Havertown & Jersey Shore

Not much in the way of pictures lately, but we have been active. Spent the latter part of last week with Hilary's mom. Had the requisite chicken cheesesteak stromboli the first night. Then we got to make some nice dinners in the kitchen.

For the weekend we visited Laurel at the Jersey shore. Despite the initial forecast of "Hurricane Katia", the weather was actually very nice on Friday and Saturday. There was much ocean-going. Also on Saturday we visited Six Flags and spent a few hours riding the roller coasters. We love Nitro!

Sunday we came back to Havertown. Had an awesome dinner Monday night. Mostly slept on Tuesday, we seem to have picked up a stomach bug of sorts.

8 Week Trip Summary

The end is nigh! Here are some quick stats for the first 8 weeks of the road trip. Only a month left before we head to Quito.

Miles driven: 9778.1
Nights spent with friends & family: 21 (thanks!)
States & Provinces visited: 22
Border Crossings: 6
Breweries Wineries Cideries & Meaderies Visited:  19
Conversations about life after the trip: 781 (give or take a few)
Conversations including "we can't afford that":  57
Pictures taken: 244
Times Hilary has refused to eat dehydrated beans, again: 15
Times Aaron cooked them anyway: 3

Lancaster, PA

After leaving Massachusetts, we drove along I-84 (to avoid the 95 corridor) to Scranton, PA. When we got close to town, we put on the 30,000 lbs of Bananas song. It was glorious! A little further down I-81 we turned south and got to Lancaster, where Court & Elyse live. We all went to the newly-discovered Ethiopian restaurant, which was awesome. Wow we missed Ethiopian. (Image is after we stuffed our faces.)

On Friday, Hil's mom came out for the long weekend. We all went to Lancaster Brewing for dinner. The beer there confirmed our west coast bias; we mocked their Pale with <30 IBUs and the IPA with a measly 55. They did, however, have two blends on the sampler board: the milk stout mixed with the strawberry wheat and the IPA. Both blends were pretty good and the stout/IPA was probably our favorite of the 15.

In Lancaster we spent time walking around the cool old buildings, going to funky shops, and cooking. We also visited the house that Court & Elyse are buying (pending the inspection). Nice! On our way out of the area, we met Allison for lunch outside Harrisburg. And she's talking about getting a new house too! We feel a bit behind. [just repeat the mantra: we're going on a trip, we're going on a trip] Arrived in Havertown for some time with Hil's mom.

Day in Boston

Wednesday we drove to Boston to see Zach and Lindsay. They took us to a nice sushi place (sushi! haven't had that in months) and afterward we visited the rooftop deck of their building to look out over Boston as the sun set. Beautiful city. We played Ticket to Ride before bed; again we lost badly but it was fun and is a game we need to own.

Map Link (finally updated!).

Tooling around on Cape Cod

After the storm passed through, we borrowed a few kayaks from Eli's boss and went out on a bay with Mel. Boy it was windy. We paddled around the buoys and watched the activity around a capsized boat that must have tipped over in the storm the day before.  It was Aaron's first kayak adventure, and he did great! :)  I believe the words, "I think I could start to like water sports" actually left his mouth.  Hell yes!

On Tuesday, Mel and I (Hil) went diving at Sandwich Beach on the Cape.  Several gear mishaps later, we finally actually got in the water and had a nice time tooling around.  Lots of mating crabs (the boy crab carts the girl crab around under his arm until she lays her eggs) and star fish.  Yay, water :)

In addition to the water sports, we spent time each day playing Settlers of Catan. Despite the fact we kept losing, it was a great game that we now need to own. We got to cook in a kitchen, drank some of the wine we picked up in the Finger Lakes, and watched movies. Good times!