OK now, after about... I think 5 hours of driving from the end edge of Nebraska into Wyoming, we are in the midst of Wyoming and its beginning to rain a bit. We started to see some small mountains a little after we came into Wyoming. Its stayed around 50 out but its been really windy and there seems to be large areas where there is still a significant amount of snow on the ground. The rain doesn't seem to be too bad, it already seems to be slowing a bit. Its like sprinkling out. Oh now its picking up again.
The landscape has been beautiful the whole time. Each section has something going for it. The flat farmlands were pertty, but they got a little tiresome after a while. Then in Nebraska we started seeing spprawling landscapes with rolling hills. It was really beautiful. Now we are getting into areas with mountains every now and again.
So this leg... from Alliance NE to Tanopah NV, will be about 14 hours. We are trying to keep better track of our time when we stop so we aren't like 2 hour behind like last night. So far its been about 35 min. and hopefully not much more. We are also crossing another time zone before Tanopah so that will make up the difference from stopping.
We've seen alot of cows on in Nebraska and Wyoming. Before that it seemed like mostly corn fields and now we are seeing Cow Ranches and stuff, but it's really just big huge fenced in areas that cows are wandering around in. No buildings really at all. We also saw two places with Windmill feilds. They weren't huge but there were like maybe 20 or so in each, that we could see. There was also some oil feilds with several oil pumps going.
So yeah that's all I can think to write about now for some reason. Lindsey is more comfortable writing in the car than I am I think and her posts are usually more interesting. I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Day 3 - Chicago to Alliance Nebraska
here's my post from Day 3, Friday April 10th -- Lindsey
Woke up a little earlier today and walked to the river to take some photos. Also saw the Chicago Theater (so jealous .. Leonard Cohen and a Doo-Wop group are on the marquee). It’s damn cold in Chicago. And Windy. My ears were sooo cold.
Staff was extremely nice and helpful, but there were people waiting behind us to get out so we felt a little rushed. But it’s only 1 hour to Wilmington where we take a brief break to see the Gemini Giant which is so totally going to be on someone’s lawn. We can re set up the camera and get better situated then I guess.
Here we are on the road again, eating nutrigrain bars and goldfish and singing along with my road trip mix (yesterday was most of matt’s). I’ve only spilled and stepped on a few goldfish crackers, so so far the car is pretty clean inside. Cluttered, but not a complete disaster. Movin Right Along is such an awesome song, from the Muppet Movie. It makes me happy. “California Here We Come”….But first Nebraska and Tonopah, NV.
Realized this morning that while we’re gaining an hour with every stop on the way, it’ll be reversed on the way back, which will be a bit of a pain. We’ll just have to remember to account for that. But it’s awesome for right now since we started off a little late. We’ll probably catch up and be able to be up for 5 or 6 tomorrow. Today we left Chicago around 7:45 or 8 am.
Eww the windshield is splattered with the giant bugs that attack us at night. And during the day. Gonna have to clean that the next time we get gas.
Signing off for now!
--- Later ---
The Mississippi River is much dirtier than the Hudson. Or at least it looked like it was as we crossed it. We’re through Illinois, passing through Ohio currently and the gray/whiteness of the sky is starting to give way to blue skies with scattered clouds. Temperature is 51 degrees right now, though extremely windy when we stopped at a rest stop a moment ago. There are a lot of crazy billboards in the middle of wheat fields, except the wheat is all cut and hasn’t started growing again so it’s like a billboard and the farm and nothing growing. Very strange.
Just saw a billboard for the World’s Largest Truck Stop, may have to stop by. Okay, we have officially been to the World’s Largest Truck Stop in Iowa and … yes it is that large. It was practically a one store mall. Anything you could possibly want from trucker stuff like hood ornaments and those crazy flashy lights they have to postcards, bags of marbles, food, books, movies, cassette tapes, video games to play, a restaurant, a few fast food joints too. HUGE. There were like 8 rooms AND an upstairs Trucker’s Lounge.
