I love traveling. I love road trips. But the end of them is rough for me.
I'll have a full rundown of the trip probably tonight, and I had an amazing time. But yesterday involved a ten-hour drive after not getting enough sleep all weekend. It was a long way to go, and taking that route through Pennsylvania and Ohio only has service centers, where you get a gas station, convenience area and a few fast food places, and then continue on towards the next one. There's no detours to take or cool little rest stops to take a load off, so it's just a lot of driving towards the same thing, which adds to the tiring. Plus I stayed up too late again last night because I had to watch The Bachelorette.
So this inning really hurts in a way that ten hours of driving back from Nashville didn't. I'm having some sort of allergic reaction to something- I thought maybe it was the detergent they used at the last hotel, but after this long I think it's something else. Either way I have spent my entire morning itching. I subsisted mostly on coffee on the road (I only drink water at meals but it did not balance out this time) so I'm dehydrated and headachey. I'm tired. I'm still mad about things that happened on Friday at work so I'm irritated just being here. A smart person might take the day off after a trip like I just did, but that's wasting time off I could spend on another trip later, and so I'll soldier on.
And I told myself that I have a break from trip planning, that I can relax... And I've spent plenty of time since I got back looking up things to do on the next road trip.
31.5.16
28.5.16
Currently: Cincinnati, OH
In my early 20s, before I moved to LA, I spent a lot of my summers driving a few hours to see a ton of my closest friends from other states at the same time for a week. Every year was like the best family reunion, and two of those reunions took place in Cincinnati, at the same hotel.
When we decided that we couldn't make it to Columbus last night, we decided on Cincy, and booked that hotel.
It's been fourteen years since I've been here, but the nostalgia is strong. I still remember where everything is. The lobby looks different but I can still point on where I walked past and saw Rachel sleeping on the floor covered in newspapers, or where we sat when regaling everyone with the story of why we took six individual drives through the Wendy's drive-thru for six individual people. Thd bar, the most important part, is still there. I also wanted to ask if a certain awesome waitress was still there, but I'm sure she's not. Still, I remember her name. It's different being here with family instead of with four other girls, taking up the entire bathroom counter with product and throwing dirty clothes on the floor under the sink and staying up way too late or waking up too early to my friends already laughing, and that's the stuff that keeps coming to mind.
Also they put a Starbucks in the lobby, and my god do I want a real reunion here. I'll be there instead of the bar now.
When we decided that we couldn't make it to Columbus last night, we decided on Cincy, and booked that hotel.
It's been fourteen years since I've been here, but the nostalgia is strong. I still remember where everything is. The lobby looks different but I can still point on where I walked past and saw Rachel sleeping on the floor covered in newspapers, or where we sat when regaling everyone with the story of why we took six individual drives through the Wendy's drive-thru for six individual people. Thd bar, the most important part, is still there. I also wanted to ask if a certain awesome waitress was still there, but I'm sure she's not. Still, I remember her name. It's different being here with family instead of with four other girls, taking up the entire bathroom counter with product and throwing dirty clothes on the floor under the sink and staying up way too late or waking up too early to my friends already laughing, and that's the stuff that keeps coming to mind.
Also they put a Starbucks in the lobby, and my god do I want a real reunion here. I'll be there instead of the bar now.
26.5.16
Twas the night before road trip
It's been a pretty awful week, so my god am I looking forward to vacation. Since 2012 I've gotten one big road trip in a year that takes more than a day of driving, and this is it. I get to check off another state I've never been to (West Virginia!)! I get to spend time with my awesome family! I get to see new things and Instagram them all! (@thereandbackblog, just saying.) And tonight I get to do trip prep!
It's nothing too big. It means that dinner tonight is whatever from the fridge that might go bad before Monday. I'm cleaning just enough to make sure the place is habitable when people come over to get me. I make sure the trash is getting taken out, because it's 84 degrees inside my apartment at almost 9 pm and I do not want to come home on Monday to the smell of hot trash. I did dishes for the same reason. I make sure I'm packed, which I'd done, and then this ended up being the weather this weekend.
So yeah, now I get to repack. I also try to do all the things I won't have time to do tomorrow, like making sure everything I need is placed together so I don't forget anything, and filling water bottles to bring on the road, and trying to see if I have a container I can put coconut oil in so I don't have to bring a giant jar along with me. I gave myself a manicure, because it looks better when inevitably there are pictures of me holding things.
And mostly I get to count down hours and bug Nick with things like "AT THIS TIME TOMORROW WE'LL PROBABLY BE TRYING TO FIND A GAS STATION."
It's nothing too big. It means that dinner tonight is whatever from the fridge that might go bad before Monday. I'm cleaning just enough to make sure the place is habitable when people come over to get me. I make sure the trash is getting taken out, because it's 84 degrees inside my apartment at almost 9 pm and I do not want to come home on Monday to the smell of hot trash. I did dishes for the same reason. I make sure I'm packed, which I'd done, and then this ended up being the weather this weekend.
So yeah, now I get to repack. I also try to do all the things I won't have time to do tomorrow, like making sure everything I need is placed together so I don't forget anything, and filling water bottles to bring on the road, and trying to see if I have a container I can put coconut oil in so I don't have to bring a giant jar along with me. I gave myself a manicure, because it looks better when inevitably there are pictures of me holding things.
And mostly I get to count down hours and bug Nick with things like "AT THIS TIME TOMORROW WE'LL PROBABLY BE TRYING TO FIND A GAS STATION."
24.5.16
Road trip essentials
I spent a good amount of time today talking about road trips, and I'm about to go on one, and I did the shopping for it today, so here, have a timely post. Maybe read my packing post first.
When I was moving back to Chicago, my friend Nicole made me a survival kit full of things I might need on the road. She'd Googled suggestions for the essentials and found some pretty good stuff, including a cardboard R2-D2 that she sipped into the front pocket because "you need a good navigator." (Yes, Nicole is awesome.) My list differs slightly than hers, but the girl was on to something.
-A water bottle. Something refillable, preferably something with a filter. Rather than cluttering up the car and environment with plastic bottles, get something you can refill. And considering some places have water that doesn't taste great, the filter helps.
-Snacks, of course. I'm a big fan of Twizzlers, because they won't cause a mess, they're easy to hold while driving, and they take a little longer to finish- one bag can last a whole trip. I advise against chocolate, because it's going to be a disaster if/when the car gets warmer.
-A first aid kit. You can get something little, but Band-Aids and Neosporin are good ideas.
-The aspirin/ibuprofen/pain reliever of your choice.
-ALLERGY MEDS!!! I lived for twelve years in LA without allergies. I get to Chicago and I'm confused as to why my face hurts and my eyes are swollen. Not everywhere has the same allergens, and you don't know how you'll react to them. Make sure they're non-drowsy.
-AAA and a roadside emergency kit. I'm gonna confess, my dad taught me how to patch a tire, and I had to do it once, and then so much time passed that it all just fell out of my head. Still, roadside kits have come in handy when my air pressure got low, or that time the plastic around the tire of my old car fell off while driving and I had to cut/chop it off before it melted to my tire. (True story!) And for what you don't know, there's AAA.
-Wet wipes and/or hand sanitizer.
-Change. If it's a long trip you're almost guaranteed to stop at a rest stop vending machine at some point, but there's no guarantee they'll take bills and they almost definitely won't take credit cards.
-A plastic bag, because you will probably need to throw something away before you stop to buy something.
-Chargers! This might go without saying, but there really are people who aren't glued to their phones and don't have this stuff already. Besides the cord, you can pick up a USB charger at any Target, Walgreens, gas station or whatever, and you can get one with multiple ports for like $5.
That's the basics! I recommend not stocking up too heavily on snacks and water, as it gives you an excuse to stop more and take breaks when you get tired or bored. Remember that if you're in the US or somewhere that drives on the right, your left arm is going to be exposed to the sun all day. Also, keep in mind that if you're depending on GPS to get you somewhere, it's not only a battery drain (especially Waze), but that unless you car is equipped with wifi or you have a hotspot, you're going to be using data.
Happy driving! And if you've got anything you find absolutely necessary to have on you, go ahead and drop it in the comments.
When I was moving back to Chicago, my friend Nicole made me a survival kit full of things I might need on the road. She'd Googled suggestions for the essentials and found some pretty good stuff, including a cardboard R2-D2 that she sipped into the front pocket because "you need a good navigator." (Yes, Nicole is awesome.) My list differs slightly than hers, but the girl was on to something.
