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.

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...

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.

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.

Flashback post: Catalina

I've said before that when I told people I was moving to Chicago and that I had an LA bucket list, I'd have people add to it. The first instance of this was when while checking the Griffith Observatory off my list, my friend Emily asked, "What about Catalina?"

Catalina is an island off the coast of California. It actually is California, but a lot of people don't actually know it's there. I'd never been there, and didn't think I could go. Emily had wanted to go for her birthday the year before and I knew I couldn't because it can get really expensive. A trip on the Catalina Express with general seating is $36 each way. It's a lot for a day trip. But the suggestion stuck in my brain, and so I started doing research and found the best deal: the Catalina Express is free on your birthday, and my birthday fell on a Sunday. There are also Groupon deals, but we could only find them on the Catalina Flyer, which is different and would get us there are different times. So because my friends are awesome, a group of them ponied up the full amount to meet me at the Long Beach port so that we could have a day on an island. (I have the best friends in the world for many reasons, but that's the one I'm going to talk about in this post.)

The trip out there is about an hour, and it's nothing special. We got seats on the top deck, slathering on sunscreen and watching for dolphins. (I should note that exactly a week before this was Tijuana, where my feet were horribly blistered and I was sunburned to hell and back, so I took extra precautions for a trip where I knew I'd be in the sun again all day.) And when I checked in and got my ticket, I was given a blue ribbon so that people knew it was my birthday. I'm that loser who never really grew out of that high school mentality of "But someone might think I'll look like a dork!" so I didn't want to wear it and bring attention to myself, but I needed it to get on the boat. Then people on the boat would cheerfully wish me a happy birthday whenever they saw me. This was something that continued on the island, too. They're so used to people doing this that they'll just automatically be awesome to me. Granted, they were all awesome to my friends, too, but it was kind of nice having people say hi to me all day because they were probably contractually obligated in order to work there. You also get free stuff and discounts. I think I was able to get us a percentage off lunch, I got a discount at a candy shop where we went nuts with taffy and gummy sharks, I got free coffee, etc. There's a sizeable list of things where you get free gifts if you buy something else or free things or 20% off or whatever. If you go on your birthday and you're careful, you can do Catalina for almost free. Score!

Taken while whizzing by on a golf cart, fyi

Avalon, the big city there, is small. There are very few cars, and there's a waiting list in order to get yours on island. Instead, everyone walks or drives golf carts. Everyone's super nice and it's very quiet and relaxing, and I think I could maybe spend a year there before I ran (swam?) screaming back to a city because my lungs crave the pollution. There's a gorgeous casino that gives tours, you can go hiking and ziplining, you can go to spas... We didn't have that much time, maybe eight hours total, so we didn't want to give up a chunk of our time for one thing. Also, ziplining is pricey. Instead, we walked around and went into the many, many adorable little shops, trying on hats and buying food and little stuff. We also went to one of the beaches, but it's not like any other California beach I've been to. The sand is a lot rougher, and going into the water means walking over rocks. I didn't have a bathing suit, so I waited on the beach with Kelsey while the others went for a swim- and got to swim with a seal. Another thing is that they charge you to hang out on the beach. It's like $2 for a wristband, but there were people near us who were nice enough to give us theirs when they left, and also gave their drink menu with recommendations. The drinks were $10 and they came in little plastic cups, but they brought them right up to us on the sand and my god were they alcoholic. I did not plan to get drunk on a beach on my birthday, but it totally happened.

The other big thing we did was the golf carts. You can rent them for $20 per person for two hours for a four-person cart, and there was some trouble in actually getting it. We tried at the start of the day but would have to wait a long time, and then we ended up in line for a while as people returned theirs and it was a kind of slow process. But we got in there and with a short lesson in how to drive it, we were off. There are plenty of hills, and it's a little nervewracking at points going around curves by a cliff riding in a cart the driver literally just learned how to operate, but it's so much fun. It's a common thing, so we'd run into other people and everyone would pull over to take pictures of the gorgeous scenery. You drive through neighborhoods, see the houses and schools. We also found the Catalina Island Conservancy, the botanical gardens. We got there as they were closing, but there was a guy at the front who just let us in so we didn't actually realize they were closed, and we ended up walking along some of the trails and checking out the different plants. They wanted to do more, but I was not dressed correctly. I was wearing a skirt and sandals, and I was still recovering from last week's dehydration, so I let people take my camera to take pictures from the top of the Wrigley Monument while I waited on a bench at the bottom. By the time we left there- and by the time we had to escape because they'd locked us in, wtf- we decided to take the cart back to the rental place since we didn't have a ton of time left to do any one thing. Also, they give you a map, and it's not a big island, but I still got us lost because that's what happens when you let me navigate.