I’m hoping we see more billboards like that that we can just stop at instead of having to plan everything out. Granted, that took us a while to explore and time is short today, but whatever. We saw a World’s Largest and that makes me happy.
So far – construction in every single state, a small castle in Ohio, the Gemini Giant in Illinois and the World’s Largest Truck Stop in Iowa. Yay.
Later –
Just finished driving for a little while, letting Matt take over for the rest of the trip to Alliance probably. We’re hopefully not too far off, maybe 3 hours or something. First I have to tell you about the Albino Smoke Monster. Those who watch Lost know what I’m talking about. We were driving on 80 in the middle of Iowa somewhere and to our right we see this road that runs parallel. From this road is a massive kick up of white dust and it’s moving at a crazy fast speed – like 70 or 80 mph – ahead of us and then it just zooms off. We could see absolutely nothing that could be kicking up the dust so we decided that it was an Albino Smoke Monster.
A little later towards the end of Iowa/ beginning of Nebraska we started to see a lot of windmills which was really beautiful and awesome. I was driving so Matt got all the photos of those, but I loved looking at them and seeing their sheer size. Such a cool thing. There’s been some really great driving today. From complete flatness to rolling hills. It’s bizarre seeing a horizon line. Right now the sun is setting and there are very very few trees to block it, which is both beautiful and strange to me.
We’re now on what Nebraskans call NE-2 which to us just looks like a two way road in the middle of nowhere. But the speed limit is 55 so… um it’s kind of a highway?
Okay, gonna cut out for now.
Longest Post So Far. Still on this NE-2 road, going to be on it for a while yet. Running late, as per usual. Tomorrow is going to be interesting.
Woke up a little earlier today and walked to the river to take some photos. Also saw the Chicago Theater (so jealous .. Leonard Cohen and a Doo-Wop group are on the marquee). It’s damn cold in Chicago. And Windy. My ears were sooo cold.
Staff was extremely nice and helpful, but there were people waiting behind us to get out so we felt a little rushed. But it’s only 1 hour to Wilmington where we take a brief break to see the Gemini Giant which is so totally going to be on someone’s lawn. We can re set up the camera and get better situated then I guess.
Here we are on the road again, eating nutrigrain bars and goldfish and singing along with my road trip mix (yesterday was most of matt’s). I’ve only spilled and stepped on a few goldfish crackers, so so far the car is pretty clean inside. Cluttered, but not a complete disaster. Movin Right Along is such an awesome song, from the Muppet Movie. It makes me happy. “California Here We Come”….But first Nebraska and Tonopah, NV.
Realized this morning that while we’re gaining an hour with every stop on the way, it’ll be reversed on the way back, which will be a bit of a pain. We’ll just have to remember to account for that. But it’s awesome for right now since we started off a little late. We’ll probably catch up and be able to be up for 5 or 6 tomorrow. Today we left Chicago around 7:45 or 8 am.
Eww the windshield is splattered with the giant bugs that attack us at night. And during the day. Gonna have to clean that the next time we get gas.
Signing off for now!
--- Later ---
The Mississippi River is much dirtier than the Hudson. Or at least it looked like it was as we crossed it. We’re through Illinois, passing through Ohio currently and the gray/whiteness of the sky is starting to give way to blue skies with scattered clouds. Temperature is 51 degrees right now, though extremely windy when we stopped at a rest stop a moment ago. There are a lot of crazy billboards in the middle of wheat fields, except the wheat is all cut and hasn’t started growing again so it’s like a billboard and the farm and nothing growing. Very strange.
Just saw a billboard for the World’s Largest Truck Stop, may have to stop by. Okay, we have officially been to the World’s Largest Truck Stop in Iowa and … yes it is that large. It was practically a one store mall. Anything you could possibly want from trucker stuff like hood ornaments and those crazy flashy lights they have to postcards, bags of marbles, food, books, movies, cassette tapes, video games to play, a restaurant, a few fast food joints too. HUGE. There were like 8 rooms AND an upstairs Trucker’s Lounge.
