Our Epic Trip North (Part 1)

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Didn't think the Camry could pull that much... but she made it!

The Stats:

• 28 hours of driving.
• 6 days of total travel.
• 12 states crossed.
• Ridiculous amounts of good food eaten.
• 3 belly aches.
• A 45 minute stretch of awkward silence near Jacksonville.
• 1st of our 2 US road trips completed (Pacific NW coming up before Thanksgiving!)

After a year and a half of dreaming about quitting our jobs and traveling… 6 months after deciding to actually take the leap and plan this crazy adventure… 6 days after leaving Miami… we finally made it back to Boston and phase II of our 3 phase plan to travel RTW has begun!

You have read about the steps I took to quit my job and how Meg got her sabbatical.

You have seen some of the early things we have done to prepare.

Now you can see why LandingStanding has been quiet these past 2 weeks as I recount the epic journey that was our East Coast US road trip.

Adios, Miami

To my beautiful pool on 8th floor of our building: I think I will miss you most of all...

2 years into my job in banking, I was accepted into a credit management training program which relocated me to San Francisco for 5 months.  At the end of this training, I was able to interview all over the bank and basically had my choice of location. We chose Miami for the job opportunity that was presented and because it sounded like one heck of an adventure.

It was.

Being able to go tan at the beach through December and having a nice pool 100 feet from our condo made every second in Miami worth it. But living these past few months with our RTW trip looming in front of us was extremely difficult.

Which is why that as sad as it was to leave behind such good weather and the friends we made in Miami, we were so enthused for our East Coast road trip. It meant it was finally time to stop dreaming. It was time to pack up, move out, and get our RTW planning into high gear!

On The Road

Pondering the 28 hours of road that lays before us

We hit the road only an hour later than expected Thursday morning, but after 5 hours of packing and loading the the Uhaul trailer. The only thing that saved my back after all of that lifting and then sitting in the car for 9 hours was the adrenaline of actually starting the next phase of our RTW adventure.

The first day was purposefully planned to be our hardest day of driving. We assumed the excitement from moving would carry us through most of the day and we were right. We did not even glance at how far we had gone until 5 hours into the drive.

If anybody else is making this road trip, I highly recommend just cruising through Florida. It is the least scenic, most boring drive there is unless you decide to spend some time at Disney or Universal.

I also recommend paying close attention to your map or GPS… there are very few exits on the Florida Turnpike in Northern Florida. Due to my having put the GPS navigation on mute from earlier in the week when I did a conference call for work while driving, we missed an exit that added 50 minutes to our trip… 50 MINUTES!!!

Meg was not necessarily mad at me for the innocent mistake… but she also didn’t talk to me until we made the next exit 50 minutes later.

Savannah, GA

Savannah was as quaint and beautiful as described

Our first true non-gas station stop of the day was our day 1 destination of Savannah, GA and man was it a nice change of of pace from the monotonous drive of Florida.

From the romantically lit parks to the incredibly nice people, Savannah felt magical.

It all started at check-in when our incredibly nice front desk person, Dot from the Avia hotel, heard about our upcoming plans to travel the world and said: “Oh my lord… you two are the most interesting people I have met in the last 2.5 years!”

I hear this all of the time from our parents, but it sure was nice to hear from a stranger… but seriously, Dot… who the heck did you meet 2.5 years ago that was more interesting than us?

We dined at the Old Pink House and had one of the better meals of my life (Meg will write all about the food we ate on our trip in the next post). But then it was off to bed as we had another long drive the next day heading to Raleigh, NC.

The Carolinas

Fun, casual, delicious!

Apparently, Charleston is only 2.5 hours up the coast from Savannah… who knew! My family used to vacation in Charleston (at the Wild Dunes Resort in Isles of Palm) every year when I was younger and was the scene of Meg’s first Rulli Family vacation so we had to stop!

As with everything else on this drive North, we had thoroughly researched our food options and found Amen Street to be the perfect balance of price, good seafood, and great location. Only a block from the water, we were able to take some great pictures and even see the aircraft carrier across the bay (always a favorite of mine)!

It's hard to take pictures of scenery when Meg is right next to me!

To Be Continued…

We had many more miles to drive, but that is for part 2 of our epic road trip North. For now, check out the road map below to see how far we had come and how much further we still had to go!

[mappress mapid=”1″]