so many simple things please me. and terrify me. before visiting DC I'd never seen the fearsome "Black Squirrel". that's right people. they look much like ordinary squirrels. but they're black. and fearsome. and ferocious.
here's a brief clip of them.
when I first encountered them I was on Liz's balcony trying to enjoy the sunrise. I noticed across the parking lot an elderly lady out walking. as she walked down the sidewalk one of the black squirrels leaped into her path and confronted her. standing barely a foot in front of her it stared her down. after what seemed like hours it lost interest and moved one. a close call to be sure. the woman was visibly relieved and hurried to get back in the safety of her house. that happened just 2 days ago, and is completely true.
if you come across these monsters DO NOT PROVOKE THEM. I remembered a terrifying story about these black squirrels and lucky for you, found it again. here it is:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4489792.stm
that's all I have. I hear rumor that there might be killer rabbits in the parking lot as well. I think I caught sight of them last night. I'll be leaving in just a few minutes to stake-out the parking lot again. wish me luck.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Sunday, March 25, 2007
trying to catch up
I'm afraid I've gotten so far behind in my writings that I've forgotten what happened. so, instead of more bumbling around, I'm going to bring you up to speed and then we can go from the present.
after the last post, we left Amy's and went to Liz's, where we are now. we had an awesome time with Amy, and I'm very glad we got to meet her. sadly tho, we've got to keep moving. Liz, unlike Amy, does not actually live in DC. she lives in Virginia, outside of DC. any of you stalkers out there, if you'd like her exact address, just send us an email, and we'd be happy to pass that on for ya. back to the story tho, while she lives in Virginia, DC is just a hop, skip and a subway ride away. unless you aren't gay. then you wouldn't hop or skip. you'd just walk to the subway station. your choice, I respect your lifestyle choices.
after a day or two at Liz's place Sam and I finally mustered the courage to face DC yet again. we took the Metro to the Mall. I personally hate that title. the mall makes me think of shopping. but here, if someone says the mall they mean THE mall. which is where all the monuments are. the Capitol building, the Washington Monument, then Lincoln Memorial, a bunch or museums, etc. that's the mall. stupid, I know. that's what I said.
btw, quick side note, I do love the metro. I enjoy it so much more then a car ride. yes yes, I understand it could get to be a hassle. but driving, by yourself, with traffic in a place like DC, and then trying to find a place to park? not fun. where as for just a couple bucks, I can walk down some stairs, get on a train with a bunch of other people that I can stare at and make fun of, and it only takes half the time. I'll take the metro, thank you.
leaving the metro, we stopped once again at the Washington Monument. that thing is a tall one. you're really have to see it. it's quite large. mostly when you're standing next to it. from there we kept on down the mall to the WWII Memorial. we'd already seen both of these at night, but the WWII Memorial wasn't very well lighted when we saw it, so it was definitely worth seeing in the day. the downside to the day was the kids tho. there were SO SO SO many kids out. groups or 30, 50, 100, 462, etc. ridiculous crowds. and all making cheesy poses around the monuments and laughing and carrying on. ok at first, but after a while, so many kids gets annoying. mostly teens too. the worst kind. (get it?...I'm a teen...saying that...nvm...do I HAVE to spell every joke out to y'all?)
from there we hit the Lincoln Memorial. my favorite for sure. Lincoln is impressive. quite big. inside the Memorial there they have the Gettysburg Address on one wall, and his second inaugural address on the other wall. (an interesting note I learned later: Lincoln's second inaugural address was his favorite of all his speeches.) now of course, I've read the Gettysburg Address, and probably the other speech to at some point. but it didn't really hit me until I was there, standing next to the huge statue of the man. he was a really good speech writer. or maybe he didn't write his own speeches. I'm guessing he did, or at least had some part in it, but I know one of you readers will know and won't mind correcting me. anyway, the Gettysburg Address is really some spectacular and powerful writing. and his second inaugural address is just as good writing if not better. I would recommend seeing the Lincoln Memorial to any of you who plan to visit DC. and I haven't even seen it at night yet. I hear it's better at night. we shall see.
after that we walked over to the Vietnam Memorial. and then a long walk to the Jefferson Memorial. that was pretty cool. too many kids but still cool. I didn't even know he was in there. I've seen the building, but he's actually in there. Jefferson himself. or a statue. whatever. don't nitpick.
some more walking, and we found George Mason. I'd tell you who he is, but I'd rather you look him up if you don't know him. hahaha. it's called Google. and yes, I am getting paid to promote them. anyway, he was a fun fellow. sitting down on a bench. quite tall. if he was standing up I'd put him at about 11 feet or so. the greats of our nation are all so big. I never knew.
after that we were getting a bit tired, seeing as at least 4 to 5 hours had lapsed. we called it a day and headed back to the apartment.
from then to now....lets see...we've seen 2 movies with liz, and eaten at some pretty good places. 5 guys against, and Ted's Montana Grill. we had bison there. but actually, I'm going to leave that to another post. see ya.
