Almost Home

Alex and I spent the past few days at Casa Foster in New Jersey getting organized and gearing up for our last stop: Japan. We also embarked on a three day juice cleanse in an attempt to undo some of the dietary damage we did while in Italy!

Trying to undo a year of being on "vacation!"

After three days of hibernating on a liquid diet we treated ourselves to a day in New York with friends and drinks (and food). Our friend Todd was kind enough to pick us up in Madison and dropped me off in Soho so I could meet another friend, Jennifer, in town from Chicago. I had a great afternoon shopping and catching up with Jennifer before meeting up with Alex, Todd, his wife Shannon and some other friends in Brooklyn at Radegast.

Hazy day in Manhattan.

Live band at Radegast.

So happy to be reunited with these girls!

Jumping off the health train at full speed, we ordered takeout from Pies 'n Thighs for dinner and enjoyed the nighttime views of NYC from Todd and Shannon's apartment in Williamsburg.

Best view in the world.

Good night, New York.

Today we have a 14 hour flight to Tokyo, where we meet up with Alex's mom, Janet, for 10 days of sightseeing. We can't wait to revisit our favorite spots with a new travel companion!

Back For A New York Minute

We flew in from London on Monday and tried to stay up as late as possible to avoid the inevitable jet lag. Alex's parents have graciously allowed us to crash at their NJ residence whenever we land in the NYC area so we took advantage of their hospitality, home cooking and laundry facilities for a couple days while we got ourselves sorted.

On Wednesday we drove into the city for a day of errands - mostly beauty treatments to remove excess hair and callouses - and a reunion dinner with our friends. Being surrounded by the faces we have missed so much over the past eight months was incredible - and a reminder of how at home we feel in New York!

Not the best quality image but definitely the best quality people.

Taking advantage of additional hospitality, we stayed with our friends Nikou and Mike in Brooklyn so we could get an early start on our drive to Massachusetts Thursday morning. We stopped in Boston for lunch with our former colleague Avi and made it to Newburyport by early afternoon so we could rest up for two days of wedding festivities.

Charming streets and shops in Newburyport.

Town Square.

Looking out into the marina.

I loved the "old-timey" feel of the shops and buildings.

So many sailboats!

We enjoyed a casual BBQ outside with the bride and groom before heading to bed early (Alex is the Best Man so he needed to be fresh for Friday's wedding events!).

I spent Friday exploring the charming town of Newburyport on foot and sampling the local blueberry iced coffee before returning to our hotel to get ready for the wedding. The weather had been cloudy but cleared up just in time for the ceremony and everything - including Alex's speech - went perfectly! Alex and I got to catch up with friends and enjoyed a night of dancing while celebrating an amazing couple.

Not our ride for the wedding!

Beautiful couple; beautiful day.

Congrats Todd and Shannon!

Someone's looking a little lighter...goodbye "beard!"

We woke up early on Saturday in order to drive to Montauk, the site of our wedding, to celebrate our one year anniversary for a couple of days. While the weather didn't exactly cooperate for spending time at the beach, we were able to revisit our favorite places and catch a pretty spectacular sunset on Sunday night. To top it all off, our wedding cake baker even made us a special free anniversary cake!

Saying goodbye to Todd...they didn't even plan the matching outfits!

One of our favorite beaches in Montauk.

Back to Montauk Yacht Club: site of our wedding last year!

Sunsets at Navy Beach are almost always incredible.

Sky on fire.

One more in front of the sunset.

Mussels - a new favorite for us! - at Dave's for a special anniversary dinner.

Monday was beautiful so we spent a few hours enjoying the beach - without weekend vacationers! - before making the drive back to NJ.

Today we head to Italy for another wedding and plan to spend our time focusing on friends, food and fun. Ciao!

Party in the USA

Miles: 10,443

We made it! And, importantly, the Avalon did too!

The last two months have flown by for us: we drove more than 10,000 miles across the country and back, celebrated four weddings with family and friends, saw some amazing sights (and took some incredible pictures), ate some great food, drank delicious drinks, and even made it to Sarah's first SEC football game!

We always wanted to allocate some time in our year-long journey to seeing the US and we are so glad we did. There are so many beautiful places across the country and we'd highly encourage you to check out our favorite spots (in no particular order): Jackson Hole, WY; Grand Teton National Park; Sedona, AZ; Grand Canyon National Park; Monument Valley, AZ; and White Sands National Monument. Not only were these places magical to visit, we walked away with some of our best pictures of the trip so far! You can check out our USA gallery here.

Thank you very much to all our hosts along our journey. Half the fun of seeing the US has been catching up with you along the way and we'll miss you while we're abroad!

Tomorrow we fly to Japan to begin the next eight months of our journey! It's a six-hour flight to LA then another 11 hours to Tokyo - good thing we each have about five books to choose from to keep us occupied! See you in June, USA!

New York, New York

Sarah and I spent Wednesday and Thursday in cold-recovery mode. We have a lot to do before we leave, but we took advantage of my mom's delicious home cooking, slept through our alarms and tried to knock off the least strenuous activities from our to-do list.

By Thursday (my birthday, by the way!), we were both feeling well enough to take a long walk through the woods of Madison. The weather was perfect for a fall day in New Jersey - and the mild exercise was probably good for our colds too!

Strolling through the woods.

Lots of colorful leaves, though most had fallen off the trees at this point!

