The Road Trip On Platial.com

Comfort Inn

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-05 10:05:36.911146+00:00

We got to the District of Columbia around one in the afternoon. Again I chose to drive right through the city. I ended up on New York Ave. Traffic was beastly. It took me an hour to cross the city. Still I enjoyed it. When we were near the white house I woke Vigo up. He had been napping all this time. He barely looked at the place. I tried to get him to look out at the Washington Monument as well but he preferred his sleep. We arrived at the hotel in Arlington a mere twenty minutes before my parents. Our dog Sam would have to stay on the car because they didn’t allow pets. I decided right then not to spend more than one day sightseeing in DC so that Sam wouldn’t be stuck in the car too long. The hotel had an underground garage where it didn’t get too warm. Sam even seemed to enjoy the safety of the car. We humans went to a chain restaurant in the Ballston neighborhood of Arlington. Then we returned to the hotel room. I took Sam for a nice long walk and then practically fell asleep for the night around seven. Vigo engaged in his favorite hotel activity: watching tv, which he doesn’t get to do at home. My parents were as tired as I was and no one was in the mood to hunt down some excitement across the Potomac. We decided to leave that for the next day.

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After the Rush

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-16 20:09:46.877911+00:00

After the fun at the Speedway, we camped at Rush along the Buffalo National Wild River. It was great except for a two-hour commotion when cops came questioning people. They never got to us, but I heard them tell this one couple, “We just want to make sure you’re not fugitives from the law”. They ended up arresting a guy who had arrived with his boat in tow shortly after we arrived. There were two fish and game pickups and two county sheriff cruisers. They were seriously harshing my mellow if you know what I mean. The place was called Rush after a zinc rush in the late 1800s early 1900s. There is a ghost town there now

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Legoland California

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-23 09:15:44.623763+00:00

This was going to be the highlight of the trip for Vigo

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Car Trouble!

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-23 09:14:26.408842+00:00

July 23rd, 2008. The check engine light started flashing. Erik and Vigo stopped at the Mazda dealership.

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Hanging out with Birgit and Sam in the Mission

platialUser:lolly — 2008-08-05 11:28:17.63274+00:00

This isn't the exact location of the house, but this is the neighborhood. We had a great time as usual hanging out. Sam and Erik cooked a couple of nice meals. We went to a beach, we went to the wharf. Erik is in love with San Francisco. This is where he and I got married.

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We had a nice meal in Florence

platialUser:lolly — 2008-08-05 11:55:26.656845+00:00

Can't remember the exact name of the restuarant. It was a Mexican seafood place, with a deck righton the river. We were running late getting to Portland and stopped here to get some food before giving up on Highway 101 and cutting through Eugene to catch 5.

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Rolling Family Reunion 2008

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-08-05 12:59:12.78815+00:00

* Theme: Your favorite sport or team * Best display for those camping. Best tailgate party (probably on Friday). * On Saturday, "show your talent" - from capentry to singing, writing, etc. * A tribute to those who have gone before.

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Chandelier Tree

platialUser:lolly — 2008-08-05 11:49:28.46745+00:00

I have dreamed of visiting a drive-through tree since I was a kid. It was pretty much just as cool as I had imagined it would be. On our way out of the park, I let Vigo run alongside the car as I idled in second gear. Then he started jumping onto the trunk and jumping back off again. Finally we let him jump into the moving car's open back door. Pretty thrilling, even if the car is only going 3 miles per hour.

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A Nice Rest in Portland

platialUser:lolly — 2008-08-05 11:57:39.928903+00:00

It's great hanging out with good friends for a bunch of days in a row. I think Erik is enjoying sleeping in a bed. Jason and Di-Ann happen to have the most comfy bed I've ever slept on in their guest room.

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Dabney State Recreation Area

platialUser:lolly — 2008-08-05 12:03:00.316236+00:00

We had a great evening picnic with the kids here. Dogs are not allowed, but we didn't know that before we arrived. The current is fast and fun here.

