east coast swing, the final movement

with kendyl set to head off to her dad's, i got up early on day 5 to make sure i had some time with the girls -- particularly since they had already complained that they weren't getting to see enough of me.  so we spent the morning goofing off, dressing up, taking photos, and doing lots of giggling and snuggling.  eventually and sadly, the time came to say goodbye to kendyl, and then it was time to get our sightseeing for the day.

day 5 was a day that matt had been eagerly awaiting.  time for our journey into the nation's capital.  i still believe the washington metro is one of THE finest public transportation systems anywhere, so of course, i opted to take advantage of that rather than driving in. it was another first for my friend and we rode in washingtonian style, ear buds in, listening to our audio book.

when we arrived in the city we had two objectives; the air and space museum, and anything else we could fit in after that. and that's exactly how it worked out. i can't say that i have ever spent as many hours in a single museum as i did that day, but i was happy to indulge my companion since he was the impetus for the trip, and the reason i got to see my friends and fam on the right coast.

we closed down the museum and headed out for our walking tour of the monuments.  this was semi-strategic as there are several monuments i prefer at night. i had forgotten that the washington monument was under renovation post-2012 earthquake. fully under scaffolding, the monument took on a completely different look and we snapped a few pics before heading on to the vietnam, lincoln, finishing off with two of my favorites, the korean and the world war 2.

the rain held off and the cool temps were a blessing.  we made our way home and found ourselves awake 'til the wee hours of the morning chatting and looking at photos and finishing 'the maze runner' (which, btw, was underwhelming).

day 6. our final day.  and more aerospace on the agenda. after getting a nice and proper sleep-in morning, we got ready and headed to the udvar-hazy center - the air and space extension built near dulles airport.  this place will always be special to me as i planned a large companyevent there in my former (pre-california) life. and it seemed to resonate with matt as well.  the sr-71 blackbird and space shuttle discovery can't help but be impressive, but it's more than that.  there's just something about the collection and the staging in an enormous airplane hangar that sets it apart from other museums.

the bonus for me was that my friend anne and her husband (and baby adele) had recently landed in the area after doing their 'welcome back to the us' tour, and joined us for an afternoon stroll through the museum. adele was darling and reminded me a little of my niece with the same name. talk talk talk and all smiles.  and apparently the snuggles and kisses she gave me are an extremely rare commodity!

anne and brian departed a little early (so excited i will now get to see them when i'm visiting my folks!), and matt and i finished perusing the various avionic displays before finally heading to the airport where i dropped him off to catch his flight back to california.  since i would be heading on to kansas city for  work, we gave the trip a good review and said our farewells.

all in all, it was a pretty perfect road trip. the timing and activities worked out as hoped for or better, and  i could not have asked for a more perfect traveling companion. my sometimes-crush will remain my sometimes-crush (and only that... i asked), i'm grateful to have had a chance to spend some time with some of my favorite people, and i'm excited to have discovered a kindred spirit in california.

east coast swing, second movement

day 3 arrived and not only were we still speaking to each other, we were still laughing and telling stories and enjoying our audio book.  the plan for the day was a leisurely one.  we'd be making our way up to my folks in northern virginia, but we'd me making a pit stop at the other willises (brinn and fw) for a birthday party.

since that pit stop would already alter our normal driving route, and i knew the likelihood of my being in greensboro, nc again in the near future was slim to none, we may have gone just a little further out of our way to visit the guilford courthouse national park. what was most interesting to me is that it was a revolutionary war site.  most of the historic sites i grew up visiting were civil war, so it was a nice change of pace.

the rain made a full exploration a non-option (which matt probably appreciated), but we followed the driving tour and made a few quick photo stops.  it did not, however, diminish our need for food.  and this is where greensboro, nc became one of my favorite places EVER!  thanks to yelp, we went hunting for the big burger spot.  it took a couple of tries, some alternating sweet and stern talking to the gps, and an absolute refusal to be thwarted, but it turns out this tiny, tucked-in-next-to-a-gas-station burger joint was a hole in the wall to match all other holes-in-walls.  i mean, they have a french fry menu (in addition to their burger menu), and this would easily fall in my top 5 burger/fries nationwide.