after the last post, we left Amy's and went to Liz's, where we are now. we had an awesome time with Amy, and I'm very glad we got to meet her. sadly tho, we've got to keep moving. Liz, unlike Amy, does not actually live in DC. she lives in Virginia, outside of DC. any of you stalkers out there, if you'd like her exact address, just send us an email, and we'd be happy to pass that on for ya. back to the story tho, while she lives in Virginia, DC is just a hop, skip and a subway ride away. unless you aren't gay. then you wouldn't hop or skip. you'd just walk to the subway station. your choice, I respect your lifestyle choices.
after a day or two at Liz's place Sam and I finally mustered the courage to face DC yet again. we took the Metro to the Mall. I personally hate that title. the mall makes me think of shopping. but here, if someone says the mall they mean THE mall. which is where all the monuments are. the Capitol building, the Washington Monument, then Lincoln Memorial, a bunch or museums, etc. that's the mall. stupid, I know. that's what I said.
btw, quick side note, I do love the metro. I enjoy it so much more then a car ride. yes yes, I understand it could get to be a hassle. but driving, by yourself, with traffic in a place like DC, and then trying to find a place to park? not fun. where as for just a couple bucks, I can walk down some stairs, get on a train with a bunch of other people that I can stare at and make fun of, and it only takes half the time. I'll take the metro, thank you.
leaving the metro, we stopped once again at the Washington Monument. that thing is a tall one. you're really have to see it. it's quite large. mostly when you're standing next to it. from there we kept on down the mall to the WWII Memorial. we'd already seen both of these at night, but the WWII Memorial wasn't very well lighted when we saw it, so it was definitely worth seeing in the day. the downside to the day was the kids tho. there were SO SO SO many kids out. groups or 30, 50, 100, 462, etc. ridiculous crowds. and all making cheesy poses around the monuments and laughing and carrying on. ok at first, but after a while, so many kids gets annoying. mostly teens too. the worst kind. (get it?...I'm a teen...saying that...nvm...do I HAVE to spell every joke out to y'all?)
from there we hit the Lincoln Memorial. my favorite for sure. Lincoln is impressive. quite big. inside the Memorial there they have the Gettysburg Address on one wall, and his second inaugural address on the other wall. (an interesting note I learned later: Lincoln's second inaugural address was his favorite of all his speeches.) now of course, I've read the Gettysburg Address, and probably the other speech to at some point. but it didn't really hit me until I was there, standing next to the huge statue of the man. he was a really good speech writer. or maybe he didn't write his own speeches. I'm guessing he did, or at least had some part in it, but I know one of you readers will know and won't mind correcting me. anyway, the Gettysburg Address is really some spectacular and powerful writing. and his second inaugural address is just as good writing if not better. I would recommend seeing the Lincoln Memorial to any of you who plan to visit DC. and I haven't even seen it at night yet. I hear it's better at night. we shall see.
after that we walked over to the Vietnam Memorial. and then a long walk to the Jefferson Memorial. that was pretty cool. too many kids but still cool. I didn't even know he was in there. I've seen the building, but he's actually in there. Jefferson himself. or a statue. whatever. don't nitpick.
some more walking, and we found George Mason. I'd tell you who he is, but I'd rather you look him up if you don't know him. hahaha. it's called Google. and yes, I am getting paid to promote them. anyway, he was a fun fellow. sitting down on a bench. quite tall. if he was standing up I'd put him at about 11 feet or so. the greats of our nation are all so big. I never knew.
after that we were getting a bit tired, seeing as at least 4 to 5 hours had lapsed. we called it a day and headed back to the apartment.
from then to now....lets see...we've seen 2 movies with liz, and eaten at some pretty good places. 5 guys against, and Ted's Montana Grill. we had bison there. but actually, I'm going to leave that to another post. see ya.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
more sightseeing
I keep putting of posting. I hate it, but sometimes I just don't feel like writing. I'm a terrible blogger. oh well.
sunday we decided to go out sight seeing. we walked over to Ebenezer's, grabbed some drinks to keep us with energy. if you ever visit the DC area, I recommend the Mocha from Ebenezer's. I'm not a big coffee drinker, I drink plenty of it, but I'm not obsessed with it. and even then I put lots of sugar and cream in it. the Mocha needed neither. it was very good. and if you prefer something cold, the Cookies and Cream Freeze is amazing. awesome, really.
from there we walked another block to Union Station where we could see the Capitol Building. we figured it was a good place to start so we head that way.
little known fact, the statue on the top of the Capitol building is facing the wrong way. while the Capitol building, Washington Monument, and Lincoln Memorial are all in a row, the statue is in fact, facing away from them. when the Capitol building was created they got the statue up there, but by the time they noticed it was backwards it was too late.
small side note, the reason that the previous fact is little known is because sam and I made it up. there's some rumor that the statue actually faces north, but that's stupid, our version is better.
from there we went and found various pieces or art that we fun to look at. some of it can be seen in the photo album sam linked in the last blog.