-A water bottle. Something refillable, preferably something with a filter. Rather than cluttering up the car and environment with plastic bottles, get something you can refill. And considering some places have water that doesn't taste great, the filter helps.
-Snacks, of course. I'm a big fan of Twizzlers, because they won't cause a mess, they're easy to hold while driving, and they take a little longer to finish- one bag can last a whole trip. I advise against chocolate, because it's going to be a disaster if/when the car gets warmer.
-A first aid kit. You can get something little, but Band-Aids and Neosporin are good ideas.
-The aspirin/ibuprofen/pain reliever of your choice.
-ALLERGY MEDS!!! I lived for twelve years in LA without allergies. I get to Chicago and I'm confused as to why my face hurts and my eyes are swollen. Not everywhere has the same allergens, and you don't know how you'll react to them. Make sure they're non-drowsy.
-AAA and a roadside emergency kit. I'm gonna confess, my dad taught me how to patch a tire, and I had to do it once, and then so much time passed that it all just fell out of my head. Still, roadside kits have come in handy when my air pressure got low, or that time the plastic around the tire of my old car fell off while driving and I had to cut/chop it off before it melted to my tire. (True story!) And for what you don't know, there's AAA.
-Wet wipes and/or hand sanitizer.
-Change. If it's a long trip you're almost guaranteed to stop at a rest stop vending machine at some point, but there's no guarantee they'll take bills and they almost definitely won't take credit cards.
-A plastic bag, because you will probably need to throw something away before you stop to buy something.
-Chargers! This might go without saying, but there really are people who aren't glued to their phones and don't have this stuff already. Besides the cord, you can pick up a USB charger at any Target, Walgreens, gas station or whatever, and you can get one with multiple ports for like $5.
That's the basics! I recommend not stocking up too heavily on snacks and water, as it gives you an excuse to stop more and take breaks when you get tired or bored. Remember that if you're in the US or somewhere that drives on the right, your left arm is going to be exposed to the sun all day. Also, keep in mind that if you're depending on GPS to get you somewhere, it's not only a battery drain (especially Waze), but that unless you car is equipped with wifi or you have a hotspot, you're going to be using data.
Happy driving! And if you've got anything you find absolutely necessary to have on you, go ahead and drop it in the comments.
23.5.16
Might've brought this on myself...
This weekend we're driving to Pennsylvania. It's a distance, we have Fallingwater to get to, and we have a deadline on when we need to get back. There are still a lot of moving parts, and so there's a lot we can't be definite about yet. The one thing we know for sure is that Saturday night we're going to spend the night in Philadelphia.
Only when we went to book a hotel, we weren't really finding anything. The prices were pretty high for two star hotels, and then I'd read reviews and not see anything good. We finally found one that didn't look so bad and wasn't a terrible price, and then when I went to book, I saw it.
It's in New Jersey.
That's right, it turns out that Philly is close enough to the Jersey border that our usual tactic of going half an hour out to save money takes us into a state that has not been kind. And the only other option is dropping too much money to stay in Philadelphia proper. So, we're staying in New Jersey, but it's pretty much under duress.
Prove me wrong, NJ!
Only when we went to book a hotel, we weren't really finding anything. The prices were pretty high for two star hotels, and then I'd read reviews and not see anything good. We finally found one that didn't look so bad and wasn't a terrible price, and then when I went to book, I saw it.
It's in New Jersey.
That's right, it turns out that Philly is close enough to the Jersey border that our usual tactic of going half an hour out to save money takes us into a state that has not been kind. And the only other option is dropping too much money to stay in Philadelphia proper. So, we're staying in New Jersey, but it's pretty much under duress.
Prove me wrong, NJ!
22.5.16
Best trip ever, part five: Back to New York
The last day of the trip required getting up in Massachusetts and then driving off to New York. I seem to remember us taking a slightly different route than we'd taken before, where we stopped off at a very green rest area or two. We ended up back in New York a few hours before our flight, so we looked up things we could do and ended up in the Bronx. We went found a place in a much-less touristy area than Times Square for pizza (it's still fine) and then drove up to a place that I came to love. It's called Wave Hill, and it's a public garden in the middle of the city, but not like Central Park is. Central Park is very much a part of the city. You can see taxis in there, and it's surrounded by streets. At certain parts of it you can hear sirens and traffic. With Wave Hill, it's very quiet. At the top of its hills you can see over the water and spot the Brooklyn Bridge, and that's all you see of New York. I'm also a huge fan of flowers and love photographing them, but I am also an enemy of bees. I'm not allergic, I'm just petrified of them. And this was the site of the biggest damn bees I have ever seen in my life. There are trails you can walk and see more of the place, but after one too many bees I stopped just short of running screaming and we ended up sitting out on the lawn for a while instead.
When we left, we still had time, and still had gas in the tank, and Nick was determined to return it to the rental place with all the gas used up. We killed some time by going to Liberty Park in New Jersey. Now, Jersey had done us absolutely zero favors so far. We had not one good experience there. We thought that maybe this might be it. Maybe after all of this, the state would come through.
Nope!
We got super lost getting there because the GPS seemed to say "lol nope," and we ended up cruising around not-great streets and I think a couple of alleys before we found the place more or less by accident. Admittedly, the park itself is kind of neat. There wasn't a ton to it, but there's a 9/11 memorial with what I think is a girder from the Towers, and yes, Nick and I do tend to find a lot of depressing stuff on our trips. There's also an amazing view of the New York skyline, and another part of the park has a ferry over to the Statue of Liberty.
As we were leaving, I checked in on what was Foursquare at the time and noticed that the app listed the park as being in New York.
"After all this," I said, "did our one good experience in New Jersey actually happen in New York?"
That was the last thing we really got to do. We had to get to the Newark airport for our flights back, and we were using up so much of the gas, and then we got stuck in traffic. It was very hot, and we were suddenly worried that we would run out of gas on the highway before we even got to the airport, so we kept turning everything off. Air conditioning, radio, everything must go. We pulled up to the rental place at the airport with three miles to empty. Nick is still very proud, even if he's said we could have cut it even closer.
I could end it there, but then I don't get to tell you how the Newark airport was even against us. I don't think it had air conditioning. At one point I stopped in the bathroom and noticed that my eyebrow makeup had melted off above one eye, so I got my makeup bag out of my carryon and started to fix it... and the lights went out, followed by alarms. I couldn't do anything and wasn't sure what was happening, so I got out of there, only to find that it wasn't happening much further outside. Nick had no idea that had even happened. We stood at the charging table between our gates and talked for a while, and then our separate flights were called, and we got on separate planes home.
I got on a plane with one eyebrow. Suck it, New Jersey.
21.5.16
Flashback post: Best trip ever, part four: New Hampshire to Massachusetts, but also more than that
After leaving Boston, we drove up to our next stop, New Hampshire. We stayed in Concord, in what was our nicest hotel (not my favorite). There wasn't anything to do at that time of night, so we ended up leaving to walk to an Applebee's across the street and order dessert before coming back and calling it a night. And in the morning, we found out that there isn't really that much to do in New Hampshire, period. We just couldn't find anything. We ended up going to Zimmerman House, a Frank Lloyd Wright designed house just in a neighborhood. There are tours, but we couldn't really wait, so we stopped outside and took pictures even though we weren't supposed to. Oops.
For a little state, it takes for-freaking-ever to drive through New Hampshire diagonally. Don't get me wrong, it's really pretty, and full of trees and lakes, and state liquor stores. (Which I thought maybe New Hampshire was small enough or had some kind of weird law that there was just one liquor store for the state, and then I kept seeing them and getting confused.) But it seemed like it took several more hours than it should to get anywhere. We also saw a moose crossing sign. I didn't know there were moose up there. At first it was a novelty, something cool for the area. Then we saw another one, and I decided to get the camera out to take a picture. It took too long and I figured we'd seen the last one, so I put the camera away... and missed it when another sign came up. So I got the camera out again, only when I managed to snap a picture it was too late and I only got the highway in the shot. I'd wait for the next one, and it'd take so long that I'd put the camera down, or check Instagram or whatever, and then I'd miss the sign.
It went on like this for hours.
