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Lions, Rhinos and Tree Snakes, Oh My.

5/28/2014

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By Caitlin

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"Just be aware that a tree snake has been lurking outside your room in the roof but it should go away eventually." This was our ominous welcome upon arrival at our lodge where we were going on our first safari. We didn't see the snake anywhere, so we relaxed slightly. Only later did we find out it was one of top 10 deadliest snakes in Africa (but fortunately, unlikely to strike). Nearly 24 hours later, I was relaxing between game drives lying down on my back on the porch of our hut when my eyes came to focus on a long, lime green belly directly above my face 5 feet up. Hardly the most exciting moment of our time on Moditlo game reserve,near Kruger National Park, but it probably was my closest brush with danger.

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Going on Safari is simply a wonderous experience. We were in awe of the bush, of the animals that live there and of the guides that use their own knowledge and instinct to snuff out even the most camouflaged chameleon or elusive lioness for our thrill. 

The reserve was a labyrinth of dirt paths surrounded by dense bush in every direction. This made it difficult to see animals even right in front of you, so we were at the mercy of the skills of Themba and Jessie, our skillful guides to make the 3 hour game drives (one at 6 am, one at 4 pm) worthwhile. I'd say they did pretty well considering we were able to observe giraffes, impala, rhinos, hippos, cheetah, warthogs, wildebeest, monkeys, and 4 lions, among many others in as close to an authentic environment as you can get.  

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It's hard to choose a favorite moment but top 3 might include: 



1. Watching a cheetah stalk a pack of wildebeests as group of 8 giraffes looked on nervously.






2. Encountering a group of rhinos in defense formation,reacting to our vehicles every sputter in a rotating spoke-like manner.








3. Spending 2 hours tracking lions, and near the point of giving up, Jed finally spotted the 3 females through the misty bush eagerly devouring a fresh warthog kill.  As we got within a few yards of them, they gave us a few nasty looks in our direction to ensure we wouldn't steal their kill, but fortunately they were more focused on finishing off their meal than any of us.
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It's an experience unmatched by anything else. Looking forward to trying it again in a new setting when we safari in the Serengeti in a few weeks! 

P.S. It's a requirement of any safari that you take at least 7,000 photos. just be aware that only a handful will be good enough to share and none of them will replicate what it was like to hear the lion cracking warthog bones in her teeth, but nonetheless, here our a few of our favorites (click to enlarge):
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Farewell America, Hello Africa.

5/23/2014

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By Caitlin and Jed

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7,000 miles driven, 25 states visited, 0 speeding tickets. Not bad. I'll admit, that the last 6 weeks were much more fun than I anticipated. I thought I would be really sick of the car, gas station bathrooms and probably Jed. However, I really missed the trusty Honda when we walked from the airport to our hostel this morning upon arriving in Johannesburg, South Africa. Now, as the international portion of our journey begins, we first wanted to make a list of some Bests/Worsts of our cross-country trip:



The Roadies – Jaitlin's road trip awards:

Best Cheap Motel: tie between Motel 6 and Microtel

Worst Motel: Super 8 Austin. Never a good sign to have 5 cop cars and several people handcuffed when you show up to your motel.

Most Essential Motel Amenity: Free Wifi

Least Essential Motel Amenity: Free breakfast (since we slept through it every time)

Top 3 Cities for Tourists: New Orleans, Savannah, and New York City

Favorite Ice Cream: Fielder's Choice - Sabbatus, ME

Best Gas Station - General Category: Love's (best magnet selection)

Best Gas Station - Bathroom Category: Pilot (big, thick walls between stalls is key)

Scariest Moment: Caitlin woke up in the middle of the night and thought a stranger was sleeping in the other bed at our motel in New Orleans. Only after waking Jed (and a brief heart attack), did we realize it was luggage, shadows, and paranoia playing a cruel trick.

