First Night/Ohio

Catawba Island, Ohio.

Day one of driving could not have gone better. We got over the bridges in an hour, and i80 was smooth sailing through Jersey, PA, and into Ohio. Nice stop for lunch at the Snow Shoe Sandwich Shop along 80 in PA. (small size slim jim!)

We arrived at Mike's friend Alex's house around 7. She was nice enough to put us up for the evening, and had cooked us all sorts of delicious food. Her family has an amazing house across the street from Lake Erie, (!!!) so we went for an AMAZING sunset swim, and watched the sun sink into the lake as we sat in the super warm water. Simply awesome. (pictures to follow)

So far we've been reading directions off paper the old fashioned way, but Mike snagged a GPS from his sister Michele before we left, so we have that just in case. However, we didn't think to use this when we got mildly lost minutes away from Alex's house. (mom skip to next paragraph) Instead, we pulled over and asked two pedestrians, who from far away looked like they might be helpful, but in reality were 13 year old girls. It was then that a police officer put his lights on and pulled up behind us to see what two 20somethings from NY (with a fully loaded MINI) were doing talking to these girls. Mike got out of the car and met the officer half way, to explain our predicament. Just then I noticed that the 'hello ladies' homemade sign was on the reverse side of our directions. I was desperately willing Michael not to turn over the direction page in front of the cop. After I regained normal pulse, Mike got back in the car, and we headed off with incorrect directions from the cop. (5 mins later we just called Alex and all was figured out.)

As if we weren't excited enough about this trip, here's one more reason: Mike's Aunt Caren started a "Feed The Boys" campaign at his house, and raised us over $200 for food, gas, and tolls on the trip. (thanks again Aunt Caren, and all our benefactors) High fives all around for a less expensive trip!
Notable moments:
-Having to squeegee all the bug guts off the windshield in central PA
-The unreal selection of beer (and unremarkable amount of sandwich choices) sold at the Snow Shoe Sandwich Shop, directly off i80
-First official Beef Jerky purchase
-Our 'Hello Ladies' sign (met with decent reception so far)
-Getting from northern New Jersey to Cleveland, Ohio on ONE TANK OF GAS (MINI!!!)
-The cop situation
-Lake Erie Sunset
-Sitting here listening to Neil Young, and Mike speaking nonsense in his sleep.

Music Notes:
-Radiohead, In Rainbows
-Bill Hicks, Arizona Bay
-Incubus, Make Yourself
-Tool, Lateralus
-Neil Young, Live from Massey Hall

Staying the night here, heading to Chicago tomorrow for a Cubs game and some couch surfing.