The Trip: Boston [Post 2 of 3]
Once again, hover over the pictures for more commentary.
Day Four: Thursday, June 23, 2011
So we got to a bit of a late start-my phone was on silent, so we didn't hear the alarm go off. We ended up getting up at 9:00 instead of the 8:00 we planned.
Sharon tripped and twisted her ankle while we were loading the car, which was great. What was equally great was us finding a bottle of her meds and realizing they were all melted together in a giant ball of uselessness. She'd left them outside and it had, of course, rained, and it's kind of a fact of chemistry that when pills get wet, they start to dissolve. Of course, if it's also hot and sticky, they don't completely melt; no, they fuse into said giant ball of uselessness as if to mock you about how you can no longer use them for their intended purpose. I told Sharon to call Mom and see if there was anything that could be done about replacing them while we were away, though I assumed probably not.
Another really super great thing? Getting into the car, Sylvia pulling out the GPS and turning it on...only to find out that the screen somehow got busted. How, we had no fucking clue, since it'd been sitting inside the storage area up front the whole time it was in disuse, but there it was, mocking us in its brokenness.
Sharon’s phone and my phone both have Sprint Navigation at least, so I stole Sharon's phone to use for our makeshift GPS. We got out of there and found a post office to mail postcards, so it was around eleven by the time we really got going, which is pretty much about the time we really got going from Toledo. Yay, a pattern. Oh, and we also discovered that there was a Wal Mart on the outskirts of Gettysburg in the opposite direction we'd been going toward the other town's Wal Mart. The one that was about thirty minutes away. We're awesome.
Funnily enough, though, while everything else was breaking? It was also here that we discovered that Sylvia's previously-dead camera had sprung back to life and was perfectly functional again. Idek.
We stopped for lunch at this sandwich place called Isaac's-that was pretty good.
When we got to New York, the lack of a proper GPS and Sylvia's general advanced ability to get lost no matter the circumstances combined to ensure our trip through the city was much longer than anticipated. That was okay, though, because it was fucking hilarious. This brings us to the part of our program where I share a shitton of quotes with you.
"Ah!" Sylvia shouted. "What the hell! You can't do that!"
"Huh." I looked thoughtful. "Sylvia is surprised by New York drivers cutting her off..."
"Who taught these people how to drive?" Sylvia asked.
"Other New Yorkers."
After Sylvia pretty much hugged some guy's bumper to refuse to let some other dick in:
"Wow," I said, stunned. "Sylvia just out-dicked a New Yorker."
Smugly, she replied, "I'm from Michigan. We're wily."
"Well, you're already in the middle of the fucking road, so you might as well go!"
"I must be from out of town, because I just used my blinker."
"You're double parked! You can't fucking double park!"
"...again," I said slowly, "we're in New York..."
"The cracker jack fairy just came and sprinkled [driver's licenses] on these people. No one actually taught them how to drive. She just went, 'Here! Go drive! Have fun!'"
"No one's making eye contact. Are they all robots?" She proceeded to look intently out her window at some guy. "He won't look over. He's still not looking. Now he's looking down. Do you think I'm making him uncomfortable? I'M FROM MICHIGAN!"
"Why don't they look out their windows? Are they scared? Do they think the person in the next car will beat them up? I bet they're cyborgs. It's not normal!"
"You know," I interjected, "there is a bit of a disconnect between what you do and what normal people do."
"No, but look, this guy, he just looked surprised, like, 'Why are you breaking? Are you actually concerned for my life?' Yes! Yes I am, dude!"
"There's a stop sign. Look at this lady. Bet she'll treat it as a yield. Watch. Yep! See? Hey! That's a stop, lady!"
"I figured this city out. Don't pay attention to signs and never ever look in people's windows. It's like you're a horse with blinders on. There is nothing beside you! Look straight ahead at all times!"
"Roll down your window and be like, 'How you' doin'?'" Sylvia suggested.
"...no."
"What, you think they'd shoot you?"
