October 15, Day 1: Grand Rapids, MI to Algonac, MI
Maggie had class until 7, so we started the drive late, heading first to her parents' home in Algonac. We had decided for the trip that we would drive in 2-3 hr shifts, and I was first in the driver's seat. Soon into the drive I was informed that I was not driving fast enough (you mean 55 in a 70mph limit is too slow?) and was "encouraged" to speed it up.
My car did not have a name yet, as all cars should, so Maggie suggested "Petey." I had thought about that exact name in the past, so it was perfect. Petey all at once came alive and was involved in many conversations after that. He held together very well, despite being slightly injured towards the end of the trip.
At one point during the drive, I had to use the bathroom, but I quickly learned that nothing in the area was open after dark. It got to the point where I was ready to go on the side of the road, but luckily we found some port-o-potties at a closed gas station. I wish I could say this was the only time during the trip where I was afraid I might burst; unfortunately it became one of our many themes.
When we got to Algonac, we had to take a ferry over to her family's cottage. It was dark and rainy and the ferry attendant was wearing a yellow rain jacket. He walked up to our car window and took our money without saying a word, without a smile. The scene reminded me of I Know What You Did Last Summer and I was frightfully expecting to see the glint of a large metal hook. On the way to the cottage, Maggie had to avoid running over a live possum and a few frogs hopping across the road.
Overall, the first day was short and mostly uneventful.
Quote of the day: "Obama yo Mama!" - gas station attendant
October 16, Day 2: Algonac, MI to Huntingdon, PA
That morning...
Maggie's dad was letting us borrow one of his tents for camping, so in the morning we opened up the shed to get it. What we found was not what we expected. The tent was old, contained several long metal poles, and was so heavy it required both of us to carry it to the car. We opened the trunk and knew immediately that it was not going to be easy to get the tent into the car. After much pushing and shoving and grunting, we got it in, but we were disappointed and not sure if it was gonna work.
We met Maggie's mom for breakfast at the restaurant Margaret Jeans and had some tasty omelets. Maggie then decided that she would just buy a new tent so we wouldn't have to worry about the old one. So on our way out of town we stopped at Target to search for the best one.
This one was too small!
We found the perfect tent and were on our way to Huntingdon, PA to stay with Maggie's cousin Marial who attends Juniata College. We weren't even out of Detroit when we hit our first detour. We ended up driving in circles and eventually we found where we needed to go. We hoped that would be the last time we'd have to turn around. Oh and P.S., we didn't have a GPS thingie or anything like that. We had paper maps. Yup, that's right, we planned on doing things the old school way.
The day was long, Ohio was not very exiting, but we got our cheapest gas price of the trip there at $2.69/gal. The timing of the drastic drop of gas prices was perfect! Petey was even smiling. Somewhere along the way, Maggie discovered that I am pretty much clueless when it comes to music - recognizing artists and whatnot. Guessing Sting on a Tom Petty song is pretty bad - or so I was told. :) So she made it her mission to educate me whenever possible. She had 20 hrs of music on her IPod, so I should know something by the end. By the time it got dark, we were nearing our destination, but we were also entering into winding up and down mountain roads. Maggie felt lucky that she was the one driving...right? Haha. We arrived safe and sound (without hitting any semis that barrelled around the curves) and got a tour of Marial's house. It was a typical college house, a bit run down and filled with random old couches; it brought me back to some great memories of when I was in college. Marial took us to a cool local bar (Boxers Bar) for some awesome burgers and waffle cut fries, then gave us a tour of her college campus (which happened to be right across the street from her house). We crashed on the pullout couch with our sleeping bags and watched a movie before drifting off to sleep.
October 17, Day 3: Huntingdon, PA to Clinton, CT to Warwick, RI
Our plan for the day was to get into New Jersey in the afternoon and spend some time with my old college suitemate Faith, then head to Connecticut to camp for the night. The highway scenery in Pennsylvania was beautiful, mountains and rolling hills covered with colorful trees.
