The Road Less Traveled

Monday, June 6, 2011

Day Fourteen: Georgia Suburbs

Day fourteen was spent at the pool outside of Mike's dads house.
We tanned, we burned a little, and most importantly relaxed.

Unfortunately things didn't go as planned when Mike got off of work.
No need to go into details.... But we stayed at a hotel last night and are cutting our visit to Atlanta short.

Instead we are headed to New Orleans.
On to better days!

Day Thirteen: Drive to Atlanta

Day Thirteen was hilarious.
We finally made it to the Blue Ridge Parkway without a hitch, and really enjoyed the beautiful scenery we saw there. I'm not going to upload pictures right now, but will soon enough.

We stopped and hiked a short three mile trail which was pretty.

The best part of the drive was when we got to South Carolina. There were billboards EVERYWHERE for all these peach farms, and so I told Francesca we HAD to stop to check one out.

Bahahaha.

Francesca tried chow chow which made her want to vomit.
The guy behind the counter tried flirting with us by telling us his son is "probably almost as old as you"
When we asked how old his son was he said he'll be thirteen in a few weeks.

He said he thought we were 17.

Thanks?

He took my credit card and read my last name outloud, correctly. He then said proudly "i took a class in college for that!"

And Francesca mutters under her breath, "for what... reading?"

Anyways. That was the highlight of my day.

We made it to the outside of Atlanta where we had plans to stay with my friend. He's a firefighter and was working so we let ourselves in the house and went to go visit him at the fire station.
We came back and crashed and that was the end of day thirteen :)

Friday, June 3, 2011

Day Twelve: Washington DC, crazy travel through Virginia

We woke up this morning around 8 and quickly got ready so as to not miss out on our free continental breakfast.
We headed downstairs to the breakfast room with much anticipation... only to be let down.

Our breakfast options were: raisin bran cereal with milk that looked sketchy. (milk was in a glass pitcher. i want my milk from a carton, please) english muffins, one danish, and apple//orange juice. I had apple juice and it did not taste like apple juice and Francesca had orange juice and she threw it out... leading me to believe that her's didn't taste like orange juice.

Mmm breakfast.

We packed up the car for what already feels like the zillionth time and headed out towards Washington D.C.
It was my turn to drive... we got down to the city fine but i got frustrated real fast when i couldn't find ANYWHERE to park. Eventually I found a public parking structure... cost us $19 to park though!

We walked to the Holocaust Museum... It was an entertaining walk because once again, we were absolutely surrounded by middle schoolers. The cute little boys and girls were shrieking things like "son of a biscuit!" and "what the fudge!" and giggling hysterically like it was the funniest thing they've eveer said or heard.

Who knew we'd get a free comedy show thrown into the day too! How lucky.

We walked into the museum and picked up our passes with times to go into the main exhibit. It was only 10:30 maybe and the earliest time pass we could get was 1:30 which kinda put a wrench in our plans.
We walked around what we could of the museum... the "not main" part of it... and tried not to get trampled by the children stampedes.

Then we decided to walk to see whatever else we could squeeze in before 1:30.
We ended up seeing a lot, realizing many things were closer together than we had thought.

We saw the Washington Memorial

The US Capitol (from a distance)

The White House

bahah guys on the roof. love my zoom.

The World War II Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial

The Korean War Memorial

I mentioned that everything was pretty close to one another but it was still a LOT of walking. And we were still planning on hiking in Virginia in the afternoon. 'Twas a long morning/afternoon.

But we made it back to the Holocaust museum just after 1:30 and were able to go into the main exhibit. The main exhibit took us two hours to go through... it was very intense, as one would expect.

It made me realize though that the Holocaust is one area in which I feel my public school education taught me enough about. The museum was very informative, but I actually felt like I already knew the vast majority of it.

It was interesting to see it all, and to see the artifacts and such, but I guess I can't say I learned a whole lot.

Which is a good thing I think... I feel good that i'm not 22 years old and going "hm, what was the Holocaust again?"

We walked the long walk back to the car and plugged Roanoke, VA into the GPS.

Traffic was pretty crappy getting out of the city because it was the beginning of rush hour.

I really was looking forward to driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway on our drive between DC and Atlanta.

But I had no idea where to pick up the Parkway on our drive.
I certainly couldn't find it under "points of interest" on my GPS.

So we drove and drove and finally we stopped and I asked a lady behind the counter of a gas station we stopped at.

She told me that we were just 4 or 5 miles away and gave me brief, confusing directions that I had already forgotten by the time I walked out the door.

