Epic Road Trip

Jesse and I went on an epic road trip. It started here in Indiana, went to Buffalo, NY then on to Mt. Lodge Park also in NY, then down to Durham in the glorious NC. This trip had many purposes, to see family and to get some things out of our storage unit in NC.

It started early on Friday morning when we loaded up the car with our maps and printed directions, suitcases, shoes, hats, the dog and all of her things. We headed out and it was a great ride. Jesse and I are very good road travelers. Put us in an airport and we are cranky and snippy with each other but in the car we are all good. We even realized that we have no toys to keep us entertained; no GPS, no satellite radio and we can’t use our phones because of our limited data. Even with all that we are still happy road trippers.

We had an uneventful ride until we got to Cleveland, Ohio. We were on THE 90 (as you Buffalonians put it) and I looked up and saw us pass under an overpass that was labeled I-90… so I mentioned it to Jesse who looked confused. We eventually realized that we should have gotten off at that exit to stay on 90 but now we were only on 80 so we had to use some precious data to reroute ourselves since we don’t have an Ohio map. It ended up working to our advantage and we missed lots of construction in Cleveland. We were able to roll into Buffalo (after about 9 hours) in time for a nice dinner with Mary, Pat and some other great people. My sweet dog Twicks was so very well behaved and got lots of love from all the people there.

We got up the next morning and headed to my side of NY as I like to call it. My parents live about an hour and a half north of NYC and I have not been to my childhood home in almost 2 years. That is way too long. I vow to not let that happen again and I hope this traveling will make it easier for me to find time to make it home more often. I miss my family! Now this may come as a surprise but it took about 7 hours to get to my parents’ house; NY is a big state. We made it in time to go out for a very nice dinner at a steakhouse that has been there forever. It is called Schlesinger’s Steakhouse. They have really good pickles as an appetizer, they rock, and of course the steaks are wonderful.

My mom wanted to go to the Stormville Flea market the next morning so we piled into the car and went to do some shopping. We stopped at Matson’s Deli to get me my bacon, egg and cheese with salt, pepper and ketchup on a hard roll. A real NY hard roll; it was heaven. Jesse and I ended up going to that deli twice more for lunch. You can’t pass up a real good deli sandwich. The flea market was interesting and very worthwhile. Jesse got a very nice heavy duty chrome tow hitch and I got a dress, running pants and cheap scrubs. We left there and headed to dinner at the Gilded Otter. It is a great restaurant and brewery in New Paltz, NY. I love their beers.

Monday was the day we got to go to the New York Renaissance Festival! I used to go at least once every late summer and eat, drink and be merry. It is a good time. We wandered around with mom and dad for a while and had some good food and drink. I even bought some earrings with mountains so that way I will have them to look at when I miss some topography (Indiana is so FLAT).

After the Ren Faire we went to get ice cream at a hill top creamery called Bellview Creamery. There ice cream was really good but the view is what I wanted. Hill and mountains as far as the eye can see with valleys filled with barns and farmland. It was beautiful. I could have sat there all day but we were in for a wonderful treat. My uncle made macaroni and gravy! (Spaghetti and meatballs for those non Italians) He makes the best meatballs. We ate and spent time with my aunts, uncle, and cousins. A wonderful time for sure and I never want to leave when I am with them.

 

Unfortunately my parents had to go back to work on Tuesday so Jesse and I entertained ourselves with the endless wifi and TV! We did get off our butt and run up the mountain that I grew up on. It is part of the Schunemunk Mountain range and in two miles it goes up 900 feet. It is really hard but the view from the top is worth the trek up. We also explored a little bit of the long path which is a trail that goes along the top of the mountain range.

Wednesday we got back out there and hiked up a different side of the mountain. It went under the trestle which is part of the train route to NYC. We went up and up and up and again we were rewarded with a wonderful view that did not involve any power lines. I love the mountains. I guess I never knew how much I would miss them until they were not longer part of the backdrop of my everyday life. We went out for dinner and ice cream again with my parents and went to bed with full bellies and tired legs.

