Check out our first round of pictures up under Pictures 1. A blog will be up soon about the Badlands, Blacks Hills, and Denver. Enjoy!
Jess
September 1, 2008
August 29, 2008
Boston-Chicago
Friday morning Justin and I left Boston and headed to Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. We had a great time the previous night in Boston saying bye to a bunch of our friends. We had a lot of fun but were sad to say good bye for a little while to everyone. We drove through a fair amount of traffic, stopped at a good used bookstore and restaurant soon after passing into Connecticut, and arrived at Mike and Mindy’s house, friends of Justin’s parents. They were very gracious hosts and we spent the evening and night in their backyard and at a nearby restaurant.
The next morning we said good bye to them and headed not far to Newark to pick up my brother Cody who had taken the train to meet us from Brooklyn and is joining us for the rest of the road trip. We loaded up Justin’s Volvo and drove to DC to meet Fran, Matt, and Noah, high school friends of mine who live in DC, as well as Jay who was in town visiting as well. We explored a bit of Columbia Heights, Fran’s neighborhood, and then headed to Chinatown for dinner. DC’s clean and informative metro system was a nice change from Boston’s. We caught up over dinner and headed to RFD, Regional Food and Drink, which had an extensive beer list while Cody checked out the monuments lit up at night. We spent the rest of the night on Fran’s rooftop deck.
The next morning we headed downtown and saw the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. It was very interesting and my favorite parts included pictures from the Hubble, weather pattern aerial photos, a video featuring Scott Hamilton skating around the solar system with Monty Python’s Eric Idle singing along, and seeing the various planes and satellites. After a couple hours of that we met the crew at Eastern Market for lunch and then got back on the road once again, this time just a few hours down the road to Charlottesville, VA. Here we met up with our friend Pailes from college. He showed us UVA, a gorgeous campus with a lot of tradition. He was doing really well in the graduate structural engineering program. We were a week short of seeing the first football game of the season that everyone was excited for. That evening he brought us to a bbq at a friends’ place where we met a bunch of other grad students
The following morning we got a late start, had breakfast at a popular bagel place on the main strip of town, and headed to Columbus, Ohio, which we had chosen as a stopping point on the way to Chicago. Cody and I had been introduced to couchsurfing.com, a site where you can find people to stay with or meet up with while traveling. I was a little skeptical at first but was impressed with the importance of user references on the website. We asked a guy in a suburban area of Columbus to stay with him and he agreed. He asked us to meet him at a bar where he was playing volleyball that evening and I was a little confused at first. It turned out to be a large restaurant/bar with a an outdoor patio in a strip mall area surrounded by sand volleyball courts. It was impressive and looked like it was about the only entertainment to be had in the nearby area. Justin and I had a draink with him and talked about traveling and his experiences with couchsurfing that he’d had, mainly while traveling Europe. After jumpstarting his car that had ran out of gas on the way to his game, we went to sleep at his place in preparation for another day in the car.
We arose on Tuesday morning and made the drive to Chicago. We were headed to Jack’s place, a high school friend of Justin’s. Before meeting up with him after he was finished work we explored his area, I believe the East Village, we explored the neighborhood. It was very nice with lots of shops and restaurants and we sat for one of them for awhile as well. Once we met up with Jack he and friends showed us around the Wrigleyville area where we had dinner, saw an improv show, and walked around the outside of the Cubs stadium.
On Wednesday we explored Chicago more and were thoroughly impressed. Cody had seen it in the winter and said that it was a totally different place then. We walked around downtown and the major parks there, including Millenium park. From downtown we walked through the shopping district to the Hancock tower where we had drinks and admired the view from the 96th floor. While not as tall as the Sears tower, we were told that the views were better from the Hancock tower. It was really nice to walk around for a day instead of sitting in the car, which we’d done for the past two days. Tired, we went back to Jack’s and rearranged our plans a bit. Instead of having a leisurely day on Thursday we decided to make it all the way to the badlands in the following day, 13 hours of driving. That evening we ate at the only certified organic restaurant in the Midwest as our host Jack told us, a pizza and salad place owned by one of the members of Wilco and across from Jack’s apartment. We had some local beers and good food, and explored a bit more of the area with Jack, who was a great host to be in the city with.