We had to be back at the dock by around seven, when it was starting to get cold and windy, and we got top spots on the boat back. That was my favorite part of the day. While it was super windy, we got to see the most gorgeous sunset I've ever seen, and at some point people started freaking out because they swore they saw a shark next to the boat, which I feel like was the universe's happy birthday to me, even if I didn't get to actually see it. I know it was there.

Anyway, if you can do Catalina, go for it. I liked it a ton. Also best birthday ever, and this year's going to have to step it up.

Update: Nick couldn't add pictures in comments so he's "forcing" me to add this:

We drove ten hours today. Hi.

On one hand, Nashville was awesome. On the other hand, let me tell you how draining it is to leave the hotel before 9 am and get home at 7. If you've never done a big road trip, you might not think sitting in a car is that tiring.

It is so tiring. Being bored is tiring. If you're in the driver's seat, then you have one thing to focus on pretty much the whole time, and that is boring. If you're the passenger, you don't even have that, and that's boring. So while we'd planned on making a couple stops on the way back, that didn't really pan out because we just wanted to get home. The most we really did for fun was do a driveby of Dinosaur World, which I figured would be like the Cabazon Dinosaurs, and I think I was right? We got up closer and it's weird to say that they didn't look as authentic, though. They were smaller, and it looked more like they'd been colored with spray paint, and I wasn't hugely inclined to spend $19 there.

It was also part of a section of roadside tourist traps in Cave City, KY. There was a large strip mall-looking Olde General Store, something called Guntown Mountain, a haunted hotel, and one of several cave exploring things. You see a ton of billboards for things like cave explorations and zip lining underground, which if we had more time, I probably would have been all for it. My boss' daughter just did it and they seemed to enjoy it. But if there's one thing I'd definitely want to do next time, it's Kentucky Down Under, which is an adventure zoo where you can hang out with several different animals and pet kangaroos and such. I'm iffy one some of these places because I'm all for animal refuges (one will get excessively pimped when I get around to writing it), and I like to be reassured that they're being taken care of well and not being exploited, and I know some of these are not on the level, but this is one I'm hopeful about and want to check out.

Aside from that, our stops were at gas stations and rest stops, which got more frequent the more tired we got. And then when we got to northern Kentucky it started raining and didn't stop until we got all the way back to my place. But I absolutely will not complain, because we also saw a car fire today, and no matter how tiring our drive can get it's good to remember that at least we're not that guy.

Anyway, safely home. Nick's staying the night here rather than driving even more tonight, and there's pizza and Star Wars and that's all that matters. Oh, and pajamas at 7 pm, because we earned it.

Currently: Nashville, TN

Oh my god, I love Nashville.

This is where we decided to go once we had to push South Dakota off for a few months, and it was a great choice. I don't know why I got it in my head to come here recently, but it did, and since it's seven and a half hours away from Chicago, it's really not that tough a drive. Nick came to pick me up after work, and after grabbing dinner to wait out rush hour traffic, we drove down to Indianapolis. As Chicago -> Indy is maybe the most boring drive I've ever done, especially fairly often, it was kind of nice to be able to do most of that in the dark where we weren't sighing as we passed yet another field of absolutely nothing. (I'm sorry, Indiana. Illinois is a boring drive, too.) Nick booked a decent hotel there, and we could sit down and actually plan what we were going to do in Nashville. Also, to book the hotel we're staying in tonight.