I know I'm way behind on blogging and I plan to get on it. promise to try and update soon.
sunday we decided to go out sight seeing. we walked over to Ebenezer's, grabbed some drinks to keep us with energy. if you ever visit the DC area, I recommend the Mocha from Ebenezer's. I'm not a big coffee drinker, I drink plenty of it, but I'm not obsessed with it. and even then I put lots of sugar and cream in it. the Mocha needed neither. it was very good. and if you prefer something cold, the Cookies and Cream Freeze is amazing. awesome, really.
from there we walked another block to Union Station where we could see the Capitol Building. we figured it was a good place to start so we head that way.
little known fact, the statue on the top of the Capitol building is facing the wrong way. while the Capitol building, Washington Monument, and Lincoln Memorial are all in a row, the statue is in fact, facing away from them. when the Capitol building was created they got the statue up there, but by the time they noticed it was backwards it was too late.
small side note, the reason that the previous fact is little known is because sam and I made it up. there's some rumor that the statue actually faces north, but that's stupid, our version is better.
from there we went and found various pieces or art that we fun to look at. some of it can be seen in the photo album sam linked in the last blog.
I know I'm way behind on blogging and I plan to get on it. promise to try and update soon.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Washington, DC
Amidst torrential downpours we finally made it to DC and Amy Doolittle's on Thursday night. And for the record, Amy gives quite good directions.
The next day, which so happened to be Friday, Amy took off work so she could hang out with us (amazing), and we headed out to see DC. The only, and quite major, damper on the day was the fact that it was raining, and very very cold. And as you can guess, cold and rainy isn't the best of conditions for sight-seeing. Especially when most of the sights require you to get out of the car and walk. Twas sad. But we did get to see a good bit.
We stopped for lunch at Five Guys. AMAZING food, i must say. One of the best bacon cheeseburgers I've ever had. And the fries, too. Not only were they also amazing, they gave us like a million of them.
Being the shiveringly drenched day that it was, the only real options were to either go see a musuem or go back to the apartment. And as neither of us were just incredibly keen on seeing museums that day, we did not. Upon arrival back at her apartment, we decided to entertain ourselves with a movie, which, much to Andy's disgust, happened to be Nacho Libre. The movie just gets better each time you watch it, I tell you. It's hilarious. And then we watched The Emperor's New Groove. I believe Andy skipped that one too. Sad. David Spade is indeed hilarious.
At some point, I think it was Friday night, Amy took us down to see Ebenezer's. The coffeeshop where she works. Very cool place. Good coffee. The Caramel Whip is quite tasty as well.
Ohhh, yes... and Friday night we had SNOW!!! It was amazing. The most snow either of us has ever seen before. Just huge snowflakes, too. It was pretty sweet.
Saturday, Saturday... hmm... hung around the house a bit... That day is kinda fuzzy.... Amy was working most of the day I think, so we decided to meet up with Elizabeth Emery and her brother, who was in town for the week. We walked over towards Chinatown to meet them, turned out to be a much longer walk that I'd thought. Took about half an hour or more.
After we hooked up with them, we decided to find a place to eat, which happened to be Matchbox Pizza. Extremely good pizza. And some delightful conversation, too. We hung out there for quite awhile, then headed over to the movie theater to see what was playing. As it turned out we happened to get there when NOTHING was started for at least an hour and a half or so. So we got tickets for a later show and decided to go see some monuments. Liz was telling us how awesome they are at night. And actually, Amy had mentioned that earlier as well. So off we went.
I got to experience the metro for the first time. Very cool. Nothing new for Andy though as he had ridden quite a few in CA. But for being my first time on the metro, I was the only one who noticed when we got to our stop. I shudder to think what terrible things would have happened if I hadn't been paying attention. Horrors.
We got to see the Washington Monument. Its quite tall. Yup, tall it is. I mean you could stood Liz and her brother on top of each other and it was STILL taller. Crazy, I know. Then we headed over to the WWII memorial. Very cool. We thought about heading to see Lincoln but it was too far and we didn't have too much time until our movie started and we had a ways to go.
On the way back to the metro, Daniel and I decided to race down the path til it turned a couple hundred yards ahead. Liz and Andy were too chicken, so they walked. Let me tell you, going from a standstill to a dead sprint and for that long is quite tiring. But it was enjoyable.
We made it back to the movie theater just in time for the previews. We went to see Breach, by the way. It looked quite promising. Boy, was I wrong. It was one of the worst movies I've seen in quite some time. The story needed help. Lots of help. I kept waiting for the big ending... and it never came. It just... died off. The dialogue needed help, too. Normally I'm not overly critical of movies but this one was bad. If at all possible, do NOT see this movie.
Maybe if I had seen the first 10 minutes of the movie it would have been better. I doubt it thought. Yeah, I was at the concession stand in search of something to ease my parched mouth. I was about 8th in line when I got there. I kid you not, 20 minutes later (I counted), there were still 2 people in front me. Let's see, that's.... 4 minutes a person. At a theater consession stand. FOUR MINUTES PER PERSON. That's a looooong time.
