Extra! Extra!

Discover new pictures, like the man you are!

We upload additional pictures that don't fit into our blog posts to our Flickr Photostream. You can always see find them by clicking on the "Pics" button at the top-right of the page.

Further, we regret that we don't keep up with posting about our whereabouts, so we keep a little handy dandy map with our current map here. You can always find that map by clicking on the "Maps" button right above the "Pics" button at the top-right of the blog.

Pooooooodcast!

Hi everybody!

This is a really exciting post for us, because neither of us have ever done a podcast, so bear with us.

In the podcast we discuss our expectations of the Keys, what we experienced in the end. 

We still wanted to include pictures, so we're just going to post them in the order we talk about them so you scroll down along with the audio.

We hope you enjoy it!

"The fishing boat with the two motors on the back"

"Small cottage buildings"

"We watched the sunset"

"It was awesome"

"Grilled up some steaks"

"We did make a drawing"

"We had a little art sess"

"Route 1 South"

"Gorgeous blue water"

"Heads of lettuce slash sea stars"

"Sam was sweating"

"Eaton Street Fish Market" or "Eaton Street Seafood Market"

"It's going to set in front of a bunch millionaires houses"

"When the margarita's gone"

"The first half of the eclipse"

"The forty year old pet iguana, Bob."

Views: Key West, FL by Samuel Herbig

"To hell with people not swimming in Key West, we're going to find a beach"

"The water was amazing"

"It was quite a pleasant beach."

"At Pepe's"

"We got there in time for happy hour"

"I was excited about it at that time"

"There are so many trees that are flowering"

"People would have these very well kept backyards"

"Definitely — snorkeling"

That's all folks! We hope you enjoyed it, and let us know if you think we should do another one, okay?

Firsts & Transitions

View fullsize

Southbound

Our drive into Florida was quick, but in that short time we realized one very hard reality that has plagued us since: Gas in Florida is expensive.

But let's rewind for a second. We got to Florida and it's really the first time either of us have been in the sunshine state (at least in the past ten years). They say a lot of things about judging books by their cover but when you're faced with something the first time you don't think in those terms. You're just jotting down your first impressions.

What I thought about walking towards the Florida Welcome Center off I-95 was: there are a lot of overweight people, kids behaving poorly and big trucks here. I realized that's very judgmental of me of course, so every time I've felt that way in the past I thought: You're missing something here. Look more closely and you'll find that there's more to what you think you're seeing here. 

In the case of Florida, and I think I'm speaking for both Whitney and myself here, that moment didn't come until Miami; I'm getting ahead of myself though.

We got our complimentary orange and grapefruit juice and sat back down in the Omimobile to finish our day's trip to St. Augustine.

It's interesting in retrospect that I didn't even think about the historical aspect of St. Augustine on the way there. I mean I know that it's the oldest Spanish settlement in North America, but to us it didn't amount to more than a waypoint on our travels south. That's in no way meant as a slight towards Florida or St. Augustine. It's just the way things worked out.

The really cool thing about our campground in Anastasia State Park was that it was near the beach. For the first time we had the opportunity to go out and swim in the ocean. The whole idea of going swimming in the Atlantic was a sort of gateway into the "summer" part of our road trip.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

We didn't much exceed sticking our toes in the water that night, but to me it was the beginning of water, sunscreen, sunglasses and pavement that's too hot to walk on barefoot.

Cook meister-in-chief

To feed ourselves in the evening we sought out a local supermarket by the roadside, just outside the Anastasia. We got fresh vegetables, a piece of fresh tuna, coals and a bag of ice. Back at the campsite we split the tasks: Whitney prepared (chopped, peeled, seasoned) the vegetables and fish while I built the fire.

Seared Tuna! Fingerling potatoes! Roasted veggies!

Now, everyone has a different idea of what "camping" is. In our mind, it involves a tent and making your own food, I guess. We're not roughing it by any means and it's certainly not about digging a scat hole and making fire with a flint. We wanted to make it manageable for us considering we would be driving for several hours on many of our camping nights. We wanted to get a great night’s sleep so we got a pretty big tent and cots instead of foam sleep pads. We have a mini kitchen in the back of our car.

Anyway, by now we had the essentials down pat: As you can see we got the tent set up and the cots put together. The whole "let's get a fire going" is something I'm still getting used to, though. 

Views: St Augustine, FL by Samuel Herbig

In the end, dinner was delicious and we went to sleep under the stars (we left the rainfly off), to a live soundtrack of Dierks Bentley playing my new favorite (no joke) “How Am I Doin’”. We tweeted at him but no response :-(.

