Lazy Blog/Philly in pictures

Look how close we got to the Washington monument.

Even you can be an artist if you have lots of trash.

So that's where my bike went...

You're welcome!

Don't judge a book by its cover...

We're almost there.

We're there!

Too close!

"Go forth and eat!"

Can we take a worse picture than this?

nailed it.

Raise the roof.

Think of all the culture we could've absorbed if we'd stopped.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He'll save children, but not the British children.

 

Adrian!

I spy Rocky.

liberty bell?

NBD

Goodbye Philadelphia, hello Garden State.

cool your jets little piggies.

We're a day late and definitely a dollar short with all these northeastern toll roads, so here's a brief rundown on our Richmond-Day-3 adventure. But cool your jets little piggies, we're movin' at the pace of real barbecue (especially after having eaten so much of it…)

Actually, that's a nice segue into a summary of our last couple days.  Apparently we are determining the stops along our journey based upon food shows, which maybe isn't an amazing decision for our health, come to think of it. Nevertheless, it has been an amazing decision for our palates, as we've partaken in some good eatin' lately.

The first two stops we already mentioned: The Village Cafe, which Guy Fieri featured on "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives." People, I will reiterate: if you need a milkshake, drive to Richmond and get a hazelnut-Irish-cream milkshake with a chocolate base. Your life will be all the better for it.

Yesterday (Richmond Day #3), we went by the aforementioned Black Sheep for lunch.

And oh. my. goodness. Their menu ain't lyin' about these battleships.

We split the U.S.S. Brooklyn, with jerk chicken, peach chutney, cabbage slaw, and banana ketchup to boot. Nice kick with a sweet finish. It. Was. Gooood.

We washed it down with the Black Sheep Banana Pudding: lady fingers layered with a fluffy ripe banana & rum spiked pudding, nutmeg & sweet whipped cream. Delicious.

After our glorious meal, we realized that day trips planned around food destinations kind of fall apart in the hours between meals…woops. So we killed time between lunch and dinner by walking in the historic tobacco warehouse district along Canal Walk and through Shockoe Slip/Shockoe Bottom areas.

 

 Eventually we were ready (kind of) to make another stop along Foodstuffs Blvd at Adam's second Richmond recommendation:

We didn't get a great shot of the 1/2 rack of ribs we got, but at least we got one of the result.

mmm...finger-lickin' good.

-----Just arrived in Matawan, NJ; look for another post later about our day in Philly.

rainy days and fridays.

Day 2 in Richmond = success. Well, more or less...

We started off with a nice run through the neighborhood, but it's such a giant dang compound that it didn't take us very long to get lost. We made it back alive though, so don't fret.

Then we got locked out of the house in this:

...but luckily I'm a miniature person and fit through the doggie door to the screened-in back porch (even the PORCH was locked), so at least we had cover until the Daveys got back home.

Eventually, we decided we were done with mishaps, so we headed downtown with Lydia to check out Carytown, which was super cute (Zack's words, not mine). For dinner, we wanted to go to a place featured on the Travel Channel's "Man vs. Food," but right when we drove up, the sky reopened and we decided we didn't want to wait outside in the rain. So we headed to a VCU favorite, which I can honestly say provided me with one of the tastiest milkshakes I've had in quite a few moons.

I would have snapped some photos of the meal, but...it was pancakes and I know you know what pancakes look like. Plus, the picture could not have possibly captured their delicioso-ness, trust me. Instead, I sneaked a shot of a poster that made me smile. These Rams like their basketball 'round here.

I so wish this was referring to this Shaka, not this Shaka.

After gorging ourselves, we made our way back to the 'burbs. During the journey Zack discovered some surprisingly fresh Play-Doh in the back seat, so we had a contest while Lyds chauffeured us home. The results were...interesting.

Turns out I'm no good at making llamas...

My entry for the "tree" category definitely trumped Zack's though. No contest.

In the "car" category, we were equally bad, with my VW Bug matching his pickup-truck-with-no-suspension...

and...the "bear" assignment didn't end too well either.

So we made the most of our rainy day and are looking forward to a tomorrow filled with a few less wrong turns and a few more adventures. Till next time...

...road trips. woot!

poopaloopananny

I let Zack make the title of this one. See what happens?

Anyway, we left Roan a bit damp (but not the least bit defeated) and hit the road toward Charlottesville. The drive: pretty uneventful, UNTIL we saw this glory out our windows, the 8th largest sports venue on the planet earth. 

C-ville was lovely. Hot, but lovely. We even ventured up to Jefferson's Monticello and would have gotten ripped off to tour the house if we weren't so stingy. Good thing.

Mista Jefferson himself.

Now we're in Richmond-- got a nice tour of VCU Health System today, and plan on exploring a bit more of downtown tomorrow.

Until next time, here's our lesson of the day: never buy cheap made-in-china multi-tools.

movin on up

we're in our elemennnnnt!!!

1200 miles and 4 states down! We just arrived in Charlottesville (changed up the route a tiny bit) after a couple of days hiking on the Appalachian Trail...

Hiking seems like it would just be a nice time out in the woods, but really it's just a chance to learn some valuable lessons while not being able to shower. Here are a few lessons we learned on our short venture on the AT:

1. Hiking uphill is tough. For you runners who go out and run 12 miles on a Sunday just 'cause: this ain't the same.

2. Hiking downhill is tough. And not even in the same way as uphill: when you're hiking uphill and your legs start to burn past their functioning point, you can just stop and rest; on a downhill, when your legs (which are tired from going uphill) get shaky underneath your full weight, you just fall.

3. The AT has a lot of both uphill and downhill.

4. Keep an eye out for the blazes marking the trail.

These (above) mean, "Yes, you're still on the correct silly ole trail, tramping through the mountains for no real reason except to say that you did."

And these (above) mean absolutely nothing. Don't follow them unless you want to get lost.

5. It's hard to judge mileage with a pack on your back. We still don't know how many miles we actually covered; probably not very many. We think that bald in the distance is what we got to before turning back to our car.

Here are a few other pics of our rain- and cloud-filled hike:


Tomorrow we'll check out UVA and Charlottesville, then head to Richmond for a few days.

road trips. woot!