"No, I think they'd look at me like I'm a fucking idiot, because I would be."
"It's a good thing you didn't bring me to New York because I'd ask questions."
"Well, we're planning to come to New York next year..."
"I'm gonna ask questions."
"Great. I'm gonna have to be like, 'Ignore her, don't answer, it only encourages her.'"
"Look at her, looking at her phone, sipping her coffee, not caring that there's a world around you! Wake up!" She paused. "You mean this isn't like a movie, where we could just stop the car and get out and be like, 'Hey, people! This is what the world's all about!' and just lift up the song? No?"
"No. I think they'd just be like, 'Get the fuck out of the way!'"
Sharon, chiming in, "Pretty much."
"That's pretty there. Is that Central Park?" Sylvia asked.
"...no. Central Park's in the, you know, center of Manhattan."
"...is that why it's called Central Park?"
"Hey, where'd my buddy go? I lost him. We were together since the tunnel. Me and that dude had been through a lot together. We were like this." She crossed her fingers. "We were starting to get to know each other. We were friends."
"Do you even know his name?"
"Well, no, but he doesn't know my name either, so it's cool."
"Ah, so a very close personal friendship, then."
"We were good friends. In New York, that's like best friends."
"You see that hole? 90 people will get in that small hole! We don't leave holes! Go! Cut someone off like you did me! Thank you. We don't leave holes, dude. I will throw this bad boy in park and come up there and tell you what's what. Well, maybe I won't because I'm kind of a chickenshit, but. I will tell you from here! In my own car. In my bubble. Where you can't pull a knife on me and stab me. Or shoot me. With an unregistered gun. That they'd never find. Because you'd probably throw it in that river over there. ...I watch too much Law & Order."
After we'd been in bumper-to-bumper traffic for the past, oh, half-an-hour, the phone: "Checking route for traffic."
Sylvia, rolling her eyes: "I think there's traffic, lady."
"All in all, I think I've done pretty good for being a small-town girl from Michigan driving in this traffic. I didn't get scared. I just got road rage."
We also went through Harrison to find a gas station; huge, gorgeous houses all over. (Seriously. Do the Corlionis have a place here?)
We stopped in New Haven for dinner at The Athenian Diner. Cool-looking place. My character Greg, from The Sun From Both Sides, who lives in New Haven? Totally goes there, no lie. We stopped once more after that for a restroom break, and the cumulative effect of our late start, the longer detour through New York, and the various stops put us not getting to the campground until 11:40. No one was at the check-in place, so we just went back to our site. We were tired and it was raining (of course!) so we just slept in the car.
Day Five: Friday, June 24, 2011
We woke up at 6:00 to try to check in again, to no avail. So we returned to the campsite, wherein Sylvia noticed a chipmunk. "Hey, it's a chipmunk! Aw, chipmunk...oh, goddammit, that chipmunk is gnawing on my tote! Go the fuck away you goddamn fucking chipmunk!" We set up from there, got the tent up and then crashed for a little longer, until around 11:30.
After that we got up and showered, then left, which was when we managed to finally check in. We stopped once again at The Evil Empire for a GPS, since hers was, as you know, totally dead. (We're just death to electronics. Maybe we're secretly related to Newton Pulsifer.) I also got a new fan, since I killed one (like I said) and Sharon got a chair, since hers broke. (I guess it's not just electronics.) We grabbed some Subway for lunch, then headed out to Boston.
Since it was so late, we grabbed some parking and just kind of wandered. We walked through the public gardens first. Lol, so we happened upon a statue of George Washington, and his name is on the side of the statue in huge letters, so of course Sharon still had to ask who he was. "He's just some random dude from Washington State, obviously," I said.
Sylvia laughed and went, "Even though Washington State didn't actually exist yet at the time..."
"Obviously," I added, "he's a time-traveler. Duh. He's friends with the Doctor."
Oh us.
We also looked at some pretty, old churches (most of which had gay pride flags out front, awesome) and took pictures of random things.
