Ok, full-disclosure, we fully intended to be out of our house by 8:30am on this first day of our trip, July 1st. And as those of you that know us realize, this was never going to happen. Even without 3 kids, we would have left at 9am. So, add 3 kids and our actual departure time becomes 12:30pm. And the icing on the cake was the 90 degree heat + high humidity in Milton/Boston and perpetual looming clouds as we were to depart, making us move slower than usual.
(The kids' t-shirts say "Are We There Yet?")
(The kids' t-shirts say "Are We There Yet?")
Sadly, we planned our trip with an 8:30am departure time.
We had it in mind that we would make it all the way to Buffalo, NY for dinner. For the first 3 hours we had a pretty rainy trip.
Having left at 12:29pm, we stopped in Albany, NY at Orchard Tavern at 3:15pm or so for a late lunch. It was near the highway, but wasn't in an obvious place. We were certain we were going the wrong way, but Waze didn't lead us astray. Of course we checked in on Foursquare as soon as we arrived. It stopped raining as we got out of the car, which was appreciated.
Orchard Tavern was an unassuming building with very friendly staff and tasty food.
We ended up meeting the owner - Mike - who was very nice, and talked with him about our road trip for a minute. He showed us a wall of photos in one of the dining rooms and mentioned that the Tavern used to be nestled amongst a bustling train yard that employed over 8000 people at one time.
He wondered how we found his place and we mentioned UrbanSpoon and Yelp, and how we were attempting to eat at locally owned joints on our entire trip.
Dax asking "Are we there yet?" (known as AWTY): 11
That's all for our first day...more tomorrow, Day #2!
We had it in mind that we would make it all the way to Buffalo, NY for dinner. For the first 3 hours we had a pretty rainy trip.
Having left at 12:29pm, we stopped in Albany, NY at Orchard Tavern at 3:15pm or so for a late lunch. It was near the highway, but wasn't in an obvious place. We were certain we were going the wrong way, but Waze didn't lead us astray. Of course we checked in on Foursquare as soon as we arrived. It stopped raining as we got out of the car, which was appreciated.
Orchard Tavern was an unassuming building with very friendly staff and tasty food.
We ended up meeting the owner - Mike - who was very nice, and talked with him about our road trip for a minute. He showed us a wall of photos in one of the dining rooms and mentioned that the Tavern used to be nestled amongst a bustling train yard that employed over 8000 people at one time.
He wondered how we found his place and we mentioned UrbanSpoon and Yelp, and how we were attempting to eat at locally owned joints on our entire trip.
After our meal (about 1.5hrs later), we got in the car as it started pouring rain. Flash Flood Warning type rain = not great driving weather. We made it out of Albany and decided that, depending on the weather, we would either stop in Syracuse or Rochester for the night.
Through a few more hours of intermittent HEAVY rain, we ended up stopping in Syracuse and staying at a nice hotel with a pool and a big breakfast buffet. As we pulled in to the parking lot, we saw the Oscar Meyer WeinerMobile, and made a note-to-self to take a photo with it before departing in the morning. The kids were completely unimpressed by it, but David and I were excited enough for all of us.
Five minutes after getting into our 2 rooms (connected by a door), the kids had thrown all the pillows off their beds and were jumping on them.
The room was filled with shrieks of joy and bliss, but we settled the kids down and tucked them into bed at about 9:15pm. Apparently, I fell asleep a whole 5 minutes later. A fairly long first day, but not horrible.
The room was filled with shrieks of joy and bliss, but we settled the kids down and tucked them into bed at about 9:15pm. Apparently, I fell asleep a whole 5 minutes later. A fairly long first day, but not horrible.
As we drove throughout this first day, we came up with a list of tallies to help keep track of certain things. Following is a list of those things, and our end-of-day tally:
Dax asking "Are we there yet?" (known as AWTY): 11
Phin asking AWTY: 3
David driving over rumble strips: 3
Close calls: 2
Close calls: 2
Tanks of gas: .75
Gallons of gas used: 8
States traveled through: 1
Honks by truckers (when you do that arm thing to get them to honk): 0
Times played the license plate game: .5
States found for license plate game: 25 (+ New Brunswick, Ontario, Quebec)
Days with precipitation: 1
Number of posts to facebook: 7 (+1 that foursquare didn't post to fb because it also had a photo)
Number of posts to flickr: 7
Number of farms with cows: 1
Also, some other things we are going to keep track of on our travel days:
Weather:
Overcast and humid in Milton as we were leaving, occasional rain; Scattered Heavy Rain in NY
Overcast and humid in Milton as we were leaving, occasional rain; Scattered Heavy Rain in NY
Vanity Plate of the Day:
MZADVNTR
MZADVNTR
Animals spotted near road:
- gopher (on a golf course)
- deer
- various birds of prey (don't know what kind)
Funniest Town Name of the day:
Chicopee (MA)
Most requested/played song:
BananaPhone (4x)
Thing that surprised us:
That it could be so humid and not be raining
Thing that didn't surprise us at all:
Phin peeled the paper off all 16 of his crayons in the first 2.5 hours of our trip
And the most important tally:
Starting mileage:
52,377
End-of-day mileage:
(will get off of David's phone and update)
And lastly, we would like to end each blog post with a "small world" note:
The owner of the Orchard Tavern is a good friend of our high school/college friend Raj Shah!
Small World!
- gopher (on a golf course)
- deer
- various birds of prey (don't know what kind)
Funniest Town Name of the day:
Chicopee (MA)
Most requested/played song:
BananaPhone (4x)
Thing that surprised us:
That it could be so humid and not be raining
Thing that didn't surprise us at all:
Phin peeled the paper off all 16 of his crayons in the first 2.5 hours of our trip
And the most important tally:
Starting mileage:
52,377
End-of-day mileage:
(will get off of David's phone and update)
And lastly, we would like to end each blog post with a "small world" note:
The owner of the Orchard Tavern is a good friend of our high school/college friend Raj Shah!
Small World!
That's all for our first day...more tomorrow, Day #2!
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