Our next step was Cape Elizabeth, Maine, which we went to specifically because I wanted to see a lighthouse. In my head I'd never seen one in person before, though people pointed out that I lived near one in Long Beach, CA, and that they had them on Lake Michigan. That was not the point. I wanted to see a real lighthouse, which I guess meant the one in Maine at Portland Head Light. It started raining as we were getting close, and by the time we got out of the car there was a good light rain going. I think because of the weather the lighthouse itself was closed that day, but we could still wander around, and there weren't many other people around. This place was everything I wanted it to be, and the rain made it perfect. It made the waters around us choppy, and there was just enough fog and mist that it looked like the perfect New England day at the perfect place for it. We took pictures of the monuments and cliffs, and I started a little ways down a trail to get different pictures, and it's one of the highlights of the trip. It also stopped raining and cleared up more or less as we got to the car to leave, because the weather was looking out for us that day.
We stopped for lunch at Becky's Diner, which turned out to be a Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives location, and it's located in an area that I looked at and thought "This is so Maine that it hurts," even though I had never been to Maine before. Then we had to turn right around and go back the way we came through the neverending roads of New Hampshire, where I continued to be teased by the existence of moose signs, and finally by the existence of moose themselves. Years later when at a bar with some friends, I would declare them fictional.
We also stopped in Vermont, which was a state that posed some challenges. Mainly, we couldn't find much to do. We'd see things like "stop at this general store," which is great but that doesn't take long, as it's a long way to go to pick up snacks. There's Ben and Jerry's, but that's much farther north than we were and we didn't have the time to make that drive. So we found Molly Stark Trail, which things online told us was a leisurely drive that would take us about an hour to drive through, and we could stop often and take pictures. Well, the address we found took us to Molly Stark State Park, which was a) not the right thing, and b) closed. After searching online we found where the trail was supposed to go, and it was not a leisurely drive. It was pretty much a two-lane highway, and maybe it was because a lot of the road was under construction, but we didn't find any real places to stop. It was gorgeous, and I was snapping pictures like a crazy person, but the most memorable parts of it were spent whizzing downhill through construction while having to keep speeding up because the cars in back of us were tailgating us to make it happen while Nick had a white-knuckle deathgrip on the wheel.
So, 10/10, would recommend, unless you're Nick in which case you probably have a different opinion.
On our way to the next location, we got our moose. Sort of. We had stopped in a town for gas or coffee or something, and as we're driving through the streets, I saw a giant statue, screamed "MOOSE!" and Nick immediately pulled over. We got out of the car, went over to the moose, and took pictures with it. I still claim they're fictional until I see a real one.
Mythological creatures: dragons, griffins, unicorns, moose...
Our last stop for the day was back in Williamsburg, MA. We got a room at the Willows Motel, which was adorable. The room's fine, nothing to write home about, but I liked the feel of it. Our room overlooked a cute patio, and there were seats outside where people would sit outside. We could hear people from the room with the windows open, but it wasn't anything bothersome. The staff was very friendly and gave us all the necessary information right up front, and I think they live in the front house? When we checked out the next day they had a breakfast where you could sit and eat at little tables by the front desk, but when someone called for someone to come to the unattended front desk, someone came out in their pajamas. There was just something really charming about the place and I loved it. It was also in a neat little neighborhood, where we decided rather than getting dinner we'd just get ice cream at a place down the street (I got maple, because that's what happens when you spend time in Vermont). There were mountains pretty close on the right, and I kept marveling at what it must be like to live in one of the houses on that side of the street, with nothing behind you but a view of those mountains. We ate ice cream and looked out at them, and it was a great way to close out our last night of the trip.
One more day to go...
For a little state, it takes for-freaking-ever to drive through New Hampshire diagonally. Don't get me wrong, it's really pretty, and full of trees and lakes, and state liquor stores. (Which I thought maybe New Hampshire was small enough or had some kind of weird law that there was just one liquor store for the state, and then I kept seeing them and getting confused.) But it seemed like it took several more hours than it should to get anywhere. We also saw a moose crossing sign. I didn't know there were moose up there. At first it was a novelty, something cool for the area. Then we saw another one, and I decided to get the camera out to take a picture. It took too long and I figured we'd seen the last one, so I put the camera away... and missed it when another sign came up. So I got the camera out again, only when I managed to snap a picture it was too late and I only got the highway in the shot. I'd wait for the next one, and it'd take so long that I'd put the camera down, or check Instagram or whatever, and then I'd miss the sign.
It went on like this for hours.
Our next step was Cape Elizabeth, Maine, which we went to specifically because I wanted to see a lighthouse. In my head I'd never seen one in person before, though people pointed out that I lived near one in Long Beach, CA, and that they had them on Lake Michigan. That was not the point. I wanted to see a real lighthouse, which I guess meant the one in Maine at Portland Head Light. It started raining as we were getting close, and by the time we got out of the car there was a good light rain going. I think because of the weather the lighthouse itself was closed that day, but we could still wander around, and there weren't many other people around. This place was everything I wanted it to be, and the rain made it perfect. It made the waters around us choppy, and there was just enough fog and mist that it looked like the perfect New England day at the perfect place for it. We took pictures of the monuments and cliffs, and I started a little ways down a trail to get different pictures, and it's one of the highlights of the trip. It also stopped raining and cleared up more or less as we got to the car to leave, because the weather was looking out for us that day.
We stopped for lunch at Becky's Diner, which turned out to be a Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives location, and it's located in an area that I looked at and thought "This is so Maine that it hurts," even though I had never been to Maine before. Then we had to turn right around and go back the way we came through the neverending roads of New Hampshire, where I continued to be teased by the existence of moose signs, and finally by the existence of moose themselves. Years later when at a bar with some friends, I would declare them fictional.
We also stopped in Vermont, which was a state that posed some challenges. Mainly, we couldn't find much to do. We'd see things like "stop at this general store," which is great but that doesn't take long, as it's a long way to go to pick up snacks. There's Ben and Jerry's, but that's much farther north than we were and we didn't have the time to make that drive. So we found Molly Stark Trail, which things online told us was a leisurely drive that would take us about an hour to drive through, and we could stop often and take pictures. Well, the address we found took us to Molly Stark State Park, which was a) not the right thing, and b) closed. After searching online we found where the trail was supposed to go, and it was not a leisurely drive. It was pretty much a two-lane highway, and maybe it was because a lot of the road was under construction, but we didn't find any real places to stop. It was gorgeous, and I was snapping pictures like a crazy person, but the most memorable parts of it were spent whizzing downhill through construction while having to keep speeding up because the cars in back of us were tailgating us to make it happen while Nick had a white-knuckle deathgrip on the wheel.
So, 10/10, would recommend, unless you're Nick in which case you probably have a different opinion.
On our way to the next location, we got our moose. Sort of. We had stopped in a town for gas or coffee or something, and as we're driving through the streets, I saw a giant statue, screamed "MOOSE!" and Nick immediately pulled over. We got out of the car, went over to the moose, and took pictures with it. I still claim they're fictional until I see a real one.
Our last stop for the day was back in Williamsburg, MA. We got a room at the Willows Motel, which was adorable. The room's fine, nothing to write home about, but I liked the feel of it. Our room overlooked a cute patio, and there were seats outside where people would sit outside. We could hear people from the room with the windows open, but it wasn't anything bothersome. The staff was very friendly and gave us all the necessary information right up front, and I think they live in the front house? When we checked out the next day they had a breakfast where you could sit and eat at little tables by the front desk, but when someone called for someone to come to the unattended front desk, someone came out in their pajamas. There was just something really charming about the place and I loved it. It was also in a neat little neighborhood, where we decided rather than getting dinner we'd just get ice cream at a place down the street (I got maple, because that's what happens when you spend time in Vermont). There were mountains pretty close on the right, and I kept marveling at what it must be like to live in one of the houses on that side of the street, with nothing behind you but a view of those mountains. We ate ice cream and looked out at them, and it was a great way to close out our last night of the trip.
One more day to go...
19.5.16
Flashback post: Best trip ever, part three: Boston!
This brings us up to the Boston portion of the trip. Hello, Boston!
