First 6 Days of the Trip

Pre-trip Notes – My van has gone through a number of changes before being ready for this trip. It took a lot of planning, money and brainpower to equip a van to be able to support you for 9 months. First step was to take out the seats, seatbelts, and some of the paneling. With the help of my friend Jon Enos who I worked with at Best Western, we installed a bed, (wooden deck) power inverter, (electric box that provides 2 power outlets)  second battery, (Marine with a slow-drain) power isolator (splits the charge from the alternator to charge up both batteries.) I bought and installed a new alternator, battery, speakers, and muffler. I got a full tune-up, spark plugs and fluid changes.  I built storage boxes and a front center console that Dazey could sleep on and went to the junk yard for other parts. I upholstered the deck with egg crates and memory foam and found a place for everything to fit into. The Van was named Gnar by my brother but now with the lock fixed it didn't make its signature GNNNARARRRR noise. I decided to drop the G, dubbing my van/home the NAR, or the GNARLY KILLER 2 after a ride that a good friend used to drive years ago.

Thursday, March 19^th – I spent the day packing and finishing up the final planning. Dazey and I slept in the van, but at 5am it was so cold we came back inside. Three more hours on the couch before the big day.

Friday, March 20^th - I left Syracuse by about 11am. It was a bittersweet but exciting feeling to watch my family, friends and home disappear into the back window.

My first stop was Fellows Falls. This is a "secret" waterfall in Tully NY that Bridget hid a geocache for me at. In order to get to the falls, you have to turn into a driveway on a country road and follow the driveway until it becomes a barely visible farm road. Finally you come to an old metal gate and have to navigate upriver about a mile before you reach the falls. There is no real trail and in order to get a good view, you have to cross the river on a rusty old pipe. Dazey and I had a great walk, enjoyed the 40 degrees temps and sunny skies, and were soon on the road again.

Another hour and I had gotten myself kind of lost in the rolling farmlands of the Catskill region. It took several odd turns and back roads before I finally made my next destination, Guilford. My fraternity brother Dan lives here and he is set to go off into the Marines in two weeks. He lives on the way to Delhi and it was a perfect time to stop in and say goodbye. I only stayed a few minutes, but enough to really see how redneck this town was. Bainbridge and Guilford are two towns that just by speaking out loud you can imagine how country they are.

 After another stop in Oneonta to see another fraternity brother then a 30 minute drive up into the mountains on a twisted state highway, I came to Delhi, the college town in the mountains where I went to college for three years. It just happened to be alumni appreciation weekend, as well as the last night of pledging. There were probably at least alumni that were up visiting along with over 20 active brothers and sisters. A lot of people and everything looked set for a great weekend with old friends.

Then Dazey ran out the door when someone was coming in. She started running around the yard and enjoying being free. I went to chase her but its just a game to her, she will get really close and then take off. After trying to catch her for 15 minutes, I turned to come back inside, as she will often follow me back into the house. I heard a car break fast and then my dog yelping! I yelled and shook my fists and took off to go get her. She got clipped by a car coming too fast into Delhi. She had got knocked to the curb, but got it and ran yelping and crying back to our house, with her leg dangling.

We got Dazey inside and she was acting a little better. She wasn't crying anymore but there was something definitely wrong with her leg. We called several vet clinics before we found one that was still open. Dr. Plante in Walton did a great job working with her. She spent the night there and thankfully suffered only the broken leg.

When I got back I was only half-interested in the festivities of the final night of pledging. I was there, but my heart wasn't. Part of me was missing, and I didn't know the extent of her injuries and its consequences with regard to our trip. I tried to have fun, and did considering the circumstances.

Saturday, March 21. I woke in the Nar shivering. With no Dazey to warm me it seemed especially cold. It was about 800am and the first thing I did was call the vet clinic. Dazey was doing better and could get picked up. $450 later, I had my best friend back. She was a little sore, but less than 24 hours after the accident she was already trying to run (on three legs anyways).

