1200 miles, 2 books on cd, and 2 days later...

 

Well...as much as I would like to think that I don't sound that southern, I can't hide it. As soon as I introduce myself to someone they immediately feel the need to tell me I am from the south and ask which state I am from. I guess I should get used to it since I have only met a few people so far. I guess if you are reading this you are at least slightly interested in my life so I will tell you a little bit about our trip up here. (See the above pictures for visual references) Bekah and I left a little bit before 5am last Monday morning. After discovering that we could not pick Rick and Bubba up in GA, we decided to stop and get a book on CD at Cracker Barrel. If anyone does now know you can get an audio book there and trade it in at any of the Cracker Barrels. It is a wonderful system. They were even so kind as to give us a map of the U.S. that showed ever single Cracker Barrel on it. If you are ever on the road and need to know where one is you know who to call. Anyway...we chose a novel and we were on our way. We saw lots of funny road signs which kept us amused. One time we were in tears from laughing so hard. We made it into Newport News in time to have dinner with Laura,Ryan, and baby Grace. After dinner we went back to thier house to visit for awhile. I got to hold Grace for the first time, which was very exciting. It was great to visit with them and we could have talked all night but we knew that we had to get up early so we could not stay all night.
The next morning our first stop was Cracker Barrel. The exits in Virginia are very misleading. They tell you that there is a Cracker Barrel on the exit but they don't tell you that you have to go about 2 miles and make several turns to get there. This was only the beginning of our troubles with getting to the Cracker Barrels. When we finally got to the store they did not have the next book in the series on CD, although they had 3 on tape(which I can't play in my car.) So, we just skipped a book and got another book in the series. We ended up having to stop the cd several times becouse of crazy roads. Washington D.C. was insane. I did get to see the top of the capital though so that was kind of cool. Next we decided that if we were driving through Philedelphia we should have a philly cheese steak sandwich. After enlisting the help of Tom(Bekah's brother)we found a place known for thier sandwiches. It was a nice little pit stop for lunch but now I was ready to get to Nyack. Once we got into New Jersy it started pouring down rain. Not to mention it was rush hour. The combination made a very stressful rest of the trip. As we drove into Nyack a funny thing happend. Sweet Home Alabama started playing on the radio. It is not really a song that I usually turn the radio up to hear it better but it just somehow seemed appropriate at the time. My roommates family was there when we arrived and immediately started helping us unload the car. Thank you God for providing me with a roommate who has a strong Dad and brother who were willing to help after they had already unloaded all of her stuff up two flights of stairs. By this time Bekah and I were exhausted but we had to go to Target to get some essentials for the night. I decided to drive Bekah around Nyack for a little bit before it got dark. Downtown Nyack is so cute we decided that we just had to eat there. From there we went to Target where we had to hurry before they closed. I had to get towels, shampoo, conditioner, and an air mattress for Bekah to sleep on. Now, why am I telling you what I had to get? Well, because there are a couple of funny stories to go along with that. When Bekah went to take a shower, she discovered that in my haste to get out of the store before it closed I picked up 2 conditioners instead of shampoo. Luckily I had a sample of shampoo for us to use for the night. Next, Bekah discovered that the air pump for the air mattress had to charge for 4 hours before it could be used. It was already late and we could not wait on that. I got the bright idea to use a hair dryer. I was pretty proud of myself for thinking of that until we realized that part of the air mattress had melted from the heat. Bekah patched it but still ended up sleeping on the floor before the end of the night.
The next morning we went into the city. It took us a little longer than we anticipated to get there but we still go to see most of the things on Bekah's list. We went to Chinatown and Central Park. We had frozen hot chocolate at Serenipity, and huge sandwiches at Carnegie Deli. We tried to win lottery tickets for Wicked but were unsuccessful. We did have some darn good pizza though. We saw alot but I think we decided that there was alot more that we will do next time.
Well, I guess that was a clasic Marie story but now you know all about our trip to Nyack. I will post again soon to update you about my first week here.