After our walk we were treated to a delicious home cooked meal to celebrate my birthday. My brother, Nick, and his girlfriend, Michelle, made the trek out from the city to join us and my Aunt Jill and Uncle Dave drove up from southern Jersey as well. It was great to catch up with the family, especially because this is the only time along our whole year-long journey that we'll get to see Nick, Michelle, Jill and Dave!

Family shot before dinner.

And we even had a proper birthday cake.

Feeling rested (and almost over our colds) we drove into New York City on Friday to tackle some of our remaining to-dos. I bought a coat and boat shoes; Sarah got some pants and make-up (among other things). After running around the city all day, we split up for dinner: Sarah met up with our friend Dana and I got together with another friend Brendan. It's always great to catch up after being gone for so long!

On Saturday we had brunch with our friends Ally and Hayden at Sweet Chick, which turned out to be amazing. Sarah always says there's not much high quality southern food in the city - but Sweet Chick definitely filled that void for her!

Our afternoon / evening on Saturday revolved around our last wedding of the year - my good friend Dan and his fiancée Ali got married in The Green Building in Brooklyn. The venue was very cool - and very appropriate for Dan and Ali! - plus it wasn't a far drive from our hosts' apartment in Williamsburg (thanks again Sam and Nicole!).

Pre-wedding photo at Sam and Nicole's place.

The happy couple's first kiss! (Also, Dan puts my beard to SHAME.)

Doing our best imitation of the bride and groom in their photobooth.

Today we headed over to our friends' Ali and Caleb's place to watch the NYC Marathon. Fortunately we had an extra hour to sleep due to Daylight Savings Time (especially after the late night on Saturday!). We had a great time watching the runners go by Ali and Caleb's living room window, but not long after the race was over it was time to say goodbye to all our friends.

It's been a great weekend here in NYC but we need to head back to NJ to finalize our preparations for the longest leg of our trip. We're very excited to see Japan on Wednesday but sad to be away from our friends and family for eight months!

Niagara Falls

Miles: 340

Route: Lake George, NY - Niagara Falls, ON

We left Lake George on Thursday morning to drive to Niagara Falls. This was the longest drive in a single day so far - so, naturally, I (unintentionally!) decided to make it a little longer by forgetting a few things at the motel. Fortunately I realized early and only cost us an extra half an hour.

The drive to Niagara Falls was largely uneventful, though the border crossing into Canada snuck up on us a little bit and, because we didn’t have our passports immediately available, we got a few more questions than I would’ve expected. Oh well.

Thursday afternoon was pretty dreary so we found a local gym to work out at and got ourselves organized for some of the less-planned parts of the road trip. The couple that runs the motel we stayed at suggested we try Syndicate for dinner - we were skeptical based on the name alone, but the food was great and very reasonably priced ($22 for three-course prix fixe).

Friday started off just as dreary as Thursday but all our weather apps suggested it would clear up in the afternoon. So we started the day with a run by the Falls then drove up to Niagara-on-the-Lake, a small town 20 minutes north of Niagara Falls. If you are ever at Niagara Falls this town should be on your must-do list! We spent a few hours perusing the local shops, bakeries and restaurants in the charming downtown then headed to the shore to look at the view of Lake Ontario - just in time for the clouds to clear!

One of the many hotels in town. Naturally, the Prince of Wales Hotel is at the corner of King Street and Queen Street.

Downtown Niagara-on-the-Lake had some very over-the-top (albeit very well-maintained) gardening arrangements.

Town center.

The park by the lake was just as beautiful as the town itself.

And the view wasn’t too shabby either! (You can barely see it, but the Toronto skyline was visible in the distance.)

After we finished at the lake, we got back in the car to check out another of the area’s main attractions: vineyards. There are about 25 vineyards between Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake; we stopped at Reif Estates for a tasting. In addition to one white and one red, we each tasted ice wine, the local specialty. Ice wine is intensely sweet but would be the perfect conclusion to a large meal (in small portions though!). We bought a few bottles that we liked and strolled around the vineyard before making our way back to Niagara Falls.

Real men drink rose.

Lots of grapes...

Fortunately the clear skies we had in Niagara-on-the-Lake followed us to Niagara Falls. By the time we parked the car and walked down to the Falls the sun had really come out, giving us fantastic views. We walked across Rainbow Bridge to see the New York side, then back again to look at the Canadian views. As with Iguazu, there is a clear winner on which side is better. I’m sorry to say that the Canadians definitely have us beat here - so if you ever go to Niagara Falls make sure to bring your passport!

We were lucky enough to get some great rainbow views here too!

The Maiden of the Mist.

Great view of the Horseshoe Falls from New York - plus we stayed dry on this side (the equivalent view on the Canadian side has a constant rain of mist coming off the Falls).

Walking back to Canada.

The reason the Canadian side is better - NY just can’t compete with views like this.

After sunset we were a pretty tired (we ran / walked about 12 miles today!) and hungry so we headed to Koutouki, a Greek restaurant Sarah found on TripAdvisor. It. Was. Amazing! We shared the platter for two: two chicken skewers, two pork skewers, four lamb chops, plus Greek salad, vegetables and bread on the side. Oh yeah, and it also came with what I can only describe as Greek lasagna: feta melted on top of zucchini, peppers and spiced beef. Definitely check it out if you’re in Niagara Falls and in the mood for Greek food!

Somehow we managed to roll ourselves to the car and fight the urge to sleep until we got back to our motel. Tomorrow we drive to Cincinnati to see Sarah’s family for a few days then we’re off to Chicago.