Maggie has a thing for Dunkin' Donuts, and boy were they everywhere! As we were driving, the low fuel light came on, so I planned to stop as soon as I saw the next gas station. But we didn't see one...for quite a while...and I was getting worried. As we were coming down a hill, I saw this little podunk gas station and I screeched in just in time. This gas station was definitely old school. You had to pay inside (no swipey thing for my debit card) and the numbers on the pump were rotary. It was cool.
I am really thankful for that gas station, because immediately after that we had to drive up some steep hills and I feel that we probably would have sucked the tank dry. I had the pedal to the ground and poor Petey could only go 40 mph. He did his best.Our only complaint about Pennsylvania was that it was long...very long. But, I had heard that the Delaware Water Gap was right at the border of PA and NJ and that it was something we should see. We had to meet Faith around a certain time and didn't have a lot of extra time, but we made the stop and it was definitely worth it.
Across the road from where we parked was an entrance to the Appalachian Trail, so we headed up the path for a little ways.
We met up with Faith and ate at the Red Barn Restaurant. Faith worked their for one of her first jobs. We tried a drink called Egg Cream...a New Jersey thing...it was kind of like a carbonated chocolate milk.
We then got to see Faith's house, meet her mom and her super cute dog named Sophie. I wanted to take her with us!
It was really awesome to see Faith again! We hadn't been in touch in years and it was great to catch up on life. Love you Faith! Thanks for helping us out with directions!Apparently New Jersey is the only state where you are not allowed to pump your own gas. So we filled up on gas as we headed on our way...it was strange not to have to get out of the car! That night we were headed to Clinton, CT to camp at Riverdale Farms. Faith was kind enough to let us use her laptop to get directions off MapQuest, so we felt pretty confident that we'd find it ok. When we got off at the appropriate exit we were immediately confused on which way we had to go. So we guessed, a few times, and we still couldn't find the next road we had to turn on. So we stopped at a Mobil gas station (#1 of the trip) to see if we could get some help. The guy in the gas station did his best to help us figure out where to go...but he was creeping Maggie out...we left, and I felt we had a good idea where to go. We ended up on some small winding dark roads...and a truck was behind us (sort of following us) and we still couldn't find where it was. We both thought "what if it's the guy from the gas station?" and we started getting a little nervous, but eventually the truck disappeared. So we turned around a few times, drove back and forth where we thought it should be but we saw no signs or entrances to the campground. At one point we saw the truck again, it seemed to be waiting at crossroads and when we came into the scene it drove off...CREEPY. We were freaking ourselves out that the gas guy was trying to follow us so we ended up deciding that even if we did find the campground, we'd probably be too afraid to fall asleep (knowing that the gas guy knew which campground we were going to) and it would just be a mess. So we opted to keep driving and stay in a motel somewhere in Rhode Island. That way we would be away from Creepy McCreepster and we'd have less driving the next day. Of course, we both were curious if the gas guy had in fact left the gas station, or whether he was still there and we just freaked ourselves out...so we drove past the gas station...and the guy was still inside. Made us feel a little better, but we still had hyped ourselves up, plus we had never found the campground, so we kept on driving.
On our way to Rhode Island, the song "Hello" by Lionel Richie came on (it's Maggie and I's song) and all was well again. We stopped at a Mobil (#2) along the way so I could use the bathroom (despite Maggie's insistence that we not - Creepy McCreepster had apparently tainted that brand of gas). The lady inside had a small sign attached to her shirt that said "I lost my voice" and she was motioning instead of speaking - it was odd. This added to the taintedness of Mobil. :) We planned on finding some place in Providence, RI but we found ourselves in the middle of downtown, clueless as to where we were or where we should go. We ended up being stuck in the street for a while next to this nightclub Ultra...there were firetrucks lined up outside of it and everyone from the nightclub was herded to the streets, so our car was surrounded by lots of people...lots of VERY scantily clad girls... We head back south a bit to the city of Warwick where we saw a Motel 6 from the highway. We got off, and couldn't find the motel...we explored, but it was not to be found, so we stopped at a Mobil (#3) to ask for directions (again, Maggie was very much against it). The lady there was very helpful, so I tried to convince Maggie that we shouldn't have such horrible feelings towards the Mobil brand. We ended up getting to the motel around 1:00am - it was nice to be out of the car and somewhere warm. And what happened to be right across the street from our motel? A Mobil and a Dunkin' Donuts.
