On the road

so after the first few days of traveling i decided to start a blog specifically for the purposes of keeping tabs on my trip, expounding on the values of long road trips, and giving myself something to do at night besides stare at my belly button, although that is extremely fascinating.

the trip started on some rocky ground. it took 3 days just to leave pennsylvania. there is a really long story that i could tell about everything that happened in those three days, but the cliff notes version is that i finished moving out of my house on saturday afternoon, completely filled the car with all the stuff i was going to bring. this is before we picked anna's worldly possessions from b-hem. so we ran dumped a lot of stuff in my parents basement and raced to bethlehem. sunday morning we woke up and went out looking for a roof rack cargo carrier, found one, bought it, and brought it home to put on top of the car. however, when we tried to put it on i found out that my car was lacking crosbars, and was a roof rack only in name. so back to the stores we went looking for crossbars. turns out finding ones that fit a pontiac vibe is extremely difficult. we finally found some at rei, which happened to be an hour away. so flush with roof racks we went to put the cargo carrier on and found out it was too big for my car, and once attached it was impossible to open the trunk more than halfway. which was kind of a major problem. so back to the store i went, brimming with rage. a friendly southern gentleman calmed me down and got me fixed up with a cargo carrier that actually fit. which takes us to tuesday morning, in which we got the carrier attached, and after days of trying finally got the car loaded. we hit the road that afternoon, to pick up some odds and ends from my parents basement and sped down to dc to visit the fine folks of bloomingdale one last time. (sorry, i was never good at giving cliff notes)

we spent the night in dc with caitlin, dan, ray, and neville, had a great meal, enjoyed the company, and left (after a obligitory trip to the big bear cafe) around noon after repacking the car one last time. from dc we headed south to carborro north caroline, which is where all the cool people from unc end up after they graduate. we spent a lovely day and a half with anna's friend margaret touring chapel hill, watching unc beat duke, and socializing with the fine people there. it was a grand time and tempting to stay longer, but alas the road beckoned and it was indeed time to actually begin moving westward. so, in the morning we said our goodbye's to the fine people of carborro and headed to asheville nc.

asheville is quite a fine town, and anyone inclined to be a hippy or hipster in an area filled with like minded people should come here with all post haste. anna and i took the walking tour of the city, saw much more art than a town of this size has any right to produce, and enjoyed a fantastic vegetarian meal complete with local beer. we're staying in a cosy hostel about two blocks from down town, in which i am writing the blog you are hopefully still enjoying. because it's always nice to end on a good note.