The Hangover Award: Big Red Margarita, College Station, Texas

Best Spontaneous Celeb Spotting: Geraldo in full wizard gear at Harry Potter World (Jon Stewart was a close second, but loses out since it was not spontaneous)

Best Beard: 3-way tie for Eli, Dave, and Craig because beards are a pre-requisite of living in Maine

Best Catchphrase: “That would never happen in Chatham.” Refers to the idyllic life in Chatham, New Jersey

The "We Owe You Big Time" Award, You are Amazing: All of those who let us crash at their homes: Monika and Patrick Redmill, Mamie, Grandpa Harvey, Kerry Beckman, the Kasarjian Family (Chris, Kristina, Dylan and Avery), The Staff Family (Renata, Mike and Logan), Jimmy Foster, The NJ branch of the Johnson Family, Eli Leveston, Brad Wilson and our wonderful families.  Thank you all SO, SO much.

Lastly, it was so great to see all our family and friends on our road trip.  Here is a photo gallery of all those we got to see. We miss you all already!
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In another Life, I was probably a Ninja Turtle.

5/7/2014

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by Jed

Pizza.  I love it.  It would probably be the one thing I would bring with me on a deserted island.  Thus, I was quite happy to be in NYC, one of the pizza capitals of the world.  Caitlin and I decided that for one of our dinners in NYC, we would just eat pizza...lots of pizza.  Since there are literally pizza places on every block of NYC (sometimes multiple pizza places), we just strolled around and went into any place that looked halfway decent.  Here is our Pizza review.  Do not read if you are hungry.  
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Most Famous Ben's Pizza
Cost: $2.75 per slice
Caitlin's Score: 7
Jed's Score: 6.5
Overall Impression: Not sure this deserves the moniker of "most famous", but it was pretty good.  Crust was a little too burnt, yet the pizza was also not hot enough at the same time.  I would still probably eat it every day for the rest of my life.
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.99 Cent Fresh Pizza
Cost: .99 per slice
Caitlin's Score: 5
Jed's Score: 7
Overall Impression: For a dollar a slice, the pizza was pretty damn good.  Definitely the best deal of the bunch. At this price, you could either buy an Ipad, or eat dinner here every night for a year.  That's an easy decision for me.
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Artichoke's Pizza
Cost: $4.50 per slice
Caitlin's Score: 6
Jed's Score: 6.5
Overall Impression: Despite it's name, we stuck with the plain slice in order to be able to compare places fairly. Coming in at a whopping $4.50 per slice, we had high expectations.  Unfortunately, the pizza was pretty average and didn't justify the 4.5X price tag of the better-named .99 cent Fresh Pizza. If I ate this pizza everyday for a year, I would probably need to get a job again.
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Ray's Pizza (famous original)
Cost: $3 per slice
Caitlin's Score: 7
Jed's Score: 7
Overall Impression: As many New Yorkers know, and I learned from one of the many Food channel shows I have accidentally watched, there is a battle between which "Ray's pizza" is the true Ray's pizza.  There is Ray's, famous Ray, original Ray's, famous original Ray's, and other such brilliant combinations.  I do not claim to know which was first or which is the best, but for a tourist trap, this Ray's was surprisingly decent.  Not the best pizza we had, but not the worst either.  If I ate this pizza every day for a year, I would probably be pretty satisfied...and morbidly obese.
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Fiore's Pizza
Cost: $2.50 per slice
Caitlin's Score: 8
Jed's Score: 9
Overall Impression: The semi-sweet sauce, the cooked -to-perfection dough, the delicious cheese...ladies and gentlemen, we have an undisputed winner.  Fiore's in Greenwich Village, well done sir, well done.  If I ate this pizza every day for the rest of my life, I'd be...in heaven. I'm hungry.

Lastly, and a complete non sequitur, special thanks to my high school friend Jim for hosting us in NYC and for talking us out to a party where I got to catch-up with some old high school classmates. It was great, and very weird, to run into Bethlehem kids in NYC. Go Eagles!? 
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How to not spend money in NYC: Don't Do Anything.

