Day 7: The whole country (was) like an oyster for us to open and the pearl was there, the pearl was there.

A little less than one year after Hurricane Katrina New Orleans is coming back. The approach to the city is very erie. From Biloxi on there were trees blown around all pointing westerly; as if they were saying yes, go and see what has been done. As we got closer the damage became more and more apparent. There were blue tarps over some houses here and there but most of the places and housing communities were abandoned and still needing a lot of repairs. You got the feeling that the city would be just as deserted, kind of apocalyptic in a way.

However at the same time a lot of work has been done so places that would've been leveled before are showing signs of rebuilding. Also all the billboards that line I-10 West. All had messages of what I will call commercial hope. They say things like Casino "Grand Re-Opening" or "The New Biloxi will be great...We've seen the plans." There were also tons of billboards that discussed job opportunities in the area. One series for another Casino listed all the jobs they needed and then talked about creating a unified team in diversity to accomplish the best. This was very odd because not many billboards offer jobs to people or trying to establish that much hope.

Approaching the city we did not know what to expect. All we saw was more and more damage. The most telling was road signs that told about Six Flags New Orleans, but when we were passing it we saw the Six Flags marquee and it was completely gutted; as were all the rides, either by the storm or by work crews. Everything approaching New Orleans was boarded up still, and probably is going to remain so indefinitely. After we got into the city we headed for a new visitor center. There they booked us a great room at the Place D'Armes right on Jackson Square for $49!! Alie said because of the location alone that would cost us over a hundred before the storm.

Its kind of funny in the French Quarter you can almost forget the amount of destruction or the fact that less than a year ago this city was underwater, but if you look you will find things have certainly changed. The Virgin Mega Store here still lights up the signs out side and some things inside but there two signs on there. 1. "The Virgin Mega Store is currently closed. Sorry for any inconvenience." and 2. "Available for Lease" and then lists the contact information for a commercial Realtor. Also what is odd EVERYTHING around this area is still in ruins. Alie and I were driving around and underneath the highway to get to the visitor center and all the homes were heavily damaged or basically destroyed. Its amazing how much has been done and how there is still to go. Really gives us a sense of the catastrophy that occurred here. Hopefully I'll be able to report more on the life in the city tomorrow.

I have pictures of the French Quarter and some areas around it that I will upload. But the quality is not the best since it is from a car window. Also before that I must upload some from Fort Pulaski in Savanna.


But before all of that I have our current tallies...


Alie and I have now officially experienced more then a quarter of this country; we have seen 29% of it.
To get to New Orleans We drove 412miles.
In about 6h and 20m
At an moving average speed of 64.9mph
with only stopping for 31m and 9s
giving us a total Average Speed of 60.0mph
Amount of Gas: 1 full tank from Savanna to New Orleans.
Distance to go Getting shorter all the time
Where to next? Pirates Alley and the Place where Tennessee Williams finished A Street Car Named Desire all right here in The Big Easy

PS We are now in the Central Time Zone! Woohoo!

Day 6: Savanna and Beyond UPDATED!

Hi we are at a Best Western Tonight and the internet is a little spotty so I'll have to provide an update when we reach NOr'leans! Today we went to Savanna and Saw a Civil War Fort named Fort Pulaski, back to Savanna and I tried Pralines! Then we drove through the rest of Georgia and to Tallahassee where we are now! Tomorrow we depart for The French Quarter. So wish us luck! Updates to follow.

UPDATE:
Savanna was excellent though we did not stay too long we did have a great time exploring the fort and Savanna itself. Fort Pulaski was pretty interesting. It was named after a European who was mortally wounded in the battle of Savanna and helped defend the city from Biritish attack during the Revolutionary War The fort was originally built as a Masonry Fort after the War of 1812. For a while it fell into disarray until the what was known at the time as South Carolina Succeeded from the Union and the Confederates took the fort with a small 150 man garrison. It wasn't until Sherman came and descended upon the fort. It was a strategic location; at the mouth of two rivers. Thus Sherman needed it to tighten the naval blockade against the South. The confederates believed that the Union guns could not reach them from a near by island but the Union had just finished developing the rifled cannon and decided to use it in this battle. The new cannons made all the difference and the Union punched a hole in the south side of the fort and almost blew up the gunpowder magazine there, which would have obliterated the fort. Thus the Confederates surrendered. This marked the end of masonry forts.

When we finally got back to Savanna proper we were very hungry. We tired eating at this place titled Wall's BBQ but apparently it no longer existed. So instead we headed to River St. and ate at a semi commercial place there. It was good but seemed a little too processed. So in search of more fulfilling food we found the Savanna Candy Kitchen. They made excellent pralines which we got some samples of and they gave us $10.00 off mail order so we can have them any time. That pretty much covers us for Savanna so here are some of our totals.