October 18, Day 4: Warwick, RI to Boston, MA to Lowell, MA
Not a good day. Maggie woke up puking in the hotel, I didn't feel the greatest either. We had to be out by noon. Our plan was to meet up with her friend T-zew (this is a nickname) in Boston, and then stay with him in Lowell where he went to school (UMass). This whole not feeling well thing didn't fit into the plan. But we had to be out by noon and we were still packing up at 11:45 and we didn't know where to go. We were able to get our check-out time extended by 30 min. but that didn't help much. We ended up sitting in the car for 45 min. trying to come up with a new plan. We ended up deciding to go ahead and meet her friend in Boston. We off course stopped at the Mobil (#4) for some gas and other items. That day I was in charge of driving... Maggie was in no condition to drive (or even open her eyes!). On the way to Boston, we had to quickly pull over so Maggie could puke. I couldn't believe she still wanted to keep going - what a trooper!! We got to Boston and headed into downtown to meet up with her friend. Now, you all need to know that I don't ever drive downtown, anywhere...so driving in downtown Boston was a bit nerve wracking and crazy. In attempts to park, I pulled into this ramp and it ended up being valet parking, but it was this tiny little space...and half the cars were on some sort of car lift (each car on its own lift) up above the other cars....it was strange...and there was barely any room to turn around to get back up the one-way curvy entrance. We found a massively large parking ramp and parked there. Maggie felt she couldn't walk, so I ventured up to ground level to find her friend. After multiple phone conversations, I met up with T-zew and we went back to see Maggie. It was decided then that we would take his key to his place and he'd meet us up in Lowell. So we did that. Except I got lost and ended up way north of Lowell. I stopped at a CVS Pharmacy to ask for directions as Maggie is throwing up in a plastic bag in the car (poor thing!). As I tried to get directions, I started crying, I had reached my breaking point... but there was a nice woman named Andrea who did everything she could to help me figure out where to go (Thanks Andrea!). She even got on her GPS in her car. So we got directions to Lowell, and then hopefully we could find our way to where he lived. We did thankfully and crashed on the futon. I was starting to feel nauseous. I ended up being awake most the night with stomach pain and I'm sure I had a bit of a fever going on. At one point I almost passed out in the bathroom. It was not cool. Maggie had not eaten one iota of food and I had only had a little. I think we both were thinking "I wanna go home."
October 19, Day 5: Lowell, MA to Acadia National Park, ME
By morning, I was ready to get the heck out of Massachusetts. In fact, the short times I drifted off during the night, I dreamt about which roads would take us out of this horrible place. I still wish (and Maggie does too) that we could have gotten to have time in Boston and Cape Cod, but at the time, Massachusetts was not my friend and I wanted to leave. Maggie was feeling a lot better when she got up, and I was starting to feel a little worse. We went to breakfast with her friend T-zew and his friend (also named Maggie).
Where did we go? Dunkin' Donuts of course. Known as "The Dunk" to those who frequent it. :) I ate a half a bagel and then started to feel my stomach reject what I had just put in it. Luckily, I was able to keep my food down, and we decided to hit the road and head towards Acadia Nat'l Park Maine like we had planned. If I was still feeling crappy when we got there, we'd get a motel again, if I felt better, we'd camp. On our way to Maine, we hit up a Mobil (#5). We also went across a couple bridges. Now, today was Maggie's turn to drive all day since I wasn't feeling well...and somehow it seemed to be that every decent sized bridge we had to drive over during the trip, Maggie got the joys of doing it. Though, she wouldn't call it joy...