But I thought I'd try to find it anyway... which didn't work.

So we wasted probably about a half hour of time.
I saw signs leading toward the Skyline Drive but not the Blue Ridge Parkway.

So we turned around and hopped back onto 81 S.

The GPS told us to stay on this for over 100 miles and then I got upset thinking we'd miss the Parkway altogether because I knew 81 was a major highway and definitely not the parkway.

But we drove for a while and after a phone call with my mom who tried very hard to help us find our way, we stopped at another gas station.

This lady was very helpful and actually everyone in the gas station (two other old men in overalls with minimal teeth) also helped us out.

The super helpful lady was kind enough to tell us that the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway are the same thing!!!

They call it the Skyliine in VA and the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.

Confusing, right?

Anyways, directions in hand, we hit the road again.

It seemed like things were going well!

We followed directions to the Skyline Drive which began cropping up again.

The only thign that made me worrisome was that we seemed to be going back East... not the way we wanted to go.

We ended up backtracking all the way to the original town we stopped at.

My GPS was freaking out, kept telling me to make U-turns here and there. ...every 500 feet or so.

But I ignored them as we started winding down the roads.

After we drive for what seems like 40 minutes of backtracking... we follow the last sign into the "Shenandoah National Park" gates... where it requires us to pay $15 to enter.

So I pull up to the nice park ranger who's hanging out in her tollbooth like box, and I tell her i'm confused.

We want to take the Skyline to Roanoke, please. No National Park. No fee.
Just a scenic route.

"Well if you pick up the Skyline Drive here, it goes through the park, and that means you have to pay the $15. And by the way, the speed limit is 35 the whole way. And you're about 200 miles away from Roanoke" .

oh.

wonderful.

"um. can we just turn around, please?"

so that's what we did.

We turned around and drove back the 40 minutes that we had just backtracked to begin with.

If I drive over the Shenandoah River one more time, ever again, I might cry.

Nows about the time our stomachs start growling.
It's 7 and all we really ate today was the crappy breakfast from the hotel and pita chips in the car.

Francesca goes "it's Friday, i want a fish fry!"

And she starts talking about Fish Fry. And she's like... um. But I think Fish Fries are just a Wisconsin thing..

But we stop for gas, again. Because gas is cheap and we went through quite a bit on our stupid-out of the way-windy drive to nowhere.

So I fill up and Fran goes in to ask the guy in the gas station if anyone has fish fries around here.

He laughed at her.

Apparently not.

So we drive... back on 81 S finally.

And I see a sign for Cracker Barrel.

Francesca's never been to one and I told her it was kind of southern food and she got excited.

At this point, I'm practically shaking from not eating... and maybe because I had one of those 5 hour energy bottles.

So we stop at the Cracker Barrel and guess what there Friday special is?

Fish Fry!!

So we got our fish fry after all.

Back on the road to Roanoke.

We hit SO much traffic.

Between 8:30 and 10 at night. No accidents, no construction.

Just traffic. In the middle of nowhere, Virginia.

Cool.

But we just jammed out and laughed the whole time.
I don't even remember what about.

I really can't express enough how great of a traveling partner Francesca has been.
We've been together 24/7 for the past 13 days and we're still laughing and nowhere near getting annoyed with one another. (at least i'm not getting annoyed with her... i guess i shouldn't speak for her)

Anyways.

Make it to Roanoke a little after 10.

Stopped at Howard Johnsons (Francesca was confused when I called it HoJo)

Had another coupon for a reduced rate stay.

Guy told us to go to room 158.

Two beds, non-smoking.

We open the door and immediatly notice the moldy smell of the room.
It seriously smelled like the room hadn't gotten fresh air since 1973.

Francesca went into the bathroom and shrieked

"oh my god the shower wasn't cleaned, there are pubes in there!!"

and sure enough there were.

and she goes "well i'm not staying here! i'm going to ask for a new room!"

So we get back in the car and pull back around to the front.

I'm crying because we're laughing so hard at this point.

I tell Francesca i'm going to stay in the car while she goes in to request a new room, because i know i'll burst into a fit of giggles if i go in.

She comes out and says the guy said "I so sorry. Take room 142. Very nice room. No pubic hair"

bahaha.

thanks.

so now we're in a brand new room.

Still smells horrible... pulled out a car air freshener my sister bought us to use in our room.

But the shower looks pretty clean.

What a day.

