Roadtrip photos, stats, and stories. :D - TravelPUNK Backpacker College Student Budget Travel Message Boards!

**freespiritz** · 06-17-2007, 08:44 PM

I wanted to write up something comprehensive, but what the hell.

This is all I've got.

Statistics, woohooo...

Miles covered: about 3700, who knows really?
Money spent on gas: way too much.
Money spent in general: way too much.
Hook-ups: one
Hangovers: two
Nights in the car: three
Country music listened to: about five gazillion hours
Tpunks met: seven (I think)

Photos taken: a lot, and here they are.
BOSTON and NYC

DC and VIRGINIA

FLORIDA

TORONTO, SILVER SPRINGS and NEW HAMPSHIRE (on a different site, since the regular one is screwing me over for now)

Itinerary: Here's what we did/drove/saw, just for reference so you can do better than we did if you ever choose to do something similar. Lol.

24th May: Boston, North Shore
25th May: Boston, Beacon Hill – Porcupine Tree concert
26th May: Trumbull, CT
27th May: Hartford, CT
28th May: Parked in Greenwich/Port Chester, train to NYC in the a.m. (Broadway Hostel)
29th May: NYC until 1.53 a.m., train to Port Chester (slept in car)
30th May: Left Greenwich at 5.30 a.m, visited DC for three hours, drove Skyline Drive, visited Luray Caverns, got lost on the Blue Ridge Parkway, ended up in Charlotte, NC at 2 a.m. (Slept in car)
31st May: Charlotte, NC
1st June: NC – Atlanta – Clearwater, FL (Clearwater Hostel)
2nd June: Everglades, night in Florida City (Everglades Hostel)
3rd June: Key West (Captain's Corner Dive Center)
4th June: Key West (Captain's Corner Dive Center)
5th June: Key West, hit the bars at midnight! (Captain's Corner Dive Center)
6th June: Key West to Orlando in a rainstorm from hell (Days Inn, maybe? I don't remember)
7th June: Orlando Universal Studios and Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede (Days Inn)
8th June: Seaworld Orlando and Pirate Dinner (Days Inn)
9th June: Orlando to Silver Springs, MD
10th June: Silver Springs to Philly to Lebanon PA
11th June: Lebanon to Princeton NJ to Mass, Vermont and to TORONTO in a backtrack from hell. 24 horus on the road.
12th June: T-dot!
13th June: Toronto – Montreal – upstate NY – Lincoln. (slept in car)
14th June: Round the White Mountains, up Mt. Washington, Portland ME, Lewiston ME.

Moments on the road.

“We'll go this way, join this road, head that way and end up in that town for pizza.”
“Mark. The map says that it's an unpaved road”.
“That's alright. It'll be scenic!”
“Mark! It'll be a friggin dirt path!”
“Oh, it's an old map. It'll be paved by now”.
“Published in 2007. That's pretty damn out-of-date eh”.
“Whatever, I can do it”.
“Whatever”.

It takes us a while to even find the road.

“Oi, I didn't tell you to turn off here!”
“But this random road could be it! I feel like it could be.”
“You don't just turn on to a road because you maybe possibly think that it could potentially be perhaps the sort of right way!! Turn around and get back on the main street!”

We finally reach the dirt path, and an old dude gardening by the side of the street looks perplexed when we ask if it goes to Sandwich. It does, but it'll take an hour to cover the ten miles. We bump our way into the middle of the forest, jouncing in and out of potholes and over rocks. This kind of sucks, we both agree, but we keep going.

“Mark, are you sure you want to do this??”
“Yeah, sure, whatever, it's fine.”
“I really don't think you want to do an hour of this”.

And then we stop.

“Mark, there's a tree across the road. Turn around and we'll take the freeway like I said”.
“Nah, we've come this far, it's too much trouble to backtrack and all that.”
“There's a tree across the road!”
“I'll move it”.

He gets out of the car and attempts to pick up a whole birch tree, but fails to budge it even the teeniest bit. I am laughing hysterically at the fact that he even tried.

“So are we turning around now?”
“Don't ever let me listen to myself again”.
“Please remember that we appointed me navigator for this trip for a reason, Mark”.

Also, wise decisions are not made at 2 a.m. after already being on the road for 16 hours.

“Hey, this road we're on goes to Canada!”
“Sweet, let's cross the border!”

It's not a good start when Canada border control takes an hour to even let you cross the border. Of course, it's never a good idea to babble on about Jamaica and Florida when you're already crossing at the sketchy hour of 1.30 a.m. and you happen to be two college-aged kids. Unless interrogations are your thing.

“Alright, Sherbrooke is the closest border town. Let's just go there, crash in the car and peace out in the morning”.
“Hey, Montreal is pretty close to Sherbrooke – we might as well go there”.
“Eh, Ottawa isn't that far from Montreal, we should check that out too”.
“Actually...Toronto is kind of drivable from Montreal. We should just head there tonight and then check out Ottawa and Montreal on the way back”.
“What time is it?”
“Oh, like 2.30 a.m.”
“We'll be there by 10.”
“Are you sure you don't need to sleep?”