After the movie, we headed down to the metro, and after a few shouted insults across the tracks, and a few pantomined ones, we headed our seperate ways into the darkness.
Now, before y'all get more annoyed than you already are, we DO have pictures. I decided to get a Flickr account instead of posting them all on here. And we've got quite a few from DC up there already. Oh, right, the link.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vaguelyvagabonds
Enjoy.
The next day, which so happened to be Friday, Amy took off work so she could hang out with us (amazing), and we headed out to see DC. The only, and quite major, damper on the day was the fact that it was raining, and very very cold. And as you can guess, cold and rainy isn't the best of conditions for sight-seeing. Especially when most of the sights require you to get out of the car and walk. Twas sad. But we did get to see a good bit.
We stopped for lunch at Five Guys. AMAZING food, i must say. One of the best bacon cheeseburgers I've ever had. And the fries, too. Not only were they also amazing, they gave us like a million of them.
Being the shiveringly drenched day that it was, the only real options were to either go see a musuem or go back to the apartment. And as neither of us were just incredibly keen on seeing museums that day, we did not. Upon arrival back at her apartment, we decided to entertain ourselves with a movie, which, much to Andy's disgust, happened to be Nacho Libre. The movie just gets better each time you watch it, I tell you. It's hilarious. And then we watched The Emperor's New Groove. I believe Andy skipped that one too. Sad. David Spade is indeed hilarious.
At some point, I think it was Friday night, Amy took us down to see Ebenezer's. The coffeeshop where she works. Very cool place. Good coffee. The Caramel Whip is quite tasty as well.
Ohhh, yes... and Friday night we had SNOW!!! It was amazing. The most snow either of us has ever seen before. Just huge snowflakes, too. It was pretty sweet.
Saturday, Saturday... hmm... hung around the house a bit... That day is kinda fuzzy.... Amy was working most of the day I think, so we decided to meet up with Elizabeth Emery and her brother, who was in town for the week. We walked over towards Chinatown to meet them, turned out to be a much longer walk that I'd thought. Took about half an hour or more.
After we hooked up with them, we decided to find a place to eat, which happened to be Matchbox Pizza. Extremely good pizza. And some delightful conversation, too. We hung out there for quite awhile, then headed over to the movie theater to see what was playing. As it turned out we happened to get there when NOTHING was started for at least an hour and a half or so. So we got tickets for a later show and decided to go see some monuments. Liz was telling us how awesome they are at night. And actually, Amy had mentioned that earlier as well. So off we went.
I got to experience the metro for the first time. Very cool. Nothing new for Andy though as he had ridden quite a few in CA. But for being my first time on the metro, I was the only one who noticed when we got to our stop. I shudder to think what terrible things would have happened if I hadn't been paying attention. Horrors.
We got to see the Washington Monument. Its quite tall. Yup, tall it is. I mean you could stood Liz and her brother on top of each other and it was STILL taller. Crazy, I know. Then we headed over to the WWII memorial. Very cool. We thought about heading to see Lincoln but it was too far and we didn't have too much time until our movie started and we had a ways to go.
On the way back to the metro, Daniel and I decided to race down the path til it turned a couple hundred yards ahead. Liz and Andy were too chicken, so they walked. Let me tell you, going from a standstill to a dead sprint and for that long is quite tiring. But it was enjoyable.
We made it back to the movie theater just in time for the previews. We went to see Breach, by the way. It looked quite promising. Boy, was I wrong. It was one of the worst movies I've seen in quite some time. The story needed help. Lots of help. I kept waiting for the big ending... and it never came. It just... died off. The dialogue needed help, too. Normally I'm not overly critical of movies but this one was bad. If at all possible, do NOT see this movie.
Maybe if I had seen the first 10 minutes of the movie it would have been better. I doubt it thought. Yeah, I was at the concession stand in search of something to ease my parched mouth. I was about 8th in line when I got there. I kid you not, 20 minutes later (I counted), there were still 2 people in front me. Let's see, that's.... 4 minutes a person. At a theater consession stand. FOUR MINUTES PER PERSON. That's a looooong time.
After the movie, we headed down to the metro, and after a few shouted insults across the tracks, and a few pantomined ones, we headed our seperate ways into the darkness.
Now, before y'all get more annoyed than you already are, we DO have pictures. I decided to get a Flickr account instead of posting them all on here. And we've got quite a few from DC up there already. Oh, right, the link.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vaguelyvagabonds
Enjoy.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
talk on the road
now we come to the underground video. this video made it's way to the internet under suspicious circumstances, and spread to all corners without our knowledge. when we finally realized what had happened it was too late.
so since some of you have seen it, we figured all of you deserve too. this is what goes on when you've been on the road a while. and yah, it was mostly just for fun.
so since some of you have seen it, we figured all of you deserve too. this is what goes on when you've been on the road a while. and yah, it was mostly just for fun.