So, I have a system for looking at hotels. Rather than trying to get in the city where prices were higher, go about half an hour out. I go on Priceline, sort by price and go past one and two stars, because after a couple horrible experiences in one star hotels it's worth the extra $20 to stay somewhere that I feel I can sleep without contracting something. Usually you can find a good three star hotel for around $80, which split two ways isn't bad. Last night there were issues there, which was weird because I'd looked up prices in Nashville before and didn't have a problem. Then Nick remembered seeing something about the Walking Dead Walker Stalker convention, which was probably driving up prices. So let this be a lesson, kids: watch out for Walking Dead conventions. So I spent more than I wanted to on tonight's hotel but it's a good hotel so I'm not going to complain too much.

We started out around 8 am and got to be all nostalgic because the way we took through Indiana was the way we used to take to get to Cincinnati. Cincinnati was also my previous experience with Kentucky, because a) I had to drive people back and forth to the Cincy airport which is in Kentucky (don't ask me, I just work here), and b) the first time I went to Cincinnati I followed the signs for Cincinnati and accidentally ended up in the wrong state. But driving through Kentucky on purpose is super pretty. And being stuck in Chicago where it keeps casually snowing whenever it feels like it, it was so nice to see actual spring in the form of flowers and blossoms on trees along the highway.

Also, a note: Indianapolis is messed up when it comes to time zones, so we spent the night in Eastern. Which means when you get back through Kentucky and then Tennessee in Central, it kind of screws up your timing on getting to the hotel. But on the way there we saw a sign for the Andrew Jackson Hermitage, and (not for the first time ever) I said, "Wanna go to (this historical site on the way to the hotel)?" and Nick said sure, so we went. It's $20 for the basic tour, which gives you access to the very pretty grounds and the mansion, which is a semi-guided tour. There's no photography in the mansion or there'd be a lot of pictures here, but outside the house was another story. There were a lot of smaller buildings to check out, though at parts it was sort of uncomfortable? At one point inside the mansion someone asked how many servants there were to deal with the twenty guests per day the docents would talk about, and when we got to the slaves' houses it sort of felt like a slap, like, oh right, we're in the South and of course there weren't servants, and we're somewhere were people might casually call slaves that. In the museum at the house there was also a small thing on how the Native Americans sided with the British in the War of 1812 because they thought the British could protect them from land-hungry Americans, which... yeah. There's something about certain areas of the South, where they kind of shock you by acknowledging that this country's based on some pretty truly awful stuff, but I think it's good that they do make you face it.

Still, I definitely recommend it as a place to stop, and one of those things that seems typical of a Nick and Natalie Trip. And by then we hadn't eaten since getting breakfast at the hotel before leaving, and we were getting hungry. We decided to stop at the Steak and Shake nearby just to get something cheap, and we should have known there was a problem when we waited about five minutes before anyone even acknowledged that we were waiting to be seated. It was another five minutes or so before our server came over to get our orders. And then we waited for twenty minutes without drinks, without any acknowledgement that we were waiting. There were people waiting to be seated, several tables that hadn't been cleared, and no one there was in any sort of rush to get anyone through. The guy at the next table must've seen we looked bored because he told us that they'd gotten in nearly an hour before and were just about to leave before they finally brought the food over. I give servers a ton of credit; they work hard even though no one thinks they do, they don't get paid enough because they have to rely on tips but there are a lot of asshole tippers out there who don't think about things like that, you have to deal with the public all day, it's stressful... But this was getting to be above and beyond, and we were considering just leaving, but Nick gave us another five minutes to wait and see if they'd bring anything over. One waitress came over to ask if we'd ordered, we said we'd been waiting twenty minutes, and she walked off looking frazzled. A couple minutes later, we heard a woman holding an apron yelling about someone not getting a break all day and how dare they yell at her. When it didn't seem like we were getting any more drama or food, we left a restaurant for the first time ever. I'd have felt worse about it, but on the way to the car we saw our waitress on her way back from her car, sooooo I have a feeling one way or another someone lost their job today based on the yelling. We found a Shoney's near the hotel, where everytime she came over to take our order we got to be like, "But no seriously she looks just like Daisy Ridley," and where we got to reminisce about our childhoods when Shoney's was Wag's, so I'm not mad at that detour. It's also the only real food I ate the whole day, oops.