Then we ended up at the library, which was gorgeous.
Someone was getting married there, which. Dude. Awesome. Still, probably cost a fortune. It looked pretty extravagant, too. Bride's dress was pretty. If I had the remotest desire to get married and also was, you know, totally loaded, I would definitely get married there too. Or if I could somehow find a child or grandchild of Charles' to marry. They'd be rich enough for that, lol. (No lie, every time I saw the Charles River on our map, I could only think of that ep of M*A*S*H, "Mr. and Mrs. Who?" where Charles recounts getting wasted and trying to swim it, because obviously it was named after him was therefore his river. Oh Charles.)
The library closed at 5:00, so we wandered around a little more, found a Starbucks and totally by luck managed to happen upon the public gardens and therefore our parking garage again. That was pretty nice. On the way back, as we were wandering, some guy tried to stop us and talk to us. He started off by saying, "You look friendly enough." which, lol, I was pretty sure that was code for, "You look like tourists." I was just like, "Sorry, but we've got to be somewhere." and we kept going. We were pretty sure he was trying to sell something-it had that kind of ‘pitch’ sound to it.
So we left Boston after that, stopping at a grocery store called Stop & Shop to get some food for dinner. We ended up not being able to get the fire started (all the kindling was too wet) so we just said, "Fuck it." and ate the deli chicken we'd picked up to go with our mac & cheese. It worked. Tasty, too. Mmm, bourbon chicken.
We chilled in the tent from that point on, planning what we'd do tomorrow. (King's Chapel, Old South Meeting House, Paul Revere's house, Old North Church, etc.)
Day Six: Saturday, June 25, 2011
Another rude awakening! This time it was in the form of the tent collecting water again and crashing in on us. This probably had something to do with the ripped corner.
So we grabbed all of our crap (of course this happened the morning after we'd decided, oh, the tent's fine now, we can move our stuff back in) and got to the car. We had some laundry to do, so we decided to look for a laundromat. As we were driving, Sylvia at one point wanted to raise her fist to the sky and go, "Give me all you've got!" but I talked her out of it since she'd already tempted fate once by asking what else could possibly go wrong. I did promise her, however, that if we ever made a movie about this trip, we could embellish and say that she did.
We eventually found a laundromat, but of course it didn't open until 8:00, and it was only about 7:30 when we found it. Fuck you too, universe. Our answer? McDonald's breakfast. That beats all.
After breakfast, we went back to the laundromat for round one. We knew we'd have to return later to dry all the sleeping bags/pillows. Sylvia commented, as she used the Shout stain stuff on her blanket, that she hoped it would get the blood out, as Sharon had previously gotten a bloody nose and bled on it a bit. I went, "Hey, if it does, they've got a new slogan. 'If it's good enough for a serial killer, it's good enough for you!'" Maria started laughing in my head.
So we did our laundry, then Sylvia broke into this back room area to change. Sharon went back there too and discovered a camera. Despite the possibility of video evidence, she also changed. (I demurred, 'cause, I dunno, I'm kind of picky about the people I let watch me undress, and random strangers behind video cameras in shady laundromats don't make the cut. Call it a quirk.)
We made yet another stop at The Evil Empire after that and finally bought a new fucking tent. We were done. It was time to head into Boston after that, to work on our game plan. We walked part of the Freedom Trail, from the Boston Commons to the Old North Church and back. We stopped at King's Chapel, the Old South Meeting House, Paul Revere's house, the Granary Burying Ground, the Old Corner Bookstore, and the site of the Boston Massacre along the way. We were going to do the USS Constitution as well, but by the time we got back to the car, we were pretty bushed. It was almost four miles, plus all the walking around in the various places we'd stopped. At the Old North Church we went on this cool tour where they took us up into the bell ringing area and down into the crypt. It was neat, and I got a lot of pictures. I also got my mom another keychain (her Gettysburg one got eaten by the car; seriously, it was there one minute, gone the next) and my "big" souvenir of Boston, another notebook. (Once again, I anticipate surprise and shock.) I would've gotten this really nice pen instead but they were, annoyingly, out of my name. Sadness. I also got a little postcard happy along the Freedom Trail. Seriously, I was sending out about five. I ended up with fifteen. Oh self.
