Road Trip in Review

Looking back at the trip, I think we were both surprised at the amount of ground we covered and the many different things we saw and experienced.  The trip only felt rushed once or twice on some of the longer driving legs, but for the most part, we were able to relax and enjoy the cities and stops we made.  We also realized that we could follow the same path again and have a completely different trip, or we could stay at each place longer and experience more at each stop.

This was a good first trip as practice for, hopefully many, more trips together and we learned more about what to pack, how to pack, and at what pace of travel we liked.

Mileage:      4032
Cost:           $3200   (everything for both of us except some clothes that we bought along the way)
Cost/day:     $170

Our actual path did vary slightly from our originally intended route, so here is an updated map of where we traveled:

Cincy

From the wonderful retreat in the woods, we drove west through the southern portion of Ohio towards our final destination of Cincinnati. The landscape really flattens out in Ohio & there isn't much to see. One interesting phenomena we noticed were small groups of teenagers hanging out on overpasses in the middle of nowhere, waving at interstate traffic. One look around, and we realized that there must not be much else to do in the farmlands of Ohio.

We made it to Dave & Kristen's house in the late afternoon. They live in a very quaint little neighborhood & they have an adorable house. While waiting for Bobby to meet us there, we caught up in the kitchen. Kristen was finishing up prep of stuffed pasta for dinner and we put together a batch of Sangria (for Saturday). It was such a beautiful day that we elected to hang out on the porch. Bobby made it in just in time for dinner, and we all ate out on the porch together. After dinner settled, we walked over to a few of the neighborhood bars. They were mostly quiet, but had a great beer selection & we had lots of fun. We stayed out until around 1:30 enjoying the company of friends.

Saturday morning we got an early start - Kru was really excited to bring us to a local market where they prepare amazing waffles. This was a really great treat for breakfast. We also shopped around for lunch supplies - including fresh sausage from one of the largest cased selections I have ever seen. The picture below shows about 1/4 of the total selection to choose from.

  

Most of us were unable to settle on any 1 particular variety of sausage because there were so many that sounded amazing - so almost everyone picked out 2 or 3 to try.  Due to the size & variation of our order, David typed up the order on his phone and nervously handed it over to be filled.  We walked away from the meat counter with 15 different pieces of sausage, each wrapped & labeled for its type.

Once we got to the park, Brandon took the lead on mapping out which sausage varieties were in what spot on the grill. This is his sausage-mapping pose:

Kru was working the grill and I helped out with a map accuracy audit.

After stuffing ourselves with way too much delicious food, we decided to play a few games of cornhole.

All-in-all, it was an amazing day at the park. We stuck around there until mid-afternoon & then retreated back to the Kruminaker household to regroup for our evening activities. Dave & Kristen were doing a great job of keeping our schedule full of fun activities around Cincy, and they didn't let us down with their selection for Saturday evening. They took us down to an event called the Hyde Park Blast - where there were hundreds of people and lots of street vendors set up. Everyone was watching a circuit cycling race that was taking place. I looked up a few of the details on the website for descriptive purposes...basically, the race we were watching is a Pro Men's race where something like 50 cyclists raced on a circuit course for 90 minutes. Below is a map of the course - you will notice the relatively short distance and the extremely tight turns.

Needless to say, the cyclists ride VERY fast (maybe 35-40 mph) and just mere inches from one another when they are in the pack.

 

The turns were absolutely nerve wracking - these guys look like they'd lay their bikes down at any second...

After all of the excitement at the races, we decided to head across the state border into Kentucky for some good German fun at Hofbrahaus. Great authentic food & beer mugs the size of my head!

We cabbed home after dinner & drinks with the most fascinating cabbie - he had one of those old fashioned handlebar mustaches that easily protruded further than his ears on each side of his face. He & Kru had a long discussion about their deep love for Aamurikah =)

We woke in the morning to say our goodbyes and take off for the long drive home.

All across PA

Coming down from New England we had two stops planned in Pennsylvania, Mansfield and Pittsburgh.