Friday, March 16, 2007
and now you know...
alrighty, now as much as I'd like to leave y'all to wonder on that nice cliffhanger sam left you on, I think I'd better finish it.
so we're in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, pushing the car until it was too hard. so then we just sat around and let the car cool for a while. we decided no to call Ronny, and instead to just drive it home. we were really close, and it had cooled for quite a while. so sam got in, kept the lights off, turned the radio and AC off, and used a flashlight to light the road. he had some theory about keeping everything off to lessen the chances of over-heating. so he drove it home no problem. he tried to turn off the car at the top of the driveway but claimed that the brakes stopped working so he turned it back on. I had decided to walk home so I wasn't in the car. I can't confirm nor deny. sounds suspicious tho.
in the morning, the car looked and sounded fine. we obviously wanted it looked at anyway tho, and luckily Ronny knew a good mechanic that would do it for cheap. so we drove about 10 miles away to where this guy had a shop in his backyard. this was a sunday mind, so the fact we could do that was impressive. and he said he'd take a look at it, but wouldn't be able to actually work on it that day. so he stares at it, and we explain where we saw water gushing out...and he gets down in the engine and points at one side and says "about this area?" as he says this, his finger brushes a tube that FALLS OFF. well, it was connected on one end, but where it went into the engine just fell off. he didn't push it or anything, he barely touched it.
so he explained it wasn't a big problem, but he'd have to take half the engine off to get to it. this obviously sounds expensive so I asked him if he had any approximate figure. he said he'd be able to get to it the very next morning and it would be about $125. quite shocking to me. the shops I know of would charge that just to start. and sure enough, next day he called and had it all fixed. pretty cool fellow. wish I could remember his name. I'll work on that.
so with that near disaster successfully avoided we decided to leave the next day, on tuesday. and here I paid the story to step outside. I'm writing this in a coffee shop in DC, and I've just noticed the rain that's been falling all day has turned to snow. not very heavy but I'm gonna take a few minutes to look at it. brb.
interestingly enough, it can't have been 5 minutes and there's already a pretty big layer of snow on everything. living in texas, I've had no experience with snow. the little I've seen hasn't stuck on the ground or anything. it's odd to be here and see a pretty thick snow that's covered the ground in 5 minutes. a whole new experience. which is what this trip is about of course. I feel like a kid again. oh wait...I am a kid. nvm.
anyway, so...we left tuesday. Sara and Ronny drove with us about 30 minutes to some little town that I don't remember. maybe madison. it was supposed to have a KFC that had an all-you-can-eat-buffet. it turned out that while it did have it, it was only serving on wednesdays. so we headed to a hole-in-the-wall southern diner called Adrian's Place. some pretty good food there, and great sweet tea too. I recommend it. course, you don't know how to get there as I'm not 100% sure of the town name. bwuhaha, it's part of my plan.
from there we got on I-20, considered turning around and taking it all the way back to Longview, TX, but decided not too. we drove across the rest of GA, all of SC, and most of NC. we came into Wilmington, North Carolina about 6pm I think. there we met Maureen Carlin, who lives and attends then University of North Carolina at Wilmington. it was really good to see her, I always enjoy time spent with her. she's a blast. we hung out with her and her friends on tuesday night, and were supposed to stay with her in her dorm that night. supposed to. of course we didn't. they forgot that they couldn't sign in guests after 12 and we didn't try before then. so we ended up sleeping in our car. the next morning we hung around in coffee shops and such. Maureen was busy with school, (as a matter of fact we didn't see her anymore while we were there,) so we were on our own. after lunch we headed down to the beach, even tho it was overcast and NOT a beach day. it was a nice beach. the sand was white and squeaked. not like Galveston. hah! we had a pretty good time there, took some pictures, watched the locals. Wilmington is an impressive town, I wouldn't mind visiting more in the future. here are a few pictures of that.
after staying at the beach a good while we went and hung out some more in a random coffee shop. eventually sam decided we wouldn't be sleeping in the car again, and we went and got a room at a motel 6 somewhere. cheap rooms, which was nice, and they can do seeing as they don't offer internet. how are we supposed to keep y'all informed without internet? :P
next morning was fairly routine as far as mornings go. woke up...ate breakfast... showered..you know, morning stuff. we had 7 hours to drive to DC so we headed out about noon. we got here, saw many monuments as we drove in, (while trying to remember the name of the Washington Memorial, (the tall one as we called it,) we also discovered sam thinks the Statue of Liberty is in DC. poor guy..) we eventually got where we were going and met Amy Doolittle, one of our oh-so-many DC connections.
