back in the dirty south

Ah, the warm, non-snowy, dirty south. Actually right now it's much cleaner than the north with all its salt and crap all over the roads. Alfred's car needed a bath when we got back, it was pretty disgusting. We got back Tuesday night just before midnight, it took us exactly 18 hours. That included stops for gas/food/restrooms, traffic in Charlotte and Jacksonville, an attempted beer run at 5:45am, and horrible weather in Pennsylvania. That's what this picture is from. This was a major highway, it hadn't been plowed at all so we couldn't see the road, and snow was blowing everywhere. Traffic was going about 30 mph. It was ridiculous.

Our trip was nice, except for the 3 cats that now live in my parents' house. Our allergies just love going there more and more every year. The new cat is cute, my nose and lungs just hate it. We saw lots of family, got some great gifts (including a bound book of our road trip blog, which includes all of our posts, pictures, and comments, it's really nice.) Most importantly, we played the new Mario Brothers game for the Wii. Alfred, Katie and I were the main players, though Dad and Uncle Ken helped out at times as well. We basically played for 4 days straight. And we beat the game! It was awesome. It's fun to play because when you play with multiple players you're all on the screen at once, so you can be nice and use teamwork or shove each other into pits and stuff. We also ate a lot of food. Like, a lot of food. But what else is new.

deli of the gods

We spent last night in a less-than-luxury hotel in Summersville, WV. Quite charming, but I think one night was enough. This morning we managed a free breakfast at Chick Fil A (got there just after they stopped serving breakfast, so when I asked if they had anything left she just gave me the last couple of things of Chick Minis.) And on into Pennsylvania. Less snow here so far.

For lunch we stopped at Primanti Brothers in Pittsburgh. They've been on a few Food Network shows, including Alfred's current favorite, Man vs. Food. They've got these big delicious sandwiches that are served with cole slaw and fries right in the sandwiches. I got a cheese steak (pictured) and Alfred got corned beef and pastrami. His was better. They were big, but not too big. We both ate ours comfortably. As in, I don't feel like I'm going to puke. The table of guys next to us were a bunch of wussies though. 5 guys, all in their early 20s, and half of them had to wrap up their leftovers. And then they gave the guy a $2 bill for a tip. Even we left more, and we had less than half the amount of people. Jerks.

Anyway, back on the road. About 3 more hours to go!

big T

It's currently 36 degrees wherever the hell we are on I 77 in North Carolina. Alfred's car has a thermometer read out in the dashboard. Pretty sweet. There's a light dusting of snow on the side of the road. What are we thinking, going to NY in the winter?

We stopped for a late lunch near Columbia, SC at a place called Big T's Barbecue. It was awesome. We got a pound of pork, 3 pieces of fried chicken, fries, cole slaw, and some banana pudding for dessert. All that for $15. Crazy! Chicken was fantastic, and the meal was called the TJ Special, so obviously I liked it.

It's not even 7:00 and I'm pretty ready to call it a night. It gets dark so darn early that it feels a lot later than it is. It's messing with my head. And that about sums up our day!

on the road again

We've been making up our own verses for the past 15 minutes, I think we've exhausted the possibilities for now though. We're listening to Christmas music, so Alfred's happy, and it's by the Brian Setzer orchestra, so I'm happy. We got a little later start than planned, but what else is new? We're taking 2 days to drive up so it's not a big deal. Our only plan along the way so far is to have lunch in Pittsburgh tomorrow. We're going to try a deli that we saw on some Food Network show.

So far, the drive has been relatively uneventful. Of course, we've been gone less than half an hour. We did see a pretty bad accident, a semi truck had practically disintegrated all over the road. Traffic was backed up for miles. Luckily for us, it was going the other direction.

I guess that's it for now, stay tuned for some more potentially exciting reports from I 95 and beyond!

I can't believe I haven't mentioned this yet!

We're going on a road trip! I know I've told most of you this already, but we're going on a 5 or 6 week long road trip this summer. We have a new blog going for the trip, it's at www.getawaygolocal.com. I don't want to make that a link, because we have that thing that shows where people came to the site from, and I don't want people to be able to find this blog from there. The tentative plan is to leave next Saturday. If I ever get my vacation approved from work. Yeah, minor detail. So go check out the new blog! There's only one post so far, I need to get on that this weekend.