I will say, too, that aside from the workers at Steak and Shake, everyone we met down here has been amazingly friendly. People had no problem talking to us in lines or at bars or whatever, but it wasn't really intrusive. It was them trying to be helpful about something. We heard the word "y'all" about four hundred thousand times, and I'm not sure that's an exaggeration, but since I've been y'alling for years it was nice to hear it without people looking at me like I said something weird. The girl who managed the line to get into the Andrew Jackson house was two weeks removed from Texas, and I'm pretty sure she said it in at least half her sentences. If you bump into someone on the street, there's a lot of sincere "Oh, I'm so sorry!"s that happen. I definitely dig Southern charm.

When researching Nashville I decided I wanted to go to the Parthenon, which I hadn't even known existed. It's an art museum that's a copy of the actual Parthenon in Greece, complete with the Athena statue. I was dumb and didn't check the hours of operation, so we got there about half an hour after it closed. But we got to walk around there and Centennial Park, watching people walk their dogs and taking group prom and wedding pictures. Seriously, it is a huge prom location, apparently.

But it was a good stop, and then we drove ten minutes away to downtown Nashville, where we paid way too much for parking. In line at the Hermitage two women from West Virginia had warned us about the convention crowd (we saw no one and had no problems there) and the parking, where they undersold it and we paid $27, but they don't advertise the prices until you've parked and have to pay, which sucks. But it was worth it, because downtown Nashville is pretty great. We got there early enough that we didn't have to worry about crowds yet, so we could wander around some. We stopped in at a coffee and ice cream bar where the line was out the door most of the night, and stopped to look at cowboy boots at one of the many, many, many boot stores around. It's also a small enough area that all the places we'd talked about stopping and finding maybe on the way home tomorrow, we found by accident. We found the pedestrian bridge, which is a great spot to stop and take pictures, even though we only crossed halfway before going back downtown.

We also walked around for a bit trying to find a good bar. I'm sure there are plenty, but it was just late enough now that the crowds were getting bigger, and while we tried to get into Legends, it was already standing room only, and several other places were just loud, and I like being able to have a conversation with someone I'm hanging out with. So we found Rippy's across the street from Legends, and that was a good call. There's live music at pretty much all the bars there, but we found somewhere not too loud where the band played a lot of different music with a country twang, the drinks weren't completely ridiculous, and while I didn't think my whiskey sour had much alcohol in it it kicked in when we were on the way back to the hotel. Now, if I was out with my friends I'd have had more and probably insisted on checking out more places, but it's different when you're with your brother and also we have to get on the road early tomorrow for an eight hour drive home, so we were lame and called it an early night.

In short (after a very long post), Nashville, I love you, and I will be back.

Flashback post: Palm Springs

When I started telling people I was moving, the conversation almost always led to my LA Bucket List, all the things I wanted to do before I moved. Every single time, the other person would ask what was on it... and then they'd add something to it. There were several trips that happened because of this.

In this particular instance, the conversation ended with, "What are you up to this weekend?"

It was a Thursday, and myself and my friends Lynn and Sarah Who Is Not the Sarah I've Reference Before had me come over on Saturday, where we went on a road trip to Palm Springs. I'd been there once, literally for a couple hours before having to go back, and hadn't really gotten to do it right. It's about an hour and a half to two hours between LA and Palm Springs, but takes longer because there are places to stop along the way. There are two outlet malls, for one, plus a place called Hadley's Fruit Orchards, where you can pick up snacks. Also definitely get a date shake, they are amazing. And then there's the Cabazon Dinosaurs.

There are giant dinosaurs just hanging out in the desert. It's awesome, but it's about $9 for adults and you can easily spend like twenty minutes hanging around and taking pictures. As a tip, when they're closed you can still get pictures with some stuff, and that's the way I like to go, personally.

Semi-impossible not to hum the Jurassic Park theme here.

