East Coast Trip Part Eight: Jersey Shore

Ah, finally...the Jersey Shore post. Sadly, we have very few pictures from this part of the trip...well pictures worth posting anyway. For some reason, Phil thought it was a good idea to take about 100 pictures of me in my bikini and zero pictures of me on the boardwalk, eating pizza, at the bar, or doing anything besides looking pale and bloated from the previous 10 days of eating and drinking my way up and down the East Coast. So I really have to rely on my own memory of this last weekend of our trip.

So we rolled in to Point Pleasant (the more family friendly Jersey Shore town about 20 minutes North of Seaside Heights, where the show is filmed) around 6 pm Friday night and got checked in to our motel, which cost a pretty penny but was right on the beach and was actually quite nice. The room smelled slightly of smoke but apparently you just can't avoid that at the shore. At least it was clean and the bathroom actually seemed recently remodeled! And the air conditioner worked amazingly well, so who can complain?

We headed down the boardwalk to meet Phil's friends for a drink. His high school buddies, Sean and Steve, and their girlfriends, Lacey and Lisa, were also staying at the shore that weekend. After a drink (or two), we headed back to the motel so the girls could get ready to go out and we could do a little pre-funking (for my non generation y readers, that means drinking alcohol purchased at a liquor store at the hotel to avoid paying so much for it at the bars). We played some cards and then headed back down the boardwalk to a low-key bar that had tables right out on the beach and was the perfect venue for a new drinking game I believe Lacey taught us. I don't remember the name of the game, or the rules...and not because I was drunk, just because it was 3 months ago. It was quite fun though :) After the bar, we got the first of many slices of the best pizza I've ever had in my life. Sigh...I miss that pizza. Then we headed back to the motel to rest up for Saturday.

On Saturday, we enjoyed the beach (the motel had a private area of beach roped off so that was nice...not as much riff raff). The waves were giant though, due to some questionable weather (just my luck) and there were rip tides, so I only waded in just a bit. The waves were seriously huge...like, taller than me. For lunch, we headed down the board walk and I tried ice cream and waffles...three scoops of ice cream in between to freshly made waffles. So delicious! And then I watched the boys try to win football jersey from a claw machine. They actually did pretty well and won three or four. Shortly after that, Phil drove me down to Seaside to see what it was all about. During the day its actually pretty quiet, but there is still a lot of good people watching there.

Saturday night we got all fancy, did more pre-funking, then headed to a more clubby kind of bar on the board walk. It was really hoppin, and by hoppin I mean annoyingly crowded with fist pumping guidos and just what you'd expect to see on the Jersey Shore if you've ever watched the show. It is exactly like the show. Fights on the board walk...guys primping in front of the mirrors longer than the girls..."cougars" trying to find a man...Ed Hardy t-shirts...tattoos...sunglasses worn inside the bar...scandalous dresses and every guy looking like he had a busy day of GTL (gym, tan, laundry). It was fun for about twenty minutes and then I got really fed up of being pushed and shoved by the crowd and we decided to leave. We got some yummy boardwalk snacks (some kind of doughnut holes if I recall...whatever their italian name is) and sat on the beach outside the bar so we could still people watch. It was a great night :)

Sunday morning, we headed to the beach one last time to enjoy the sun. Phil snapped a few decent pictures and then it was time to say goodbye to the gang. We got one last slice of pizza (soooo good) and then headed back home to Densville.



That night, we went to Phil's family's favorite new Chinese restaurant in the city, where the owners treat Sonny like a king because he always gets so much food when they go in. It was quite tasty and was a great way to cap off a wonderful vacation. Though I was so full after dinner I could barely walk, we headed down to Rockefellar Park (west of Ground Zero) so we could attempt to walk off dinner and the guys could smoke a cigar (check out the Three Stooges below).


And that was our trip! We headed back home to Seattle on Monday where I promptly began dieting ;)

East Coast Trip Part Seven: DC & Baltimore

After a few hours in Philly, we hit the road again and headed further south to meet up with my parents, sister, and brother-in-law in Washington D.C. My parents had been visiting Melanie and Luke at their new place in North Carolina and D.C. was to be the last stop on their trip. All of us except for my parents had been to D.C. at one point or another (Melanie and I both went in 8th grade). My dad loves history so I was really excited to see him experience the nation's capital. As I expected, he was pretty much a kid in a candy store, and luckily we had Phil as our tour guide so we got to see 95% of what we wanted to see in just two days. The only downside was the extremely hot and humid weather. Walking into an air conditioned building has never been so enjoyable!

We arrived in D.C. in the early evening and wisely decided to bust out the memorials (aka most of the outside/walking) that night while it was somewhat cool (and I use that term loosely).









