East Hampton, CT: Prestash Family Adventures

We just wrapped up a very fun and productive week at Curt's parents house.  It was really nice to be back there and it almost felt like we never left. It certainly didn't feel like we had been gone for almost a year!

We had a relaxing beach day in Niantic our first full day back. Paddle boarding and kayaking and lounging around. Then we had a nice dinner at Grandpa Chuck's house (who had just returned from Florida) and sampled our New Glarus beer with Uncle Dave and Aunt Jill.

The next day we borrowed Grandpa Chuck's truck and Uncle Dave's trailer to help Jut move out of his apartment. We got everything in one trip and upgraded our sleeping situation from leaky air mattress to queen sized bed!  We also borrowed a battery charger and got Curt's Subaru up and running. We hope to have it back on the road in time for winter so we cleaned it out and got a hole in the exhaust system fixed up so it'll pass inspection when the time comes. For now it'll stay in CT though but it's lookin' good!

Our streak of productivity continued when we helped with some screen printing and we also watched an entire season of New Girl on Netflix... so productive! We got to test out our recipe for the upcoming Jell-O shot competition at Kim's family reunion and it came out really good- Irish car bomb shots! We're gonna win! We also whipped up an awesome stir fry for dinner and Teri got to try tofu for the first time! Curt's dad tried tofu for the first time too but it was also most likely his last haha... Tuesday night we got to squeeze in a visit with our friends Steve and Nidia and we were happy to see their money tree (that we got them as a wedding gift) was going strong.

Wednesday we washed the van and got ready for an epic cookout. We made a bunch of kabobs and Jut and his girlfriend Vicki made a sweet Arnold Palmer vodka concoction. We celebrated Kim's birthday with an amazing chocolate cake and a bunch of fancy cupcakes (and more Jell-O shots!) and even got to try some of Curt's cousin's fiancée's homemade beer (thanks Shane- it was delicious!)

We left early this morning and immediately hit a bunch of traffic but now we're on our way to New York to meet up with Kim's family at her grandfather's house. We'll be celebrating August birthdays, 6 in all!

Trip almost complete!

Horsham, PA: Molly & Spanny Round 2

When we last left Molly Gove we were just embarking on our adventures way back in August.  We visited her and her family in Camden, Maine and helped her build a cornhole set for her high school reunion.  After traveling to our first farm and making a pit stop in CT to visit Curt's parents the next stop on our trip brought us to Delaware to stay with Molly's boyfriend, Patrick Spanninger (aka Spanny).  We helped him conduct agricultural science at the University of Delaware and he introduced us to the concept of couchsurfing, which ended up being a great way for us to meet people and save some money on our trip.

We're now in Horsham, PA staying with both Molly AND Spanny, all at the same time!  Horsham marks the last new frontier for us (on this trip at least) and it seems fitting we ended up with friends that helped us get our trip off to the right start.  When we arrived in Horsham Molly busted out the old cornhole set and we played a few games while we waited for Spanny to return home from a long day of science conducting.  He's still doing his thing at the University of Delaware and Molly is in town to go to nursing school.  While we're bummed we won't be seeing them in Burlington any time soon we're glad that they at least get to be with each other.

We had some drinks in the backyard (including an awesome dandelion wine!) and met neighbor Bill who regaled us with stories of attending Grateful Dead shows in his youth.  The next day we were fortunate enough to become Spanny's farmhands yet again as he continued his experiments in the field. Last time we saw him we helped him plant a bunch of lettuce and spinach.  This time around we helped him and his accomplice Rafi plant some tomatoes.  The experiment was the same as last time- plant crops and then spray them with different levels of E. coli to see what effect it has on the fruits.  Luckily none of the plants had been sprayed yet and we were able to help ourselves to a harvest of green tomatoes which Molly fried up that night for dinner.  Yum!

After science time we got treated to some rope-swing action before heading home.  The pond was owned by the DuPont family (same ones from that big company) but no one was there and we had a refreshing swim with some great rope swinging!  Check out the video of Molly multi-tasking below!

The next morning we went for a short hike with Molly and Turbo (Spanny had more science conducting to do) and then hit the road.  Back to CT to spend the next few days at Curt's parents' house.  Even though we're done going to new places it's always nice to see familiar faces!  And we're still on vacation 'til we get back to Burlington! Check out some more pics here on the Facebook, All Good and Horsham!

Thornville, OH: All Good Music Festival

After waking up Thursday morning in the Walmart parking lot to a party of festival goers, we loaded up on ice and headed down the road to check in with our volunteer coordinators, CleanVibes, to get our wristbands for the four days of music and camping (and picking up trash- yay!)

We headed into the festival grounds to have our van searched before finding our camping spot. We were a bit nervous because you aren't supposed to bring in any glass at all and we had a bunch: peanut butter and jelly jars, olive oil, the 2 twelve packs of New Glarus, etc. after explaining to them that this was our house and we had no other choice, they waived us on our way!!!

At first we thought we'd camp in the van, but by golly gee willickers, IT WAS HOT in that sun and humidity and we were parked pretty close to the woods so we made a cool little camp with our hammocks and tent right by a little creek! We were getting lots of compliments and were pretty satisfied! We quickly made friends with our neighbors (who we exchanged info with and they might be coming to VT in October to hike and hang with us!) and we all had a few drinks and walked to the music which was like 5 million miles from our site... Jk, it was probably a mile tops. 

We had a blast the first night and got to see John Scofield Uberjam Band, Toubab Krewe, Papadosio, Lettuce, and Yonder Mountain String Band. We brought a handheld garden sprayer and had tons of fun spraying down the very appreciative crowd! We left the venue around 12:30 AM and missed Beats Antique, but we had to be responsible and get to bed so we could get up and work at 7:45! Yaya!!!

