading of the senses. We don’t have Internet access at our hotel in the French Quarter, New Orleans, but I need to write a post before this afternoon.
This afternoon we’ll take a tour of the hurricane damage. Right now, we’re holed up in our beautiful hotel on Toulouse Street, post rain shower, getting ready for the tour.
Today we had breakfast at
Café du Monde on Decatur Street, at an outside table, listening to a street musician perform. His first hymn on the trumpet finished with a note so strong and steady it pierced the air. That note kept going, without losing its tone, past where my ear expected it to drop away. It was an emergency bell, it was a dirge, it was one long moment where time slowed, waiting for an ending. But that note kept going. Finally, it wavered, shimmered and shook off into silence.
That’s courage. That’s talent. And it got people’s attention.
Yesterday we shopped at the perfume shop
Hove, which was a step back into time and also a place where my sense of smell lifted up to the foreground. My nose was in paradise. I could have stayed there all afternoon. Amy, the proprietor, was preparing for a photo shoot for a Better Homes and Garden spread. You can read about the shop in the magazine’s November edition.
We also went to a great knitting and embroidery store, The Quarter Stitch on Chartres Street, where I bought a brightly patterned Noro skein that winds bright colors all into one. It’ll definitely remind me of New Orleans, like a braiding of Mardi Gras beads. We met Michelle there, who lost her house in the hurricane. She wound my skein into a ball for easy afghan making. We hope she comes to visit Oregon someday.
Today was another step back in time at a millinery.
Fleur de Paris is on the Rue Royal, near Hove in fact, and it’s a gorgeous hat shop. Women order their hats for the Kentucky Derby there. I circled and circled again, while Joann invited Jonathan to sit down on the couch and take a rest. Each hat is handmade, and they are all different. And exquisite. I fell in love with a gorgeous teal one, with black and teal ribbons and a tickly feather plume. It’s sitting happily in its box in our hotel room. It was the best hat shop I’ve ever been to, and Joann said there aren’t many like it left in existence. This one has been around for 26 years, and the milliner who works in the shop has been there for 23. It was an incredible experience to wander around there. What beauty and elegance.
The whole time here has been fantastic. We’ve been eating good Creole meals, savoring the complex spices we aren’t used to, and, yes, we cruised Bourbon Street last night, but no, we weren’t drunk, it was an after-dinner walk. A few people from a balcony threw us beads (we were fully dressed, thank you very much), and we caught them and waved up at the folks who sent them our way.
The photo is of our café au laits with Café du Monde’s chicory coffee and their famous beignets.
Where's Jonathan? Part Two
Is he:
a) In Lincoln City
b) At Presque Isle, in Erie, Pennsylvania
c) Loose in a zoo exhibit, hiding from the buffalo
d) At Lake Michigan
e) At Chautauqua Lake
f) None or all of the above
ANSWER TO WHERE'S JONATHAN PART ONE: He was pumping gas in Holland. Yes, Holland, Michigan, not the one in Europe.
Mash at Maker's Mark
We trekked out to Loretto, Kentucky, yesterday morning to visit the Maker's Mark distillery and to learn about bourbon. The tour was well worth the trip. The oddest part, though, was when our guide encouraged us to stick our fingers into the mash, bubbling in different stages of fermentation, to taste its progress. Our fingers smelled interesting all day.
Jonathan hoped to find the bourbon barrel with his name on it, and we're pretty sure the one on the right is it:
Loretto, oddly enough, is in a dry county.
From there, we headed to Nashville, Tennessee, where we met up with Melody Guy, my amazing singer and songwriter friend I know from Sherwood, Oregon. We had coffee (of course), then she gave us a tour of city landmarks and treated us to a sampling of some of her new music. She's an incredible musician. Check out her Web site
here. Thanks, Mel, for treating us like stars!
We're headed to Graceland, Memphis, Tennessee, this morning. This is yet another state I hadn't been to before, so now there are four left. Will we hit them on our way back West? I'm not sure.
Where's Jonathan?
Taking in so much
We're back in the land of WiFi, which at the moment is Elizabethtown, Kentucky, gateway to the bourbon capital of the U.S., where Jonathan will try to find the barrel of whiskey with his name on it at the Maker's Mark distillery.
The Bluegrass State is one of six I hadn't been to, so now I'm down to five. And counting. Tennessee, here we come, we are indeed going to Graceland. But before that, we hope to see singer and songwriter phenom Melody Guy, who moved to Nashville from Sherwood, the town I used to cover in Oregon.
