Day 72

Day 72: 7/28/15 (New York to Boston)

230 miles

During our stay, Kristy had been back and forth as to whether she wanted to come to Boston with us so she could take a bus home.  In the end, she decided it would be worth it.  We were all exhausted from our long day so we didn't bother with alarms.  By late morning, we were packed and ready to go.  On our way out of the city, we stopped at Absolute Bagels because who can leave NYC without ordering a bagel?  We decided to pick up a ½ dozen to bring to Audrey and Drew as payment for letting us stay with them.

The car ride into Boston was fairly short – one of the nice things about driving around New England.  There isn't hundreds of miles of nothingness stretching between cities.  We got Kristy involved with our driving routine by having her take a shot at capturing a state's welcome sign while driving 70mph on the highway.  She's batting 1000 so far – better than we can say!  We arrived at South Station just in time for her to catch the 4pm bus home so we had to say a quick goodbye.  From there, we had about an hour to keep busy until we had plans to meet Drew at a park and ride.  Jillian suggested we find the Hard Rock so we wouldn't have to worry about it later, but boy that was a mistake.  We got stuck in some good ol' Boston traffic.  It took nearly an hour to move a couple of miles.  It felt like we were in San Francisco again.  Finally, we got out of the mess and were on our way to meet Drew.

On the way, we had to make a quick pit stop at Stop & Shop to grab a few things.  Before we left for our trip, Drew asked us to bring him back a Voodoo Doughnut from Portland, OR, but obviously that was not going to happen unless he wanted a really stale, hard doughnut.  After getting so many suggestions to check out Voodoo, we added it to our "must do" list.  It was while we were enjoying some doughnuts that Jillian got a brilliant idea.  We decided to save the doughnut box with intentions to "make" a doughnut when we got to Boston.  All we needed was a doughnut, some frosting, and some Crunch Berries cereal.  After slapping together our creation in the Stop & Shop parking lot, we believed that the doughnut looked convincing enough, and we continued on our way.  Unfortunately, when we arrived at our destination, we realized that the address was not correct (Jillian's fault again) so it took us another 20 minutes to get where Drew was waiting.  We felt so bad that he had to wait so long, BUT we did bring him a fake Voodoo doughnut to make up for it.  We told him that the reason we were so late was because we had to stop at the post office to pick up the doughnut – oddly enough, he believed us.

When we finally got to the North End, we were amazed by the location of of Audrey and Drew's apartment.  They are only a 2-minute walk from Mike's Pastry and just about any other Italian delicacy.  To begin our stay in Little Italy, we had some pizza from Ernesto's, a pizza place just a few doors down.  We stuffed our faces and spent an hour or so catching up on each others' lives.  We also got their wedding invitation and immediately gave them our RSVP – first ones!  We can't wait to celebrate their big day!

After dinner, we watched some of The Tonight show to point out our silly, tiny faces, and then we went for a walk along the water.  It was nice to have a place to stay right in the heart of Boston, and some fine (almost) locals to show us around.  Our walk was nice up until the moment that we saw a rat.  The boys were just laughing while the girls were screaming.  Unfortunately, we saw two more, compelling some more yelps and screams, before heading back to the apartment.  Audrey said there's a rat hotline for the North End, but we didn't end up calling it.  By the time we got back, we were all ready for bed.  Being in Boston with friends almost made it feel like we were home.

Fact:
Drew and Audrey still think we overnighted a doughnut for them

Lesson:
Grocery store doughnut: $1.29
Vanilla frosting: $2.20
Crunch Berries cereal: $2.79
Fooling your friends: Priceless


Eat Well; Travel Often
Rico & Jillian

Day 71

Day 71: 7/27/15 (New York City)

0 miles

Our wake up call was at 3:30am this morning! Ah!  We quickly got ourselves ready and packed enough to keep us entertained for about 5 hours.  By 4am we were out the door and headed to the train station.  We had to a wait a little bit for a train to arrive so we didn't get to the Jimmy Fallon line until about 4:45am.  It was neat to walk by Time Square so early in the morning.  An area that is often swarmed and chaotic was calm, though as bright and inviting as ever.  If our place in line wasn't so important, we would have stopped to take a few pictures (Jillian especially wanted a handstand picture).  When we reached Rockefeller Center, Jillian freaked out a little because she thought we were first in line. Then she remembered that the line was supposed to be around the corner and noticed a small group waiting.  We were happy to count only 9 people before us making us 10, 11, and 12 in line – pretty good odds from what we had researched.

