Phew.  We are finally home and (mostly) unpacked.  I tell ya, as fun and exciting as vacations can be… sometimes getting home and settling back in can be just as nice.  I suppose this is even more true after such a long drive!

A few random thoughts from the road trip

• Michigan highways have two separate speed limits.  One for cars, 70 mph, and one for trucks, 60 mph.  Not having a 16 wheeler come roaring up on your bumper as you go down a hill was sooooo nice, and it really seemed to smooth out the flow of traffic.
• This was the first extended road trip I’ve taken with a GPS unit.  It took some getting used to, but the motto of the trip soon became, “Trust the GiPS”.  With the exception of a pair of harmless 1 mile detours on unpaved roads, that thing was spot on.  Expect a full review of the unit we used in the coming weeks.
• Local NPR radio stations make long drives so much more pleasant.
• Everything about a Great Lake is ocean-like, it kind of messes with your senses when you actually jump in it.  For a split second it was like my mind still expected a mouthful of nasty salt water.
• The Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz PED news broke the day we left, I must have had a smile on my face for the first 300 miles of the trip.
• Speaking of Baseball…  I went into a “sports bar” in Downtown Petoskey and asked if they could get the Yankees/Sox game.  The guy looked at me like I had just landed in a rocket ship.
• While in Saugatuck, we walked into a small restaurant named Pumpernickels and were pleasantly surprised by a guy playing acoustic guitar on the deck.  He was pretty impressive and after he took our request to play a Jack Johnson song we got the chance to chat with him a little bit.  His name is Chip Christy and he plays in Saugatuck each Saturday and Sunday morning/afternoon.  If you get the opportunity, check him out.

Coming soon on Towns and Trails

Jess and I will undoubtedly have a lot of catch up to do at our jobs this week, and on top of that we have more travels planned (a trip to the Cape, a weekend hiking trip, and then a week long vaca in Lake Placid), but when we get time we are going to post a full trip report – with photos – from our Road Trip.

We are also going to begin posting Town Profiles.  This is something we have planned on doing here for awhile (ya know… the Towns part of Towns and Trails) and now seems like a good time to get going on it.  We will begin by posting profiles of some of the towns we visited along our trip.

I am also looking forward to posting our first guest submission – a trip report from a reader who recently visited Alaska.  It looks like it was an amazing adventure, and I am eager to get the photos and some trip information up on the site.  Look for that in the coming week.

Lastly, as all good road trips tend to do, this recent adventure gave Jess and I some time to think about things… including this site and the direction we would like it to go in.  We brainstormed quite a bit about features and technologies and what people might enjoy seeing here – I’m not ready to say much more than that at this time… but I am pretty excited about the possibilities and we look forward to working on them when we get the time.  As we get further along in the process, I will be sure to fill you in!