We've Arrived!!!

Exhausted from a long (18 states in 20 days! yikes), fun trip, we finally wound our way to our final destination, beautiful Wolfeboro, New Hampshire!  Many moons ago, my Aunt Dee and Uncle Ralph said "peace out, California" and settled in NH, where they've been living ever since.  Their four kids/our cousins, Mary, Ralphie, Julie and Johnny all still live within an hour or so of Wolfeboro, which means we get to see our aunt/uncle, cousins, and their families whenever we're here!  YAAAY!!!

No sleep 'til...

The original plan for our trip was to stay just outside of New York City, but when we met this couple from Brooklyn in Charleston we decided to change our plans.  They told us about Park Slope (an up and coming section of Brooklyn) and we booked a hotel.  We didn't do much the first night because we got there kind of late, but the next morning we explored.

Civil War Reenactment, what!

So other than seeing Kitty Hawk, our goal for day #16 was really just to shoot up to Ashburn, Virginia so we could spend a delightful evening with my friends from high school, Lindsey and Mark Lesar, and their super cute 9-month old daughter Alyssa.  And that's exactly what we did.

The Outer Banks

When I read in our road trip guide that we could drive along these little tiny islands off the coast of North Carolina called the "Outer Banks," I was ridiculously excited.  I don't know why.  Maybe in part because the first island is only accessible by ferry (which I've never been on before and have always wanted to go on) or because when you look at the islands on a map, they look so little that it seemed like you'd be practically driving through the ocean.  Regardless of why I was excited, the really important thing is that, like so many things on our trip, the Outer Banks didn't disappoint.

Welcome to the Carolinas

(Technically this is from just as we crossed into North Carolina, but we missed the sign so deal with it)

Finally.  If I talked to you about the route we were taking before I left for this trip, I probably mentioned that I was excited to see the Carolina's.  Thanks to Pat Conroy's books Beach Music and South of Broad, I had a totally romantic vision of Charleston with its beautiful homes and amazing food.  It did not disappoint.

Why Hello East Coast!

After our strike-out in Montgomery, KR and I decided to head straight on through to Savannah, Georgia, instead of staying the night in Macon, GA, which was our original plan.  We figured we could get back on “schedule” once we made it to the East Coast.  Turns out, skipping Macon was a SUPER great idea, and we did, in fact, manage to get back on schedule pretty quickly, so it was all good.

All the Things are Closed on Sundays

After an evening of doing pretty much nothing except recuperating, Katie and I were feeling more human and were ready to hit the ground running...or, actually, driving. heh.

Big Time in the Big Easy

So Em left off after Jackson, MS and we started the journey to New Orleans aka the Big Easy.  We stayed in the French Quarter about three blocks from Bourbon Street.  If you haven't been to New Orleans, it's kind of gross, but really fun.  Bourbon Street is riddled with tourists, bars, and strippers.

Vicksburg - Red Carpet City of the South

After a good night's sleep in Vicksburg, we got up early and hit up the National Military Park.  Who knew (we didn't!) that Vicksburg was the "Gibralter of the Confederacy" because it was a seven week, horrible, bloody battle during the Civil War (like 20,000 men died, mostly on the Union side, even though the Union soldiers "won").  The Union forces and President Lincoln needed Vicksburg because it was the "nail head that [held] the South's two halves together...Vicksburg [was] the key."  By taking over Vicksburg, the north could divide the south and finalize control of the entire mighty Mississippi.  KR and I learned a whole bunch about the Civil War as we drove around the 16-mile military park loop and saw lots of original cannons, trenches, and even the USS Cairo ironclad paddlewheel battleship, which was sunk during the war, but has been cleaned up and put on display at the park.  Here are some pics:

We're In It Now...

By "it" I mean the south.  It was an interesting thing to notice going through Arizona and New Mexico to Texas because we kept hearing more and more southern accents.  It's probably a bigger deal to us than it should be, but us accent-less Californians have a finely tuned ear to accents (I declare that as fact).  So we finally made it to Dallas, but we didn't spend a whole lot of time there.