Here is your helping!
Alex made this sign for the cabin!
June 27, 2008
Luray, Virginia. Today was slow as well…I’ll write a bit, but there is nothing that new to report.
We puttered around Luray and visited the public library and an adjacent playground for an hour or so. After the librarian’s good humor was used up on the four kids below the age of eight, we moved on to Flotsies. Flotsies is a portable ice-cream stand that came highly recommended and seemed to be the local thing to do. Flotsies was very busy at 2 PM on a Friday. Alex is continuing his new love affair with root beer – he shared a root beer float with his cousin. Bliss. Eleni went for soft-serve vanilla. You can see Flotsies below – and I took a photo for the CDC just next to it. Luray has some beautiful scenery with the mountains surrounding us here!
We drifted into a used bookstore on Main Street. One of my goals on the road is to visit thrift shops in every town (we might be able to guess a bit about the town by the things they get rid of? That, and they are just fun!). This bookstore can be our thrift shop in Luray since we haven’t found anything else comparable. Some noteworthy observations – In a tiny, one-room store, there were two and a half shelves of Chicken Soup for the Soul books, five shelves of Civil War books, two shelves of wild-west books, and two whole shelves of Native American books.
The rest of our day was spent hanging around – enjoying the scenery and the company. I’ll have more to say tomorrow as we’re visiting the Luray Zoo. Get excited!
In the meantime, Neil is taking a turn at writing! Now you will notice my mileage and addition mistakes! He’s going to carry that category for our trip, now…
Our ride (Neil):
We bought our first ever brand new car. This was a big deal for me, because I am spectacularly cheap by temperament (plus why would anyone drive a new car in crash-happy NJ?), but we needed something reliable and frugal for a trip of this duration. We went after a Prius, but so did everyone else this summer, and we couldn’t get one guaranteed to arrive in time. The next best solution, $8000 cheaper, proven technology, and probably a better driving experience, was a Honda Civic. We got a really good deal from Gary Liu at Planet Honda on Rte 22 in Union. We were in and out, with no haggling and histrionics, driving away in our new car, within three hours. The EPA mileage is 25/36, but we will test that out over the course of this trip. So far, we’ve been driving pretty slowly to conserve gas and protect the precious new car, so we should be able to exceed those figures. We got down here (320 miles) easily on one tank of gas. The car has side airbags, so it should be safe, even if light, and the trunk seems to hold all our gear pretty easily. It also has automatic transmission, which means readers of this blog should be spared daily venting sessions about driving stresses (if we had taken our manual Subaru for this trip). One of the motivations for this trip that is emerging is an experiment as to whether the Great American Road Trip is still viable in the new age of peaked oil. Many people consider us crazy huddled together in our small car for two months (“you’re not taking an RV???”), but my guess is that everyone is going to have to switch to smaller cars in the next few years, so we hope to show that it’s not such a major inconvenience (preaching?). We had to leave some luxuries behind (I’m worried about running out of novels), and we’ll be doing laundry every few days, but otherwise it’s good to be traveling light and leaving a modest footprint. I figure 7500 miles at $4 a gallon and a conservative estimate of 30mpg should cost us about $1000 for the round trip, which is much cheaper than four round-trip airfares, and we have the flexibility of always having a car, which is still vital in this country (otherwise, I’d have preferred to take the train). Perhaps Kirsti will persuade me to post again with updates on our wheels…
Bank Street Used Book Store on Main Street in Luray, VA
Alex made this sign for the cabin! 
Alex - hanging out on the porch!
The public library with an old granary in the background.
Flotsies!
CDC monkeys in VA!
June 27, 2008
Luray, Virginia. Today was slow as well…I’ll write a bit, but there is nothing that new to report.
We puttered around Luray and visited the public library and an adjacent playground for an hour or so. After the librarian’s good humor was used up on the four kids below the age of eight, we moved on to Flotsies. Flotsies is a portable ice-cream stand that came highly recommended and seemed to be the local thing to do. Flotsies was very busy at 2 PM on a Friday. Alex is continuing his new love affair with root beer – he shared a root beer float with his cousin. Bliss. Eleni went for soft-serve vanilla. You can see Flotsies below – and I took a photo for the CDC just next to it. Luray has some beautiful scenery with the mountains surrounding us here!