Sun/moon roof

We broke camp early next morning. Our next stop was the Pelican Inn on Key Largo, so we didn't want to waste time getting there. The drive down I-95 was awfully boring though. I'm serious, it's the most dreary part of the interstate we'd encountered.

Only official picture from Miami

PLOT TWIST!: Julia's in Miami and she's reading our tweets. That meant a spontaneous re-routing through unchartered territory. Did we plan on going through Miami? No. Was I-95 jammed up and did we have any idea that the there are Florida State toll roads? Also, no. So we set off on a happy-go-lucky chase through Miami to meet up with Julia.

Now, remember how I said that the part I'd been missing didn't come until Miami? Well, here it is: driving through town we found ourselves so excited at seeing the colors of the buildings. We saw pink houses and blue houses. Bright green cars with outrageous rims. I swear, Miami has the corner market on custom green paint jobs. Suddenly we were in this weird land of palm trees, bright colors and bad-ass cars!

Back to the story: Julia was in town to work on a commercial and we rolled in, just as they were finishing their day to say "hello".

#nofilter #iosdistortion

Aside form an enthusiastic greeting we got so much more though. You see, the woman who ran craft services on this job, Nina, was a culinary goddess. Craft Services, or Crafty, are the stay-at-home mom’s of the film industry. That sounds derogatory, but hear me out! Every stay-at-home mom I ever knew made sure there was tasty food at a moments notice so kids would be able to do homework with full brain power as well as hang out with friends after school without getting hangry (or HALT as we call it — Hungry Angry Lonely Tired).

Now keep in mind that the standard day on a film set is twelve hours with one meal break in the middle and you see why Crafty is so important. Film work is manual labor! Nina was there for her crew all day that Sunday and as they finished their day she offered up her culinary wonders to us, the weary travelers, just because we were Julia’s friends. Now there are two phenomena we could pin this on: Julia’s ability to befriend any person she has ever met; or Nina’s charisma, kindness, and culinary skill. We were so grateful we want to credit both.

Nina with Proud owner of Nina iced coffee

Here’s to the best iced coffee we have ever had—hands down, the fantastic flan Nina sent with us for our dessert in Key Largo, and her tasty cookies that got us through a few hangry moments as we drove through Florida. 

Strengthened and encouraged, we set out on the road again. At this point the Keys were within our grasp and we didn't want to waste any more time on the road. That however, we'll cover in the next post!

Ab in den Süden!

Catching our stride in Savannah

View fullsize

Sister city

So I'm sitting here at our campground in Key West and I'm putting thoughts together for all of you about our time in Savannah. Sam and I have been taking about writing this post for days, as it sometimes goes with these things when we get busy or wrapped up in the trip. When we talked, we covered the highlights but both agreed that Savannah meant a little more to us than just hitting the main attractions.

1st impressions

From the very earliest times in our relationship we go through periods where we hit our stride. It can last from a week up though a month where we both feel really tuned into each other and the things we create, philosophize about, and take action on — separately and together.

We both knew the whole road trip couldn't be like that, but when we pictured visiting each place as we made our plans, that ideal was in our minds, fueling us on.

As Sam alluded to in his Chattanooga post, I wasn't in that tuned-in place. Sure, I had really loved the places we visited, people we spent time with, and all that we had done, but part of me was holding back a little bit and it kept my mind from being fully engaged in the present moments.

We had a few good heart-to-hearts and by the time we got to Savannah I was ready to hit the stride. So was Sam, and luckily, Savannah was too!

Didn't open with our key to the city :-(

On the drive down, I wasn't sure what to expect. Charleston does the whole "wealthy historic southern city" thing so well that I wasn't sure if Savannah would just be a continuation of that. Now that I know what it's like, I can safely say it doesn't duplicate the appeal of its sister city and I'm so glad we had time to get to know Savannah a little bit. It's true that Savannah cares just as much for the visual presentation of itself as Charleston, maybe even more so, but the reasons seem to be more multifaceted. Charleston had to rebuild so much of the city after the war, the fire, the earthquake, and at least one more disaster that befell the city in the nineteenth century. They basically dedicated themselves to rebuilding what once stood to give people a picture if the past. Savannah on the other hand was untouched during the war and still looks historic on first glance, but youth and creativity is bubbling up through every pore. SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) has tirelessly restored so many buildings that you can find one on almost every historic block. The tourism is cheekier, and the overall vibe is more youthful, relaxed, and hip.