time to get a move on though, so onward we went to buena vista, va, where we re-joined colby and julie at brinn and fw's home for georgie's birthday carnival.  fw's mad building skills coupled with brinn's mad creativity were on full display, and even though our morning activities made us a little late, we still enjoyed some chicken-catching, funnel cake, and good company.

after getting our fill of some experimental shaved ice flavors, making plans to see the willises at christmas, and bidding adieu, we continued on to ashburn.  our late arrival ensured that most of the family was already asleep, so i got matt settled in and we called it a night.

day 4 dawned with some new realizations.  the first was that we weren't seeing a lot of 'dawn' anymore. our later and later bedtimes made for later and later wake up calls. ah, finally, a vacation!  the second was that matt and i had survived three full days of continuous and close quarters, and we were still having a blast!  i wish i hadn't been so shocked by this, but i've lost friends as a result of traveling together, so i'm a little paranoid.  but our time on the road was somehow perfectly balanced by conversation, dashboard drumming, audiobook listening and critique, and site seeing.

with the impending doom--i mean, rain--i suggested we push our dc day to day 5 and opt for my last minute back-up plan.  he was curious and interested when i suggested luray caverns as a great 'inside activity', and after spending the waning morning hours with my darling nieces, back into the car we went!

another couple hours of good conversation and we were just outside front royal, va,  visiting the fourth largest cave system in the country.  though i have visited many times, it never fails to impress, and matt repeatedly praised both my idea and the caverns themselves.  it also provided him some phenomenal opportunities to play with his new camera.  so much so that we ended up in three different tour groups.  apparently we were having too much fun and continually found ourselves at the back of one group as the front of the next was coming up behind us.  we did ultimately find a synergistic group with some kindred spirits - which made taking non-self portrait photos a lot easier! ;)

after returning to the surface, we made our way across the parking lot to the car and carriage museum that has never ceased to seem random and weird. but, admission is free and boys like cars, so i hung in there while my traveling companion perused the wood and chrome mobility machines.

a few photos and a few miles down the road later, matt asked me about the 'ice' place i'd mentioned.  i couldn't believe i'd almost forgotten but i was back in rita's territory.  i quickly referred to my rita's app, identified the most convenient location, called mom to let her know we'd be late for dinner (at which point she asked me to pick up a couple of pints), and spent the next hour on the road, mouth watering,praying for pineapple-coconut.

i was out of luck.  but fortunately there is always a good second choice at rita's. i teamed up with a store employee to educate matt on the art of ice and custard, and he made his selection.  i'm not sure it was quite the earth-shattering experience i had led him to believe it would be (and that my roommate and other friends have all enjoyed), but i'm sure that somehow it's his own fault.  regardless, i was satiated.

my family had opted to hold dinner for us, so when we arrived back at the homestead, we got to spend the rest of the evening enjoying their company.  it was one of those nights where no one left the kitchen table for hours, and i was so glad to be home.

east coast swing

when my friend, and sometimes crush, matt, said that he'd never been to the east coast and asked if i'd be willing to take a trip with him, i jumped at the opportunity.for one thing, you can learn a lot about someone when you road trip with them. and for another, visiting some of my closest friends and family? sign me up!

preparing for the trip was a breeze.  i was grateful that he trusted my many years of travel and planning experience, letting me dictate the flow and order of our week long vacation.  and given his professional and personal interest in aviation, i made sure there were plenty of 'flight' stops along the way.

day 1 had us meeting at 5am for our shuttle to lax. me at 5am is enough to send any man (or woman) running, as i can be a little grumpy that early.  maybe it was the adrenaline, but we pleasantly survived that first hurdle.  and after the six hour plane ride to raleigh, nc, we were still friends.  off to a good start!

we headed to julie and colby's for an evening in and enjoyed playing with the kiddos and catching up with the adults.  we were fortunate that it was overcast with temps in the low 70s (as it would be for the duration of the trip) so we spent much of the evening outdoors before calling it a night.

