We’re very lucky to have friends along the east coast willing to host us while we run from the cold up north. Once Snowball was finished with Fifth Avenue (“Oh my god, like, who needs Tiffany anyway? She can totally go have breakfast, like, by herself for all I care.”), we strolled down to the Philly area and caught up with another of Jess’ teachers for lunch. We left with happy bellies and a smattering of suggestions for nosh in the south, which until then didn’t have much going on in the planning department.
From our lunch in Bryn Mawr (Antonella‘s is highly recommended!), we hightailed it through Baltimore to the DC area where one of my college buddies has moved to work for the USGS. Federal Government Employee for the win! Did I mention he’s a badass drummer? Sorry ladies, he’s off the market.
We went to a SICK funk show!
Hiking in Shenandoah National Park!
I toured around the National Mall with Mike while Jess caught up with a high school friend.
And it wouldn’t be a DC Nerd Tour without at least one Smithsonian: the Udvar-Hazy Center. (The place they keep all the planes!)
We stayed with them through election day, and then headed west.
We made our way to Jess’ old stompin’ ground: West Virginia. When she was a young warthog, Jess was a geotech engineer drilling the foundations for all these powerline towers (crossing the highway in the photo below), and she spent the better parts of a year tearin’ up small towns all up and down Appalachia. Don’t tell her mother. 😉
We also made time for a quick, steep and gorgeous hike at Seneca Rocks.
We stayed two nights in Davis, WV leaving enough time only to hit up some of Jess’ haunts, but we had a warm bed waiting for us in Cincinnati. On the way, we stopped by Yellow Springs, OH for a quick hike.
Our step-brother was kind enough to host us while we figured out our next plan.
…And then our next plan was made for us by someone who thought they needed our bikes more than we did.
We went outside to take the dog for a walk, and something felt weird… Then we noticed the bikes were gone. [insert sinking feeling here] I swear I locked the rack, but I suppose it wouldn’t be too hard for a highly-motivated screwdriver to coax the cylinder open. Lesson learned: Maybe we should’ve had more than one lock on the bikes!
But did we, even for one second, think “oh well, we’ve had a good run. maybe it’s time to go home.” Hell no! Ok, maybe for one second, but then we remembered how much more there is left to see! It’s like that old saying: when life gives you lemons, kick life in the nuts and tell it to give you a coke instead.
Aaaaaanyway. Instead of getting down on ourselves, we went hiking a bunch with Matt, and got to explore the Buffalo Trace distillery!
Now that we’d spent a few days in Cincy, we had a choice to make: go south and camp in the rain for the next few days… or drive 4 hours north to Detroit to see the family again, participate in a surprise birthday party, and stay in a nice warm bed. When I say it like that it seems a little bit obvious. So fun birthday party and family time in Detroit!
Although I nearly let the cat out of the bag, the birthday boy was indeed surprised. Mission Accomplished!
We drove back down to Cincy to stay a quick night and then continued on to…
But that’s a story for next time.
"Purposefully Unrushed" 