I Think I'll Go To Boston

In Jay Leno’s last episode last night, James Taylor’s performance of “Sweet Baby” reminded me of our journey on the open roads. Jay’s favorite lyrics of the song,“with ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go," is a good motto for our expedition as we passed the two thousand mile mark entering Rhode Island today and still have many more miles left to go.

With a good night’s rest and making sure to take breaks for every few hours of traveling, I think we will be energized to finish the second half of the trip as strong as the first without becoming fatigued by some seemingly endless stretches of monotonous interstate driving.

Russ gets an A for navigating through Times Square yesterday like a champ. I guess if medical school doesn’t work out, he would make an excellent taxi cab driver on Manhatten Island. Coach Bryant once said, “Act like you’ve been there before,” and Russ certainly piloted the pathfinder through the chaos of the Friday five o'clock traffic like a local. However, on the TSDA Report Card, Hayden would receive a minimally passing grade as he struggled to follow course through the Yale campus in New Haven, CT. He missed a couple of crucial turns that led us through the Ivy League school twice. Needless to say, he was one wrong turn away from getting a hickory switch behind the wood shed.

Similar to simple-minded Lloyd Christmas chauffeuring Mary Swanson to the airport, Hayden managed to not make any more mistakes and successfully reached his destination in Providence, Rhode Island. Mary: “Could you keep your eyes on the road please?” Lloyd: “Oh, yea! Good thinking. You can’t be too careful. There are a lot of bad drivers out there.” The other members of the TSDA collectively concluded that Hayden receives an F+ since we did arrive in The Ocean State safely.

Continuing with the TSDA Driving Report Card, I would not receive a much higher grade than Hayden. I took over the wheel in Rhode Island’s state capital and drove forty miles down the road to Boston to see Quincy Market, Harvard, and Fenway Park. We dined in Quincy Market, which was very clean like the rest of Boston, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. Russ and Hayden tried prime rib and I went with sushi. I think everyone on the trip would agree that Rhode Island and Massachusetts would receive an A for the friendliest cleanest places we have visited.

Heading on to MIT and Harvard, we wanted to have a few sightseeing stops before reaching our northernmost stop in Portland, Maine. I thought I was acclimated to the driving conditions in the area after doing pretty well for the first couple of hours. We luckily found a parking garage only a few blocks away from Harvard, so we could see the campus quickly before checking out Fenway Park where Dave Matthews was playing a show.

After a swift tour of the oldest university in the US, I piloted the pathfinder onto Fenway Park. However, I had a misfortunate incident pulling out of the parking garage in front of Harvard, completely missing a red light and a large police van resembling an ambulance. Russ and Hayden immediately made me aware of my mistake, but the blue lights were already flashing behind me. My sheer nervousness, absolute honesty, and luck facilitated the officer to let me go and say “just be more careful next time.” Why doesn’t this happen to Hayden? Because he never drives. He is way too focused on reading about Auburn recruiting on his Blackberry to be able to drive a car.

A few minutes and a sigh of relief later, we arrive at the entrance of Fenway Park with the sweet sounds of the Dave Matthews Band resonating around Kenmore Square in Boston. I listened to the melodies of Dave’s “So Damn Lucky” driving by the baseball stadium, probably as a tribute to me luckily avoiding a dilemma in Harvard. Funny the Way It Is. We safely made it to Portland, Maine, two hours later and will begin to direct our travels westward in the morning.

TSDA Chronicles #10: Our Northernmost Point

Saturday May, 30 (sorry I couldn't get pictures to work today)

Fortunately for the three amigos, the hotel dryer was working this morning, so Hayden and I were able to dry our clothes and irritability was minimized. We got a late start so that we could sleep in because everyone was tired from last night's laundry fiasco. Our first stop was KFC where we tried out the highly advertised grilled chicken...it kind of just tasted like high school cafeteria chicken. From there we took one of our famous self-guided driving tours of Yale University; we tried to find the DKE house, but Hayden was driving so needless to say precision

 navigation wasn't exactly a possibilty. In fact, we barely made it out of New Haven at all because he kept taking the wrong exit on the interstate. 45 minutes and a couple of violent threats later, however, we were (not so) safely barreling our way toward Providence.

