Yesterday was spent touring Philadelphia with Garrett and Brandy, and today is a work/travel day.

Our day started off doing a photo shoot (Yes, we’re also models…in very high demand.) for Garrett’s new shirt designs. Each design is a character from a comic book he just finished. They’ll soon be for sale and he’s given us a couple to model around the continent, taking pictures and whatnot for sales/internet material. As soon as he gets a website up, we’ll be letting you all know.

This, in turn, makes him our first sponsor, and we’ll be announcing another a few stops from now.

Next, we had lunch at Geno’s, world famous for their cheesesteaks and patriotism.

After the delicious lunch, we walked all over the city. We got to see Love Park, the Benjamin Franklin Institute, and various other parks along the way. Our last stop was the Museum of Art, famous for the Rocky scene where he runs up the steps, which offered a great view of the city at dusk.

Finally, we ended up at a bar called McGlinchey’s with well-priced drinks and a cute server.

Earlier in the day, I decided that I needed a haircut. Which, I did. I actually cut my own hair, with a 12 guard on clippers, all around. I’ve been wanting to use the “Left Ear” and “Right Ear” guards, so I did. Unfortunately, this looked utterly ridiculous. There was only one option from there: Shave it.

Click here for more pictures.

Ben

Popularity: 12% [?]

We hit up Baltimore in a hurry since both of the main attractions strained our ever-tightening budget. The aquarium was going to cost $22/person, which was slightly more than we value the company of fish. Consumption is a different story, and so we opted to instead spend our money on some crab cakes at Obrycki’s. Very tasty!

One of my personal highlights was when we were using the WiFi at a Barne’s & Noble a homeless looking guy struck up a conversation. It turns out he found a great deal on a quad-core Intel desktop and was suggesting that I buy it instead of working on my laptop. Of course I don’t have any place to even put the thing, so the irony made me laugh as I explained that I live in a van. It was even more interesting that the guy claimed to be an ex-research scientist at Johns Hopkins, and then dropped some comments & explanations that made it seem fairly plausible. I was curious to hear how he went from Point A (scientist) to Point B (homeless), but at the same time I didn’t want to hear that it started with a road trip, so I just politely excused myself!

Popularity: 7% [?]

Trying to explain this road trip idea to people has forced me to do what a lot of people that struggle to justify their actions do: make up new words. My word is “lifecation,” add it to your spell check because it’s going to be hot.

So what is a lifecation? As you probably surmised it’s a combination of normal life and a vacation, although the formal definition hasn’t been officially penned yet. What I can tell you is that a lifecation is a lifestyle in which you aren’t tied to locations. You get to go where you want, when you want, to see the people and places that usually are too inconvenient for a sedentary lifestyle. It sounds all fancy-free, like a vacation, but you don’t get to escape your responsibilities as those would allow. You still have to take your calls, get your mail, and produce an income because lifecations are a full-time lifestyle and need to be sustainable.

You don’t need to live in a van or drive around the US, you just need to give up a set of assumed constraints on your lifestyle. What those are, and how you can successfully keep your life in order while lifecationing, will be explored as we continue our very own!

Popularity: 14% [?]

Day two was spent getting some needed supplies and hanging out with Alexi’s family friends Paul and Barbara.  They were amazing hosts who took us out for a fantastic Greek dinner and amazing breakfast.  In addition, we got a great night’s sleep and a shower in real beds.

It’s an interesting head trip to throw yourself into a minimal working life, then spend time in the presence of someone who has already done very well for themselves who loves what they do and work very hard at it.  It certainly brings more of an experience-based input into the combination of ambitions being lived out on this trip.

One of the things that we’re trying to learn is how to best manage our time in order to keep up the blog timeline, create interesting blog posts, client work, and business operations.  It’s a lot to juggle, especially considering the logistics of travel, the resources provided by the destinations, the sights needing to be seen, etc.

