Wow! So many days have passed and so very many random things have happened. I think I left off after having just entered Illinois. Well on Wednesday, we woke up quite late after getting in very late, had a nice lunch (yes, that late) at IHOP and jumped on the road. We stayed at a brand new super nice Motel 6. You can dog it, but there are places I stayed while on travel for work that wouldn’t hold a candle to this motel! We arrived in Glen Ellyn, near Chicago, after only a few hours of hassle-free driving to visit my aunt and uncle. I had a nice 24 hour visit with them, during which we went to an arboretum. What is that? Well I had no idea either. It’s a giant park where my uncle volunteered where they do a lot of research about the different types of trees. Really pretty and so very different from Arizona.
Thursday, I left Lindsey in Chicago with my aunt and uncle and drove to Indianapolis to see my friend Brette, making this the only part of this whole journey in which I drove alone. Lindsey was going to fly to New York on Friday while Brette and I drove 12 hours to meet her there. Anyway, back to Thursday: after a few hours of guilt tripping for leaving ‘early’ from my aunt, I drove 3 hours to Indianapolis, and with a ton of luck on my side, found two perfect street parking spots for my monster vehicle downtown. I met up with Brette, quickly changed, and headed downtown to celebrate Brette’s birthday at St Elmo’s downtown. It was restaurant week so we got an incredible 3 course meal for only $30! Our waiter could be the All-State man’s twin, and was hilarious! I bring this up because it was the start of a random night. GenCom was the same weekend, and if you’re not familiar, I saw a million trekkies/sci-fi/comic geeks walking around with red lanyards and swords. The oddest part of this is that a guy would come up to dance and use the pick-up line ‘where’s your sword?’. Huh!?! We went to a few fun bars and ended up at one funny one particular. A huge break dancing expo started out of nowhere right in front of us, and we were entertained by 7 amazing dancers that are apparently in a troop to appear on ‘america’s got talent’ next summer…..and one very drunk boy that thought he was as good as these guys. Too awesome and funny! It was like a clothing commercial where everyone just randomly starts dancing and others join in! I fell in bed that night at 130am next to a very inebriated birthday girl.
Friday: On the road at 630am with a (still) inebriated no longer birthday girl. We met a friend of ours for breakfast in Columbus Ohio and kept going. Driving 800 miles does not allow for a lot of stops, especially considering it was too exciting to get to New York! One issue I’ve had is my mileage range. It’s normally over 350 miles, but with the 4000lb leech attached to my car (also known to some as my future home), I’m lucky to get 150. Well, after much stressing, I realized my stupid empty gas light comes on using the car’s internal calculations at exactly 50 miles remaining. Guhh! All these days I’ve been stopping 40 miles early thinking it’s like every other car that the light comes on with the last gallon! Ugh! So, I unwittingly test the boundary of that internal calculation. In the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania, my gas light came on. No big deal. Just go for a few more miles and there will be a stop…right? That’s what has happened everywhere else. Well I pass an exit that doesn’t say anything about having a gas station and did. I’m down to 10 miles. No big. This has happened before. So far the closest I’ve come is 6 miles to go and there was still well over a gallon of gas in the tank. With the assumption that Pennsylvania is too lazy to post every gas station like every other state I had been in, I exit at the next station. We had turned the a/c off a few miles earlier. No reason to tempt fate, right? No station in sight. The very nice toll man informs me it’s down the road ‘yonder’ then 4 miles down on the left. Uh oh. My calculation currently reads 2 miles. I guess we’re really going to test this out! We go ‘yonder’, turn left, and realize we’re in Amish country. To ensure my car makes it the whole way, I put the car in neutral on these giant hills and coast about 2 miles, even managing to pass a couple of buggy’s and plain clothed riders. Brette and I were cracking ourselves up with button and electricity quips, and were sure to take a picture of a buggy from behind, so as not to freak out the occupant, as I heard on a lifetime movie that the Amish don’t like their picture taken. (So we took a picture of the buggy….not the Amish or their horse…get it?). Anyway we passed two abandoned gas stations….a cosmic joke perhaps. I was trying not to freak out though, as I am now unemployed, I am trying out a new zen personality. So far I like it. It’s less sarcastic, but a little boring. Luckily we pull into the gas station and I’ve only been on empty for 4 miles, hehe. I still had a gallon left in the tank. Stupid car. The rest of the drive was uneventful until we entered New York. I have been dreading driving the trailer around Manhattan. This is the one part of the trip I was actually not looking forward to…and that was even before I knew what a hassle the massive lead weight was. Not too bad, other than the $18 toll to get on the island. (So far the toll count is $60). I had lined up a parking spot at a truck parking lot on 125th, which it turns out is Harlem. Huh. I drop my truck off to this lot that couldn’t have held 25 normal parking spots, let alone be home to 50 massive trucks. They had them so packed in, I happily turned over the keys rather than try to maneuver in the lot, and headed for the subway with Brette. I anticipated that this wouldn’t be the best neighborhood, so I had done the research early on where the stop was, which line to take, etc. This would have gone according to plan had I not left my wallet in the car. Oops! Brette and I had to walk back the 2 very scary blocks where I found my car in its new home for two days, completely unlocked…huh. Good thing there are like 6 locks on the trailer. The only thing to steal in the car was the GPS (and apparently my wallet). We head back to the subway, and as I go through the turnstile my bag gets stuck. The handle is exactly caught on the silver bar. I’m not sure I could redo that if I tried! Brette runs her card through but that only allowed her and my newly freed bag through. I’m now waiting on the other side of the turnstile for her to go buy one more ticket to get her through, since jumping the turnstile is frowned upon. We get on all the right lines and pop out in time square with a short two block walk to the Marriott Marquis – a gorgeous hotel where my sister and friend Amber were waiting for us to arrive. A long long day of driving and a very patient (surprisingly not hung-over) passenger, we made it! Now was time to party in NY! After dropping our stuff in the hotel we went out for a great meal and a few drinks with my best friends.