Our campground (Blackwoods) was located on Mount Desert Island (located in red square below), on the coast of Maine, within Acadia National Park. 5 miles from our campground was the little city of Bar Harbor. We planned on checking that out in the morning.
We arrived at our campsite shortly after dark. We kept the car headlights on so we could see and got to work putting up the tent. There was a woman from across the way who kindly asked if we needed help since it was dark and cold, but we thought we'd be ok. We got it up (I give props to Maggie, she did a great job figuring out what to do) and we were ready for some food! We were gonna build a fire warmth and then try to cook some soup and corn on the propane stove that my dad let me borrow. Well, when I lit the propane stove, the burner lit up like it was supposed to but there was also a large flame shooting out of the side of the stove towards the propane bottle (not a good thing!)...there was a leak in the side attachment...I quickly shut it up and tried to fix the leak, but I couldn't. It wasn't much of a set back because the fire pit came with a grate that you could put over the fit. So we cooked our food over the fire and it was DELICIOUS!
And I am proud to say that Maggie and I got our fire started with only ONE match. :) One of our coworkers, Mary Carol, let us borrow two army cots for sleeping (thanks! they were awesome!)...they fit perfectly in the tent and Maggie and I bundled up, preparing for a night of very cold weather. Our plan was to wake up at 5:00am to drive up Cadillac Mountain to see the sunrise. Cadillac Mtn is within Acadia Nat'l Park and is the first place to see the sunrise in the U.S. between October and March.October 20, Day 6: Acadia National Park, ME to White River Junction, VT
It was quite cold when we got up (records show that it got down to 23 degrees that night!!!). The drive up the mountain wasn't too long, I almost hit a buck (I'd say a 6pt.), luckily we weren't going very fast and we saw him before he ran in front of us. It was neat to see. It was still very dark when we arrived at the top, but shortly we began to see a little bit of color. It was very windy and very cold, so we spent a good portion of time watching it from our car with the heat on high. Before we headed back down, we walked the 1/3 mile loop around the top - gorgeous, but very very cold.
When we got back to the campsite, Maggie took the tent down and I emptied out the car completely and reorganized because it was a mess! We made ourselves look somewhat presentable, since we hadn't showered in two days, and headed in to Bar Harbor for some breakfast. We found this cute restaurant - Jeannie's Breakfast. It had yellow walls, red chairs, great omelets, and some wonderful homemade strawberry rhubarb jam. Oh, and I can't forget, lots of coffee. I learned quickly on this trip that Maggie needs her coffee in the morning. :) After breakfast, we did a little shopping and sightseeing. It was a cute town and we both said we'd love to come back some day to take in a little more - especially the whale watching and puffin sighting - Maggie really wanted to see a puffin!
We got back on the road, headed towards the New Hampshire/Vermont border, stopping at a Mobil (#6) to figure out our route. After camping the previous night, we were ready to stay in a warm bed, so we planned to find a motel in that area. Along the way, we stopped at another Mobil (#7) to get gas, and we got our gas pumped for us...but first the guy comes to my window and says something that I couldn't understand...I said "What!?" 4 times before I got what he was saying - Maggie was having a riot with this. He was saying "I need your card for a moment" but he had a thick Boston accent, so it was "cahd"... I have trouble enough understanding someone who talks like me... it was embarassing. :)This day we had no IPod life, so we listened to the local radio. I stared at a map for about an hour (Maggie was timing me)... like she said (her voice dripping with sarcasm), "time flies when you're looking at a map". We passed a burnt up semi (almost unrecognizable - it was majorly melted) and Maggie gave me a music homework assignment for when I get home. I actually have a list of artists I need to listen to, so I can have knowledge like Maggie does. :) Later that night, we were forced to run a toll booth...we're a little scared of the possible consequence of that.
