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Major Road Trip

Posted on Aug 26, 2009 by | 1 comment

Last weekend, Jacob took off both Friday and Monday. It was my last weekend before school started, I had taken the GRE and we were free for a weekend. We drove up to Philadelphia on Friday morning. Jacob had never driven through DC like that and, well, once we passed Towson, I too was in new territory. Jacob drove the entire way! Pennsylvania was nice, there was one stretch of town that was very difficult traffic-wise towards the end of our journey, but the state was nice and we love being in new places.

Our hotel was nicely decorated, but that is about all I can say positive about it. We had internet troubles, calling the desk troubles, not getting let on the shuttle troubles, over-chargement troubles, anyway, we rode into the city on the regional rail the same day. We explored the Chinatown section, and found some chocolate-filled koala bear cookies for our primary class. We had dinner at the Hard Rock. We explored the cool old City Hall, which is pretty much the baller-est public building ever. It has an inner courtyard and is the middle of the city. It is covered in statues of birds and has wonderful architectural features that sadly had to be covered in bird netting and spikes (like Jefferson Hall on old campus). We found some modern art outside another municipal building. And explored the shopping district, and scoped out some food for Saturday.

I did notice how much I am NOT a city person, maybe it was just because it was dark and I was in a new place but I was scared seriously several times during our walk through the city. However, the next morning I was semi-cured. I was surrounded by possibilities and fun rather than worries and danger. And Jacob said I would get used to living in a bustling area, if we move to such a place.



We made our first stop of the morning at the Masonic Temple right next to City Hall. We were given a tour and saw some awesome workmanship and really enjoyed learning about some Mason history. Their temple was built only a few years before City Hall, and they were a bit upset because they thought their building would be the most impressive landmark in town, whoopsies. I did feel bad for our tour guide whose 11 am tour was over 70 people, whereas our tour had only about a dozen. Our tour guide was really good at making jokes about people that even they could laugh at, well except for the time he asked the French women in our tour if her country had kicked out all the capitalists on purpose… that was awkward. Right in the middle of him introducing us to the Egyptian room, I think it was called the Corinth Room, the phone across the room at a very ornate-looking desk started ringing. He just thought it was one of our cell phones and kept on talking, finally he kind of listened around when he didn’t see anyone reaching for their phone…”oh, is that me?”

Jacob really liked the beautiful stained glass and I loved the wacky color combinations and the beautiful marble and tile.





Next, we crossed town to check out the historic things of the city. It was packed full of other tourists by our 11:30 arrival, but we looked at the Liberty Bell, and checked out the U.S. Mint.

Here Jacob is setting up the perfect shot, while I am simultaneously taking it.

There we go, yay, Jacob’s favorite thing: COINS!!!
(Someone made quite an “investment” at the Mint’s gift shop…)

Shhhhh. This picture isn’t here… Yeah, so I took a picture in an area that doesn’t even want you to have a camera, let alone use it… but who doesn’t want a picture with monies, lots of monies?
By the way, we carried around that umbrella all day. Jacob was a bit frustrated that we had carried it and not used it, I was just happy we didn’t have to use it…

We soon got tired of crowds and got hungry so we left to find nourishment. Another quick stop in Chinatown left us with odd haw hamburgers (should have gone with the fruit rolls) and yummy chocolate waffers. We ended our stint in the city at a cozy little restaurant, called Bico di Bepo, which served meals in portions for 2-3 people, which was perfect for us, being the hungry hungry hippos we are, and because we love to share. We got the lasagna and were able to share in a restaurant without getting a dirty look from the waiter, yay! Jacob napped on our train ride out of the city. And we soon found ourselves on the parkway headed for the middle of PA.

I’ll be the first to admit, we were silly. I will break the news right now, we did not stop until we crashed into my parents guest bed at 1:45 am on Sunday. We were silly (read psycho). In all honesty, that was never our plan…

We took the long way down to my parents house, wanting to enjoy as much of a foriegn state as possible. Sadly, our route was much polluted by torrential downpours and we didn’t stop at the exit that had the lady who lived in a shoe’s house, I think we might make another trip up to PA just to visit that… but we were blessed overall during the trip, we never needed an umbrella! Even when we turned around, after just exiting a horrible rainstorm, to drive to an amish hardware store, when we parked the rain let up, it was wild. I’m really happy we took that detour, it was fun. We saw and amish boy on rollerblades, carrying his boots. I am so sorry I didn’t get a picture, haha, I won’t ever be able to make up in writing for what I’m lacking in photos. It was amazingly amusing. We had fun shopping but it was past 6 on a Saturday and not much was still open in those quaint little towns outside of Lancaster.

We made it to Gettysburg for dinner, but it was too dark to see anything of note. We started getting bored after being in the car for hours, so I encouraged Jacob to share some mission stories. He got chatting and even through the Maryland 25 MPH areas he was doing alright since he was really going on and on. By the time we hit Woodstock I realized that we were almost home even though it was late. I knew Jacob couldn’t make it, and even though he wasn’t tired at the moment we switched. Please note: it took a very extreme situation to get me back in the drivers seat of Jacob’s car (if confused, please refresh your memory). I’m happy we are on a track back to trust…kind of. So I drove from about 10 to 2. Yeah we took the long way home, but nothing can beat Pennsylvania. We probably should have stopped for a rest, since I don’t sleep in well at home, never have, and my parents didn’t have time to let us nap, they needed their house moved back in. But I was very comfy at home, ahem, my parent’s home…

Sunday, we went to church but came home and worked hard. I’m so grateful mom and dad bought this harnessy team-lifter, my dad and I lifted the refrigerator with our backs rather than our arms, oh it made life so much easier. We moved all the big stuff back in. My parents were so grateful to sleep on a bed rather than the floor or a couch, like they have been for the past 2 weeks.

Hanging heavy things, while I stand idly by, taking pictures.

The beautiful new floor in the kitchen. It was so hard to sneak in so late! Mom and dad said they didn’t hear a thing but we thought we were so loud, the lack of carpets will take some getting used to.

My mom’s anniversary present too my dad, love notes written on the floor protecting paper. Sweet mom. She wrote somewhere “1976 to ∞ and beyond” ahahah, I love my parents.
Yeah, my parents are the kind of people that take on an elephant of a project and then say “hey, since all the furniture is out, let’s paint the house too!!” They are crAzy!
Awesome harnessithing. The bottoms of the dressers bit my hands very roughly, I’m so happy I didn’t have to grab them like that this weekend.


My old bedroom, oh I love the floooooor!

And Monday we put the china cabinets back in, what a job! But then we were done 😀

The new floor looks beautiful, and we didn’t damage it too much moving in 😉 Rachel and Jonathan also came over to help. It still took all day to wipe down everything and carry it back in, reassemble etc. But at least they will never have to do something so huge again. They took on so much, but the house looks great and bright and clean and I’m so happy for them. I told them they would need to save some frequent flier miles to come out, where ever I go to school, for some reciprocal move in help 😉 Ok maybe not really, but I’m so happy that Jacob and I had the time to help them out, I would have hated to see them struggle with such an event when our presence makes it so much easier.

So we put some miles on the car and were wore out of our minds!!! But we actually really bonded this weekend, exploring a new city and making decisions together, and just being alone and away for a couple of days. And I’m so excited he let me drive his car, haha.

1 Comment

  1. Philadelphia is one of my favorite cities ever! Sounds like great road trip! (except for the heavy lifting, haha)

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