Day 1 Burlington, VT to Philadelphia, PA

After a really mellow night of Halloween Parties and seeing some more old friends, Jon and I ate a hearty French Toast breakfast and proceeded to head out on what is going to be one mighty road trip. We proceed to stop in Medfield, where we see my father, potentially say goodbye to the house I grew up in, and drop off my car. From there, we make decidedly good time and arrive in Philadelphia around 6:30 pm. There were few highlights from the drive, but Jon and I did begin to listen to our nearly 700 song playlist with a majority of the 100 albums Phish had listed to cover as their Halloween set. We made solid progress, listening to 71 songs, including albums like Pet Sounds, London Calling, and Electric Ladyland. Upon arrival in Philly, we met up with a friend Blake and headed downtown to get some traditional steaks.

Now, Getting a Philly Cheese Steak is fairly easy in Philly, but it was time to visit what is known as one of the largest rivalries in the cheese steak business. Annie and Blake decided to go with Pat’s, while Jon and I each got a Geno’s and then split a Pat’s so that we could compare and draw our own conclusions as to which proved to be a superior steak. Both steaks were quite good, and both were ordered in the traditional style, or Wiz Wit, as in Cheese Wiz with onions. Now, I am having a hard time deciding what steak I enjoyed more. Geno’s was the first I tried, and then we split the Pats. Jon enjoys the Geno’s steak, and I think I am going to have to make the same vote. (Joe B, if your reading this, sorry). It may be a decision based on which one I tasted first, and I feel as though one more visit to Philly and then I will really know, but as of now, Geno’s is the winner for me.






We then proceeded to head back to (Mannyyunk) to watch the World Series and drink a little beer. We headed down to the Bayou and watched a couple innings, from there, we decided to save some coin and head back and finish off Blake’s beer. We proceeded to head up to the roof deck, listen to a live stream of the final set of Phish’s festival 8, and smoke some nice cigars, a great way to end night one of our road trip.

I write this as I sit shotgun as we head west, the first day of actually heading west, and it feels good. Now, we will be heading south in a couple days, but knowing that west is the goal makes me excited. We are heading to Blacksburg, VA, to see Virginia Tech, where Jon went his first year of college, then to Bluff City to the Ridgewood BBQ, somewhere we were told is a must stop, from there, on to Kingston to visit Penny and see the family, and on to Nashville tomorrow.

We are just around 500 miles into our journey, only 3500ish to go.

Some quick points from day 1: New Jersey still sucks; 2. Cheese Steaks are better in Philly; 3. I need to polish my cowboy boots for Nashville

-Until tomorrow