I should note that sam complains often that all my posts abuse him, and that I should be nice. but he says alot of things, most of which I ignore.
so now we're here, in DC, our fair capitol, and it's cold, and rained all day, and snowed this evening. as always, we'll keep you updated.
so we're in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, pushing the car until it was too hard. so then we just sat around and let the car cool for a while. we decided no to call Ronny, and instead to just drive it home. we were really close, and it had cooled for quite a while. so sam got in, kept the lights off, turned the radio and AC off, and used a flashlight to light the road. he had some theory about keeping everything off to lessen the chances of over-heating. so he drove it home no problem. he tried to turn off the car at the top of the driveway but claimed that the brakes stopped working so he turned it back on. I had decided to walk home so I wasn't in the car. I can't confirm nor deny. sounds suspicious tho.
in the morning, the car looked and sounded fine. we obviously wanted it looked at anyway tho, and luckily Ronny knew a good mechanic that would do it for cheap. so we drove about 10 miles away to where this guy had a shop in his backyard. this was a sunday mind, so the fact we could do that was impressive. and he said he'd take a look at it, but wouldn't be able to actually work on it that day. so he stares at it, and we explain where we saw water gushing out...and he gets down in the engine and points at one side and says "about this area?" as he says this, his finger brushes a tube that FALLS OFF. well, it was connected on one end, but where it went into the engine just fell off. he didn't push it or anything, he barely touched it.
so he explained it wasn't a big problem, but he'd have to take half the engine off to get to it. this obviously sounds expensive so I asked him if he had any approximate figure. he said he'd be able to get to it the very next morning and it would be about $125. quite shocking to me. the shops I know of would charge that just to start. and sure enough, next day he called and had it all fixed. pretty cool fellow. wish I could remember his name. I'll work on that.
so with that near disaster successfully avoided we decided to leave the next day, on tuesday. and here I paid the story to step outside. I'm writing this in a coffee shop in DC, and I've just noticed the rain that's been falling all day has turned to snow. not very heavy but I'm gonna take a few minutes to look at it. brb.
interestingly enough, it can't have been 5 minutes and there's already a pretty big layer of snow on everything. living in texas, I've had no experience with snow. the little I've seen hasn't stuck on the ground or anything. it's odd to be here and see a pretty thick snow that's covered the ground in 5 minutes. a whole new experience. which is what this trip is about of course. I feel like a kid again. oh wait...I am a kid. nvm.
anyway, so...we left tuesday. Sara and Ronny drove with us about 30 minutes to some little town that I don't remember. maybe madison. it was supposed to have a KFC that had an all-you-can-eat-buffet. it turned out that while it did have it, it was only serving on wednesdays. so we headed to a hole-in-the-wall southern diner called Adrian's Place. some pretty good food there, and great sweet tea too. I recommend it. course, you don't know how to get there as I'm not 100% sure of the town name. bwuhaha, it's part of my plan.
from there we got on I-20, considered turning around and taking it all the way back to Longview, TX, but decided not too. we drove across the rest of GA, all of SC, and most of NC. we came into Wilmington, North Carolina about 6pm I think. there we met Maureen Carlin, who lives and attends then University of North Carolina at Wilmington. it was really good to see her, I always enjoy time spent with her. she's a blast. we hung out with her and her friends on tuesday night, and were supposed to stay with her in her dorm that night. supposed to. of course we didn't. they forgot that they couldn't sign in guests after 12 and we didn't try before then. so we ended up sleeping in our car. the next morning we hung around in coffee shops and such. Maureen was busy with school, (as a matter of fact we didn't see her anymore while we were there,) so we were on our own. after lunch we headed down to the beach, even tho it was overcast and NOT a beach day. it was a nice beach. the sand was white and squeaked. not like Galveston. hah! we had a pretty good time there, took some pictures, watched the locals. Wilmington is an impressive town, I wouldn't mind visiting more in the future. here are a few pictures of that.
after staying at the beach a good while we went and hung out some more in a random coffee shop. eventually sam decided we wouldn't be sleeping in the car again, and we went and got a room at a motel 6 somewhere. cheap rooms, which was nice, and they can do seeing as they don't offer internet. how are we supposed to keep y'all informed without internet? :P
next morning was fairly routine as far as mornings go. woke up...ate breakfast... showered..you know, morning stuff. we had 7 hours to drive to DC so we headed out about noon. we got here, saw many monuments as we drove in, (while trying to remember the name of the Washington Memorial, (the tall one as we called it,) we also discovered sam thinks the Statue of Liberty is in DC. poor guy..) we eventually got where we were going and met Amy Doolittle, one of our oh-so-many DC connections.
I should note that sam complains often that all my posts abuse him, and that I should be nice. but he says alot of things, most of which I ignore.
so now we're here, in DC, our fair capitol, and it's cold, and rained all day, and snowed this evening. as always, we'll keep you updated.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
danielsville, ga
move into the country... gonna eat alot o' peaches...
sadly, no peaches. i think we came in the wrong season for that.
Lets see, we hit this part of Georgia on... Thursday evening, I believe. Hanging out with Sara and Ronnie is quite enjoyable. Some very interesting conversations we've had. Ronnie has an insane number of books, something like 13,000+. Craaazy. And piles and piles of records. Which I have a picture of and will upload eventually.