5/6/2014

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By Caitlin

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Ok, well not "nothing," but we didn't do a lot of typical NYC touristy stuff.  I guess we're just not museum people, Or Theatre lovers. Or city-view obsessed (at least not for $30 a person to go up to the top of the Roc). So that made not spending money pretty easy. What did we do? We walked a lot and we ate a lot.  With only a few days in the city, we were more focused on wandering around than spending time at any one site. We spent time in the Financial district, Brooklyn, Midtown, SoHo, Chelsea, Meatpacking, Union Square, West Village, Flat Iron District and Greenwich Village...we covered a lot of ground in 48 hours and actually never took a cab ...though we did rent Citi bikes!  Jed was channeling his inner New Yorker (which he sort of is by birth) when he nearly got into a shouting match with a large man who was casually strolling in the bike lane while we were biking up 8th avenue. 

By the end, we did, however, have very sore feet. pro tip: If your travel companion has an inexplicable pain in his foot and is hobbling through Madison square park, switch shoes! Obviously, this only works if you have similarly sized feet and are both wearing gender-neutral shoe styles. lucky for Jed I have big feet and happened to be wearing Men's shoes. (No shame!) 
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"Parks are awesome."--Leslie Knope.
We spent the better part of a day in Central Park. I wish we lived in NY just for this park. To be in it and to not see city in any direction would make living in a vast sea of steel and concrete so much better.  It made me wish I had a dog, and rollerblades, and was capable of running the 6 mile perimeter.  It also made me wish we had $528 billion so we can purchase the park as our own private playground.  We also really enjoyed the High Line,  a repurposed elevated train line that is now a park. It's a beautiful landscaped path through a few cool 'hoods that had buildings with really funky architecture. Even though there were a lot of people on it, it seemed immune to the bustle of the rest of the city.  
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What is so cool about New York City? It's regarded as one of the best cities in the world and I wanted to know why. I lived in a pretty awesome city for a few years (Chicago shout-out) so how different could NYC be? At the end of our trip I'll feel more informed to offer an opinion on the best cities, but I can say we fantasized about how cool it would be to live in the Big Apple as we strolled through the city streets. 

My only regret is that I didn't meet Beyoncé.
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We Love Food.

5/5/2014

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Just a post to note that we have added a new section to the website entitled "We Love Food" which will showcase pics of us sampling the local cuisine as we travel (cause that's kind of the best part, right?).  You can find it by going to "food photos" under the "Miscellaneous" tab...or by clicking here.  This will of course be updated as we progress on our trip.  
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Beer City USA

5/2/2014

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Asheville, North Carolina's nickname is "Beer City, USA", or at least that's what they signs tell us.  Apparently it's named this because it has more breweries per capita than anywhere else in America.  My only memory of Asheville was going to Crestridge Summer Camp outside of Asheville after begging my parents to let me go to sleep away camp at the age of 12, to which I attribute my knowledge of many beloved "Worship" songs and a love of the Appalachian Mountains.  The mountains and Asheville's rep as an artsy, hippie, brewery-loving town sealed it in the itinerary.  

We arrived on the heels of Moogfest, which left some interesting characters loitering around town that we assumed were all just part of the hippy-vagrant vibe, but maybe they were just visitors.  We never figured it out.  

We tried our best to soak it all in by hiking in the mountains, perusing all the beautiful crafts and pottery and of course, by drinking the beer of Beer City, USA 

We dedicated ourselves to the beer on one night in particular and here are our conclusions: 

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Asheville Brewing Co.
    Jed had Backstage Betty Blond: 4 out of 5  
     Caitlin had Rocket Girl Lager: 3 out of 5












Ben's Tune Up (beers were local, but not brewed there)
    Jed had Mother Earth Weeping Willow Wit: 3 out of 5 
    Caitlin had Pisgah Brewing Belgian Golden: 4 out of 5











Wicked Weed
    Jed had Lunatic Blond: 5 out of 5
    Caitlin had Orange Peel Pale Ale: Fuzzy out of Five or One Beer Too Many
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Also, Jed had some amazing ribs (or so he tells me) at 12 Bones, fave BBQ hangout of POTUS and the First Lady.

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