road trip -- niagara falls, new york to louisville, kentucky -- day 2

i love this picture. not this picture specifically, although it's not bad, but this type of picture. the road goes on forever and forever picture. i tried to take one in every state we drove through, but it was difficult. either because i wasn't paying attention to every straight road or because we were in the state for all of 20 minutes, pennsylvania is a good example of this.

 

  

the big adventure of day two was our run in with a raccoon. he tried to get in our car and come with us, but csv said we couldn't take him even though he clearly wanted to be my best friend. 

we spent the rest of the day driving across ohio. it was kind of intense, and long, but the views were amazing.

that's the best we could do for our "welcome to kentucky" picture. oops.

i love lucy, in jamestown, ny -- lucille ball desi arnaz center for comedy

 

csv is a huge "i love lucy" fan. so it was inevitable that the second stop on our trip was to the lucille ball desi arnaz center for comedy in jamestown, new york. unfortunately you can't take photos inside either of the museums. yes, there are two museums; one about lucille's life and one about the "i love lucy" show. but jamestown has embraced it's hollywood daughter and painted five huge murals of scenes from "i love lucy" around town. 

ps. how freaking cool would it be to drive by this every day?

2013 -- week 25 -- two disasters lead to a lesson in patience

do you ever have those days that really test your patience? of course you do; everyone does. this past weekend was our turn. and frankly, i think we handled ourselves beautifully. 

a couple of weeks ago i got a letter from a friend announcing she was pregnant and that she would be in san diego in a couple of weeks. seeing how she lives in virginia beach, and we wouldn't be back to the east coast anytime in the foreseeable future, rcg and i decided we would take a quick weekend trip to san diego to visit with her and her husband.

we made our hotel reservations and planned to meet them at the san diego zoo at 9am on saturday morning. we spent the whole morning together, looking at animals, taking pictures, making new best friends (basically every animal at the zoo is now my bestie). afterwards rcg and i headed to our hotel to check in, only the sign said no check ins for another hour, no exceptions. needless to say, i yelled, rcg yelled, and we were asked to not return. it was hilarious. (don't worry; we found another hotel.)

the next day we enjoyed a leisurely morning walk and a delicious breakfast and headed home. only to hear two large pops on a two-lane, one-way highway about 4.5 hours from tucson. luckily we have AAA -- if you don't have it, get it; it's so worth it -- so after a tow to the nearest town and a new set of tires we were on our way. and the whole time we kept our cool. i'm so proud of us.

we walked to canada and all i got was this passport stamp: niagara falls

 

we started the second day of our road trip at niagara falls. before we even had a chance to walk through the park and see the falls we stopped to take pictures of these beautiful tulips. while we were taking our pictures, a gentleman from the niagara gazette stopped us and asked if he could take our picture for the daily snapshot. we said yes, obviously. because who doesn't want to be in the newspaper?

this is james neiss. i couldn't resist taking his picture while he was taking mine.

you can see our picture here. 

ps. this is the first time csv is referred to as doctor in print. so cool.

 

this picture was taken on the new york side of the falls. niagara falls, ontario is in the distance.

the whole time we were enjoying the falls we were debating whether we had time for a quick jaunt to the canadian side of the river. finally we decided that it would be quicker, and cooler, to walk across the bridge than to drive.

 

since there was no line, i even convinced the border agent to stamp my passport.

  

we were only in canada for 15 minutes, maybe less, but we were surprised to find out that the view of niagara falls is actually significantly better than from the us side. it's definitely worth the walk, so if you get the chance, take it.

road trip -- burlington, vermont to niagara falls, new york -- day 1

there are many ways to approach a road trip, anywhere between super organized to fly by the seat of your pants. i am a "fly by the seat of your pants" kind of gal, but csv is not. so we did a nice compromise -- we planned out the nightly stops, got some maps, and looked up some places to eat, but we didn't get hotel reservations and everything was planned so loosely that we could change anything at a moment's notice. 

 

 

our plan was to leave burlington, vermont on a monday and arrive in flagstaff, arizona the following friday. that's over 2500 miles in 5 days. which isn't so bad; only 500 miles a day, but we had stops planned along the way which was going to make our days longer. but it seemed necessary to hit some of these places (niagara falls, the arch in st. louis, route 66, etc.) to make it a proper cross-country road trip.

 

  


our itinerary, including things to see & eat, and states that we would pass through:

monday: burlington, vermont to niagara falls, new york
things to eat:buffalo wings in buffalo, new york
states: vermont and new york

tuesday: niagara falls, new york to louisville, kentucky
things to see: niagara falls, walking to canada, desilu museum (in jamestown, new york)
things to eat: cincinnati chili and kentucky fried chicken
states: new york, pennsylvania, ohio, and kentucky

wednesday: louisville, kentucky to tulsa, oklahoma
things to see: louisville slugger museum, churchill downs, the arch in st. louis, route 66 in kansas
things to eat: ted drewes concrete (st. louis, missouri)
states: kentucky, indiana, illinois, missouri, kansas, and oklahoma

thursday: tulsa, oklahoma to santa fe, new mexico
things to see: route 66 museum
things to eat: calf fries, 72 oz. steak at the big texan (amarillo, texas)
states: oklahoma, texas, and new mexico

friday: santa fe, new mexico to flagstaff, arizona
things to see: santa fe, the painted desert, the petrified forest
states: new mexico and arizona

saturday, sunday, & monday: flagstaff, arizona to tucson, arizona
things to see: the grand canyon, csv's new apartment (phoenix, arizona)

these pictures are from day one: burlington, vermont to niagara falls, new york. all were taken from the passenger side of a moving car. not too shabby, huh?