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Parisian Reunion 2008

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-08-05 13:02:07.97439+00:00

A lot of old friends are getting together for a weekend here. I'm really looking forward to it!

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Mount Rushmore

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-09-10 06:12:16.046942+00:00

Madison, Wisconsin

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-09-10 06:13:49.598311+00:00

Went to the Rodeo

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-09-10 06:09:36.49159+00:00

Vigo even went into the rodeo ground to try to snatch ribbons off of the tails of calves to win some free ice cream.

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University of Wisconsin-Madison Der Rathskeller

platialUser:bootch — 2007-02-05 17:47:47.872773+00:00

March, 23 2007 at University of Wisconsin-Madison Der Rathskeller
800 Langdon Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
Cost : Free

www.union.wisc.edu/music/programing.html * Der Rathskeller is widely recognized as the best place to see live music in the city of Madison. All shows are free and all ages, and a wide variety of food and alcoholic beverages are offered in facilities throughout the Memorial Union. *

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DOTR Part 2 with Showbread, Tyler Read- The Majestic Theatre

platialUser:mrthux — 2007-02-26 07:03:44.989336+00:00

March, 15 2007 at DOTR Part 2 with Showbread, Tyler Read- The Majestic Theatre
Not Available , Madison, Wisconsin
Cost :

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@ The Loft w/ Making April and Foreverinmotion

platialUser:jcbhurst — 2007-03-19 21:05:32.884457+00:00

April, 18 2007 at @ The Loft w/ Making April and Foreverinmotion
827 E. Washington Ave., Madison, Wisconsin 53701
Cost : $8

Website: thejourneymusic.com myspace: myspace.com/journeymusic Ticket outlet: thejourneymusic.indietickets.com

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Cafe Montmartre

platialUser:jason — 2007-04-03 21:47:42.751352+00:00

April, 13 2007 at Cafe Montmartre
127 East ifflin Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53703
Cost :

http://www.themomo.com/

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Nashville

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-08 17:35:06.003413+00:00

Pushed on to Port Jervis

platialUser:testytester — 2008-07-11 11:31:40.828775+00:00

We pushed through Poughkepsie and on to Port Jervis, where we hung out on the main drag with Mrs. Graf for a while. Port Jervis doesn’t make the list, but maybe some day…

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Pulled Over in Baltimore

platialUser:testytester — 2008-07-11 11:40:19.849067+00:00

We drove right through Baltimore on US 1. Baltimore is of course a trip and a half. Visions of John Waters movies and the TV show The Wire kept going through my mind as I rambled past blocks of boarded up brick houses and low rise apartment blocks. I was vaguely aware that Vigo was not sitting like an upright citizen in his booster seat. A few blocks north of downtown a cop flashes his lights at me. I pull over. “You know why I’m pulling you over don’t you?” “Uh is it because of how my son isn’t sitting properly?” “Not just that but he had his feet out the window. That can be dangerous especially in a neighborhood like this” added the kind young black officer before letting us go our way. I wish I had more time to explore Baltimore.

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A Nice Stop in Millerton

platialUser:testytester — 2008-07-11 11:30:23.512712+00:00

On the morning of the second day, we stopped in Millerton, NY, one of [some travel magazine]’s top ten hip small towns perfect for a stop on a road trip. We found out that it had been awarded this distinction from a copy of the magazine that was displayed at the flower shop where they sold chairs and tables carved out of single tree trunks. It was a pleasant stop.