Palm Springs itself is home to a giant wind farm that you drive past, which is more interesting than I would have thought. And then we got to our hotel, the Twin Palms Resort and I LOVE THIS PLACE SO MUCH. We walked in and immediately decided it reminded us of the Golden Girls. It's a great little condo, much bigger than your average hotel room, and has a pool, grill, and A BARBIE PINK KITCHEN STRAIGHT OUT THE 50'S. No, seriously, the kitchen had most of its original appliances from the 50's. Though, as we learned, don't try to cook a frozen pizza in it unless you want to spend an hour switching it from the oven to the broiler to make sure both sides of it actually cook.

Wasn't kidding.

A lot of people party in Palm Springs. We did not. We hung out and talked, hit up the local Ralph's to get food, and went for drinks at a tiki bar called Tonga Hut downtown. The drinks were good and it was quiet at the time, so we got to chat with the really great bartenders. And since Sarah talked about her love of tiki bars, we maybe got a glimpse of the place that most people don't get to see.

Sunday, however, I got to do the coolest thing I've ever done in my life (so far). The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway starts towards the bottom of the mountains, and depending on where you park you can take a bus up to where the tram loads. It's a car where everyone piles in and then you ride the cable up 10,000 feet. It rotates so you can see every view, and there are a few points where there can be quite a bit of swinging, so people who are afraid of heights might want to be aware. At the top is the San Jacinto Mountain, where you can climb some stairs and get views from super high up, and it's amazing. (And while you're in the desert, you're also in the mountains; it was 80 degrees when we left, and 40 degrees at the top of the mountain.) And it's also a state park, so you can walk around and take different trails to see even more. Be advised that you are at a higher altitude, and asthmatics like me might not have the easiest time, and there can be hills or stairs, but if you can handle that it's soooo worth it. Plus it's only $25.

On top of the world! Now let's pretend I didn't say that.

So that's my two days in Palm Springs. Next time I'll do other stuff. Except for the Tramway, which I will do every time.

Flashback post: San Francisco, CA

Because Facebook kept trying to remind me of it last week, let's go back a year to February 2015, when I made my visit to San Francisco.

About six years ago my friends got me going to the Thrilling Adventure Hour at the Largo. It's a new style show/podcast in the style of old-time radio, and every month we'd see it live. I knew by now that I was going to be moving, and the live monthly show was ending, so when they went to Sketchfest in SF, it would be the last time I'd have a chance, probably. So a couple of my friends and I decided to head up there after work on a Friday for a Saturday show, and then we'd drive back on Sunday.

LA is about six hours south of San Francisco, so it's not as close as people tend to think it is. It's a long drive. The other thing people don't realize is that San Francisco gets weather. In northern California, it's closer to Portland than sunny LA. So we hit storms. Driving in the dark in torrential downpours isn't fun. And when we rolled up to the Aida Plaza Hotel, we drove around for about half an hour trying to find the parking lot... only to find out that it wasn't in fact free parking, and would cost us thirty dollars a night. But there weren't any other options, so we parked and went up to our room, where we'd also had a scare because we were told that we wouldn't have a private bathroom, and that they were dorm style. And while each floor had a shared bathroom, our room did in fact have our own, so we got lucky there. Aside from not being told some very important things like that, the hotel itself was pretty cute. It was all neon lights and old fixtures, with actual flowered carpeting on the elevator walls. If you're going for character (and aren't bringing a car), it's worth it.

As hotel room views go, this isn't bad.

Also it was down the street from my favorite restaurant in SF, Homeskillet. We ended up eating there for breakfast both days, where I had more than a few vegetarian options and they had some amazing coffees. Plus it's right near Union Square, where we could walk around and go into stores and just check out the downtown area. And it really is kind of great. We checked out as much of the Contemporary Jewish Museum as we could without paying (if we'd had more time I'd have been all over it) and if you're into architecture, this could be a good place for you to check out. Plus their gift shop is pretty fun. And our Saturday was pretty packed; we also met up with a friend who's from outside the city and walked around Chinatown, but it's one of my biggest regrets that we didn't actually stop for Chinese food while we were there. It was also right before Chinese New Year, so it was decorated with lanterns and looked really great.

