We're Back

It has been exactly one year today since the official start of our 48-state adventure (happy anniversary Maggie and Al!). Therefore, we’ve decided that a resurrection of our blog is in order. The continuation of blogging is in order to keep our family and friends updated on our lives, which are kept busy with more travels on a much more local scale.

To re-cap on what has happened since our last post…

·      We moved to Western Massachusetts

·      We both have jobs that we’re loving

·      The boys are very happy, what with extra space, fresh air and no sirens at 2am

·      We’ve made a few friends in our new area

·      We’ve had lots of visitors

We have also done some exploring of our new home and made quite a few trips along the East Coast since moving in December. A few highlights are listed (with photos!) below. With each new non-boring journey we set out on, there will be a post of sorts here. We hope you enjoy!

Multiple trips have been made to Upstate New York and Eastern Massachusetts have been made to visit family. We attended lovely baby shower in Maine one weekend, a multi-birthday party in Connecticut another, a few Ikea trips, a birthday celebration and mini-golf showdown on Cape Cod, and a few other day trips here and there.

Superlatives

Here they are, the long awaited list of superlatives. Individuals listed should expect an official certificate of appreciation mailed some time in the next month.

Least Likely to Invite Us Back 

Jim and Adrienne

Best Mouse Sitter 

Josh

Best Backyard with a Train Running Through it 

Sharon

Freshest Dinner 

Ronald

Best Campus Tour 

Emma

 

Best Recovery Site 

Lynn

Most Likely to be Kidnapped by Sarah 

Ruby

Best Mac and Cheese with Heaven 

Emily and Wes

Most Well-Behaved Puppy 

Dusty

Worst Meal Ever 

Sharri's

Best National Park 

The Badlands

Best Canadian (after Kent) 

Hotel Parking Lot Lady

Worst Drivers 

Washingtonians (the state, not the District, believe it or not)

Most Likely Not to Tell You that a Wave is Coming Toward You 

Jen

Most Enthusiastic 

Greg

Best Breakfast Suggestion 

Austin

Most Likely to Come Home from Work with Something Awesome 

Malorie

Grill Master 

Ashley

Best Chocolate Shop 

Generations of Lee Gelfond Chocolates

Best Tour Tour Guide 

Craig Westover

Best YouTube Video Searchers 

Sara and Joe

Most Likely to Jump Five Feet in the Air for a Red Dot 

Dexie

Best Roadside Attraction 

World's Largest Ball of Paint

Best Hotel 

Wildwood Inn and Suites

Coolest Famous Person 

Clyde Hopkins, Godfather of Blues

Most Likely to be Visited First on the Next Road Trip

Melinda and Noah

Best Mode of Transportation 

Lady

Best Mode of Transportation (After Lady) 

Parking Lot Tram at Disney World

Favorite Ride 

The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

MVP-Oct/Nov
Jenna

MVP-Nov/Dec 

Joanne

To our MVPs, Jenna and Joanne, we literally could not have done this without you. We are forever and a day grateful. Thank you.

Another huge thank you goes out to everyone who emailed us suggestions, hosted us, fed us, called us with encouragement, and read our adventures here, on this blog.

Massachusestts to B'More and Back Again

We clearly did not have enough driving so the day after all of our worldly possessions were placed into an unfamiliar house, we drove down to Baltimore, Maryland for the night. The next morning saw us picking up Han and Chewy at Joanne's home before driving in rush hour traffic to Alexandria, Virginia to make one last visit to the boys' vet. Both cats are doing well.

By now it was snowing. Thankfully Sarah is an incredibly great driver and we made it home safe despite the horrible, awful drivers on the road.

This woman, who had her hood pulled low over her forehead, came dangerously close to hitting us several times. She did not use her blinker even once.

Moving Day

As you may or may not know, Halley actually got a job already so has been relatively stress-free about what she is doing with her life since the end of October. She found out while we were in Vancouver but didn't want to share her great news on the blog until after our return.