We didn't really spend a whole lot of time in Providence, but we did stay long enough to notice that it was really clean...especially after being in NYC yesterday. We drove around the campus of Brown University, which was weird because all of the school buildings we saw just looked like old, nice houses. We also parked very illegally and ran out to take some pictures on the steps of the Rhode Island statehouse. All in all, TSDA grades Rhode Island with a solid A.

The next stop along the route was Boston. Once again, the city really caught us off guard with its cleanliness. We stopped at Quincy Market to grab some dinner and see what was up. Hayden bought my food, and since I was out of cash, I just paid him back by giving him a creampie instead. Yesterday we ate cheesesteaks in Philadelphia, and today we did the creampie thing in Boston...who knows what tomorrow will bring.

We drove around Boston for a few hours after dinner to see some sites and then headed north for Maine. Once we got there, the toll booths reared their ugly heads once more after taking a 2-3 state hiatus for the last day or so. We did manage to play some pretty awesome practical jokes on the attendants, though, so we didn't mind too much. The signs at the rest stops in Maine were pretty unique as well...reminding us that if we get thirsty it might be because we are dehydrated and that snack foods aren't meal replacements. Feeling just a little bit wiser, we rolled into our $50 hotel room around 10:30.

Gasoline Purchased Today: 15 gallons

Sleeping Accomodations: Clarion- Portland

Tomorrow's Destination: Buffalo, NY

Potential Stops en Route: I have no idea

Potential Problems: Hayden: "all he's done is breathe for nine days"--Barrett

TSDA Chronicles #9: The Pathfinder Pounds Through Times Square

Friday May 29, 2009

Today's adventure was a productive one.  Honestly, it's hard not to be productive when you wake up to a Holiday Inn Express free breakfast on a smoggy day in a state as great as New Jersey.  Our first destination was Philadelphia, which is only about an hour drive from Atlantic City.  It would be our first experience with ultra urban driving, and, lucky for me, today was my day to drive.

We pretty much took the most sterotypical Philadelphia tour that we possibly could have.  Parked in a garage, saw the Liberty Bell, and walked around Independence Hall and took pictures.  We also walked about a mile and a half through some questionable neighborhoods to Pat's King of Steaks--the home of the Philly Cheesesteak.  The sandwich was great and the meal relatively inexpensive, and Pat's quality was matched only by their unfriendliness.  After lunch we figured we had squeezed this town for everything it was worth, so we hopped on the New Jersey turnpike for the 2 hour drive to New York.

After paying $8 to get on to Manhattan, it took me a little while to get used to the driving rules here.  Apparently, you don't have to use blinkers, drive within a lane, or stop at red lights in Manhattan.  Once I got acclimated to the driving culture I was able to scoot us around pretty effectively...Hayden was in the backseat as my lane-change spotter and Barrett was up front taking (325) pictures.  After two hours of high stress driving through south Manhattan in 5

 o'clock rush hour traffic, a tour which included a couple of passes through Times Square and past the WTC site, we headed north and got on I-95 to continue our travels.

Still battling Friday evening traffic to get out of the city, it took us longer than expected to reach New Haven, CT.  We did get to pay at least one more $8 toll on top of seeing our sixth Dr. MLK Jr. street of the trip so far, though, so it was probably worth it.  Also of note is that today marked the 8th cloudy day of the trip...we have not had a sunny one yet...perhaps the "Almighty Smiter" is trying to keep us out of sight and out of mind.  Once we got to the hotel, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that they had washer/dryer facilities on site.  Hayden and I loaded up all of the crew's dirty clothes in the washer...only to find 45 minutes later that the machine's spin cycle didn't work.  We then spent an additional 30 minutes hand-wringing everything out before drying...in the dryer that didn't work well either.  After numerous attempts to fix the dryer and even rig up our own hairdryer/clothes hanger contraption to dry our stuff, at 2 am we just hung the stuff up all around the room.  Definitely not going to be dry in the morning.

