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.

Indiana-Ohio

I'm going to forget about writing in the third person for just a minute. We all know I'm writing these posts anyway...

Today is the day I have been looking forward to for months. Today we got to visit the World's Largest Ball of Paint. I'm pretty sure I mentioned we were going here to anyone that would listen. It was better than I ever could have imagined.

For those of you not in the know, it is effing cold.

The World's Largest Ball of Paint. Right there. For the touching. AND PAINTING.

Excited does not accurately describe what I was feeling at this moment.

We chose green as the next layer as it was easiest to reach for Glenda, Wife of Mike, Creator of the World's Largest Ball of Paint.

We painted layer number 22,564. We have certificates that we intend on framing.

Sarah uses the mirror to make sure she gets every part of the bottom.

AHH I'M PAINTING THE WORLD'S LARGEST BALL OF PAINT!!

Almost done!

Sherwin Williams donated the money to build this structure for the Ball.

Onward to Jungle Jim's in Ohio. This place is an international grocery store that has everything. And then some. We were not allowed to take photos but there were several robotic characters throughout the store that said little things every few minutes. Robin Hood was there, encouraging shoppers to check out the international candy aisle beneath him and a Cereal Band serenading customers in the cheese and nut section. Awesome. It was truly an amazing experience. They also have America's Best Restroom 2007. Yeah. We did that.

Tennessee-Arkansas-Missouri-Illinois-Indiana

No trip across the country would be complete without a stop in Memphis to visit the King.

Sweet headset for the audio tour.

The Jungle Room.

A gazillion gold records.

The piano Elvis played the day he died.

The graves of Elvis, his mother, his father, his twin brother, and grandmother (who outlived them all).

Graceland!

We then headed to Beale Street for an amazing lunch at Dyers (Thanks again, Butler!). Dyers has been using the same grease since 1912 and they use it to fry their fries and burgers and desserts. Oh man were we in heaven!

 We had yet to get a deck of cards from Tennessee so we began poking our heads in almost every store that was open on the street. This really great music store was playing some blues and upon entering, we were greeted by the Godfather of Blues himself: Clyde Hopkins. It was his music that we were hearing so we, of course, got a signed copy of his CD.

All this time spent on Beale put us just a few hours behind schedule so we began driving to Gays, Illinois to see a two-story outhouse before staying just outside Indianapolis for the night.

We definitely thought we were going from Tennessee to Missouri and we were wrong. You can not imagine how hard and long we laughed after we saw this sign. You'd think after two months on the road we'd have a better sense of where the heck we are.

Lady reaches 15,000 miles!

The ironic part is that we really did have to use the bathroom.

Too bad it was locked!

Alabama-Mississippi

We went to visit the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama first thing in the morning. Our research told us that you could purchase unopened bags for just a few dollars but apparently that is not the case anymore. We still got DVDs for $4 a piece, books for a buck, and a sweet iPod case for Halley for just 99 cents. Hott.

We stayed just outside Memphis in Southaven, Mississippi for the night. We had a great waitress that night by the name of Butler who gave us an incredible recommendation for a place for the lunch the next day.

Tennessee

A big day of driving for us! We passed through South and North Carolina before reaching the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  Little known fact: Gatlinburg used to be called White Oak, named for the beautiful white oak trees in the area. There was a gentleman who was a Union sympathizer and no one liked him so they said that if he left town, they would name it after him. And that is how Gatlinburg came to be.

The museum is one woman's collection. I triple dog dare you to think of something that this collection doesn't have as a salt and/or pepper shaker.

Another little known fact about Gatlinburg: They have a ginormous Christmas parade every year. The date for this year's parade? The day we were passing through. And you'll never believe who showed up for the parade: THE OSCAR MAYER WIENERMOBILE!! There was a local news anchor who apparently thought Halley was trying to get an autograph while she was interviewing a few people. One of her sheets of notes had blown away and Halley was merely trying to return the sheet. We finally got the attention of a cameraman and the day was saved.

Folding chairs saved seats along the main street.

My bologna has a first name...

Llamas dressed for the occasion.

