Going on the Road... Coast to Coast (literally) and Back
 

Greetings folks,

Between the great job being super busy, working on sewing machines, working on my "new" 1965 Corvair, and getting the final details done for my Wedding on May 20th, life has not been boring...

I am posting this because The day after we get married, Heather and I are hitting the road and driving on a whirlwind trip across the entire country to the east coast. Heather has never really been east of Nevada, so I am introducing her to the "original 13"

Until we get to Boston we will have my 1867 MOP Grover & Baker cabinet in the rental vehicle, it is being delivered to the person who will be preparing it for it's new life in a South Carolina Museum.

The outbound trip is taking the southern route, the return trip is the northern route. Anyone wanna meet up for lunch/dinner along the way?

Also, Since we will be empty on the way back I can do an East Coast to West Coast mule/shuttle service for folks. (but side trips off the main route will need to be kept to a minimum.

The general plan is:

Wow congratulations on the upcoming wedding and the trip! How did it come to pass that a museum will have your Grover and Baker?

Congratulations, Steve! Best wishes for many wonderful years together! Cool that your SM is going to a big museum,too!

Congratulation!! You will be exhausted after that long of a road trip. My family car was a 1960 Corvair that never leaked a drop of oil until I drove it over the 100,000 milestone. Make time for some hiking in Yosemite. You will never regret it. Love Philadelphia with all the history that city has. I enjoyed finding the resting place of men who had signed the Declaration of Independence. Be sure to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. So awe inspiring.

Congratulations and best wishes!!

my husband has worked for a construction company for many many years. they sent us all over the country to new jobs for years. as a result of moving every few months to new jobs that were usually spaced across the full width of the continental United States, we have traveled coast to coast many times & visited as many historical places as we could. enjoy your trip!! this is such a beautiful country filled w beautiful people! and if, as you cross the northern tier route, you find yourself crossing washington state via hwy 90 ...we'd be delighted to wander north a bit and meet you for lunch in a historic mining town or ??? ...

Thanks folks. (FYI - NOT driving the Corvair on this trip....shudder)

Yeah, The only two states I have not been to myself are Maine and Hawaii.... Heather, not so much. It bugs me that she has never seen the Historical places of the US herself, so we are making that the goal of the honeymoon. We have been together for more than 10 years, and she was actually my best friends girlfriend in HS, so the honeymoon is more of a vacation...

Heather and I had never been to Yosemite when we went last year. We were both so moved that we decided to delay the wedding for a year to make the necessary reservations to get married there. Yeah, amazing place. This is the spot we are getting married in.
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MrsSewnSew - because they offered me over 7x what I paid for it.....

Rogue - Sorry, nope, Utah down to California directly. But, if you are up to a road trip later we will be in Willits in northern CA in late August for the Kinetic Carnival with the whole collection displayed in the Mendicino County Museum

just to put it in perspective....
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Congratulations! What a beautiful setting for your wedding. May you have a future full of love, laughter and quilting!

Congrats on the upcoming wedding - and you know if you are ever passing through SD - you are very welcome to stop here. We are only 4 miles north of I90.

steve our last place of home was eureka in n. california, next door to arcata & home of the original kinetic race started by hobart brown. neat to hear that willits is one of the places the fun has spread to. i used to spend a lot of time in & around willits during my premarried life. beautiful area. but, alas, we won't be on any trips down into CA until next november & that will be a short one.
...so ...have a fantastic trip!! again Congratulations to you & heather!!
P.S ... in front of Bridal Veil Falls ...a beautiful spot to say "! Do" !!

I could meet you guys somewhere near Cathy. Minnesota or SD. I like to drive.

Congratulations on your marriage! You picked an incredible spot for the wedding too. I was hoping WA worked it's way in there too. If you make it to Bristol RI the Herreshoff (spelling?) museum is worth checking out.
Rodney

Congratulations Steve & Heather. Wow you have a really, really ambitious driving trip. When we moved from greater Sacramento, CA area back to the the greater Chicago area, we drove it at best in 3 1/2 days. That was driving about 8 hours/day. And mainly one person driving. I am impressed with your cross country itinerary. Good luck and much happiness. If your coming to the Chicago area I would love to meet you. Kathy

Congratulations on the upcoming wedding & road trip honeymoon. Your wedding site looks awesome.
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Congratulations on the wedding and enjoy the road trip! That's quite a long way in such a short time. So much to see...Grand Canyon, Chaco Canyon, Zion National Park, Monument Valley, Yellowstone, Crater Lake, ...and that's just a fraction of what's out west. Allegedly, there's a shop in Frederick, OK that sells a lot of old sewing machines but that might be a little out of your way. Arkansas is (or at least used to be) a great place to go thrifting in junk shops along little highways. Sounds like a lot of fun. I love road trips. You should have a great time. Pictures or it never happened.