I’m hoping we see more billboards like that that we can just stop at instead of having to plan everything out. Granted, that took us a while to explore and time is short today, but whatever. We saw a World’s Largest and that makes me happy.
So far – construction in every single state, a small castle in Ohio, the Gemini Giant in Illinois and the World’s Largest Truck Stop in Iowa. Yay.
Later –
Just finished driving for a little while, letting Matt take over for the rest of the trip to Alliance probably. We’re hopefully not too far off, maybe 3 hours or something. First I have to tell you about the Albino Smoke Monster. Those who watch Lost know what I’m talking about. We were driving on 80 in the middle of Iowa somewhere and to our right we see this road that runs parallel. From this road is a massive kick up of white dust and it’s moving at a crazy fast speed – like 70 or 80 mph – ahead of us and then it just zooms off. We could see absolutely nothing that could be kicking up the dust so we decided that it was an Albino Smoke Monster.
A little later towards the end of Iowa/ beginning of Nebraska we started to see a lot of windmills which was really beautiful and awesome. I was driving so Matt got all the photos of those, but I loved looking at them and seeing their sheer size. Such a cool thing. There’s been some really great driving today. From complete flatness to rolling hills. It’s bizarre seeing a horizon line. Right now the sun is setting and there are very very few trees to block it, which is both beautiful and strange to me.
We’re now on what Nebraskans call NE-2 which to us just looks like a two way road in the middle of nowhere. But the speed limit is 55 so… um it’s kind of a highway?
Okay, gonna cut out for now.
Longest Post So Far. Still on this NE-2 road, going to be on it for a while yet. Running late, as per usual. Tomorrow is going to be interesting.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Nebraska Morning 6:30
Got in late last night so we slept an hour later than we wanted to... So we have to go in like 5 min. Hotel was ok... has wireless internet which is nice. Looks like fair weather, 37 now.. prob. 55 high. We have a long drive today so we wanna get going. Gonna see Carhenge before we head out though.
http://www.carhenge.com/
So that's all I have the steam and time to write about now. There is alot more stuff from when we were driving, but we don't have time to post it now. We will tonight.
http://www.carhenge.com/
So that's all I have the steam and time to write about now. There is alot more stuff from when we were driving, but we don't have time to post it now. We will tonight.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Day 2: PA - Chicago, from Lindsey
From today's writings:
Yesterday was .. an adventure ending around 1:30 in the morning. Today is turning out to be another kind of adventure. We haven’t really gotten turned around too much today, but everything is taking longer than the GPS told us it would. We were supposed to be in Loveland, OH by 2:30 ish… it’s 3:39 and we aren’t there yet. Hopefully by 4, but then that messes up the rest of our day a little. We should have called Chicago to reserve a room by now, but I kind of want to see what time we get to Loveland because then I can judge just how off Wilma is.
It’s a bit nervewreaking, but I’m still enjoying the ride. We were supposed to eat lunch at the castle but instead we’re munching on fruit (him), goldfish (both of us) and I just made half a PB&J sandwich. Still a little hungry, but I can wait till we get there, it shouldn’t be too much longer now.
Ohio is as flat as I remember it being and we’re going south through the state so we’re getting to see a lot of it. We passed by Columbus earlier. It’s all pretty though. Most trees are still bare, but occasionally we see some flowers and some green bushes and stuff.
-- Later –
Okay , so Loveland Castle is totally worth it. We’re driving through town and it seems like a pretty busy center of malls and restaurants and stuff, then we go residential and I’m still not seeing a castle. Finally we turn down this road and end up going down this crazy steep curvy road lined with pretty greening bushes and trees and at the bottom is this small castle. Walk in, pay our $3/person fee and get a mini informational lecture about the castle from the man at the counter. This guy in the 1920’s had a group of boys who would hike and camp and fish in the river there and they called themselves the Knights .. of something I can’t remember, so he figured if they were knights they should have a castle. He spent the next like 50 years building the castle by hand and when he passed away they turned it into a memorial museum in his honor.
