Eurotrip: -7 days and counting

Hello!

Today marks SEVEN DAYS until we leave on our two-month jaunt across Europe, so it seemed as good a time as any to get this blog rolling. I hope for it to be a (somewhat) regularly-updated account of our comings and goings through various cities and countries, with good times had by all.

So.

How's about a little background info to get us going?

Rachel and I left the wonderful city that had been our home for over two years, San Francisco, under... less than auspicious circumstances (eviction notice, unreasonable and unpredictable master tenant, sleeping at friends' houses, etc etc) and headed to Texas on Valentine's Day to visit my parents.


While there, we did the usual things that one does while in Texas: went to the shooting range with my dad, visited the Fort Worth stockyards, and hit up a lezzie bar in Dallas (where the only way to get people on the dance floor, it seems, is to play a song that for some reason everybody knows the LINE DANCE to, leaving us baffled and tearing up from laughing so hard).


But really, we spent most of our time there reading, walking around the neighborhood, hanging out with my dad, and lamenting about the uniformity and unsustainability of suburbia and sprawl.

Then came time for... road trip!

This is our car, lovingly named Fiona:


(Okay, that's not a picture of our actual car, but it's the same thing. Great color, eh?)

The first day and a half was relatively uneventful, as a drive through Oklahoma, Missouri, and Illinois is wont to be.


The Missouri rest stop was surprisingly cool, with hotel coupons, free coffee(!) and a giant mural:


We stopped in Chicago for a couple of nights to see some old friends (what up, Chi-town kids!) and have dinner with Rachel's brother. This was the part when we remembered that it was early March and still balls cold out. Thanks, Chicago.

The second leg of our journey led us through Indiana and Ohio, a hotel in the tiny town of Erie, Pennsylvania, then through New York and finally Massachusetts.

It rained. Oh how it rained.
That part of the drive was Not Fun.

But we made it alive to Boston, where we have been for the last few weeks, enjoying a brief respite from traveling until we leave next week.

More to come; stay tuned!