Tag: road trips

I can’t quite put my thumb on it…

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We slept in Sunday morning.  It’s so quiet up at Sarah’s parents (their house is essentially in the woods) that both Kelly and I sleep very well when we are up there.  Once we got up, we lounged around for a while, and then Michael made breakfast and the six of us managed to consume to loafs of French toast, as well as bacon, fruit and other comestibles.

Sarah’s father showed us a baby changing table that they have in their garage and that we can use for Zachary when he arrives.  They are going to bring it down to us on one of their visits.

Eventually, we gathered up our things (minus the dog, who was staying up in NJ for a few weeks) and climbed into the car for the drive home.  It was a relatively uneventful drive save for two things:

First, we stopped in Yardley, PA, to have lunch with Ian and Jan and see their new baby, a real cutie and very-well behaved.  (I think all babies are well-behaved around Kelly.)  Lunch was nice.  I had a BLT (my bacon craving from the morning carried over) and some tequila-spiked chicken soup.

Second, we hit massive traffic in Delaware, which is always a mystery to me.  We pass through something like 11 miles of the state and the tollbooth they erected before entering Maryland seems forces all eleven miles into a knot of traffic.

As we arrived back at Sarah’s I noticed that I had lost all feeling on the inside of my right thumb. It freaked me out a little bit, but after some reassurances from Kelly, it’s like a repetitive stress injury.  I’d been having some burning pains in my thumb since last week, when I was churning out 500+ slides in preparation for my training sessions.  I’m going to try and schedule an appointment with my doctor for late this week.  I the meantime, I’m taking Advil regularly to reduce the swelling.

We were back home before 7 pm.

Originally published at From the Desk of Jamie Todd Rubin. You can comment here or there.

Up to New Jersey

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Around 7 pm, we headed over to Sarah’s.  Originally, we were expecting 5 of us plus Oliver, the dog, to be going up to New Jersey, but Michael’s girlfriend was sick and didn’t end up coming.  So as soon as we got to Sarah’s, we piled into her car and got on the road.

It was a quite drive up.  No traffic and smooth sailing all the way.  We arrived at Sarah’s parent’s house around 11:30 pm.  Both Kelly and I are pretty tired so we’re heading off to bed.  We’ve got a lot planned for tomorrow.

Originally published at From the Desk of Jamie Todd Rubin. You can comment here or there.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

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What with work, and the wedding plans, things have been rather hectic for the last few months.  But this weekend was a relaxing break from all of that.  We didn’t have to do any wedding-related stuff.  We didn’t have to to think about work.  It was peaceful and pleasant.  Kelly’s home town is like that.  We both slept well again.  We were up early and had breakfast.  We spent a few hours around the house, in the yard, playing with Oliver (the dog).

We took a tour of Kelly’s home town, driving around seeing various sites, seeing her high school, her old house, the park.  We went to the General Store for lunch (where I had an excellent tuna melt sandwich and vanilla shake).

Sometime around 1 PM, we started for home.  Kelly slept a lot on the way home, but the ride wasn’t bad and we made good time.  We were back at Sarah’s around 5 PM.  From there we headed home, and then out to do some grocery shopping.  The cats survived just fine in our absence.

It really was a relaxing weekend.  I really liked getting to see Kelly’s home town.  

I watched the first 6 innings of the Yankee game tonight–the last game at the old Yankee stadium.

And now, back to work tomorrow…

One last game at the old ball park

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Yesterday evening (as I mentioned), Kelly and I headed up to New Jersey with Sarah and Jim.  It was a pleasant drive with almost no traffic, except for a bit outside of Philadelphia.  We got in pretty late, and within minutes of getting out of the car, I saw two shooting stars and one satellite.  It was amazingly clear and the town was far out in the country away from the haze of city lights.  We went to bed almost at once, and I was asleep as my head hit the pillow.  I slept wonderfully!

We were up at about 8 AM, ate breakfast, relaxed in the sunroom, and then took a walk around Sarah’s neighborhood.  The air was cool was but it was really pleasant out.  Sometime after 10 AM, we headed to the city.  Originally the plan was to take the train in from Newark, but we decided instead to drive into the city and park at the garage near he11o_sunshine  and stubiebrother ‘s place.

