3 states down, the rest of the country to go...

First of all I'd like to apologize to my fellow bloggers and to our readers for not posting in a while. I can't say "NO" to work, and I've spent the first few days of our trip working for two separate clients. It was very time consuming, but I'm done now and I promise I will be much more diligent.

I don't know where to begin. Saturday was technically day 1 for Matt and I, but it feels as though it was day 14. We've been preparing for "Day 1" for a long time now. Between all the packing, driving to Matt's dad's house and back with our stuff, and planning, I feel as though I've been leaving every day for weeks.

We decided to spend the first part of our trip visiting my cousin Mara and her family at the tip of Long Island. I had never been there before and on our way out I realized that we were very close to Sag Harbor, the very town Steinbeck set out from about 50 years ago for "Travels With Charley." I think its very serendipitous that we keep finding ourselves following his foot steps. Jared and Molly's dog is named Charley, our camper is named after Steinbeck's camper (in honor of Matt's Mom and Step Dad), and then as soon as we leave the city we found ourselves in Steinbeck's back yard.

While in Long Island we got to meet my new 2nd cousin, Maya:



We also saw Mara and her husband Roni play in their band:



I wish we could have stayed longer and spent more time with Mara, Roni, Maya, my aunt Cynthia, and her cousin Linda, but we had to get on the road.

As Matt already blogged about, we took 3 lovely ferries to Connecticut, which also happens to be the way Steinbeck set off from Long Island. I've really enjoyed following his foot steps, but it seems our paths will separate after CT. Steinbeck went up North to Vermont and New Hampshire and then up to Maine, but Matt and I are going south PA before we meet up with Jared and Molly in Angola, NY.

Visiting my family was very bittersweet. I loved seeing them, but not knowing when I am going to see them next makes me sad. I'm hoping to visit them during the holidays.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of the things I am going to miss most about the North East is Mount Tom. Mount Tom is this beautiful, clean lake that I learned to swim in as a kid. My dad and I have a tradition of taking long swims together in this lake (and in Seth's Pond), so before I left we decided to take another swim. Here are some pics from Mount Tom:



After my chilly but wonderful swim, Matt and I decided to test to see if Sophie can swim:



It turns out she can, but she hates it.

This morning I said my good byes (or as Camp Daybreak says "see you later") to my family and Matt, Ripley, Sophie, Charlotte, Fern, and I piled back into the car and drove to PA to visit Matt's family. It seems as though we are really under way with this trip, and its starting to feel like it. To quote my favorite armless cartoon character, "its a roller coaster ride of emotions!"