It was actually a pretty cool story and the castle was fun to wander. There was a dungeon with a “wild man” skeleton and an upstairs with a dining hall room and a balcony overlooking part of the pretty gardens also on the grounds. If I was a boy in the 1930’s I would have totally loved it. Hell as a girl I would have too, but wouldn’t have been allowed in. :P There were a lot of secret hatches and ladders and things to explore that were all locked, unfortunately. There were also rooms set up that were locked like a room with a desk and a typewriter and another with a bed. Tons of suits of armour as well. :)
Took a bunch of pictures, but it was kind of dark inside so I’m not sure how many will come out. I brought my camera book so I can get better at indoor photography, but haven’t had a chance to break it out yet. Maybe tomorrow.
We’re running a little later than we thought and are currently driving through rush hour – however it’s moving very quickly for rush our and we also are going back in time once we hit the Chicago area as it’s a different time zone. Which totally works in our favor in a really good way.
Unfortunately, we can’t film this leg of the trip on the video camera because we ran out of space and haven’t really had time to transfer the files. I’m going to try to do that now while we drive and maybe I’ll be able to capture entering Chicago by hand or something. It won’t be exactly the same, but it’s a long trip. We’ll have - CRAP I just missed photographing the welcome to Indiana sign cause I was doing this. ::sigh:: and we didn’t find any tourist traps in Ohio to get stickers at. ::sigh::
Signing off for now.
later –
We just passed a casino. Indiana LIVE! Casino. It’s in the middle of nowhere in Indiana with a tiny fountain. No photo, sorry. Too much technology on my lap right now trying to save the video files to the computer and not get lost at the same time.
Just finished transferring the video files to the computer only to discover that we actually have 4 hours left of “tape” and that we actually forgot to turn it back on after we left a rest stop at the beginning of Ohio. Oops. Gonna try to film a little of Indiana by hand and then entering Chicago. Just so there’s something.
NOW -
While I'm loving this hotel room - the layout is great and original, the view not bad, everything is nice and people were great. But one phone wasn't working - and therefore the internet wasn't working until i called for help (lan, or ethernet no wireless), the other phone works fine though. Also, there are no tissues to be found which is just bizarre. And Matt said that some guy in a gorilla suit was scaring people in the hallways. We're guessing a class trip since there seem to be a bunch of teenagers wandering around.
It's getting late, so I think we're going to crash. I'll try to go through photos a little tomorrow on the drive and see if I have any to post.
Yesterday was .. an adventure ending around 1:30 in the morning. Today is turning out to be another kind of adventure. We haven’t really gotten turned around too much today, but everything is taking longer than the GPS told us it would. We were supposed to be in Loveland, OH by 2:30 ish… it’s 3:39 and we aren’t there yet. Hopefully by 4, but then that messes up the rest of our day a little. We should have called Chicago to reserve a room by now, but I kind of want to see what time we get to Loveland because then I can judge just how off Wilma is.
It’s a bit nervewreaking, but I’m still enjoying the ride. We were supposed to eat lunch at the castle but instead we’re munching on fruit (him), goldfish (both of us) and I just made half a PB&J sandwich. Still a little hungry, but I can wait till we get there, it shouldn’t be too much longer now.
Ohio is as flat as I remember it being and we’re going south through the state so we’re getting to see a lot of it. We passed by Columbus earlier. It’s all pretty though. Most trees are still bare, but occasionally we see some flowers and some green bushes and stuff.
-- Later –
Okay , so Loveland Castle is totally worth it. We’re driving through town and it seems like a pretty busy center of malls and restaurants and stuff, then we go residential and I’m still not seeing a castle. Finally we turn down this road and end up going down this crazy steep curvy road lined with pretty greening bushes and trees and at the bottom is this small castle. Walk in, pay our $3/person fee and get a mini informational lecture about the castle from the man at the counter. This guy in the 1920’s had a group of boys who would hike and camp and fish in the river there and they called themselves the Knights .. of something I can’t remember, so he figured if they were knights they should have a castle. He spent the next like 50 years building the castle by hand and when he passed away they turned it into a memorial museum in his honor.
