Conclusion

We’ve learned a lot on this adventure. We’ve seen so many things that we didn’t know were possible in this country. This nation, its history, its people, its geology, its economy, its societies, its ideas, its WEATHER are all fascinating! Amazing. The whole country is not just like Durham. It is not just like the South. It is not just like the east coast.

We saw how economies try to destroy people in Lubbock and Detroit. We saw how people pull themselves up by their bootstraps in Detroit. We saw how people lived 1,000 years ago in Arizona. We saw the deserts of the Southwest and the beautiful fields of the Great Plains. We saw the Grand Tetons and the Alleghenies. We saw LA recovering from the loss of a controversial superstar. We saw people relax and have fun at the Cody Rodeo in Wyoming and Beale Street in Memphis. We saw laser shows in Atlanta and the Black Hills of South Dakota, one honoring the South and the other honoring Native Americans. We saw buffalo and bears, and we saw burned trucks on the shoulders of highways. We touched the cool waters of the Pacific and the warm waters of the Atlantic.

We stayed in 130-year-old row houses, 70-year-old apartments, 30-year-old motels, and an 8- year-old Toyota. We met tourists from all over the country and the world. We had people offer to take our pictures, and we took other people’s pictures. We saw ancient mesas and cliff dwellings in Arizona and amazing feats of modern architecture at Fallingwater and the Ledge at Sears Tower. We saw homeless people in LA, San Francisco, Chicago, and Atlanta.

We learned how calming a beautiful scene can be. We stopped in the middle of the desert to hear absolute silence. We heard true echoes in the Grand Canyon. We listened to wild life at night in Montana. We heard the trains driving immediately behind our hotel in Arizona in the middle of the night. We felt the rains of the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. We looked into the San Francisco Bay from the Golden Gate Bridge, and we looked into the face of the moon from Yellowstone. We drove through low elevations and extremely high elevations. We saw a crater formed by a meteor and canyons formed by ancient rivers. We saw old-ass cars everywhere we went.

We saw the locations of the murders of Wild Bill Hickok and Martin Luther King, Jr. We learned about the lives of Buddy Holly and Andy Warhol. We saw the graves of Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Calamity Jane, and Wild Bill Hickok.

And, my God, we ate every thing we could find at every awesome restaurant on our route. We had Mexican food all over the country, Thai food in SF, Korean food in LA, BBQ in Memphis, pizza in Chicago, and steak salad in Pittsburgh.

We learned that most Americans are terrible spellers and that they make hysterical signs. At nearly every city where we stopped, I hit my head on the door frame of the car at least once. I learned about the importance of organization in my life. At every camping stop, we had to pack up all of our stuff to put it all in the front seat so we could sleep in the back of the van. Everything had to be in the right, most convenient place at all times. I cultivated new habits: after I brushed my teeth, I packed my toothbrush again. We've been home a week now, and the house is quite tidy. I challenge you to drop by our tidy home without calling. I hope I can keep this up after school starts again.

We drove 8,440 miles through half of the states of our Union in six weeks. We spent time with our relatives around the country. We bought postcards everywhere we went: one to keep and a couple to send. We spent time with friends and spent time alone together. We’re still in love and closer than ever. There’s no one in the world I would have rather spent this time with than Dave.

And so, my friends, our long trip of a lifetime is finally over. Thus, the Cantwell Roadtrip blog has come to an end. Thanks for reading and following along in our journey across the US. We’ve been given an amazing opportunity here. Special thanks go to Dave’s folks for helping to make this trip possible for us. Thanks also go out to Jane and Michael Stern for writing amazing books that guided us to the best food in the country. Thanks also to our friends for their amazing recommendations and well-noted advice about everything from camping gear to restaurants. We love you all and are grateful for all you do for us. Please feel free to come over for the slide show anytime.

Addendum: Day 44: Savannah

Sunday, July 26, was the last day. The real last day. After this day, we’d be at home. For good. Six weeks (with a three-day layover at home) was coming to an end. Our first stop was in Georgia (Atlanta), and our last stop was in Georgia. We left Hilton Head Island, and all four of us headed for Savannah. I’d never been there, and Dave hadn’t been there since he was a little kid. Patrick had picked out two restaurants that we thought we could go to for lunch, but both were closed, so we drove downtown and parked near this Savannah College of Art and Design theater.


When I spotted this old tile work on the ground outside a store that was once a pawn shop, I realized that I was never able to pay up on my agreement with Dave to let him go into one pawn shop on our trip. So sad. Moving along.


The four of us walked about for a little while and came upon this gorgeous house called the Davenport House.


The Davenport House was built in 1820 and has a ghost cat. That’s right. A ghost cat. Dave and I decided not to take the tour, so we didn’t get to hear more about it.


As always, we found the old-ass cars in the neighborhood. These were in front of the Savannah police station.



I immediately fell in love with the old houses in the city.










We came upon the Firefly Café, where we had Sunday brunch. It was terrific. I had the Southwestern omelette, and Dave had the Italian sausage omelette. Dave was really torn about whether or not to get the pancakes, but we were both pleasantly surprised when our meals came with a little pancake that they called a “hoecake.”

In the park outside the Firefly was this sign commemorating the composition of my favorite song of all time.


The gent who wrote the song was music director at this church.


After lunch, we said “goodbye” to Jen and Patrick and continued to explore the city on our own. We passed the lovely Cathedral of St. John the Baptist,



Flannery O’Connor’s childhood home,



And the elegant Savannah Cotton Exchange.


We drove to the riverfront area as well and found ourselves on a painfully bumpy cobblestone road.




I believe this wall and building were near the Riverfront, but I’m having trouble finding information about it. Any ideas what this is? Please let me know.


