Leftover Chinese Comes Back from Vacation

So I spent the last five days with the same five people...





We spent a lot of time in this van full of gear driving, sleeping, reading and talking all kinds of nonsense...all for the sake of playing music in front of people.


A few hours after a marthon overnight drive to Maryland, we showed up in Washington D.C. on what began an unseasonably warm weekend. You could smell the freedom.


One city later, we decided to take a surreal walk through a portion of Central Park in New York City. It was warm, sunny, and perfect for a nap on that big grassy meadow.


That same city and a day later, we saluted America again from one of the many famous bridges.


The we got back in the van and made the trip back to Chicago feeling sad that it was all over and done.

Notables

Pennsylvania features plenty of winding roads. The sun slowly rose and we found ourselves right at the peak of fall colors. It was like winding up in candyland.

Of all places I could have been hoodwinked: Arby's. The smooth talking man upcharged us for a large box of fries simply by asking "(large) curly fries with that?"

Of all the places I dealt with ignorant strangers: Chinatown NYC. One woman shopping at a store asked me how much something was. She repeated the question a few times and got louder each time. Eventually, I had to tell her that I didn't work there. A few minutes later we were walking down a street and a Latter Day Saint picked me out of the group of friends to say "nihao."

Gracious hosting from Tracy in DC and Matt and Tamar in New York. They get much thanks for putting up with our shit.

Good food and bad food alike...highlights included Ben's Chili Bowl in DC, Junior's in Brooklyn and of course, Arbys. I even had a taco salad. Although bars are expensive in New York, it doesn't make more sense to drink straight Whiskey to save money.

The train stations in Washington DC look straight out of Logan's Run. The train stations in New York aren't as bad as they look on TV.

Touring is fun.

. . [~] . 0 (Grumble) Grumbles .