So far we've seen 23% of the US
Travelled about 430mi
Average Movie was about 61mph
and the rest will have to wait while we retrieve the rest of the info from the car. Sorry!

Day 5 Photo Dump Theme: Relaxing

Here are some of the latest photos from our trip. All about relaxing today. Can be seen in the previous post we barely drove at all and instead spent all day at the Beach! All photos from our road trip can be found to the right with the link titled Otto's Road Trippin' 2006 Photo Set.

Day 5: A Vacation from Our Vacation :)

Hello All!
This is Alie. I thought I would give you my perspective on the road trip thusfar and give the webmaster the night off. We are currently still in Hilton Head enjoying our day of fun in the sun (and free lodging!). Today was a great day, even if it didn't turn out how we planned. After discovering the logistical inconveniences of going to Fort Sumpter, i.e the long drive and sparse ferry schedule to actually get to the fort, we decided to have a day of R and R, and what better place to relax on an island than the beach!?!?

We hopped on our bikes and rode downtown, after a few wrong turns and some frustration with traffic circles (plentiful and annoying down here!) we finally arrived downtown where we enjoyed a much deserved lunch at the deli and Italian ices (water ices if you like to be wrong and/or are from the New Jersey/ Pennsylvania area). We got to the beach around 3:00, and while I had visions of sunbathing and reading, Matt had other plans. I was coerced into getting into the ocean, which was mercifully warm (thank goodness) and I attempted to get my sea legs rather unsuccessfully. After a couple of nosefulls of water, I retreated to the beach to sleep while Matt contiued to swim and take some nice pictures.

At around 5:00 we rode home tired and sunburnt, but oddly refreshed. After picking up some provisions at the Piggly Wiggly we enjoyed a nice picnic in a gazebo near the pond and watch the turtles and TWO GATORS swim around. Now we are nursing our sunburns and resting up for another long haul drive tomorrow. New Orleans or bust!!



And now for the Stats:
Still 19% of the US
Miles traveled on bike: about 3
Miles traveled in car: about 2
Wrong turns: too many to be biking
Gas spent: negligable
Distance to go: only like a kabillion miles ;)
Next Stop: New Orleans hopefully via Savannah, GA and probably somewhere in Florida

Day 4: Happy Anniversary! UPDATED

Today was a purely driving day. Alie and I logged a total of 8 hours of driving! More information will come tonight! for now here is the map of where we've been so far:



PS Alie's and my Anniversary was Day 4 hence the lack of update. ;)


UPDATE:
This isn't tonight but plans change. So I'm updating now. As I said above, we spent yesterday driving 8 hours to Hilton Head Island. We got there about 20 minuets ahead of what our GPS said we would. Which was really great but odd since the GPS is usually right on the money. We figured it was due to a speed limit change the most recent maps did not take into account. We only stopped for about 40 minutes for lunch, refueling and frosties!

We got into Hilton Head around 8:30pm. We then unloaded our stuff at Howard's condo and then went to Big Bamboo. This really neat restaurant modeled after a place in South Pacific founded by a WWII Pilot. Overall I enjoyed the atmosphere and food. Both had a lot of potential but fell just an inch short of what I'd consider excellent.

Then Alie and I got ice cream at the Ice Cream Cone and walked to the beach. We laid down got all sandy and looked at the stars. A very nice way to end the night.

Here are the current totals:

Been to 19% of the US!
Overall Average: 59.8mph
Moving Average: 64.0mph
Moving Time: 8h and 48m
Stopped: 37m 18s
Total time: 9h 26m
Gas Spent: Not exactly sure but so far we've gone 330mi on a 1/2 a tank.
Distance Traveled Today: 563.7mi
Distance to go: I'll never tell
Wrong turns: 0 (It was really simple all the way through.)
Where we go next? Was Fort Sumpter but thats another 2-3 hours of driving so instead its THE BEACH!

Day 3: Photos: Panorama-Rama!

I've posted some of my pictures to my slice of Flickr and I've created a set of Road Trip pictures seen here. But I've spent most of my time tonight stitching pictures together to create these panoramas...

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!)

Quick Note on Creative Commons

This is a quick note to everyone that this blog is now licensed under an Attribution Non-Commercial Creative Commons License. That means that you can take anything Alie or I post here and use it anywhere you like and change it however you like as long as you cite the back to here and do not make money from our words. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments section, but most answers can be found in the page you get when you click on the grey CC image on the right side of this page down near the bottom.

