Something TIme Consuming and Meaningful

Wonderful People!!! I am in New Orleans and am, in the truest sense, extremely happy. I have not blogged as of late but now I feel impelled to because I love this city, especially its food, which I have just had the pleasure of experiencing. We went to Clancy's, a mini Galetoire's with amazing food and a wonderful local atmosphere. Everyone loved it, the experience was religious in nature. I had a veal chop with gnocci and roasted tomatoes in a herb demi-glace, Jake had veal liver, Diana the risotto with lobster, and MayaBea had yellow-tail tuna. For desert we ordered a bunch of dishes and shared them, it was heavenly. Tomorrow we go to Cafe Monet for breakfast. Another thing I noticed about New Orleans which I remember as having always loved is the humidity, it is a very peculiar kind of humid weather that is not oppressive but rather comforting, as well as the smell of the air and the architecture of the houses. Till next I blog,

Ricky

Where are the pictures?!

Sorry sorry sorry. I keep putting off putting up pictures, but to do so (you don't realize) requires so many stars to be perfectly aligned. We have to have enough Wifi to upload pictures to the interwebs, I have to have my camera card, and my SD-Flashdrive device, and the boys have to let me use their computer.

Right now we're all getting ready for dinner, and the camera is sadly in the car. Meaning the SD card is in the car as well. But after dinner, when I get my camera out of the car, I will upload the pictures. As you may have guessed, now that we are in the hostel in New Orleans, we have wifi all the time. So pictures are definitely going to be up later tonight.

Sorry for the wait, I'm working as fast as I can, and pictures should be up soon.

Have a nice day and a pleasant... later.

Day 6: In which the men become girls…

Today was the most chill of all chill days. We woke up at our leisure (I myself was awake and productive an hour before everyone else… see Dad, I do make use of my time not sleeping!) and spent the morning running various errands. We did some laundry, bought some clothes and flowers, watched some Pokémon, and generally relaxed. Diana and I took the opportunity of the free time and safe street parking to unpack and completely reload the car. Odysseus is once again clean inside! (or at least, he was until we set up camp this evening…) By 3:30, we’d said our goodbyes and thank you’s, photographed Phil’s bonsai trees, and were on the road once again.

En Route, we passed a Piggley Wiggley (which made me disproportionately excited), OMG DONUTS!, some crazy Alabama drivers (who go 25 in 35 mph zones, but then hit 85 on the highway), and lots and lots of depressing trees. I don’t know why they were depressing, but Jake says they were depressing, and sure he is an honorable man.

We arrived at DeSoto Caverns Campground, after following the signs way back from “DeSoto Caverns Ahead… 10 Mi- AWESOME!” until we reached the actual site. It is not awesome. I feel lied to.

There are lots of “attractions” here, including a petting zoo and climbing towers to create the most awesome water balloon battle ever, but we are probably not going to be partaking in any of them, because we would rather sleep in the morning and then we have 6 hours of driving. The only other things here are bugs and frogs. And boy, are there bugs and frogs.

Our site is right next to a stagnant pond of water that looks gross and is just an all-around bad idea. It led to lots and lots of flies hovering around our food at dinner, and a giant gazukus (sp??) bug getting inside the car as we were unpacking things. At this point, the men decided to remove the thing from Odysseus’ rear end. They poked and prodded at it with a stick, and with Jake’s iPhone (I have no idea why…) and as it moved jumped back. There may have been some girly shrieking involved as well. The greatest part of it all, though, was almost immediately afterwards, when they were looking at frogs in the so-called pond. After Jake and Richard had been watching one for a while, a 10 year old boy walked up and just went for the frog with his bare hands. He wins.

Dinner today included kosher hot dogs and kosher chicken soup. I was happy.

(The twice-baked potatos that Mary Ann gave us did not last all the way to dinner… we ate them within the first hour on the road!)

Safely in our bug-less tent, we watched Julie & Julia on Ricky’s computer. Now Diana and I are keeping him awake by writing this, so I suppose I’ll end here. I don’t really have any more to say anyhow.

(7/5) In which we drink too much

It was a glorious day! “Why?” do you ask? Well, I gladly inform you that we slept late. And as late as we pleased. In real beds, I would like to add. That is all it takes to make a glorious day.

We drove to Atlanta on the 5^th. Figured we would spend our time seeing the sights and whatnot! So our first stop, was….

Drumroll please….

A Parking lot! Well you don’t suppose we walked all the way there did you?

I was having trouble with my ankle, because I had twisted it at Rose Creek, and then slipped down the stairs at the Doziers, only making my ankle worse. So I wrapped it and off we went on our way to the Wonderful World of Disn… I mean Coca-Cola.

On our way (taking our time, I might add) we stopped at the Olympic Centennial Park. Mayabea wanted to frolic and play in the sprinklers, (as she did at age four) but Jake, Ricky and I maliciously held her back! Her tears did not sway our iron hearts.