Gasoline Purchased Today: 12 gallons

Sleeping Accomodations: Courtyard Marriott- Wallingford

Tomorrow's Destination: Maine, our northernmost stop

Potential Stops en Route: Yale, Providence, Boston, Harvard

Potential Problems: Wet clothes

Atlantic City

It's the 8th straight cloudy day on the trip. Last night, we went to Caesar's Palace, Trump Plaza, and walked down the boardwalk. A bar down the boardwalk called Flame was filled with some locals from the My New Haircut video (jager bomb?). Russ lost 10 dollars on the slot machines, and Hayden and I lost 5 dollars each. That's probably the extent of my gambling for a long time. The monopoly boardgame is modeled after the streets in Atlantic City, and we drove down the fifth MLK Blvd. in a week. Today's stops include "The City of Brotherly Love," the Big Apple, and hopefully sleep in Connecticut.

TSDA Chronicles #8: Superman May Wear Chuck Norris PJ's, but Chuck Norris wears TSDA Underpants

Thursday May 28, 2009

Today was primarily a travel day.  We arose and departed the Plaza by the crack of noon and ate lunch at the sketchiest and creepiest McDonald's any of us had ever visited.  In a single half hour, we ordered food from someone who didn't speak English, saw a wiley-bearded schizophrenic mumbling to himself while circling the booth, and watched as a dude started feeding some woman's kids whom he had never met before.  Needless to say, we got out of there as fast as we reasonably could and set sail for Baltimore.

To make a long story short, the best part about Baltimore was leaving Baltimore.  A quick trip from DC, the fabled home of Cal Ripken Jr. and LeRon McClain exposed these seasoned travelers to their first toll booth experience...and also to their second, third, fourth, and fifth toll booth experiences.  They really pack those things in up here.  We stopped by Johns Hopkins University to walk around and tour the facilities and again came away unimpressed.  Although we did rank the campus above Auburn and Tennessee, it left a lot to be desired when compared to Duke and Alabama.  Camden Yards and Ravens Stadium looked really good from the interstate, but even they couldn't salvage things.

Our next stop was world famous Dover, Delaware.  Lucky for us, the whole town was busy

 gearing up for a big race weekend, which meant we got a rare inside glimpse of NASCAR country at its finest.  Big trucks, race teams, and RV's were the order of the day in Dover, and we took a couple of great pictures in front of the equipment truck of our friend Kegs' very favorite race team: Tony Stewart.  Let's turn 'em and burn 'em this weekend, Tony!

 

Atlantic City, home of Monopoly, was our final stop of the day.  Getting here involved hours of backroads exploring through a medley of rural sights and smells, not to mention about five more toll booths.  We really need to invest in an EZ Pass.  After checking in to the hotel, we drove into AC to visit the casinos and the Boardwalk.  Two hours, $25, and a toll booth later, we returned to the hotel to rest up for tomorrow's big plans.

Gasoline Purchased Today: 16 gallons

Sleeping Accomodations: Holiday Inn Express- West Atlantic City

Tomorrow's Destination: Somewhere, Connecticut

Potential Stops en Route: Philadelphia, New York City

Potential Problems: Navigating the pathfinder through downtown Manhattan 

  

TSDA Chronicles #7: DC for the Day

First of all, I apologize for posting this one late.  This post is about Wednesday, May 27th.  I just didn't have time to write when we got home from Murphy's that night, and we've been on the road all day today (Thursday the 28th).

Today we took a break from the road and hung out with Jackson in Washington all day.  I woke up to a swift kick in the ribs from Jackson after an envigorating night of rest in my sleeping bag on the floor, and soon afterward we scooted on over to Old Town Alexandria for lunch.  From there we caught the Metro over to the National Mall for a day of cliche tourist activities.  