Note: The photos posted on this blog do not fall under the license discussed above. Instead each have their own license. to view please head to the photo page on Flick and look for the copy right symbol found on the right hand side of the page.

Day 1: Very Rocky Start But There is a Red Sky Tonight!

So today was supposed to be our first day on the road and I was supposed to be writing this from the Jerz. However We never got there. Instead Alie and I are at her old house in Connecticut. And here is why in a timeline.

9:30am going to pack the car but realized there was too much stuff to move out Alie completely and bring some of my bigger things home. So we had to go back and drop some of my stuff off and some of Alie's bigger stuff. While loading Alie's bigger stuff we notice that the back passenger side triangular window is smashed. This is unfortunate because we have parked near Alie's countless times and never had a problem. We find its ironic that some act of vandalism would happen on our last true night in Boston. So we only partially load and then vacuum out the large pieces of glass, having to go to two seperate gas stations to find a working vacuum. (THANKS HESS!) So after the car is vacuumed we load it at Alie's and then unloaded at my house. It is about 10:30-10:45am.

!0:45am We go back to Alie's to pick up the keys and do a bunch of small chores around the apartment like clean it, take out the trash, empty the fridge, close all the windows, take out the recycling, etc, because it needed to get done and no one else was going to do it.

11:15 we go back to my house to return the parking permit.

11:30am We give the keys of Alie's apartment away.

11:45am-12:00pm We head to Comcast to drop of the cable equipment this takes us until about 12:30ish because we waited in line while and older women asked the same questions over and over again to the service rep. Thats done and we start out on the road.

12:30pm We pull over at the Natick rest stop because I think I left my camera in Boston. I tear apart the car and its not there. Alie and I realize that the smashed window wasn't an act of vandalism but in fact robbery or what the police report calls Minor Larceny. They took my nice digital camera. What is frustrating for me is that 1. I had left the camera there in the car the past few nights and it was fine. 2. I am usually very careful with things like that. I took in a lot of other expensive equipment except for the camera. I slip up one time and its gone. 3. If it was just a few inches towards the center they wouldn't have reached it.

12:50pm Head back to Boston to file a police report.

Arrive in Allston at 1:20 or so call the police drive to the District D14 station and file a report.

At 3:00pm this point it starts to rain while we are in the police station!

So we finish the report and decide to try to patch the window with plastic and ducktape, but the rain stops and we just head to CT around 4pm.

Arrive at 5:30 in CT. And the good news begins to trickle in.

So that covers today pretty well for us. I'll give the good news tomorrow once its more solidified.

What I learned: NEVER leave ANYTHING in a car in plain sight. I know this should be a given but after 3 years in the same area you let your guard down a bit and I like to think that people are inherently good.

Been to 3% of the US
Miles Traveled: 95.8
Total Travel Time: 1h 55m
Average Speed: 54.1MPH
Gas Used: Didn't think to look (less than 1/4 of a tank)
Wrong Turns: Depends how you count it
Distance to Go: More then there should be
Whats keeping us going? It can only get better from here on out and we've solidified some of our plans.
Next Stop: NJ

PS would've posted a picture of the damage but Alie's camera is broken and mine is gone. Maybe I'll post a broken window from Flickr and say it was ours.

Where We've Been So Far

Here is a Map of the United States.



As Alie and I travel across the country we will post an updated map along with a few stats;

How long it took us to get there.
How much gas we used.
How many wrong turns we made.
Distance to go.
And any other Items that come to mind.

So far we have been to 1% of the USA.
Spent NO gas.
Have made 0 wrong turns.
and
Have a long long way to go. ;)

I think this will be a really cool feature. Let me know what else you might be interested in seeing.

Canon National Park Contest

As I was exploring the National Park Groups (here and here) I found a link to this contest that ends Sept. 30 2006. The grand prize winner gets a trip to a National Park. The next three winners get a Canon SLR Camera. I rather get the camera personally. As I go on I'm going to take pictures of national parks, tag the best with "contest" and put them all in one set in my slice of Flickr. So if you see one or a few you like let me know. I'll tally all the votes and submit the best one.

Introducing a Travel Log

Many people write a travel diary to look back at and reminisce. So instead of it being simply something for Us to look back on. I've decided to post it to the web and let our family and friends to follow the journey along with us and discuss it with us via comments and email.

Either Alie or I will try to as often as we can. Hopefully this will be when we reach a destination or the end of the day in a certain place. But if we do not post for a while its either due to lack of internet access or too tight of a schedule.

What you will see here is stories of our trip. Photos of people and places and other fun things we like to talk about.

So add this site or feed to your bookmarks and stand by for awesome content heading your way.