Friday, August 3, 2007

The Trans American (and partially Canadian) Drive


Big Sur, California Coastline

This is the first post.

After an hour of trying to figure out how to post on this blog, we have acquired access. Answer=put in the correct password, duhhh.

We are leaving the very green mountain state (East Montpelier, VT) with lots of homemade bread headed toward Rochester, NY to visit the Poopy Paulings and the new addition to their family, Alistair Finn, who has a lung capacity of 70 breaths/min.

Then onward, but we don't want to get ahead of ourselves.....

Vermont to Rochester, NY. We stayed with the Paulings and then tried to find Niagra Falls, but never were able to locate it. Surprising, since it is such a huge body of flowing water separating the US and Canada. Frustrated after not being able to find this little waterfall, we crossed into Ontario, Canada and took the QEW where we had to slow down because of the kph vs. mph. They should at least try to make the transition from kph to mph smooth, not so that you have to slow down to residential street speeds. Silly Canadians!!!

Into Detroit, where we saw Eminem pushing a shopping cart along 8 Mile: "Yo, Dawg!!!??" Stayed in Ann Arbor with Steve and Catherine and little Charlie.

Then onto the windy city, Chicago to meet up with a great friend and fellow US Olympic Committee intern, Abby Tompkins. We stayed with her in an immaculately decorated apartment in the Lincoln Park section of lakeside Chicago. We liked it so much that we stayed a few days and rode beach cruisers along the Lake, visited Navy Pier, ate a Mini's, where everything is minature down to the bottles of alcohol, visited the Goose Island Brewery (one of the best micro breweries in the country, hands down!), saw Lolapalooza from the top of Abby's apartment building, walked by the Sears Tower and saw a store with a sign outside which read "Standard Limbs". I think they sold body parts there.

After Chicago we left Illinois (don't pronounce the s!) and headed toward Wisconsin, Dodgeville to be exact, to visit the Knoedler's, Nora's aunt, uncle and cousin. This was the total opposite of Chicago, everything was calm, slow and quite--save for the crickets, those were ear piercing, so much so that we needed to wear ear plugs to sleep! The next day we visited Devil's Lake and had a picnic. We lounged and swam in the lake and realized why people are so happy in the small states like Wisconsin.

Next to....tune in later as we SLOWLY post more adventures!