For example, on the way from DC to Baltimore this morning, I recorded 45 minutes of video interviews to my hard drive which I had tried to fit in yesterday morning.  On the drive to Philadelphia tonight, I’ll likely edit those videos as much as possible, then upload them tonight.  From your perspective as the reader, you’re probably not interested in investing 30-45 minutes watching several videos, so we then have to spread out when we publish those videos.  These are the kinds of things we’re still learning how to best address and work through, and there are about a 5-10 of these kinds of decisions a day.

Hopefully, we’ll have a good framework of considerations for mobile lifestyles so that we can articulate them for your benefit.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Well, we made it on the road!  It turned out that what we thought was a starter or alternator was actually a faulty ground wire.  It was a very easy $180 fix…which we really enjoyed paying.

We got into Washington DC last night and hung out with my good friend, Michael.  We were lucky enough to get a good interview with him about how to brew beer, which I’ll be posting in the next couple of days.

After enjoying the first road part of our road trip, some great homemade Belgians and conversation, we turned in for the night.

Today was spent going to all of the expected Washington DC sights, including the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Capitol Building, White House, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, and World War II Memorial - which was just finished a couple of years ago.  We finished the sight-seeing with a touring of the Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian which was definitely rad.  Michael took us to all of the sights in record time and a comfortable pace.

After stopping back by Michael’s, we decided to try staying the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot…something we had heard you can do, but never tried.  When we got here, we saw two other, larger campers and knew we were golden.  A free night of sleep is definitely going to fit well with our budget and look forward to many more nights in these parking lots.

We also discovered that the propane stove works like a charm by cooking up some pasta, chicken and tomato sauce.  It was just as good as anything I’d cook at home and cost less than $1.25 for each of us to eat.  Bonus.

Tomorrow morning, we’ve lined up a free wi-fi hot spot at a coffee shop to get some work done and upload pictures and video, so be on the lookout for those around lunch time.

Now, it’s time to pass out.

Popularity: 18% [?]

My first impression of the van was great: it drives like a hovercraft, and has (with a stretch of the imagination) something of a space capsule feel to the interior. It ran like a champ back from the airport, but when we tried to start it back up to make some errands yesterday it just made some clicking noises. We’ve been told that it’s likely an alternator / starter issue, so I had AAA come pick it up and take it to a local shop. We’re not off to a great start but I’m hoping once we clear this up we’ll have cleared out all bad luck for a while.

-Alexi

Popularity: 17% [?]

I’m driving to Baltimore right now.

This post is coming to you through thee magic of the internet, cellular technology, laptops, power inverters, and unsafe driving practices.

Ben

Popularity: 12% [?]

There’s an article on MSN today about how to take a year off of work. It does a decent job of outlining considerations to make in preparation financially as well as work-wise. They discuss how to prepare and/or tap into savings, statistics about paid/unpaid leaves of absense, and even options for cool seasonal jobs to help ease the financial burden.

While I’ve never taken a year off from work, I’ve been consulting since last November and have had times when I’ve been less busy than others. That said, I have to disagree with the idea of taking a year off from work, even if it’s just me who disagress with the idea.

There comes a point where lacking productivity becomes a burden in its own right. The combination of purposelessness, uncertainty, lack of contribution to something beyond yourself, and boredom all come together and at times can be quite difficult to deal with. Sure, it sounds great to take a year off from work, but the reality is that unless you’ve been working 80+ hours a week for several years, you probably don’t need a year to do nothing.

Here’s the caveat: If you’re going to take a year off from work, still do something. If you’ve wondered why this road trip is happening, this should give you a bit of insight.

If you’re going to take an extended time off from work, find something else to throw yourself into. Chances are that it’s not work that you don’t like, it’s that you’re busting your butt toward something that you either don’t, or no longer, care about. So, find something you really care about, or find something that you think would be remarkably fun and amazing, and do it all the way.

Ben

Popularity: 14% [?]

It’s called “This vs. That.”  It’s a doozy.

Enjoy.

Ben

Popularity: 18% [?]

At the very least, we’ll be doing weekly videos from here on out. Today, I took some video of the van and put it together so you could see our glorious abode.

Enjoy.

Ben

Popularity: 21% [?]