More updates to come soon and check out the Pictures 1 which will be updated soon.
-Jess
The next morning we said good bye to them and headed not far to Newark to pick up my brother Cody who had taken the train to meet us from Brooklyn and is joining us for the rest of the road trip. We loaded up Justin’s Volvo and drove to DC to meet Fran, Matt, and Noah, high school friends of mine who live in DC, as well as Jay who was in town visiting as well. We explored a bit of Columbia Heights, Fran’s neighborhood, and then headed to Chinatown for dinner. DC’s clean and informative metro system was a nice change from Boston’s. We caught up over dinner and headed to RFD, Regional Food and Drink, which had an extensive beer list while Cody checked out the monuments lit up at night. We spent the rest of the night on Fran’s rooftop deck.
The next morning we headed downtown and saw the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. It was very interesting and my favorite parts included pictures from the Hubble, weather pattern aerial photos, a video featuring Scott Hamilton skating around the solar system with Monty Python’s Eric Idle singing along, and seeing the various planes and satellites. After a couple hours of that we met the crew at Eastern Market for lunch and then got back on the road once again, this time just a few hours down the road to Charlottesville, VA. Here we met up with our friend Pailes from college. He showed us UVA, a gorgeous campus with a lot of tradition. He was doing really well in the graduate structural engineering program. We were a week short of seeing the first football game of the season that everyone was excited for. That evening he brought us to a bbq at a friends’ place where we met a bunch of other grad students
The following morning we got a late start, had breakfast at a popular bagel place on the main strip of town, and headed to Columbus, Ohio, which we had chosen as a stopping point on the way to Chicago. Cody and I had been introduced to couchsurfing.com, a site where you can find people to stay with or meet up with while traveling. I was a little skeptical at first but was impressed with the importance of user references on the website. We asked a guy in a suburban area of Columbus to stay with him and he agreed. He asked us to meet him at a bar where he was playing volleyball that evening and I was a little confused at first. It turned out to be a large restaurant/bar with a an outdoor patio in a strip mall area surrounded by sand volleyball courts. It was impressive and looked like it was about the only entertainment to be had in the nearby area. Justin and I had a draink with him and talked about traveling and his experiences with couchsurfing that he’d had, mainly while traveling Europe. After jumpstarting his car that had ran out of gas on the way to his game, we went to sleep at his place in preparation for another day in the car.
We arose on Tuesday morning and made the drive to Chicago. We were headed to Jack’s place, a high school friend of Justin’s. Before meeting up with him after he was finished work we explored his area, I believe the East Village, we explored the neighborhood. It was very nice with lots of shops and restaurants and we sat for one of them for awhile as well. Once we met up with Jack he and friends showed us around the Wrigleyville area where we had dinner, saw an improv show, and walked around the outside of the Cubs stadium.
On Wednesday we explored Chicago more and were thoroughly impressed. Cody had seen it in the winter and said that it was a totally different place then. We walked around downtown and the major parks there, including Millenium park. From downtown we walked through the shopping district to the Hancock tower where we had drinks and admired the view from the 96th floor. While not as tall as the Sears tower, we were told that the views were better from the Hancock tower. It was really nice to walk around for a day instead of sitting in the car, which we’d done for the past two days. Tired, we went back to Jack’s and rearranged our plans a bit. Instead of having a leisurely day on Thursday we decided to make it all the way to the badlands in the following day, 13 hours of driving. That evening we ate at the only certified organic restaurant in the Midwest as our host Jack told us, a pizza and salad place owned by one of the members of Wilco and across from Jack’s apartment. We had some local beers and good food, and explored a bit more of the area with Jack, who was a great host to be in the city with.
More updates to come soon and check out the Pictures 1 which will be updated soon.
-Jess
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