Yes, we do have a camera now. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but due to unforeseen circumstances.... well.... anyway we have a camera now. Pictures will commence henceforth. And we apologize for the infrequent nature of our posts. Our internet access has been quite scarce lately. But we'll do what we can.
When the night has come.. and the land is dark... and the moon is the only light we'll see... no I WON'T ... be AFRAID....
sorry. radio. anyway....
Ok, I'm really having trouble remember the order of events in which we did things, so i'll just list them and let you decide how you would like to chronologically arrange them yourselves.
Friday morning I slept. I think Andy went with them to a booksale. Or so they said. Later I went with them into Ila to run a few errands. We stopped at Tractor Supply for a few... non-tractor related supplies. While Sara was shopping, Ronnie and I had a interesting converstion about how big alot of homeschool families are. Actually we had ALOT of interesting converstions with him. Then we went to look for a refridgerator, and kinda got sidetracked by some books.
Sara and I worked on the fence she's building for her goats later that afternoon. Oh, we at lunch at the Ila Restuarant. Good food. Good tea. Hmm... while we were fencing... no wisecracks about my use of the word fencing... Andy and Ronnie went to move a sofa over to the new house. And at some point we moved a piano. Not so fun.
The piano moving was QUITE an adventure. Getting it out of the house it was in was a job in and of itself. After removing a plethora of equestrian memorabilia from atop the piano we moved it to the front door and decided to back the truck up all the way too the door and just load it straight on. Which went without too much of a hitch.
Ill be your crying shoulder.. i'll be loves suicide... i’ll be badder when i’m older... i'll be the greatest fan of your life
I'm just going to through these songs in as i feel like it. Deal with it. Hey, you know what? YOUR MOM. yeah.
So, now we're driving down the road. Andy and I are in the back of the truck holding onto the piano for dear life. I notice a cop car pass in by us... a minute later I see him behind us... closer.. closer... we come up to a stop sign... and then the blue and red lights of doom began flashing. We're all going to die. But he pulls past us, and we notice a wreck on the road a ways ahead of us. And way out here in the country a wreck on a two-lane road is a big deal. Especially at an intersection. I have a picture of two of this, but they will have to come later.
Finally we get home with the piano. And now we have to get it up the wooden stairs onto the porch. Which looks to be a very daunting task, for the piano is quite heavy. After a bit of discussion, its decided that I get to be a carpenter for a day. After a couple minutes, I've successfully removed a section of the railing from the porch and we back the truck right up to the porch, which turns out to be ALOT easier than the stairs.
And this post is getting LONG. must wrap things up. Ah, alritey, so we went into Athens that nite. Coffee shop, internet, blah blah, we went and saw Wild Hogs. do NOT see this movie. it is NOT worth the money. For such a great cast, it was horrible. The whole theater thought it was hilarious, though. I personally wanted my money back. It just wasnt funny.
Went home, blah, slept late, blah, back to Athens the next day. i think....
That day must not have been to eventful, because I don't remember too much. We headed home about midnight or a little after. We're not even out of Athens yet, when I start smelling something burning, and the temperature light comes on. We pull over as smoke is billowing out from under the hood. By the beard of Zeus!
After a bit of looking and pretending like we know about cars... it seems like we just need a bit of liquid in the radiator, since there is none. at all. Luckily we had a couple 2liters of water with us, and dump those in, and decide to try to make it home, as we don't really want to end up on the side of the road in teh wee hours of the morning.
We make it almost home, when we start to notice steam coming out from the hood. I drive for a bit longer trying to decide whether or not we can make it home, but not wanting to really mess up the engine. We pull over on the side of the road not too far from the house. We hope. But I dont really want drive anymore as the engine is really hot.
So. Its like 1:30am or so. I know Sara and Ronnie aren't up, as they usually turn in early, and we don't want to wake them if we don't have to. So we decide to push the car. Unfortunately, it's mostly all uphill. We put the car in neutral anyway, and start pushing, using a flashlight to see where we're going. We push and push.... going uphill is no piece of cake. Finally the incline gets too steep, and we just can't keep any forward momentum going. We just happened to stop right in front of this house that seems to have a large number of dogs dwelling there. Thankfully they're chained, or so we assume, as we are not attacked. They just bark and bark and bark.
Suddenly from out of the dark in the direction of the house.... "SHUT UP DOGS!!!!!!!" Somebody's awake. We hope they don't decide to come find out what the dogs are barking at. And if they do, hopefully they're not armed. A minute or so later we hear again... "YOU STUPID DOGS!!!! SHUT UUUUUP!!!!!!!"
We figure we should probly leave. But we can't push the car. And we can't drive it. And we're like in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Our options are somewhat limited.
But I'm getting a headache, and I need to go find something for it. So I'll have to finish this later.
sadly, no peaches. i think we came in the wrong season for that.