We drifted into a used bookstore on Main Street. One of my goals on the road is to visit thrift shops in every town (we might be able to guess a bit about the town by the things they get rid of? That, and they are just fun!). This bookstore can be our thrift shop in Luray since we haven’t found anything else comparable. Some noteworthy observations – In a tiny, one-room store, there were two and a half shelves of Chicken Soup for the Soul books, five shelves of Civil War books, two shelves of wild-west books, and two whole shelves of Native American books.
The rest of our day was spent hanging around – enjoying the scenery and the company. I’ll have more to say tomorrow as we’re visiting the Luray Zoo. Get excited!
In the meantime, Neil is taking a turn at writing! Now you will notice my mileage and addition mistakes! He’s going to carry that category for our trip, now…
Our ride (Neil):
We bought our first ever brand new car. This was a big deal for me, because I am spectacularly cheap by temperament (plus why would anyone drive a new car in crash-happy NJ?), but we needed something reliable and frugal for a trip of this duration. We went after a Prius, but so did everyone else this summer, and we couldn’t get one guaranteed to arrive in time. The next best solution, $8000 cheaper, proven technology, and probably a better driving experience, was a Honda Civic. We got a really good deal from Gary Liu at Planet Honda on Rte 22 in Union. We were in and out, with no haggling and histrionics, driving away in our new car, within three hours. The EPA mileage is 25/36, but we will test that out over the course of this trip. So far, we’ve been driving pretty slowly to conserve gas and protect the precious new car, so we should be able to exceed those figures. We got down here (320 miles) easily on one tank of gas. The car has side airbags, so it should be safe, even if light, and the trunk seems to hold all our gear pretty easily. It also has automatic transmission, which means readers of this blog should be spared daily venting sessions about driving stresses (if we had taken our manual Subaru for this trip). One of the motivations for this trip that is emerging is an experiment as to whether the Great American Road Trip is still viable in the new age of peaked oil. Many people consider us crazy huddled together in our small car for two months (“you’re not taking an RV???”), but my guess is that everyone is going to have to switch to smaller cars in the next few years, so we hope to show that it’s not such a major inconvenience (preaching?). We had to leave some luxuries behind (I’m worried about running out of novels), and we’ll be doing laundry every few days, but otherwise it’s good to be traveling light and leaving a modest footprint. I figure 7500 miles at $4 a gallon and a conservative estimate of 30mpg should cost us about $1000 for the round trip, which is much cheaper than four round-trip airfares, and we have the flexibility of always having a car, which is still vital in this country (otherwise, I’d have preferred to take the train). Perhaps Kirsti will persuade me to post again with updates on our wheels…
4 comments:
Reading your posts everyday has been great fun! I love the Soul Soup book shelves ... Neil, I love the gas analysis. Can we also do a Google Map with average gas prices pinned on? Then we could calculate miles per dollar by state.
Also, my wife being a voracious reader, we found that we could trade in books at used book stores along the way. Stock up on your Soup!
Long Live the American Roadtrip! Is Eleni talking to Kirsti? Will the children stay hydrated? Will Neil read a novel about every state? Last summer Von read "Devil in the While City" as we rode through Chicago. Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" is a classic about the Southwest, but maybe wait till AFTER you visit to read. I'm reading it now. Nature writing sometimes has to be done in chunks to digest rather than obsessive gorges. Don't you think reading a book about a place AFTER you visit can be more rewarding?
Thanks for sharing your road trip with us! It's wonderful to get the play-by-play!
Mal just told me about the blog! What a great idea. Keep it coming! (FYI, I'm not sure why as I don't blog myself, but the pictures are coming before the text.)
What an amazing trip to take with the family! Only a few days into the trip and I can't wait to read about and see what comes next.
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