It was road trip time this weekend and we made the most of it. On Friday morning, Andy, Kate, Mark and I piled into the car and drove to Penn State for the first Vote For Change concert featuring Dave Matthews Band. The drive down was great and relatively traffic free. I was able to do some reading and crossword puzzles I had been storing for a few weeks. Once in State College, Andy gave us the walking tour of campus including a visit to Old Main the building that houses the President’s office as well as a tower which overlooks the campus. We went up the tower and took some pictures, before going to the President’s office for some desserts. The next stop was a bar Andy used to frequent “when he went there”. The beer was cheap even if they only offered Bud, Bud Light, Coors, Coors Light and Miller Lite on tap. We then left for the Bryce Jordan Center to catch the show. On the way there we passed several Bush supporters and Kate was quick to take off her sweater and show off her Kerry ‘04 shirt. Andy and I went to our seats in the fifth row and enjoyed Jurassic 5 and Ben Harper. Shortly afterwards DMB came on and played an amazing set. After the show we went to the Ramada and went to sleep, despite Andy’s request to go out again.

In the morning we were rudely awoken by a soccer team dragging their luggage down the stairs of the motel. After dropping Andy at the airport, Mark, Kate and I made our way towards Philadelphia. Unfortunately, we missed a turn and ended up driving through the ghettos of North Philadelphia. It was scary, but eventually we found our way to Tiffany and TJ’s. We had a little lunch and then hung out for a bit before going for a walk along the river. We saw a bunch of cool statues and went up to the Frican art museum. The view of the city was great, as can be seen above. It was time to eat again and we went to a really cool restaurant that had a very European feel to it. They also had a bunch of Belgian beers, which made me consider drinking, but in the end I knew I would still end up not enjoying it. It was a cool place to eat and hang out, I wish it was in Boston. After dinner we went back to the house and played Cranium, boys vs. girls style. We really did well and the girls struggled on the trivia questions. It was a lot of fun hanging out and just having a relaxed night.

We woke up on Sunday and had a yummy breakfast of french toast. Next up it was time for some touring of the Old City. We hopped in the car and drove downtown to Independence Hall. We got tickets and waited for our tour. Andy showed up from Scranton and joined us right before the tour. We saw the Liberty Bell and then had our tour of Independence Hall. It was really cool to see such an important place in our history. Once back in the car I requested that we drive by the Real World house(bank). I snapped a picture and we were on our way back to the house. We left in the afternoon around two. It was so nice of TJ and Tiffany to host us for the two days we were there. Thank you guys so much we all had a great time.

The drive back was fairly smooth except for our stop at a rest area on the NJ turnpike. For starters my coffee from Starbucks was a dollar more than usual. Mark was hungry, but the two food options were Roy Rogers and Nathan’s, which are two of the nastiest fast food restaurants you can eat at. He decided to pass and we went to get gas. Now it is a law in NJ that all of the gas stations have to be full service. This caused lines similar to those I have seen from the gas shortage of the 70’s. The station had 12 pumps, but only six of them were turned on and three men were working the six pumps. It took forever to get through the lines. We finally made it out of that god awful state. We finally made it back to Boston at around nine. It only took about six and a half hours to get home. I will admit for the last hour we were a little crazy, talking about the Frican museum, my idea for a fantasy hurricane league for next year, a parrot voice, the beeping of Philadelphian car horns, listening to the same CD over and over again and many more things.