Sleeping in the hammocks was great and we got to our first shift early Friday morning! The clean vibes crew was pretty cool and although we wouldn't go as far as saying the job was 'fun' it certainly wasn't as bad as we thought. The crew started with the main stage area (which was always the worst part) and we'd all form a line and do sweeps like a vacuum cleaner until the entire venue was clean again. It was pretty satisfying to see the clean grounds! We ended up being part of a small team that got to clean the backstage area and then got set loose to roam the camp areas looking for trash and treasure.

We picked up trash/recycling till 12:30 and got back to the site just in time for a crazy thunderstorm to roll through. The trickling creek had become a mini rapids and we had some fun watching people try and cross it. There were a few spots for the daring to try and jump across and we ended up building a log bridge complete with a hand rope to help people up the impossibly muddy banks. We missed the Bright Light Social Hour (recommended by Barbie and Bobby) due to the weather but got to see Dark Star (acoustic!) Leftover Salmon and Primus late night. Due to the weather we slept in the Zinger and again got to work on time!

 

Saturday was a turning point for All Good  as Friday's storm had really been a game changer bringing the cooler weather but more rain was in the forecast. It's never a festival without a good downpour (with the rare exception of High Sierra) but All Good ended up getting pretty wet. We got rained on twice while picking up trash and our campsite got soaked. When we returned from work we were dismayed and saddened to discover one of our hammocks had been stolen. Luckily everything else was in place, even our other hammock... The rain came in waves the rest of the day, alternating between hot and humid sun and outright downpours. We spent the afternoon sleeping in the van, resting up for the main event of the night, Furthur, with fingers crossed that the rain would be over by then.

The rain did hold off and it ended up being an awesome show! We stayed up later than normal but made it through our final work shift on Sunday without being too tired. The music scene on Sunday was pretty casual (as the last day of a festival tends to be) and we dozed through most of it on our blanket.

Since we had no where in particular to be immediately following the music we hung out at camp and got a good night's sleep in the van. We packed up Monday morning before the next rain storm rolled through (welcome back East huh!?) and made a 4 hr drive to a hotel somewhere in Pennsylvania. We took real showers, watched some TV and treated ourselves to some Chinese food. We still had a bunch of food leftover from our big day of food prep at the lake cabin and we're still enjoying it! Talk about eating cheaply!  We're now en route to Horsham, PA to reunite with Molly and Spanny who we saw separately way back in the beginning of our trip. This time we'll all be together! Woohoo!

Elroy, WI: Lake Cabin Getaway

We know what you're thinking- 'that's not Wisconsin! Why that's Minnesota by gosh durnit!' Technically you're right. But why'd you have to swear?

If you've been following our travels on this blog you'll recall that we last left South Dakota heading East and according to our wooden map (that we made ourselves) Minnesota comes between South Dakota and Wisconsin. Now that that's all straightened out we don't really have much to say about Minnesota... There were a bunch of windmills and lots and lots of cornfields. Wisconsin turned out to be more of the same but unlike Minnesota we were excited to be in Wisconsin because we had been offered a free place to stay that was not a Walmart parking lot! Thank goodness! (We're actually headed to a Walmart right now which is kind of funny but mostly annoying)

Kim's dad's cousin Jerry learned of our whereabouts a few days prior through Facebook and invited us to stay in his lake cabin in Elroy, WI which was right off our route (social networking at it's finest!)

We arrived at the cabin Monday night and had all day Tuesday to relax. If it weren't for the van troubles we had had in SD we would have had an extra day to hang out but who's counting right? We can't get mad at the Zinger (we're happy it got us to the cabin at all!) Having a nice bed to sleep in and a real shower was priceless. It had been a few days since we'd felt clean (Curt's last shower had been in Reno!) And to make matters worse, ever since the middle of South Dakota it's been extremely humid (something we haven't dealt with in months). It really doesn't help the whole feeling clean thing!

Tuesday morning we got to meet up with cousin Jerry. He was passing through and stopped in to say hello. It was nice to be able to thank him in person. The rest of the day was spent doing food prep for our 4 day camp out at the All Good music festival in Ohio. We hit up the grocery store and came back with ingredients to fill 5 one gallon ziplock bags with breakfast burrito filling, tuna mac salad, quinoa and veggie salad, and potato salad. For under $60 we'll have good food for both of us for at least 4 days, 3 meals a day. If you do the math it definitely ends up being worth the couple of hours it took to make it all!

We also followed the recommendations of our friends Talia and Donny (from the Yosemite Bug) and picked up some New Glarus beer to enjoy while cheffing it up. WOWZER! They were so good we ended up visiting the brewery on our way out of Wisconsin! Unfortunately they only sell their beer in WI but some of you blog readers might be lucky enough to try some of the beer we are smuggling back with us! Yeah, it's that good. It's smuggle good!

After food prep completion we checked out the lake which was pretty warm and inviting. A little dinner and a movie and it was off to bed. We hit the road early this morning and are still driving. We've been through Illinois and Indiana and are currently in Ohio heading towards that Walmart... ugh. Lake cabin we miss you already! Starting tomorrow we'll be at the festival for the next 4 days. In exchange for free tickets we've volunteered to help keep the festival clean by doing garbage duty Fri, Sat, and Sun at get this- 8AM! Woah! 8-2PM to be specific. Looks like we'll be the responsible ones at this thing! We had originally volunteered to do 2 full day shifts after the festival but the company we're working for lost the bid on that specific contract or something... Whatever- we've been on a road trip all year, we can handle anything!

Well Internet, we'll see you in 4 days! We'll try to take more pictures this time around.