We're finally on MV!

We finally made it to Martha's Vineyard. The whirlwind 2 month cross country trip has come to its conclusion as I write this blog from my sister's house on a little island off the coast of Massachusetts.

We've been here for about a week now. It's been a great time to reconnect with my sister and her family - especially my 2 year old nephew, Parker. He runs into our room every morning and asks us what we're doing. He usually climbs into our bed and starts asking what is that and what is this, as all toddlers do at his age. He has a particular knack of running into our room when we're changing and screams out, "you're naked." He's so cute that we don't really seem bothered by it.

We're heading up to Hartford tomorrow to look for apartments. As some of you might know, we had our hearts set on moving to Boston, but God had other plans. I received a great job offer from a company based out of Hartford and that's where we're going. We're excited about the new adventures ahead of us. Next stop, Hartford, CT.

Our kings and queens

The English have their kings and queens. Some would say that we have the Kennedys. I'd prefer to go farther back in time, granted not much farther back, and argue for the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers as our nobility. And one of their gifts to us commoners are their beach side bungalows in Newport, Rhode Island. To us they're mansions, but one man's mansion is another man's bungalow.

It was a pretty short drive from CT, so we got into Newport early in the afternoon and had the rest of the day to explore. The previous couple of days had been rainy and just downright dreary. Then there are some September days that just won't give up on Summer and push back on the impending Fall chill, and this was one of those days. The sun was shining and the birds were singing. We enjoyed everything about the day, especially driving around Ocean Drive, walking along the Cliff Walk, and viewing the Mansions.

The highlight of the Mansion tour was our visit to the Breakers, a 70 room summer house built by the Vanderbilt family. The house was absolutely stunning and built with so many details. There were intricate acorn and oak leaf patterns (the symbol for the family indicating long life) in marble, wood, and rugs throughout the mansion. Marble was shipped from Africa. And two full rooms were designed in France, broken down, and shipped to Newport to be reassembled. Oh, and all the gold leaf detailing - and there were many - were 22 carat gold.

We've decided that we're going to spend many more long weekends here. So we'll have more posts about Newport in the future. Incidentally, Newport and the mansions are suppose to be beautiful during Christmas with all the lights up. We can't wait.

We're back in the Northeast!

We finally made it back to the Northeast! We had a quick stopover in Washington DC to pick up our dear friend, Dorothy, and stopped in NYC to drop her off and to have some refreshing roadside ice cream. And now we're in Connecticut visiting with our other dear friends, Doug and Daphne. It's been really relaxing, and we're loving it. When we feel adventurous, we'd drive around some of the cute towns in the area. Next stop, Newport, RI.

OBX - Outer Banks Extreme?

We were very sad to leave Savannah, but as they say in show business, the show (road trip) must go on. Our next stop was the Outer Banks of North Carolina, or otherwise known as OBX. I'm not quite sure where the "X" came from. Maybe to give the place and eXtreme edge, or maybe they spell it Outer Banxs. I'd love to know, so if anybody has any clues, please send back a comment.

In hindsight, it's fitting that there was an "X" at the end of OBX because our plans for the two days in NC were pretty extreme - at least time wise. First, it took us a full day to drive up from Savannah to Morehead City, NC (on the Southern edge of the OBX). We went straight to our hotel and rested up for the big day ahead of us. We had to catch 2 ferries, with total ferry commute time of around 3 hours, the next day for us to get to our hotel at the Northern end of the OBX with the in between highlight being our visit to Ocracoke Island - with beaches that were just rated #1 in the US.

We got up bright and early to drive an hour to Cedar Island to catch the 9:30AM ferry. When we arrived at 9AM, the ferry attendant informed us that one of their ferries had broken down and the next ferry over to Ocracoke would not be until 12 noon. This was a serious blow to our time table, but what could we do. Se we waited. We finally got on the ferry and arrived on the island two and a half hours later. (They don't call it the Outer Banks for nothing).

The town itself was quite small, but awfully cute. We saw kids riding their bikes down the middle of the street, and everybody seemed like they were on their way to the beach. We took that as a cue for us to also head to the much hyped beaches. Our first impression was awe at the quantity of sand on the beach. It was a big beach. When then took a step onto the beach, and marveled at the softness of the sand. We moved on to testing the temperature of the water. Oh, it was like bath water - super warm. We then understood, firsthand, why this beach was ranked #1.

After what seemed like too short of a time, we left to catch our final ferry to Hatteras Village and drive two hours up the heart of the Outer Banks to Kill Devil Hills, NC. Upon our arrival at the hotel, that was right on the beach, we had a choice of upgrading to an ocean view room. We took it. We thoroughly enjoyed our beach front view and the soothing sound of waves crashing that rocked us to sleep.

Savannah on our mind

We absolutely love Savannah. Our road trip guidebook says that it’s a great walking city. It was spot on. There are 21 ½ (we never found the ½) lovely tree filled squares in the downtown historic area where we were staying, all within a square mile of each other. Each square had its own unique personality. It was a joy to walk around, and take in the nuances of each square.

It was pretty hot walking around. So after battling the heat for a day, we decided to enlist the help of a couple of horses and went on a carriage ride through the downtown area. It was a perfect setting as we clip clopped down red brick streets with plantation era mansions and live oak trees covered in moss all around us. For some parts of the tour, it almost felt like we were transported to the 1800s and all we needed to do was to be dressed for the period.

For one particular lunch, it did feel like we were back in the old South – at least to our stomach. We stopped at Mrs. Wilkes, a restaurant famous for its traditional southern cooking. We had classics such as fried chicken, BBQ pork, collard greens, po-beans, black eyed peas, and many more side dishes. We washed it all down with delicious sweet ice tea. Everything was outstanding, and we would highly recommend this restaurant.

More pictures from the aquarium

The first picture is the underwater walkway that I was talking about. Krista really liked the beluga whales in the second picture. I think it was because they're white. Two of them were actually trying to mate while we were watching them! And finally, a picture of a couple of saw sharks that I thought were pretty cool.

Really big fish

We originally planned to stay in Atlanta for one night as a quick stop over, but given that we missed the Monterey aquarium, we extended our stay over the past weekend for us to visit Atlanta's newest attraction and the world's largest fish tank. In hindsight, it was a great decision.

The aquarium was amazing! The building was actually in a shape of a fish. The highlight is the world's largest fish tank that holds a bunch of fish and four large whale sharks from Taiwan, of all places. We got to see the fish from underneath the tank through a underwater walkway (which was really cool) and from the side through large glass windows. It's hard to see the size of the whale sharks through the picture above, but they're big - trust me. We also found some fish that we really liked, the giant grouper. A couple of them even came straight towards the glass and looked at us like we were looking at them. It was like they were staring us down. As intimidating as they were, I didn't back down.

We also had two great meals in Atlanta, both at the same restaurant - Ted's Montana Grill. It was started by Ted Turner and its signature dish is bison burgers. The bison meat is supposed to be leaner and healthier than cow meat. Now, as a rule, I try not to eat at a restaurant more than once if I'm visiting a new city. So, this was that good.

Lastly, our overall thoughts on Atlanta were lukewarm at best. The downtown city area, where we were staying, was a bit rough. And while Buckhead was nice, it wasn't the charming little suburb we were hoping for.