Thursday, June 22, 2006

Day 3: The Long and Winding Road


Phew

Today was a VERY long day. Alie and I had to leave by 8:30am to get to Maryland for her appointment at Noon. Leaving that early allowed us to hit 0 traffic on the way down there. So we got there by 11am. Once we arrived we ate and she went to her appointment. While I read my book Bringing Out the Dead. So far its excellent but incredibly depressing, the author really enables you to see how his character sees the world. Yet that is neither here nor there. Around 2:00pm Alie got out of her meeting and we decided to head west towards Shenandoah National Park!

We arrived around 5pm and got out around 9:00pm. There are a bunch of trails and such but since we got into the park late we just drove through the 105 miles road called Skyline Drive. We stopped every now and again to take in the sights and take pictures. It was a little hot and hazey when we first got into the park so the views were not as amazing as they could be, but they were great nonetheless. We also saw TONS of deer in the park, which was very cool. They, like the buffalo in Yellowstone, were completely complacent with the vehicles and people driving around. Overall, it comes highly recommended, but by the time the road was finished so were we. Alie and I are more excited about the red rocks of the west or the incredibly tall peaks of the Rockies, but we figured it was just because we grew up with the green trees and pseudo mountains of the mid atlantic.

Now without further ado our current tallies...

We've now covered a whopping 15% of the country!
Wrong turns: 7 or so
(Note to self: The GPS sometimes recalculates slowly and will tell you when to turn as you are passing through the intersection.)
Today we travelled about 519 miles
in about 10h of moving time.
with 2h and 27m of stopping time.
A moving average of 56.7mph
and a total average speed of 45.5mph.
We used about a 1/2 a tank of gas.
All in a totaly amount of time of 12 1/2h
Distance left: We've only just begun
Next Stop: Hilton Head and Fort Sumpter!

Picture dump to follow soon. Stay tuned!

Day 2: Busy Busy Busy UPDATED

Getting started on a cross country road trip is tough work! Today was good; we made great time to Jersey and got most of our errands done that needed to happen. I'll post a bigger update hopefully mid day tomorrow describing today's events; for now I must sleep because we NEED to be on the road by 8am if we are to reach DC by Noon!


UPDATE:
Obviously I did not get to do it Mid day today. But I do have some things to tell.

1. I got my new glasses. I really enjoy them and they allow me to drive at night with much less of a problem so that's a plus.

2. Got a new camera. The G6 has been discontinued but Canon has created the A620 which is like a mini G6 with different features. Its much faster and that's EXCELLENT!

3. Got awesome Monster Batteries for the camera. Normally I do not ecoguage buying from Monster or monster products because you pay a premium, but I used these before and get three times as much power as I do from conventional batteries which is always a plus.

4. Our final trip was to CVS for Alie.

2ND LESSON LEARNED: It will take a lot more time trying to get on the road then you think, so plan accordingly.

So with all the errands done we were able to hit the road on time today. For more on that check the post starting with Day 3.



Wrong Turns: 2
Miles Traveled: 236.9
Overall Average: 58.9MPH
Moving Average: 63.0MPH
Total Time Spent Driving 4h and 1m
Total Moving Time: 3h and 45m
Time Stopped: 15m 37sec
Amount of Gas Used: 1 1/2 tanks from Boston to NJ
Experienced: 7% of the US
Next Stop: Maryland (See Day 4 post for details on that!)