Proposal

This is my proposal for the next road trip - a circumferance loop. Click here and let me know what you think.

Good Night and Good Luck

I Left My Heart in Capitol City

Yes, D.C. was a fun. Maybe it was the overwhelming grandeur of the city - the old row houses, the oddly designed street system, the larger than life monuments, museums, and government buildings.
Seeing all this really made me wonder about the so-called leaders of this country. How is it that we're paying them (yes, you do work for us) to micromanage our lives, complain about the rival party, decide that we're killing the earth, and write smear letters to private citizens? I mean seriously, Mr. and Mrs. Elected Representative, have you ever taken the time to look around the city that is the flagship for this great country of ours? Yeah, your opinions differ. We get it. How about you stop thinking about your self-centered universe and start thinking about what you get lavishly paid to do. Emphatically repeating "Think of the children!" won't get a giant statue of yourself built. We didn't build all these crazy white buildings so you could complain like a 7th grade girl. It's time to grow up and live up to this great city you have the privilege of living in. You can start by allocating money to upkeep the National Lawn which, in my opinion, looks worse than that crackhead's lawn down the street on the corner. Take some pride in yourself.

I want to live here. Other big cities are great, but this one has heart. This one is real. This one embodies all the things that are great about our country. And all the things that really suck.
That's why I left my heart in Capitol City.

City and state?

Watch these two videos and figure out what city and what state am I driving through.
The first person to answer correctly on the comments board wins!
(the city is not in the state.)

When in Rome...

"Well, when in Rome" I said as I was handed a shot of tequila.
"Rome?" someone asked me.
"Yeah, they built this place to look exactly like it."
And indeed they had. Most of the important buildings I had seen earlier that day were adorned with columns, white marble, and intricate carvings depicting oddly roman looking scenes of people draped in togas. Even the rotunda within the National Archives sported 2 incredibly large murals depicting our founding fathers in romanesque garb signing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; both of which were on display below.
Washington DC was wierd because everything here was so real. No smoke and mirrors. No replica of a roman castle. This was solid granite. This was the actual Apollo 11 (another rome reference?) that had orbited the moon in 1969. Yes, everything here felt real. And I felt real, too.

More on Capitol City later.

See Eric's photos of DC here and more of my photos here.

Last Night on the Mass Pike...

Well, it was actually yesterday afternoon on the Massachusetts Turnpike...
The birthplace of the American Revolution offered many interesting sights and delicious foods. I walked with my parents around the Harvard campus which was riddled with the cryptic message VE RI TAS. Harvard's "official" motto reads "Veritas christo et ecclesiae" - Truth for Christ and the Church. Sometime in the last 300 years, as many institutions have, Harvard has turned away from it's christian roots, but split the word "veritas" into 3 syllables - My assumption is that this dividing up of Veritas is a subtle reference to the original motto. Harvard was a neat campus but I didn't snap any photos.
We drove by Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox, just so I could scope out the team we'll be beating in the W.S. (don't say the words, it's bad luck).
Friday morning I hit the road again. I decited to spring for the toll road this time instead of driving through Rhode Island (which, on the way to Boston, took only 45 minutes to drive through...) I took the infamous Mass Pike west out of Boston. Being so used to driving on E-470, the only toll road in Colorado, I neglected to obtain the toll road ticket when I got on the road. I realized this about 20 miles down the road, and panicked briefly, thinking I would get a harsh penalty.
But, when I got to the toll booth where I was to present my ticket, I told the lady "Uhh, I don't have a ticket but I've been on since Boston..." she replied, in a thick Bostonian accent, "Ooh that's alright honey, no problem. It's $2.65." These people are sure awfully nice here.
Microsoft Streets and Trips routed me through Queens. At 4pm. On a Friday. That was sure fun. I did see NYC from a distance, though. I finally got back to Jersey where I transferred my necessary goods to Jake's Benz and we trucked down to DC.
Long day of driving, to say the least.