The Good Life

Hello again! Welcome to our North Carolina beach house. This is where we will be spending the next couple of weeks before heading up to Massachusetts. So far, we have been very productive... as long as you define "productive" as walking on the beach, eating really amazing food, golfing, playing cards, hiking in the state park, and watching basketball games.

But we did get one important thing accomplished: we got new tires for the van.

October had needed new tires badly for quite a while, but we were having a lot of trouble finding the proper tires, mainly because they essentially don't exist.... well, that is not entirely true, what is true is that they don't exist for less than 650 dollars if you have to order them from one of the 243 local shops (I know because I called all of them). 

But since we have finally gotten to a place where we have an address, we were able to order them on-line and have them delivered right to our doorstep (for 300 dollars... much better). If any of you need new tires try www.tirerack.com... they were really great.

So now, with her fancy new tires, we have parked October under the house for a much-deserved nap. 

Speaking of nap... I think it is time for me and baby to get a little rest before the Duke game tonight. 

Operation Pancakes and Cloverfield Bragg: Day 3 & 4

Turns out, we just couldn't get enough of Fayetteville so we decided to stay a little longer. The downfall of this plan meant more nights in the scariest Walmart parking lot so far, but the upside was that we got to see my brother in his army gear and we got to eat quite a lot of IHOP.

On Monday morning, my brother and his roommate met up with us after their morning formation for some serious pancake consumption. Casey and I then entertained ourselves at Baby's-R-Us for a couple hours while the soldiers went back to the base for their afternoon formation. 

After meeting back up with my brother, we all headed off to the theatre to catch the last afternoon showing of a movie that my brother had been raving about called "Cloverfield." I will tell you this much: Cloverfield is an extremely weird movie. It is best to see it not knowing a thing about it. Casey recommends it very enthusiastically. I don't, simply because there is death in it, and I am (for those of you that don't know) the biggest wimp in the universe. 

After the movie, we decided to begin preparations for March Madness by going shopping for Duke gear. That wasn't actually the original plan (we were trying to find shorts for my brother), but in March all things lead to Duke. My brother also got to demonstrate his baby-holding technique.

On our last day in Fayetteville, we awoke to find a very puzzling surprise next to us in the Walmart parking lot. Apparently, my brother had gone to the airport early in the morning to drop his friend off. Instead of going back to the base, he had decided to give Walmart-sleeping a try. I don't think his sleeping arrangement was quite as comfortable as ours, but he did rise and rally in time for one last IHOP experience. It was with bellies round from pancakes and omelets that Casey and I tearfully parted ways with my brother, Fayetteville, and van life in general. 

Well, that's it folks. The active part of our road trip has come to an end. From this point on we will be ruthlessly spoiled at my fathers house by on-demand electricity, running water, and toilets. But don't worry, this will not cause us to forget about you.

We will see you tomorrow.

Love and hugs.

Operation Bowling Bragg: Day Two

On our second day in Fayetteville, my brother and I decided to show Casey first-hand how Cooks are genetically superior bowlers. 

So we laced up some super-ugly shoes and hit the lanes.

Our plan to impress Casey would have worked really well, except for one minor detail, which is that both of us are actually really bad bowlers... in a conventional sense anyway. 

But although we may not score well, we do bowl with unusual amounts of spirit. Sometimes we even knock down all the pins (see photo number 3). 

Watching my brother bowl is hysterical. Score-wise, he suffered more than any of us (we went with 3 of his friends from Special Forces). But he is always totally unaffected. 

"The pins FEAR me" he would say, right before hurling the ball down the lane, barely managing to hit one pin. "See... that pin was TERRIFIED!"

My brother's friends ended up "winning" the game. But if you combine Casey's, my brother's, and my score together and compare this to any one of their scores (even though this is apparently not the normal scoring method) we won. Most importantly, we all had a lot of fun.

And nobody forgot to return their shoes at the end.

Oh, I almost forgot... some of you (Jenn) have expressed concern that we might stop blogging when we reach Boston. Do not worry! There is no way that we would deprive you of all the pictures of baby vomit and dirty diapers that loom in the near future. This blog was actually started as a way to document the baby's life... sort of like an electronic scrap book. We only began it early because we thought that, years from now, he might be interested in what his parents were up to in the 9 months before his birth. So the blog will definitely not end anytime soon. 

Hopefully this is good news.

Love always.

Operation Bragg: Day One

Ahhhhh... here we are in Fort Bragg, which will be, as of next year, the largest army base in the country.

Fayetteville (the city in which Fort Bragg is located) has been nicknamed by the locals Fayette-nam... and for good reason. The city is rather like a giant black hole filled with nothing but porn shops, pawn shops, strip clubs, and cars with tinted windows and large lifts.

This is, without a doubt, the most out-of-place we have looked since the beginning of our trip... which actually says a lot because we have already gone through Texas.

But we have more than enough reason to be here, for this is the home of my most wonderful brother Alex. 