After that, we headed back to the car and the campsite, set up the new tent and took down the very wet old one. The new tent was smaller than the old one, but doable, and also, you know, it was actually waterproof. So it was all good. Then Sylvia and I went to the laundromat to dry/wash our things. We actually ended up going to a different laundromat than the last one, because Sylvia did not want to return to the scene of the crime, lol. The new laundromat was a lot nicer than the old one, though, so again, all good.
Sharon called during this and pointed out we didn't have a strainer, which was kind of an issue when trying to make mac and cheese, so Sylvia ran over to the dollar tree to get one while I waited with our clothes. We finished up and headed back shortly after that, but ended up giving up on the mac and cheese because it'd become some kind of powdery, cheesy...mush. Gross. I ate cheetos instead. A very nutritious dinner, cheetos.
We went to shower after that (minus Sharon, who was tired, so we told her she had to ride in the back if she was going to be stinky) and these girls came in just as Sylvia and I were getting ready to get out and get dressed. They took for-fucking-ever, too. How long does it take to go to the bathroom? You could talk about your tent or what the fuck ever as you walked back to your campsite, people. We would like to get dressed and go to sleep, please.
It was raining as we left the bathhouse. Of course. At least I had a towel to use as a cover to prevent getting too wet.
Back at the tent, we were getting comfortable, and Sylvia was all jealous of our sleeping bags, since she'd been cold. (Boston had been nice and cool. Minus the rain, it'd been perfect.) Just before we were about to turn in for the night, Sylvia sat up and held up a small round purple ball. "Why is there a gobstopper in my bed?" she asked.
Why indeed. But it kind of perfectly summed everything up so far, because: why not? That seemed to be the theme.
Last post should be up tomorrow!
Back to Gettysburg. Onward to D.C.
Day Four: Thursday, June 23, 2011
So we got to a bit of a late start-my phone was on silent, so we didn't hear the alarm go off. We ended up getting up at 9:00 instead of the 8:00 we planned.
Sharon tripped and twisted her ankle while we were loading the car, which was great. What was equally great was us finding a bottle of her meds and realizing they were all melted together in a giant ball of uselessness. She'd left them outside and it had, of course, rained, and it's kind of a fact of chemistry that when pills get wet, they start to dissolve. Of course, if it's also hot and sticky, they don't completely melt; no, they fuse into said giant ball of uselessness as if to mock you about how you can no longer use them for their intended purpose. I told Sharon to call Mom and see if there was anything that could be done about replacing them while we were away, though I assumed probably not.
Another really super great thing? Getting into the car, Sylvia pulling out the GPS and turning it on...only to find out that the screen somehow got busted. How, we had no fucking clue, since it'd been sitting inside the storage area up front the whole time it was in disuse, but there it was, mocking us in its brokenness.
Sharon’s phone and my phone both have Sprint Navigation at least, so I stole Sharon's phone to use for our makeshift GPS. We got out of there and found a post office to mail postcards, so it was around eleven by the time we really got going, which is pretty much about the time we really got going from Toledo. Yay, a pattern. Oh, and we also discovered that there was a Wal Mart on the outskirts of Gettysburg in the opposite direction we'd been going toward the other town's Wal Mart. The one that was about thirty minutes away. We're awesome.
Funnily enough, though, while everything else was breaking? It was also here that we discovered that Sylvia's previously-dead camera had sprung back to life and was perfectly functional again. Idek.
We stopped for lunch at this sandwich place called Isaac's-that was pretty good.
When we got to New York, the lack of a proper GPS and Sylvia's general advanced ability to get lost no matter the circumstances combined to ensure our trip through the city was much longer than anticipated. That was okay, though, because it was fucking hilarious. This brings us to the part of our program where I share a shitton of quotes with you.
