New York City was even more fun that expected. We walked all over the place, ate great food, saw good friends and took in our fill of the big city. We walked from Brooklyn to Manhattan, via the Brooklyn Bridge, went to Central Park, took the subway to Coney Island, walked all over Brooklyn, saw old friends and decided that though New York was great to visit, we definitely aren’t city people. However, we are both glad we have friends who live there, because it’s a great excuse to go back someday.
After leaving New York City, we headed south, hoping to make it to Charlottesville, Virginia to get our car fixed at the same mechanic who fixed our clutch. It became apparent rather quickly that this wasn’t in the cards. Our heat gauge was all over the place, mostly in the red, as we crossed through New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. We made it to the tip of Virginia when the heat gauge hit the top and refused to go back down. We pulled off the interstate and were lucky enough to be 2 miles away from Prince William State Park. We limped the car to a campsite and settled in for the evening. The next day we called a mechanic who sent out a tow truck. The car was in worse shape than we thought, so we ended up renting a car for the week it was in the shop and spent some time with friends in Charlottesville and then headed out to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for some rainy adventures and finished out the week in the Blue Ridge Mountains. After our car was back in working order, we headed to Iron Station, North Carolina to pick up some things from my friend Therin’s house before heading west for the holidays.
Our route west took us through Kentucky where we stopped at Mammoth Cave National Park. Here are some pictures:
After Kentucky, we headed to Wisconsin to spend 5 days with Mark’s brother Eric, his new wife Crystle and her 2 year old son Ian. We spent some quality time with the three of them and I got to see my first Great Lake. I knew the Great Lakes were huge, but until actually seeing one, I had no idea how huge! There had been a Salmon spawn sometime before and there were dried fish everywhere.
After saying our goodbyes, we struck out through Minnesota and into South Dakota. We slept at a rest stop just outside of the Badlands and went into the National Park early the next morning. What an otherworldly landscape.
After South Dakota, we crossed into Montana, landing at our friend’s Nic and Sarah’s apartment in Bozeman. We spent a few fun filled days in the excessively snowy town, cooking and eating great food, going to Norris Hot Springs, lounging and generally having a great time. Our next stop was Hamilton, Montana where we would remain for the next 4 months, kind of on accident, kind of on purpose. I got my old job back at Chapter One Bookstore and my parents were house sitting up in Missoula for most of the week, leaving their house empty for Mark and I to house sit. While in Montana, Mark did a lot of writing for his blog that he plans to turn into a book in the not too distant future. You can check it out at http://mybestfrienddave.blogspot.com He also did some embroidery work and made an excellent winged buffalo.
We spent Thanksgiving at my Cousin Alison’s house where we got to meet new baby Bennett and I finally gave him his baby quilt that I’d been working on since January, but due to my obsessively tiny stitches, it took me 11 months to complete. In my defense, it’s difficult to get excited about sitting around with a quilt on your lap, hand quilting in the Texas heat. One good thing about driving across the country is it leaves lots of free time for quilting.
We went back to Bozeman two more times to visit Sarah and Nic, our friends Katie and Audrey dropped by on their way across the country
and we spent a fair amount of time with Hamilton friends, eating good food and playing darts. Mark also went home to Colorado for 3 weeks and got in a lot of good family and friend time and went on some outdoor adventures.
The main focus of my winter turned out to be the musical Annie. Our local theater was putting it on and on a whim I tried out. It turned out to be very time consuming, but fun. I discovered a whole new group of people I never knew existed in Hamilton. I had 4 lines and a 5 word singing solo. As a homeless person and Annette the servant, I spent a lot of time on stage, but mostly in the background. While I was off becoming a star, Mark went on a bunch of hikes and went on a solo backpacking trip. He also encountered a grip of wildlife including a moose and a wolf. I made another quilt, this time for Eric and Crystle’s new baby, my new nephew, Brock.
Three days after the final Annie show, Mark and I left Hamilton. We had spent the winter applying to farm jobs all over the East Coast and had decided to spen
d the season at Harvest Hill Farm in Walden, Vermont. We left Hamilton on March, 17th with a month to make it to Vermont in time to start work. In logical fashion, we headed west to go east.First stop on our eastbound road trip was Portland, Oregon. We spent a lovely week there, enjoying the spring weather, exclaiming over the flowers and spending time in parks with our friends. We also hit up some of our favorite Portland locations, such as Powell’s bookstore, Mt. Tabor, a number of our favorite restaurants, specifically Asian ones as we were skeptical of the abundance of Asian food in the Northeast Kingdom. One of the highlights of our Portland experience was seeing ‘Back to the Future’ on the big screen at Laurelhurst, our favorite beer theater. I also, personally, drank way too much good coffee. After saying farewell to our Portland friends, we headed to the Oregon Coast to visit our favorite beaches. We stopped at Arcadia, Hug Point and Oswald west, before cutting inland to spend the night in Corvallis with our friends Cosmo and Gwenn. They gave us a tour of their newly remodeled home, fed us tasty food and took us on a lovely evening walk. The next morning we continued south to Medford, Oregon to spend some days with our buddy Ross. The night we got there, ‘The Devil Makes Three’, a raucous bluegrass band was playing in Ashland. The show was a great way to start off our Medford portion of the trip. A lot of relaxing was done in Medford. Picnics were went on, hikes were taken, movies were watched, hot springs were soaked in and the balmy weather was enjoyed.
From Oregon we crossed the border into California where we spent time in both Wilits and Ft. Bragg, visiting our friends Katie and Alex and Nora. Though wet and chilly, Northern California was gorgeous. We spent a lot of time outside, both inland and on the coast and took way too many photos.
From California we finally started heading towards Vermont instead of away from it. We spent 10 days in Berthoud, Colorado visiting Mark’s family, but on the way there we managed to hit 3 different snowstorms in 3 different states. Passes in California, Nevada and Colorado were all determined to dump ridiculous amounts of snow in the path of the poor Subaru. At least we got a break in Utah. Berthoud was nice and relaxing. We spent a lot of time with Mark’s family and friends. The time felt too short, but then again, it always does. From Colorado we booked it through Kansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee to make it to North Carolina in two days. We reclaimed everything we had left at my friend Therin’s and loaded up the car all the way to the front seats. Maggie still managed to find a little niche to crawl into. We spent a few days with Therin and she and Ellick even talked us into going to Hot Yoga. Mark loved it. I, however, was not cut out for an hour and a half of yoga at 94 degrees and only made it through a little over half the class before going out to sit in the lobby to avoid passing out. At least I tried.
After North Carolina, we made a stop in Charlottesville, Virgina for a few days. We stayed at my friend Jed’s house and he and his roommates were once again incredibly accommodating and fun. These southern folk know how to have a good time. From Virginia, we headed north and made it to Vermont in 12 hours. We slept at a rest stop on Interstate 93 and the next morning met up with my friend Emiko in Montpelier. Emiko and I studied abroad in Ecuador together and it was great to see her again. We went out to Kismet, a great breakfast place and then hit up the indoor Farmer’s Market before bidding her and her friend Matt farewell and driving the last 45 minutes to the farm.
Here are a sampling of photos from our road trip East:
Next post: Welcome to the Northeast Kingdom. Get ready for some gorgeous Vermont photos!
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