the cost of livin' it up

Oh you get me ready in your 56 chevy
Why don't we go sit down in the shade
Take shelter on my front porch
The dandy lion sun scorching,
Like a glass of cold lemonade

-Paula Cole. "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone."

We awoke in the Gerbec residence to a feast of muffins, cereal, and strawberry shortcake this morning. It made me realize how much of a breakfast food strawberry shortcake really is! I would also say that Day 3 morning was marked by one of our first road trip tragedies: not being able to visit the John Eagle store.

...Yes, it had been a candy store that I was dreaming of since Day 1 of the trip, but odd enough, the store had an opening time of 9:30 instead of 9. After much debate with the cousins, we decided to leave that venture for another trip...part II perhaps in the future?

2 commitments to fill today: the first was lunch with A and E's friend Jane, (and also one that I had met for 20 min. 5 years ago.) Currently, she is in a PHD program at Indiana University in Bloomington, so coming to se her was very convenient! We had a delicious lunch and reminisced about the old times in Massachusetts. Well, okay, THEY did. I just enjoyed myself and the brownies that she had made while they did most of the talking. Thank you Jane for your patronage.

The 2'nd part of the road trip that day was definitely marked by some drama as the "clock ticked life away" and we feared that we had bitten off much more than we could chew. We had to be in St. Charles, Missouri by dinner-time: a very hard feat to accomplish when leaving Bloomington, IN at 3:30 PM. Between us 3 drivers, (okay, 2 really. I am really being shuttled across the country by my cousins. Another plus for me:) we seemed to have the task in the bag, but a depressing closed ramp onto I-70 W in Illinois caused lots of cousin drama to ensue. Luckily though, we arrived at our destination (Kendra's house,) a bit behind schedule but, by that time, drama free :)

Even though the 2nd half of the day was stressful, it was marked by some gems. First off, we saw an ALASKA LICENSE PLATE somwehere on I-70 smack in the middle of Illinois. My guess is that for the rest of my life I will never see one unless I travel there. Also, we learned that 40 miles East of St. Louis there's a small town called Pocahontas, which we have marked as a stop for one of our future vacations/honeymoons.

Up next: A drive to Oklahoma City that will take us through NORTHERN TEXAS!! Thanks again to Jane, Kendra, and everyone thus far that has put up with us. So nice to see the Gerbec family again...hopefully it won't be 10 more years till the next family reunion guys. Over and out.

Day 2: Hazleton, PA to Dublin, OH

Well, we're here at Jonas's cousins' house outside of Columbus, Ohio where we've enjoyed an infinitely better food experience than yesterday. Our day suffered a false start at 5:40 am when the motel's combination radio/television/alarm clock (yes, quite a rare appliance) went off, sending us all into a fumbling panic until Ali figured out the source of the noise. My morning also included a special bonus in the form of a hearty whack from my sister as she experienced an apparently very vivid nightmare about an hour later. In any case, we got on the road mid morning after two bowls of complimentary sugar cereal, one more a capella round of Where Have All the Cowboys Gone, and a tearful goodbye to Paul and his Budget truck. In case you ever find yourself in the bumpin' metropolitan area of Hazleton, PA with no place to stay, know this: America's Best Value Inn is, indeed, the best value. I say this with conviction as we did shop around, shop up, and get down.

The first part of the drive was pretty uneventful. I will remember to drink more coffee before we attempt the larger western states. Around lunchtime we realized we were en route to arrive two hours early at our destination for the evening, so we spent a little extra time looking for the perfect lunch location. These culinary cousins don't eat at just any old Sheetz gas station. Around the PA/OH border we finally saw signs for a lake (I forget the name--Topanga? Fandango?) and pulled off the highway. After approximately 45 minutes of driving over and around the lake, we encountered a sort of state park large enough to accomodate our cramped up legs (really, look up the Hyundai Accent and then imagine three people 5'10" and taller driving across the country inside of it along with two lives worth of belongings). We made some fancy PB+Js (or PB+banana, for me and siste) and then ran around simultaneously tossing a frisbee and passing gas (we were still recovering from last night's Stewarts). Then we hopped back into Pepe the silver speedster, backtracked until we were back on scenic I-80 and rolled into Ohio.

Ohio brought nicer scenery at first but quickly turned into any/everywhere. Lots of quickly assembled highwayside strip mall towns and box stores. People seem to support our troops more here. And Ohio has about 12 difference license plates, which we realized with dismay after playing the license plate game for about an hour and even tailgating one particularly colorful variety where the Ohio was written in cursive. No Wild and Wonderful West Virginia plates, though. I was disappointed.

Okay, I'm running out of time because I'm typing in Jonas's bedroom but I'll sum up the evening now, which is actually probably for the best because I could go on for at least ten pages about the dinner and ice cream we ate, not to mention our wonderfully hospitable hosts tonight. We ended up at Jonas's cousins' house around 6:30, just in time for dinner: an appetizer of stromboli followed by steak, cheesy potato skins, green beans, salad (with avocado! Apparently news of this exotic food has made it to Ohio, if not Stewarts in Hazleton), fruit salad, and homemade rolls! I can't explain how delicious this meal tasted after a day of car snacks, even if they were healthy/bougie car snacks. Nothing beats home cooking. I can't wait for dinner at my cousin Kendra's house in St. Louis tomorrow!

