The Road Trip: Vermont and Back

After leaving Montreal, we typed my friend Kelsey's address into the GPS and headed back to America. After buying souvenirs, we crossed the border. At the border, they pulled us over and interrogated us and searched our car. But we we passed and they let us into America where we then mailed postcards to our friends and hosts.

KELSEY!!! 

Vermont's lakes were flooded. A lot. It was unbelievable how close the lake waterline in all the lakes we passed were to the road. Apparently, they are having extreme floodings due to all the snow melting from the rain they had after the crazy winter. So driving was cool because the water was really close to where the road began.

We got to Burlington around 1 and since Kelsey was at work we decided to visit the Magic Hat Brewery. You can give yourself a self-guided tour or you can wait for a guide to give it. We waited since we showed up right before one started. They also give you unlimited free beer samples (omnomnom). The tour we could have just done by ourselves without the guide. They didn't say much (Sam Adams was much better with their tour) that was really important besides their history. But their gift shop was fun and they had crazy artwork and Magic Hat is delicious and super cool and they love music and arts so I like them too (: Also I loved our tour guide's beard. He was a hipster to the max and I loved him. I wanted to touch his beard but I didn't.

The Steamboat.

After Magic Hat, the next stop was the Shelbourne Museum where Kelsey works. It appears I had neglected to inform my fellow roadie how awesome it was. (Basically, when I suggest a place to visit, there's an 89% chance it will be amazing and 100% chance that we can make it be amazing so no more doubt and skepticism please.) The Shelbourne Museum is a super cool, former estate of this rich lady who loved collecting things and art. They have lots of really old buildings from the estate in addition to the ones they moved there by helicopter and train. They even have a gigantic steamboat sitting on their lawn (SOOOO COOL)!!

Kelsey was the bestest and got us in for free since she works there (: We spent 2 hours frolicking about and looking at circus exhibits and gun exhibits and blacksmiths working and printing presses (and how they evolved over time, amazingness). Afterwards, we met up with Kelsey and went to dinner.

By that time, I wasn't feeling the greatest but I thought maybe it was because I was hungry. We ate at an amazing place that served quesadillas and food and I scarfed mine down really quickly because we had our most important part of the trip ahead of us: The Avett Brothers.

Even Sarah Palin went to hear the Avett Brothers!

I love Vermont because they invited the Avett Brothers to their state and gave us free ice cream during the concert. As I said before, a large reason why I wanted to visit Kelsey and drive up north was because I knew that she had a ticket that I could use for this concert (: Which was sooo very very good. I only wish that I didn't feel so sick during it (I really felt miserable and that put a damper on things for me but I tried so hard to look not sick for everyone else) But the Avett Brothers were amazing and so good and sexy and I love them and you should go see them in concert if you ever get the chance!!!

After the concert, we crashed in Kelsey's awesome apartment. I really liked her place, it's cute and she has a nice room and wonderfully large kitchen. Kelsey's roomie had a huge air mattress for me to sleep on that inflated like 2 feet thick (I've never seen one so thick). I fell asleep almost instantly and didn't hear anyone get up to turn off lights or doors nor did I hear her roomie walk past me to get to her room. I DID however wake up when the dog tried climbing up on the mattress at 6am. That brought a short shriek out of me since I forgot a dog existed and I wasn't expecting a hairy dog-face in my face. But that was a fun surprise.

Vermont is awesome becasue they have large farmer's markets in walking distance and so we went there to watch Vermontians protect and sell their rhubarb and let their babies play in the fountain. We ate breakfast at a place sorta like NDB but they have more selection and it was incredibly good (and I wasn't sick in the morning yayayay)

After roaming Burlington for a while and getting Vermont maple creemies, it was noon and we had to start heading back towards home. (Booo. It was soooo sad leaving Kelsey but she's very happy in Vermont so that makes me happy.) We drove. Correction: Michael drove. I rode. He still wouldn't let me drive. For dinner, we showed up in the Bronx in Denise's neighborhood and ate real New York pizza. [Side rant- everyone claims NY pizza is amazing but to me it tasted like normal pizza and wasn't as special except that my slice had lots of veggies in addition to chicken]

Real New York pizza

Denise met us at her favorite local place and we ate pizza with her and her friend and then we went to her house to say hi to her family (I think they thought we were crazy for randomly showing up in the city without really making plans that morning to do so because they seemed a bit confused as to how we got there). Denise's dog loved Michael though. I think it was because the dog's fur is a blonde version of Michael's hair. 

We left New York City and headed home for realsies. The only traffic we EVER encountered on the trip was in Newark, DE (go figure) on our way back to my house (in MD). We got to my house around 11 and Michael dropped me off so he could go back to DE so he could wear his Canada hat to church in the morning. (I love Pastor John Groth).

And that was the end of the trip ):

Pretty much that was the 1st and best vacation I had ever had. A 6-day road trip was a good choice. 6 days was long enough that you weren't exhausted or annoyed or whatnot from being on the road for too long away from home but it was still long enough that I was ready to go back to real life by the end. I had lots of fun and learned a lot and finally finished reflecting from it. Yay!