Tomorrow we'll do some hiking and try to drive around the Parkway if we don't drive in circles again and then we're Atlanta bound. Can't wait to see Mike :)

Hopefully tomorrow will be a little less eventful though!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Day Eleven: Travel & Baltimore

This morning we were supposed to leave at 10. We woke up at 9:30. Woops! Hadn't really anticipated the late night we ended up having the night before.

We got ready, packed up the car, and said goodbye to Francesca's family.

Francesca's grandmother lives in the upstairs portion of the house with Francesca's aunt. We went to go say goodbye to them.
Francesca posted a poem on this blog a few days ago after we had a conversation with her grandmother.

I don't even know how to put into words what a sweet woman her grandmother is.
She is quite elderly and has some significant dementia. Some days are better than others.
It's obvious she knows she wants to say things, but her brain has trouble putting these thoughts into words, into sentences that make sense.

But she tries and overall she does a good job... it just takes her a bit longer to get her messages across.
She told us all about her travel over to the United States from Poland when she was little.
Before we left today she gave Francesca and I both rosaries to keep with us on our trip.
I hugged and kissed her on the cheek (a very common polish tradition i've learned) and told her how nice it was to meet her.

She looked me in the eyes and stared for a moment or two before she slowly, quietly stated "I like you. You're sweet"

My heart melted. She said she was glad to have met me too, but that she wished it had been two years earlier...

I'm so happy I got to meet her :)

We headed off to DC, our next location but we did get a late start.
We wanted to stop in Baltimore for dinner with our friend Shoshana....

We basically figured that it would be silly to drive to DC because by the time we got there we'd have nearly no time in the city before we'd have to leave to make it to Baltimore for dinner at 5:30.

Francesca and I made the decision to hold off on DC until tomorrow and just head straight to Baltimore.
As a little girl I always dreamed of living in Baltimore one day. (absolutely no idea why)

We asked Shoshana where a cool place to go would be and she suggested the Inner Harbor. So that's where we redirected the GPS to get us to.

Shoshana works as a therapist at a group home for boys in the city. Since Francesca and I are both Social Work students, she invited us to come tour the group home if we wanted as well.... and we totally took her up on that offer. She told us to meet her at the group home at 5 which gave us about 2 hours to spend in the Harbor.

It was absolutely beautiful.

cute little paddleboats!

We saw a cool looking building in the distance so we decided to check it out.
turned out to be the National Aquarium!

We walked into these doors into what we thought was the lobby.
And we sort just kept walking...right into the aquarium. Right past employees.

Without paying a DIME.

We walked through the entire aquarium without paying.
We didn't do it intentionally at all!

So it was a sweet, secret visit. bahaha.

Again, the place was SWARMED with kids on field trips. Holy crap... so many kids.

Fran in the shark jaw

creepy, right?

sting rays.

creepy picture. thank goodness i didn't actually see one of these suckers.

dolphins

baby pineapple growing!!

We had to leave the aquarium to meet Shoshana.
We later found out that the ticket price of the aquarium is $25 for adults.

wooooopsies!

Shoshana showed us around the group home... well, one of the boys did actually.
He did a great job giving the tour!

We left then and went to dinner at a kosher restaurant because Shoshana is Jewish.
It was really neat :)

We had a really great time.

Afterwards we headed out of Baltimore in search of a cheap hotel on the way to D.C.

We knew the prices would get higher the closer we got to D.C. so we stopped halfway in Laurel, MD.

We grabbed a hotel savings book from a service station and wanted to check out this one place that had a room for $35.

Of course, as one could have expected, we drove around the parking lot and that's all it took for us to leave and move on in search of something better.

The place gave me the creeps and reminded me of a a place i'd go on a CPS investigation.
There were these guys totally cleaning out this car in the parking lot and Fran and I looked at each other and were like... um. i hope they're not getting rid of evidence of a murder or something.

I snapped a picture, naturally.

didn't quite capture the sketchiness to the degree i had hoped, so you'll have to use your imagination.

We stopped at a Super 8 instead which also was in our coupon book.
It was more expensive than $35 but the coupon did save us $15.

We got a non-smoking room but when we went to check it out, it smelled very strongly of smoke.
So we went back and asked for another room.

This one smells much better.

And now that i've spent the last 3 hours updating this blog, we're going to head to bed!

tomorrow morning we're heading to DC, mainly to see the White House and the Holocaust Museum.

Then it's off to the Blue Ridge Parkway where we'll hopefully find a cool place to hike for a bit.

