In Case You Were Wondering...

Yes, the water really is a beautiful shade of blue in Key West, although the woman at the information center told me that most people don't really go to the beaches. I guess if you go to Key West you just swim in your hotel's pool. Weenjoyed our beach time, though it was a bit cold to swim so we just ate breakfast and did crafts along the coastline, but it was lovely to stare at nevertheless. And we walked ALL over the place. We saw the southernmost point, the sunset celebration, Hemingway's house (from the outside), Duval street, wonderful french pastries, lots of cuban cafes, bananas growing on trees (and the banana flower is crazy looking by the way), palm trees (I LOVE palm trees), coconuts, and a surprising number of van-dwellers just like us. And we ate some Key Lime Pie, of course. And bought a whole bag of Key Limes to put in our Coronas. They are tart! but delicious too.

Who Lives in a Dumpster on Key West?

SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS!

It's a little sad, actually.

Sponge Man

I have nothing else to say about this.

Fly Away!

Birds in the Northeast are boring...

Counting

States visited (or at least driven through): 9

Loads of laundry washed: 0

Showers taken: 6 (don't worry, 6 each)

Pieces of fried chicken consumed: 4 pieces per person, and that is clearly not enough

Boxes of mac and cheese devoured: 3, and they were all delicious

Times the GPS was cursed at: 936

Times the GPS still got us to the destination successfully: 937

Dishes washed: 54

Coffees consumed: only about 12, amazing, right?

Meltdowns suffered: too many to count

Ecstatic moments: unfortunately less than the number of meltdowns, but still a good number

Alcohol consumed: 6 beers, one bottle of wine

Tangles with law enforcement: 1 and half (the GA incident and a minor parking thing)

Oil collected: some

Tanks of Diesel purchased: way too many

Candy bars created: 2

Candy bars eaten: 3 and a lot of Hershey's kisses too

Fires burned in the wood stove: 10

Times we've smoked ourselves out of the bus when the wood stove backed up: 1, oops

Coconuts found: 3

Coconuts successfully eaten: 1 (we're saving another one for a special occasion)

Illnesses suffered: 1 gross, icky, flemful cold

Times towed: 0, thank goodness

Times we phoned home: several (see parents, we really did call you)

Cool birds viewed: thousands, birds in Florida are excellent

Memories made: a lot, good and bad, but a lot

Hours driven: we don't want to think about it

Cakes eaten: 2 (the zucchini cake made it all the way to Key West!)

Lessons learned: yeah, yeah, we get it

St. Augustine

A Spanish city. We love it here, and at the truck stop located nearby that has bathrooms, water, showers, and safe parking, and several people who are clearly living here in their ridiculously cushy motor homes. We look a little out of place, but we were told by one guy that our bus was the coolest vehicle he'd seen in all his years of traveling. Yay.

Entirely Unrelated to Anything, But....

Look how cute they are. Really, who can resist this?

Georgia Downs

So, for those of you who don't know, Zach and I have had some disappointments. We were pulled over in Georgia for no reason at all, and then questioned ridiculously, and searched, and I was given a bogus traffic warning. Me! A traffic warning! I've never even had a speeding ticket. And frankly, this little encounter really bummed us out. But we've journeyed on. Internet is a bit scarce so I am using my free wi-fi time mostly to research things for us to do in the area and, sadly, neglecting the blog a bit. But, you should know that Zach and I spent an awesome afternoon in St. Augustine, which is a beautiful city, and spent 2 nights at the St. Augustine Flying J, which is a truck and RV stop, for free! And there, Zach and I showered for $10 (Ok, so it was supposed to be $10 per person, but I sort of snuck in). And when we woke up in the morning, there was another skoolie parked behind us! Then we charged all the way south to Key West, of which I have plenty of pictures, but none of which will be posted right now because my camera is stuck in the drawer behind 60 gallons of waste vegeatable oil we just picked up from the kindest person we've met in Florida. Thank you Charlie of Sarasota! So here we are in Sarasota for the evening, currently sipping some tea in Starbucks before we head back out into the cold (come on already with this weather, we drove all the way to the southernmost point of the U.S. and it was still flipping 50 degrees!). On the agenda for this evening: filtering oil, food, maybe walking around what looks like a very artsy little city, and then so much sleep. Don't lose hope, there are tropical photos to come!


P.S. Birds in Florida are infinetly cooler than birds in the Northeast, and we saw way more alligators than I feel comfortable with.

Down Dog

The Haroths were kind enough to supply us with ice cream every night. We don't get ice cream very often now that we're on the road, so, frankly, we just don't feel like sharing.

Annapolis

Annapolis was beautiful! So grandiose and historic. Too bad Zach was so crabby...(get it? because we're in Maryland).

They're So Fluffy!

We went to an Alpaca Farm. We now all want Alpacas. Don't You?

Today's Blog is Sponsored By....