We had breakfast at our Cape Cod hotel, which... not a great idea. Nick thinks he got some light food poisoning and I barely touched my food because it was just gross. We also missed pretty much all of Cape Cod except the way we took back to the highway, which sucks, but it got us to Boston faster. We got there around 9 or 10 am after parking somewhere near Boston Common, which is a park full of monuments and statues, with souvenir stalls and people in 1700s period garb happy to talk to you. It's also the start of the Freedom Trail, which takes you along the sites of the American Revolution. You follow a red line in the sidewalk and it leads you through sixteen sites. There are tours available, but we walked it on our own and it was fine. It takes you through the State House and cemeteries and meeting houses, and it was at the site of the Boston Massacre, commemorated with a giant marker in the sidewalk, that I realized how weird it was to be standing at the site of a massacre, no matter how long ago it was. Also, the Old Corner Bookstore is now just a plaque because it is now a Chipotle, and I will never stop being sad about it. You can stop inside places and there are people who will answer questions, and you can stop at Samuel Adams' grave, where every day someone puts a bottle of Sam Adams on it. It's across the street from a pub, which is also fitting.
Sup.
It's a good way to see the city, a mix of the old stuff and the new. I took pictures of tall buildings as seen from outside buildings that were built in the 1700's, and in one area, I think outside the visitor center and City Hall, we watched a guy on a unicycle juggle babies. Just in case you thought street performers were only in New York. We walked across the Charleston Bridge to see Paul Revere Park before deciding to abandon the trail because we were on some time constraints. So Nick somehow got us to cut across the Italian part of town, where the streets weren't as well-paved and it clearly wasn't touristy, and I have no idea how he managed to get us anywhere near our car, but he managed it. And it was a neat detour! Parts of the town are definitely divided up, where you know when you're in the Italian part of town based on the restaurans and you definitely know when you're in the Irish part because there's an impressive amount of Irish pubs, but it was nice to see something off the beaten path.
And before you ask, yes, we went to Cheers. It is a working restaurant/bar, and is a good stop if you like some kitsch. There's a shooting bar, which looks like the bar from the TV show except way better lit, but it was too crowded that day, so we ended up in the restaurant section. I sat under the Sam Malone jersey, and felt really weird about just ordering water there. But at least everybody knew my name. You know, theoretically.
We stopped at Boston Public Garden, which is very pretty. It's a big park filled with flowers and monuments, and there's a lake where you can ride a swan boat around. We went through one section and then out to see Trinity Church, which is gorgeous, and then off to Copley Square.
So, two weeks before we went on this trip, the Boston Marathon bombing happened. Even Copley Square, where it happened, looked okay, and you might not have known it happened except for all the memorials around. You'd see "Boston strong" written in chalk on sidewalks and statues or as graffiti in the bathrooms at Cheers. Outside churches there would be ribbons tied to the fence; you picked up a ribbon, wrote your message of support on it, and tied it on. Copley Square was of course the biggest reminder. It was still very new, so people were there to pay their respects and sometimes leave things at memorials. There were literal signs of support, and the whole area was filled with groups of things people had sent. There was a wall of baseball hats people had sent from around the country (including one from a grudging Cubs fan), and a section for stuffed animals, for signed shirts and American flags. Some people had taken Sharpies to the ground to declare their love for the city.
And there was this feeling there that I'm not sure I can describe. It was something heavy that everyone there seemed to feel. Anywhere else in Boston you could find someone talking and having fun, but here it was somber and almost funereal at times. It made my heart hurt. At one point I felt my cheeks were wet and realized I was crying, and I tried to hide it but the fact was I wasn't the only one doing it. After wandering around by myself for a bit I met up with Nick and we decided to leave, he said, "Just when I thought I couldn't take anymore, I saw this woman walking around pushing two cats in a stroller. And I thought, life goes on."
We went back through the Public Garden to get to the car, and buzzed past Harvard because we had to, and we got out on the road up towards New Hampshire just before the rain started. And after a day of walking around looking at historical sites and getting our hearts ripped out, we turned on the TV and laughed that The Town was the first thing on. Which was followed immediately by a shot of the Charleston Bridge and us going "Weren't we just there?"
That was Boston. Going into the trip, I always thought that it'd be one of my favorite cities ever. I think starting the trip with New York might've wrecked that, because I loved New York so much that everything else paled in comparison. But the timing also means I feel a little connection with this town, and next time I go back, hopefully I won't end up sobbing in public.
We had breakfast at our Cape Cod hotel, which... not a great idea. Nick thinks he got some light food poisoning and I barely touched my food because it was just gross. We also missed pretty much all of Cape Cod except the way we took back to the highway, which sucks, but it got us to Boston faster. We got there around 9 or 10 am after parking somewhere near Boston Common, which is a park full of monuments and statues, with souvenir stalls and people in 1700s period garb happy to talk to you. It's also the start of the Freedom Trail, which takes you along the sites of the American Revolution. You follow a red line in the sidewalk and it leads you through sixteen sites. There are tours available, but we walked it on our own and it was fine. It takes you through the State House and cemeteries and meeting houses, and it was at the site of the Boston Massacre, commemorated with a giant marker in the sidewalk, that I realized how weird it was to be standing at the site of a massacre, no matter how long ago it was. Also, the Old Corner Bookstore is now just a plaque because it is now a Chipotle, and I will never stop being sad about it. You can stop inside places and there are people who will answer questions, and you can stop at Samuel Adams' grave, where every day someone puts a bottle of Sam Adams on it. It's across the street from a pub, which is also fitting.
It's a good way to see the city, a mix of the old stuff and the new. I took pictures of tall buildings as seen from outside buildings that were built in the 1700's, and in one area, I think outside the visitor center and City Hall, we watched a guy on a unicycle juggle babies. Just in case you thought street performers were only in New York. We walked across the Charleston Bridge to see Paul Revere Park before deciding to abandon the trail because we were on some time constraints. So Nick somehow got us to cut across the Italian part of town, where the streets weren't as well-paved and it clearly wasn't touristy, and I have no idea how he managed to get us anywhere near our car, but he managed it. And it was a neat detour! Parts of the town are definitely divided up, where you know when you're in the Italian part of town based on the restaurans and you definitely know when you're in the Irish part because there's an impressive amount of Irish pubs, but it was nice to see something off the beaten path.
And before you ask, yes, we went to Cheers. It is a working restaurant/bar, and is a good stop if you like some kitsch. There's a shooting bar, which looks like the bar from the TV show except way better lit, but it was too crowded that day, so we ended up in the restaurant section. I sat under the Sam Malone jersey, and felt really weird about just ordering water there. But at least everybody knew my name. You know, theoretically.
We stopped at Boston Public Garden, which is very pretty. It's a big park filled with flowers and monuments, and there's a lake where you can ride a swan boat around. We went through one section and then out to see Trinity Church, which is gorgeous, and then off to Copley Square.
So, two weeks before we went on this trip, the Boston Marathon bombing happened. Even Copley Square, where it happened, looked okay, and you might not have known it happened except for all the memorials around. You'd see "Boston strong" written in chalk on sidewalks and statues or as graffiti in the bathrooms at Cheers. Outside churches there would be ribbons tied to the fence; you picked up a ribbon, wrote your message of support on it, and tied it on. Copley Square was of course the biggest reminder. It was still very new, so people were there to pay their respects and sometimes leave things at memorials. There were literal signs of support, and the whole area was filled with groups of things people had sent. There was a wall of baseball hats people had sent from around the country (including one from a grudging Cubs fan), and a section for stuffed animals, for signed shirts and American flags. Some people had taken Sharpies to the ground to declare their love for the city.
And there was this feeling there that I'm not sure I can describe. It was something heavy that everyone there seemed to feel. Anywhere else in Boston you could find someone talking and having fun, but here it was somber and almost funereal at times. It made my heart hurt. At one point I felt my cheeks were wet and realized I was crying, and I tried to hide it but the fact was I wasn't the only one doing it. After wandering around by myself for a bit I met up with Nick and we decided to leave, he said, "Just when I thought I couldn't take anymore, I saw this woman walking around pushing two cats in a stroller. And I thought, life goes on."
We went back through the Public Garden to get to the car, and buzzed past Harvard because we had to, and we got out on the road up towards New Hampshire just before the rain started. And after a day of walking around looking at historical sites and getting our hearts ripped out, we turned on the TV and laughed that The Town was the first thing on. Which was followed immediately by a shot of the Charleston Bridge and us going "Weren't we just there?"
That was Boston. Going into the trip, I always thought that it'd be one of my favorite cities ever. I think starting the trip with New York might've wrecked that, because I loved New York so much that everything else paled in comparison. But the timing also means I feel a little connection with this town, and next time I go back, hopefully I won't end up sobbing in public.
