So I’m generally terrible at taking spring break off. However, I will argue that often it’s cursed. When I was a freshman in college COVID happened the literal week after it. I still spent that week working on the Baja car, though, so I can’t blame the pandemic’s beginning. When I was in my 2nd year at Michigan the University decided that spring break wouldn’t happen to minimize risk. When I was a senior I spent the entire spring break working on the Baja Car.
With that said it’s not like I never had fun during Spring Break. That first spring break during my freshmen year was some of the most fun Baja moments I ever had. The mix of no classes, swarming the dining halls, and seeing the car come together is a ton of fun. Last spring break ended with me getting into grad school and the car getting shipped off to be powder coated. And for the lack of spring break during my 2nd year at Michigan… well that was 15 weeks straight of classes. To say that I remember anywhere near most of the details of that semester would be a stretch. By the end, I just remember vague exhaustion and confusion that finals were finished.
I was planning on going off that theme this break and just working in the lab over break. After all, a lot of the PhDs don’t take spring break off and instead spend their time doing research. Because by your 2nd (and certainly 3rd) year of the PhD classes isn’t the priority anymore. I have lab work that had to be done so I was going to join them. Then one night in the virus laboratory in the basement of our building I was plating samples and it was roughly 8 pm. By that hour its often only me and the post-docs, people who have PhDs but are not full professors, and sometimes one of the professors Alex. And they asked what I was doing for spring break this year and I said “well… Was planning on working here.” Sarah turned to me and told me to take a vacation.
(Which hot takes from Sarah she had a 4-month-old and consistently works 10-hour days in the lab. I also love her and she taught me so many OSHA violations when I took the microbiology lab with her.)
But she was right. I’m awful at taking vacations I’ve learned and I had the cash sitting around at this point. That’s a side point but honestly, the whole having an engineering degree has made paying for small things in life so much less stressful now. I don’t have very high hopes for my luxuries, but being able to buy coffee when I want and new clothes every once in a while is fantastic.
Yet because of my poor planning, I had 10 days to plan and execute this trip. Which also meant that nearly everyone else already has Spring Break plans. The quick solution I came up with was to road trip the east coast. There were plenty of states I hadn’t seen before on the coast (and I hadn’t even been to New England) and I have friends up the coast who I had promised to visit at some point. Plus it’s (relatively) cheap since I’m just paying for the car rental + gas and food.
So the itinerary went like this:
DC → NYC → New England (Rhode Island and Connecticut)
Looking back I could’ve fit Boston in there but in the rush of planning, I didn’t plan for Boston well enough. My friend in Maine also wanted me to visit and if I had put it in front of the other New England states it would’ve been possible. But also didn’t plan for that well enough and she offered it the night before I was set to start driving to DC so the information came up too late.
(This just means that to visit all 50 states I need to make it back to New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine at some point too. I think I’ll go during the summer…)
But I’ve procrastinated starting the story of the trip for long enough, so without further ado:
DC
To get there took 7.5 hours of driving which was the most I’d ever driven solo in my life on one stretch of road in one day until approximately 4 days later. I had to duck into the lab in the morning and I was drinking the night before (probably not a smart idea looking back) so I didn’t get on the road until noon.
I was staying with my friend Kalina, who graduated in environmental engineering last year with me and is now doing consulting work down in DC for the department of energy and some other companies. She’s an absolutely lovely human with a granola boyfriend she met freshmen year who could kill me in 30 seconds and always wondered how the fuck I keep showing up in her life.
(Not an exaggeration. He’s a 6’4” German-American ex-marine. Honestly, I don’t know if I’d last 30 seconds).
Her roommate works for the state department and casually has top-secret clearance. So that’s also scary. Kalina tends to associate herself with these folks turns out. Also, a weird case because Kalina and I had if I can do the math correctly 7 classes in a row together in the last 2 semesters of college but we never had enough free time to hang out so she did lead the visit by saying “I don’t think we’ve ever had this much free time to hang out”
Bought wine from a lovely grandma who ran the apartment complex’s store and watched standup comedy.
We made it through 3 museums in one day. We did push for a 4th but for the 2nd time in my life, the national archives had too long of a line for us to get into. I suppose it makes sense as it houses both the declaration of independence and the constitution but a shame that I’ve had to call it quits due to lack of time twice in my life.
The first one we went to was Ford’s theatre, a 19th-century theatre famous in the US because it’s where John Wilk Booth shot Abraham Lincoln at the end of the civil war. The pistol and the place where Lincoln sat are still preserved and the basement has been largely turned into a civil war museum with an emphasis on the wider range of figures in the plot to assassinate Lincoln and what happened to them. Notable among them is Mary Surratt, the woman who owned the hotel where the conspirators stayed, being the first woman ever executed by the federal government.
Also, I have no idea how widely known this story is Lincoln’s assassination was part of a larger plot to assassinate (then vice-president) Andrew Johnson and secretary of war William Henry Seward. The assassin of Johnson lost his nerve and didn’t carry out the plot while the one sent to Seward failed mainly due to a fight against Seward’s son where the assassin hit him so hard the gun broke and his son kept swinging while his head waiter gathered police so the assassin was forced to flee.
Second was the natural history museum. This might also seem obvious to those who have been but the Smithsonian museums are massive. Besides the Louvre and the British Museum, each museum is among the largest ones on the planet, or at least that I have visited. To make it through the dozens of them would take actual weeks, not that I’m complaining. We spent 2 hours in just natural history and maybe saw a 4th of it.
