Bird-day, and other little quirks

So we left off sitting in Delaware traffic- which is totally appropriate.

We (finally) made our way into Pennsylvania.

Rare state line photo:

And into Philadelphia.

MrBunny is a martial arts freak so we had to find our way to the Asia World Martha (apparently I’m more used to spelling Martha than Martial) Martial Arts place.

The plus was this place had a huge lawn area so the dogs and I played while he shopped.

After that adventure we headed back into downtown Philadelphia where apparently all photography equipment was forgotten about.

We went down to the Liberty Bell center which is surrounded by various other historical must-sees such as Ben Franklin’s grave.

Crowds do not bother me.  Amazingly enough I have incredible patience when it comes to waiting in lines or trying to work my way through a huge mass of humanity.

This was different.  This was more people per square inch then I think I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.

I used to live in a smallish Kentucky town-  I would not be surprised if there were more people in those few city blocks than lived in that small town.  It was absolutely ridiculous.

I just told a lie.  I said I was extremely patient in those situations.  That is not entirely true.  Horses.

Fucking horses.  And their carriages.

I. Hate. Them. (caveat: I don’t have a problem with horse drawn carriages when they are necessary.  So Amish, Mennonite, otherswhohateelectricity- Keep on with your bad selves.)

It is one thing to have a horse drawn carriage in a park like setting.  Or even in a city where it is still possible to drive with them there.  But when we have small Kentucky towns plus all their cars, plus all the people who live there already, plus all the people who work there, plus all the people just driving around trying to figure out where they are going… there is no place for a damn horse!

And we aren’t talking one or two horses here.  There was at least a dozen.  And they just cut across three lanes of traffic like there is no care in the world.  I just almost ran over your horse ass!!1!!

Oh the horses.

Moving on.  (deep cleansing breaths)

Thanks to the wonders of the internets I found this place that I thought MrBunny and I might enjoy.

It is called the Reading Terminal Market.  And it was fabulous.

Stall after stall of baked goods, cheeses, fruits and vegetables, sausage, fish, and meat.  Even those aforementioned Amish (oh my god what if those jackasses were using the Amish people’s horses outside?  The audacity!) had a booth.

We hadn’t eaten anything except random gas station crap (ah tastykake) so our stomachs were quite thankful for the stop.

It was a little daunting at first so we decided to take a lap or two around and see what was there.  And then it happened.

Story Break- when MrBunny came home from Bahrain he kept talking about this stuff called “shawarma” which is something like a gyro.  He was obsessed.  He and his friend (a coworker) took it upon themselves to find shawarma there in Tampa.  It was ridiculous.

So we are walking the aisles of the Reading Terminal Market when something happened that can only be described as the holy ghost taking ahold of my husband.

He had found a booth that was making shawarma.  It was like the roof had opened up and God himself was shining light upon this little spot of Philadelphia real estate.

With his money in hand, MrBunny stepped up and asked for one.

I must now publicly apologize to my husband for making fun of his obsession with this sandwich.

Oh. My. Lord.  It was so, so good.  Take a gyro, which is fabulous in it’s own right, and make it a thousand times better.  So, so very good.  We split one and immediately I was like, damn I wish I had gotten my own.  But we wanted to try different things so it was for the best.

Of course being in Philadelphia we had to get a cheesesteak.  Verdict?  Meh.  Didn’t rock my world.

We spent the next hour or so just wandering around.  MrBunny picked up a few pictures and stuff like that.  We could have spent much longer there but we had other places to see so off we went.

Back in the car we headed down 95 towards Baltimore.  Once I find the power cord to the video camera I’ll upload the riveting footage of me filming myself (of course) giving a synopsis of the trip to that point.  Riveting.

We went to the riverfront in Baltimore which was very pretty.

This sight did not help our “live aboard a sailboat” dreams.

Ginger was also enthralled by the view.  Actually she will be up front the moment MrBunny or myself leaves our seat.

Hmmmm, don’t remember at all what this was.  But it’s a cool picture.

So after MrBunny found some soft shell crab we headed down to D.C.