16.5.16
Flasback post: Best trip ever, part two: NJ to MA
On day three of the best trip ever, it meant that we had to leave New York. It also meant that we got to check out of the worst hotel ever, so, plus. This was also the day we did five states in one day, driving out of New Jersey and up through New York, which is really pretty when you get further upstate. About an hour north we started passing signs for Westchester and joking that we should find the Xavier School from X-Men because we are huge nerds. The city was gone, leaving us driving through wooded areas and occasionally taking little backroads into areas with roller coaster hills. We'd pass little lakes and farm houses, and then stopped when we got into Connecticut.
After getting breakfast at a little roadside diner, we stopped in Stanford because we'd been attempting to use Nick's iPad to listen to music and podcasts, but there was some issue with the cord/port, so we found a Target where we could get a new cord and stock up on stuff while we were there. The new cord didn't really work. I know we got to listen to some podcasts on the way, but I want to say it was actually on my phone, because we had to keep flipping to the radio when we could get a clear station. And somehow, we only heard about four songs for the entire road trip, because that's all that was playing in every single state in New England. If it wasn't "Clarity," "Blurred Lines," "Mirrors" or that duet with Pink and the lead singer of Fun, we didn't hear it. But I have a special love for all those songs now, because it's impossible for me to hear them and not think of this trip. There are worse things.
We were supposed to visit our cousin and her family while we were in the state, but that fell through not long before the trip and so Nick managed to find a backup plan, which was Essex Steam Train and Riverboat. For $30 it's exactly what it sounds like, and I found it pretty cool. We got there a little before our 2:00 departure time, and that meant we could go around and check out the old train cars they had there. I think the gift shop was in a caboose. When they announced boarding, we got on the train, which seemed to be filled with families, which makes sense since this would be great for kids. The train ride itself wasn't really anything special, though we got to see a lot of greenery, and some of the houses on the way. It stopped at a dock, where we got out and then loaded ourselves onto a steamboat that went around the Connecticut River. It takes you past Gillette Castle and a gorgeous old opera house, towards a bridge, and then brings you back. By now the sunny day we'd left in New York was over, and it was starting to get cold and gray. The waters were a little choppy, so when we went out onto the top deck to take pictures, I couldn't leave my hair down without it constantly ending up in my face, and people were a little surprised when another boat would come by and we'd get the wake on top of already rougher waves. You could stand at the top and watch people hiking or walking their dogs at Gilette Castle State Park, or you could watch speedboats race past you, and there were all these little islands that got me all excited because I read the Babysitters Club books, dammit, and all of a sudden it made sense that there could be an island where Dawn and Claudia would get shipwrecked, and if it happened to us I knew what to do because I had read that super special.
If you were unaware that I'm a giant dork, hi, I'm Natalie. Nice to meet you.
After the boat ride, the train took us back the same way and dropped us off at the station, where we got Diego and started back up to our next state, Rhode Island. It's somewhere I wish I had more time to spend, because from what I understand it's great, but we wanted a full day in Boston and had already decided on the boat that we would end up stopping for the night in Cape Cod, so we didn't have a lot of time and not a lot of ideas on what to do. We stopped for dinner at a pizza place at a mall, which had outdoor seating so you could look up at the capitol building. And that same mall houses a PF Chang's that Nick actually worked on, so we got to go there and take pictures.
State capitol, yo.
Aaaaand that was it for Rhode Island. It was cloudy and going to be rainy, so there were some great clouds but no sunset on the drive to Massachusetts, and by the time we got to Cape Cod it was dark. But five states in one day is an Accomplishment, and part three means getting to one of the many highlights.
After getting breakfast at a little roadside diner, we stopped in Stanford because we'd been attempting to use Nick's iPad to listen to music and podcasts, but there was some issue with the cord/port, so we found a Target where we could get a new cord and stock up on stuff while we were there. The new cord didn't really work. I know we got to listen to some podcasts on the way, but I want to say it was actually on my phone, because we had to keep flipping to the radio when we could get a clear station. And somehow, we only heard about four songs for the entire road trip, because that's all that was playing in every single state in New England. If it wasn't "Clarity," "Blurred Lines," "Mirrors" or that duet with Pink and the lead singer of Fun, we didn't hear it. But I have a special love for all those songs now, because it's impossible for me to hear them and not think of this trip. There are worse things.
We were supposed to visit our cousin and her family while we were in the state, but that fell through not long before the trip and so Nick managed to find a backup plan, which was Essex Steam Train and Riverboat. For $30 it's exactly what it sounds like, and I found it pretty cool. We got there a little before our 2:00 departure time, and that meant we could go around and check out the old train cars they had there. I think the gift shop was in a caboose. When they announced boarding, we got on the train, which seemed to be filled with families, which makes sense since this would be great for kids. The train ride itself wasn't really anything special, though we got to see a lot of greenery, and some of the houses on the way. It stopped at a dock, where we got out and then loaded ourselves onto a steamboat that went around the Connecticut River. It takes you past Gillette Castle and a gorgeous old opera house, towards a bridge, and then brings you back. By now the sunny day we'd left in New York was over, and it was starting to get cold and gray. The waters were a little choppy, so when we went out onto the top deck to take pictures, I couldn't leave my hair down without it constantly ending up in my face, and people were a little surprised when another boat would come by and we'd get the wake on top of already rougher waves. You could stand at the top and watch people hiking or walking their dogs at Gilette Castle State Park, or you could watch speedboats race past you, and there were all these little islands that got me all excited because I read the Babysitters Club books, dammit, and all of a sudden it made sense that there could be an island where Dawn and Claudia would get shipwrecked, and if it happened to us I knew what to do because I had read that super special.
If you were unaware that I'm a giant dork, hi, I'm Natalie. Nice to meet you.
After the boat ride, the train took us back the same way and dropped us off at the station, where we got Diego and started back up to our next state, Rhode Island. It's somewhere I wish I had more time to spend, because from what I understand it's great, but we wanted a full day in Boston and had already decided on the boat that we would end up stopping for the night in Cape Cod, so we didn't have a lot of time and not a lot of ideas on what to do. We stopped for dinner at a pizza place at a mall, which had outdoor seating so you could look up at the capitol building. And that same mall houses a PF Chang's that Nick actually worked on, so we got to go there and take pictures.
Aaaaand that was it for Rhode Island. It was cloudy and going to be rainy, so there were some great clouds but no sunset on the drive to Massachusetts, and by the time we got to Cape Cod it was dark. But five states in one day is an Accomplishment, and part three means getting to one of the many highlights.
15.5.16
Flashback post: Best trip ever, part 1: NYC
In May of 2013, I met the love of my life. New York City, you're mine forever.
So, it was part of a bigger trip that I'll get to telling you over the next few days, and it's the trip that all other trips have to live up to. A year before, Nick and I had met up in DC, only to add other cities onto it, and then the next year we decided to do New York and the rest of the upper east coast. I took a redeye into Newark, and Nick took an early flight out of O'Hare to meet me there, and after dropping our stuff at the worst hotel in the world, we tried to get back to the city. Now, this meant taking the horrible shuttle back to the airport, because that was the closest subway and that was not stated in the hotel's info but whatever, and then it finally get us out at Penn Station.
I stepped outside there, and I was so happy to be there that I actually got really emotional and maybe cried some. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because I almost moved there instead of LA and it's a Road Not Taken sort of thing? Or maybe it's just that the city just speaks to me, but I love it so, so much. We walked along the streets and saw everything. We saw street performers doing pogo tricks. We went through Times Square which is super tacky but I love it regardless. We saw Parson's School for Design and stopped in at Midtown Comics and went into 30 Rock and saw something filming outside Radio City Music Hall. We saw St. Patrick's Cathedral while it was under construction. We walked through a good portion of Central Park. We took the subway a few blocks when our feet were threatening to fall off and went to meet my friend Eva, who I met online when I was 16 and was never able to meet in person before. We had New York pizza (it's fine) and she walked us over to the Empire State Building, where Nick and I went up to the observation deck. For the record, it's got gorgeous views, but at least at that time of night it's severely crowded. You had to fight to get close enough to take pictures of the view, and people were taking selfies and there was a proposal and it's just a lot. Worth it, but a lot. And then the elevator broke so we had to take the stairs down en masse to a lower floor to catch another one, which was an interesting experience.
