jersey girl

what a weekend. trevor's aunt susie is turning 50 this week, and we drove to nj to celebrate with her.

in 36 hours, we drove down to palmyra (right outside philly), partied it up, and came back up through ridgewood (right outside nyc) for dinner at his aunt bitsie's house.

no more extended car rides for me for a while. oh, and these are some photos of susie's "yarden" and our delicious mid-morning mimosas.

720 miles in three days

we've had the longest few days ever!

after work on thursday (yeah, i have a job now!) trev and i began our road trip to philadelphia to see theresa and steve. we stopped at his aunt bitsie's one night, and on the way back stayed with his aunt susie. unfortunately we didn't visit with either aunt as long as we would have liked, but it was still really nice to meet them.

we didn't have much time together in philly, so we hit some major spots. one being the philadelphia museum of art, which had an amazing permanent collection. our two hour window in the museum went by wayyy too fast. and thennnn, we had to have a philly cheesesteak. it was heavenly. weirdo canned cheese (think nacho style) and finely chopped up meat and sloppy onions on a big roll. deelish.

to my great surprise, trevor did most of the driving while i tried to soak in as much of ct, ny, nj, and pa as i could. on our way back i caught a glimpse of manhattan and was excited to see lady liberty from a distance. next time, we'll get much closer.

cape cod weekend

we drove to the cape on saturday evening for some quiet time over the weekend. on the way to dinner, we stopped by the spot where trevor's grandma, nancy, lives and said hello. he had no trouble persuading me to eat at an italian restaurant up the street (nor did i have to convince myself to order prosecco mmmm). after dinner and some walking around, i made trevor watch a film noir with me while we ate decadent chocolates from a local candy shop.

on sunday we picked nancy up and went out for lunch. we parked at a beach nearby to soak in the view before heading to one of her favorite restaurants. it was right on the harbor (hah-bah) and luckily the sun came out as soon as we arrived. after lunch, we said our goodbyes and went for a drive. it was nice to eat lots of good food and have absolutely no plans to worry about.

sea skies

dinner on sam's boat in the chesapeake bay during our stay in virginia.

goes to washington

memorial day weekend was really fantastic. we arrived at bwi ("beewee") at 8am last friday and spent the entire, and i mean entire, day seeing monuments and memorials and museums. sensory overload hit around 5 o'clock so we headed to virginia where we stayed at sam (deborah's cousin) and brenda's home for a few days.

the white house was of course beautiful, and was of course surrounded by protesters. i got a peek at mrs. obama's garden and the gardener but the grounds were otherwise still.

there were plenty of veterans out and about (especially vietnam vets on motorcycles) paying their respects, and i couldn't help but feel overwhelmed and sad while wandering from memorial to memorial. although i was up to my eyeballs in tourists and pouring sweat (and i'm from california?!) it was difficult not to be swept up by the power of each quote or scene.

we spent a fair amount of time at the national gallery of art, where we ran upstairs to see ginevra de' benci by leonardo da vinci. that excitement came and went as trevor and i found a comfy couch to hang out on, as 3:30am wake up calls are not usually our thing. i could have easily spent a few more days concentrating on museums and galleries alone-- luckily that trip is just a short plane ride away.

sunny afternoon

shiny new nail polish for our memorial day weekend trip to washington dc. we are flying into baltimore tomorrow morning and will drive to capital hill for museums, memorials, and so on and so on.

cambridge

trev and i went on a quick trip to cambridge this afternoon. after eating terrible pizza, we stumbled upon a lovely travel boutique called passport. i left with a simple eye mask (for the mornings when the sun rises too early and the evenings when trevor is up reading too late), though i lusted after beautiful grey tweed luggage.

we didn't spend any time on the hah-vad campus, but i did manage to photograph some bits of buildings as we drove around.

a canadian tourist?

leaving lake tahoe

well, we have had a really great time here but will be heading back early tomorrow. unfortunately, both cameras i brought had very little battery life, but i was able to get some shots while on our tour of emerald bay today. it's hard to believe i will only be in california for another week!