We had these grandiose plans of being able to slide into town, find a parking spot, and perhaps taking some nighttime pictures of the D.C. sights.

Those plans are so far from what actually happened.

Let’s just say that I would not have been surprised if the D.C. police pulled me over as I drove past the (not open at the moment) Jefferson Memorial for about the thirtieth time.

Apparently we weren’t the only ones who had they grand ideas.  It didn’t help that it was a beautiful night.

Not a single damn spot was to be found.  That and it was crazy busy.  So we just ended up driving in circles for well over an hour.

Insanity.

And this is the only decent picture we got.  We had a good time though.  However comma if MrBunny asked me one more time why I was once again going through that tunnel… he wasn’t going to be making it home.

Oh and it was about that time that Dixie (our GPS- so named by my mother) decided to crap out on us.  Damn Dixie.  So I had to go on memory (remember how well I navigated by memory in the places I had once lived… not a great plan) but amazingly enough we got out of town and headed our way down to Richmond to sack out for a few hours.

We woke up the next morning and headed over to one of my favorite places… Williamsburg!

I’ve never met a fife and drum corps that I didn’t like and MrBunny hadn’t been there in years (decades) so we headed on over.

Remember back when I first made mention of this road trip and I said something about people not knowing what a Crape Myrtle was?  No joke until this day at Williamsburg I was completely unaware that they didn’t grow everywhere.  And I grew up in places that did not have them.  I guess once you’ve seen them they imprint themselves on your memory.

But on no less than 6 occasions (yes 6- different trees and different people each time) I overheard people asking what those pretty flowery trees were.  At first I thought “oh poor person is probably from Arizona or something” and I forgave them for not knowing.  But then the second, and the third, and the fourth (by this time I was becoming quite alarmed), and the fifth, and finally the sixth who asked the cashier at the gift shop were clueless and it dawned on me that these beauties just might be local to God’s country.

And I was right.  I googled when I got in the car and apparently they are pretty much only found in the Southeast.  As if we needed any more proof that we are blessed!

Now that every Yankee (and Arizonian- if that’s a word) has stopped reading let’s get back on the road.

We left Williamsburg, drove a little bit around the Historic triangle  and then set off for North Carolina.

I told MrBunny to get a picture of the big monument to tobacco in front of the Phillip Morris place but he didn’t.  Definitely lost team player points for that.

Actually there were no more pictures taken that day.  Which is a little bittersweet because we lost a good friend at the end of that night.

We stopped somewhere in Winston-Salem for dinner and MrBunny took his hat off, putting it in the chair next to him.  It wasn’t until we were 30 miles down the road that he remembered the hat.

Thing about this hat- it was called “Salty”.  MrBunny had bought it in an airport on the way to Bahrain and as the name implies, had used it to absorb a ridiculous amount of sweat.  He was trying to see how nasty he could get it.

I’d like to take this moment to send my deepest apologies to whoever had to pick that hat up and throw it away.  It was truly disgusting.

Anyways.

We got up the next morning and headed into South Carolina-

Where I made MrBunny get off at the rest stop so we could get at least one genuine state line picture!

We are really lucky in that our two dogs are perhaps the best car dogs a person could ever hope for.

But even by this time, Bronco was starting to wonder

“Do you people have any idea where you are going because it doesn’t seem like we are ever going home again.”

If they could read I’m sure they would have been excited to see this sign.

We made one last stop (not counting Bass Pro Shops in Macon) before heading home.

The benefit to driving back roads is you stumble upon the most random of places.

We were sitting at a red light when MrBunny looks over and sees a statue of a rabbit.  A familiar looking rabbit.  He then sees a sign that reads “Uncle Remus Museum”.

That’s rights- we found ourselves in the birthplace (I’m a little sketchy on the details of this part due to a very disturbing and disgusting run in with unidentified animal shit.  And the ensuing bath in purell.) of the dude who wrote Song of the South.

It was very cute.  You’ll have to take my word for it.

So there you have it.   According to Google Maps it was roughly 2,300 miles- minus all our random driving.

A good time for sure!