New York at night was very different from the day. It didn't seem as busy, which might've had to do with the fact that it was Thursday, but we were tired and had to get back to New Jersey, so we found a little spot to sit. A large section of the street outside a row of stores had been blocked off with a low fence in order to extend the sidewalk into said street. So we basically sat in the street in NYC at a little white iron table as taxis whizzed past us as fast as traffic would allow. Something about that might've been my favorite part of the trip. Even though I look exhausted in every single picture.
We got back to the worst hotel in the world, though we left early the next morning to come back to the city. We got pretty good at the subway, which is reassuringly easy to navigate, and tried to start out at the World Trade Center memorial. The problem was that at least at that time they had a strict bag policy, and I had a giant purse and Nick had a messenger bag, and since it seemed that we had to leave our stuff behind rather than just get them checked, we got pictures of Freedom Tower and started walking instead. We found a little dog park that was a fenced off area of concrete and watched the puppies. We went to Battery Park, where we got to hang out for a while and see the Statue of Liberty from a distance. And then we went back to the hotel to pick up our rental car (which was orange and we named Diego), we for some reason drove back in order to get to Brooklyn. We had other friends in New York, and wanted to meet Angela at the bakery where she worked, but we hit massive traffic trying to get through the Holland Tunnel and ran out of time. But we did have some time to sightsee there, including driving on the Brooklyn Bridge, and then checking out Brooklyn Bridge Park, which I loved and am kind of surprised I don't see more about when people talk about New York. We also walked a few blocks from there to find a little pub that I wish I got the name of, because it was just a great little place tucked away in an area I don't think I ever would have found without wandering. Update: Nick found it! It's Henry Street Ale House. I highly recommend.
Our big thing for that night was finding the Waystation, where we met our friend Karyn. It gets a lot of noteriety for being a Doctor Who bar, but it's really more just a geek bar that has a TARDIS for a bathroom. Seriously. A TARDIS for a bathroom. And I swear to god, it's bigger on the inside. There are characters from the show painted all over the walls, the trash can is made to look like a Dalek, and there's a framed autograph from Matt Smith hanging up that reads "Pee happily!" But besides this and some themed drinks, I find it hard to call it a Doctor Who bar when there are replica weapons from Firefly and I seem to recall swords on the wall, you know?
The only problem with this place was that it's small, so when they brought in the admittedly great live jug band (I mean, Brooklyn), I couldn't hear anything anyone said anymore. We listened to the music for a while, and then walked out into the neighborhood to find the car, walking past people sitting out on the stoops, with rap playing as a backdrop. It was kind of great.
And then we got lost in the dark for at least half an hour in Jersey trying to find our hotel because it was located in hell. I have nothing good to say about New Jersey.
New York, though.
So, it was part of a bigger trip that I'll get to telling you over the next few days, and it's the trip that all other trips have to live up to. A year before, Nick and I had met up in DC, only to add other cities onto it, and then the next year we decided to do New York and the rest of the upper east coast. I took a redeye into Newark, and Nick took an early flight out of O'Hare to meet me there, and after dropping our stuff at the worst hotel in the world, we tried to get back to the city. Now, this meant taking the horrible shuttle back to the airport, because that was the closest subway and that was not stated in the hotel's info but whatever, and then it finally get us out at Penn Station.
I stepped outside there, and I was so happy to be there that I actually got really emotional and maybe cried some. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because I almost moved there instead of LA and it's a Road Not Taken sort of thing? Or maybe it's just that the city just speaks to me, but I love it so, so much. We walked along the streets and saw everything. We saw street performers doing pogo tricks. We went through Times Square which is super tacky but I love it regardless. We saw Parson's School for Design and stopped in at Midtown Comics and went into 30 Rock and saw something filming outside Radio City Music Hall. We saw St. Patrick's Cathedral while it was under construction. We walked through a good portion of Central Park. We took the subway a few blocks when our feet were threatening to fall off and went to meet my friend Eva, who I met online when I was 16 and was never able to meet in person before. We had New York pizza (it's fine) and she walked us over to the Empire State Building, where Nick and I went up to the observation deck. For the record, it's got gorgeous views, but at least at that time of night it's severely crowded. You had to fight to get close enough to take pictures of the view, and people were taking selfies and there was a proposal and it's just a lot. Worth it, but a lot. And then the elevator broke so we had to take the stairs down en masse to a lower floor to catch another one, which was an interesting experience.
New York at night was very different from the day. It didn't seem as busy, which might've had to do with the fact that it was Thursday, but we were tired and had to get back to New Jersey, so we found a little spot to sit. A large section of the street outside a row of stores had been blocked off with a low fence in order to extend the sidewalk into said street. So we basically sat in the street in NYC at a little white iron table as taxis whizzed past us as fast as traffic would allow. Something about that might've been my favorite part of the trip. Even though I look exhausted in every single picture.
We got back to the worst hotel in the world, though we left early the next morning to come back to the city. We got pretty good at the subway, which is reassuringly easy to navigate, and tried to start out at the World Trade Center memorial. The problem was that at least at that time they had a strict bag policy, and I had a giant purse and Nick had a messenger bag, and since it seemed that we had to leave our stuff behind rather than just get them checked, we got pictures of Freedom Tower and started walking instead. We found a little dog park that was a fenced off area of concrete and watched the puppies. We went to Battery Park, where we got to hang out for a while and see the Statue of Liberty from a distance. And then we went back to the hotel to pick up our rental car (which was orange and we named Diego), we for some reason drove back in order to get to Brooklyn. We had other friends in New York, and wanted to meet Angela at the bakery where she worked, but we hit massive traffic trying to get through the Holland Tunnel and ran out of time. But we did have some time to sightsee there, including driving on the Brooklyn Bridge, and then checking out Brooklyn Bridge Park, which I loved and am kind of surprised I don't see more about when people talk about New York. We also walked a few blocks from there to find a little pub that I wish I got the name of, because it was just a great little place tucked away in an area I don't think I ever would have found without wandering. Update: Nick found it! It's Henry Street Ale House. I highly recommend.
Our big thing for that night was finding the Waystation, where we met our friend Karyn. It gets a lot of noteriety for being a Doctor Who bar, but it's really more just a geek bar that has a TARDIS for a bathroom. Seriously. A TARDIS for a bathroom. And I swear to god, it's bigger on the inside. There are characters from the show painted all over the walls, the trash can is made to look like a Dalek, and there's a framed autograph from Matt Smith hanging up that reads "Pee happily!" But besides this and some themed drinks, I find it hard to call it a Doctor Who bar when there are replica weapons from Firefly and I seem to recall swords on the wall, you know?
The only problem with this place was that it's small, so when they brought in the admittedly great live jug band (I mean, Brooklyn), I couldn't hear anything anyone said anymore. We listened to the music for a while, and then walked out into the neighborhood to find the car, walking past people sitting out on the stoops, with rap playing as a backdrop. It was kind of great.
And then we got lost in the dark for at least half an hour in Jersey trying to find our hotel because it was located in hell. I have nothing good to say about New Jersey.
New York, though.
14.5.16
Planning post: everything
Originally I was going to go to Portland for a little reunion with some friends, including Sarah, and Kathe. This last week plans changed so that instead, I'm going to have three of my favorite people ever come to visit me in Chicago. While I would have loved to go to Portland, which is a city I adore oh so much, but the ticket was probably going to be above $400 and I can focus a little more on other trips. It's going to involve a little bit of a challenge as three people from three different states across the country try to coordinate their flights to come to a fourth state, but we'll get there.
Then one of the things I'd done to try and get some free money was that when I signed up for cable (with Comcast), one of the incentives for the particular package I chose was that I got $300 in gift cards. I was going to pay off my credit card with that, only to find out then that I can only do that with a bank account, so instead I decided I'd use the gift cards on things I would have just used my credit card for. Which means travel. So I went ahead and got my ticket for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney World. It's more than I wanted to pay, but it's sort of a bucket list thing and the price goes up the closer you get to Halloween. That's just how it is.
And literally once I got that paid for, I headed over to my mom's, where Nick and I went to plan for our road trip to Philadelphia in a couple weeks. We worked out our timeline, and then bought tickets for Fallingwater. Nick works for an architecture firm, and so it probably shouldn't be a big surprise that we end up going to Frank Lloyd Wright houses a lot. (I've been to Hollyhock House in LA, past Unity Temple in Chicago, SC Johnson and Wingspread in Racine, outside a house in New Hampshire that someone lives in I think but we literally had nothing else to do in New Hampshire so we just took pictures outside, and this will be my sixth Wright building.) We'd wanted to do the in-depth tour, but it was already sold out and we couldn't get anything till June, so we're doing the guided tour for two hours, and that gives us access to the grounds where we can actually take pictures. After that we'll drive over to Philadelphia, which Nick and I have been to but Mom never has. And last weekend she learned that the odds of me going "I'm bored, let's have a Carly Rae Jepsen dance party" are high so she's at least prepared for that eventuality in traveling with us. So we have some idea of things to do in Philly, and some things we didn't get to do last time and get another shot at, and the rest will probably be us deciding what to do last minute.