We spent last night in Columbus with friends Sharon and Tim, and had wonderful conversations as well as an entertaining episode of pushing a chair around Ohio State University. The two nights before were spent with Melinda and Craig in Michigan. We've been eating very well, while chewing on the delightful chats we've had with all of the people we've visited. It's so fun to see friends from different times in our lives, overlaying our old memories in other places.
In fact, we've seen so much in the last week and a half, and had so many thoughtful conversations with friends and family, it seems like the world keeps rushing by as I'm sitting on our hotel bed. It's either the world or the rhythm of the highway bumps, mixed with snippets of those conversations and small road moments and interesting sights. Sights such as the pant leg attached to a boot lying on the side of the highway, a bare foot sticking out of a sunroof and our random side trips into cities unknown to us.
With all this intake of information, I've had more blonde moments than usual. Such as regularly dropping my set of keys in the minivan, where they slide down under something and don't get found for two days. Good thing we have two sets of keys and Jonathan keeps a tight grip on his.
Thanks to all of you who have commented on our blog. Keep the notes coming! In response to requests, more photos are on their way to the blog. That is, as soon as I figure out what I did with my computer cord so I can download the newest images. Maybe I'll find it in the back of the van next to my keys.
Knit, knit, knit, eeh hee hee!
The last time I knitted with my friend Tara, her son Zac started saying, "knit, knit, knit," then giggling, then repeating the whole thing over and over. Jonathan and I have taken to saying that, too, especially when I get into a project and don't want to put it down.
So, for those such as Tara who are wondering what I'm knitting on the road, the answer is a Noro kureyon hat. It's a new pattern, with an interesting decrease, and it's going to a friend of a friend, who's dealing with chemo treatments. I'm almost done and hope to send it out soon. I love the texture of the yarn and the colors.
Before I left Oregon, I finished up my first felting project (a purse), which has surprised me due to its strap bounciness on my shoulder. It's the road trip purse, and I really like it. It opens really wide for easy access, then cinches back together tightly for security. The gray-green yarn from Nestucca Bay Textile and Supply is beautiful. In hindsight, I should have added an inside pocket before felting it.
I also finished the capelet in Stitch 'n' Bitch Nation, in a silvery gray mohair from Dharma Yarns in Lincoln City. It's light and lacy, but keeps my shoulders warm.
The big summer project, though, is a road trip afghan. I'll buy yarn at different shops around the country, and knit it into the afghan in the order I buy it. My mom brought me some old pattern books my grandma had, when she came out to visit before we left for this adventure. I picked one pattern to use that my grandma used (her pencil marks are on it). I wish I was old enough to want to knit before my grandma died. She was a beautiful knitter, and a very elegant lady.
So far, there's no blanket. But the first skein of yarn is in a ball now and ready to go. It's lemon, lime and cranberry variegated, hand-dyed yarn, from Chautauqua, at the shop at the Red Brick Farm. Then today, I found a navy blue and lime skein from Uruguay at Busy Hands Knitting and Gifts in Ann Arbor. It's color scheme is close enough to the University of Michigan's blue and gold colors to remind me of this beautiful state. Go Blue!
Think of me in Florida next week, sweating as this wool blanket grows on my lap. Maybe by July it'll cover my knees.
Three cheers for Lisa
We witnessed a dazzling feat of speed today. Lisa, the owner of Java Bay in Bay View, Ohio, managed to whip up 22 smoothies in 25 minutes. The recipient of those chilled concoctions? A middle school class, celebrating the end of the school year.
Way to go, Lisa!
In between rounds with the blender, she served us two nice, robust cups of coffee that kept us going all the way to Ann Arbor, Michigan, even through a torrential downpour. Lisa owns the shop with her husband Bob.
We had a great time for the last two nights with my cousin and his beautiful family. Below is a shot of Niagara Falls from the weekend. We've been on the road for a week now, seen a lot of beautiful and crazy things and visited with amazing people. One of the best parts of this trip is listening to other people's stories.
Putting new faces on
We took our final walk around Chautauqua this morning, down to the lake, and through the plaza, where a crew recently put new faces on the famous fountain. If you can put new faces on the figures representing knowledge, religion, music and art, then everything must be possible. At least in Chautauqua.
I'm typing outside on our deck at the Maple Inn, with birds singing, and I'm not quite ready to leave this peaceful place. But it's almost time to go.
Yesterday, after brunch with the bride and groom, we headed up to Buffalo, where we discovered an independent coffee shop, Spot Coffee, 227 Delaware Ave. It was the first time we had an espresso drink since Leesburg, Virginia, and we sat there for about an hour, sipping and playing with a dinosaur the barista let us borrow for entertainment. I had a latte and Jonathan had a dry cappuccino.