Jackson first directed us to the Smithsonian castle, where we promptly skipped over all the stupid antiques and artifacts as we made our way back to the crown jewel of the city: the football that was used in the '81 Iron Bowl and presented to Coach Paul W."Bear" Bryant as his record-shattering 315th career win, a record he held on to posthumously for nearly 20 years.  We then spent hours scouring the place for some Auburn memoribilia, but in the end we came up emptyhanded.  Hayden was disappointed to say the least, but he did assure us that their current recruiting class is full of "high character" guys, and that Gene Chizik doesn't care about accolades or star-gazing anyway.

Anyway, back to the trip.  Our next stop was the National

 Holocaust Museum.  Jackson got us in with military passes so we got to skip the lines which saved a lot of time.  The museum itself was set up well and contained tons of information--more than we could feasibly take in in just a few hours.  After walking through the exhibit we went over across the Mall to the Smithsonian American History Museum.  Again, we didn't really have enough time to really get

 everything possible out of this one.

   The highlights here included Kermit the frog, Oscar the Grouch, the Star-Spangled Banner thatinspired Francis Scott Key to write our national anthem, and--for Hayden--the C3PO costume from Return of the Jedi.  After the museums we walked over to the White House and took a bunch of super sweet pix in front of it.  I wanted to get one of the rooftop snipers, but they proved too elusive for me.  We ate a nice little dinner at Hawk and Dove, which has allegedly been the site of a good bit of Congressional/Staffer extracurricular fraternization.  After dinner on the way back to Plaza del Jackson, we stopped by the Pentagon 9/11 memorial.  It was really nice and well done.

Once we got back to the Plaza, we cleaned up before taking a cab over to Murphy's Irish Pub in Old Town.  It's a quaint little Irish bar full of locals, off-duty police officers, and merrymaking young twenty-somethings.  We enjoyed some pints and appetizers to the tunes of the local Irishman who was playing such Irish folk classics as "Alice," "Sweet Home Alabama," and "Freebird."  Once we started with the Roll Tide Roll choruses during SHA, we quickly became the most popular people in the bar...I guess they thought meeting authentic Alabamians in an Irish pub in Virginia was pretty exotic.  Either way, people started buying us rounds of pints for free, which really worked out in our favor.

Now, I would like to end this post with a G-rated rendition of the old Irish "Maid of Honor" blessing that the entertainment serenaded us with:

"This is the Maid of Honor.

I hugged her sitting,

I hugged her lying,

If she had wings, I'd hug her flying.

If she was dead and long forgotten,

I'd dig her up and hug her rotten."

Gasoline Purchased Today: 0 gallons

Sleeping Accomodations: Plaza del Jackson

Tomorrow's Destination: Either Dover, Atlantic City, or Philadelphia

Potential Stops en Route: Baltimore, Dover

Potential Problems: Grogginess

Best of What's Around

Begin Day 5 in Williamsburg on the 5th straight cloudy day, and it seems like another cloudy day in Washington D.C. tomorrow. Needing an oil change to keep the car in good shape for the rest of the trip, we made a quick stop by the Jiffy Lube before heading on to Colonial Williamsburg.

The Sigma Nu House in Tuscaloosa was modeled after the Governor’s Palace there, where many of the governors resided before moving to the current house located behind the State Capitol in Richmond. Thomas Jefferson was the last governor to live in the house, and he probably had an office looking out the same window as mine at Sigma Nu, or I like to tell myself that.


We drove to the Visitor’s Center and quickly learned that it was about forty dollars to walk around Colonial Williamsburg, so we characteristically tried to get as much out of the Visitor’s Center and surrounding areas without Hayden and me having to pay eighty dollars to see pilgrims pretend like it’s not 2009.