We got near the NH/VT border and tried to find a hotel in Lebanon, NH but they were all too pricey. A lady at one of the Mariott hotels was extremely helpful, giving us a list of hotels around and what their prices were. She also recommended some restaurants and gave us a map of the area. After stopping at a few more motels, including a Super 8, which turned out to be very sketchy, we ended up deciding on a Comfort Inn just a few exits away, in White Junction, VT. It was a good price, very nice inside, included a continental breakfast, had internet access in the lobby, and coffee available in our room (Maggie was stoked about that). We got settled, headed back into NH for supper where we ate at the 99 Restaurant and Pub. Our eyes were definitely bigger than our stomach and we felt bad that we didn't have a way to store the leftovers. Our waitress Lou was cool and recommended we stop in a little town called Woodstock tomorrow. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel for the best shower ever! We curled up in our beds and fell asleep to the show Intervention. It was the best I've ever slept in a motel!
October 21, Day 7: White River Junction, VT to Algonac, MI
We woke up refreshed and excited about the day ahead. Nearby was Quechee Gorge (known as Vermont's Grand Canyon) and the town of Woodstock. Of course, we had to stop at the Dunk to get some coffee.
On our way we made a stop at Simon Pierce Glass Blowing, which was very cool, but we were not able to afford even the smallest item. You definitely wouldn't want to bring kids to this place!
Maggie almost hit a dog on the way to Woodstock... and we saw a cool covered bridge.
Woodstock ended up being one of our favorite places we went to.
We were especially intrigued the POOP/Flannel shop. :)
We got some Christmas shopping done and headed to Quechee Gorge. It was a rainy day, so we knew we wouldn't spend much time there.
Our next stop was the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream factory in Waterbury, VT. We took a tour, got a free sample of the chocolate chip cookie dough, and then got some ice cream of our own.
Earlier that morning, we decided we wanted to try to get back to Algonac, MI that night... We figured that from Ben & Jerry's we'd have a 12 hr drive. We left Ben & Jerry's at 4:40pm, so we knew that we'd be getting into MI really late. We had a rainy drive in Vermont and New York, but it created some cool fog in the mountains. We stopped at Mobil #8 and #9.
When it was close to getting dark, a huge rock flew into the windshield and gave us both a heart attack...I thought for sure the glass was going to shatter - it hit so hard. It left a large dirt mark and despite all the rain, only some of it came off. Later on I Windexed it and it remained the same; it was permanently scraped into my windshield. Poor Petey... thankfully it was his only injury.
Our 12 hr drive included a drive through Canada - that is if we could get back into the U.S. We weren't sure if Maggie had the right documentation, so we were going to ask at the Canadian border, and would turn around and go through Ohio and Detroit if they said it wasn't enough. Right before the Canadian border, Maggie realized we'd have to cross a large bridge and she was fed up with getting all the bridges, so we switched drivers. I wasn't allowed to talk about anything I saw as we passed over. :) The patrol guy at the border didn't know what was required to get back in the U.S. but wished us luck. :) So into Canada we went, hoping it wouldn't become our new home. When we got to the U.S. border, neither of us saw a sign to stay behind this white line and we rushed up behind the car that was stopped ahead of us. We were immediately yelled at "shut off the car!"... finally it was our turn and they lit into us about not seeing the sign and about not having appropriate documentation. They did a quick search of the car and thankfully let us go through. Poor Maggie had to do all the question answering, so it was really nervewracking for her. My favorite quote of the patrol guy was "Sometimes we have to turn terrorists back into Canada." So you don't arrest them?We didn't arrive to Algonac until 6:00am and immediately went to bed. That day we had done a total of 15 hrs of driving.
October 22, Day 8 Algonac, MI to Grand Rapids, MI
Finally we were on our way home. Made one last stop at a Dunkin Donuts for coffee and drove the last few hours to Grand Rapids. It was a great trip, but it was good to be home. We both had the next two days off before heading back to work. We needed it.
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