Thursday we decided to get up early and get some breakfast at that deli again (the fourth time!). We were headed to Lake George, NY. It is my happy place and a place that my family has been going to ever since I was a newborn. We would spend at least one week every summer up there at the Hearthstone campground were we would eat breakfast that dad made on the camp stove and take the trolley into town for the best pizza ever and some skee-ball at the arcade. We would have a campfire at night and roast marshmallows and then do it all again the next day. I have my best childhood memories from Lake George. The weather for Jess and I was perfect and they were having a huge car show that weekend so lots of classic cars and hot rods were rolling in for the weekend. It was loud and full of chrome and sparkly paint and blower engines. It was awesome! We ended up taking a boat ride on the lake. I know! Jesse! On a boat! We had these seasick preventing acupuncture bracelets (Thanks to Justine!) that worked awesome. The ride was informative as well as pretty. The captain pointed out a bunch of mansions along the lake and told us some history of the people that lived in them. We ate lots and walked around a bunch and did some shopping. I had one long glimpse of the mountains and the lake while we walked back to the car to head home. We had another long day of driving ahead. If I close my eyes I can still see the clear lake and blue skies.

Friday was another epic driving day. We were going to go from my parents’ house to see Brian and Carolyne in Durham, NC. Although it was a bit different because we were now going to be towing a trailer, the one that my very generous parents gave us to help haul all our earthly possessions while we travel around this country. It is the perfect size and my dad helped us tie down the tarp and make sure it was all secure. The dog was happy since she had even more room in the Jeep. We picked the perfect route, although it was long. My parents were also kind enough to let us borrow a road atlas since we forgot ours. Now I was armed with maps of every state so we would be unstoppable. We didn’t hit any traffic or construction delays. We just rolled right along, down the east coast through Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. We were able to drive through the Shenandoah Valley and many other beautiful areas of the country. We finally made it to NC at 7:30pm, about 13 hours after we had left NY. We got settled and had a nice dinner with Brian and Carolyne before heading to bed since we had a busy day ahead of us; we had to break into our storage unit.

So in Ohio we did not only miss our road but we discovered I did not bring the key to the lock that is on the storage unit. I was less than thrilled. We ended up buying bolt cutters, tarps, rope and bungee cords at a hardware store in NY (I think we may have ended up on a watch list somewhere). And let me tell you, breaking a lock is not as easy as they make it out to be in the movies. Jesse really had to work at it to get that lock off. We managed to get in and to avoid any further problem I got a combination lock instead, that was my dad’s brilliant idea. We sorted through a bunch of boxes and found some good cool weather clothes so we will be ready for it when it comes. I also managed to convince Jesse to stay for another day since we were both off on Monday.

Because of the extra day we were able to go to the Upper Deck in Cary and watch the Buffalo Bills beat the Chicago Bears IN Chicago! It was awesome. But the best part was that I got to see my friend and previous supervisor Erin. She came to join us for some beer, wings and football. Another friend Mike was also there as was Rob, Justin and Shannon. It was a great day and just the chill out that we needed before the next epic driving day back up to Indiana with even more of our stuff packed into the trailer.

Early the next morning, in the rain, we got up and loaded the trailer and car with all our stuff. Thankfully our life is being packed into plastic bins so everything stayed dry. I planned the route with help from Google Maps and my Rand McNally road atlas. We had one fun interesting part of the drive were we weaved up part of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I swear the map didn’t show that many twists and turns when I picked 58W along the bottom of Virginia. It did keep us away from traffic and problems in Winston Salem and Greensboro and was not boring so it had that going for it. The rest of the drive was uneventful and we entertained ourselves by singing out loud to a radio station in West Virginia that alternated between pop songs and country songs every few minutes. Kentucky we searched for horses and bourbon but it was about a hundred miles in before I saw my first horse and I never saw a billboard for bourbon. Although we did see a Jeep wearing a back pack on its spare tire (Jess wants one now). Once we made it to Indiana we figured all the exciting sites were behind us until we were passed by a motor home doing 80mph towing a pickup truck that had a golf cart in the bed with a mopehead attached the trucks trailer hitch.

This was an exciting adventure of 2,296 total miles and more than 40 hours in the car. We will have many road trips ahead of us where we will be ready to tow our trailer and follow our atlas. Maybe someday we will tow and live in a camper!!! But for now we will enjoy our time with the Jesse and Nick in the Jeep and me and Twicks in the FRS towing or carrying all our belongings.

Thanks so very much to all the wonderful people that let us sleep in their spare beds and those that fed us and let us feed them and those that put up with my dog and those that took time out of their busy schedules to come see us. We love you all and appreciate all the help and support you give us while we embark on this wacky journey. Thank you mom and dad for the atlas and most of all the trailer. It will make travel so much easier!

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