day 2 was 'day-trip' day, and maybe the day matt was most looking forward to.  he had suggested that a motorcycle might be a fun way to make the trip, but with the threat of rain, we opted to stick with the car, and made the 3 1/2 hour drive to the outer banks of north carolina to check out kitty hawk.  it's been 7 or 8 years since i had been there, and frankly, i hadn't remembered it that well.  we spent a few hours exploring the national park (guess who got a stamp?!) learning about the flight-brothers.  and once again, i was grateful for the cool temps since being outside on a normal nc summer day would have been painful!

despite those cool temps and on and off sprinkles, we made our way to the beach, where i was dying to get my toes back in the atlantic!  i had bragged about how warm it is (matt had never been in or even seen the atlantic before) and it wasn't long before we turned the car into an awkward changing room, had our suits on, and were wading into the ocean.

man, i miss that ocean.  granted, it was high tide and a bit rough due to the offshore storms, but warm enough to enjoy without a wet suit (take that pacific. yeah, i'm talking about you!).  we attempted to dry off a little before heading to dinner, enjoyed some grub, and began the journey back to raleigh where we spent another evening with the willises.

leg 3: baton rouge

2013 is turning out to be kind of a strange year for travel.  several of my events have shifted their dates just a tad, with some unexpected results. instead of going on one trip and having three or four days at home in between, all the travel backs up against each other.  the upside is that i might actually get to be home for a couple of weeks at a time. the downside is that i'm also on the road for a couple of weeks straight.

baton rouge was the final leg in my too-long road trip.  and it's one of the few 'recognizable' cities left in the country that i haven't been to.  and, as i learned last month in columbus, oh.  if i haven't been, i probably don't need to go.  does that sound snobbish?

i was actually excited to go. i've known two boys from baton rouge and both of them were very cute.  and i kind of thought that baton rouge would be a less drunk version of new orleans, and that it might give me a chance to enjoy the things i love about the south without all of the debauchery of the big easy.

but i could not have predicted just how different the two cities would be. instead of an 'up all night' kind of city, it was an 'everything worthwhile closes at 5' kind of city.  and, when you are sitting at a booth in an exhibit hall until 5pm everyday, staying in a downtown area, without a car, that boasts a number of empty restaurants, and nothing else, it's hard to feel like it's a city you're excited to be in.

of course, there's always an upside.  i was traveling with an enjoyable co-worker. we WERE able to find some good food (one of the best salads i've ever had, actually). i was in my room early every night (sometimes a challenge on the road). and watching 'swamp people' feels more real when you're in gator country.

and, if you know me at all, you'll know that i always make an effort to see or do something new.  fortunately, we were able to get out of the exhibit hall a little early on the last day, and first wandered over to the uss kidd.  

one of the interesting things i learned was...

Another unique distinction about KIDD's first voyage was the make-up of her crew. Anne Randle was the first member of the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) to be assigned to the Office of Shipbuilding in New York City. Ordered to take a training tour of the Kearny Shipyards, her name was placed on the list of personnel that were scheduled to report on board KIDD for the purpose of accompanying the destroyer across the harbor to the Brooklyn Naval Shipyards. Her name was listed as "Ens. A. Randle", omitting any mention of her gender. At that time, there was still an uneasy tradition that having a woman aboard a naval ship was to invite bad luck. However, when KIDD arrived at the Brooklyn yards, the official message sent back to the yards in Kearny read: "The WAVE delivered The Kidd at 2:30 today."

but i was also interested because of my grandfather's service as a naval pilot. in fact, the plane out front had motivated me to email my father to see if he had any info on the planes my grandfather had flown, and he sent a couple of photos in response

while perusing a display case inside the museum with models of various planes, another visitor, who could tell we were searching for something, asked if he could help.  when i explained what i was looking for, he took a quick look at the photos.  he recognized them instantly, but they were not represented in the case.  only slightly disappointed, sam (my co-worker) and i chatted with him and his wife, and enjoyed his obvious passion for the subject.

after the museum, we headed to the ship and enjoyed our self-guided, out of order,' if it's not roped off you can touch it, ring it, (or in the case of the beds) climb into it' tour.  i'll admit that climbing in and out of those beds were probably among the least graceful enterprises i've ever taken on, but some of the beds were hung so closely together, it was hard to imagine actually sleeping in them night after night.  it would definitely be an experience!

