A Long Trip and the Mothership of all Expos

It took us about 2 extra hours to get to our destination of Braintree, MA, because of stupid traffic near DC and Baltimore. We drove a total of 15 hours. Unfortunately, I will never look at an Oriole the same way. Besides two hours in standstill traffic because of no reason, the trip to Boston went really well.

How much shit do you need for a weeklong trip? Well, ALL of it.

I did learn a few things on our way.

1) We travel really well together. We have a lot of experience with long trips and we can pull them off without tears, fighting, tantrums, and silent treatments in the car (mostly anyway). My oldest son would probably be happy tucked in the corner so he could read the entire Harry Potter series AGAIN, but my youngest doesn’t care much for reading. He draws, plays with transformer type toys, and he even made one of them into a gold winning gymnast. They are quite flexible and a lot easier to fix than a real gymnast when their hip pops out. Their movie player stopped working on Day 2, so that was a bummer for them, but they just went on and did other things.  We have a Battleship tournament going. I read a little of last month’s Runner’s World, but for the most part, my husband and I just chatted along the way. Oh, I did take a huge honkin nap within the first few hours of our trip on Thursday, but that was to be expected after all the stress to get my shit together and house cleaned up for this trip. I have NEVER regretted stressing to have the house clean when we leave because I totally appreciate it more when I get home and I don’t have a disaster to deal with.

2) We hate traffic. As soon as we knew we were stuck miles before we even hit DC, we went into PTSD mode. Living and driving through Houston twice a day for two years has traumatized my husband.  We did end up finding a little bit longer route around Baltimore but we were going somewhere instead of sitting there being angry.  Thankfully we didn’t have traffic issues on Day 2.

3) The route from Wilmington to Boston is filled with really cool sites.  We saw the heart of DC, although we didn’t get to drive closer as planned because of #2. We saw downtown New York City. We crossed over many really cool, huge bridges.

We were in the Bronx. We saw come pretty cool little towns on our epic fail “detour” towards Plymouth. We saw Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower II.  It’s just a rock but it’s a pretty neat place where a lot of history happened.

THE rock

We ate dinner while watching people race go karts. Pretty cool. I would have included a picture of NYC but it just looks like the sky and road.

Go Kart racing and restaurant, all in one.

4) Don’t believe that all yellow line roads on a map are 4 lane like they advertise themselves to be. I decided to take a “detour” towards Plymouth that would cut some time and miles off our already long trip. Well, that was stupid because it turned out to be a really busy 2 lane road through all the little twists and turns and towns you could imagine. And we couldn’t find a gas station with bathrooms on the INSIDE for miles. Insane. Insane first world problem, I know.

Maps Lie

5) We get the giggles when we are tired. Or bored. Or both. Our conversation turned a little “5th Grade” when we were driving through the various towns. For instance, we laughed about the exit sign confidently blaring “Mianus”. We were disappointed we never got to see “Youranus”.  Not really. I enjoy looking at the map to find all the little tiny town names that are more interesting than others. One of my favorites is “Gnaw Bone” in Indiana.  For the love of God, why would you actually incorporate a town called “Gnaw Bone”??  We found an interesting brochure at the first hotel we stayed at and giggled a while about that too.

I would visit but I couldn’t help but snicker when the tour guide says “Intercourse”. The guide is snickering too.

We saw the name “Powhite” on a sign and I couldn’t help but wonder if the name originated because that’s where all the “po’ white” people lived. Then my favorite is “Wequetequock”. Say that when you’ve had a few glasses of wine. Or just say that anyway. Then it reminded me of this:

So then we had to entertain ourselves by reading all the names of the towns along the way for quite a while as Sylvester the Cat or Daffy Duck.  Mature, I know. But it was funny.

THE EXPO.  I get to go to the Boston Marathon Expo today. I’m literally jumping up and down clapping my hands like a 5-year-old. Besides running the race and probably the Red Sox game on Wednesday, I’ve been more excited about THIS part than almost any other part.  The Mecca for runners. The Mothership of all Expos. I can’t wait. I’m afraid of buying all the things…. I mean, how would I get them home? 🙂 I am also excited to meet a bunch of other bloggers who are running. We’ve been chatting and trying to help each other for a few months, and to actually meet them is super exciting. So I’m counting down until we leave and head to Boston for a full day of fun.

How am I feeling? I had a great little jog yesterday where I looped the parking lots of a few businesses about a hundred times because the roads were scary.  My parents arrived here last night and asked me how I was feeling. Well, I’m feeling good but I’m at the point where I’m wide eyed thinking WHAT THE HELL DID I DO???? I have to run 26+ miles in just a few days! It’s gonna hurt!!! But I know deep down that this is an amazing adventure, a journey, and an experience that I will treasure for the rest of my life. So I’m feeling happy, lucky, pretty damn good!