We first met up with my brother in the early afternoon. When he had finished laughing at our van (my brothers last vehicle was a Hummer H1... before he joined the military!), we all drove together to one of the 1,256 pawn shops within a twelve mile radius of the army base and bought a new car stereo. Up until this point, we had been listening only to the radio, for the tape deck that came with the van liked to make loud, grinding noises when we put in a tape, thus rendering the tapes, mp3 player, and diskman that we had brought for the trip useless.  

We had been waiting to buy a new stereo until this point, because my brother just happens to be a master at installing car stereos. Casey helped by sitting in the drivers seat and looking impressed (a very important job). In about 10 minutes flat, we were graced with music.

It was time to celebrate. So we headed off to Ruby Tuesdays, where Casey had his first Magic Hat Number 9 (one of the only east coast beers worth drinking).

After dinner, we parted ways... my brother headed back to his military base and Casey and I headed to the local Walmart for some much-needed sleep.

We will check in again tomorrow.

South Carolina and South of the Border

Our stay in South Carolina was relatively uneventful. We only spent one night there and went to see two main attractions. The first was a large mansion turned history museum from the days of the Civil War. The house was being worked on when we got there, so I took a picture of the trees in the backyard instead. I didn't take in too much of the history, but I did remember that part of Forest Gump was filmed around there.

The second place we stopped was South of the Border, which is an enormously disappointing tourist trap right before the North Carolina line.  The billboard advertisements for South of the Border begin 163 miles before you get there and continue every 10-20 miles, leaving you with very high hopes by the time you arrive. However, the city block features very little other than some gift shops, a fireworks store, and a 20 foot plastic spark plug. 

I suppose it is probably the only place to see a giant spark plug though, if that kind of thing is important to you.

Well, we are off now to the final state (North Carolina) in this part of our journey. For those of you that don't know our itinerary, we are planning on spending a weekend with my brother in Fort Bragg, NC where he is stationed for training for the Special Forces. We are then heading to a house that my father has rented on the coast to spend a month relaxing in the sun and enjoying the perks of indoor plumbing. From there, we will travel up to Andover, MA to catch the beginning of spring in the northeast and dive into our final wave of baby- accessory buying. Andover also marks the location where we will both (very begrudgingly) return to the work force.

So for now, we are trying to enjoy our last days on the road, soaking up all the fond memories and familiarities that come with van life: Walmart parking lots, plastic pee cups, glass water jugs for the dogs (they chew plastic jugs when we leave them alone in the car) and, most importantly, our awesome rechargeable fluorescent lantern that has allowed our days to continue past sunset for the last 2 1/2 months. 

The nostalgia is killing me and I am late for our nightly card game, so I need to sign off.

We love you and hope that you are all doing great.

Savannah Heaven

What a day! Today we woke up in a Savannah, Georgia K-Mart parking lot. The night before it had dropped into the lower 30's, so we have officially gone through 4 seasons of weather in a week. (Those of you lovely people that helped me wish for less sun can feel free to stop now, apparently we were too successful.)

We began our day by driving to the Skidaway State Park outside the city to look for Painted Buntings. We did not see any of the actual birds, but we did buy a stuffed bunting to add to my collection of mobile birds (along with three others... this might become a problem...). The first pictures are all from the hike we took around the park... it was beautiful.

We then toured the museum where we got to pet a baby alligator and look at more of the local birds.

After the park, we grabbed a quick bite to eat and wandered around the city. Savannah is amazing. All of the streets are lined with Live Oaks covered in Spanish moss. The streets are covered in cobblestone and the buildings look like they date back to the revolutionary war (and many do). 

We finished our day by going to Tybee Island, where Casey touched the Atlantic Ocean for the first time ever. Now we are tucking ourselves into our Walmart parking lot to watch a movie and freeze our butts off for the second day in a row.

Hope you all are well.

Oh, and don't think that we haven't noticed the serious lack of comments on the last few posts. Morgan is the only person who has remained faithful. What about the rest of you? Have you just stopped loving us???

Consider this a warning.

We will check in from South Carolina manana.

Peace, love and VW's.

Happy 7th Month!

Hi from Georgia!

We are just over the Georgia-Florida border in a little town called St. Mary's. To celebrate baby's 7th month of growth, we decided to splurge and get a campground last night. We found a really lovely state park and checked in. In the registration office they were selling Audubon stuffed birds that play their own song. I had seen some of the birds earlier on the trip and decided that eventually I would get 5 and make a mobile for the baby.  They had such a great collection in the office that I couldn't resist. I ended up bringing 6 birds to the counter and the ranger decided that he wanted to donate another bird for the baby, so we ended up getting 7 birds. I am pretty excited about the mobile. Casey is going to help build the frame for it.

After putting the birds in the baby-stuff storage closet, we chose a great spot and settled in.

Less than 10 minutes later, we were hit by a huge thunderstorm, so we played cards for a while and waited for the rain to subside. The next day the weather was much more cooperative. We went on a walk with the dogs and took super-long hot showers. Now we are on our way to Savannah, Georgia to look for painted buntings (the ranger told us where we might find them).  

We'll check in again from there.

Love, hugs and kisses.