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Camping Out Along the Farmington River

platialUser:testytester — 2008-07-11 11:27:59.072556+00:00

This probably isn't the exact spot, but it's somewhere along this river that they camped

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A Night with Steve & Naomi

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-08 17:32:25.678093+00:00

I’ve been driving barefoot a lot, and Asheville certainly is a barefoot kind of place. Steve and Naomi are old friends of Judy and Dave, parents of Shane who was in Vigo’s first grade class last year. They made us feel comfortable right away, even though they were probably going through their toughest time in a while. Vigo and their son Sam became good pals. We stayed two nights. I helped Naomi get ready for her trip to the Northeast by folding some laundry and returning library books. It was harder to find anything I could do to help Steve who was supremely exhausted by a medical treatment he was taking. I hope I get to experience the normal Steve one day. It was a nice relaxing time after the always slightly stressful days touring with my patents. I got to leave Vigo with Naomi for an hour and a half on Monday afternoon so I could ride my bike into town and see what all the fuss was about. Asheville seems like a funky little place indeed. There seem to be several different trends balancing each other out: street people, yuppies, students, hippies, givernment wiriers, with businesses or organizations catering to them all clustered in the small downtown area. Our friends live in West Asheville, which has its own little strip of healthy local businesses. Naomi keeps bees. Steve helped start WPVM, the low-power progressive/freeform FM station owned by the Mountain Area Network community ISP.

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A Short Stop in Nantmeal Village

platialUser:testytester — 2008-07-11 11:38:13.496325+00:00

Pennsylvania is beautiful. I would have liked to spend more time in Nantmeal Village.

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National Mall

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-11 11:44:05.144705+00:00

Not just any afternoon either: it was “America’s Birthday”, in the phrase that I don’t remember hearing with such insistence before–but maybe I wasn’t paying attention before. Everything was crowded, but not overly so. The systems in place were designed to handle throngs: the Metro, the bag check to enter the Mall, the museums. We toured the Air and Space Museum and the Hirschhorn–the latter not without protestations from Vigo who was worried he’d miss the best shows on the hotel tv. At the Hirschhorn, we watched all thirty minutes of Fischli and Weiss’s Der Lauf Der Dinge, which SO beats any afternoon childrens television.

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Hanging out for a Day while the Car Gets Fixed

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-23 17:17:30.227032+00:00

The car broke down and needs some repair. While it's in the shop, Vigo, Erik, and Sam are going to hang out at Laguna Beach. They were hoping to be near Huntington Beach, which seems pretty dog-friendly, but they'll make do.

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American Museum of Science and Energy

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-16 19:37:03.135275+00:00

With the seriousness of atom bombs, we stopped in Oak Ridge after driving through the smokies and resisting the sirens of Pigeon Forge - Dollywood and go karts. Vigo had a lot of fun at the American Museum of Science and Energy, where they had several exhibits about the Manhattan Project. Vigo had a great time there. He was a bit disappointed that we didn’t make it to the actual site of the secret city. I didn’t see it clearly marked, so I’m not even sure that there is anything to see. Pictures are the two sculptures they have outside the museum.

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Hanging Out in Nashville

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-16 19:43:34.990205+00:00

We got to Nashville in the driving rain. We found heaven at Starbucks: hot beverages, pastries, and wifi. We spent a couple of hours there. In the meantime the sun had come out and Sam was not in very good shape when we got back to the car. I won’t let that happen again. We drove around the city a lot. We didn’t really have an aim. Grand Ole Opry wasn,t in session. We hung out at an att store for two hours. Finally we had everything we needed and we headed for Broadway downtown where we walked around soaking up the music coming from the 21+ clubs. There was one place where we could both go and enjoy some fried food, jim beam, and live music: the Paradise Park, a trailer themed bar that Vigo had spotted from the moment we set foot on Broadway. “Thats where I want to go” he had said. “I want to walk up and down the street and see what else there is before we decide where to go” I insisted, which hardly made sense to Vigo. The stroll past bar after bar with great live music was pleasant despite the prevalence of “must be 21″ signs.

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Looking for the Natchez Trace Parkway

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-16 19:47:58.004612+00:00

Riding through the tony farm country west of Nashville trying to locate the entrance of the Natchez Trace Parkway, I blew a fuse trying to relight my cigar using the car’s lighter plugged into the adapter accessory that I was using to charge the batteries for the digital camera. I stopped at Leipers Fork to borrow some pliers to extract the fuse. A picturesque little place full of very friendly people.

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Funky Armadillo

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-16 20:14:55.752966+00:00

We drove around Amarillo for an hour. Vigo yelled “Funky Armadillo!” out the window for most of that time. We had BBQ at Dyers. We saw a really funny car next to a biker bar.

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Hitting Memphis

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-16 19:49:42.825269+00:00

Drove around the downtown area a lot. Great riverfront. So many neighborhoods in transition right by the main strip. Also: a few gated communities right in the urban core. We stopped to reflect at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was shot and talked to Jacqueline Smith, who has been holding a one-woman civil-rights protest across the street for a long time. She gave me a copy of an article about her in German. We stayed on the sixth floor of the downtown Sleep Inn: sweet.

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BBQ, Cigars and Hospitality in Smithville

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-16 19:39:51.140206+00:00

After getting my discount hand rolled Nicaraguan cigar in Smithville, I headed across the street to Sue’s restaurant on advice from Cathy at the tobacco store because they lived right around there and might know about good places to throw up our tent. Sue didn’t but one of her locals pointed us toward a campground right over the bridge, a place that wasnt even on our map. I got a plate of BBQ to go as well since cathy said the food was good. I rolled down all the windows and we backtracked a couple of miles in the sweet evening air - absolutely perfect time for a cigar at the wheel! We got to the campground just in time to enjoy the setting sun on Center Hill Lake. Fine BBQ too!

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Children's Museum of Memphis

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-16 19:51:42.002906+00:00

Ambitious plan for today: the Childrens Museum of Memphis in the morning then a 230 mile drive to get to the NorthCentral Arkansas Speedway to catch a Full Race Program by eight pm. I’m no expert at childrens museums, but Memphis’s seems like it’s pretty decent. Vigo loved it.

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Arkansas’s Second Oldest Town

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-16 19:53:53.272065+00:00

On our way to Yellville we passed through places named Marked Tree, Fifty Six, and Big Flat. I ended up going into the historic center of Batesville, Arkansas’s second oldest town - partly because I got on the wrong road. It was a fortuitous mistake.

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Lightning in Tulsa

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-16 20:12:42.914072+00:00

We got to Tulsa OK by mid afternoon. We stopped in a muy shady part of town. Some hard living girls were “getting rides” from truckers. Finally got enough wifi to find the local theater showing Wall-E. Spent a pleasant couple hours. Drove around Tulsa. Finally found a starbucks with help over the phone from Tracy. It was lightning like crazy. We spent 3 hours there. I had decided to drive all night to get past Oklahoma. One of the baristas invited me to taste coffees with him which is part of his training. We tasted Sumatran and Arabian Sanai both from the French press. When the rain got really hard I dashed out to the car to close the windows. Lightning had fallen two blocks away. I knew it was risky. The car was parked under a tree. As I was running towards it. Lightning struck an electricity pole in frontof the coffeshop. I saw the sky get lighter and then even lighter. I was too far away to feel the electrified skin crawling sensation that you’re supposed to feel in those cases but the sound follwed instantaneously and an eight-foot ball of white-yellow fire and sparks erupted around the power lines. It lasted a couple of seconds.

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Durango CO

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-16 20:22:43.293106+00:00

Retiring boomers, healthy mountain folks, and a variety of good-looking young hipsters makes for a cool downtown with three independent coffeshops.

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Got a Call from the Road Today (July 18, 2008)

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-18 13:10:11.693935+00:00

Starting Point

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-05 10:02:31.24582+00:00

July 1st, Erik and Vigo and Sam hit the road.

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Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

platialUser:tracy_the_astonishing — 2008-07-05 10:06:39.571611+00:00

Vigo and Erik went to the Smithsonian with Elly and Helmut. I wish I was with them!

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