Last bit (but ABSOLUTELY not least), Jonas's cousins brought us to an ice cream joint in town...nevermind SF, I'm moving to Dublin, OH. Holy. Cow. In the most literal sense, I suppose. This place is called Jenny's. We walked in to the smell of freshly made waffle cones (we watched the girl pouring the batter onto the griddle) and the sound of hand-whipped cream, the process of which we could also see from our side of the counter. The menu was more innovative than any place I've ever been to (Boston readers, don't doubt me; you know I know my ice cream, and this place beats Christina's and Toscanini's in selection, hands down). I got honey pistachio, dark chocolate, and sweet corn black raspberry (actual corn flavored ice cream with a black raspberry swirl). I don't remember everyone else's choices but I know one option that I tried (and liked!) was the goat cheese and cherry. Those who know me well know that making a goat cheese product I enjoy is no small feat. The verdict is still out for whether it beats the quality of ice cream of the top Boston area places--Ali says yes, but I am not so quick to throw my local creamery to the dogs. I end with a definite maybe.

All right, this isn't a food blog and Jonas is snoring in the bed nearby, so I'll stop here. On to Bloomington, IN for lunch tomorrow and then St. Louis, MO for dinner and more cousin time!

Day 1: Hazelton, PA

well, didn't quite make it to the goodbye dinner last night because of the hurricane. BUT, needless to say, we pushed forward and this morning, Monday, I drove little silver to Somerville to pick up my 2 passengers. For the record, WE LEFT THERE IN THE MORNING. After some last minute pics and snacks with Auntie J and Greg, we hit the road.

3 hours in, we had a lovely lunch overlooking a "park+ride" lot off of I-84. It was quite lovely. Teddy, Cascadian Farm, Sprouted Wheat bread, and Hannaford all were lovely sponsers for this event.

Around 5 PM EST we arrived in scenic Scranton. The city was blossoming...a hoppin' Irish bar, a rather upbeat mall, and a movie theatre all took our breaths away. Due to high hotel prices there and us being overwhelmed with entertainment there, we decided to move on and find a much more boring place to stay overnight. Sorry Scranton, but us 3 cousins won't succumb to you even if Michael Scott and co. did.

We finally set up camp in Hazelton, PA. at America's Best Value Inn. Paul, our desk hop, was very generous in showing us his parking lot attraction: a Budget vehicle that was abandoned in his lot 3 weeks earlier from when a tree fell into it and smashed the windshield. Considering that is the most exciting thing to happen recently, you can imagine how much fun we've been having here.

Our first road meal: Stewart's Root Beer Drive in 3 miles from our hotel. This lovely burger joint was all orange: tables, counters, chairs, scary liquids that were on the tables when we got there...everything was orange. On the menu was a California Burger. Truly excited, I asked what was on it and as she was reading the ingredients to me, I chimed in and asked if there was any advocado. Smiling and laughing, she replied "I don't even know what that is."

...We non-food snobby New Englanders appreciated this cultural difference greatly. Having grown up in a food deprived family, we appreciated this sentiment greatly. After eating very average burgers and DELICIOUSLY greasy fries, we went back to Paul and the hotel, where this posting now comes to you.

Well...leaving the Cape in a hurricane. Feeling nervous, but things will be much better when I meet up with the cowzins tonight for a grand-slamming dinner date before we leave.

We're driving across the country!

[posted by Ali]

I've created this blog to document the cross-country adventure on which my sister (Emily), cousin (Jonas), and I are about to embark.  My sister and I have been dreaming about doing some major road trip after her graduation from college for a while now, and her decision to pack up and move to San Francisco gave us the perfect excuse to do an East-West trek. Jonas has been living in L.A. for the past two years but spent this past summer back on the East Coast, so on Monday, August 29th, the three of us will be packing ourselves into his tiny Hyundai and setting out on the open road.

I'm thrilled to be doing this trip. I've felt for some time that I've actually seen much more of other countries (particularly Colombia and Argentina) than my own. My domestic travel experience has thus far been limited heavily to the bi-coastal regions, with only a couple stints in Chicago and Iowa as outliers. This trip will change that, and I'm embracing the opportunity to experience the world outside my New England / NYC / California bubble.  The pace will be rather rigorous, as we're planning to arrive in San Fran just over a week after we leave. The route has also been chosen based on the friends and family who are generous enough to let us crash at their homes. The itinerary is as follows:

8/29 leave Boston, arrive in Western PA
8/30 leave Western PA, arrive in Columbus, OH
8/31 leave Columbus, OH, stop in Bloomington, IN for lunch; stay in St. Louis, MO
9/1 leave St. Louis, arrive in Oklahoma City, OK
9/2 leave Oklahoma City, arrive in Albequerque, NM
9/3 leave Albequerque, arrive in Flagstaff
9/4 leave Flagstaff, see Grand Canyon, arrive somewhere in California
9/5 arrive in San Francisco!

We're supposed to be getting a major hurricane tomorrow, but we New Englanders tend to obsess over weather and often chalk a storm up to something a lot bigger than it actually ends up being. We've been told that it might delay our trip, but I'm confident that we'll get on the road as scheduled.

It's my goal to have us update this blog each day with a couple of pictures and a post. Stay tuned!