Heading out of Gettysburg

After having a great time with my friends in Gettysburg, Rocinante and I reunited and hit the road. The country road leading out of town winds its way along the historic Gettysburg battlefield, and even though it was raining it was still a sight to see.

From Blue Ridge Parkway Part One!

Coming down the road, not the monument in the distance! (see below)

From Blue Ridge Parkway Part One!

A monument to John Buford. Dont know who he is? Neither did I! Find out here:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Buford

Heading South

After Yale, I began my journey down to Texas in earnest. My next stop was Gettysburg to visit my friends attending college there. Along the way, I made a pit stop back in Haddonfield to pick up my contact lenses and a few other things that had escaped my last minute packing. 

Before I got to Haddonfield I stopped in New York to see my friend Abigail who is going to NYU as a theatre major. Abby is more accomplished than most, having starred in a number of professional productions and absolutely DOMINATING the Haddonfield Memorial High School theatre :-). 

When I got to New York, Abby was in the middle of casting for a production, so I had a few hours to walk around. I found a FREE (yes FREE) parking spot on Broadway, loaded up my backpack, got my camera, and went to go see what I could see. After a few minutes of walking around, I found a parking lot that had an imprmptou flea market in it. Some of the pictures (preview below) are great. 

The first few photos are of a park that I visited in Connecticut along the way down to New York. The park was really nice, and contained the 9/11 memorial for all of the Connecticut who died in the terrorist attacks. 

Once I had gotten to New York, I took a bunch of pictures of the flea market, especially a "couple" who were running one of the stands. The male half of the "couple" (couple being defined as the female half calling the Asian man her "husband") was very photo shy. If you take a look at the pictures, you'll see what I mean. 

The second to last is a photo of a guy named Jim. We got into a conversation about flags, he was a pretty cool guy and I got him a hamburger and he told me about his journey from New Jersey to South Carolina to New York and the condition of the homeless in urban America. Nice guy. 

Yale!

After leaving Boston, I headed to the Ivy League at Yale University in New Haven. Yale was about a two hour drive south, and I was there to see my long time friend Stephanie who I've known since about seventh grade. In addition to being exponentially smarter than I, Stephanie showed me around Yale and the city of New Haven in general.

I didn't take too many pictures because of the rain, but you'll see a few below. 

Just as a note, to see the full sized images with my comments on each of the photos, follow these steps as there has been some confusion

1) Click the "Play" button on the slideshow below

2) Either click the "Flickr" icon on the upper left of the slide show and click on the pictures individually, or click the "Expand" button on the extreme lower right (looks like four arrows in opposing directions) and then click the "Info" button on the top center of the screen when the full screen mode comes on.

Boston

Boston! I left Haddonfield pretty early in the morning to head up north on the first leg of my trip to Texas. For those of you who don't know, I'm taking a "gap" semester that Middlebury offers and using the time off to travel a bit and pursue my paramedic liscence at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

If you clink on the link to the "Flickr" site in the upper left corner of the slide show below, you will be able to see the full photo albums with my comments and descriptions of what the pictures are of. 

I headed north and got to Boston where I was visiting a few friends attending school up there. I stayed at a small hotel in Winthrop Massachusetts which is just outside of Boston on the Bay. The hotel was great and massively inexpensive and only about five minutes away from Downtown Boston and the people that I was visiting. 

I got to Boston pretty easily using my GPS, but unfortunately I failed to realize that most of Boston is connected with tunnels and the GPS did nnootttt work too well so I ended up having an unexpected detour through downtown/historic Boston (there are a few pictures of my "adventure" in the Flickr photo album). 

The stay in Boston was great and the city was fantastic. If you click on the link (On the upper left hand corner of the slideshow below!!!), I've referred to my car as "Rocinante". There will be a fantastic and yet-to-be-determined prize for the first person who can tell me the TWO major literary works in which the name Rocinante was used. Leave your answers/guesses in the comments section of this post.

I took a lot of pictures on the bay to test out my NEW Nikon D40 camera, and I do think they came out pretty well.

Pre-Game

Its the night before I leave for Boston and I'm already EXHAUSTED. Im going to go get a few hours of sleep and then continue packing and embark early tomorrow morning. I'm going to try to update this thing daily with where I am and hopefully a few photos (if I can figure my new camera out!). Take care!

Matt