First Leg

Current City: Baton Rouge, LA

We headed off to DC on Friday morning, a bit behind schedule but not too far, I'm just going to start adding at least an hour to my desired time departures. We hooted and hollered in the car on the ride down, very excited about our coming journeys. We walked around the capital for about 2 hours and then headed to Arlington, VA to stay with an old college friend of mine. We went to a bar for dinner and then just hung out in his apartment the rest of the night, it was good to catch up, it's been around 4 years since I've seen him. Saturday morning we ventured to the DC arboretum, unfortunately I had a nasty allergy attack but the trees and flowers were still beautiful.

Off to Apex, NC! Oh no the car! The oil pressure light kept flashing on our drive to NC, so very very bad. So, we would stop and let the car cool/check the oil and the light would go off and we could drive a little further. We finally arrived and were lost in the town for a bit until Jonathan came and found us! Sunday we took the car to Sears to have it looked at, apparently what happened is the last time the oil was changed they put the wrong oil filter and oil change in, so basically we got a SUPER expensive oil change, alas, such is life. We got to see a bit of Raleigh and Apex and reunite with long lost friends:)

A long, dark, windy ride later we arrived in the Great Smokey Mountains, TN at the Abrams Creek campsite (no car problems woohoo!). We set up camp, made a fire and hung for a little while before hitting the sack. Tuesday we awoke early and put our new stove to good use with coffee and oatmeal. We ventured on an almost 12 mile hike to the nearest waterfall. It was quite beautiful and quite tiring. Back into the car for an 11 hour ride, yikes!

Although we didn't stop in Alabama it didn't seem too exciting. We did stop in Mississippi for some dinner, also not too exciting, but super nice people. We were telling how we were driving cross country and going to New Orleans next, one woman who worked at the Waffle House was from New Orleans and was giving me some pointers of what to do and drink;) Well, thank goodness we were talking to them because I left my cell phone on the counter and we got in the car and drove across the street to get gas. After I had finished pumping a woman from the restaurant came huffin and puffin over with my cell in hand! So lucky! We finally arrived in Baton Rouge around 1am to see yet another friend who I haven't seen in about 3 years.

Yesterday, we headed to the French Quarter. It's an old quaint city bursting with artists and musicians. We really like this city. We got some breakfast...plates piled high with fried seafood and jambalaya, delicious. I was told to drink a Hurricane, so Mike and I did and Evan got a beer...you can walk on the streets with your drinks:) Then we had to drive Evan to the airport:( We will miss our only non-down-and-out road tripper!

We are still in Baton Rouge and plan to leave tomorrow to head to Texas for some more camping.

You can see some of the pictures that we took at: http://picasaweb.google.com/ana.stachowiak/OokSTrip#