We brought a blanket and a small camping chair to try and make our wait more comfortable.  We also had tons of snacks and a deck of cards to help pass the time.  It seemed wrong to eat Gushers at 6:30am, though we had already been up for a few hours so somehow that made it okay...sort of.  At some point during our wait, a group of middle-aged women behind us asked if we had "done this before".  When we responded no, she was surprised since we were so prepared for the wait.  Around 5:30am we started seeing and hearing the crowd for the Today show across the street.  Before we knew it, the rest of the world was awake and starting their day.  Around 7:30am a security guard made everyone stand up which put an end to our little party.

Finally it was 9am and we were itching to get our standby tickets.  The NBC woman was not so pleasant, but she gave us our tickets (#10, #11 & #12) so we loved her!  From there, we hopped on a train back towards the Little Italy area to pick up some cronuts.  We placed an order online back when we were in New Orleans so we would be guaranteed some deep fried treats.  Surprisingly, they weren't sold out by the time we got there – maybe Mondays aren't as busy?  Regardless, we got to skip the line which was nice, kind of like a little VIP service.  Somehow we waited until we were back at Kristy's apartment before we dug in.  Overall they were pretty delicious, but we both agreed (dare we say) that they may not be worth all the hype.

We all took quick showers and started getting ready to head back into the city.  We had to check in around 2pm for the monologue rehearsal and shortly after for the show itself.  Once we got to Rockefeller Center, we found out that it would be physically impossible to go to both the monologue and the recording so we were left with a choice – either guarantee ourselves some intimate studio time with Jimmy (wink), or risk waiting in the standby line for the full show.  Ultimately, we decided to risk it for the biscuit.  The NBC employees didn't dare to let us know how good our position in line was, but we knew it was pretty freaking good.  We had about 15 minutes to kill so we walked around the plaza a bit and checked out the gift shop – nothing was worth that kind of money $$$!

Over 100 standby tickets were handed out, but they were only accepting #1-#50 after the initial check in.  We had some time to kill before we had to be back so we found a bar close by for drinks.  Little did we know that we were walking into a fairly expensive bar with $10 beers.  Jillian splurged and went for a gin martini which ended up being close to $20 – when in NYC, right?  Once we were back at Rockefeller Center, we had to line up in chronological order and then our wait began.  After about 15 minutes, someone came down from the studio announcing that no more than 22 people would be able to get in.  We were one step closer and THAT much more excited!  The next wait was the worst, but eventually she came down again and announced that #1-#12 would be going in – THAT WAS US (10/11/12)! We got our bracelets and our tickets and made our way upstairs to the lounge.  The walls were covered with photos of all the guests from the show which really gets you pumped up.

We were the last to be seated so we ended up in the back row, but at least we were all together. Also, at the end, we got to high-five Jimmy – ahh!  Watching the show live was just like watching it on TV.  Jimmy is so talented that he doesn't need editing or retakes.  Shortly after his monologue, he told everyone how Tom Cruise had challenged him to a lip sync battle and we just about died.  The battle was definitely our favorite part, AND it was right after that we kind of sort of ended up on TV.  Going to The Tonight Show was definitely a highlight of our entire trip.  It was pretty much the only reason we even stopped in New York.

After the show, we hopped on the train to try and make it to the Comedy Cellar for some standby tickets.  We arrived early and they weren't taking names yet so went to a bar across the street to get some beers.  After one drink, we still had some time, and we were hungry so we went over to a different bar called Off the Wagon to order some apps and drinks.  Our hunger made us lose track of time so we didn't end up getting tickets to the show so we just headed home.  It worked out perfectly for Jillian and Kristy because we got back just in time for the Bachelorette finale

Fact:

Jimmy Fallon is hands down the best personality on TV

Lesson:
If you want to be first for the Jimmy Fallon standby line, you have to arrive around midnight


Eat Well; Travel Often
Rico & Jillian

Day 70

Day 70: 7/26/15 (New York City)

0 miles

We slept in way later than we expected (surprise surprise), but we didn't really have a plan for the day so it wasn't a problem.  We spent a little bit of time trying to figure out exactly what we wanted to do, but all that was certain was finding some pizza.  We headed to the Metro station with Kristy to ride towards Little Italy.  Before leaving, we had to move Jillian's car because of street sweeping.  We parked right by a fence and when Jillian tried to get out she ended up denting her car just a little bit.  We made it over 14,000 miles without a scratch or a dent – if only we could have made it a few hundred miles more.  After a minor freak out and a temper tantrum, Jillian was almost, sort of over it.