        Alumni Appreciation day kicked off by noon. BBQ, food and lots of old friends. I had a few drinks, but didn't get too drunk because I had Dazey in an upstairs bedroom and went to check on her every 15 or 20 minutes. By dark I had a pretty good buzz going and decided to lay down for 15 minutes. Without even napping, I felt like a million dollars and soon got up and starting drinking a bottle of Goldslager. The night went off without a hitch. Or did it? 

Sunday March 22 - Although the low was nearly 20 degrees, it didn't feel too cold in the Nar that night. Carefully sleeping with Dazey, I think I found the right position and blanket layering to get a good nights sleep. I must have gone to bed around 1am and it was about 10 when I got up. Ah! Feeling good and ready to drive to Philadelphia to see my middle school friend, Jordan Danials.

Then I remembered that I gave my ID to my little brother Kyle the night before. I've got to get that back before moving on. Checking my voice mail, I learn that my ID was taken at the bar the night before. I went to the bar and was told that I had to get my ID back from the police station in the morning! Delayed in Delhi for another night. It wasn't too bad though, enjoyed relaxing on a Sunday with my brothers, watched some NCAA, (SU advanced to the Sweet sixteen) and prepared to travel to Baltimore in the morning.

Monday March 23 – I got up at about 730am and quietly left the house, not waking anyone. I stopped down at the police station and a nice officer informed me that they don't pick up the Id's until 4pm or later, but he would mail mine back to my mothers house. I still have my passport, so I figure I can survive without the state drivers license for a few days. Hopefully.

Because of the delay, I decided to drive straight to Baltimore to see and stay with Lee Widger. Lee and I were good friends back in high school, but I haven't seen him since. It was about 12 degrees as I left Delhi. Coldest temp yet and hopefully the last time I see it below 20. As I drove out of NY, I realized I wouldn't be back for months and it started to get me excited.

Less than an hour out of Delhi, I crossed the PA border. Suddenly I was in the deep and dark NW corner of the state. There are countless windy state roads, running up over ills and down along ravines. Never could I see more than a mile in any direction, nor did I pass a town where I could see more than 5 houses at a time for a long while.

Finally I came out of the darkness, into the metropolis that is Scranton/Wilkes-Barres. I got on Rt 81 and headed south, through forests of birch. For some reason, most of them seemed to be knocked over. There was hardly a tree over 4 inches in diameter, and almost all of them had missing limbs. I don't know why this forest was so trashed, but I wondered at it as I passed Hershey, PA (No smell of chocolate to report) and came into the state capitol of Harrisburg.

I don't think I'd ever been to Harrisburg, but it seems like a really nice city. It was definitely a lot warmer than Scranton and didn't have the industrial feel that Pittsburg and Philly have. I stopped and gassed up at a Rutters (funny name) for $1.89/gallon and then took Dazey for a run down a side street that led into some kind of abandoned lot. I don't know if it was old logging roads because all the trees were chopped or maybe an old trailer yard because there was pulloffs and flat spot that trailers could sit, but it was 40 degrees and sunny, so Dazey and I enjoyed getting out of the car for a bit.

30 more miles brought us across the Maryland border. This is the first state I have never cached in, so I had one all set. It was about 5 miles south of the border, located at a remote control plane field. Daze and I found the cache and then explored the interesting and deserted field…………..

Winter was slowly losing it's grip on the country, and I watched the changes as I went through Pennsylvania. I saw the thorny undergrowth turn red with new buds, and watched as the brown depressing woods lightened up with the pastels of spring. Some trees has red hues and other light green as the first buds appeared. By the time I made it into Baltimore at 2pm, there were daffodils in bloom.