"Ah!" Sylvia shouted. "What the hell! You can't do that!"
"Huh." I looked thoughtful. "Sylvia is surprised by New York drivers cutting her off..."
"Who taught these people how to drive?" Sylvia asked.
"Other New Yorkers."
After Sylvia pretty much hugged some guy's bumper to refuse to let some other dick in:
"Wow," I said, stunned. "Sylvia just out-dicked a New Yorker."
Smugly, she replied, "I'm from Michigan. We're wily."
"Well, you're already in the middle of the fucking road, so you might as well go!"
"I must be from out of town, because I just used my blinker."
"You're double parked! You can't fucking double park!"
"...again," I said slowly, "we're in New York..."
"The cracker jack fairy just came and sprinkled [driver's licenses] on these people. No one actually taught them how to drive. She just went, 'Here! Go drive! Have fun!'"
"No one's making eye contact. Are they all robots?" She proceeded to look intently out her window at some guy. "He won't look over. He's still not looking. Now he's looking down. Do you think I'm making him uncomfortable? I'M FROM MICHIGAN!"
"Why don't they look out their windows? Are they scared? Do they think the person in the next car will beat them up? I bet they're cyborgs. It's not normal!"
"You know," I interjected, "there is a bit of a disconnect between what you do and what normal people do."
"No, but look, this guy, he just looked surprised, like, 'Why are you breaking? Are you actually concerned for my life?' Yes! Yes I am, dude!"
"There's a stop sign. Look at this lady. Bet she'll treat it as a yield. Watch. Yep! See? Hey! That's a stop, lady!"
"I figured this city out. Don't pay attention to signs and never ever look in people's windows. It's like you're a horse with blinders on. There is nothing beside you! Look straight ahead at all times!"
"Roll down your window and be like, 'How you' doin'?'" Sylvia suggested.
"...no."
"What, you think they'd shoot you?"
"No, I think they'd look at me like I'm a fucking idiot, because I would be."
"It's a good thing you didn't bring me to New York because I'd ask questions."
"Well, we're planning to come to New York next year..."
"I'm gonna ask questions."
"Great. I'm gonna have to be like, 'Ignore her, don't answer, it only encourages her.'"
"Look at her, looking at her phone, sipping her coffee, not caring that there's a world around you! Wake up!" She paused. "You mean this isn't like a movie, where we could just stop the car and get out and be like, 'Hey, people! This is what the world's all about!' and just lift up the song? No?"
"No. I think they'd just be like, 'Get the fuck out of the way!'"
Sharon, chiming in, "Pretty much."
"That's pretty there. Is that Central Park?" Sylvia asked.
"...no. Central Park's in the, you know, center of Manhattan."
"...is that why it's called Central Park?"
"Hey, where'd my buddy go? I lost him. We were together since the tunnel. Me and that dude had been through a lot together. We were like this." She crossed her fingers. "We were starting to get to know each other. We were friends."
"Do you even know his name?"
"Well, no, but he doesn't know my name either, so it's cool."
"Ah, so a very close personal friendship, then."
"We were good friends. In New York, that's like best friends."
"You see that hole? 90 people will get in that small hole! We don't leave holes! Go! Cut someone off like you did me! Thank you. We don't leave holes, dude. I will throw this bad boy in park and come up there and tell you what's what. Well, maybe I won't because I'm kind of a chickenshit, but. I will tell you from here! In my own car. In my bubble. Where you can't pull a knife on me and stab me. Or shoot me. With an unregistered gun. That they'd never find. Because you'd probably throw it in that river over there. ...I watch too much Law & Order."
After we'd been in bumper-to-bumper traffic for the past, oh, half-an-hour, the phone: "Checking route for traffic."
Sylvia, rolling her eyes: "I think there's traffic, lady."
"All in all, I think I've done pretty good for being a small-town girl from Michigan driving in this traffic. I didn't get scared. I just got road rage."