The next morning we took the subway (which is quite different than NY, by the way...be sure to familiarize yourself with the rules before you use it) to the Capitol Building for a 9:00 tour. My priority was to see the rotunda. A) because its beautiful and B) because its the scene of a ghastly crime in Dan Brown's book ;) I would have liked to see where the Senate and the House sit but it was closed to tour groups...poop. We also took the underground tunnel to the Library of Congress, which was BEAUTIFUL!












For lunch, we went to Old Ebbitt Grill which apparently is quite old and quite popular among the "Who's Who" of D.C. Phil's college buddy is a manager there and hooked us up with the most amazing array of desserts...suddenly I was the kid in the candy store. If you ever go to D.C., I definitely recommend this place. You can't go wrong with any of their desserts, but I really enjoyed the bourbon walnut pie. Because hello...bourbon, and pie.

After lunch we went to several museums for the must-see artifacts. We couldn't take many pictures...or maybe Phil was just tired of taking pictures at this point, because I don't have many. But here are a couple...

Abe Lincoln's hat. This exhibit was really moving/sad/cool. It's really amazing to see these actual items worn/used by these people. I mean, it's Abraham Lincoln's friggin hat!!!

The Hope Diamond. I don't know what the big hulabaloo is...it's not that big.

We saw the actual Star Spangled Banner...also very moving. I very much enjoyed the "First Ladies" exhibit, which showcased many of our first ladies' inaugural gowns. Obviously we couldn't visit D.C. and not go see the Declaration of Independence. It's not holding up very well, by the way. You can barely make out the script these days :(

The next day we headed across the Potomac to Mt. Vernon -- George and Martha Washington's home. This place was awesome, I could have spent an entire day there. Not only do you get to see their home, and sit on their back porch, but you get to see where they're buried, walk through their gorgeous gardens and go through an incredible museum that houses countless items they used/wore on a daily basis (and that we couldn't take pictures of). It was another hot and humid day, but when I went to Mt. Vernon in 8th grade it was foggy and raining, so I couldn't have asked for better weather.









After Mt. Vernon, we said goodbye to the family and they headed to Arlington National Cemetary so they could watch the changing of the guard. Phil and I had both seen it and needed to be heading back North to meet up with his friends at the Jersey Shore. We had just enough time to stop in Baltimore and have some tasty blue crab cakes. That's about all there is to do in Baltimore anyway...other than the aquarium which I'm kinda bummed we didn't do, I've heard great things about it. Next time!




Next up -- Jersey Shore! And then thank goodness, I'll be done blogging about this trip we took almost three months ago. It will be nice to have this record of it though!

East Coast Trip Part Six: Philly

Wowzers, it's almost been a month since my last post. I have no excuses, I'm just a slacker. Well I do have one excuse...I got an iPhone and since then I've found I can do most of my internet activity on my phone. Blogging is about the only thing I can't do since the pictures from our trip are on the actual computer. But you know what they say about excuses...they're like buttholes -- everybody has one and everybody thinks everybody else's stinks. Or is that what they say about opinions? Meh, whatev.

So, the day after Six Flags Phil and I hopped in the Prius and headed South. First stop: Philly. We didn't have much on the agenda for Philly as we were just kind of passing through on our way to D.C. We continued our "John Adams Spiritual Journey" by going to Independence Hall where the Continental Congress met (and I think the Declaration of Independence was signed there too right?). It was neat to see the meeting rooms all set up, but a bummer that very little was original. About the only original thing was the chair that George Washington sat in.





Obviously we had to check out the Liberty Bell. I've heard "it's so much smaller than what you imagine" so many times, that it actually was bigger than I imagined!




Before heading out of town we tried our hand (or mouths) at settling one of Philly's great disputes...which cheesesteak is better, Pat's or Geno's? As you can see by the pictures below, Geno's was the clear winner. We both preferred Geno's, I think because the bread was more buttery and the meat was greasier. Also, I made the mistake of getting provolone at Pat's instead of "cheese whiz". Cheese whiz on the east coast is like runny cheddar, it's not that crap that comes out of a can. It's actually quite tasty. I probably need to redo the test and get cheese whiz at Pat's for a fair comparison. Then again, the Pat's vs. Geno's thing is kind of a tourist trap anyway...apparently there are WAY better cheesesteak places in Philly. BUT, if you do go to Pat's and/or Geno's, just follow the ordering directions on the sign. If you just say "Whiz Wit" or "Whiz wit-out", they WILL know that you are ordering a cheese steak and not one of their several other items on the menu.





Next up, Washington DC! I was going to combine D.C. and Baltimore with the Philly post but there is just too many cool things to share about D.C., so it'll have to be its own post.

East Coast Trip Part Five: Six Flags!