And there were some landmarks we had to hit, of course. Ghiradelli Square was our final stop, with a quick trip around Fisherman's Wharf, where you can also see Alcatraz. To actually go to Alcatraz, you need to carve out a day, more or less. It's a boat ride out there, and there are tours, and then a boat ride back. Unfortunately we didn't have time for that. But we could stand out by the water and watch a boat head over, and with a good camera you can get some decent pictures.

What up, the Rock? (PS that was a movie before that was a wrestler.)

The show was at the Brava Theater Center, and to be honest I'm not sure what I expected of Sketchfest. I think I'd imagined it as more of a festival of sorts, when in reality it was a series of shows around the city at different times. But there are a lot of shows going on then, so if you're in town for it you should probably try to see a few. Get your Sketchfest on.

And of course on Sunday it rained. Like, super rained. We had a plan to go to Lombard Street, which we still decided to do despite the terrible weather. For some reason, my friends let me be in charge of figuring out how to get where in the city. Rather than dealing with figuring out the parking situation, we took public transportation or walked everywhere. PS if you're walking in this city be advised that the hills are ridiculous. Bring good shoes. San Francisco actually has good public transportation, and it was a goal to take all the different kinds we could (there are trolleys, buses, and adorable cable cars that look straight out of the 50's- at least I think so. We turned out to be confused at what they actually consider a trolley and what's a cable car). It's just that I am awful at it. The information I had told me to go where I had the day before and take the cable car to Lombard, and on the way when I noticed we were going the same way we had before, I looked it up and found out that two different lines go from that starting point, and we'd picked the wrong one. This one meant we got out at the bottom of the crookedest street in the world, in the rain, and so we took pictures at the bottom of it rather than walking down it like I'd wanted. Next time.

Overall, there are parts of San Francisco I really like. There's a ton to do, and I wish I'd spent more time in Chinatown and been able to do Alcatraz and spend more time in all the places we hit, really. Plus there are murals and street art everywhere and I like anything that gives me Instagram material. However, our downtown hotel near Union Square was not in the best area, and that area probably made it the dirtiest city I've ever been in. And unfortunately I'm not really in a rush to go back because frankly I got harassed the whole time. I've got a pretty thick skin about that kind of stuff, but I was getting guys interrupting my conversations with my friends while we were walking down the street to tell me what he wanted to do to me, or homeless guys on the bus trying to put their arms around me, or getting rude comments at the freaking CVS while getting a battery for my Fitbit. After getting that constantly all weekend, it really does mess with your head, and while I'd happily go if someone else wants to, I won't be the one suggesting it. Sorry, San Francisco.

Still. Homeskillet was really good.

Flashback post: LA -> Chicago -> Indianapolis

While driving back from Iowa, I kept wanting to fall asleep. It's been a while since I've done a road trip when it gets dark earlier, so the three hours of not seeing anything but the occasional set of headlights will just make a girl drowsy. Shoutout to the gas station just over the Illinois boarder with with their horchata cappucinos. You are the true heroes.

So let's take a little detour back to 2009, when my friends John and Rachael got married. I had learned a great trick, which was taking redeyes back to Chicago so I wouldn't have to miss any work. The plan was that I'd sleep on the plane, Nick would get me, we'd drive to Indiapolis for the 10 am wedding, so we'd probably leave by 8 pm at the latest.

The reality was sliiiightly different.

After working a full day, I went home, showered, then grabbed my stuff and took a shuttle to LAX, where I took an overnight flight to Chicago. Unfortunately, this was when I apparently stopped being able to sleep on planes, so what I did get was sporadic. I landed around 5:30 am at O'Hare, where Nick picked me up. We had time to get breakfast and to change at his apartment, and then started on the road trip to Indianapolis. It's a three-hour drive, and to be honest one of the most boring drives I've been on. Most of the time in the Midwest, you'll at least get corn and farms and billboards for local stuff. You only get that so far on this drive, and then you get nothing. It's all fireworks billboards and cows, and then nothing. I had a purse full of Five Hour Energy and I was taking full advantage of that. After all, you can take two in a 24 hour period, right? That's plenty of time.

Don't take this as a sponsorship but I did keep saying it unofficially sponsored this trip.