Been a surprisingly busy day, yo.
Then one of the things I'd done to try and get some free money was that when I signed up for cable (with Comcast), one of the incentives for the particular package I chose was that I got $300 in gift cards. I was going to pay off my credit card with that, only to find out then that I can only do that with a bank account, so instead I decided I'd use the gift cards on things I would have just used my credit card for. Which means travel. So I went ahead and got my ticket for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney World. It's more than I wanted to pay, but it's sort of a bucket list thing and the price goes up the closer you get to Halloween. That's just how it is.
And literally once I got that paid for, I headed over to my mom's, where Nick and I went to plan for our road trip to Philadelphia in a couple weeks. We worked out our timeline, and then bought tickets for Fallingwater. Nick works for an architecture firm, and so it probably shouldn't be a big surprise that we end up going to Frank Lloyd Wright houses a lot. (I've been to Hollyhock House in LA, past Unity Temple in Chicago, SC Johnson and Wingspread in Racine, outside a house in New Hampshire that someone lives in I think but we literally had nothing else to do in New Hampshire so we just took pictures outside, and this will be my sixth Wright building.) We'd wanted to do the in-depth tour, but it was already sold out and we couldn't get anything till June, so we're doing the guided tour for two hours, and that gives us access to the grounds where we can actually take pictures. After that we'll drive over to Philadelphia, which Nick and I have been to but Mom never has. And last weekend she learned that the odds of me going "I'm bored, let's have a Carly Rae Jepsen dance party" are high so she's at least prepared for that eventuality in traveling with us. So we have some idea of things to do in Philly, and some things we didn't get to do last time and get another shot at, and the rest will probably be us deciding what to do last minute.
Been a surprisingly busy day, yo.
12.5.16
Flashback post: The worst hotel in the world
Since we're hitting the anniversary of my absolute favorite trip ever, I'm busy writing some pretty long posts about it. But first, I have to tell you about the worst hotel in the world.
One year Nick and I met in Washington DC for a long weekend, which turned into us going to Philadelphia, which led to us almost taking a side trip to Jersey but we couldn't get to the exit fast enough. So we decided on our next trip we would actually make a road trip out of it, and in May of 2013 we both flew to Newark Airport. I took a red eye from LA, while he took the first flight out from Chicago, and we were both there by about 9 am. We had a hotel in Elizabeth, NJ, and since we were getting in early I called the hotel the day before to check on whether that was okay. They said it was no problem, and to come in when we got there. They told us a lot of things.
One of those things was that they had a shuttle that ran every hour to the hotel from the airport. So Nick and I headed out to the shuttle pickup and waited. And waited. And waited. We figured maybe we'd gotten there just after the shuttle left, but then it was over an hour. While I tried to get the number for the hotel, Nick went inside and happened to find a phone to call the hotel there, and that was how they decided to come get you. There was no hourly shuttle as advertised. We waited some more for the shuttle to finally come get us, and then we were off to the hotel, which luckily wasn't too far. But when we got there, we were told we didn't have a reservation. This was a lie. The guy at the front desk was the same one I'd spoken to on the phone the day before, and he'd found the reservation easily enough then. I showed him the confirmation email with our order, and suddenly he decided that they could get us a room but we'd have to wait because everything was booked, even though there were several buildings to this hotel and maybe three cars in the lot, total. He also refused to talk to me, instead deferring to tell Nick everything even though the reservation was under my name and I'd done literally all of the talking, which is not a good way to endear yourself to me. The guy finally said he'd see what he could do, and so we had to stand in the tiny lobby and wait with our bags. There were several old coffee stains on the linoleum floor, like no one had bothered to clean them. Everything looked tired and old, and we kept watching people head into a small closet off to the side, only to eventually realize that that was their continental breakfast. They'd set it all up on a tiny table in a closet.
Finally the guy told us (sorry, told Nick) that they had a room for us, and while they didn't have the double room we'd actually booked, they had a queen room that he insisted was bigger. While we were tempted to say screw it and get another hotel, there's an issue with booking through Priceline as we had: they already have the money, so we would have lost that and had to book another hotel last minute in an area we didn't know or try to get something in NYC which was not really going to be happening. So whatever, fine. We were planning on being in the city the whole time anyway, and it was just two nights. We'd work with this giant queen room.
If this was bigger, I don't want to know what the double room was like. The front of the room by the door was huge, but it was all wasted space. I don't even think there was a closet there. There was a queen bed, but the room was barely bigger than it, width-wise, and they'd crammed big furniture in there to make it even tighter. In order to get around the bed I had to turn sideways and scoot between it and the giant entertainment center/armoire. They had also put a table next to it, and you could only position the chair on the side of the table because there wasn't enough room between the table and bed for the chair, but if you pulled the chair out then you blocked the bathroom door. The bathroom had broken tiles, the shower wasn't completely filthy but the towels were, and even the hot and cold faucets were mixed up. As in, they were labeled wrong. You had to rent the alarm clock if you wanted to use it, the air conditioner looked dangerously balanced in the wall, there were dubious stains on both the bed and the one armchair...
"Rock, paper, scissors," Nick said. "Loser gets the bed."
It was one of those places that was so bad you could only laugh at it. Besides, we were here for New York. And this place was close to the subway!
In my defense I'd never been to this area before, and I did not realize that "close to the subway" on the hotel page meant that we had to wait for the shuttle again, and then take that back to Newark Airport, catch the train there and then take that to Penn Station. But whatever, we did it, and we had an amazing time in what became my favorite city in the world, and we didn't get back until late. Nick lost RPS that night and I got to sleep in the dodgy chair, though we traded the second night, and my god did I not want to. That thing was gross. We figured maybe housekeeping would clean when we spent a second day in the city, but "cleaning" seemed to mean "putting new stains on the bed I now had to sleep in." There had been menus slipped under the door during our first day and we'd left them because hey, it wasn't like the hotel cared what their room was like, and when we came back the next night there were more menus, but they'd been rearranged on the floor. There were also sounds during the night that we joked were probably raccoons.
After our second day we checked out and would stay in much, muuuuch better hotels along the way, and when we got back home I checked further reviews of the hotel. Everything on Priceline had been pretty positive, so I was confused as to how we ended up staying in a place so terrible. Well, I should have done more research. Yelp reviews and those on Hotels.com were not nearly as positive as Priceline. Apparently the hotel we got was usually rented out by the hour. There were a couple reviews talking about blood on the bathroom walls, spray from junkies shooting up in there and no one bothering to clean. It also looked like we lucked out and got the only room in the hotel without bed bugs. And the noises we heard at night? Totally rats in the walls!
In short: always read all the reviews, kids.
Update: I've been going through the reviews for funsies, and this place apparently closed down, and became a Days Inn. Which also closed down. Gee, I wonder why.
One year Nick and I met in Washington DC for a long weekend, which turned into us going to Philadelphia, which led to us almost taking a side trip to Jersey but we couldn't get to the exit fast enough. So we decided on our next trip we would actually make a road trip out of it, and in May of 2013 we both flew to Newark Airport. I took a red eye from LA, while he took the first flight out from Chicago, and we were both there by about 9 am. We had a hotel in Elizabeth, NJ, and since we were getting in early I called the hotel the day before to check on whether that was okay. They said it was no problem, and to come in when we got there. They told us a lot of things.
