Epic Road Trip - 3rd and Final Part!

Hello family and friends!

It is with great joy and with some exhaustion that I write this blog from the comforts of my home, here in Minnesota! Mom and I completed our epic road trip this afternoon, arriving back in MN around 3pm. Here are the happenings of the last few days of the trip!

High Point - NJ high point!

On Saturday morning Mom and I awoke early to hit the road, headed back to the Midwest. We left CT, drove through NY slightly north of NYC, and took our next stop at High Point, New Jersey. As the name suggests, it is the highest point in the state of New Jersey. One usually doesn't think of NJ as a state with terrain but let us tell you, that one mile was quite vertical! We hadn't planned to hike this one, rather drive up, but learned it was $20 to drive to the top so we chose the "free admission and free exercise" option :) We hiked along the Appalachian Trail for a bit and reached the top, which was a adorned with a huge obelisk.

Following the hike we continued on, driving through the state of Pennsylvania. We stopped briefly in Hershey, PA to see the cute town and the factory. The street lights look like Hershey kisses and everything is named after chocolate or candy of some sort. We continued the day by driving through northwestern Maryland. This is where we attempted to go to church, but to no avail. We couldn't find a church that had Mass at a time we could make :(  Our last stop for the day was Mount Davis, the highest point in the state of PA. We reached it after winding our way through the farm country of PA. There were great interpretive signs at the top as well as a fire tower we climbed! PA's geological marker, marking the actual highest point, sits atop a crazy looking rock. It was pretty neat! We completed this long day by camping in Maryland.

Backbone Mtn - MD high point!

Sunday morning was, to say the least, crazy! I convinced Mom that we were going to hike to the Maryland state high point (Backbone Mountain/Hoye-Crest) early in the morning in order to see sunrise from the top. Let's work backwards....since sunrise was at 6:15am, and we wanted an hour to hike the 1.3 mile road to the top, and the trailhead was 45 minutes away from the campsite, we woke up at 3:30am to carry out this crazy plan. Let's just say that it was an adventure and a facing of my fear of the dark and unknown starting a hike up a mountain in the rain /fog/mist in the dark. Mom and I made it to the top, despite the steep climb, the rain, and navigating our way in the dark. The summit had a bench, a picnic table, a register mailbox, a historical sign and, what would be on a clear day, a great clearing the east to see sunrise.

After the crazy morning hike we continued onto to West Virginia's high point, Spruce Knob. After a long, windy, narrow road to the top it was only a short hike to the marker and observation tower, a great reward after the morning's long, dreary hike. The day was then filled with many hours of mountain driving, making our way across WV and into Kentucky, where we stopped in Morehead, KY to see my friend and former supervisor, Katy Bird! After chatting for a short bit Mom and I headed on to our campsite in Indiana, making for a total of about 10 driving hours on Sunday, among the other activities I just described. Let's just say it was a long day!

Entrance to Indiana Univ.

Monday we got to sleep in just a bit, as our campsite was only about a half hour from the Indiana University campus, where I toured yet another graduate program. I had a great visit and I enjoyed the campus and program. Around 1pm we headed north towards the Chicago suburb where my Aunt JoAnn lives and where we would be spending the night. What was suppose to be just under 5 hours of driving turned into about 7 hours with construction, traffic, and 2 hours of sitting dead stopped on the freeway after it was shut down due to a semi-semi crash a few miles ahead of us. We reached Aunt JoAnn's late evening and went out to dinner with her as well as my cousin Joleen and her son Trenton. My cousin Jodi also joined us after her softball game. It was great to see them all, as I don't see them very often.

Today started with waking up in a real bed :) After a quick breakfast, we hit the road around 8am this morning and made it home around 3pm. It was a relatively "easy" driving day compared to others, which meant that I still had (some) energy when we got home to unpack the car, clean out the inside and wash the outside. I had a great time on the road trip with my mom and it was a ton of fun! 

I am now home for a week, with just a few things on the calendar before I start back to school next Wednesday!

9 days, 3,774 miles, 18 states, 8 high points, 3 grad school visits, 6 nights of camping, and the same 10 songs on the radio a gazillion times over = 1 epic road trip!