We noticed a huge wall blocking a building, but we could see a cupola behind some trees that closely resembled the Sigma Nu House’s cupola. By an elementary school around the corner, there was a No Parking Zone and a trail that led up to the mansion. Hayden dropped us off and we tip-toed down the trail Sam-Fischer-from-Splinter-Cell style to catch a glimpse of the Governor’s Palace. Passing a woman dressed in Amish attire, we turned away from her so she wouldn’t see that we didn’t have our passes to get into the colonial area. We successfully made our way to the Williamsburg Sigma Nu House and snapped a couple quick pictures before sneaking out of the historical district.

After passing through William and Mary College in Williamsburg, we were on to the nation’s capital. It’s only two hours away and it rained most of the way. We met Russ’ P-Chem partner, Jackson, at his apartment (Plaza del Jackson as Russ likes to refer to it) in Alexandria, VA, and we hung out for a little while and then went on the metro to catch a bite to eat.

Jackson suggested we try Ben’s Chili Bowl, since it was pretty good and right next to a metro stop.
Obama dined at this place for his first public meal after his inauguration and was joined by the Washington D.C. mayor, Adrian Fenty. Russ and I got chili cheeseburgers, so I probably won’t have to eat tomorrow.
We then headed to Buffalo Billiards to watch the first half of the Magic v. Cavs, passing through a gay pride rally, where I signed a petition saying that I believe in equality. Who doesn’t? For the second half of the game, we went downtown Washington to a bar called Tom Tom for about a half hour so we could make the last call for the metro by midnight.

It’s about 1:50 here right now, and we stopped by a 7-11 on the mile walk home so Hayden could buy his ham and cheese hot pockets. We are definitely going to see the White House tomorrow, some museums, maybe the Lincoln Memorial. So apart from that Ms. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? So long for now.

TSDA Chronicles #6: Entramos a la Plaza del Jackson

The morning started off with a bang.  When we were loading the car, we realized that the styrofoam cooler in the trunk had somehow leaked, so while Barrett loaded out the room Hayden and I were scrubbing the trunk carpet with towels.  Half an hour later, we departed to find a local Jiffy Lube in Williamsburg because the pathfinder was about 1000 miles overdue for service.  

We then decided that it might be cool to stop by Colonial Williamsburg for a visit.  We headed over to the visitor's center, and to our surprise we found that tickets cost $40 apiece.  Hayden and Barrett really wanted a picture of the Governor's Palace on the site, though, because legend holds that Thomas Jefferson himself modeled it after the University of Alabama Sigma Nu house.  Instead of paying, we used Google Maps satellite view to find the old goat path/side entrance and Barrett and I snuck through Xerxes style--minus the scissoring--to take the pictures of the palace. When we got back to the extraction point Hayden had driven off, though, which pretty much ruined the stealthiness.

After Williamsburg we set off for DC.  We originally planned to do a self-guided driven tour of the city upon arrival, but last minute we decided that traffic would probably be too bad for that.  We went straight to the Plaza del Jackson--my friend Jackson's apartment in Alexandria, VA--and brought up our stuff.

We cleaned up a little bit and then headed into the city on the Metro with Jackson.  He first directed us to a restaurant on the green line called Ben's Chili Bowl, which has apparently

 achieved a spectacular level of notoriety among the locals because Barack Obama ate there one time.  It was solid food though.  We then hopped back on the Metro to go over to Dupont Circle, where we went to an underground sports bar to watch the first part of the Magic-Cavs game.  After that, we again took the Metro to the Adams-Morgan district, where after a short and misguided walk we arrived at another bar where we quickly found ourselves caught in the whirlwind of a bachelorette party.  After assisting the ladies with as many of the items on their scavenger hunt list as we could while remaining complete gentlemen, we booked it back to the Metro and caught the last set of trains back to Huntingdon Station and walked back to Jackson's place.  

Gasoline Purchased today: 14 gallons

Sleeping Accomodations: Plaza del Jackson

Tomorrow's Destination: Staying in DC

Potential Stops en Route: Assorted Smithsonians, museums, and monuments

Potential Problems: Rain, WMD's

Richmond Jam

We arrived in Richmond last night and had a great personal tour of the town and bars by Russ’ friend, Scott. They met on a greek retreat in Greece, and he was very helpful showing us a lot of things about the state’s capital that we would not otherwise see. We ate at a oyster/alligator place where we went to catch a bite to eat and grab a brew.