Write on the wall

We got into town around 5:30 because our air bnb host would be able to get home from work around then. This was our first time using air bnb so we were a little nervous, but Bryan was very informative, relaxed, and kind. Our room was at the front of a clapboard duplex and the setup felt like a much more spacious brownstone. Bryan kept his place in immaculate shape and our room could've been featured in apartment therapy. He also had two bikes for us to use while we stayed with him, which was perfect. We were downtown in 7 minutes and got to ride through Forsythe Park and feast our eyes in the Spanish moss-laden oaks and tons of gorgeous buildings in the immense historic district.

We can recommend breakfast and dinner here

After we settled in we went outside to grab dinner and ran into a guy who had parked behind us, seen our spare tire sticker, went to this very website, and happened to still be standing right there to tell us all of that! Very exciting stuff for us because up until then we weren't 100% sure if anyone bothered to read the sticker at all. He also suggested that we check out Foxy Loxy for cheap and tasty food, so we went over there for some beers and a chicken taco on their upstairs porch. The place was full of students from SCAD and the atmosphere was very friendly. This was not our last visit to Foxy Loxy during our 40 hours in Savannah!

After that we took the bikes and hightailed it downtown to enjoy a Creepy Crawl tour of Savannah that featured several pubs, go cups, and a number of engaging ghost stories told by our guide, Britney. Lots of good-natured chills and a case of the hiccups sealed the end of our first night in one of America's most haunted cities (cue Sam's tentative eye roll).

This is real

The next morning we went to Narobia's Grits and Gravy (Yelp link!) for breakfast because we heard that the French toast is killer. It is. After that we wanted to grab some art supplies, get tickets to see a movie that night, and then hop on a tourist trolley to get the lay of the land and a little history. We also found a moment to score some ice cream from Leopold's, which is apparently a pretty big deal (I had lavender flavored and it was quite nice).

The trolley wound up being a good substitution for my afternoon nap. We were slowly driving around, with a slight warm breeze and a soft yet gravelly southern voice telling us about what we were seeing for 90 minutes. We hopped off slightly more educated about Savannah and decidedly more hungry. We found Zunzi's where we got some happy hour beers and a very early dinner on their rooftop.

Best picture of Zunzi's rooftop patio

The next thing we did was likely the most engaging for both of us. We went to two different squares in Savannah and did some drawing. Since we hadn't really drawn together before and Sam hadn't had many drawing classes past grade school (or the Waldorf equivalent) I tried to remember how we started drawing classes back at SVA. Our attempts at the various time steps are posted below.

1. Create a series of bare bones drawings, with thirty seconds allotted for each. In school, if we were drawing live models these would literally be stick figures (even if they were gorgeous models and we were giggly college art students trying to be very serious and respectful).

Sam's abilities summed up in 30 seconds

2. Create a series of ninety second drawings with a few more details sussed out.

Whitney in 90 seconds

Two 90 second drawings (Sam going for extra credit here)

3. Create a five minute drawing as a rough guide for a longer drawing period (often two hours, but only twenty minutes in our case).

Whitney for 300 seconds

Sam for the same length of time

4. Choose one of the five minute drawings to turn into a more detailed rendering.

This is exemplary: Sam sitting still for 1200 seconds

Whitney's drawing in the same discipline

So there you have it. Our first collaborative art session of the trip (though our flashlight photo drawings in the smokies are in the same spirit). It isn't the last either. We have pencils, charcoal, chalk and oil pastels, acrylic paints, two novelty cameras, scissors, and glue. The sky is the limit here folks. Any suggestions for future projects would be loved and appreciated in the contents section below the post!

Reference picture: for science!

To round out our final night in Savannah, we went to the Lucas theater (beautifully restored and owned by SCAD) to see Fight Club. I hadn't seen it in at least ten years. Sam never had. And it was a blast. We talked about it for a beer or two after and most of the way home.

The next morning we hit Foxy Loxy again for colaches for breakfast and a trip to Bonaventure cemetery on our way out of town.

Next stop we'd be back to camping in St Augustine, Florida.

Random facts and statistics from Savannah:

• Spanish moss isn't Spanish or a moss! It's an airborne plant related to the pineapple according to my nap trolley guide. 
• She also said that the southern live oak never sheds all of its leaves. They just fall continuously.
• Foxy Loxy is the antagonist from the folktale known as Chicken Little, Chicken Licken, or Henny Penny
• The Forrest Gump bench was purchased at Home Depot and resides in a history museum in Savannah, leaving no opportunity for a photo op.