after fully experiencing the uss kidd, we headed next door to take in a planetarium show.  the science museum itself was a HUGE disappointment. but since the admission was basically free with the ticket for the show, no harm no foul. the show was fun, and the planetarium was a little different than others i've been too, so it was a nice way to cap off an early evening, and the trip itself.

the beauty of unplanned plans

the beauty of the unexpected is that the possibility exists for wonderful things to happen.

on wednesday, before i knew that three days later i would be in south carolina, a random itunes clean out made me think of some extended cousins i hadn't seen in over a decade.  we had spent a couple of summer vacations with them in thousand islands, ny at their idyllic cottages on the idyllic island where cars were quickly traded in for bicycles and golf carts and afternoons at the ice cream parlor, picnics on the beach, and sunset boat rides.  you can perhaps imagine why this particular group of people make me think warm happy thoughts.

it all started when i came across a band that, long ago, my second cousin (i had to look that up) jamin, and i had both shared a love for. so i did what anybody would do;  i headed to facebook to see if i could turn up anything. pretty quickly i was able to find jamin and his mother judy (my first cousin once removed).  i added them as friends, thinking i would silently cyber-stalk them to begin the reacquainting process, and was reminded that judy had left new york and was now running a bed and breakfast in south carolina.  my internal dialogue, quite literally, went like this:

"one day, i'm going to have to go check that out!"

i could not have possibly foreseen that in just twelve hours, i would be making travel arrangements that would allow me to do just that!

i sent off an email on thursday and waited to hear. and when sunday morning came without a response, i simply assumed that there were other commitments, being so last minute and all. until i checked my email, and learned that she had been simply trying to coordinate the arrivals of my second cousin, gretchen, and my great aunt, who had flown in the night before for their annual vacation. score!

my two hour drive to charleston was mildly eventful. see...i got pulled over. for going twenty miles an hour over the limit. doh!  guess my california lead foot got the best of me.

BUT, he gave me a warning.  a WARNING!  i truly don't even know why. i was pretty resigned to my fate, and simply told him that i was sorry, and i obviously hadn't been paying attention.  and after he ran my license and car rental agreement, he came back to the car saying 'twenty miles an hour. twenty miles. i NEVER do this, but this is a warning. SLOW DOWN,' shaking his head the whole time.  i'm not sure which of us was more surprised, but not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, i thanked him profusely and got the heck out of dodge before he could change his mind!

the rest of the two hour drive to charleston passed smoothly at nine miles over the speed limit. i have never been to charleston before (i still can't quite believe it, and it kind of hurts to say) and the drive in was full of oohs and awes, and aaahhs. and when i pulled up to lavender and lace, i discovered that  it was everything you want a charleston b&b to be:  a delightfully old antebellum house with wrap-around porches on multiple levels that make you want to drink mint juleps and sit on porch swings. it was absolutely lovely! as was my reunion.

i still, in hindsight, cannot believe my good fortune.  i have expressed on many occasions how grateful i have been that my family is  so amazing, and that feeling extends beyond far beyond the first branch of the tree.  to be able to reconnect with my cousins and great-aunt was such a blessing!

after catching up on the last fifteen years, it was time for me to head out

i couldn't leave without making a couple of stops at the national park sites in the area, so the first on the list was fort sumter.  fort sumter is most notable for being the place at which the first shots of the civil war were fired.

due to time, i wasn't able to take the boat over to the fort, but i enjoyed the displays and the information at the visitor's center.

from there, it was on to fort moultrie, which is fascinating for other reasons.  

it was built in 1776, and is unique for having been built with palmetto logs. because the palmettos are softer than woods normally used, the walls would absorb the shock of the cannons without exploding, and it is even said that cannon balls would BOUNCE off the walls. uh-mazing!

and with seven new stamps in the parks passport, it was time to keep on keeping on.  afterall, i had a date with some very special people!

my stop for the night was in raleigh, nc with colby and julie. and while cost was a factor in opting to drive, rather than fly to va, colby and julie were the primary motivator.

i would have liked much much more time with them, but since just three days before, there was no inkling of a possibility that i would be sitting in their kitchen laughing, and learning of the death of osama bin laden together, it was all icing.