Lee wasn't going to be out of work until around 8pm, so Dazey and I had six hours to kill. First stop was at Druid park, where I kicked myself for not bringing a Frisbee, as they have an excellent disc golf course. No matter though, Dazey and I had a great run through the woods, enjoying the sun and 50 degree temps. There wasn't much else in the park for us to do, so I looked on the city map and found another interesting looking park a few miles away.

Back in the car and into the city traffic. Too many different rules and changes from NY! And too many people that knew where they were going while I had no clue. I circled where I thought the park should be, then stopped into a gas station to ask for directions to a park that I could find. As I pulled out and onto the freeway, I went to pull on my seatbelt and noticed red lights flashing behind me! Damn, what did I do now? Apparently I had pulled my seatbelt on just after he looked at me, so he wrote me up a cititation for that. Considering I had paid $115 in NY some time ago for a seatbelt ticket, the $25 fine that I had to pay the city of Baltimore was a pleasure.

Never before have I seen such stark contrast between poverty and wealth. A single road split the ghetto and some of the nicest historic neighborhoods I've ever seen. Of course, my current destination, Leakin Park was in the center of the biggest ghetto slum of the city, with no contrasting "safe zones" nearby just in case. It's a good thing I got balls, (and a loyal dog) I thought as I passed gun stores, cash advance shops, pawn shops, fried chicken stands and nail salons. Finally, a ray of light shone down on a natural paradise in a sea of concrete.

Leakin park is a very historic park ____ add more here that was original a retreat for soldiers in the civil war. They would come up the wooded and cool ravine along __?___ Creek and find solitude from the carnage and heat below. Dazey and I hiked up the hill, seeing old foundations and buildings, a mock fort, and even entering an ice house. Considering she had only broken her leg three days earlier, she was moving like a champ!

After a nice walk in the park, Daze and I lay on the grass to read and nap. Lee called soon after and said he wouldn't be out for three more hours, but that I should call his roommate Danielle and see if she wanted to meet up with me. He said, "She is a little crazy, but she is a fun girl."

An hour later I was getting the grand tour of Lee's place from Danielle. She was everything Lee had said. A great girl, filled with energy and spirit and not afraid to talk to anyone or do anything. The type of person that I get along with great. They live in an awesome three level place just next door to the cake shop featured on "Ace of Cakes" on the food network. He has done a lot of work and the place really looks great.

Lee finally came home tired from another 12 hour day. He works 6 days a week, 12  hours a day. Chemistry grad school does NOT sound fun. We all cooked dinner together, (steak and peppers sauted and mixed w stir fry veggies over white rice) then sat around reminesing of old time and smoking some shesha out of a beautiful hookah. By 11pm, he was calling it a night, leaving me and Danielle to hang out.

We stayed up til three am, talking and sharing ideas and inspiration and working on random projects and taking really cool funky pictures. She is an artist and can not stay focused on one thing very long. She has probably about 50 projects around her room that she is working with, and her scatter-brained personality even affects her speech. She talks in run on sentences that keep going and going and going and never really end or have a point but they sound good and she gets a lot out of her talking but by the time she stops talking you don't really remember what she first said and the point was lost because it transformed into a whole new point and stream of ideas that never stop flowing from her mind. Much like that last sentence in fact.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 – 8 am came quick after staying up late. Lee has about 30 minutes to hang before he had to get back to work. We had breakfast and he left just as Danielle was getting up. She had a project due that night but that didn't stop her from taking a nice long walk with Daze and I to find a couple geocaches, which she had never heard of. We found one by a really awesome creek, then another by an old building that had been used 300 years ago to make the cloth for the sails on ships. Finally, we made it to "round falls," which is a hidden waterfall along Falls Rd. No luck with the cache but we did enjoy a great spot. Danielle said that she never knew there were falls here, even though it's a quarter mile from her house on FALLS ROAD. It's amazing how much people don't know about their own neighborhood.