The company Jen works for is expanding its operations to include the Shale gas find in the northeast US and they decided to open a shop in the middle of nowhere (Mansfield, PA).  We were eventually headed to Pittsburgh and this was kind of on the way.  And when new offices open or new management comes in, Jen gets involved to help bring them up to speed.  A few things have fallen in place on this trip regarding locations and timing, like the overland rally in North Carolina and the Stanley Cup parade in Boston; this was just another stop that fell into place.

We left Wells State Park Monday morning with a fairly long way to go to reach Mansfield.  We took a lunch break in Albany, NY, on the way and made it to Mansfield around dinner time on Monday.  We found a campground for the night, Hills Creek State Park, and drove over there first.  After cleaning up, we went to meet up with some of Jen's coworkers from the office for dinner.  The trip to dinner was complicated by the unreliable cell service and many roads without signs.

Hills Creek seemed busier than the last campground, but it wasn't too crowded. They had recently renovated their facilities and had nice bathrooms to shower in.  I dropped Jen at the office in the morning and went off to do some laundry and wash the car.  She worked till 4 and we decided to take off for Pittsburgh since it was a 5 hour drive away.

While in Pittsburgh, we were going to stay at my parent's old house, except it was different than every other time I've stayed in it.  My parents just recently moved to Midland, TX, for my mom's new job and they were selling the house in Pittsburgh.  The place was empty inside and it looked so much bigger than I remember (without all our junk all over the place).  We pulled into the garage and basically set up camp in the house.  We moved our mattress inside to take advantage of the air conditioning and we used our camp chairs in the backyard to sit around a small fire.  It was nice being able to visit the house one more time.

On Wednesday, we planned to catch the Pittsburgh Pirates day game starting at noon.  Even though the Pirates have been awful for all the years I can remember, the ballpark they play in (PNC Park) is really a nice place to watch a game.  We drove into the city and parked at the Rivers casino for free and walked over to the stadium.  

While waiting at the ticket window, the guy in front of us turned around and offered us two coupons for free game tickets.  There was a charity run a few weeks back in the city and the Pirates had these coupons as giveaways so we got into the game for free.

Jen did a little work from her iPad while we were at the game. After the game (Pirates beat the Orioles 6-5), we drove over to Pittsburgh's Strip District (not what it sounds like).  The Strip, as its called around town, is just an area of shops, bars, and restaurant.  Its also home to Pennsylvania Macaroni Co., my mother's favorite place to trade money for Italian food.  Since she had been living in Texas for a while now, she was going through Penn Mac withdrawal and asked me to have several items shipped over to her.  While there, we also picked up some ingredients for a pizza for dinner and got my sister a few things for her upcoming birthday.

We then went to the South Side to meet our friend Lori at a cool restaurant with a great beer list, Fat Heads.

They have a reputation for their sandwiches which are...wait for it...as big as your head.  After dinner, Jen and I went back to my old house for one more fire and camp out.

Our plans for Thursday were to visit and stay over at a cabin that Lori was renting for the summer in Donegal, PA.  Donegal is an hour east of the city and up in the mountains.  There are two ski resorts in the area which I've been to several times, but I've never seen the area in the summer.  It was a beautiful drive up there and the cabin was tucked away in the woods.  We made pizza with the supplies from Penn Mac, shared a few bottles of wine, and sat around a bonfire outside.

We woke up Friday morning to see Lori off to work and then showered up and left for Ohio.

Maine

A quick consult with Google maps regarding the drive from Boston up to Freeport, ME indicated that it wasn't a very far distance - around 130 miles or 2 1/2 hours drive. We woke up around 7:30 and hit the road. Freeport has a very quaint Main Street district that is dotted with many bed & breakfast spots, food places, and retail shops - including several outdoorsy types of places that David was very excited about heading to. The first stop was LL Bean's flagship store - oldest & largest. Bean has a few store fronts here - the main store, a "Hunting & Fishing" store, a "Bike Boat & Ski" store, and an "Outlet" store. We checked a few out and generated several ideas for camping and wish list items.

