Road Trip: Day 1/2

Driving Cross Country
Right after finals finished, both of us began packing up our house, as we were leaving Philly and spending the spring semester in Tokyo. We thought we could do it in two days... Turns out, we severely underestimated how difficult it is to pack up a two bedroom apartment and drive across country to California. After packing up most of our stuff (and giving the rest away on craigslist and to goodwill), we got ready for the drive. The itinerary was as follows: Philly to Dallas (22 hrs estimated time of arrival), Dallas to Tucson (13 hrs eta), Tucson to Orange County (9 hrs eta), Orange County to LA (1.5 hrs eta). We got pretty close to our ETAs, but ran a bit over. Here's a travel rundown... but to put it shortly, traveling across country sucks. horribly.


Day 1/Day 2 - Philly to Dallas, Tx (actual travel time - 24hrs, 1466 miles)
Driving 24 hours straight is BRUTAL. On our travel path, we had some interesting experiences and a lot of states (most of which, we'd never like to see again). After leaving Philly around 12:30 pm, we went through Delaware, Maryland and D.C. pretty smoothly. Then we reached Virginia. This state has to have the most cops per capita in America. We had to drive the speed limit through the whole state because there were cops EVERYWHERE. And did we have anything exciting to keep us entertained, NOPE. We had to look at the GAYEST cars in America. (see video below).



Seriously... who turns their car into a reindeer? Unbelievable. Nonetheless, we made it through Virginia, aka the speed limit state, and got to Tennesse. Despite having three large cities (Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis), there wasn't much to keep us entertained in Tennessee besides the fact that we drove through a huge storm. In fact, we thought there could be nothing worse... until we got to Arkansas. Here is a brief synopsis of what we saw in the entire state of Arkansas. Bridge and sign saying "Welcome to Arkansas".... Trees.... Trees.... More Trees.... One freeway exit for Little Rock....Trees... Trees... More Trees.... sign saying "Now leaving Arkansas." We didn't even see a Walmart, and Walmart was founded in Arkansas. Three words for Arkansas: Worst. State. Ever. (in terms of keeping me entertained). David also went delirious during the drive through Arkansas.



Sometime the next day, we left God-forsaken Arkansas and reached Texas. David had an interesting insight/reflection to share upon crossing the state line.



From the state line to Dallas was pretty uneventful. Dallas is long, flat, bare, and filled with cows. Side note/random observation: we counted at least 50 places to eat for every one gym. No wonder everything (read everyONE) is BIGGER in Texas.

Day 3 (Coming soon...)