We also went through Harrison to find a gas station; huge, gorgeous houses all over. (Seriously. Do the Corlionis have a place here?)
We stopped in New Haven for dinner at The Athenian Diner. Cool-looking place. My character Greg, from The Sun From Both Sides, who lives in New Haven? Totally goes there, no lie. We stopped once more after that for a restroom break, and the cumulative effect of our late start, the longer detour through New York, and the various stops put us not getting to the campground until 11:40. No one was at the check-in place, so we just went back to our site. We were tired and it was raining (of course!) so we just slept in the car.
Day Five: Friday, June 24, 2011
We woke up at 6:00 to try to check in again, to no avail. So we returned to the campsite, wherein Sylvia noticed a chipmunk. "Hey, it's a chipmunk! Aw, chipmunk...oh, goddammit, that chipmunk is gnawing on my tote! Go the fuck away you goddamn fucking chipmunk!" We set up from there, got the tent up and then crashed for a little longer, until around 11:30.
After that we got up and showered, then left, which was when we managed to finally check in. We stopped once again at The Evil Empire for a GPS, since hers was, as you know, totally dead. (We're just death to electronics. Maybe we're secretly related to Newton Pulsifer.) I also got a new fan, since I killed one (like I said) and Sharon got a chair, since hers broke. (I guess it's not just electronics.) We grabbed some Subway for lunch, then headed out to Boston.
Since it was so late, we grabbed some parking and just kind of wandered. We walked through the public gardens first. Lol, so we happened upon a statue of George Washington, and his name is on the side of the statue in huge letters, so of course Sharon still had to ask who he was. "He's just some random dude from Washington State, obviously," I said.
Sylvia laughed and went, "Even though Washington State didn't actually exist yet at the time..."
"Obviously," I added, "he's a time-traveler. Duh. He's friends with the Doctor."
Oh us.
We also looked at some pretty, old churches (most of which had gay pride flags out front, awesome) and took pictures of random things.
Then we ended up at the library, which was gorgeous.
Someone was getting married there, which. Dude. Awesome. Still, probably cost a fortune. It looked pretty extravagant, too. Bride's dress was pretty. If I had the remotest desire to get married and also was, you know, totally loaded, I would definitely get married there too. Or if I could somehow find a child or grandchild of Charles' to marry. They'd be rich enough for that, lol. (No lie, every time I saw the Charles River on our map, I could only think of that ep of M*A*S*H, "Mr. and Mrs. Who?" where Charles recounts getting wasted and trying to swim it, because obviously it was named after him was therefore his river. Oh Charles.)
The library closed at 5:00, so we wandered around a little more, found a Starbucks and totally by luck managed to happen upon the public gardens and therefore our parking garage again. That was pretty nice. On the way back, as we were wandering, some guy tried to stop us and talk to us. He started off by saying, "You look friendly enough." which, lol, I was pretty sure that was code for, "You look like tourists." I was just like, "Sorry, but we've got to be somewhere." and we kept going. We were pretty sure he was trying to sell something-it had that kind of ‘pitch’ sound to it.
So we left Boston after that, stopping at a grocery store called Stop & Shop to get some food for dinner. We ended up not being able to get the fire started (all the kindling was too wet) so we just said, "Fuck it." and ate the deli chicken we'd picked up to go with our mac & cheese. It worked. Tasty, too. Mmm, bourbon chicken.
We chilled in the tent from that point on, planning what we'd do tomorrow. (King's Chapel, Old South Meeting House, Paul Revere's house, Old North Church, etc.)
Day Six: Saturday, June 25, 2011
Another rude awakening! This time it was in the form of the tent collecting water again and crashing in on us. This probably had something to do with the ripped corner.
So we grabbed all of our crap (of course this happened the morning after we'd decided, oh, the tent's fine now, we can move our stuff back in) and got to the car. We had some laundry to do, so we decided to look for a laundromat. As we were driving, Sylvia at one point wanted to raise her fist to the sky and go, "Give me all you've got!" but I talked her out of it since she'd already tempted fate once by asking what else could possibly go wrong. I did promise her, however, that if we ever made a movie about this trip, we could embellish and say that she did.