I wanted to stay longer, but it was already after 1pm, and I wanted to get down into Virginia by nightfall. 30 minutes to DC. We stopped at the Arboretum, which is a park dedicated to trees. It was amazing. There were so many different types, and most of them were in bloom. We found a cache in the Asian section of the gardens, snapped some photos and headed to the Capital district to be a tourist.

Ugh, I hate traffic. I was planning on getting out and walking around the Reflection pool and some other landmarks, but too many people and too many cars. I just wanted out. I did manage to see a few sights, but quickly crossed the river and got on I-95 S.

I have heard that the traffic in Virginia is the worst, but I've been to New York City in rush hour and I didn't think it could get much worse. I was wrong. 1-95 was a parking lot. We would start moving 25 miles an hour, and then come to a standstill a quarter mile later. I couldn't take this. After an hour of frustration and I was only 12 miles farther, I took the first exit and headed south on state route 1.

Traffic wasn't bad, but it surely wasn't the open road I was looking for. From Fredericksburg, I got on Rt.17E and finally found the Virginia I imagined. Green pastures, broken down farmhouses, colonial street names and a southern twang in the voices of the folks at the gas station. I felt like I was in the south for the first time, even passing a palm tree, which I wouldn't have imagined could survive this far north!

Nightfall was approaching and I had no good place to stay, so I pulled into a Super 8 motel in Tappannock, Virginia. Everything I needed was in walking distance and everything felt right. It was a good feeling after a long day and the headache of traffic still fresh in my mind. I got the power on my inverter working, then called the hotel and complained the internet wasn't working in order to get the connection code. (I'm slick) I took Dazey for a nice walk, bought some new dog food at the Wal-Mart across the street, and then settled in for a night in the Nar. With the internet, I could lie in the bed and update my plans, geocaches, Facebook status, e-mail and even watch a little Hulu before falling asleep at 10pm.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009 – Up and at 'em at eight AM. It would have been seven thirty but it was too cold to move then. It was about 40 degrees when I got moving. Drove for an hour or so before stopping to find my "Virginia cache" and take a walk with Dazey. At Ark Park, they have a big fenced in area with sports fields. I let Daze off the leash and she was running nearly as fast as before her accident. Still not putting weight on it, but moving better each day.

Heading south, I skipped around the Newport News/Virginia beach area to avoid traffic. We stopped in Winton, NC just over the border to stretch our legs and buy some lunch meat and bread. Another 20 minutes on the road and we found a nice rest area to make sandwiches and sit outside. It was still pretty cool, only about 50 degrees and the clouds were coming in heavy. There is a storm on the way and is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow. Thankfully, I'll be in Havelock with Miller and shouldn't have to travel in it.

Around 3pm, we rolled into Havelock. I stopped at the public library to get internet and to see if there were any caches around as Miller was in a meeting until six. There was one pretty close. I punched in the numbers and I say that it was only about 50 feet away. I could see it from where I was sitting in the van. Daze and I hopped out and grabbed it, and then walked over to a green area to check out some of the biggest pinecones I've ever seen, at least 10 inches long!

I got the info for another few caches and then set off to burn some time and get outside. We found two standard quick micros, then a third after a nice little hike into the National forest. I've never really explored the woods of the South, and I noticed a lot of different plant life and trees. There are a lot more palmy looking plants and pines with huge "scabs" of bark. Note to self – Go to the library and read up on SE plant life.

Finally got the call from Miller, he wanted to meet me at Wal-mart. I parked in the back of the lot, let Dazey out on the chain, set up my lawn chair and wrote about three pages of this journal while waiting for him. His girlfriend and him showed up and we drove to a nearby park and baseball field. Dazey ran and we walked and talked. A $2 dinner at Taco Bell then I bid them farewell for the night and made plans to meet in the morning.

I pulled into a Hampton Inn in Havelock and got bunkered down for the night. I went into the hotel, got the card with their phone number, checked out the layout and where the pool and breakfast were and then headed back to the car. Calling in, I got the internet code and here I sit finishing up the day.