Also, Alfred has apparently fallen in love with a woman who writes a blog about food and photography.

on the road again

If all goes according to plan, we should be leaving for NY right about when this posts. Cause we're crazy and are driving. But Ilya and Mercedes are driving with us too, so it should be fun. Well, maybe fun is stretching it, but hopefully it won't be as painful as when just the two of us drive. At least we can take turns with more people. Plus, we're leaving Tuesday night, driving for about 6 hours, then stopping for the night and driving the rest of the way Wednesday. Also, I was planning on photo shopping our 4 heads onto a picture of a clown car or something, but you know, I'm writing this Monday night and am tired. We just packed the car and I'm ready for bed. So just imagine how funny that picture would have been.

embarassing pictures: Europe edition

Posting that picture of us from our Europe trip back in 2002 the other day made me want to look through all those pictures again. So I did. And, luckily for all of you, I decided to post a bunch tonight. Please enjoy this little trip down memory lane. Obviously no meaningful or memorable shots, or any nice scenery, mainly just us looking goofy. As usual.

First up: Madrid. Apparently I used to get embarassed by Alfred's incessant need for strange pictures. Ok, I still do at times. But he doesn't seem to take them as much these days. Thank God.

Anyway, the most memorable part of our time in Madrid was when we took a nap on our last day there, got up and packed to leave the hotel at about 3pm and got yelled at by the hotel owner for leaving and not paying for that last day. We played dumb and just left. Poor guy. I'd say we did our part in perpetuating the rude American stereotype. Really, it was more ignorance than rudeness on our part. Oh, and there was this really yummy restaurant next to our hotel that we went to a bunch. I especially like the guy on the left side of the picture wondering what the hell is wrong with me.

Next up: Barcelona. I was grumpy and refused to pose for this picture, but Alfred was obviously having a great time.

He also managed to bond with some locals.

We apparently had a special connection with McDonald's while in Marseille. I do remember eating there and at Burger King far too often on that trip overall. Each country had its own special burger. It was a very educational trip.

Ah, Amsterdam. Talk about educational. We learned about 2 very important parts of life there: beer and sex.

No, I don't have pictures of us in any other museum. Well, ok, some from the Anne Frank house. So I guess we learned about religious persecution as well. But nothing else. Really.

And the ever popular Paris. At least this one has a historic landmark in the background.

The more time I spend looking at pictures and working on this post, the more pictures I include. And every time I upload a new one I have to fix all the spacing. I only have this problem with Alfred's computer. Too bad he takes away the work laptop for days on end. He's not home again tonight. He's sort of stalking this girl at the new gym he just started going to. Her name is Amy. I hope she's at least cute.

NC Part 1: Just the facts, ma'am

I didn't get home until about 10 last night, which is why I didn't post yesterday. Alfred spent the night at his parents' house so he wouldn't have to drive right back this morning. But we're back! We had a great trip, the worst part was the 7 hour drive each way, but hey, we're troopers. Alfred actually did all of the driving both ways. He's either crazy or a glutton for punishment.

As expected, it was much less snowy. The weather was pretty perfect Saturday and Sunday, it was around 80 with low humidity. It was beautiful.

We spent a lot of time outside: kayaking (we eventually learned these weren't even Billy's kayaks, but luckily the guy who owned them didn't mind us using them. We had actually taken them across the lake and left them pulled up on some rocks and he came and took one, thinking his kids had left them, so I had to walk back around the lake while Alfred chased him down on the water.)

and, of course, cruising around on the rhino.

I think it was more fun in the snow for some reason, maybe because there were less trees and bushes blocking paths. The other benefit of going in the snow is having a coat on to protect yourself from all the branches that whip you. The advantage of summer, of course, is being able to stay out for a long time without losing any appendages to frostbite. And really, some people are into the whole whipping thing. Not me, personally, but you know what I'm saying.

Anyway. We ate well too. Here's our fancy romantic meal from Saturday night. It's steak and scallops. Alfred started a fire in the background, but none of the pictures came out that well. We plowed through some wine, too. Maybe that explains the lack of pictures in focus.

