Philly!!

Yay, home, sweet, home! Yesterday we had the lovely opportunity to head to downtown Philadelphia for a couple of shows. It is such a wonderful place with great people. Ya know, the Northeast is not well-known for its friendliness and/or hospitality, but from my experience, I find that the people in this area are quite pleasant.

At one point, we stopped at a small gas station to fuel up. The three guys working there- definitely Philly born-and-raised- were so fun and helpful. They chatted it up with Trent for a good half hour about the coach, Alaska and of course, Philadelphia!

I will say though, that it was a trial for Trent to drive in the city...I've now decided that after taking on some of those small streets, he can pretty much take on anything! All the other commercial vehicles had scratches and dents all over them...which is not a possibility for us! So I'm very proud of him :)

Also while we've been here, SEPTA (the local public transportation) has been on strike, and according to locals, the strike was done without any notice- people went to the bus stop in the a.m., but no bus came for them! ANYWAYS, we thought we should go around with our bus and charge people for a ride...of course we didn't, but it would've been a great way to make some extra income, right?? :)

Ok so here are some photos of beautiful Philthy! 

Down the street from first event- City Hall

Second event, South Philly

...so true!

Sorry but this made my day! 

...I love this pic because you can kinda see the coach seats in it too :) Not on purpose, but cool nonetheless!

Rocky, anyone?

...ready to get back to the hotel after a long (fun!) day! 

Delaware

I don't think anything really sums up Delaware better than a quote I remember after years from Wayne's World: "Yay, we're in Delaware. Yay, Delaware..."

It's not that the petite state isn't enjoyable, but when I think of Delaware, I think of flat license plates. And, after having spent a few nights there, that's still pretty much all that comes to mind. Sorry!

Nonetheless, here's a couple photos from one of the agencies we visited. The owner dressed up as Mickey Mouse. It added a lot of entertainment to my day, and undoubtedly garnered a lot of attention for our coach, so that's good! Personally, I am one with a phobia of mascots, in the way some fear clowns. At one point I think I even needed to ask him a question, but was too afraid to confront the mouse. Such is the life of a masklophobic (see! I'm not alone! There's even a name for my fear!!)!

Ocean City, MD

Yes, I'm still alive! Just been so busy traveling to update, so sorry. Plus, uploading photos takes forever. >:(

Anyways, last weekend (10/24-ish), Trent and I got to go to Ocean City, MD. It was one of my favorite stops to date. Not only was Ocean City great, but we also got to visit Assateague and Chincoteague Islands. My sister and my mom came to visit us- helped us get around a little! :)

We brought our bikes to Assateague, so here's Balls wearing her helmet on the beach:

And my cute mom collecting shells on the beach:


Trent in his cute biking outfit:




The Sunset:


Oh, hi, it's me!


Finding the wild ponies- Trent even went so far as to pet one! Luckily, he was a nice horse :)




So speaking of the horses, when we were entering the park, Trent asked the lady in the booth why the horses didn't just walk across the bridge to Chincoteague Island- she replied that it wasn't in their nature to walk across. Well...the next day, as we were going in again, my mom asked the lady the same question. I don't think she recognized us, but she gave us the same canned answer- i'm sure she gets this question a lot. lol. ANYWAYS, on our way out of the park, we saw the horses chillin by the bridge! And we were sooo hoping they'd walk across so we could prove her wrong! :)

Anyways, back to the photos:

Assateague Lighthouse


Trent chillin on the bench with the ghost bear:


Balls, what are you doing?



AND NOW, Ocean City!!


Boardwalk


OC is so quiet in the winter! Nice and refreshing :)


Welcome to OC!


Silly Trent




Well, there you have it folks! I have more photos to share, so I will be working on getting the blog updated! :)

Virginia

Actually, I am currently in Pennsylvania! I love PA. I was raised here, after all. We have an event here tomorrow. However, the reason I have titled it Virginia, is because we were in VA for 2 weeks, and yes, I am very delayed in writing about our experiences in this lovely state. I should also mention that we are only touching PA this week; we will be back in VA this weekend. PA will see much more of us in the next few weeks. :)

ANYWAYS, ON TO VA! So we have visited: Roanoke, Christiansburg, Blacksburg, Lynchburg (a.k.a. Forest), Charlottesville, Williamsburg, Virginia Beach, Fredericksburg, and Fairfax (many towns in this county!). Yes, we've seen a lot of this beautiful state, which is nothing new to me because I did in fact spend a few of my growing up years here. However, it's nice to see it as a grown up who actually/finally cares.

Ok so first, we stayed in Christiansburg, a rather sleepy town near Blacksburg (think Virginia Tech). After getting sick of eating at Cracker Barrel and Denny's, we decided to head in to Blacksburg to try a local sushi joint, and see the VT campus. The sushi was just o.k., but we also found a Rita's Water Ice, which was exciting. If you don't know what "water ice" is, maybe try googling it :) And one day, try it yourself. It was Trent's first taste, and he enjoyed it. Anyways, after a short and quaint jaunt on the VT campus, that pretty much summed up our visit to this area. We left with a new understanding of what a "hokie" is! :)

Virginia Tech:




Next, we traveled, to Lynchburg/Forest, where Thomas Jefferson once owned a house in a "poplar forest" of sorts. We visited this lovely agency, and fun was had by all.

Yup, we got all our lovely cohorts to follow suit:


Following Lynchburg, we visited Charlottesville (That guy is Larry, our BDM for VA/WVA).


Enjoyable, yet largely uneventful, we carried on to good ol' Williamsburg.

It was this point that I realized something: I have been to Williamsburg almost every year for 16 years! That's a pretty good record there. I love this place. It's comforting, like a 2nd home. My parents came to visit for this weekend. We saw all the normal sights, such as Colonial Williamsburg, the Prime Outlet mall, The Trellis, etc. The first night, we took a stroll in the colonial area during the night, and stopped by one house that is supposedly haunted.



See any ghosts in there? I didn't.

Then the next day was Trent's birthday! Since he got a lovely new bike for his birthday, we decided to ride on Jamestown Island to celebrate:

Interesting pink berries


Trent on his new bike (holding mine too!)


My mom, me, Trent


Cute mom and I


Cute Trent and I


Trent and Mom gift shopping it:


My mom and I hit up the Yankee Candle Co outlet later that day. I was fascinated by this place. It was huge, and had a section for Christmas stuff, and it was really elaborate, with a faux bridge and stars on the ceiling:






^ Yes, I am a dork for being so excited about such a lame thing :)


Ok, so Williamsburg was fun, but we had to carry on- on to Virginia Beach, to be exact. We didn't actually see the beach, but we enjoyed beach type weather from the event here.



I regretted not actually wearing beach clothing!! It was really warm.

Then off to Northern VA.



Luckily my parents live only 1 mile from where we lodged. It was really nice to see them and to be in a very populated area, with all the stores at our beck and call. We went on a beautiful bike ride on the W&OD Trail, and enjoyed a couple funky restaurants. Mmm..and it was nice to have people to drive us around so we didn't have to find a place for the bus to park! :)

The sad part is that my camera was m.i.a. almost the entire time of our visit to Fairfax! I was searching high and low for it for 4 days! It was weird because I knew it couldn't have gone far, so it was a complete mystery. Then, just as I was about to consider it long gone, I found it under a stack of brochures! Duhh..

Well, so that brings us to now, where we are just beginning our visit to PA. I love it here, it is gorgeous! We are in a town in the suburbs of Harrisburg, called Pine Grove. It is set in these beautiful rolling hills, and all the leaves are turning to vibrant colors!! I will let you in on this trip in the next post. Thanks for reading! :)