It was actually a pretty cool story and the castle was fun to wander. There was a dungeon with a “wild man” skeleton and an upstairs with a dining hall room and a balcony overlooking part of the pretty gardens also on the grounds. If I was a boy in the 1930’s I would have totally loved it. Hell as a girl I would have too, but wouldn’t have been allowed in. :P There were a lot of secret hatches and ladders and things to explore that were all locked, unfortunately. There were also rooms set up that were locked like a room with a desk and a typewriter and another with a bed. Tons of suits of armour as well. :)
Took a bunch of pictures, but it was kind of dark inside so I’m not sure how many will come out. I brought my camera book so I can get better at indoor photography, but haven’t had a chance to break it out yet. Maybe tomorrow.
We’re running a little later than we thought and are currently driving through rush hour – however it’s moving very quickly for rush our and we also are going back in time once we hit the Chicago area as it’s a different time zone. Which totally works in our favor in a really good way.
Unfortunately, we can’t film this leg of the trip on the video camera because we ran out of space and haven’t really had time to transfer the files. I’m going to try to do that now while we drive and maybe I’ll be able to capture entering Chicago by hand or something. It won’t be exactly the same, but it’s a long trip. We’ll have - CRAP I just missed photographing the welcome to Indiana sign cause I was doing this. ::sigh:: and we didn’t find any tourist traps in Ohio to get stickers at. ::sigh::
Signing off for now.
later –
We just passed a casino. Indiana LIVE! Casino. It’s in the middle of nowhere in Indiana with a tiny fountain. No photo, sorry. Too much technology on my lap right now trying to save the video files to the computer and not get lost at the same time.
Just finished transferring the video files to the computer only to discover that we actually have 4 hours left of “tape” and that we actually forgot to turn it back on after we left a rest stop at the beginning of Ohio. Oops. Gonna try to film a little of Indiana by hand and then entering Chicago. Just so there’s something.
NOW -
While I'm loving this hotel room - the layout is great and original, the view not bad, everything is nice and people were great. But one phone wasn't working - and therefore the internet wasn't working until i called for help (lan, or ethernet no wireless), the other phone works fine though. Also, there are no tissues to be found which is just bizarre. And Matt said that some guy in a gorilla suit was scaring people in the hallways. We're guessing a class trip since there seem to be a bunch of teenagers wandering around.
It's getting late, so I think we're going to crash. I'll try to go through photos a little tomorrow on the drive and see if I have any to post.
PA - IL
Hello there... We are at the Hotel in Chicago. It's pretty nice and was actually pretty easy to get to. Wilma was on good behavior coming into the city. OK so now we are all settled in and are online, I'd like to show you Jareth, Wilma and Dante... all working together, in theory.
That (above) is me in the car (Dante). my hair hasn't been washed in a while so, yeah its gross.
So yeah anyway, we got up a little later than we wanted to, but it's because we got in later than we wanted to. But it worked out OK because we got to Chicago in time to check in and stuff. Lindsey started off the drive in PA then I took over after we got to Love Land Castle in Ohio, almost all the way through Ohio.
It is basically at the bottom west part of Ohio. And fromt here we went north through Indiana. the Castle was kinda cool, smaller than I thought it was gonna be, but interesting anyway. We were there for like 30 min. We seemed to be running a bit behind so we had to scoot pretty quickly. There was a Dungeon in the castle and there was a prisoner in it who seems to have never been released.
After that we hightailed out and got to Chicago in about 5 hours. Like I said, nice room, pretty good view, and we got here in time to order Giordano's stuffed Pizza! I was waiting for this for a long time. I was everything I remembered.
And that is that for now. It's kinda late and I'm tired so i'm gonna get to bed soon. Till, tomorrow hopefully... if we get internet.