When we got off the subway, we ordered a pizza from Lombardi's, which claims to be America's first pizza palor.  Whether or not that's true, we had visited a few years back and loved it so we decided it was worth another visit.  We walked with the pizza down the block a bit to a little park with picnic tables to eat.  Once again, Rico ate half the pizza – he is a pizza-eating machine.  After a delicious lunch, we walked back to the metro station to take it down to Battery Park, the tip of Manhattan.  Right off the stop, you get bombarded with Statue of Liberty tour offers.  We declined several as we made our way to the waterfront to enjoy the Statue from afar.

After snapping a few photos and enjoying the beautiful weather, we started walking towards the Freedom Tower.  There are two large infinity fountains which outline the where the Twin Towers stood.  The names of all the deceased are engraved around the edges.  We didn't have much of a plan for the rest of the day so we decided to get tickets for the 9/11 Memorial.  Admissions are every half hour so we had some time to waste before we could go in.  We found the closest bar and grabbed a beer.  When we finally got to the Memorial, we spent the next 3 hours inside.  The memorial is put together extremely well and is emotionally overwhelming at times.  It's built among the foundation of the North Tower and part of the South Tower and several pieces of infrastructure remain.  The historical exhibit in the center is where we spent the most time.  You wind along the timeline of the day encountering early warnings, last goodbyes, and a lot of wreckage in between.  Once we reached modern day, we headed out of the museum in search of some dinner.

We talked about finding some pho and located one that was up towards Kristy's apartment.  There was some construction or something going on along one of the train routes so we had a miserable time getting home.  The outbound train was on an express route so we had to get off 20 blocks up from the restaurant to hop on a local train going back down towards the city to finally get to the restaurant.  We were thinking we would eat in, but there was hardly anywhere to sit so we decided to just go home.  We were trying to decide between a cab, a bus, the train, or a really long walk.  We really didn't want to pay for a cab, Kristy wasn't sure of the bus routes, and walking was not appealing whatsoever.  The train situation was still a mess, but it was the lesser of four evils at that point.  Fortunately, we saved ourselves about 40 blocks of walking when Rico realized that we could walk only 2 blocks up to grab an express train home.  The normal 20 minute ride home turned into about 2 ½ hours.  Needless to say, we were spent – and HUNGRY!  We heated up some of our leftover Chinese food and dug into our pho (the place in Nashville was way better).  Around 11:30pm we headed to bed to catch a few hours of sleep before getting up to wait in line for Jimmy Fallon.

Fact:
Those who lost their lives on 9/11 will never be forgotten

Lesson:
If you're traveling around NYC late on a Sunday, just take a cab – it'll save yourself the headache


Eat Well; Travel Often
Rico & Jillian

Day 69

Day 69: 7/25/15 (First Landing to New York, NY via Philadelphia, PA)

369 miles

This morning we left for Philadelphia around 6am.  It was an exciting morning because we got to drive over (or should we say under) the Chesapeake Bay – almost worth the $15 toll, NOT!  The drive through Delaware was full of farms which was a bit unexpected, but overall it was pleasant.  We arrived in Philly at 11:30am and headed straight to the Independence Hall Visitor Center to see if there were any tour spots available, but unfortunately, they were all out.  The line for the Liberty Bell was pretty long so we started out at the Old City Hall which was home of the court system in the 1700's.  After a quick visit, we walked over to the Great Essentials Exhibit where the inkwell used to sign the Declaration is housed.  There is also one of the original Declarations on display as wells as the US Constitution and the Articles of Confederation.  Our final stop in Independence Square was at Congress Hall.  We had to wait outside for a few minutes for a park ranger to take us in for a tour where we learned about the early days of Congress.  The building was well preserved and some of the original chairs and desks had been maintained.  It was pretty cool to be in the same room that George Washington and John Adams were in when they swore in for their terms as President.