We stood in line. A very long line, and got cokes in the nice, classic, glass bottles, but you’re not allowed to bring Glass into the Coca-Cola works. Oh well. They were left in the cold, red-tinted chamber of the recycling bin.

I would like to say that I thought the entire factory was really cheesy. Mayabea on the other hand, enjoyed it, because she is fond (overly fond) of cheesy things. Most of our readers already know that.

(Boy this is going to be a long post. Just what all our parents are craving right now… Other than cheese. Cheese and Coke.)

The part that I think all of us enjoyed, was the FLAVOR TASTING! Now, kiddies, Coca-Cola produces much more than Classic Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, Diet (Zero) Cherry Coke, caffeine free Diet Coke, Vanilla Coke, (No Diet Vanilla Coke), Diet Coke with Lime, and Coca-Cola ZERo. Oh no. If you thought that was all, you are terribly mistaken.

We drank all 64 flavors of soda produced by Coca-Cola. And just so you know our pain, we drank the following:

Bibo Pine Apple, Sunfill Strawberry, Bibo Kiwi Mango, Spar-berry, Sunfill Mint, Krest Ginger Ale, Stoney Tangawizi, Fanta Exotic, Nestea Peche Blanche, Fanta Pineapple, Nestea Lemon, Kinley Bitter Lemon, Sweetened Raspberry Iced Tea Nestea (Mayabea’s favorite), Fanta Magic, Mezzo Mix, Beverly, Powerade Fruit Punch, Minute Maid Lemonade, Fanta Strawberry, Pibb Xtra, Fresca Sparking Citrus, Vault, Fanta Orange, Sprite, HiC Apple, Vegitabetta, Crush Lemon, Fanta Apple Kiwi, Nestea Ice Rush, Smart Watermellon, Thirst Quencher! Ice, Smart Apple, Nestea Mango, Delaware Punch (ppftt, Delaware), Ciel Aquarius, Simba Guarana, Nestea Light Peach, Fanta Kolita, Manzana Lift Roja, Inca Kola, and all of the mentioned (*cough* NORMAL *cough*) flavors above.

As you can imagine, by the time we got to plain old Classic Coca-Cola, we felt as if we had never tasted anything better.

And as you can imagine, we plan on drinking water for the rest of the trip.

From the Coca-Cola factory, we went to Dinner. We had found this cute place in Atlanta that reminded us of the old restaurant that used to be in town: J.P. Lees. It was called “Chow Baby.” And if you forgive my language, Hot Damn it was good.

After that, we figured we would try and find Little 5 Points, an area of Atlanta that we had been informed of and really wanted to see. By then, it was almost 10, and the surrounding town didn’t seem like the best place to be. So after about 10 minutes of wandering in a tight-knit group, Mayabea clinging to Richard’s arm the entire way, we headed back to the car to go home.

We were greeted by MaryAnn, trying to make sure we had had enough to eat. And my god, we had. This, however, did not stop most of us from eating Ice Cream (It did stop Jake). Then we watched part of a Horror movie, some House, and went off to slip into a glorious food coma in bed.

(7/4) If it looks like a bench, and it quacks like a bench...

(its a bench)

Hey Y'all! (See, now that we're legit in the south, I've decided that we should start speaking like it) Anyways, the Fourth of July was fun! How fun, you ask?

Well, we all got up and went rafting. And by "we all" I mean everyone but me (Diana). I was sleepy and exhausted, so I slept in the car, while Mayabea, Richard and Jake all headed off to Raft. Mayabea fell out of the boat, but I don't know too many details.

Then we headed off to Georgia. All fun stuff. Lots of windey roads, and stops to buy "Boiled Peanuts" though we didn't stop. We got to the Doziers, and met everyone. Luckily for us, they were already planning a big fourth of july party, so we didn't stick out and were hopefully not much of a burden. Amanda and her friends came over, and we all headed out to the local country club for fireworks.

Now, for people in New Jersey, Fireworks and Sparklers aren't illegal in Georgia!! Which is very very exciting! Oh, another exciting thing about Georgia (at least for me) is the fact that there are KROGERS HERE!! (Childhood memory of mine, of a Grocery store). Now, back to the fireworks. First we got to play with sparklers which was really fun, and then we played tag and took pictures to pass the time. And then the fireworks started. The fireworks were really cool and really up close, and really amazing. I pity all of you that are in Jersey. Jeerrrsseeeeyyy.

Anyways, fireworks were cool, and then we went off to Steak and Shake (thanks Amanda for taking us). It was super cool. I enjoy 24/7 restaurants. Then we went back to the Doziers to sleep. Glorious sleep.. More in the next post.

Day 3: In which the boys continue to be Men, and MayaBea relinquishes the wheel

First of all, I'll apologize for the lack of updates. Our campsite in North Carolina had no wi-fi (no big surprise there, though, that place was pretty legit camping) and we've had trouble connecting at the Dozier's house here in Atlanta.

