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.

American Revolution

Boston's Freedom Trail is a red line that snakes through Boston. No, the red line is not just on the map, there's actually a red line that stretches 2.5 miles through the city, occasionally studded with a bronze medallion embedded in the pavement indicating a stop. Starting at Boston Common, the oldest city park in the country (1634), the trail stops at several significant historical sites which were pivotal in instigating the American Revolutionary War - and Freedom. Most of the stops had to do with Paul Revere - "One if by land and two if by sea...." Halfway through the trail I was able to eat at a very delicious Italian restaurant (mmm veal), then coffee and cannoli at Mike's Pastry.
I met my parents here - they flew in on the 10th, so I get to stay in a hotel (Hotel@MIT) instead of in my car or on somebody's floor. Despite being a stone's throw from one of the most advanced technological universities in the country, their "free wireless internet" is non-existent, but luckily there is an ethernet cable in the room (which works, it just took quite a while to set it up).

More later on the freedom trail, Harvard, and my American revolution.

Atlantic City

Here I am in Atlantic City. This place is basically a really toned down version of Las Vegas - and Donald Trump owns most of it. It's got most of the big casinos - Bally's, Cesar's Palace, Tropicana, MGMGrand. There's also a boardwalk that runs along the coast - 4.7 miles long. I walked from the Showboat (old people casino) all the way down to the Tropicana and back which was about 2 miles each way. The city was very expensive, unlike Vegas, and I looked high and low for a McD's, but could not find one. I finally found a BK but it was $7 for the #1 combo. I only lost like $10 in the slot machines, though.
There were signs that said "Please do not feed the Boardwalk Cats," and, after looking for a while, I found them hanging out underneath the wooden planks of the boardwalk. Silly kitties.
Click here to browse more pictures.

Nighttime

It's scary driving at night. Well, let me augment that by saying it's scary driving at night when you've been driving all day and now you're in a random location in the middle of god knows where heading towards an ultimately unknown location that's 2,500 miles away from home.
I had my first moment of panic heading north on I-35 coming out of Des Moines, Iowa. The last dwindling photons of the daylight had recently been absolved and now all I could see was the oblong pattern of my headlights that shown on the dark grey surface of the road. I thought: I've been driving for twelve hours at an average speed of 70 miles an hour through four states towards a small town south of St. Paul where I might get to sleep on my sister's floor. I'm in the middle of nowhere and it would take a long time to turn around and go back to the comfort of my home. When the thought hit me my chest tightened, I could feel my face go pale, and my knuckles turned white as I gripped the steering wheel. This feeling... I hadn't felt it in a long time. Fear.
Graduating from college last May had certainly provided me with an uneasiness, maybe even a fear, about the future: what am I going to do now, how will I pay my student loans, where will I live, etc., but what I was feeling right now was something much different. It was primal, almost. It felt so real, and I felt so alive.
Soon the feeling subsided and Jesse took over operating the machine on wheels.

After parting ways with my traveling compadre in Grand Rapids I was now alone to drive eastward.

Prius Parking Only

Yes it's true. In Penn., you get a special reserved parking spot for having a so called low emitting vehicle. The thing is, it was the farthest spot from the door to the sparsly populated "service plaza" on the toll road. So this is what the tolls are paying for...

Ohio

All of the rest areas (or so called "service plazas" - they were on a toll road) in Ohio looked exactly like this one.

Wolfgang's

The restaurant "Wolfgang's" in east side Grand Rapids. The menus here had all these altered movie posters that showed the owner, Matt Wolfgang, starring in movies such as "Egg City" (Sin City). This was a big omelette. Ham, pineapple, onions, cheddar cheese, and a generous amount of cream cheese. Needless to say I wasn't able to finish the entire thing.