Steve & Baylee Road Trip 2009 Begins! Steve & I meet up at Subway to make our grand plan and schedule, connecting all the dots that represent our friends across the great US of A. We start figuring out travel times and quickly determine that Boston is the first place that we want to go, but decide that with the festivities planned for later in the evening, we don’t want to go all the way (13 hours) in one day. So we search for friends living in cities between Ann Arbor and Boston, and find out that Kate Marcos is living in Saratoga Springs, in upstate NY, right on the way. She is surprised when I call, and even more surprised when I ask to sleep on her floor. Then she surprises me by welcoming us to stay, with reluctant optimism and curiosity. Thus, Saratoga Springs is decided as the first stop on our 5 week tour of the US.
After 10 hours of driving (Steve decides to drive the whole way…I think he’s not completely comfortable with me driving his car, but neither am I) we arrive in Saratoga Springs. We meet Kate and a friend of hers at at small Irish pub called Local. We get some tasty brews and a couple plates of fish & chips and shepherd’s pie and catch up. After dinner, Kate’s friend goes home, and we drive to one of the town’s namesake springs to get a taste. It comes out of a stone fountain under a gondola and tastes like carbonated rotten eggs. Thanks, Kate.
We buy a couple packs of good local beer (Saranac—yum) and head to her place of residence, which happens to also be her place of work. As an intern for a nature conservancy, part of her compensation is a small apartment that is part of the office that she works in. It is cozy, and best of all, it has an extra bed. We put Top Gun on in the background and play cards. After most of the beer and all of the movie had been consumed, we called it a night.
The next morning, Steve & I sleep in while she walks next door to start working. When she’s wrapped up her morning tasks, she tells us that she’s ready to go snowshoeing. This is something we half drunkenly decided to do the night before. With the pretense of checking out the trail allowing us to steal her away from work for an hour, we hit the trail. She points out mouse and squirrel tracks, and we point out how badass she is. We get back to the car, snap a few pics, and hit the road again, with homemade cookies in tow. Kate has set the bar high for host hospitality.
Boston, here we come!
you need to set up twitpic or something so you can give us pics!
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