My dream for the last ten years has been to drive across the country and see as many states as possible. We've either never had the time or decided not to use our free time this way until now. Jake and I have recently left our jobs and our apartment in New York City after a seven year insanity. We've decided to take a few months off and enjoy our time before moving to the west coast.

Part of this time off is fulfilling Karen's dream of driving across the country. We bought a new Honda Civic, joined AAA and got on the road. Since we don't plan for the big trip to take place until July, we decided to try a mini-version during May.

The trial was to serve several purposes: to find out whether Karen's capable of camping, to find out whether Karen's capable of driving, to find out whether Karen and Jake can stand being in such close quarters for such a long time, to fnd out whether our muscles could stand being in the car for extended periods of time and also to find out if it would be fun at all.

So we are doing the trip in several legs.

Leg 1: Boston to Miami : We're invited to a wedding on the second of May in Florida so we figured that would be a good start for the trip. We took the scenic route all the way down the east coast.

Leg 2: Miami to New Orleans: This was just to entertain Karen who's never been to New Orleans but we got in the car accident so this will be delayed for now. Instead it became Miami to Palm Beach.

Leg 3: West Palm Beach to Atlanta: Jake's brother is graduating on the 11th so we are drivin gback up there for the ceremony.

Leg 4: Atlanta to New Orleans and Baton Rouge: This is what was to take place before the 11th but hopefully it will happen after the graduation.

Leg 5: Baton Rouge to Boston: This is the trip back. This time we'll take the Appalachian Trail road so we can see more historical landmarks.

Leg 6: Boston to Pittsburgh: We have a wedding on May 24th of my good friend Audrey to Tom.

We then take a month off to return to New York City for three days, fly to the Cayman Islands, back to the city for three more days and then to Turkey for ten days.

Leg 7: Missouri to San Diego: This is the big trip! My plan is to go through as many of the states and see as much as possible. All suggestions are welcome. I'll post the details as soon as they're figured out.