On one wall, an intricate Buffalo mural, with Spot Coffee in the center, surprised us with a depiction of Seattle's Pike Place Market and the space needle.
The folks at Spot Coffee roast their own coffee on site, and also bake all their own pastries.
We headed to Canada after, for Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake.
Funniest sight of the day: A guy standing on the side of the road in Buffalo with a cup of yellow paint and a paintbrush. He was painting a new line on the side of the curb so he could park there.
Coffee and a wedding
Saturday morning, before heading to my friend Alice's for breakfast, Jonathan and I found ourselves in Mayville, New York, at the Bonjour Cafe and Patisserie. It opened last summer and already business is booming. The shop serves espresso, regular coffee and cases of French pastries, not to mention the pies and cheesecake. The locals know to come before 10 a.m., or the baked goods will have disappeared.
We had regular coffee and brought home a pain au chocolat for the afternoon. It tasted so great, and not too sweet, that it almost made up for not being able to get Sadie J's muffins ever again. Almost. Perhaps we'll pull over there again on our way out of town this morning. Apparently the cafe is owned by a successful businessman who has some other restaurants in town and believes in serving quality food. We'll have to check out some more of his holdings next year when we come back.
The wedding festivities for Gary and Marisa stretched for three days, and everything was perfect. The ceremony was held in the scenic outdoor Hall of Philosophy, on the Chautauqua grounds, amid white etched columns and a mosaic tiled floor. The bride and groom were radiant, and they left the ceremony in a cascade of rose petals thrown skyward by well-wishers. A horse and carriage delivered the bride and her family to the ceremony, and she and Gary were whisked off in it afterwards.
The reception at the Athenaeum Hotel was followed by an after-party in the Sun Room upstairs, which kept going until 3 a.m., or so I heard. Johnny's Lunch was brought in. It's a Jamestown business specializing in Texas hots. If you don't know what Texas hots are, try them sometime on the East Coast. They do a body good.
The next morning, brunch was served at the Season Ticket in the St. Elmo Hotel, and we gorged on quiche, French toast, fruit, assorted muffins and, of course, coffee.
Life is good here in Chautauqua, even before the season starts, with its throngs of pedestrians, regular lectures and concerts and general hubub. It's been great to see old friends and catch up with them while staying at the Maple Inn, my family's favorite place to stay on the grounds. I grew up coming to this inn for two weeks every summer. Things have changed, they always do, but being in this room is like being home.
Some of this, some of that
We're at Chautauqua Institution, NY, one of my favorite places. Jonathan received huge kudos from me on our first date when he knew what it was. If you haven't heard of it, check out the link to the right.
The big change this year is my favorite restaurant, Sadie J's, has poofed out of existence between last season and this one. It's now a huge real estate office. I am drooling remembering their gooey cinnamon rolls, moist cappuccino muffins with a black coffee chaser, the morning egg sandwiches, the veggie melts and the pita sandwich with the pesto on it. Sigh... of course those food items will become even more mouthwatering in my memory as the years go on. That's the nature of something that you've had once or dozens of times and can never get again.
My favorite sign of the day was for a business we passed on our route. It advertised T-shirts, ant farms and pastries.
Gary and Marisa's wedding festivities start tonight. Cross your fingers, turn around twice and send wishes into the sky about there being no rain tomorrow for the outdoor ceremony. Of course, since a hurricane hit our wedding weekend back in 2003, we know the show will go on anyway. But a gorgeous, sunny day would be amazing.
Restaurant Wi-Fi
We're in Pennsylvania. We stopped at my former regular Starbucks in Leesburg, Virginia, where I once met a screenwriter, who spent hours doodling on legal pads, only to find out he was really a bank robber by trade. Who knew. He gave me some interesting writing advice, that's for sure.
There's tax in other states! Things we forget living in Oregon. There's also WiFi access in more random places than back in 2001, when I took my last major trip. I don't even remember if WiFi existed then. Anyone out there know when it started?
Quote of the day, so far anyway: "The mashed potatoes come from a box, and the french fries come with a coating."
On the road again
We arrived in Virginia late last night, bleary eyed, but fully packed with summer gear and ready to start this adventure. This morning, our golden chariot, I mean minivan, awaits. We'll pack it back up and swing west and then north toward Warren, Penn.
It's Day One. Caffeine level is zero, but anticipation is high. Onward to Pennsylvania!