Okay I broke my promise (as usual) and it's been way too long since I last posted. No more promises I can't keep...it's probably going to be a ridiculously long time between this post and the next.

So, the next day (after the Statue of Liberty and family bbq day) Phil, Albert, Tim, Melissa and I headed south to Six Flags where I was to find out how daring I really was (since the only roller coasters I had been on up to that point were either state fair coasters, The "Wild" Thing at Wild Waves, or what I was told were relatively tame coasters at the Disney World parks). This was a pretty big deal for me because when I was a kid I was a total wuss when it came to rides. I'll never live down the time my family went to Seattle Center when I was 8 and I cried like a baby the whole way up the log flume ride. I actually ended up liking the ride as I recall, but it took me a really long time to do "tall" rides and "upside-down" rides (and as a sidenote, learn to swim without giant orange arm floats....I was about 9 when I finally took those things off). I made a lot of progress in my teen years and even became the family "dare devil" after doing the zip line in Puerto Vallarta a couple years ago. But Six Flags was to be the real test. After all, this is where roller coaster enthusiasts go to get their thrills!

Quick side note! We had to go through Rutgers on our way there so naturally we HAD to stop at the famous "Grease Trucks" on campus. If you haven't seen these on Man vs. Food, they are food trucks that serve the most ridiculous and calorific sandwiches ever created. I could give you a couple examples, but no need...we took a picture of the menu:


Disgustingly awesome right? So I got the Fat Knight and it basically fed all five of us, though I think I ate the most...hehehe.


We continued on our way to the park and got there about half-past-hotter-than-hell (it was about 113 degrees at some point during the day). Record-breaking heat was not about to stop us from having the time of our lives however. We lathered on the sun screen and headed in to get started.


So we "warmed up" (literally, it was so friggin hot) on Superman, which was the first time I've been on a roller coaster where you're suspended face down. It was pretty cool, but little did I know what thrills awaited me!

Here's Albert having way too much fun with the remote control boats. Some people are so easily amused :)

Our next ride was Nitro, which was Phil's absolute favorite roller coaster up until that day I think. We all loved Nitro due to its height, speed, stomach rolling drops, and for some of us (mainly Albert) ability to make you nearly pass out from the G's on the last corkscrew. We went on it a couple times and then headed over to a water ride to cool down.

We did most of the park's other older roller coasters, ate lunch, did another water ride, and then moved on to the newer, more awesome roller coasters. El Toro was the park's new wooden roller coaster. The kids had gone on it before and they were just raving about how fast and cool it was. We figured "yeah right, it's a wooden roller coaster, how awesome could it possibly be?" Holy crap. HOLY CRAP. That thing went so fast and took such steep dives I honestly could not make sense of the physics that held the last car to the track. Phil and Tim's hair in the picture below should give you an idea of how fast this thing goes.


After El Toro (which could be Phil's NEW favorite roller coaster) we headed over to Kingda Ka. The tallest, fastest roller coaster in the U.S. It was so tall and so fast in fact, that we didn't get any pictures on it for fear of dropping the cameras. But you can get the idea here and here. Amazing. Uh-may-zing.

After that, I was a little worried my brain might explode from all the roller coasters. So we took a break and went on a lame parachute thing (which probably would have seriously freaked me out when I was 8 years old).


After Kingda Ka, I was feeling pretty good about myself. But I had one more test to prove my fearlessness. The kids really wanted to do the Dare Devil Dive, but they were scared to do it alone. So in my "I just went on the tallest, fastest roller coaster in the US so clearly I'm a bad ass" stupor, I happily volunteered to go on it with the kids.

Here we are suiting up.

And here I am, actually really excited for this. I was definitely high on thrills at this point.

As you can see, Melissa wasn't so sure after getting the gear on.

Tim was even less sure.

Here we are listening to the operator's instructions VERY carefully. This isn't something you want to screw up people.

Oh and here we are, walking to our sure deaths...no biggie.

Oh crap, we're actually doing this.

Oh crap. I can't believe we're actually doing this!

This is about where the kids really started to panic. I reassured the kids they would survive to tell everyone how great it was, but when they asked me why I wasn't scared I started thinking to myself, "hmmmm...maybe I should be more scared than I am..."

Up and up they raised us, higher and higher. And then...

Holy crap! I can't believe we actually did that! That was...well there are no words for what that was. Crazy perhaps. But good crazy.

On our way back down to earth.

So that settled it. I am a bad ass dare devil who is unstoppable! At least until someone tries to convince me to bungee jump or sky dive or drive in the left lane on the NJ Turnpike...

We ended our fabulous day at the park by riding Nitro one more time, in the very front. That much fun should be illegal.

Another fun-filled day on the East Coast!

Stay tuned for Part Six (Philly, DC, & Baltimore) and the finale, Part Seven (Jersey Shore)!