That (above) is me in the car (Dante). my hair hasn't been washed in a while so, yeah its gross.
So yeah anyway, we got up a little later than we wanted to, but it's because we got in later than we wanted to. But it worked out OK because we got to Chicago in time to check in and stuff. Lindsey started off the drive in PA then I took over after we got to Love Land Castle in Ohio, almost all the way through Ohio.
It is basically at the bottom west part of Ohio. And fromt here we went north through Indiana. the Castle was kinda cool, smaller than I thought it was gonna be, but interesting anyway. We were there for like 30 min. We seemed to be running a bit behind so we had to scoot pretty quickly. There was a Dungeon in the castle and there was a prisoner in it who seems to have never been released.
After that we hightailed out and got to Chicago in about 5 hours. Like I said, nice room, pretty good view, and we got here in time to order Giordano's stuffed Pizza! I was waiting for this for a long time. I was everything I remembered.
And that is that for now. It's kinda late and I'm tired so i'm gonna get to bed soon. Till, tomorrow hopefully... if we get internet.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
April 8 2009
wasn't able to get online last night so here is the blog form yesterday:
Well, we are off. Its 6:41 p.m. I misplaced my iPod which is making me feel pretty sad, I must say. I was up till like 12 making a playlist, for nothing. I think I might have left it at my house. I guess its 2 hours after we planned to leave but I don’t really remember saying we were gonna leave at a specific time. We wanted to try for around 5 I guess. So we are going to Penn. Port Matilda and we’ll stay at her Aunt’s house.
We got the computer going, obviously, plugged into the power inverter. We also have the camera going now, also plugged into the power inverter.
I guess Wilma is telling us to go a different way than Lindsey’s mother said to go. This is making Lindsey a little frazzled. Not too much really, but we don’t trust Wilma 100% to be completely honest.
Packing the car wasn’t too painful. I had to duct tape the camera down. That seems to be working well for now… but its only like 20 min into out trip. We got the food within reach. Stuff in my bag is way back in the .. well back. I only have some Trail Mix in there really. Well, it seems as though Wilma is going to start talking. Ok we had a little misadventure with Wilma. It said to take exit 21 and it was coming up and it didn’t speak to tell us to do that and that made us confused. We took it and then it said we were off route. Then we figured out that it probably meant exit 21 in like NY or another state or something. Ok I’m gonna go now.
Well, we are off. Its 6:41 p.m. I misplaced my iPod which is making me feel pretty sad, I must say. I was up till like 12 making a playlist, for nothing. I think I might have left it at my house. I guess its 2 hours after we planned to leave but I don’t really remember saying we were gonna leave at a specific time. We wanted to try for around 5 I guess. So we are going to Penn. Port Matilda and we’ll stay at her Aunt’s house.
We got the computer going, obviously, plugged into the power inverter. We also have the camera going now, also plugged into the power inverter.
I guess Wilma is telling us to go a different way than Lindsey’s mother said to go. This is making Lindsey a little frazzled. Not too much really, but we don’t trust Wilma 100% to be completely honest.
Packing the car wasn’t too painful. I had to duct tape the camera down. That seems to be working well for now… but its only like 20 min into out trip. We got the food within reach. Stuff in my bag is way back in the .. well back. I only have some Trail Mix in there really. Well, it seems as though Wilma is going to start talking. Ok we had a little misadventure with Wilma. It said to take exit 21 and it was coming up and it didn’t speak to tell us to do that and that made us confused. We took it and then it said we were off route. Then we figured out that it probably meant exit 21 in like NY or another state or something. Ok I’m gonna go now.
Day 1 - Wednesday April 8, 2009 from Lindsey
This is what I typed up in the car yesterday.
----------------------------------------
4.8.09 Wednesday
I hate New Jersey. Just getting that out there. Those who have traveled out of state with me before know this already. I really hate driving in New Jersey. There are no signs, but if there are signs they aren’t correct, or updated or anything normal. We, thankfully, haven’t hit any tolls yet but if we do there won’t be any lines on the ground and everything will be all willy-nilly.
