“Paul,” Gary says, “We’d better get moving. I’ll let you break the news to Lisa.” Lisa had ducked out of the room, and Gary took the opportunity to invite me to the big bonfire happening that night. Jack, Gary’s buddy, had piled up some brush about 12 feet high at the local lodge. Officially, it’s 6′ x 6′ x 6′ – the maximum size for a civilian bonfire. Unofficially, these [...]
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Lots of plans fall apart. We’ve tweaked our mindset a bit. Now our plans fall together. And they’re falling together nicely. We’ve shortened our planning horizon. Next week will happen next week – what should we be doing now? Driving across Ohio is out. Which means Maine is out (for now), Knoxville moves back along with Charleston, SC and North Carolina too … and Key West (probably), but that has [...]
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We’ve started, but it still doesn’t feel like we’ve started. Crashing with family and friends isn’t exactly roughing it – especially when they entertain you as well as Chris and Sarah entertained us this past weekend in Madison, WI. We’ve been to Madison quite a few times, so this time Sarah wanted to find a few places that were a little off the beaten path. Our first stop was Ale [...]
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In a couple days, we’ll have been on our longest vacation together … ever. We’ll see how it feels. It’s been a whirl-wind couple weeks, and it hasn’t FELT like a long vacation yet, but now that we’ve given up on driving across Ohio again, we’re feeling a little lighter and happier. Tomorrow night will be our first official camp-out night. Can’t wait. The van-bed is comfortable and it’ll be [...]
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Look, you’re a great state. Everybody knows that. You have three cities that start with the same letter — C — that’s amazing. And it confuses everybody. Cleveland rocks, Cincinnati has chili (with cinnamon, another C!), and Columbus … well Columbus has a Honda campus on the edge of its sprawl. Er, wait. Don’t they all have the chili? Columbus rocks too, right? I can’t keep them straight. I’m sorry to tell you [...]
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“Bob and I will illuminate the kill zone after we sneak around the corner, then just blast away,” Jim said. ”They’re going to stream out the door pretty quickly. You’ll only have about eight seconds to fire.” Eight seconds? That’s not much time to learn how to fire a pistol. Until then, I was picturing the classic video game Operation Wolf — targets would slowly move from left to right and [...]
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Big driving days mean blogging in the car using all 3 of the Gs (when available). And whenever I get upset with the connection, I crack up thinking of this Louis CK bit: Lisa and I are cruising down I-86 (because it’s better than I-90) on our way back to Wisconsin. We’ll stop somewhere in the middle tonight. Next week is shaping up — we’re looking forward to having a [...]
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We’re a week in. Seven days ago we woke up in Chicago, loaded everything into our van, and headed north to Wisconsin. Now we’re in Upstate New York for a wedding. Later today, we’ll have spiedies, a Binghamton specialty (FYI: don’t spell them “speedy” – ”the term “spiedie” comes from the Italian spiedo meaning spit or spiedini referring to cubes or balls of meat cooked on a skewer“). I can’t wait — maybe [...]
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The drive from Chicago to my parents’ place in upstate NY is boring. There’s nothing you can do about it — you’ve got to get through Indiana and Ohio. By the time you get to Erie, PA, you’ve been driving for hours. Do you continue on 90 into NY State for five more hours of mind numbing tollway driving, or do you try something different? My vote is something different. [...]
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Yesterday was our first big-miles day (420 miles, Rocky kicked ass). We don’t want to do too many of these, but we’ll have a bunch over the next couple weeks as we crisscross between New York and Wisconsin. It was odd passing through Chicago, but it felt good. We love Chicago, but we didn’t feel sad passing by the Fullerton exit (the road to our old neighborhood). Our time in Chicago [...]
Read moreWe sold, donated, and stored our possessions; quit our jobs; bought a van; and are driving around North America. We'll wander around, see what's happening, and write about it here.
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