That is a LONG way to travel and yes, you will be exhausted! How do I know? I was born in Montana and moved to SC when I married a SC man (a LONG time ago!). Made many, many driving trips back there for many years.
So....congratulations and I hope when they get the machine on display they leave it up for a long time! Good luck and God bless you both as you begin this new phase of your lives!

Congrats and Have Fun!!!

When you leave Georgia for D.C., you should travel through some of the Appalachian Mtns. which run from GA to ME. Beautiful at this time of year. If you should travel through/by Asheville, NC, the Biltmore House (oldest private home in the US) might be worth a visit, although it requires $$$!

Congratulations Steve and Heather. A beautiful place to have your ceremony! Yes, certainly a whirlwind trip!

Are you really going from DC to Boston and then down to Philly and up to NY?

I am guessing you will be heading north up RT 95, so too far east for the Tennessee side of the Smokies. If you decide to go further west out of Georgia on your way north, you are welcomed to stay with us.

P.S.
I definitely want to see wedding pictures!

Congratulations Steve and Heather! I wish you many years of wedded bliss.
Sharon in Texas

Congratulations to you both and best wishes for a long and happy marriage!

Congratulations on your upcoming marriage, Steve. Your cross-country trip sounds like a great idea.

As a matter of fact, my wife and I have planned a “road trip” for our 40th wedding anniversary this year. We’ve been talking about it for a couple of years. We’ll have 40 years of marriage in mid-August, but July is usually our slowest month at the shop (with summer vacations being in full-swing), so we’ll probably be taking off a week in July.

Our road trip will be a little different than yours, because it will be completely void of any itinerary. We don’t even know which direction we’ll be going. We’ll gather our clothes, some money, and get into the car. We’ll flip a coin in our driveway to decide with way to go down our street. Once we come to a highway, we’ll flip the coin again to decide which way to go on that highway, and continue flipping the coin as we come to diverging routes that aren’t major thoroughfares. We’ll avoid large highways and stop at as many road-side historical markers as we can. Once we’re fairly along on our trip, we’ll put the coin away and just choose where we want to turn from then on. When we reach the 4th day or half of the money, we’ll start heading back toward home on a different route.

My parents and I took a trip like this back when I was 16 years old (late 1960s), and we ended up in Nogales Arizona where we turned around (after walking across the border for a little shopping in Mexico, of course). It was one of the most memorable and relaxing vacations I’ve ever been on. Of course, I had a brand-new driver’s license that I got to use on some of the lesser-traveled highways, and the educational value that my Mom kept talking about didn’t register on me until years later. Some days we wouldn’t make much over 200 miles all day long before finding a small “homey-looking” motel for the evening.

About the only other vacation that I’ve been on that could compete with that one, was our “food trip” vacation in the 90s with our teenaged daughter. We drove for a few hours to Amarillo Texas, got a motel room mid-day, and went to the Big Texan Steak House for a beef steak (not the 72 ounce one). The next morning, we drove a few hours to Clayton New Mexico, got a motel room mid-day, and hit a spot we knew of for great enchiladas. We let our stomachs guide us for the next few days on a big loop back to home....

CD in Oklahoma

CD - That is awesome! I have driven across the US several times in my life. The last was when I was married and I was in a Dodge Grand Caravan with My Mom, My Wife, My sister, and Three daughters... (Estrogen bubble.....)

My two favorite moments were once when we were in Nebraska after a couple of days driving My daughter asked where we were so I showed her on the big map. She was in awe and said with wonder in her eyes "America is HUGE!!!" The other was in Ohio at a McDonalds when my eldest started looking around uncomfortably. I asked her what was wrong and she looked around carefully, and then it dawned on here what seemed so odd.. She leaned forward and whispered "there is nothing but White people here..... " I almost fell out of my chair...

EDIT: I sent Heather the link to this thread. Her reply "your quilting buddies are so cool!!"

Steve, I live near Kansas City if you're passing through here on your trip. I would love to meet you and Heather. Last summer, my hubby and I drove from KS to NY to CT to NH back to CT and then to TN and finally back to KS. On the leg from New York to Connecticut, we drove through the Adirondacks. Beautiful & peaceful. We are doing that again this summer but seeing a different section of the Adirondacks. We also followed the Erie Canal for a bit on our trip.

congratulations on your marriage. Have a wonderful , safe trip. If your going to be coming thru N Al let us know.