To further explain, it was around 7 and we were getting pretty hungry. I don’t know about Matt, but I hadn’t really eaten anything since around 1:30. My head was starting to hurt and I knew it was time to find food. So, first of all – Wilma has the ability to tell us what is in the area, but decided at this point to not work properly. So I do it the old fashioned way and look at signs, except there are no signs. Or all the signs say are gas stations.
I finally see a sign that says “Wendy’s” and so I take it…… ….. we ended up in some kind of national forest with nothing but trees. No lights, no houses, no Wendy’s. We had turned off Wilma so that she wouldn’t freak out that we were off route, but eventually I gave up on all hope of food and we turned her back on. She took us on a roundabout journey back to 80. At least she got us back there I guess. And it isn’t entirely her fault that we never found that Wendy’s. Or anything else for that matter.
After being off route for so long I was hesitant to try another exit with a food sign, but this time Wilma confirmed that the Wendy’s was just two turns off the exit. Still in New Jersey, I keep calm knowing it won’t precisely be that way. Follow the signs to Wendy’s and find… a McDonalds. Decide to say screw Wendy’s and just get that instead. Good plan cause I didn’t see any lights further down the road.
We don’t really want to be eating a lot of fast food on this trip, but considering we left about 2 hours late and had a pretty rough day to start I wasn’t about to go to a diner or other type of sit down restaurant. So McDonald’s it was.
We just crossed the border into PA, which is good. Although we still have a while to go. But our spirits are still up and I’m really excited that I’m finally on this trip after all the planning that we’ve done over the past few months. I’m starting to get a little tired, switched off so Matt can drive the rest of the way to my aunt’s house. Or at least give me a little rest. We’ll see how it goes.
Signing off for now, even though I could probably write another two pages.
----------------------------------------
4.8.09 Wednesday
I hate New Jersey. Just getting that out there. Those who have traveled out of state with me before know this already. I really hate driving in New Jersey. There are no signs, but if there are signs they aren’t correct, or updated or anything normal. We, thankfully, haven’t hit any tolls yet but if we do there won’t be any lines on the ground and everything will be all willy-nilly.
To further explain, it was around 7 and we were getting pretty hungry. I don’t know about Matt, but I hadn’t really eaten anything since around 1:30. My head was starting to hurt and I knew it was time to find food. So, first of all – Wilma has the ability to tell us what is in the area, but decided at this point to not work properly. So I do it the old fashioned way and look at signs, except there are no signs. Or all the signs say are gas stations.
I finally see a sign that says “Wendy’s” and so I take it…… ….. we ended up in some kind of national forest with nothing but trees. No lights, no houses, no Wendy’s. We had turned off Wilma so that she wouldn’t freak out that we were off route, but eventually I gave up on all hope of food and we turned her back on. She took us on a roundabout journey back to 80. At least she got us back there I guess. And it isn’t entirely her fault that we never found that Wendy’s. Or anything else for that matter.
After being off route for so long I was hesitant to try another exit with a food sign, but this time Wilma confirmed that the Wendy’s was just two turns off the exit. Still in New Jersey, I keep calm knowing it won’t precisely be that way. Follow the signs to Wendy’s and find… a McDonalds. Decide to say screw Wendy’s and just get that instead. Good plan cause I didn’t see any lights further down the road.
We don’t really want to be eating a lot of fast food on this trip, but considering we left about 2 hours late and had a pretty rough day to start I wasn’t about to go to a diner or other type of sit down restaurant. So McDonald’s it was.
We just crossed the border into PA, which is good. Although we still have a while to go. But our spirits are still up and I’m really excited that I’m finally on this trip after all the planning that we’ve done over the past few months. I’m starting to get a little tired, switched off so Matt can drive the rest of the way to my aunt’s house. Or at least give me a little rest. We’ll see how it goes.
Signing off for now, even though I could probably write another two pages.
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