Little Trips

Nils and I have enjoyed making little weekend/day trips to various parts of the East Coast. It's amazing how many states you can cross is such a short time. So far in our travels we've driven through or visited; Virginia, DC, Maryland (of course); West Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Not bad, huh?

Click here to view our pictures from the Labor Day trip

Shenandoah National Park
For Labor day weekend, we decided to go to Shenandoah National Park on that Saturday where we hiked about a mile of the Appalachian Trail. What a beautiful area! As we entered the park, we got a map and realized there was simply no way to visit the entire park in one day. The whole thing takes about 3-4 hours just to drive through. There are 75 different scenic lookouts and a variety of trails and fun things to do! We decided to stop at one of their picnic areas for lunch. We had to walk a little ways to find the picnic tables and were somewhat surprised that we shared the area with only one other family. As we ate, the other family left and we enjoyed the solitude of the open air and lush trees. Then, Nils and I noticed another family had joined the picnic area... a family of black bears. A momma bear and two little cubs had wandered into the picnic area, looking for leftovers. I was really surprised at how small the momma bear was and wondered if she was maybe just the big sister or something. Well, no time to stop, chat and find out that kind of personal information, so we decided to head back to where more people were. Nils managed to get a few pictures. After reaching our car and deciding on which trail we wanted to hike, we drove around the picnic area just to see if the bears were still there. Turns out, there was a larger picnic area with many more people on the other side of this little hill, and they had all stopped to look at one of the forest rangers redirecting the bears away from the picnickers. I took a short, short video (yeah, it's actually pretty lame) of the ranger as we passed.

The family of bears

Having had a taste of adventure, we headed further up the road to a small trail that covered a short part of the Appalachian trail. We took some really beautiful pictures and then headed back. A nice short trip with just the right amount of exercise and nature watching!

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia
For another quick day trip, Nils and I headed North on Labor day up to Harper's Ferry. I didn't realize what a historical site it was. I learned that even as early as the 1890's Easterners came to Harper's Ferry for a weekend get-away. Perfectly situated at the convergence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, the town is rich with history and interesting stories.



Long Island, New York
Nils' good friends Justin and Marje got married September 19th at a beautiful vineyard on Long Island. Being close enough to drive, Nils and I decided to make it a quick trip up there to celebrate the joyous occasion with them and some of Nils' other friends from Monterey. What a gorgeous place! I tried to take several pictures, but below are just a few. Also, the header on for this blog comes from some pictures we took from the wedding.



Raleigh, NC; Litchfield Beach and Charleston, SC
To introduce this trip, I should first mention that Papa and Boo (Nils' grandparents) have this fabulous beach house right on Litchfield Beach. They share the beach house with several other families and throughout the year, each family schedules weeks where they can go and enjoy some time at the beach. Well, this past week was "Our Week" (meaning, our week to go visit the beach, which so happens to be the name of the beach house). Nils and I took off a day of work and headed down, making a stop first in Raleigh, NC where Aunt Mary lives. She hosted us for a night before we headed on down to the beach.

A short side story... our dear car has been struggling with a small oil leak. Not that the leak is anything big, but we were aware that we would need to keep an eye on it while making the 8-9 hour drive down south. At one gas station stop, Nils checked the oil to make sure it wasn't running too low. Everything looked fine, but as soon as we drove off, the engine light came on. We found a place to pull over and checked the gas and oil caps to make sure they were screwed on tight. The gas cap did feel a little loose, so we thought the gas cap probably set off the warning light. We continued to drive as I looked in the owner's manual to find out what triggers the engine light. Turns out, the engine light measures the gas and oxygen levels and if the light comes on it could be a variety of things... something as simple as a loose gas cap or something as serious as ... well, something more serious. Anyway, in Raleigh, before we continued on to South Carolina, we found a Saab place where we could get the car checked out. The mechanic plugged the car in to his machine and he said that it all checked out fine. He did say that the sensor seemed to be malfunctioning and would eventually need to be replaced. Okay... but nothing we needed to worry about right then so we continued on.

We arrived at the beach house and were greeted by Papa and Boo. Two of the most lovely people, we enjoyed a pleasant evening catching up and chatting about all kinds of things. We hadn't seen them since our departure to Romania and it was so good to see them!

The next morning, Nils had arranged for us to drive 1.5 hours down to Charleston to pay a visit to his cousin Derek. Anyone who is wondering what places they should visit in the south... you should definitely go to Charleston. A beautiful historical town with plenty of museums, colonial architecture and historical sites, we had plenty to see for the short time we were there. Unfortunately I had left the camera in our car and didn't end up taking a single picture while we were there. Nils and I will have to go again sometime, not just for the pictures... but to see all the other things we missed. Beautiful place. We also enjoyed some yummy BBQ at a local restaurant.

The same evening, we headed back up to the beach house and by that time Mary and Robbie had arrived. Nils and Robbie took out their guitars and started singing and playing for all of us. Robbie has started his own band called "Boylion" (click on the link to get a sample of his music) so he's pretty good. We enjoyed the night air, the great music, and conversation. Very nice day!

Sunday we went out to the beach and sat a while. Nils and Robbie did the typical splashing around and wrestling in the water. Entertaining, needless to say. By 2pm or 3pm Nils and I decided we had better head back home if we wanted a good night's sleep. So, we made our goodbyes, packed up the car, stuck the key in the ignition, and heard this strange noise coming from the engine. We all jumped out and looked around to see what was making the noise. After much investigation we figured out that a piece of the serpentine belt had frayed loose and was flapping to the rhythm of the engine. Nils cut off the piece, restarted the engine. Sounded good, so we decided to take our chances. Lucky for us, Mary and Robbie decided to leave at the same time and followed us to make sure we didn't run into more care trouble. Ironically, Nils had experienced car trouble in that same general area on the way to Mary's house the summer of 2006 when he had Pete with him. There were plenty of jokes about the luck of his car and the luck of having troubles again...

Sure enough, after about 30-40 minutes of driving, we heard the noise again and then a warning light came on. We pulled over and popped the hood. This time, the entire belt was gone. Strictly speaking, the belt itself is a simple fix, an inexpensive thing to replace and not at all a complicated part to find. Unfortunately, the whole thing had to happen on a weekend when all of the shops are closed, so no matter how simple and easy the fix was, we still had to have the car towed. So there we were... about 3 hours south of Raleigh and 7.5 hours from home. Luckily, Nils had just established our own insurance for the car, so we gave them a call and arranged to have it towed. On top of that, Nils found out that because we had coverage in Virginia we could have the car towed to the nearest Saab service center, which just so happened to be the very place in Raleigh where we'd had our car looked at not two days before! Imagine, full coverage for a guy to tow our car 3 hours. Cool, huh! And of course, we had Mary there to help us out with everything. Unfortunately we weren't able to stay the night since we both had work the next morning. So Nils and I decided to rent a car for the week and drive it back this coming weekend, giving the repair shop enough time to not only fix the serpentine belt, but the oil leak and oxygen sensor as well. Through our insurance we got a generous discount from the car rental company so the whole week cost just a little more than "1 day, 1 way" would have been. Pretty sweet, huh! Of course, when all was said and done, we didn't get home until 3:00am... but it's simply amazing how blessed we are to have had so many things work out in our favor. Thanks to Mary, the tow truck guy, all the people at the Saab repair shop, Hertz car rental, and USAA insurance!