My favorite quotes were "We're in Canada!" and "Green means GO!" and "Cow I win!" and anything that Kelsey said. And I still wear my Canada trucker hat every time I drive my car.

The end.

The Road Trip: Its beginnings and Days 1 and 2

So Michael and I went on a 6-day road trip 3ish weeks ago around New England and into Canadia. And it was amazing! I'm trying to think of how we even began the idea of going on a road trip and I think it started in the Fall when I wanted to visit Swan Johnson out in California. I told Michael and he seemed to want to go too which then transpired into an epic road trip around the country in 2 weeks which then got more realistic as June approached and work dates were given out.

There are some large factors that you need to keep in mind when thinking about road tripping.
1. You will be in a car with the people you are travelling with for long periods of time. Make sure you won't destroy that other person. Luckily, Michael is half-crazy like myself so I think we were fine. (This is your cue, Michael, to agree fervently). No bad arguments outside of whether or not he'd let me drive occurred. Also, we didn't drive nearly as much as we were originally planning on had we gone to California.
2. The music you listen to in the car is a big deal.
3. Price/affordability.
4. The US dislikes when you try entering their country.
5. Not making an itinerary that is planned out down to the second but instead having cities to drive towards and figuring out the rest on the way there is a good idea. Always.
6. Boys with smartphones like their phones better than old-school Garmins to use as GPSs. The rest of the world will never understand why. (My friend Davien is another example.)

I wanted to go to Vermont because my friend Kelsey moved to Burlington in January and I missed her and wanted/promised to visit. Also, I claimed her 2nd ticket to see the Avett Brothers with her in Burlington on June 3rd. Travelling around New England seemed to be logical and practical yet still could be epic (especially with the amount of breweries and beer they have yay but i'm not implying we're ridiculous alcoholics lol).

The Monday after I graduated, we packed up Momma Natrin's car (that she kindly let us borrow because she's the best) and headed towards Connecticut. My friend Elizabeth and her parents, Momma and Papa Hanle, live in Southbury and they they wanted to meet us at Stew Leonard's. Michael thought I was insane when I said we were going to an awesome grocery store but a store that has animatronic chickens and cows is fantastic- especially when it serves lobster in their outside cafeteria for less than $13. If you haven't been, you need to take a few hours when driving through Connecticut and stop at Stew's. It's amazing. Do not doubt me.

We left Connecticut very full and happy (I was happy because I got to play with Elizabeth's bunny, Pickle) and headed towards Boston. Originally we wanted to find a campsite outside of the city but that was impossible so we found a hotel that wasn't super sketchy (after a few tries) and then went into Cambridge. Michael wanted to play at the Cantab Lounge's Open Mic. At first I was skeptical of the bar because it looked like no one was going inside (mind you, it was early so of course no one went in at that time in the evening). After he went in and talked to the guy in charge and did all that stuff that musician's do he approved of it and we sat and had Sam Adam's summer ale (omnomnom) and listened to good-looking yet insecure college-aged hipsters and old men play. This girl Evie Ladin was the feature and she was really nice and good and my dad would've liked listening to her so I got her CD to give to him. (Mainly as a present because my dad thought the road trip was a sketchy idea.) The Cantab Lounge actually reminded me of one of the first bars I went to after I turned 21 (it was down in DC and I went with grad students right after my 21st birthday) and so I was pretty content.

On Tuesday, we checked out of the hotel and parked at my (old) roommate's brother's house and took the 'T' into the city. The 'T' is very clean and nice. I'm very jealous.

Our first priority on Tuesday morning was the Sam Adams Brewery. She was very nice and smelled like beer and we got free samples!! She also lets you fill out postcards and she'll pay for postage herself. Afterwards, Michael asked his many followers on Facebook what we should do downtown and some people told us to go to the Funeil Marketplace (I still can't pronounce that place). Pretty much it was just an outdoor mall that sold lobster hats at souvenir stands but it was nice. The aquarium was nearby so we walked around that and saw sea lions and seals.

We got tired and needed to be back at my roommate's brother's (Brian's) house at a decent hour because Brian has a 5 yr old girl and a 2.5 year old boy and a wife that needs to be put to bed early. It was very awkward at first showing up in their house at their bedtime but eventually it got a little less awkward. In exchange for free housing, I offered free babysitting the next morning for the 2.5 year old while Brian could study some (since he's a PhD student). I was entertained because he was slightly nervous that I wouldn't be able to handle a crying boy but clearly he didn't know my resume. Josiah stopped crying as soon as Brian was out of earshot (and after I made a blanket fort to drive cars through)... or rather he stopped crying until Michael tried petting him like a cat.

Halfway through the morning, Josiah became unafraid of Michael and they became best friends. Brian came home and we left to go on a quest to find rare vinyl round things that make music and are only 3 colors anand to search for Boston creme pie. Fact: just because you are in Boston, does NOT make it easy to find Boston creme pie nor will it be cheap. Especially when in Harvard. After our pie, we left Boston to hunt witches.

And this is where I'm going to stop rambling because I'm tired. Maine and Canada and Vermont will come soon.