Home to Vermont & New York

We left Mid-afternoon and had to make a couple stops before actually leaving town. We picked up a gallon of water and a water jug. We knew we would be in the car for long periods of time and were trying to minimize our spending of our own money as much as possible. This was a genius idea. Nuun was a sponsor of ours and it kept us well hydrated as well as entertained trying all the new flavors while sitting in the car for endless hours.

Our first stop was going to be Ohio for our first event. Our route we planned to take would take us through New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, and then into Ohio. We were hoping to make it to Buffalo, NY on our first night.

Becca and I before leaving set out on this trip with one pact in mind. This would be to stop in every state we passed through and took a photo at every “Welcome” sign we passed. Since we were somewhat new to this pact, Vermont was actually taken in the Welcome Center as we crossed into that state. A few hours into our drive, Becca had taken a route that was very familiar to her. She took me to a Vermont Country Store which had what she claimed to be the best pickles ever! We made a pit stop, and had our first snack on the road. Pickles. Who doesn’t love a good pickle? As sure as anything, she was right. It was amazing, the store was full of homemade goodies and fun gifts for anyone traveling by.

On our drive through Vermont we took a short detour past her Vermont vacation home and she talked about many memories as a kid, and mentioned how this was and still is her “Ski Home.” Becca and I knew each other before deciding to spend every waken moment with each other for the next 5 months  before actually doing it, but we had only known each other briefly so there was still a lot to learn about one another.

Once into New York, we stopped to grab a photo with the New York Welcome sign. Then as we continued down what was a very long straight highway for over 100 miles, we eventually came to a rest stop. Not realizing then, rest stops would become a frequent over the next five months. We used the restrooms and decided to make some dinner. We broke out the Jet Boil and some Mountain House (another sponsor). As I went to light the Jet Boil, it wasn’t lighting. We thought it was the wind, so we hovered behind the rear tire of the vehicle, still didn’t work. We had just tested it the night before and it worked fine! Later to realize the ignitor went. We just lit it with a match and boiled our water.  We made our 10 minute meal in a bag, and enjoyed our first dinner on the road in the parking lot of a truck stop!

Once back in the car, I came to the conclusion that having a heated seat was the best thing since sliced bread. When my back would start to get stiff I would turn it on, kind of like a heating pad, when the air conditioning was making me too cold, I would turn it on, oh, and don’t forget when it’s that time of the month and your cramping- YUP I turned it on. You will probably read a lot about the heated seats in many of these blogs.

Me @ Niagara Falls

Nearing Buffalo, we started to see signs of Niagara Falls. Why hadn’t we thought of this before? But, it was 10:00pm at night. Would it be worth the detour? Would we be able to see anything? Who cares, let’s go for it! We took a side trip to see the wonderful waterfalls of America. Boy am I glad we did. This has been one of the top places on my list to visit since I was a kid. Not only could you see the falls, but they were lit up! Our first stop on this adventure and it was so worth wild!





Niagara Falls

Around 11:00pm we were back at the car from walking around and decided to change into more comfortable clothes. My Boss from the Mount Washington Observatory had given both of us new sweat pants he had just ordered for the summit. We both took them along with us as our ONLY warm, comfy pants. (I tell you all the details now, because there is a point to it in the Minnesota blog post)We continued driving until we just couldn’t stay awake any longer. This would be our first night we slept in the car. Sheri & Randy had previously told us about an app where you can find all Wal-Marts that allow camping in their parking lots. We took advantage of that knowledge and luckily found one right near-by. We pulled into the parking lot, parked under a lamp post, broke out our new Seat to Summit sleeping bags, and hit the sheets!

With only sleeping about 5 hours, we woke up to the alarm and hit the road again in hopes of making it to Ohio that morning of the 7^th. Let's just note that sleeping in a vehicle that is packed solid and you can't even lean your seat back an inch is not an easy thing to do. We made it to Pennsylvania just as the sun was rising. As tired and groggy as we were, we pulled over and took our state sign photo! Holding strong to our pact.



Sleeping in the car in a Wal-Mart Parking lot.

Watching a storm as we drive directly into it.