And if you're in South Dakota...you're not that far from North Dakota. I am in Larimore, one the eastern side. Just off Hwy 2 and 45 minutes from I29

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Congratulations and if you ever get to central FL give us a holler.

Sounds like you are in for an adventure! Congrats on the upcoming wedding. May I say it's about time without having eggs thrown at me? hehehe You must really like to drive as it looks like a long trip. I can only hope for you and your wife that you have a safe, happy, and awesome trip. I too look forward to photos of machines found along the way and of course, wedding photos. Will you be wearing outfits made on your old machines?

PS: Looks like you will be too far east of our NC location and trying to get North in a certain time frame.

We are finishing our Victorian wedding outfits this week (and/or next....) Patterns are made from the McDowell Garment drafting system for her, and from the Dever's method book for mine.

Many congratulations to you both!! That looks like a fun but very ambitious trip! Stay safe and have fun!!!

Congratulations. If you are coming thru Atlanta on I-20, at least wave. We are off I-75 about 60 miles north of Atlanta.

If you're really going from Washington DC to Boston, I have a suggestion for making your trip a little better.
Instead of heading north on I95, head northwest to Gettysburg, PA (a nice historical stop) on I270 and Hwy 15
and then continue north and northeast through PA on Hwy 15/I81/I84 to Danbury, CT (where you would be if
you stayed on I95). We have kids in Boston and go this way because it is far cheaper (I95 has lots of tolls),
usually faster because there's less traffic, and it's a prettier drive. If you do that, let me know and I'll meet
you for lunch or coffee in Frederick, MD since I live just south of there just across the Potomac river into Virginia.

Linda

Between the great job being super busy, working on sewing machines, working on my "new" 1965 Corvair, and getting the final details done for my Wedding on May 20th, life has not been boring...

I am posting this because The day after we get married, Heather and I are hitting the road and driving on a whirlwind trip across the entire country to the east coast. Heather has never really been east of Nevada, so I am introducing her to the "original 13"

Until we get to Boston we will have my 1867 MOP Grover & Baker cabinet in the rental vehicle, it is being delivered to the person who will be preparing it for it's new life in a South Carolina Museum.

The outbound trip is taking the southern route, the return trip is the northern route. Anyone wanna meet up for lunch/dinner along the way?

Also, Since we will be empty on the way back I can do an East Coast to West Coast mule/shuttle service for folks. (but side trips off the main route will need to be kept to a minimum.

The general plan is:[/QUOTE]

Thank you, I will do some research on that. The oracle Google states that that is a 2 hour longer route. But people are usually smarter than Google.

Steve, my heartiest congratulations to you and Heather. It is, indeed, an ambitious trip. But we've done almost the same. My family is all in NW Arkansas and Oklahoma, and we have, in years past every year we can, made the trip from North Central Florida (Ocala) to NW Arkansas, the on to NW Oklahoma from there. It is a rough trip, but there's nothing like visiting with family. I understand that Florida is a little off the beaten path for you, but if you've never seen North Central Florida (and Homassassa) you've missed a lot. The area surrounding Ocala is the "horse capital of the world" and the horse farms are beautiful. There are gorgeous springs (Silver Springs). We've been here in Florida since 1967 (worked many years on the Space Coast - my husband was an electronic technician and I worked in the Technical Library at the Kennedy Space Center. It's unbelievable to watch the launch of a Saturn V rocket with an Apollo spacecraft on board! I stood on the steps of the Kennedy Space Center Headquarters building during the first successful Saturn V launch following the tragic fire on the launch pad that killed three US Astronauts! Those were very dark times.

The launches were spectacular and we enjoyed being a part of US Space History. To be young again --- Nah, I don't think I have the strength to go through that again! Got off the topic for sure!

Most of all, make your trip safely! Many, many years of happiness and love for you both, that is my wish!

Jeanette

I am in awe ! Congratulations is all I can think to say. Fabulous honeymoon.
Did a similar trip over many months going from Niagara Falls to Florida to LA to Vancouver then east to Toronto (Niagara Falls) and tried to see all points of interest with a fifth wheel/truck
Recently bought a motor home and hope to do another trip of this type and although it was my idea I am not so sure it was a good idea now.
Kathleen

Congratulations for the 20th Steve and Heather. Hope you have a great trip.