I left my wallet in the car, and figured that I could get by with the “Hey we’re twins, I’m 22 also.” Without my ID, that line tends to work 90% of the time. However, this waiter was not cool, and said that wouldn’t fly with him. So I had to stare at the rest of the table enjoying their tallboy PBRs, while I teetotled.

After supper, we had a tour of all the famous monuments and sites in Richmond. I never realized how large the city was, and I was in awe of the architecture and history of the town. After finishing with some sightseeing, we headed to Buddy's and Curbside bars to catch to the Eastern Conference Finals over some Magic Hat beers and watched the Cavs take a pretty hard loss.

Russ pricelined a hotel from his blackberry about 11p.m. and we got in pretty late. I went to bed pretty happy after finding an early copy of the new Dave CD, while Hayden was suffering from food poison that he randomly caught sometime that night.

We had a later-than-expected start heading to Williamsburg this morning. Leaving from Richmond, we drove through the VCU campus and saw the coliseum where the Anthony Grant coached a few months ago before moving to Tuscaloosa. We arrived to Busch Gardens after a quick stop at Chicken-fa-la (I got a Dr. Pepper to drink, Unforgiveable). Russ, Hayden, and I rode some sweet rides on a less crowded, cloudy Memorial Day. We’ve yet to have a sunny day on our 1200 mile journey. Busch Gardens was much larger than I expected, and we saw all walks of life and tons of PDA.

Haydeebug as usual sported his game-time white headband and Russ characteristically sweated profusely as we walked to the first ride. We stayed until eight so the crowds would die down so we could dominate a couple of rides over and over. Like Russ said, we had a couple of run-ins with having crazy pictures taken during the course of some of the roller coaster rides. Its almost midnight and we are completely exhausted from the all of the walking and activities in the park.

Tomorrow we hope to cover some historic sites in Williamsburg before heading to Washington D.C. for two nights to stay with Russ’ friend, Jackson. Hopefully in Williamsburg, we will see some old timey places where all of the employees dress and act in character (like its 1864). I really really hope they act in character and do not break no matter what. We’ve passed several Virginia Tech bumper stickers and t-shirts and hope they saw my new Roll Tide Roll license plate and are steadfastly awaiting the September 5th kickoff in Atlanta. Will close for now, Obama is likely to see the black pathfinder coming down Pennsylvania Avenue tomorrow.

TSDA Chronicles #5: Busch Gardens--Anheuser Busch's Great Tool for Creating Brand Loyalty in Children

In light of last night's health
 issues, we slept in today and made it a late-morning take off.  Richmond to Williamsburg is a pretty short stretch, and we arrived around 12:45 pm.  The drive was pretty uneventful: Taylor Swift, lots of blackberrying, Barrett taking pictures of every interstate sign that said "Charlottesville."...the usual.

We went straight to Busch Gardens, dropped $60 apiece for day passes, and ran into the

 park like we had something to prove.  Crowds weren't really bad and it was pretty overcast, so we were able to move quickly from area to area.  On the first pass through the park we scouted out all the major rollercoasters to determine at what point in the ride your picture gets taken.  Basically, all of them take your picture right after a big drop or turn or something, and we needed to know where they were for some plans we had for later in the day.

Once we had ridden everything at least once, we decided we were hungry. Instead of emptying our wallets on questionable themed food in "New Italy," we just went out to the car and ate brownies, sunchips, and redbull.  Real lunch-of-champions type stuff.  Re-energized, we headed full steam back into the park; we had work to do.  