I'm not sure what the intended purpose of the following display was, but I'm pretty sure that they want people to take the most ridiculous pictures in front of it...

The next stop was the North Face outlet store. We lucked out in that we arrived there during their "Sample Sale" - maybe an annual event? For this event, they sell many of their most popular items - clothing, jackets, shoes, backpacks, bags, etc -  for deep discounts. Most items are all the same sizes (medium for women's and men's clothing, size 7 for women's shoes, etc...) and I gather that they are the display items used at stores across the country. I scored a great backpack - an Ion 20, regularly priced at $89 - for $30!

David also got a great deal on a small Expedition Duffle Bag and a few shirts. From there, we continued to find deals at the Patagonia outlet store next door. We got great deals on a few base layer items (for ski trips & other cold weather activities) and I found a great black dress that might be my new favorite.

By the time we finished scouting out all of the deals, it was around 2 p.m. and we had worked up quite an appetite for lunch. After the Ethiopian/Ice Cream splurge yesterday evening in Boston, we decided to fast until we got to Maine and found lobster. To give a bit of insight, David arranged this whole trip to Maine almost exclusively for the purpose of tracking down the largest, freshest, most delicious lobster on the East Coast. He had been researching optional spots for days - and, after reading every yelp comment for all of Maine, he settled on a place called Three Sons Seafood located in the downtown area of Portland. The drive from Freeport to Portland is relatively short- less than 20 miles. We parked along a side street of the main drag in downtown Portland and set out on foot to find this place. It took a bit of poking around, but we finally found the place, down what resembled the combination of an alley and a pier. It was a big metal building with faded paint and minimal signage. There were 3 picnic tables outside and 2 signs. The place was very unassuming, to say the least. We walked in and were immediately met with huge water tanks/boxes with lids. Progressing along led us to a line of patrons - about 5-8 people long. We joined the line and noticed a fairly large chalk board detailing all of the seafood offerings. All items were available fresh - as you would get at a seafood market - but most items could also be ordered steamed for 50 cents extra per pound. We decided to each order a lobster steamed (2 lbs for me and 3 lbs for David). The girl taking our order walked over to tanks & pulled out each live lobster, weighing it on a scale and then tossing it into a mesh bag for steaming. We also ordered mussels, scallops, and melted butter for dipping. They rang us up & told us to come back in about 20 minutes.

We walked around a little to waste time and across the street to grab a couple of beers, then back to pick up our food. We had decided to eat at the picnic tables outside and documented our experience in pictures...

Carefully handling the bag of goodies at the picnic table...

I'm in absolute awe over the size of these suckers...

I just remembered where I am and that David is taking pictures...here is my surprised face...

After regaining my composure, I pull David & a lobster in for a group picture...

As David was breaking into his lobster, he turned to tell me something & realized that his lobster claw was almost as big as my head...

The meat was soooooooooo delicious that I fell completely head over heels in love...David tolerated a bit of PDA between the lobster & I...

Here's David trying to show his lobster claw a little affection...this is pretty typical of his variety of aggressive form of showing love =)

Here's the carnage...

One thing to note is the threat of aggressive seagulls that are the size of small dogs...this one attempted to stake its claim to my lobster (or my leg, I'm not sure which one...). I distracted it with a small bit of lobster guts thrown onto the ground...

One more interesting note that I am including for all those people who are of the misconception that crawfish are somehow less desirable or clean than lobsters...we took a picture of the huge digestive track that my lobster had running down its back - similar to, but much larger than those found in crawfish - indicative that these guys must also mull around in muddy environments similar to their smaller counterparts.

Although we were virtually comatose from excessive quantities of seafood, we elected to push on and drove for a couple of hours to Wells State Park in Massachusetts for the night.

