we’re here. the last 400-ish miles were ones that we’ve trod before. this time, was uneventful. we took our new preferred, summer-only route through vermont, and stopped, as always, at McNeil’s Brewery in Brattleboro (no website – doesn’t open until 4!).
i’ll work on a synopsis of the whole trip, but first we’ve got some household-establishing duties that require more attention.
while it sounds like a good name for a short-line railroad, Lancaster and Lackawanna simply describe where we spent most of our time today.
first, we stopped by the local Citizens Bank branch to get some notarizations for our closing documents. then we hit the nearest FedEx Kinkos to send them out. done. house should be sold!
lunch at Panera Bread before we visited with some relatives in Lackawanna.
posting this from my parents house – we made it to Lancaster on day 9. i drove all the way, i guess the familiar roads didn’t wear on me so much. i have to say, i’m kinda tired of I-90 construction in Pennsylvania by now. although, it’s much more pleasant during the day, and without cats in the vehicle.
not as much driving today. we were in nashville most of the day, waiting for my car to get done. thankfully, the hotel i randomly chose in the West End was half a mile from Centennial Park, and across the street from Blackstone Restaurant & Brewery.
today we drove from the westernmost edge of Arkansas, to the middle of Tennessee. we stopped in Nashville to have dinner at the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium and we decided to stay in town tonight. i’ve got a vibration from my passenger side front wheel that isn’t making me feel special. so we’ll find a dealer tomorrow to check it out before we leave town.
well, we’re here. in Fort Smith, Arkansas. we didn’t get to leave Hutchinson/McPherson until about 3 in the afternoon, so we didn’t make Memphis today.
i have now driven in Oklahoma (down from Wichita KS through Tulsa to Fort Smith) and i have to say: your roads suck. SUCK. Oklahoma, you’re NOT OK. i just paid 8 different tolls to drive down a couple hundred miles of what you call a freeway, and i think my kidneys are bruised.
i’m exhausted at about 12:30am and that’s good; we’ve been stuck on Pacific Time. i think we’re finally hitting MDT at least, if not CDT.
Day 5 was pretty laid back. we stayed in McPherson another night, and visited some friends in Hutchinson Kansas. hung out at their house most of the day, and then went to the Kansas State Fair for a few hours.
day 3 was spent in Denver/Golden. quite a lazy day, i must admit.
we had breakfast at Einstein Brothers Bagels, then dealt with some paperwork for the house. then we got one of my tires balanced (that threw a wheel weight somewhere in Wyoming) and had lunch/dinner at Falling Rock Tap House. after dinner we drove around Denver a bit, stopped at Argonaut to pick up some local beer to take with us, and went back to the hotel.
day 2 started out with finding a Starbucks (in Utah? yeah, there are a couple) we found one in Riverdale. after buying our good cup of joe, and a pound of coffee to be sent to our troops, we headed out. this is the mountainey view from Riverdale:
and here’s the entomological carnage from Day 1:
