This past week has found me and two close friends from Paris on our Great American Road Trip (East Coast version a la francaise). We've already put over 1,000 miles on our rented red Chevy, driving from Ann Arbor to New York City in one fell swoop, then down to Washington, DC, and today back up to Boston.
The trip has been amazing and unexpectedly quirky, a chance to catch up with friends old and new, en route to far away places like Mexico City and Seoul, and spend lots and lots of time on the road. Lots. New York to DC was the worst stretch thus far as we hit both New York and DC rush hour with a vengeance. Rather, they hit us and the trip took a total of 12 hours.
We've already had some memorable meals. Rather then going into detail in a fatigued and loopy state (8 1/2 hours of driving today) below are some illustrated highlights with further details to be filled in soon:
Afternoon beers and crab cakes in Baltimore, in the neighborhood where the best show ever, Homicide: Life on the Streets, was filmed:
Having the wife a a prominent politician buy me beers in the afternoon at Nathan's in Georgetown because she saw me sitting alone with my paper and elevated bum knees. The conversation improved as the beers kept on flowing. It would have been rude to resist and beer does have a very real therapeutic value in terms of pain killing/numbing:
Dinner at Marvin's with their lovely steak-frites, beers, and noisy but entertaining ambiance:
And finally, eating sushi and sesame noodles with chopsticks in a car today - no I wasn't driving (that would have been impressive) - but when you stop in Old Greenwich for a quick snack, you might as well go local:
There are many, many more anecdotes to follow, and the hospitality we have received has been amazing. I'll end with a picture of our Boston friend's cat, as I'm acutely missing my own, and he is quite darling:
A tres bientot -
E.
