Hit the road Jack... err, Jan...

When we left Jennifer's place we drove through the nice scenery of Connecticut, stopping once in a while to take some pictures. Not as often as I wanted though (and this goes for the whole trip), as I can't expect Jan to stop every time I see a good photo opportunity. Kodak moments just happen way too often. LOL
I should have taken a picture of a sign that said "Adopt a Highway Program" while driving through Connecticut. But hopefully I'll get a chance to do that in another state where they have this program too. It's definitely something we don't see in Belgium!! Maybe this has got something to do with the condition of the roads here.
It's just such a smooth drive, nothing like in Belgium. There's got to be a reason for the good condition of the roads here!! In Belgium I could never type on the laptop while on the road, here that's no problem at all. I could never do any crafty stuff of any kind in the car in belgium, here that's no problem at all.
As we were continuing our trip along the Interstate 80 we really enjoyed the views. We can't believe how GREEN this country is!!! Someone had said this might be a boring piece on our road trip but nothing could be further from the thruth. Jan just loves to drive and is now really getting used to driving an automatic. I jokingly
said that once we get home after three weeks he'll need lessons again to learn how to use the manual gear box again of our own car. LOL
We both enjoy looking outside as the world passes us by. The sun is out and everything just looks so much nicer then!! I can imagine this could be a boring part when the weather is not playing nice though. But lucky for us it is!!
Even the ton of roadworks we pass along just about every route we take don't bother us as the traffic is still moving nicely. I took a wonderful picture (okay some may think this is just weird) of a truck that was behind us in the next lane. I took the picture from the truck using the rear side mirror of the car. It was black and all shiny in the sunshine. Very american. :-)
We had booked a room in a bed&breakfast type of place in DuBois, Pennsylvania.
I actually got the address from Manda, one of my many cyberfriends, and I can't thank her enough for pointing us in the direction of that place. If you ever want to go on a short break or little getaway, this is definitely THE place to go to!! Wonderful people run the Narrows Creek Inn, the rooms are absolutely gorgeous, the garden is amazing, and the breakfast... well, what can I say. It was of course home cooked and absolutely de-li-cious!!! Owner Linda brought it to our room even.
And it's only about a mile away from the Interstate 80 too, very easy to find!!!
Check it out here: http://www.narrowscreek.com/

We're just sorry that we didn't get to meet Linda's husband Henry. We were told that he's quite a character!!
After we settled in and I had shopped at their wonderful store (okay I'm running out of more different words to describe this place!!) for some gifts for the family back home, we met up with Manda, a british lady living in Dubois. She took us out for a meal at the local Ruby Tuesdays, we talked and talked like we had known each other for years and years!! Then she took us for a ride and showed us where the rich people live in that area ("Treasure something" - sorry, can't remember the full name of the place). Man, such nice houses!!!!! But not so nice prices.... LOL
Wow, and the deer just walk out on the street and in the front lawns. They're not afraid of people walking by or cars passing on the roads. They just wanted their dinner I guess, they ate all the flowers from the rich folk's gardens. I tried taking a few pictures but by then it was already too dark for that. Of course I had some belgian chocolates for Manda and a british stamping magazine. I don't know if you guys can get these over here or not (I haven't seen them yet), but I hope she likes it anyway. It even comes with a small stamp too!!
After we said our goodbyes we took a long relaxing bath and had a really good night's sleep. First time really since I got here. Guess the first three nights the jetlag and excitement still got the best of me. LOL
Btw, the sleeping is getting better and better with each day now. :-)
In the morning before we left I took loads of pictures of the garden, I already had taken some picture of the room we stayed in, and the amazing shop too!! Heheh, yep, photography happens to be another hobby of mine. (ggg)
I'm sure gonna try to keep in touch with everyone I meet on this trip!! They're just the nicest people!! Or is that just coz they're stampers?? I'm really such a lucky gal to be able to meet them!! :-))

Many hugs,
Wezz

Close encounter of the US kind

Hi all,

bet you are all getting really anxious to read about the rest of the trip!! Well, let me tell you, it has been a hectic few days!! And would you believe it, we're already 7 (seven!!!! that's a whole week!!) days into our holiday???? Wow, this is just going waaaayyy too fast!! Instead of 3 weeks I wish we could be here for 3 months!! LOL!!

When we got our car (yes, the suzuki...) we went straight ahead to tackle the NYC Friday afternoon traffic. Ya know, when they all head up north to "upstate NY"... Just the direction we were heading of course. But Jan had really done his homework and printed out a whole road book with maps and everything, and wrote down all the numbers/names of streets and highways and expressways we needed. Traffic was heavy, but not worse than rush hour in Brussels. Once we had New York behind us we were quickly on our way to head to Connecticut. The first stop we made along the way was to get us a cell phone so we would be able to call everyone we were gonna meet and maybe for hotel reservations along the way and stuff like that. My cell phone actually works in the US, but for some strange stupid reason I couldn't get the card alone. Noooo, of course not, I needed to buy a phone too, even though the card works in my phone. Duh!! Isn't that stupid?? The shop owner of the Radio Shack tried it in my phone. And he and his co-workers kept checking out my european phone. "oh, look, they did this another way than we're used to".... Well, to us at least it was funny, since we both work for telephone operators. LOL
We went to the Starbucks next door. I had heard so much about these already that I REALLY couldn't pass up the chance to go to one and so soon too!! LOL
But then, I made a mistake, probably the first of many. Since we had almost nothing in the car to drink, I ordered two large coffees. Oh man!! I shouldn't have done that!! I should have remembered that US portions are a LOT bigger than european ones!! This was at least the size of two regular cups for us, so we had to take them with us in the car coz they were just too big to drink right away. Lucky they do have good cups that really keep it warm for a long long time! While we were there I had to try out the cell phone and called Jennifer, the first one we were gonna meet on our trip. Hey, I had to try the phone right then and there, what if something didn't work? I'd have to be able to take it back to the store I bought it to get it sorted! But no worries, it worked perfectly, talked to Jennifer, tried calling Christi and we arrived at Jennifer's house that evening. The dog came running out to greet us. She showed us the room that would be our home for the next 3 nights and had dinner just about ready to serve. We met her wonderful husband Bruce and son Zach (sp?) plus dog Petey and a few cats. They all made us feel right at home!! :-))
Driving up there we really enjoyed the landscape and were totally amazed at the amount of roadkill alongside the interstate roads. We just about cracked up when we saw a sign that said "FOOD - McDONALDS"... We looked at each other and laughed "since when is McDonalds a synonym for food????? LOLOLOL
And funny enough, we passed that same sign at almost every exit on our way. (ggg)

More later guys!! Hopefully soon!

Hugs,
Wezz