Year: 2011

Day 2: Cleveland to Buffalo

Stats:

Odometer start: 13140

Gas:

  • Middleburg Heights OH ($3.19/gallon, 4.2 gallons, 129.4 miles)
  • Erie PA ($3.33/gallon, 3.6 gallons, 123.0 miles)

Meals:

  • Breakfast: Southside Diner, Parma OH. Crazy 8’s (pancakes, eggs, sausage, and bacon) and iced tea. $7.84.
  • Lunch: Burger King, Hamburg NY. Number 12 combo (double cheeseburger, fries, and Diet Coke). About $4.35.
  • Dinner: Steak dinner at Sarah and Brad’s.

Sleep: Sarah and Brad’s house.

Notes:

Out at 8:59 AM. Had breakfast, drove into Cleveland via Pearl Road, went through downtown, and then headed toward Buffalo. Stopped by Eat’nPark on the way out to pick up Smiley Cookies for Sarah and Brad. Arrived at their house about 2:30. Went out exploring and shopping with Sarah to Best Buy (bough a new video camera that I’m going to take back tomorrow because it’s not H.264 or full HD) and Wegman’s. Sarah and Brad made dinner tonight. Great seeing them. I had a little trouble getting to sleep due to heat and allergy flare-ups.

I sense a Cleveland road trip in my future.

Photos (flickr link):

[flickr-gallery mode=”tag” tags=”trip2011,day02″ tag_mode=”all” sort=”date-taken-asc”]

Day 1: Winston Salem to Cleveland

Stats:

Odometer start: 12657

Gas:

  • Wytheville VA ($3.13/gallon)
  • Cambridge OH ($3.25/gallon, 8.3 gallons, 267.8 miles)

Dinner: Number 1 combo at White Castle, Canton OH ($5.31).

Sleep: Red Roof Inn, Middleburg Heights

Notes:

Mostly a driving day.Decided at the last minute to drive to Buffalo via Cleveland rather than Pittsburgh. I hear Cleveland rocks. We’ll see.

Left the house at 10:49 and was out of Winston by 11:30. Stopped for gas in Wytheville VA and got a drink just north of Charleston WV. Made a Kroger run in Ripley WV. Stopped at a rest area/welcome center just inside Ohio. More gas in Cambridge OH, plus a stop at Riesbeck’s supermarket. Dinner at White Castle in Canton OH. Arrived at the Red Roof Inn in Middleburg Heights (outside Cleveland) about 8:30. Made a quick run to Marc’s supermarket, Giant Eagle, and Get-go.

The wi-fi really sucks here and the TV remote doesn’t work. It was surprisingly warm today. Radio was bad.

Photos (flickr link):

[flickr-gallery mode=”tag” tags=”trip2011,day01″ tag_mode=”all” sort=”date-taken-asc”]

Stupid bee

We’ve already established that I was an indoorsy, bookish sort of child. I didn’t play outside any more than was absolutely required by my keepers. Thus I never had to deal much with bee stings and the like. In fact, tonight’s was maybe my second or third ever.

It happened as I was changing the lightbulb in the porch light. Just as I pulled off the cover, I felt the intense pain. It took a second to sink in and then I yelled “shit” really loudly so all the neighbors could hear. After that, I ran into the house and grabbed the iPad to Google what the fuck I was supposed to do–which provided surprisingly inaccurate results, several of which just led to the Target Pharmacy website.

Anyhow, I determined that there seemed to be no stinger to remove (which is good since I had no idea how the hell I was supposed to remove it) and I took an illicit Ibuprofen and a Benadryl. Eventually the spot cooled down, and the pain was gone after a few minutes. My left hand feels a little sensitive still, though.

The point behind all this is that the Internet has probably been the salvation of many a helpless, clueless geek such as myself in similarly ridiculous and basically nonthreatening situations. The other point is that I still hate the great outdoors and always will, and I’m increasingly anxious for the day that I will no longer have even so small a piece of it as a yard.