Boston

When we were planning this trip, Boston wasn't the next stop after Baltimore, but we couldn't line up our schedule with some friends in NYC.  So we instead took I-95 straight through to visit the very recent Stanley Cup champions.  Traffic on the way up wasn't too bad through New York, but we hit some serious slowdowns through Connecticut.  This delay put us arriving in Boston around 7pm, just in time to hit Red Sox traffic.

We were going to stay in a hostel again while in the city for two days.  One of the challenges we run into in each city is where to park the car...affordably.   I didn't know this about yelp, but people review parking garages and that led us to Boston Common Parking Garage right in the heart of the city for $11/day.

We walked a mile to our hostel, which was actually a dorm on the Boston University campus.

It was a nice location by Fenway and close to the Charles river, but since it was a dorm, we didn't have most of the nice amenities - such as a kitchen or wireless internet.  Even so, we were fine with $100/night to stay 2 blocks from Fenway.  After checking in, we explored the area around us for a couple of hours by foot - the city was bustling between the Sox game and the upcoming parade.  After our short walk, we returned to the hostel for bed.

On Saturday, the Bruins were scheduled to have the Stanley Cup parade.  We walked from our dorm over to Boston Common Park and found a nice shaded spot amongst droves of people to watch the parade.   Despite rooting for several teams that have won recent sports titles (Steelers, Pens), I was never around to see the parades.   But, Jen and I did get to watch the Saints parade around New Orleans in 2010 after winning the Superbowl.  It was reported that there were 600,000 people in new Orleans for that parade, but we heard reports that Boston had 1 million plus in the city on Saturday.

The crowd made for a fun atmosphere but was a bit overwhelming after a few hours. So, we started making our way out of downtown after the parade. On our way, we stopped in the shade for a minute to eat sandwiches that we had packed. While sitting, we noticed an ironic sign & the reality occurring nearby...

(in case you can't make out the text on the sign at left, it says "NO LOITERING POLICE TAKE NOTICE"...and to the right are plenty of people loitering in front of cops taking notice, and not doing much else)

After our sandwiches, we walked across the Charles River towards Cambridge. It was a little warm in the sun at mid-day (clear skies, not much breeze, maybe mid 80s for temp), but it was absolutely beautiful walking through historic neighborhoods & across bridges to get from downtown to Cambridge. Once in Cambridge, we visited MIT and Harvard.

The area around Harvard's campus is full of life & activity - there are lots of shops, restaurants, and small city squares. We saw street performers - musicians with full bands that were actually amped up and playing for crowds, which we found interesting...

I (Jennifer) was also VERY excited to find my favorite -- all-natural -- ginger ale...I made sure that several pictures were taken to commemorate the event =)

It started to become a bit rainy, so we decided to take the subway back towards downtown. David & I had been chatting about finding unique cuisine while on this trip, and he located an Ethiopian restaurant that we decided to try. I was nervously excited - neither of us had tried this sort of cuisine before, and upon entering the restaurant we quickly realized that this was a very traditional-style Ethiopian restaurant. In short, the food was AMAZING! The experience was equally awesome. I didn't take any pictures in the place, but a google search yielded image results similar to what we encountered:

Here's what the decor looked like (sort of...). The tables & stools were exactly the same, but the floor & walls were much warmer in color.

The food is served in a basket-weave type platter...there are thin pancake-like pieces of  bread called inera and they pour out bowls of whatever dishes you order on top.

There are no utensils, so you use the flat bread as the scoop to gather up a bit of food.

This was the name of the restaurant - highly recommend to anyone wanting to try something new!

After dinner, we continued on our way back to the hostel but made one more stop at one of yelp's top-rated frozen yogurt joints, Hidyan Cafe. This place looked totally sketch from the outside (and inside) but omgosh, the yogurt was sooooo good!  They have a really good frozen yogurt base, and then they use some sort of blender/churner to incorporate the 'flavor' that you order.  For my order of avocado, they threw in half an avocado into the machine.  For David's carrot cake, they threw in a whole piece of carrot cake!

After ice cream, we finished our walk back to the hostel and crashed for the night. In the morning, we got an early start heading to Maine.