Walking toward the subway, we stopped at the Starbucks on Lexington and 85th for a bathroom break.  We waited outside the restroom for the person inside to finish.  We waited.  And waited.  It was a three-flush visit, but the funniest part was when the guy came out, we discovered there was no toilet paper in there.  We assume he was in there air-drying or something.

We hopped on the 4 train and headed up to 161st Street and Yankee stadium.  We made our way to Gate 6 and then headed up to our seats.  We sat close to the right-field foul pole, up high above the field.  They were great seats.  The game was slow, and scoreless, but it ended in excitement with 2 outs and the bases loaded and the Yankees winning with a walk-off base hit.

It was the second-to-last game at the old Yankee stadium and it was our last game there.

After the game, we caught the 4 train back to the upper east side.  We headed up to Jen and Jason’s, and spent the rest of the evening with them.  We headed to Mustang’s for drinks, and then we headed over to 1st and 87th, to a Mexican-fusion type restaurant for dinner.  I had steak fajitas, which were excellent.

We left the restaurant around 9 PM and shortly thereafter, we got the car and started heading back out to NJ.  Kelly and Jim fell asleep in the car almost immediately, and I did my best to keep Sarah awake (she was driving) by talking.  We got back to the house around 11:30 PM.  Jim went to sleep but Kelly, Sarah and I headed out into the hot tub.  Even though it was cold out (I’d guess in the low 50s), the hot water was comfortable, and the cold air felt good on my skin afterward.  We spent about a half hour in the hot tub, and then headed upstairs to bed.

Road trip to Williamsburg

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We took Dad to happy hour last night after work, but overall, it was an early night for us. We were up around 7 AM this morning and were on the road just after 8 AM. It took us about 2-1/2 hours to drive the 149 miles or so to Williamsburg, Virginia. Kelly and I had gone early last fall, but Dad had never been and we thought it would be a fun day-trip.

We wandered around the grounds for 5 hours or so, eating lunch, looking at the historic buildings, etc. I think this time, the most interesting thing I saw was the printer and the printing press. I missed it last time I was here. It was fascinating to listen to how it was all done.

Dad wanted to see William and Mary and we walked over there later in the afternoon so he could see the Christopher Wren building and some of the older parts of the campus.

Sometime around 4 PM, we headed home. We hit a bit more traffic on the way home, so the drive took us a little longer. We decided to go straight to Pentagon Row and had dinner at Lebanese Taverna.

The weather cooperated with us all day long. It was a good (long) day.

Hurricanes, Annapolis, car trouble, thai food

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Roughly in that order.

We were up around 8:30 AM. I didn’t sleep too well, I think because we were just sleeping on the floor. But I survived. Mom was already up and everyone else was up shortly after us. Kelly’s parents were going to stay until Monday, but decided to leave first thing this morning. They had driven up from south-western Florida and with the tropical storm headed their way, they wanted to get back in time to avoid the rain and get their house battened down. They were on the road by 9:30 AM.

Mom, Jen and Jason headed out for coffee and bagels while Kelly and I got ready. When they got back, we all piled into the car and drove out to Annapolis. Everyone got to see the Inn where we are having the wedding. We walked through the Naval Academy campus and found a shady spot to sit for a while. We headed to Buddy’s for lunch. By the time lunch was over, it was time to head home. On the way, we dropped Jen and Jason off at Union Station so that they could catch their train home.

Back at the house, we debated taking a nap, but Kelly decided that she needed to go to Whole Foods first, so off she went. Mom and I sat around talked. A short while later, Kelly called. Her car was “broken”. I headed out to meet her. The exhaust had rusted through at the base and fallen off on one end. We called AAA and the tow truck was there in 10 minutes. Since the exhaust had rusted through, we had the car towed to nearby Honda deliver and used the after hours service drop to drop off the keys. Meanwhile, Mom fed our hungry cats.

We were back home by 6 PM. We sat around talking and chatting for a while, and then headed over to Pentagon Row for some Thai food. It was Mom’s first time having Thai food. It was my first time having duck, which I really liked. We hung out for a while longer and then we all decided to call it an early night. Kelly and I headed off to bed around 10 PM.