We spent the remaining 3 hours of our time before the park closed riding and re-riding two specific rollercoasters with particularly susceptible camera placements.  While standing in line, we choreographed what our poses would be and then showed our stuff when the cameras flashed.  After a couple of tries that resulted in our pictures being deleted from the viewing monitors, we learned for the most part what the management would and would not tolerate.  So after a few rides of pushing the limits to the max we could tell we were wearing out our welcome.  In one particular instance, when we tried to use Barrett's camera to take a picture of our picture on the monitor (instead of paying $15 for it) we were politeley informed that we were in violation of copyright law and our cameras could be seized.  So instead of sticking around and waiting for that to happen, we skidaddled over to the other side of the park to continue our hijinks on a different ride until close.

So after a long day of general mischief and profuse sweating, we checked in to our hotel that Barrett got for super cheap by bidding for it on priceline.  We've found that the "name your price" feature on priceline.com is going to to save us 20-25% on hotel rooms every night.  Not too shabby.

Gasoline Purchased today: 0 gallons

Sleeping Accomodations: Crowne Plaza- Williamsburg

Tomorrow's Destination: Washington DC- Plaza del Jackson

Potential Stops en Route: Colonial Williamsburg, jiffy lube

Potential Problems: DC traffic, questionable charges showing up on the Funley's checking account (courtesy of The Bear Trap), colonial actors refusing to get out of character in the event of an emergency

TSDA Chronicles #4: Too Tired

It's late, I'm tired, and I don't think I'd be able to write a solid update so I'll abstain from trying.  Here's the cliff notes:

• Headed to Richmond
• Toured around the SigEp headquarters
• Hung out with my friend Scott and he showed us a bunch of cool historical sites in Richmond.  We all got some food, hung out at some bars with uncannily good music selections, and couldn't help but notice that we seemed to be the only tatt-less people in town.
  
• Checked in to the hotel late
• I think Hayden has food poisoning.  If it's the stomach flu and I catch it from him we're going to have problems

Gasoline purchased today: 15 gallons

Sleeping Accomodations: Holiday Inn- I64 West

Tomorrow's Destination: Busch Gardens in Williamsburg

Potential Stops en Route: Pharmacy?

Potential Problems: Hayden's health

Virginia Is For Lovers

Today’s Trip – Durham, NC to Chapel Hill, NC to Richmond, VA

Traversing a significant portion of the Southeastern US , we have traveled a 1000 miles in about fifty hours, passing through Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. The roads and scenery are steadily beginning to differ from Sweet Home Alabama. North Carolina definitely had some of the most scenic routes I’ve ever seen.

After a good night’s rest in Coach K Territory, we headed to the Duke University campus to see the site home to the infamous Lacrosse Team, as well as Cameron Coliseum and Wallace Wade Stadium. The college houses immediately surrounding the campus closely resembled neighborhoods in Tuscaloosa where UA students reside behind Tutweiler. Arriving in Durham about 8 last night, we watched another exiting game of the NBA Conference Finals. After getting settled, Russ suggested a pub that served various sandwiches and such called The Down Under Pub.

After wandering through some of the streets on the Duke Campus, including Chapel Hill Road (my street in Dothan), we found this eatery in a desolate dark part of town. Attempting to parallel park, a gentleman without a home who bears close resemblance to Kevin Garnett (and Anthony Grant) approached our pathfinder and met Hayden at the car door. However, this guy few feet shorter than KG and had a studdering problem, and in his first words he stated the obvious, “I know I’m black.” Hayden, sporting the sporting the famous Spring 2009 Old Row T-Shirt, generously gave him two dollars and told him he had to save the rest of his cash for his dinner. So we went into the restaurant/pub to get menus, and Hayden and Russ swiftly returned to the car to lock up all the valuables. The Bear Trap-esqe eatery was full of college guys watching the game, and a significant number of lesbian couples. Very interesting experience.

I woke up this morning, with Russ standing above me trying to take a picture of Hayden and me sleeping in the same bed. Either he has a twin fetish or Russ is trying to feed the famous rumor that Hayden and I have racecar bunk beds in Tuscaloosa. But deep down inside, I think he really fantasizes about Jason Mraz.