Monday it was kind of crappy out, so it wasn't too hard to pack up and leave. Here we are, all ready to go.

We stopped at the state park a few miles from the house to admire the view of the mountains. We tried to do the same thing when we went in January, but the overlook was closed because of ice. It was open this time, but alas, still no luck on the view.

And there you have it. Stay tuned for Part 2: The Adventure!

we're out

Right about when this post is set to, um, post, we will be heading out of town for the weekend. We're going to North Carolina to stay at this house:

We're going for the weekend so we can pick this up:

The vehicle, not the people, obviously. Hopefully there's a lot less snow this time. This is one of Billy's houses (the guy we house sit for) and he's giving us this rhino as a thank you. So we figure we should go pick it up so we at least have something to show for all the time we've spent away from home. We won't have internet up there though, so no posts until Tuesday, probably. Have a lovely Labor Day!

in transit

We're coming at you LIVE from the Charlotte airport, gate B1. We left the house at 9:15, it's currently 2:02, and we've got one more flight to go! The excitement is never ending! Katie, how has your experience been so far today?


I'm trying to figure out which of these thousands of magazines I haven't read. Why do you keep bugging me? Can't you stop talking for 5 minutes?

Ok! Thank you for sharing, Katie. Alfred, what are your feelings on the journey so far?


Are you talking? Can't you see I'm busy? Some of us have work to do. Pipe down over there.

Wonderful! And our travels continue. Next stop: Minnesota! Weather.com says there's 100% chance of snow tonight, and the high for tomorrow is 33! I can't wait!

I was running!

I went jogging last night after work. 3 miles, it sucked. Actually the first half sucked, the second half was fine, and I felt great when I was done. I wasn't even sore this morning. Considering I haven't jogged in about a month, I thought I did pretty good. Also, I got heckled! A guy a few houses down from us started running next to me, telling me to pick up the pace. I told him I was fine, thanks, and he actually said "sorry, I'm just messing with you," and left me alone. Then I got honked at. Awesome. I was going to post a picture of Forrest Gump running and photoshop my head onto his body, but I don't have any good pictures of my head on this computer. Sorry. I know you're disappointed.

We leave for MN tomorrow! I'm super excited. I hope my liver is prepared for all the drinking we're going to be doing. A couple pictures of last year: the first one is of the boys doing a power hour. For some reason I was super nice and volunteered to be DD. Cathy missed this because she was home sick, I believe. The second picture is Mike and Tony diving in an aquarium, they got to go for free because they're military, so Alfred and I watched. It was fun watching, all the kids who were around got all excited to see the divers in the tank. They found a bunch of shark teeth. Oh yeah, they were in a tank with sharks. We'll miss Mike this year (stupid army), but Katie's coming along, which is nice - built in DD!

Our flight is at 12:30 tomorrow, we get back really late Monday night, and then my parents arrive for a week long visit on Friday. Action packed excitement up in these parts. So I'm not sure how much I'll be posting over the next several days, at least until next Tuesday, but I'll have my laptop with me. Try not to miss me too much! :)

we're going to MN!

The big news of the day is: we bought tickets to go to Minnesota! Yay! It's about damn time! Last year we went up over Memorial Day weekend to visit when Mike was on leave and had a great time. We drank a lot. Played lots of Uno. So a couple months ago I emailed my siblings trying to figure out a weekend this spring that would work for all of us. Between Mike and Tony both having military things all the time, and us having such a lively social life (I think we had 2 whole weekends we were busy, we're in pretty high demand) it was really, really hard to pin down a weekend. I think there were 3 between February and May that worked. Eventually I had to admit defeat. So Alfred and Katie and I are flying up to visit in a couple weeks, and Mike is going another weekend. 3 out of 4 is better than nothing, I guess. And, bonus - since Katie will be there, we have a built in DD! Score! Plus, we're still planning on going to visit Mike in Hawaii this summer, so I guess that will have to do. This picture is from my last trip to Hawaii. Maybe this time we'll see more than the base, the hospital, and the ABC stores within a 2 block radius of our hotel. :)