We got in before 10, and the wedding was low-key but awesome, and it was a great chance to hang out with friends I hadn't seen in like six years. We had so much fun, in fact, that we didn't leave until TWO IN THE GOD DAMN MORNING.

The good thing is that parts of Indiana don't care about things like DST, so we got an hour back. But by that time I'd had ten hours' worth of Five Hour Energy, couldn't take anymore especially if I wanted to sleep at all, but I was too wired to sleep in the car. And thank god Nick was driving because I really did start hallucinating from tired. It was pitch black and rained occasionally, and I could swear I'd see things in the road and freak out while Nick was left going "Just go to sleep already." I was probably not helpful.

We got back to Chicago at about 4:30, and I had an 8:00 flight, meaning I was able to get an hour's worth of sleep before I had to get back to the airport, which was the worst thing I could have done. I do it to myself a lot, too. Personally, if I can only get an hour, I might as well just stay up because otherwise I can't shake off the exhaustion. Nick dropped me off at the airport on one hour of sleep in 36 hours... and United screwed up my flight. They overbooked several seats, and refused to leave until they got people to go on standby, which worked for me since I was literally the last person on the plane, freaking out that they'd leave me behind when I was so tired. But I made it, and I got in the seat, put my belt on, and immediately passed out until we landed.

And you know what, I consider it all an accomplishment. An accomplishment that I will never freaking do again.

Currently: Cedar Falls, IA

The first time I drove to Iowa with my friend Kathe, we were going from Chicago to visit Sarah. This was pre-GPS, so all we had was Mapquest directions and directions from Sarah, too. They matched up exactly, except that Mapquest had told us to take one exit, and Sarah told us to take a different one. We trusted the Iowan rather than a directions website that was notoriously bad at directions, and kept looking for the one Sarah mentioned. Well, we didn't find it, and eventually got off the highway to regroup. As it turns out, the exit had recently gone through a name change, and iirc Sarah was still using the old name, or didn't know the sign had changed, so we are the two people who actually should have trusted Mapquest.

When we pulled off, we ended up in a cornfield. An actual cornfield. There was a strip of road, and corn on either side of us as far as the eye could see. We grabbed the map from the backseat and started looking at it to figure out where we were and how to get back to where we were going, which I am just useless at. But while we're doing this, Kathe says, "Look," and points out the window.

There was was a sizeable crowd of people dressed entirely in black, walking towards us through the cornfield. I don't care, that is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. One of us, I don't remember who, noted that we've seen this X-Files episode. And no, seriously, there's an X-Files episode like this.

As they kept coming, Kathe finally said, "Go go go!" and, freaked out, I just started the car and drove off as fast as possible, where we eventually got directions at a roadside A&W. When we finally got to Sarah's and told her the story, she said, "Oh, those were just Mennonites." And we realized they probably were trying to help us. Oops.

Sooo that was my first experience with Iowa.

Taken out a window. Hello, corn.

That said, I feel like Iowa gets a bad rap as a nothing state, but I like it. It's not somewhere I think I could live all the time, personally, but it's kind of become my getaway place. Since I have been home, it really has turned into somewhere that I can just take off to when things are stressful and have my own room at my friend's house and I can attempt to cuddle her puppy who hates being picked up. It's the sort of place where we once drove 45 minutes to a craft show at a high school (did I buy Amish food that might be me trying to make up for the above story? Maybe), and on the way back stopped at garage sales because there were dogs in the yard and we wanted to pet them. I don't think I've ever had a visit where Sarah hasn't either run into or seen someone she knows while we were out. Everything is John Deere and Hawkeyes and my god, these poor people and their constant political commercials. CONSTANT. And while I know some people think everyone here is a farmer and the whole state is nothing but cows (excuse you, that's Wisconsin), Cedar Falls is just a smaller city like you'd find anywhere else, albeit one with not a ton of scenery on the drive in. It's a slice of quiet in a hectic life, and there's no bad there.

If there's one place I need to go every time I'm in town, it's World's Window. It's a shop in downtown Cedar Falls that sells Free Trade-certified goods, made in other countries by people who are working for better lives. It's pretty good stuff at good prices, too. I'm partial to their jewelry and I pick up Christmas ornaments at every opportunity, which I should stop doing because we're out of room on the tree but I will not stop doing because I'm me.

