Every day is a winding road

L and I took our first East Coast road trip this weekend. We left the house on Friday at 8 with the intention of getting to Princeton, NJ by 11:30ish. This plan was immediately de-railed by 1) the need for gas, 2) the need to put air in a tire (I officially have the WORST luck with tires), and 3) my desire to pick up food to eat in the car. So in reality, we probably didn't officially get on the road til around 9.

My thoughts on the drive:

• I still really enjoy road trips with L (which is fortunate since we're only 9 months in to the rest of our lives). I love that we make each other laugh so much about absolutely nothing and I also love that it's still fun to play the "First Dance" song game even though we're married.

• Much as I love road trips with L, we were both so frustrated by the time we got to the hotel on Friday night that we both swore up and down we would NEVER drive to New York again. Side note: HSG, be so glad that it didn’t work out for you take that trip last summer that would’ve involved driving from Boston to the Outer Banks or wherever last summer. It’s such a stupidly long drive, and I’ve only done a fraction of it now. Plus there's no excuse for not flying because there's a gazillion major airports between those two cities and when you drive, you have to drive through Pennsylvania and freaking Maryland. Geez. Maryland. Speaking of, here's a pic of the tunnel you have to go through north of Baltimore:
 

 
I really like how that picture turned out. Moving on.
Other roadtrip musings:

• My car really does get incredibly good gas mileage. I had forgotten this. Also I'm remembering I should've gotten gas after yoga tonight. I bet I have just enough get to work in the morning, though... I'm feeling lucky.

• Entirely too many people were on the road for a Friday night.

• I have no idea why there are SO MANY toll roads on I-95. This was also baffling because in Texas, it's free to drive on I-35 and I-45/75, I-20, and I-10. Never have I been asked to pay to drive on regular roads before. Only toll roads. And they're called toll roads because they have tolls. Very self-explanatory.

• I hate the bridge in Philadelphia. Apparently I may have a problem with driving on bridges now. This is new. Also I have no idea what the bridge is called or if it's the only one, so to be more specific, I hate the double-decker one that seems extra high and VERY long. It should be noted that I was too nervous to look to the sides to find out how high we actually were, so it's actually entirely possible we were only 20 feet off the water and that the incline and decline were just very gradual. Who knows. Also I don't know for sure that it was double-decker. L speculates that it was, though. Like I said, I was focused on just getting to the other side and not checking out the scenery.

• The roads in Pennsylvania = not cool. I drove through most of PA on Friday and my first thought was, "This feels like driving on I-20 into Shreveport." Love you, Louisiana, but you're not known for having the smoothest of roads. Let it be known henceforth that driving in PA is like driving over speed bumps at 70 mph. Wish I was exaggerating.

• The gps on my phone is quite the jokester. So is GoogleMaps. After slowing down to a mere 5 mph twice during our trip (north of Baltimore for about 25 minutes and north of Philadelphia for about 40 minutes), L and I particularly enjoyed making laps around Princeton while we first hunted for Alexander Road (thanks, GM) and then while we followed the directions that the gps gave us. It's always fun when you go down dark, creepy roads that lead to nowhere at 1:30 a.m. and then the gps tells you, upon "arrival" to your destination of nowhere that it has a new, completely different set of directions for you.

• It took us roughly 5 hours to get through 5 states. That was just a weird feeling.

• I really love the bath products that Doubletree Hotels give you. Hooray for Neutrogena!

• The same Doubletree also housed a restaurant called Off the Bone. This was simultaneously both hilarious and gross to me and L. Lots of jokes were made (think sexual innuendos), but seriously, I don't want to think about pulling meat off bones. I feel the same way about the term, "laser hair removal." Gross. Fine if you want to wax or whatever (that term allows me to mentally think about melted wax), but "hair removal" sounds so gross to me. It conjures images of the hair that has been removed. If your reaction to that was a full body shiver, then it was the right reaction.

More to come on the rest of the road trip... just give me time to upload the pics.