Lets see, we hit this part of Georgia on... Thursday evening, I believe. Hanging out with Sara and Ronnie is quite enjoyable. Some very interesting conversations we've had. Ronnie has an insane number of books, something like 13,000+. Craaazy. And piles and piles of records. Which I have a picture of and will upload eventually.
Yes, we do have a camera now. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but due to unforeseen circumstances.... well.... anyway we have a camera now. Pictures will commence henceforth. And we apologize for the infrequent nature of our posts. Our internet access has been quite scarce lately. But we'll do what we can.
When the night has come.. and the land is dark... and the moon is the only light we'll see... no I WON'T ... be AFRAID....
sorry. radio. anyway....
Ok, I'm really having trouble remember the order of events in which we did things, so i'll just list them and let you decide how you would like to chronologically arrange them yourselves.
Friday morning I slept. I think Andy went with them to a booksale. Or so they said. Later I went with them into Ila to run a few errands. We stopped at Tractor Supply for a few... non-tractor related supplies. While Sara was shopping, Ronnie and I had a interesting converstion about how big alot of homeschool families are. Actually we had ALOT of interesting converstions with him. Then we went to look for a refridgerator, and kinda got sidetracked by some books.
Sara and I worked on the fence she's building for her goats later that afternoon. Oh, we at lunch at the Ila Restuarant. Good food. Good tea. Hmm... while we were fencing... no wisecracks about my use of the word fencing... Andy and Ronnie went to move a sofa over to the new house. And at some point we moved a piano. Not so fun.
The piano moving was QUITE an adventure. Getting it out of the house it was in was a job in and of itself. After removing a plethora of equestrian memorabilia from atop the piano we moved it to the front door and decided to back the truck up all the way too the door and just load it straight on. Which went without too much of a hitch.
Ill be your crying shoulder.. i'll be loves suicide... i’ll be badder when i’m older... i'll be the greatest fan of your life
I'm just going to through these songs in as i feel like it. Deal with it. Hey, you know what? YOUR MOM. yeah.
So, now we're driving down the road. Andy and I are in the back of the truck holding onto the piano for dear life. I notice a cop car pass in by us... a minute later I see him behind us... closer.. closer... we come up to a stop sign... and then the blue and red lights of doom began flashing. We're all going to die. But he pulls past us, and we notice a wreck on the road a ways ahead of us. And way out here in the country a wreck on a two-lane road is a big deal. Especially at an intersection. I have a picture of two of this, but they will have to come later.
Finally we get home with the piano. And now we have to get it up the wooden stairs onto the porch. Which looks to be a very daunting task, for the piano is quite heavy. After a bit of discussion, its decided that I get to be a carpenter for a day. After a couple minutes, I've successfully removed a section of the railing from the porch and we back the truck right up to the porch, which turns out to be ALOT easier than the stairs.
And this post is getting LONG. must wrap things up. Ah, alritey, so we went into Athens that nite. Coffee shop, internet, blah blah, we went and saw Wild Hogs. do NOT see this movie. it is NOT worth the money. For such a great cast, it was horrible. The whole theater thought it was hilarious, though. I personally wanted my money back. It just wasnt funny.
Went home, blah, slept late, blah, back to Athens the next day. i think....
That day must not have been to eventful, because I don't remember too much. We headed home about midnight or a little after. We're not even out of Athens yet, when I start smelling something burning, and the temperature light comes on. We pull over as smoke is billowing out from under the hood. By the beard of Zeus!
After a bit of looking and pretending like we know about cars... it seems like we just need a bit of liquid in the radiator, since there is none. at all. Luckily we had a couple 2liters of water with us, and dump those in, and decide to try to make it home, as we don't really want to end up on the side of the road in teh wee hours of the morning.
We make it almost home, when we start to notice steam coming out from the hood. I drive for a bit longer trying to decide whether or not we can make it home, but not wanting to really mess up the engine. We pull over on the side of the road not too far from the house. We hope. But I dont really want drive anymore as the engine is really hot.
So. Its like 1:30am or so. I know Sara and Ronnie aren't up, as they usually turn in early, and we don't want to wake them if we don't have to. So we decide to push the car. Unfortunately, it's mostly all uphill. We put the car in neutral anyway, and start pushing, using a flashlight to see where we're going. We push and push.... going uphill is no piece of cake. Finally the incline gets too steep, and we just can't keep any forward momentum going. We just happened to stop right in front of this house that seems to have a large number of dogs dwelling there. Thankfully they're chained, or so we assume, as we are not attacked. They just bark and bark and bark.
Suddenly from out of the dark in the direction of the house.... "SHUT UP DOGS!!!!!!!" Somebody's awake. We hope they don't decide to come find out what the dogs are barking at. And if they do, hopefully they're not armed. A minute or so later we hear again... "YOU STUPID DOGS!!!! SHUT UUUUUP!!!!!!!"
We figure we should probly leave. But we can't push the car. And we can't drive it. And we're like in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Our options are somewhat limited.
But I'm getting a headache, and I need to go find something for it. So I'll have to finish this later.
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