NEW HAMPSHIRE: Day One

So, having driven cross-country and dropped off the car, my original plan was for Road Trip 3 to begin.  However, I find myself without an actual car, and that makes road tripping a little more difficult.  I'm planning to spend some time out here slowly making my way down the East Coast nonetheless, visiting friends from NH to FL.  First stop:  the Robert Frost Farm in Derry, NH.  Closed for the season, but we found the yellow wood anyway.

Stats, stet, take two

Road Trip 2 of 3 Complete! 

Number of nights spent at friends' places: 2 (in OK and IL)
Number of nights spent in motels: 6  
Number of states visited:  11! (AZ, NM, TX, OK, MO, IL, IN, OH, PA, NY, MA)
Total miles driven: 3400 (almost exactly the same as trip 1)
Minimum total number of Diet Cokes consumed: no really, you don't want to know
Number of gas fill-ups (but not full tanks): 10
Highest price paid for gas: $3.99/gallon (lower than trip 1)
Lowest price paid for gas: $3.32/gallon (also lower than trip 1)
Average miles per gallon:  29 (in someone's early-2000s Honda Accord)
Number of hours of the audiobook of Game of Thrones listened to: 7 hours, 20 minutes (arrgh)

Number of hours of the audiobook of Clash of Kings listened to: 5 hours, 29 minutes 

(Number of hours of the audiobook of Clash of Kings still to go:  31 hours.  Not gonna happen.  Maybe.)

Number of college campuses visited: 1 (Harvard)

Number of New Jew alumni met, on the other side of the country:  1

Number of speeding tickets received:  0 (Thank God)

So, I completed Trips Up and Over.  Now for Down... and maybe Back!

(I mean, yes, Back, but that'll probably be a flight, not a road trip!)

OHIO / PENNSYLVANIA / ON THE ROAD

LOOKING UP

ILLINOIS

Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?

You guys, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is GREAT.  Extremely well done, and far more interesting than I could have predicted.

MISSOURI

ARCHING

TEXAS

DRILLING

NEW MEXICO

FIESTA

Also:  finished listening to the last ten hours of the first book of Game of Thrones and let me say this:  Fuck you.  HOW ABOUT WRAPPING UP EVEN ONE LITTLE STRAND OF SOMETHING, IT'S CALLED THE *END* OF A BOOK FOR A REASON OMIGOD.

ARIZONA

Road trip #2 has begun and it is...

GRAND.

Stats, stet.

Road Trip 1 of 3 Complete!

Number of nights spent at friends' places: 13
Number of nights spent in motels: 2 (one on the way up, near Redding, CA, and one on the way down, near Medford OR)
Number of states and provinces visited:  4 (CA, OR, WA, BC [Canada])
Total miles driven: 3300
Minimum total number of Diet Cokes consumed: you don't want to know
Number of gas fill-ups (some only half tanks, though): 11
Highest price paid for gas: $4.39/gallon
Lowest price paid for gas: $3.79/gallon
Average miles per gallon:  33.82 (in my 2001 Toyota Corolla)
Number of hours of the audiobook of Game of Thrones listened to: 22 hours, 45 minutes (still not done, but close)
Number of speeding tickets received:  1 (AARRRRRGGGHHH.  For SUPPOSEDLY going 82 in a 65.)
Number of former students visited on their college campuses: 3 (Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Puget Sound)
Number of books bought from and signed by their authors:  2 (the previously mentioned Enlightening Moments by Gary and Radha Bello, and The Rabbi Wore Moccasins by Arthur Gross Schaefer)

Total number of nights I slept in my own bed until Road Trip 2 of 3 began this morning:  5

Here we go!

"Literature is like DNA..."

My last full day in the Bay Area was spent, again, Visiting Former Students At Their Universities.  I went to see the lovely and talented Hannah at UCSC - supposedly the University of California at Santa Cruz, but I can see now why it's often called UC Summer Camp.  Totally different view of the campus than I got at the beginning of this trip when I visited another friend there.

Took some of the apparently requisite Mom-pics...

 I took Hannah with me to dinner with good friends and then dancing at Loui Tucker's Monday night Israeli dance session (yay!) and there, Aaron gave me another lesson:  How to Poach A Pear.  This guy came seriously prepared! 

Which one is the college student?

On Tuesday, I went to my first-ever 8:30am college class, because when I was actually in college, I dropped every single class that started earlier than 10am.  (Nope, still not ashamed.)  I fit right in, no? 

Before hitting the road, Hannah taught me the guitar chords for "Nights in White Satin", one of my all-time favorite songs, and thereby ended the Northwest edition of the Teach Erica Something World Tour.  So happy, so satisfied, so ready for the Cross-Country edition!

Flawless.