Heading home

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We were up early again today, Memorial Day 2008, but we lazed around a bit before heading down to breakfast. After breakfast, we took another walk around the perimeter of the resort. Then we found a shady place to sit on the porch, and climbed into some rocking chairs to relax for a little while. We were both sore from the horseback riding yesterday and the rocking chairs were hard so they weren’t completely comfortable. We decided instead to head to the gym.

I didn’t want to do a full strength workout; the gym wasn’t really equipped for the kind of workout I would have done. So I did an abbreviated core workout. We were at the gym for about 45 minutes or so. It felt good.

We packed, had our luggage brought downstairs, checked out and then waited about 15 minutes for the valet to bring the car (everyone, it seemed, was leaving at the same time we were). And then, at about 11:40 AM, we got on the road and took a leisurely drive back to Washington, D.C. We stopped at a Burger King for lunch. We cut across route 211 on the way back, avoiding a lot of the trucks on I-81. 211 was empty and it went through gorgeous farmland and forested mountains; in fact, we drove right past Skyline Drive.

We were back at Kelly’s around 4:30 PM and I headed home close to 6 PM. It was tough separating after such a wonderful, exciting weekend, but we’ll be seeing each other again on Wednesday.

New York weekend, day 1

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[Written on November 12, 2007]

Kelly and I hit the road at 7 AM. The GPS predicted a 11:12 AM arrival in Stony Point at vickyandnorm‘s house. We were there at almost exactly 11 AM. Boy, making that drive with someone to talk to in the car makes a huge difference. The time flew by and what was ultimately 4 hours seemed like a mere 60 minutes. Kelly is an awesome driving companion!

Come join the adventure

I don’t need your civil war

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[Posted on Monday, October 22]

Today, Kelly and I went up to Gettysburg with AJ and Denisse. We picked AJ and Denisse up from the P.G. Plaza metro station at about 10:30 AM and hit the road. The drive to Gettysburg took us about 90 minutes and it was a lot of fun. We passed through some farm land and of course, the leaves are now changing so we managed to catch glimpses of riotous colors (though probably not as nice as what people are seeing further north).

We’re off on the road to Gettysburg

Down to Williamsburg

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We headed to Williamsburg, Virginia today. I’d been there once before back in 2003, but never had a chance to visit any of the historical sites which is what we planned to do this weekend. We planned to take our time and we didn’t even leave until close to 1 PM. Before that, Kelly and I watched the Star Wars episode of Family Guy. She hadn’t seen it and I think she thought it was just as funny as I did.

When we finally got underway, I realized that I’d left my iPod at work, and since that’s what we use to plug into the car radio to listen to music, our first stop was my office. I ran in, grabbed the iPod and we continued our drive down to Williamsburg. The total distance is over 200 miles and we made good time. It really helps to have the GPS for drives like these, where you don’t know where you are going, because you don’t have to worry. The GPS directs you. We arrived at the hotel sometime around 4 PM, had a short wait because our room wasn’t quite ready yet. Once we were all checked in, our first order of business was to find someplace to get a quick bite to eat to tide us over to dinner. We checked the GPS for nearby food, found a Subway, and headed over there. We had 6 inch subs which were perfect.

On the drive down, Kelly was in charge of the music. At one point, she put on a clip from Bill Cosby Himself, the one about “Chocolate Cake”. She’d never heard it before and thought it was funny. In an odd coincidence, after we got back from Subway, we put on the TV and HBO was showing Bill Cosby Himself so we got to watch most of it. In fact, we headed to the fitness center to workout and Kelly put it on the TV there. I discovered that it’s hard to workout and laugh at the same time. Since I missed my arms and shoulders workout yesterday, I made it up today. (I kept a record of how much I lifted but don’t have it sitting nearby so I’ll report it next time.) While working out, I managed to break the armband holder for my iPod.

Somewhere around 8 PM, we headed out for dinner. We didn’t even have to drive. There was a seafood place just down the street and that’s where we went for dinner. Naturally, we both had seafood. In fact, I ordered twin Maine lobster tails, which were pretty darn good. I hadn’t had lobster since the cruise in July, and the lobster on the ship was not done in the way that I like it. This made up for that.

Tomorrow, we spend the day in Colonial Williamsburg.