Plus, if you need a reason to go, say hello to the world's largest truck stop.

You know you want to.

Flashback post: Chicago to LA

My move from Chicago to LA was my first proper road trip, but unfortunately it was too long ago to have kept a lot of information from it. Also, I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I went with my brother and constant travel buddy Nick (you'll get to know him, trust me) and my friend Sarah, who did a good deal of the planning. She knew where to stop, and she knew our last stop of San Diego really well, so we depended on her for a lot of it. Our trip took us from picking her up in Iowa to a night in Oklahoma City, then through Texas and into Roswell, then straight through to San Diego, where we spent two nights. We'd drive most of the day, make stops, and then make calls to hotels on our way to wherever we were stopping for the night. We stopped mainly at fast food places, and nothing really stoood out, good or bad when it came to where we ate or where we stayed. Sadly, I didn't know back then that I'd be blogging, or what a blog was, really.

But. I have some highlights for what we did. Behold:

Roswell. I looooove Roswell. It's kitschy and a clear tourist trap and I adore it. It's a place where the lamps on the lightposts are shaped like alien heads and the Wal-Mart has a spaceship sticking out of it. It knows why it's famous and goes for it, and you know what, I respect that. There are plenty of small museums dedicated to crash conspiracy coverups, and of course we had to check one out for a small fee. I knew it was time to leave when I started thinking "You know what, this museum has a point."

Also, we accidentally went during monsoon season. Yes, there's a monsoon season in the United States. It's from July through October, and we got there at a bad time for it. When we left our hotel for dinner, it was 101 degrees and there was something like a low-level sandstorm happening. By the time we left dinner, it was pitch black and we had to run out to the parking lot, where the water was almost up to the bottom of my car door. Be prepared.

It really is white sands.
White Sands National Monument. Located in White Sands, NM, it's a state park ($5), where the military does missile testing. Check to make sure there aren't any closures for testing before going. The name is pretty apt; it's all white sand dunes, where you can sit and take pictures and enjoy the silence. And I'm not kidding, you haven't actually known silence until you've been here. It's the absence of sound, which is a little freaky and really awesome. The only thing I warn about is that because you're surrounded by white sand in a hot state, stock up on the sunblock. We weren't there that long and I still got a burn. (Though I am a pasty Polish girl so maybe that had something to do with it.)

Saguaro National Park. I had a couple goals for this trip. One was to see an armadillo, and the other was to see one of those short cacti with a flower on top of it. I did see plenty of armadillos (roadkill), and Sarah took my other request and took us to a place full of cacti. Probably not the best place for someone who has a tendency to touch things and who falls down a lot, but it was pretty great. We also braved the 90-something degree weather to go on a hike. Well, Sarah and I did. Nick had a headache and stayed at the car, which I don't recommend as it was really, really, really hot. We started walking up to Painted Rock, which I think was rock art painted by the Native Americans. I don't know as I didn't actually get to it. See, I saw a sign that said "RATTLESNAKE AREA" and prompty freaked out, because what happened if there were snakes and someone got bit and did 911 even work this far out? Sarah climbed on ahead and I stayed there, getting weirded out every time I heard a noise. And finally I realized that standing by the sign wouldn't really help me because snakes can't read to know they're not allowed by the sign. After all this worrying, Sarah came back down and hadn't seen anything but gorgeous views. It's one of my biggest regrets, that I didn't go, but let's just say when in a similar situation years later, I braved the imaginary snakes.

Torrey Pines. I loved all of San Diego, and it's someplace I've visited a lot over the years. But Torrey Pines holds a special place in my heart, because that was my very first beach. It's one of those places I can still remember vividly how it smelled of salt, and I got to wade in the Pacific and anyway just go.

Point Loma. Also in San Diego, seals! Seriously, the place is covered in seals. There are also tide pools where you'd see a bunch of kids playing, but the best part was walking out and seeing seals hanging out.

You'll get more on San Diego later. There's a looot to talk about there.

For the record, my move back was way more eventful. Coming soon.