The observation tower for the parade. There were several camera crews there. It was like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade but in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

We managed to tear ourselves away from the main street and continue on toward Chattanooga. We were in the car for only a few minutes when we passed into Pigeon Forge, which is definitely a combination of Wisconsin Dells and Branson, Missouri. A stop at the Jurassic Jungle Boat Ride and another Glow-in-the-Dark Mini Golf Course were needed before the rest of our drive.

This ride was scary.

This course was awesome and Halley came her closest yet to beating Sarah.

Savannah, Georgia

Halley woke with a start, realizing she left something extremely important to her at the hotel in Disney. Luckily, we had decided the night before that there was no way we were going to Universal Studios to endure another day at a theme park (no worries-we WILL return to take on Harry Potter!) so we were able to drive back to the Animal Kingdom Lodge to pick up the important package. Halley is beyond grateful to the woman who found her items and to Sarah for driving her back.

Since our plan no longer included a trip to the park, we took a slow drive to Savannah, Georgia for the night.

Which way are we going again?

Pretty berries.

Beautiful Savannah trees.

Disney World: Day Four

We took one last long look out our balcony at the beautiful view with all the animals before checking out of our amazing hotel.

We decided to drive to Epcot so we could stay late at the park and not worry about the crowds on the buses going back to the hotel. Being able to ride on the Tram might also have had something to do with it.

First stop: the Universe of Energy. This was a moving theater show set up as a dream Ellen Degeneres had about needing to find alternative sources of energy. We were both extremely excited so there was a little disappointment when we realized how outdated the dream was and that it was clear some oil company paid for its creation. How did we know this? Things like, "We only have 50 years of oil but don't worry, we're finding more every day" and "Sure, we could use solar panels but they're awfully expensive" and "We don't know much about wind energy so we shouldn't rely on it" were said. Also, Ellen had a cell phone as big as a home phone.

Across the way we decided to brave the long lines at Mission: Space, a simulation of blasting off to Mars. As a trend, there was zero wait for the green team, the less intense version. Sarah was our team's navigator and Halley was the pilot. Our commander and engineer were a much older couple who were quick about pushing the correct buttons at the right time so we had a safe landing. Yay!

We then ran to Spaceship Earth, the ride that takes place inside the iconic structure that is Disney's Epcot. Once again, we had absolutely no wait (we seriously could not believe how lucky we were) and had a fabulous time listening to Judi Dench explain our progress through documenting our history. Our first time around, the ride stopped three times which was only slightly alarming. We had to go on the ride two more times before we left because on the decent from the top of the dome you get to run through a computer program which creates a small video of you in the future. Our favorite is still the first one.

We were lucky enough to snag a seat next to a sea turtle for lunch.

While we waited for our tummies to un-fill themselves, we took a ride on the Finding Nemo ride and listened in on Turtle Talk with Crush. This was most definitely geared toward little kids but it was still fun. We manged to see a dolphin show and manatee feeding before heading to The Land for Living with the Land and Soarin'.

Mine! Mine! Mine!

Living with the Land was incredible. It's a boat ride through a living laboratory which showcased new ways veggies and fruits are being grown. Halley did not take pictures (she is still upset) but there were eggplants hanging upside down and lettuce growing in water pots. It was just waaaay cool.

And then we had a little wait for Soarin', a wicked cool ride that simulates flying over the country. Since we have already seen some of the most beautiful sights in the country, we kept our eyes shut for most of it, not wanting to ruin our travel experience (and wanting to stop the waves of nausea caused by the realistic flying movements).

We still had over an hour before our dinner reservation at La Hacienda de San Angel so we checked out the three amigos ride with Donald Duck. Once again, just not the same with newer technology but a boat ride is a boat ride so we did it again.

Halley really wanted this hat but Sarah convinced her it wouldn't fit in the car.

Dinner was good but we were both incredibly exhausted and cold so we headed back to the entrance of the park. We rode Spaceship Earth the last two times and took a few photos before heading to an Orlando hotel for the night.

Happy Holidays from Epcot! If we paid $14.95 per photo, we could send you this with a border. Unfortunately for you, we are cheap so this is all you get.