Saturday – we woke up at a reasonable time and considering there were four girls sharing one bathroom, did well to go get our traditional bagel by 10am. There really is nothing quite as good for breakfast as a New York bagel. Forget cheesecake! We took the subway up to 190th street to a museum my sister really wanted to check out called ‘Cloisters’ full of medieval art, including a unicorn tapestry room. Yup – it turns out unicorns are real. While the mythical aspects may not be entirely true, there are 7 sightings of unicorns in the Old Testament and supposedly they were real. They were as strong as an ox and could take an elephant down using, you guessed it, the horn. We saw really nice pieces of art and tapestry but were astounded by the gorgeous-ness (yup that’s a new word) of the park that held the Cloisters. It’s called Tryon Park and I can’t believe no one has told me about this place. Way nicer than Central Park and so pretty! Views of the Hudson, cool bridges and tunnels, and apparently the gardens were recreations of British gardens derived from poetry. The rest of the afternoon passed quickly with lunch and shopping, and it was time to get ready for our big show. This is the real reason I got this rag-tag group of friends together, to see Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes in ‘Promises, Promises’. I’m a big Kristin fan. She’s so positive and has a cool outlook on life while managing to stay Christian in what is so not a typical Christian profession. Plus she has an amazing voice and is adorable! Okay…the play was amazing! They sang songs like ‘Say a Little Prayer’ and ‘I’ll never fall in love again’ – great Burk Bacaracks (sp??) that I was introduced to by the ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ Soundtrack. Well – to have my favorite actress singing them right in front of me! Wow! The plot was really interesting and it was funny, and I loved the random dance sequences, and that it was set in the 50’s….so fun! We all left the theatre buzzing to a quaint Italian place down on 49th. (See how I just throw street names in like I’m a local….yea I pretty much am now….I mean this is my seventh trip to the island.) The food was great but randomly, at the end of the meal, our waitress informs us that the service charge listed on the bill isn’t gratuity, it’s for the florist and pianist. Huh!? I’m paying extra for their flowers?? Random! So to fully appreciate what we paid for, my friends and I piled into the one person bathroom to admire the hundreds of rose petals that were apparently carefully placed there. We took a few pictures and had a few laughs to where we felt justified that we got the full value of the flowers. There was a waiter totally cracking up as we all piled out of the bathroom like it was a clowncar.
Sunday – a little slower moving after our big night out, we checked our bags with the bellman, and headed out to a French restaurant for lunch. (yup….that slow). We had an enjoyable lunch full of laughs. Clearly my plan to spend my last weekend as a patriot (as I would soon be an ex-pat) with my three best friends was perfect! The groups melded seamlessly and it was totally relaxing! I couldn’t have had a more awesome fun trip! We went to the M&M and Hershey’s stores to kill time, said goodbye to one friend, went to Madame Taussaud’s Wax museum and took a million silly pictures, said goodbye to the next friend, and Linds and I ran to St Patrick’s Cathedral for the 4pm mass before hitting the road. I love this church! It’s so intricate! Lindsey said if the Catholic Church decides that there’s an entire country that needs feeding, they could just sell of the artifacts in St Patricks and keep them well fed for a year! Randomly, the mass we made it to was in Spanish, so we got time to reflect on the magnificence of the church. We ran back to the hotel, jumped on the subway, and headed back to get our car. I may not have described the parking lot adequately for fear my mother reads this. It was pretty sketchy. I wasn’t too sure my car, trailer, or any combination therein would be there when I showed up with my claim ticket. Did you hear about the cop shootings in Harlem on Saturday night? Well that was one block north of this place. When Linds and I walked the two blocks from the subway to the lot, there were hoards of SWAT wandering around. I’m not sure how hard my angels had to work to get me through that one, but they do a great job. Oh and the car was in perfect condition. Huh. Cool! We got on the road without too many wrong turns as my GPS was in a constant ‘recalculating’ loop – great. We passed through Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, bringing the total states passed through up to 16 for me! (Linds missed out on Ohio, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, so her number is much much lower!) Consequently, I had never been to Ohio, so that was a new state for me. Only 5 more to see: Hawaii, Alaska, North and South Dakota, and Montana, but there’s not much hope for those on this road trip. (Hey…as one who loves stats, I’ve been to 90% of the states in the US. Cool! Great time to leave!) We stopped in Augusta, Maine for the night, at …you guessed it… a Motel 6, with a mere 7 hour drive ahead of us for Monday. When we pulled in there was a fire engine out front....great sign! Apparently the fire has been contained and we're safe to go in. yea! If we had arrived any earlier, we would have been kicked out until now anyway! What great timing!
I have officially been on vacation / unemployed for 10 days. It feels great! I got my last paycheck, so it’s really real. Linds pointed out to me when we were in Oklahoma that since we had everything I owned with me in Oklahoma…did that make me and Okie?? Dork. Tomorrow…I will be Canadian!
Hours passed since trip started: 240
Hours driven: 64 (12 + 6 + 19 + 3 + 4 + 13 + 7)
Miles driven: 3600 miles
Tolls: $90 (guhhH!)
Books read……0
Favorite town: Shartsville (hahahahahha)