With a new job comes a new place to live. After five minutes of searching, we found the perfect place to share in Easthampton, Massachusetts. It's an actual house with a driveway, a mailbox, two bedrooms, an ironing board in the wall of the kitchen, and a pool in the backyard. Um, can you say perfect? We did.

We contacted the real estate agent and responded to the Craigslist posting at the same time and 20 minutes later Halley was have a long conversation with the owner. Sarah's parents were beyond amazing and went out to look at the house for us and took lots of pictures. Even though we were unable to look at it ourselves, we put in an application anyway. The owners seem to love us and there was no competition-the house is ours for at least the next year.

So today is moving day. Pictures will inevitably be posted as soon as the house has Internet. Tomorrow we will be driving down to Baltimore for the night (we miss driving that much) before picking up the cats and driving back up on Thursday. Friday will be spent cleaning. Possibly sleep in there somewhere.

While our adventure is over, there are still a few more posts to come. We will be posting our list of superlatives for the trip, a combination of bests and worsts, along with silly things we've said as soon as we are able to. 'Til then,

Virginia-D.C.-Maryland-Deleware-New Jersey-Connecticut-Rhode Island

We sincerely apologize for not posting the past several days as they have been very, very busy.

We drove through a little bit of weather in West Virginia before making it to Milicent's in Cumberland, Maryland, a yarn shop Halley has been dying to go to for over a year now. Yes, it was all she expected and more.

Onward into Virginia where we met with Amina and Andrew to catch up on life before heading into the District for dinner with our wonderful host for two days, Lori, at Mama Ayesha's. Yum. Lori lives in Virginia so out we went for a wonderful night's sleep.

The next morning we drove into D.C. again and went our separate ways for the day, our longest break from each other since the start of the trip. Halley spent time catching up with many of her former co-workers at AU and got a lovely haircut while Sarah went in search of playing cards and caught up with Laura.

After a late departure from AU, we finally got to see Jenna, our fantastic cat sitter, for dinner! Unfortunately, we could not catch up for very long as we had a show at the Kennedy Center we were going to (Thanks Grandma!). We saw Cirque Dreams Holidaze, which was like a variety show/circus performance with everyone dressed as ornaments. It was pretty awesome. We then made our way back to Lori's (Thanks again Lori!) where we tried very hard to make it through Sex and the City 2 but were unsuccessful.

The next morning saw us in traffic that is the worst we've seen on the trip. Forty-eight states and the worst traffic was still the D.C. metro area. Granted we did not stop in a lot of cities, but still. We had one of the best breakfasts ever before hanging out in several aisles of Barnes and Noble with Jason.

Back on the road, we only made a few stops for decks of cards before arriving at Sarah's Aunt Deborah's house. Deborah was generous enough to let us break up the last leg of our trip with a stay with her. We had a wonderful dinner and some fantastic ice cream at the Bent Spoon before a short tour of Princeton's campus-so beautiful! Thanks again Deborah!

After another delicious meal in the morning, we made our way to Connecticut where we made a very brief stop at Sarah's grandparents' house before driving to our forty-eighth state: Rhode Island. The plan had been to grab dinner in this state, some place nice, but there were torrential rains so we just stopped for gas and booked it to Groton, Massachusetts.

West Virginia

Today we made it to West Virginia without incident. And Halley spent several hours updating the blog. And now, at 2:34am, she is going to bed. Good night.

Also, there are nine new posts so if you really want to read them all, you'll need to start on the next page. So sorry for the ridiculousness of the delay in posting!!

Ohio-Indiana-Kentucky

Why yes, we are going in a wavy pattern across the US. How kind of you to notice!

Our only stop before heading to the hotel for the night was the Creation Museum. I'm not going to add captions to the photos but will just let you draw your own interpretations of what we were seeing.

Okay this had nothing to do with the museum but he clearly wanted his picture taken and posted online.

And then we made it to our tree house for the night. Coolest. Room. Every. Hands down. Yes, there are other themed rooms at Wildwood Inn but we're pretty certain this has got to be the coolest.

There's a spiral staircase inside the tree that leads to the upstairs spa.