To be honest, there wasn’t much in the Midwest that we had our hearts set on seeing. We caught almost all of the highlights that we had intended on: the Mall of America, and the Wall Drug store. Unfortunately we missed seeing Mount Rushmore because we didn’t roll in to that part of South Dakota until 7pm, long after the park closed. Instead of bumming around until morning we decided to try to make the 2000 mile drive as short as possible.
The people of Mitchell, South Dakota made up for our loss by presenting us with an undeniable barrage billboards (only beaten by Wall Drug, numbering in the hundreds) suggesting that we visit their “Corn Palace.” They found a sucker in me, and I convinced Ben to pull the van over. We were amazed by what fancy creations can come from a town full of highly motivated & deathly bored citizens. The pictures speak for themselves.
So there’s America’s Midwest: indoor roller coasters, corn castles, anamatronic cowboys, and awesome scenery. Our stay at Yellowstone was quite another story, but that’s… another story. More photos after the jump.
We’re not sure if this rule always applies, but it seems like taking small roads across the boarder is a much better idea than larger ones. Getting into Canada via some tiny little road was a snap. The guy asked us if we were bringing anything in, Ben says “only what’s in the van,” and we cross over. Ok, maybe there was a little negligence on the Customs Officer’s part, but whatever. We’re good people.
Getting back into the US we decided to shoot straight down I-87. BAD IDEA. The traffic there was horrible, as you can see in the left photo. As we finally got closer I saw a bunch of signs that I thought were amusing (right photo,) but apparently the Customs officers didn’t. They detained us for about 15 minutes, asking questions and attempting to delete my photos the entire time. While they didn’t manage to do that, they did manage to record a voice memo, which I kindly put at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!
I can’t even operate the computers at work, I can’t operate a digital camera.
Boston was a blast. We saw history, boats, smart people, and culture. We slept in peaceful neighborhoods, and partied with the college kids. And most importantly, we had great people to show us around and make it an all around good time (thanks Jankowskis & Ben!)
Last night, we ended up going to Stoned Crow in the upper East side to meet up with a good friend of mine, Sarah, who has awesome music tastes and great intellect. It was definitely a good time with some beer funds being used as well.
We’re just outside of Boston tonight. The ride wasn’t too bad. It would have been nice to miss NYC traffic and see Connecticut during the day, but we made do.
Speaking of, New Haven and Hartford seem like they could be really cool cities. We both agree on that based on the kind of experience that you get driving through a city. It’s well-founded.
Tomorrow, we have a few options of plans including meeting up with an old friend, sneaking into college classes, and riding my fixed gear around town. If the weather is good, I’ll definitely be downtown on my bike. Saturday, we’re aiming for the Samuel Adams brewery.
After that, we’ll be heading to the coast of Maine either Saturday night or Sunday morning.
For now, we’re going to crash. Hard. In another Wal-Mart parking lot.
Yesterday, we took some time to learn how the internet works. After a series of amazing discoveries and referencing Google Analytics click data, we checked our PayPal account that is setup to accept beer donations.
We were totally stoked to find several donations! Thank You!
Seriously, that’s so awesome. We’ll be sure to keep everyone posted with the shenanigans that occur as a results of those donations.
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.
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.
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.
That's a very good question. Basically, we're just a couple of single, 20-something guys who run their own online businesses and are pushing the limits of the mobile lifestyle. Hopefully, our example will inspire you to get out of your cube and do the same. [More Ben] [More Alexi]