The Cosmic Bean! Today Zach and I assisted with some very impressive coffee roasting, and Rob tolerated a LOT of questions. Zach and I learned about the importance of first crack and second crack, about the difference between decaf and regular coffee beans and swiss water processing, and about the benefits of shade grown coffee (and if you too want to know about all of these things, you will have to email us and find out! or, you know, just look stuff up online, which is probably easier, but not as much fun). And, perhaps most importantly,

Zach and I were able to taste test a variety of the products, and we give each of them our seal of approval. So, we encourage you all to visit www.thecosmicbean.com. Why? Because it offers a variety of awesome coffees and other products, because the Cosmic Bean tag-line is "the coffee that's outta this world!" and because these people were nice enough to put up with us for several days, so really, you know you want to support them in any way possible.

Maryland

The Haroths of Maryland have been so kind to let us sleep in their driveway, use their wi-fi, and help ourselves to several hot showers and awesome meals. But it came at a price....

only joking, we were actually really excited to help strip down the herbs that will later be made into tea! And then our excellent herb-stripping efforts were rewarded with wonderful egg-nog lattes, mmmmm

Oh yeah, and in case you hadn't noticed, that's a Beard-Net that Zach is wearing in those Hershey Factory pictures, and that is what prompted this to happen.....

The Sweetest Place on Earth

Hershey, PA! It may be corny, but let me just say that we had a blast. Zach was kind of enough to humor me and go on the free

"tour" ride twice. You can't tour the actual fact

ory, so instead they have created a simulated, sort of Disney version of the factory for you to tour via a little moving cart on a conveyor belt with a little announcer who tells you all the different stages of the chocolate making process.

Plus, there are catchy songs and singing cows, and you get free

candy at the end. And then the ride dumps you out in the huge gift shop where Zach and I exercised some incredible self control and only bought two bags of specialty Hershey's Chocolate Kisses (Irish Creme, and Cherry Cordial).

Friends and family, we are sorry to say that you will not be getting any Hershey's treats as Christmas gifts,because we knew that even if we had bought them, they wouldn't have made it to you anyway. And then we splurged a bit and participated in Chocolate Worlds' newest attraction: Make Your Own Candy Bar! We had a blast. We picked out what kind of chocolate we wanted (I chose milk, Zach chose dark) and then we picked out three add-ins, and then we designed our own labels! And we did all this in a special Hershey's lab. But, that also means that we had to abide by certain rules for health code. So, in the end, our chocolate creations looked awesome!

...unfortunately, we did not look as cool.

Nowhere, PA

So, it rained, a lot, throughout Pennsylvania. The Delaware Water Gap was beautiful, although we were really only able to observe it from inside the bus. We stopped at a local library for some free wi-fi, and then we roamed through some back roads and ghost towns. A quick stop in Jim Thorpe for some local color, and some unexpectedly funky architecture. And then we spent the night at....Cabela's! We spent several hours roaming the outdoors superstore, including the awesome aquarium, and then we purchased some beef jerky for a bit of protein. It was my first jerky experience, and I am happy to report that it was gross, but also kind of delicious. We went back to the aquarium the next morning to say goodbye to all of our fish friends.

Mmmm, Chicken Sandwich

Oh yeah, and we stopped at Wendy's for a grossly delicious, and absurdly cheap, lunch. $4 for two sandwiches, a small order of fries (ok, it was really small) and a chocolate Frosty. Rainy days require fried chicken pick-me-ups. Thanks Wendy's value menu!

Oil and Water

First of all, we owe a big thank you to Ned and Garland for hot showers, and to Max at Gourmet Pizza for oil. We enjoyed our last day in New Paltz, when we were finally able to take a hike up the mountain to split rock where we saw some beautiful water falls, and some signs suggesting a surprisingly liberal bathing policy....And we owe a huge thank you to Eric and Molly the dog who gave us 10 gallons of WVO, and let us see their great filtration set-up. Congratulations Eric, yours is the cleanest WVO home set-up we've seen to date, and it was a pleasure to meet you (and Molly). Now we're rolling through the Delaware Water Gap where, rather appropriately I suppose, it is POURING! We camped out by a small stream last night, but got rained out of outdoorsy activities this morning.Oh Pennsylvania, now we're always going to remember you as dreary.

Noodletastrophe

We finally, finally got our little camp stove going at a decent pace and were able to make our first official meal in the bus. The stove sure cooks things quickly, so our soba noodles ended up being more mush than pasta. We did a do-over, and the second batch came out ok. The stove is a bit of work, lots of pumping to pressurize, but we are learning to enjoy it. Zach said, "it's like that cute little puppy that pees all over the house," as in, you really wish it weren't so much work, but you really love it anyway. Since the first noodletastrophe, we've successfully made mac and cheese with tuna and scallions, grits, and oatmeal. And we've eaten a lot of jam-crackers too (homemade jam on graham crackers).