We eventually found a laundromat, but of course it didn't open until 8:00, and it was only about 7:30 when we found it. Fuck you too, universe. Our answer? McDonald's breakfast. That beats all.
After breakfast, we went back to the laundromat for round one. We knew we'd have to return later to dry all the sleeping bags/pillows. Sylvia commented, as she used the Shout stain stuff on her blanket, that she hoped it would get the blood out, as Sharon had previously gotten a bloody nose and bled on it a bit. I went, "Hey, if it does, they've got a new slogan. 'If it's good enough for a serial killer, it's good enough for you!'" Maria started laughing in my head.
So we did our laundry, then Sylvia broke into this back room area to change. Sharon went back there too and discovered a camera. Despite the possibility of video evidence, she also changed. (I demurred, 'cause, I dunno, I'm kind of picky about the people I let watch me undress, and random strangers behind video cameras in shady laundromats don't make the cut. Call it a quirk.)
We made yet another stop at The Evil Empire after that and finally bought a new fucking tent. We were done. It was time to head into Boston after that, to work on our game plan. We walked part of the Freedom Trail, from the Boston Commons to the Old North Church and back. We stopped at King's Chapel, the Old South Meeting House, Paul Revere's house, the Granary Burying Ground, the Old Corner Bookstore, and the site of the Boston Massacre along the way. We were going to do the USS Constitution as well, but by the time we got back to the car, we were pretty bushed. It was almost four miles, plus all the walking around in the various places we'd stopped. At the Old North Church we went on this cool tour where they took us up into the bell ringing area and down into the crypt. It was neat, and I got a lot of pictures. I also got my mom another keychain (her Gettysburg one got eaten by the car; seriously, it was there one minute, gone the next) and my "big" souvenir of Boston, another notebook. (Once again, I anticipate surprise and shock.) I would've gotten this really nice pen instead but they were, annoyingly, out of my name. Sadness. I also got a little postcard happy along the Freedom Trail. Seriously, I was sending out about five. I ended up with fifteen. Oh self.
After that, we headed back to the car and the campsite, set up the new tent and took down the very wet old one. The new tent was smaller than the old one, but doable, and also, you know, it was actually waterproof. So it was all good. Then Sylvia and I went to the laundromat to dry/wash our things. We actually ended up going to a different laundromat than the last one, because Sylvia did not want to return to the scene of the crime, lol. The new laundromat was a lot nicer than the old one, though, so again, all good.
Sharon called during this and pointed out we didn't have a strainer, which was kind of an issue when trying to make mac and cheese, so Sylvia ran over to the dollar tree to get one while I waited with our clothes. We finished up and headed back shortly after that, but ended up giving up on the mac and cheese because it'd become some kind of powdery, cheesy...mush. Gross. I ate cheetos instead. A very nutritious dinner, cheetos.
We went to shower after that (minus Sharon, who was tired, so we told her she had to ride in the back if she was going to be stinky) and these girls came in just as Sylvia and I were getting ready to get out and get dressed. They took for-fucking-ever, too. How long does it take to go to the bathroom? You could talk about your tent or what the fuck ever as you walked back to your campsite, people. We would like to get dressed and go to sleep, please.
It was raining as we left the bathhouse. Of course. At least I had a towel to use as a cover to prevent getting too wet.
Back at the tent, we were getting comfortable, and Sylvia was all jealous of our sleeping bags, since she'd been cold. (Boston had been nice and cool. Minus the rain, it'd been perfect.) Just before we were about to turn in for the night, Sylvia sat up and held up a small round purple ball. "Why is there a gobstopper in my bed?" she asked.
Why indeed. But it kind of perfectly summed everything up so far, because: why not? That seemed to be the theme.
Last post should be up tomorrow!
Back to Gettysburg. Onward to D.C.