Not very much of interest happened on Day 3- it was just the trek from Richmond, VA to Franklin, NC. After stressful drives both previous days, I relinquished control and gave Jake the wheel. Diana sat shotgun, and I finally got to sleep.

We stopped for lunch at a diner and, though it wasn't quite an NJ diner, it was pretty classic. We decided that Jake's Mr. Pibb was Dr. Pepper's less pretentious, title-less friend, and so we like him better. We made friends with our waiter, saw some girls with interesting curlers in their hair (at least, I think that's what they were!), and taught Ricky the phrase "whinging adolescent," before piling back into the car for another four hours of road time.

Prior to arriving at Rose Creek Campground, we had our first major debate of the road trip. I pose the question to you: In a world where "everything was exactly as it seemed," could there be "a man with something to prove, slightly bored and severely confused," as the lyrics to Sleeping In (by Postal Service) suggest? This debate lasted us all an hour and a half, and led to both Jake (the driver) and Diana (the navigator) missing our exit by 4 miles. Claudia helped us get back on track, though, and we arrived at the campsite with no problems.

For dinner, we had a vaguely mexican themed hodge-podge of foods. We sautee peppers and onions, made black beans and rice, and ate the whole thing all in tortillas with salsa. After that we headed to bed. As I said... not so interesting a day. Pretty fun, though!

Car Games

We declared the license plate game null today, because it was stressing me while I was driving and Claudia was contradicting our printed directions. The results of yellow car and slug buggy are in the shotgun binder, but Ricky's already asleep (or nearly so) and so he will post those results tomorrow.

Pictures from DC

This blog post will mostly be just pictures from DC. I figured you all would like to see them.


Ethiopian Place

White House

Vietnam War Memorial

Diana Loves Michigan

Washington Monument

We'll need a bigger tree!

As I sit now in our tent listening to the chirp of whatever bugs we've locked out with our super-duper zippers, it's hard to believe we woke up this morning to the view of mostly-naked British Marines and the capitol city in the sun.

With much deliberation over food (Ricky wanted to buy us all breakfast because he didn't want to eat the "free breakfast!" that the hostel offered), we finally departed, hungry still, from the hostel and headed to the parking lot at Union Station. We circled the gorgeous marble building several times to no avail, but finally found a parking garage beneath some official building referred to only as "Building Three." With Odysseus safely stowed away for the time being, we headed towards the national mall.

We did not get past Union Station's food court before getting sidetracked by the delicious smells of our lunch-to-be. Our stomachs thus satisfied, we moved on to the Library of Congress.

At the Library of Congress, or LOC as they refer to it on most official looking documents, we wandered about the various reading rooms and took in all the literary goodness. One exhibit was a recreation of Thomas Jefferson's library, complete with his methods of sorting the books and computers displaying scanned pages from the untouchable collection.

Next stop made me very super over the top happy: the Folger's Shakespeare Library! There was an exhibit about the ocean and its portrayal throughout English Literature. More importantly, the entire building felt like a shrine to Shakespeare. My highlight of the day was the ring Diana bought me, which says "All the world's a stage" around it. Thanks so much Diana!!

After we left Shakespeare, we made our way past the Capitol and Supreme Court buildings, plus lots of other official stuff, and made for the Botanical Gardens. There Diana really thrived (pun intended?). We split off from the boys for much of the time as Diana took literally hundreds of photographs (circa 500). If you're lucky, she'll share a few in her blog post (speaking of which, Diana and I have just conferred and decided that she will add to my story-post and in her post just share photographs, so assume both of them are vaguely joint efforts). After Jake, Ricky, and I spent a quarter of an hour being "couch potatoes" in the spud exhibit in the conservatory, we opted not to go to the Air and Space Museum and just get on the road early.

It's a good thing we decided to leave early, because after the pit stop for a camping stove and extra fuel, we hit major traffic. We didn't arrive at the campsite near Richmond until half past eight, and set up camp in the very last few minutes of daylight.

Upon reaching the campsite, the boys decided it was time for them to become men: they ran off to some secluded area to pee on trees, then returned to play with fire. Meanwhile, I orchestrated setting up the tent and Diana cooked dinner (ok, so she poured two cans of tomato soup into a pot and heated it up... don't underestimate the talent it takes to set up a camping stove in the dark, though!). After we ate (the girls used spoons, but the MEN had to drink their soup in a manly manner straight from the bowl while Ricky grunted happily at us), Diana and I ventured off to find more lady-like places to do our business and also somewhere to wash our dishes. The boys opened a flashlight battery case, to prove they weren't wusses. They weren't.

Now my post has gotten very long, it is late, and we have only limited battery power. Surprisingly enough, there is free wifi at this site. No electricity or water near our tent, but plenty of free wifi. Oh the great outdoors...

So anyhow, I suppose that's all folks. Glad you stuck with me this far. Enjoy Diana's pictures. See ya.

~MB