At this point we were pretty hungry so we walked over to the Terminal Reading Market and endured a long line for a Philly Cheesesteak.  There were a couple of food trucks we wanted to find, but they were a bit too far to walk to so we decided to just get one at the market.  There were a few sandwich shops at the market and after surveying our options we ended up at By George!  We ordered a cheesesteak with peppers, mushrooms, and onions to make the ultimate bomb.  The market was crazy so we walked back to the car to eat our sandwich.  We sat on the trunk of the car and overlooked the street while we enjoyed our finger-licking good cheesesteak.  

From there, we walked back towards Independence Hall and took our chances with the line at the Liberty Bell.  It was much shorter so we gave it a shot and were pleasantly surprised at how fast it moved.  The hallway was filled with stories about what the bell stood/stands for and all of its history.  The mob of people lets you know that you're close to the actually bell.  We were surprised that there wasn't a glass case protecting the landmark, instead just a few ropes and an employee.  It was a struggle to fight through the crowd to get a good picture so we had to settle for a side view.  Weirdly enough, this very American symbol was visited by mainly by foreigners.  Jillian wanted to demand the right to take a good picture, but thankfully she didn't whip her diva attitude.

After seeing the Liberty Bell, we headed towards the neighborhood where Benjamin Franklin lived.  Along the way we stopped in a little area where there was a building built by an early carpenter's guild.  We checked if there were any Santamarias on the list, but we didn't see any.  We continued to the Fragments of Franklin Court which has structural outlines of the house of Benjamin Franklin and his son.  In some areas you could see below to the original foundations which is kind of amazing.  The park rangers run an old printing press in the courtyard as well to mimic the one Franklin used for his newspaper.  From there, we decided we were done with the past and headed back to the car.

We stopped at Yards, a local brewery, to try some beers.  They had a small menu of beers made with some of our founding fathers' beer recipes so of course we tried a few, and they didn't do too bad 200+ years ago.  We also tried an ale that was brewed with cranberries and raspberries, though we didn't think that one was a real success – overall we weren't impressed.  Once we left the brewery, Jillian was in need of a snack and magically, there was a food truck outside!  We grabbed some good ol' beer battered cheese curds and headed to a store to pick up some beer.  We wanted to bring home some of the Steigl Radler and the closest we could find it to home was in Pennsylvania.  The place we went to was definitely in the ghetto part of Philly, but we survived.

Finally, we were on our way to NY and it was a pretty short drive.  In just about two hours we arrived right outside Kristy's door (our friend from UNH/Rico's high school).  We begrudgingly paid another $14 toll to go over the George Washington Bridge, but at least we could park at Kristy's for free – holla to Harlem, the place that no one wants to go to.  We brought up all our things and spent a little bit of time catching up before our stomachs got the best of us so we set out in search of some food.  Eventually, we tracked down a Chinese food restaurant and grabbed some take-out to bring back to the apartment.  After dinner, Rico headed to bed early since it was a long day and he did all of the driving from VA to PA.  Jillian stayed up with Kristy a little longer before they were both starting to nod off.

 Fact:

We drove through 6 states today – VA, MD, DE, PA, NJ, NY

Lesson:

If you want to go into Independence Hall, get tickets ahead of time or show up early

Eat Well; Travel Often

Rico & Jillian

Day 68

Day 68: 7/24/15 (First Landing State Park)

1 mile

Today we had to move campgrounds because when we made reservations, our site was only available for 2 of our 3 nights.  We went to the visitor center to check out of one site and check in to another.  This time we had our choice so we found a nice shady spot that was even closer to the beach.  We ended up carrying our tent through the campground instead of taking it down and putting it up again - such a better method.  If only we could have tied the tent to the roof of the car, we would have saved a lot of time.

We decided to eat some lunch before heading to the beach which consisted of turkey sandwiches and BBQ chips.  It was a nice lunch because we took some time to just hang out with each other – yes, we know, we've been hanging out with each other for 10 weeks, but it was fun to just sit and do nothing.  We also stopped back at the visitor center before going to the beach so we could plan for Philadelphia.  We wanted to try and find the best (and cheapest) place to park as well as the best Philly Cheesesteak.  Once we felt like we had some idea of what we were going to do, we walked over to the beach.  Per usual, Jillian was reading and Rico was swimming.  He was really hoping to see the dolphins again, but I think we arrived too late in the day.  We finished off our Twisted Teas and Mikes and then headed back to camp for dinner.

