Road Trip: Day 1-2

For the next few entries, I’m going to talk about my road trip with my brother. I’ll try not to ramble too much, and just give you the highlights. The purpose of the trip was to move said brother from Philadelphia to College Station, TX. He recently completed a PhD program at UPENN and will be teaching at Texas A&M in the fall. I’m proud of him.

Day 1, States visited: MA, CT, NY, PA, MD, WV, VA
Day 1 was pretty exhausting - just look at the amount of territory we conquered. And, by “we” I mean my brother because I don’t know how to drive stick. I was basically just one hundred-and-SHUT-YO-MOUTH pounds of dead weight the entire trip. I did hold a map on my lap, though, and honored his request to “please ignore that map of Gay Philadelphia, ok?” The highlight of Day 1 was the excitement of potentially eating at Poor Richard’s in Scranton, PA – the ELECTRIC city – also home of TV’s The Office. I’d been to Scranton before (it’s where the warehouse at my old job was located), but this time was more fun because my relationship with my brother Brian is built on the foundation of movie and television quotes. We passed the sign for the Steamtown Mall, a sign for Carbondale (“LOOK what I found at the gas station in Carbondale!”), and a sign for Lake Wallenpaupack, where they had their booze cruise, etc. Sadly, the GPS didn’t have Poor Richard’s listed as a “point of interest” and even after looking up the address online that bastard couldn’t get us there. The GPS, not my brother. So, we settled on the Glider Diner – Kevin really likes their pie. Apparently Obama ate there, too, but I was happier about the Kevin part. We definitely didn’t blend in well with the local Scrantonians, and were the biggest jerks there UNTIL some cast rejects from the Jersey Shore showed up and we were able to give our waitress the “get a load of a those guys” eye roll.
After a photo op or two, my brother and I were on the road again and finally stopped for the night in Winchester, VA – home of George Washington’s office, and more importantly – home of 99 cent beers and 2 dollar potato skins at the Cork Street Tavern!
Day 2, States visited: VA, NC
We really pushed through to VA on Day 1, so we could start off Day 2 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. If you ever get the chance to travel along that, please take it. It’s almost 500 miles of scenic road through the Appalachians that starts in Shenandoah National Park and ends in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. There’s AMAZING views everywhere you look, and the sides of the road are sprinkled with tons of wild flowers. My brother and I both agreed that all the lush vegetation really did look like Endor from Star Wars. We took lots of pictures and stopped at a “comfort station” or two. I asked one of the ladies - Louise from Missouri - if she lived nearby year round and after the look of “Oh my god, is this girl going to murder me” washed away from her ashen face, she told me that a lot of the employees along the parkway are actually volunteers who come during the summer and dorm together. Interesting! We ended the day in Boone, NC at an Applebee’s. From that day forward, all we could talk about was Applebee’s delightful new offering: Wonton Tacos . So, if you have the chance to either eat those or go on the Blue Ridge Parkway – go with the tacos. They’re amazing. Don’t listen to this girl on a message board I found about the tacos because my answer to the original question is a resounding “HELL YEAH. I DO.”

Coming up, Day 3: Hiking in jeggings: rugged or ridiculous?