Can't wait for the pretty scenery!

Day Ten: New Jersey

On Wednesday, Francesca's mom picked us up from Aunt Mia and Uncle Jeffs place in Manhatten and took us back to New Jersey.

We changed into beachwear and drove to Long Branch Beach. We decided against Seaside Heights (the Jersey Shore) because the drive would have been a little too long.

We did see some guidos stopped next to us at a traffic light, so that was good enough for me. They even waved to us.

It was hot but super windy at the beach. So windy that I almsot felt chilly so I did not want to go into the ocean. Francesca on the other hand couldn't wait to get into the ocean!

We got some lunch at a greek restaurant and I had caviar dip for the first time.
Salty but pretty good.. until I thought about what I was actually eating.

We stopped at a chocolate shop after lunch.
There was a really old man at the register and when he turned around to leave, Francesca's mom said hello to him.

He stared at her and questioned "DO I KNOW YOU?"

And she said "no, but you're just such a handsome gentleman i wanted to say hello!"

and he goes real grumpily "WELL IF I DON'T KNOW YOU, DON'T SAY HI TO ME"

ahahaha it was hilarious, she was really just trying to be nice.
she apologized and that was that.

We laid out on the beach a bit longer and then went back home.

Francesca and I got ready to go out with Francesca's childhood friend, Michelle.

We first stopped at a bar where Michelle works... a polish bar of course.

They drank polish beer. (beer with rasberry syrup?)

Then we went to a club... Lounge 46 i think it was called.
Francesca wanted to get her dance on and lucky for her, Wednesday is Latino night.

I am fairly sure I was the only one in the WHOLE club with blonde hair and blue eyes.

I've never felt more out of place.

But it was fun.

We danced. A lot.

and then we came home and slept in New Jersey for the last night :)

Day Nine: New York City- Ground Zero, etc

Tuesday morning Francesca's mom drove Francesca and I to the city.
We didn't get to see ground zero on Monday so that was our first stop on Tuesday.

First we walked up this enclosed walkway/bridge thing and was able to see out windows where the towers used to be. In all honesty, I was a little disappointed. It was filled with construction and workers and chaos. I didn't know what to expect but I was expecting it to be a little more than that.

We kept walking across the bridge into this place

And we talked to a jolly old man after I stopped and picked up a brochure about the Tribute World Trade Center Visitors Center.

He gave us directions and off we went.

"May we never forget"

"Dedicated to those who fell and to those who carry on"

Around the corner was the Visitors Center.
It was probably the best $5 I have spent or will spend on this whole trip.

It's taking me forever to load up pictures at the hotel i'm at right now but I took quite a few that day and I think it's really important for me to share what I took with all of you, if you have not been to the center.

This trip experience shook me to my core. Being in the city, across the street from where the towers once stood... seeing items recovered from that day, the faces of those who perished, the words of the survivors... it was overwhelming. I spent the majority of my time in the center with tears streaming down my face and at one point i actually had to move into a new part of the area because I was about to start sobbing.

There were columns throughout the main room, documenting the timeline of attacks

airplane window.

I don't know how someone can read these quotes and not start crying. So, so emotional.

recovered items.

The walls in this main room were COVERED like this... covered with missing posters that people made looking for there loved ones one and around 9/11.

Desperate pleas for any information on their loved ones...their happy, smiling loved ones. Most of whom would never be found. or at least found alive.

This is the part where I had to walk away. A room in which three walls were COVERED in photographs of people who died. I just couldn't look at the faces of these people knowing they are no longer here.

This part was really cool.
This talked about how in 1955 in Japan, a little girl was dying as the result of exposure to radiation from the bombing of Hiroshima. She made paper canes to attain her wish that she would get well. She did not, but after her death, paper cranes became a sybol of peace.

Following 9/11, the Japanese sent 10,000 cranes to NYC as hope for peace in the world.

On the lower level of the Center, there was an area where people could fill out cards sharing their 9/11 experience. On the wall, certain cards were posted publicly. This is one that really stood out to me.

We left the Tribute Center and walked to St. Pauls Church just a few blocks away where many of the firefighters, police officers, and volunteers would come for some refuge. We walked around outside first.

An example of a cot that a volunteer would have to rest on for a few hours between working shifts.

more paper cranes

After we finished walking through the church we took the subway to the upper west side in Manhatten to meet up with Francesca's aunt and uncle who live in an apartment there.

We stopped and got a piece of New York pizza which is Francesca's favorite.

We walked a bit around Central Park