We ended up leaving some of our lunch fixings on the picnic table which was a bad idea because some crows ate through the plastic bag and stole some of our buns.  Fortunately, there were a few unscathed buns so we used them for burgers.  We cooked up our steak burgers with grilled onions and reheated the veggies for a side dish – such good meals we've had on the beach!  After eating, we cleaned up and packed up as much as we could since we wanted to leave early for Philly.  We took showers one more time – really taking advantage of the plumbing – and then made some s'mores before bed.  A bonus to this campsite was that it had electric hookups so we charged a few electronics overnight.  A downside to this campsite was that our neighbors were super loud so it was hard to fall asleep, but eventually we succeeded.

Fact:
We would have been just as happy living at Virginia Beach for 11 weeks

Lesson:
If you have plans to eat food, don't leave it out in the wild


Eat Well; Travel Often
Rico & Jillian

Day 67

Day 67: 7/23/15 (First Landing State Park)

19 miles

Since we were calling this little stay our "vacation", we turned off all of our alarms and enjoyed sleeping in.  When we finally got ourselves up and moving we headed out to the grocery store to pick up some food for lunches and dinners.  We ended up picking up sandwich fixings and burger fixings as well as some chicken and vegetables.  Of course we also picked up some drinks for the beach - Twisted Tea for Jillian and Mike's Hard Lemonade for Rico.  On our way back to the beach, we stopped at Dominos to pick up a pizza with our gift card.  We concocted a delicious half-and-half pizza that we pretty much finished before we even got back to our campsite.

 The next ten items on our agenda were beach, beach, beach....  We settled in to our little sand chairs that we dug out and enjoyed some reading, some drinking, and some sunning.  Rico spent most of the time in the water while Jillian was on the shore reading, but she did finally get in the water when Rico pointed out some dolphins swimming close by.  It was kind of crazy to see them swimming so close, but we were so thankful that they weren't sharks!  We walked down the beach trying to follow them, though it didn't seem like we could get any closer.  On the walk back we picked up a bunch of seashells that had washed up.



We headed back to our campsite a little bit earlier because we knew we had some prep work for dinner.  We prepared all the vegetables and got them into foil pouches and marinated the chicken in some BBQ sauce before jumping in the shower.  Once we were salt-free, we started a campfire and through everything onto the grill.  It was all so delicious, but we couldn't even eat half of the vegetables – Jillian gets a little crazy when she has the chance to pick out vegetables.  We packed up the leftovers and passed out.  

Fact:
Seeing dolphins in the bay gives you a mini heart attack because your first thought is always SHARK!

Lesson:
If you bring Jillian grocery shopping, don't let her go down the produce aisle


Eat Well; Travel Often
Rico & Jillian

Day 66

Day 66: 7/22/15 (Great Smoky to First Landing State Park)

487 miles

We got our butts out of bed early this morning because we knew it would be a long drive to Virginia Beach.  Fortunately the tent wasn't too wet or messy so it was a quick pick up and we were on the road by 6am.  We stopped at a Panera in Durham, NC to skype with Jillian's sister who was checking out another apartment for us.  We got some lunch and chatted with Chelsea for about 2 hours.  It turns out that someone had turned in an application for the unit we were interested in so yet another apartment got pulled out from under us.  Chelsea was awesome and we appreciate the fact that she stuck around to and tried to figure out all our options.  There is a new building built on the property, but it isn't expected to be finished until November so we'd be homeless for a few months.  Honestly, it seems like our best option at this point.

After lunch, we drove another 3 ½ hours to First Landing State Park.  We quickly set up our tent so we could head to the beach.  Lucky for us, the beach was just a short walk away.  After such a long hot day driving, getting into the ocean felt great.  The water was so nice and so warm - nothing like off the coast of ME and NH.  Jillian was a little nervous to be in the open water after all the shark attacks we had been hearing about so she kept yelling to Rico to make him come closer to shore.  Once we were at a happy distance from the shore we just floated around enjoying our vacation from our vacation.  We stayed at the beach until the sun began to set which was beautiful to watch.  Back at camp, we cooked up some couscous for dinner and took some showers (yes this campground has showers!!!) before heading to bed.

 
Fact:

First Landing is run by kids - we could have sworn everyone would be returning to high school in the fall

Lesson:
If you really want an apartment, apply for it the day you speak on the phone with the leasing office


Eat Well; Travel Often
Rico & Jillian