One of those things was that they had a shuttle that ran every hour to the hotel from the airport. So Nick and I headed out to the shuttle pickup and waited. And waited. And waited. We figured maybe we'd gotten there just after the shuttle left, but then it was over an hour. While I tried to get the number for the hotel, Nick went inside and happened to find a phone to call the hotel there, and that was how they decided to come get you. There was no hourly shuttle as advertised. We waited some more for the shuttle to finally come get us, and then we were off to the hotel, which luckily wasn't too far. But when we got there, we were told we didn't have a reservation. This was a lie. The guy at the front desk was the same one I'd spoken to on the phone the day before, and he'd found the reservation easily enough then. I showed him the confirmation email with our order, and suddenly he decided that they could get us a room but we'd have to wait because everything was booked, even though there were several buildings to this hotel and maybe three cars in the lot, total. He also refused to talk to me, instead deferring to tell Nick everything even though the reservation was under my name and I'd done literally all of the talking, which is not a good way to endear yourself to me. The guy finally said he'd see what he could do, and so we had to stand in the tiny lobby and wait with our bags. There were several old coffee stains on the linoleum floor, like no one had bothered to clean them. Everything looked tired and old, and we kept watching people head into a small closet off to the side, only to eventually realize that that was their continental breakfast. They'd set it all up on a tiny table in a closet.
Finally the guy told us (sorry, told Nick) that they had a room for us, and while they didn't have the double room we'd actually booked, they had a queen room that he insisted was bigger. While we were tempted to say screw it and get another hotel, there's an issue with booking through Priceline as we had: they already have the money, so we would have lost that and had to book another hotel last minute in an area we didn't know or try to get something in NYC which was not really going to be happening. So whatever, fine. We were planning on being in the city the whole time anyway, and it was just two nights. We'd work with this giant queen room.
If this was bigger, I don't want to know what the double room was like. The front of the room by the door was huge, but it was all wasted space. I don't even think there was a closet there. There was a queen bed, but the room was barely bigger than it, width-wise, and they'd crammed big furniture in there to make it even tighter. In order to get around the bed I had to turn sideways and scoot between it and the giant entertainment center/armoire. They had also put a table next to it, and you could only position the chair on the side of the table because there wasn't enough room between the table and bed for the chair, but if you pulled the chair out then you blocked the bathroom door. The bathroom had broken tiles, the shower wasn't completely filthy but the towels were, and even the hot and cold faucets were mixed up. As in, they were labeled wrong. You had to rent the alarm clock if you wanted to use it, the air conditioner looked dangerously balanced in the wall, there were dubious stains on both the bed and the one armchair...
"Rock, paper, scissors," Nick said. "Loser gets the bed."
It was one of those places that was so bad you could only laugh at it. Besides, we were here for New York. And this place was close to the subway!
In my defense I'd never been to this area before, and I did not realize that "close to the subway" on the hotel page meant that we had to wait for the shuttle again, and then take that back to Newark Airport, catch the train there and then take that to Penn Station. But whatever, we did it, and we had an amazing time in what became my favorite city in the world, and we didn't get back until late. Nick lost RPS that night and I got to sleep in the dodgy chair, though we traded the second night, and my god did I not want to. That thing was gross. We figured maybe housekeeping would clean when we spent a second day in the city, but "cleaning" seemed to mean "putting new stains on the bed I now had to sleep in." There had been menus slipped under the door during our first day and we'd left them because hey, it wasn't like the hotel cared what their room was like, and when we came back the next night there were more menus, but they'd been rearranged on the floor. There were also sounds during the night that we joked were probably raccoons.
After our second day we checked out and would stay in much, muuuuch better hotels along the way, and when we got back home I checked further reviews of the hotel. Everything on Priceline had been pretty positive, so I was confused as to how we ended up staying in a place so terrible. Well, I should have done more research. Yelp reviews and those on Hotels.com were not nearly as positive as Priceline. Apparently the hotel we got was usually rented out by the hour. There were a couple reviews talking about blood on the bathroom walls, spray from junkies shooting up in there and no one bothering to clean. It also looked like we lucked out and got the only room in the hotel without bed bugs. And the noises we heard at night? Totally rats in the walls!
In short: always read all the reviews, kids.
Update: I've been going through the reviews for funsies, and this place apparently closed down, and became a Days Inn. Which also closed down. Gee, I wonder why.
1.5.16
The case for good shoes
No, seriously.
I have a long and storied history with foot and ankle injuries. I've had 29 ankle sprains and 6 broken toes in my lifetime. I have a horrible habit of wearing the I wrong shoes that'll lead to really awful blisters and pulled muscles in my foot. And because I'm an idiot, I basically go "Oh well," and keep on going.
Be smarter than me.
If I give you any advice on footwear you should actually take, it's this:
-No flip flops if you're walking long distances. It just won't be comfortable.
-Get insoles. The right ones can be magic.
-DO NOT WEAR NEW SHOES ON A TRIP. Make sure they're broken in and have given you all the blisters they're gonna give you.
-Carry band-aids or moleskin on your person just in case.
-There are also tubes that look like Chapstick that you can put on your feet as a second skin in the areas you usually get blisters that actually really help. The brand I use is Sole Goddess, but I've also seen them from Dr. Scholl's.
-If you're me, the ankle wrap never leaves your carryon, just in case.
Now for some stories I can tell about how I did not follow these rules and it sucked:
-I went to DC in 2010 and fell- twice- on the previous Wednesday, spraining my foot so badly I thought it was broken and I couldn't go. I went anyway. I had to walk the Mall, get through Dulles Airport, and ride a crowded Metro on my tiptoes for an hour because the only place I could fit was somewhere with the overhead rails with two wraps on my foot to keep it stable.
-When a friend came out to visit a couple years ago and we went to Disneyland, I figured my shoes were good because they were new, but hadn't given me any trouble over the last week. The day we were there, I had blisters that needed treatment within half an hour of arriving, and my the end of the day my shoes had blood all over them. I lasted eight hours in them. (And to be fair, after this they turned out to be amazing for this kind of thing.)
-I figured that a certain pair of flip flops had gotten me around downtown Chicago and I wore them to my first SDCC in 2010. I underestimated the walking involved, and somehow just in the train station the thong part had cut in between my toes and were killing my feet. Also our hotel was two miles away and our only option was to walk up and back.
-Thanks to a spill at Target I fell a few days before my cross-country move and sprained both my left ankle and right knee. I lived on the second floor and had to move everything I owned like that, plus drive for ten hours a day.
Anyway, doing anything while you're hurt sucks. It sucks more when you're somewhere new, trying to see everything you can and you have something that's taking your attention away from it. So take precautions, take care of yourself, and be better than me.
I have a long and storied history with foot and ankle injuries. I've had 29 ankle sprains and 6 broken toes in my lifetime. I have a horrible habit of wearing the I wrong shoes that'll lead to really awful blisters and pulled muscles in my foot. And because I'm an idiot, I basically go "Oh well," and keep on going.
Be smarter than me.
If I give you any advice on footwear you should actually take, it's this:
-No flip flops if you're walking long distances. It just won't be comfortable.
-Get insoles. The right ones can be magic.
-DO NOT WEAR NEW SHOES ON A TRIP. Make sure they're broken in and have given you all the blisters they're gonna give you.
-Carry band-aids or moleskin on your person just in case.
-There are also tubes that look like Chapstick that you can put on your feet as a second skin in the areas you usually get blisters that actually really help. The brand I use is Sole Goddess, but I've also seen them from Dr. Scholl's.
-If you're me, the ankle wrap never leaves your carryon, just in case.
Now for some stories I can tell about how I did not follow these rules and it sucked:
-I went to DC in 2010 and fell- twice- on the previous Wednesday, spraining my foot so badly I thought it was broken and I couldn't go. I went anyway. I had to walk the Mall, get through Dulles Airport, and ride a crowded Metro on my tiptoes for an hour because the only place I could fit was somewhere with the overhead rails with two wraps on my foot to keep it stable.
-When a friend came out to visit a couple years ago and we went to Disneyland, I figured my shoes were good because they were new, but hadn't given me any trouble over the last week. The day we were there, I had blisters that needed treatment within half an hour of arriving, and my the end of the day my shoes had blood all over them. I lasted eight hours in them. (And to be fair, after this they turned out to be amazing for this kind of thing.)
-I figured that a certain pair of flip flops had gotten me around downtown Chicago and I wore them to my first SDCC in 2010. I underestimated the walking involved, and somehow just in the train station the thong part had cut in between my toes and were killing my feet. Also our hotel was two miles away and our only option was to walk up and back.
-Thanks to a spill at Target I fell a few days before my cross-country move and sprained both my left ankle and right knee. I lived on the second floor and had to move everything I owned like that, plus drive for ten hours a day.
Anyway, doing anything while you're hurt sucks. It sucks more when you're somewhere new, trying to see everything you can and you have something that's taking your attention away from it. So take precautions, take care of yourself, and be better than me.
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