10.30 a.m. dawns and we're both grumpy and exhausted in the car, stuck in lovely Toronto traffic. I've been frantically texting people I know and people I don't know, trying to hook us up with somewhere to crash for the night. It's been 24 hours on the road, and when we pull up in downtown T-dot, both of us really don't want to be there.

“I wish I was in Maine”.
“We have to drive all the way back now”.
“How the hell did we get here??”
“We could have driven straight from Philly and saved about 15 hours on the road”.

Impulse trips to Canada are always lovely. Turned out to be a good experience, though.

To life on the road!

**buzzingtalk** · 06-18-2007, 01:58 AM

haha what an amusing read. :D

**lauren313** · 06-18-2007, 03:03 AM

That was good fun to read, so I can only imagine how much fun it was to actually do!

**DC_Jessica** · 06-18-2007, 06:38 AM

Haha NOW I see why you were so keen on waiting until after the show for your drink!!

Nice!

**freespiritz** · 06-18-2007, 08:16 AM

Haha, what, Jess?

Unfortunately, that wasn't the hookup, lol!

**joe7f** · 06-18-2007, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by freespiritz

Impulse trips to Canada are always lovely. Turned out to be a good experience, though.

To life on the road!

Cheers indeed, I love this photo:

http://freespiritz.multiply.com/phot...hoto%2F35%2F87

Glad you had a good time!

--Joey

**freespiritz** · 06-18-2007, 02:14 PM

Gotta love a good ol' Key West sunset.

**juliagulia** · 06-19-2007, 09:52 AM

WOW! That picture really is... beautiful.

And freespiritz, your trip sounds like it was AMAZING! I've never really wanted to road trip, but I'm starting to have second thoughts...

And BTW, it's Silver Spring, not Springs.

**freespiritz** · 06-19-2007, 11:59 AM

Thanks guys. Funny thing is, Mark thought that the sunset that day sucked because there were clouds in the way. I was all wtf, the clouds are what make every sunset different and gorgeous!

And yeah, Silver Spring it is. I realized that, and was too lazy to correct it.

And Julia, I'm gonna sell you on road tripping. It's amazing. Go do it. Find a good buddy to go with though.

I've been planning to write up something on my thoughts towards the open road, and hopefully I'll get around to it sometime soon, and hopefully it will be inspiring.

**simply_angelic** · 06-19-2007, 05:47 PM

All I have to say is daaaaaaaamn girl! And I'm so glad I was a stop on that list!!

**freespiritz** · 06-19-2007, 06:12 PM

I'm really glad that we managed to meet up, too! :D

Oh, I forgot about the one night in the White Mountains...we were driving around at 1.00 a.m. looking for a place to stay in the middle of nowhere, and we stopped at a hotel and there was no one at the desk. There was, however, a really nice cushy lobby with comfy couches and we decided to just sleep there until we got kicked out by security an hour later, back to the cold car.

**LiveFreeorDie** · 06-20-2007, 06:35 AM

Great read and quite the trip!

**joe7f** · 06-20-2007, 06:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by freespiritz

Thanks guys. Funny thing is, Mark thought that the sunset that day sucked because there were clouds in the way. I was all wtf, the clouds are what make every sunset different and gorgeous!

Does he also say that the sound of a babbling brook is distracting him from enjoying nature

A sunset without clouds doesn't work that well. I'm glad you ended up with a more typical Florida experience

And yes Julia, road trips rock!

--Joey

**freespiritz** · 06-20-2007, 01:05 PM

I didn't even bother pursuing the conversation after he made that statement.

Now, who wants to drive to Alaska with me?

**DC_Jessica** · 06-21-2007, 12:35 PM

Hey, if we start off, you know, in Russia, I'm down.

**freespiritz** · 06-21-2007, 01:41 PM

Can we start from Italy? I'll be there start of next summer.

**worldwidemike** · 06-24-2007, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by freespiritz

Hook-ups: one

And what? No details? Hwei, you tease....

Seriously, that is a very funny write up...you win Impulsive TPunk of the Year, no doubt...

worldwidemike

**freespiritz** · 06-24-2007, 09:31 AM

Well Mike, you're the first to have asked for details. And there's not much to say except that when a girl turns 21, she needs to find someone to party it up with because this girl at least isn't a fan of bar-hopping alone.

So I went around meeting random people and asked two guys to hang out with me for my 21st. Met one in an adult store

and one in margaritaville. Adult store dude chickened out and I so spent the evening with the other guy...we had fun.

I'll spare any details beyond that. Hehe.

**Sijuki** · 06-24-2007, 08:13 PM

I agree... roadtripping is the best! I love to just get into a car and drive off to destinations unknown, or slightly known. I think that is one of the great things about the states. You can drive for days and days and never worry about crossing a border (country).

Great trip!

I would so definitely be up for Alaska... if only I could afford it. I have always wanted to drive to Alaska.