In order to leave town, we passed the awesome Talmadge Memorial Bridge, built in 1990, which, I have read, is stunning at night.


On our way out of town, we also passed the Great Dane Trailer Company with this awesome statue in the front yard.



We drove straight home from Savannah and arrived around 11 pm, I think. It was great to come home to a clean house again and to be home for good this time.

Addendum: Day 43: Hilton Head Island

Saturday, July 25 was our last full day at Hilton Head, so we tried to really enjoy it as much as we could. We spent the early afternoon at the beach but then headed in to another pool on the grounds. This pool had a little area called the Morning Star Fountain, which was just a part of the pool deck that had about 2 dozen orchestrated fountains of water for kids and adults to play in.


The pool itself had a series of jets in a line that created a little rush of water that reminded Dave and me of the hot springs at Yellowstone.


After enjoying the pool, we headed to the immense hot tub beside the pool. The hot tub was big enough to seat about 18 people comfortably. It was fabulous. You could actually swim in it.

After our pool fun, we headed over to the ping pong tables. There was a large plastic storage bin filled with paddles and balls, so we had plenty of fun, at one point even trying to play doubles table tennis with the actual rules that no team member could hit the ball twice in a row. That made for a lot of confusion and tripping over each other, so we gave that up quickly.



While we were playing, a 7-year-old girl, Chelsea (she says some people call her Kelsea, so I called her Chelseakelsea ), joined us.


I played her for a while because everyone else found her presence irritating. She told me she has a boyfriend who is 8, but he has 20 girlfriends. Jen was horrified that, even at 7, Chelseakelsea was ok with this. After about 10 minutes, I had to go to the bathroom, and while I was gone, the game quickly dispersed.

At about 5:30, we headed back over the boardwalk to our building. Dave paused to take some pictures of the marshes, which were really quite lovely.



vThis is the view of the Atlantic from our second-floor room. It was really nice to sit out there in the evening and listen to the ocean. So dreamy. It was hard to process that I had touched the Pacific Ocean just three weeks before. It seemed like an eternity ago.


Here is the boardwalk we crossed to get the pool and then the beach.


For dinner, I found a restaurant called the Boathouse II that looked delightful. Luckily, this time, my research paid off. This place was awesome.


We started off with different cocktails. I had a frou-frou drink that was a combination between a margarita and a pina colada. Patrick had something fruity. Jen had some kid of apple martini. Dave had a pina colada-type drink that he thinks was made with amaretto. Delicious!


We had the delicious blue cheese risotto fritters to start. For dinner, Patrick and I both had the summer vegetable gnocchi. Dave had garlic-marinated London broil, and Jen had the garlic shrimp with penne. We were all very happy with our dishes. I scored big time on this dinner choice.

As expected, the restaurant had a fabulous nautical theme.


It included a huge pirate statue outside. Beneath the statue, a guy was playing Jimmy Buffett songs on his guitar for the patio crowd. We had mocked the patio people from our table inside because we knew that they couldn’t possibly be enjoying their dinners in the sticky heat outside. Suckers. As we were leaving, I sneaked onto the patio to get some snaps of the singer.


While we were out there, we realized that there were large platters of desserts on side tables. This was clearly some kind of reception or private party. Dave wanted to steal cake since no one seemed to be eating it. I was incredibly tempted, but I’m 35 and I own a home; stealing cake isn’t in the cards for me.

The restaurant was next to a marina, so we ventured out on the pier for a few minutes. On the way back, we passed a little building with this sign on it.



A cobia is a fish. I’m not sure what these fisherpersons need cobia “carcusses” for, but I’ll be it’s something awesome.

After our delicious dinner, it was back home for some relaxing and then bed. We would have to be out of the resort by 10 am, so we had to be in bed at a reasonable time.

Addendum: Day 42: Hilton Head Island

We spent Friday, July 24, 2009, just goofing off. Dave and I started off in the early afternoon by heading down to the beach, which was wonderful. To get to the beach, we walked down a long boadwalk that crossed over the marshes that separated the Resort from the pool and ocean. The beach was one of the widest I’d ever seen with very fine, hard sand that you could ride your bike on, though we didn’t. Being fair skinned, I was willing to rent an umbrella and chairs on the beach. It was dreamy. The wind was blowing, the sun was shining—for a little while, at least, and I was in seventh heaven.

Jen’s family was also at the resort, and they had rented out a cabana. The cabanas were lined up one beside the other by the pool closest to the ocean, and Jen’s folks had rented the last cabana on the end. The cabanas are big private tents by the pool, and each one has different furniture in it. Theirs had two couches and a couple of lawn chairs. After her family went back up to their place, Dave and I joined Patrick and Jen in the cabana for cocktails...




...and a dip in the pool.


Dave spent about 10 minutes enjoying the fan/water sprayer.

It started to rain lightly at one point, so we were able to close the flaps of the cabana and zip them closed.


Jen’s family was having a little dinner get-together that evening, so Dave and I entertained ourselves. Though I spent about an hour and a half researching restaurants on the island, we somehow still ended up at a brass rail restaurant. Boo. It was in a strange strip mall complex that was so heavily populated with families that you would think it was the boardwalk at Ocean City. Most of the stores were gift/souvenir stores and kite shops and the like. There was a guy out in one of the courtyards with a guitar and a PA playing Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” to a huge crowd of middle-aged parents. I was digging it, but Dave wasn’t, so we had to keep moving. While we were on the move, we spotted this store with a super creepy name:


After wandering around a bit, we drove around the island only to discover that it is mile after mile of resorts. There’s no downtown area at all. I was a little disappointed by that, but I was still happy to hang out in the resort.