wan-derful road trip, the cliff's notes

because i take almost as many pictures on my phone as i do with my camera, i figured it might be fun to do an iPhone dump, a la my friend tater.  i was flicking through the photo library and realized that there were some pretty fun shots in there.

like this one of the beginning of the trip.  doesn't she look excited?

yeah, she'll probably kill me for that.  and we were excited to find a pinkberry in our terminal...but didn't have time to do more than take this picture of it:

because in less than half an hour, we were already in our seats.

when the bean fell asleep, i decided to take advantage of the onboard wi-fi while the teen played games on the iPad.

on the first real day of our trip, i got all my "i'm a tourist!" gear on.

where nobody knew our names:

i couldn't help but smirk a bit when i noticed that the NBA finals posters were still up a couple of weeks after the celtics had lost the series.

the fanciest 7-11 i've ever seen.

during our trolley ride, we learned that these gas lights have been burning 24/7 for about 90 years.  apparently, it costs more to pay someone to go around and re-light them every night, or some crazy shit like that, than to just leave 'em on.

haaaaah-vard.

movie time!

...and a different kind of eclipse altogether.

i look sleepy.  the teen looks cute, as always.

at the metropolitan museum of art!  and yes, i'm 10.

we walked for a while through central park before giving up and hailing one of those horse-drawn carriages and giving our aching feet a rest.

the bean napped in the carrier (giving me quite a workout, let me tell you), and then when she woke up we let her run amok through the american girl store.

i swear, i took this at the teen's request.

we marveled at the sheer number of humans walking through times square.

at the giant toys r'us, after scoffing at the hour-plus wait to ride the indoor ferris wheel, we admired the cuteness of NYC hello kitty.

indulging my craving for a black & white cookie.

hotel #1 in DC - the renaissance.  love the aveda products in the bath.

doing a little sightseeing in our nation's capital, and then watching the fireworks show on the 4th of july.  that is one shiny ass forehead i was rocking.  it was about a zillion degrees with a bajillion-percent humidity, and i was sweating my ass off.

the mob of folks that we weaved our way through after the fireworks extravaganza was over was insane.

it was kind of sad to visit the lincoln memorial right after touring ford's theater, where he'd been assassinated.

during a quickie picnic at a park in savannah (where the hub and i also served as lunch for about a dozen mosquitoes):

the last state of our trip!

it was fun to watch the bean take in the "playhouse disney" show at disney world.

while in line to see buzz and woody, she made a friend.

while her sister and i snuck away to ride the "tower of terror," she and her daddy managed to find mickey.

we managed to sneak in a dip into the atlantic on the last day of our trip here:

our return flight was on virgin america, our first time with that airline.  and hopefully not our last.  there was free satellite TV and lots of music to choose from at each seat, as well as pay-per-view movies.  you could even order food and drinks on the touchscreen, slide your credit card into the reader, and and the flight attendants dropped off your purchases within minutes.  fantastic.  and instead of the typically ugly fluorescent lighting, we got lovely colored mood lighting instead.

still, we were all pretty excited when we finally landed.

after waiting for a bit, the teen was relieved to find that her bag had arrived safely.

now i don't know whether or not it's even worth recapping city-by-city.  maybe not, huh?  what do you think?  i'll let you decide.