Starting today’s adventures on the third straight cloudy day and after three delicious enchiladas, we explored Duke before traveling down Tobacco Road to quickly survey the UNC in Chapel Hill. The Duke campus was much more attractive relative to their rival school. I noticed the Blue Devil Stadium was named in honor of Wallace Wade, who was their best football coach, who was our fourth best coach, who is about to be our fifth best coach, winning three national championships in Tuscaloosa. We were able to go see Coach K Court where the state’s best high school players were competing in a summer league. For some strange reason, every time Hayden takes over the wheel, University Police seems to follow the pathfinder for miles. Even though Hayden sometimes may break or accelerate at inappropriate times, the cops may wonder why a drunk driver would be going around campus at noon on a Sunday.

After the first two days of 400+ mile drives, today was only 150 miles, which now seems just like a drive in the park. Russ is enthused about visiting the native soil of Jazon Mraz, Sigma Phi Epsilon, and Chris Brown, but most importantly we all know that Virginia is the notorious stomping grounds of the Dave Matthews Band.

TSDA Chronicles #3: University of Tennessee and Travel Day

So after eating a ginormous free breakfast and loading up the ice chest with extras, we headed to the UT campus in downtown Knoxville in search of Lance Thompson.  We didn't find him, but we did get some sweet pics of Neyland Stadium.  It kind of looks an oversized merry-go-round with a bunch of tin scrapmetal attached to the outside as if it were an afterthought.  

We also tried to give ourselves a self-guided tour of some of the academic buildings there, but most of them were locked.  Hayden and I did manage to finagle into their main campus library however, where we both found it inside ourselves to leave sizable donations.  We noticed that the library didn't really have any books in it, so now hopefully they'll be able to buy some.  Also of note was a display case containing a "centaur skeleton."  I can't decide if it was some kind of school-backed anti-evolution statement, or if they actually think they found a centaur.

So after leaving campus, which was surprisingly devoid of any and all alleged "rockiness," the three amigos headed east to North Carolina.  The hills and mountains were nice, but ole' Teetotlin' did get frustrated from time to time with the 55 mph speed limits.  We planned on going to the Biltmore near Asheville, but admission was $60 per.  So we watched the intro video, took some pictures of some pictures, and went downtown for lunch.  We would have taken some pictures from the parking lot, but the driveway was 3 miles long.  

From Asheville, yours truly piloted the crew safely down out of the mountains, over the rivers, and through the woods in the torrential rain to Durham, NC.  We got a sweet deal on a room at the Courtyard Marriott near Duke and checked in, brought our stuff to the room, and posted up.

Gasoline purchased today: 15 gallons

Sleeping Accomodations: Courtyard Marriott-Duke University

Tomorrow's Destination: Duke/UNC campuses, Richmond

Potential Stops en Route: Who knows

Potential Problems: Clear skies with an 80% chance of mixin' it up

Recently

My trip began this morning with a bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed wake up call from ole Russ who was eager to begin "The Climb" up the east coast. Still a bit sleepy and haven't even packed, Russ arrives and is ready to hit the road.

We started chasing pavements around 10:00 a.m. this morning. The intent of the road trip was to have as little planning as possible and hopefully there would be a few surprises. With that said, we actually let Hayden drive a majority of the 400 mile hike today, and he actually did a pretty good job. Russ recommended we stop in Lynchburg to take a tour and learn about the history and processing of the Tennessee sipping whiskey, Jack Daniels. I didn't know what to expect, but thought it would probably be similar to the "See Rock City" type sightseeing events on the school trips I attended many years ago. It actually was very entertaining and informative, so it was a worthwhile detour.

So we finally arrive in Knoxville after a seemingly quick seven hours of traveling, and I don't know how other people would function on road trips without GPS or blackberries. I think that these next two weeks are going to be a real test of how three guys can manage to get along in very close quarters. Two of us are pretty used to it, one of us may have to do a little adjusting to the art of compromise. haha.

Its approaching 1 or 2 am here, I'm not sure if Knoxville is in the Eastern Time Zone or not, but nevertheless I'm excited about the many adventures that awaits us.