We spent too long looking at rocks but rocks are sick so shut up with your criticisms. There was every sort of color and shape imaginable and also some chemical formations that convinced me that they were just making shit up at this point. I had to text Bella, another environmental engineer who graduated last year currently getting a master’s degree in geology, about what one of the chemical formulas even meant.
She took me to a ramen place that she’d been trying to get to for a while and it was great. We watched them make it by throwing noodles into works more or less submerged in oil. So many flames but the food was great so who am I to judge?
Lastly, we visited the botanical gardens. Look we’re environment engineers. It was expected. At one point Kalina commented on two French women sketching plants and speaking in French. I agreed that’d be fantastic if I had either of those skills.
New York City
Both the people I was seeing here didn’t have places for me to stay, so I could only stay for the day. This honestly might be for the best because parking a car in NYC is not recommended for legitimate reasons. The city is a rat maze.
I also want to talk quickly about turnpikes. Because they aren’t a thing on the west coast. So the idea of service plazas and paying to take a highway is novel to me. Needless to say, the car I was in did not have any sort of E-ZPass or automatic system in each state and often would go through multiple turnpikes in one drive. At one point I started driving in Virginia and got off in New York and when I tried to pay the lady running the turnpike booth sighed and responded “Pay $20 and call it good?” which I agreed to. I’ll certainly take it. Google said I was going to pay $40 for the drive that day. And while I dislike paying for turnpikes and think it’s probably not a good societal practice the roads were nice and the service plazas were far nicer than any normal exit on the freeway.
The first person I saw in NY was Jinny, an art student at Michigan who graduated last year and now lives in NYC full-time as a graphic designer. We went to a poke place then made it over to the museum of modern art in NYC (MOMA). Which I’ve wanted to see for years. I also always prefer to go to museums with someone who knows something about the topic if I don’t know anything. So put me in a modern history museum and I’ll do fine. But for a modern art museum, I do appreciate having Jinny there to explain half the exhibits to me.
Plus there was some other stuff that was a little more my field. There was an architectural exhibit with plenty of models that were beautifully crafted which I can appreciate. Either beautifully crafted metal or wood with often incredible detail. And for all my claims of being an uncultured barbarian, I can appreciate more traditional art exhibits.
If you want to know the difference between an art major and a normal person we were there until I had to head out around 90 minutes, and Jinny walked me to the door then turned around and went to go look at more stuff. But hey, I respect anyone with hills they’re willing to die on.
The second person I saw in NYC was one of my old roommates from freshman year Maya. She’s two years older than me so has been working in NYC for two years now. But she has a fun place in Brooklyn and we got to walk around and see the area. Even though I’d been to Manhatten before I’d never been over to Brooklyn and it is a night and day difference between the Boroughs. There was actual parking, grass existed, and it seemed like a somewhat reasonable place to live.
We discussed the finer points of the midwest vs east coast (like leaving laptops on cafe tables when you go to the bathroom) and where everyone from my freshmen year had ended up. For context, I hadn’t seen Maya since my freshmen year which was 3 years ago so there were a lot of data points I was missing.
New England
Lastly, I made my way to New England that night to stay at my friend Nina’s place, who I knew from High School. She was originally at Smith as a freshman however decided to try and “see where she could end up” as she put it. Anyhow she ended up getting into Brown, UCLA, and Berkeley. The showoff.
But she chose Brown and it was my first time in New England. The first night consisted of watching Milf manor with a bunch of brown students, who if you imagine every brown stereotype possible you’d probably hit them all. They’re lovely folks though.
Their college house was also huge. Sure it was old and there were quirky things like the door handle was fully rotted away that led from the apartment staircase to the outside so you just unlocked and shoved but it was still a beautiful house. I also watched Nina the next morning buy 14 bagels for herself and then freeze 12 of them. She’s a much better jew than I am. But then I headed out immediately for I wasn’t staying at brown that day: I was headed towards Wesleyan University in Connecticut to see my friend Anna.
(Not Anna the one I mentioned at the very beginning of this blog or Anna Kilts my labmate. Or Annie my good friend from my time on project teams who tried to get me to stop by Maine. I have an odd amount of friends with a derivation of that name. Anyhow.)
But Anna goes to Wesleyan for astronomy and I stopped by. I got lunch with her and her significant other who is very sweet. And also fences. So I got to talk to her about that (neat!). I got a tour of the entire University in like 90 minutes which is shocking again as someone who goes to a small city masquerading as a university. Middleton, where the university is based is also… eh? I’ll say that I’m glad I went to school in ann arbor. The difference between having a dozen places to visit for nightlife vs well zero is pretty huge. We have a downtown. I didn’t tour any small-town liberal arts colleges when I was touring colleges so this was my first time being in a town like this. Still, I got to see the telescopes they have, get coffee and catch up, and see what going to the traditional liberal arts school is like.
Another tangent Anna and I did debate and JSA together in High School and she also did mock trial. We always got along very well even though we mainly spent our free time bludgeoning the shit out of each other. Looking back I think we were always so done with arguing against each other in practice twice a week or with random people on a Saturday for 10 hours so we never argued when hanging out. I mean I’ll take it?
Either way, I headed back to Brown and then looked at the road sign that said “Winter Storm incoming. Prepare accordingly”. Great.
This was the moment where I did regret not going to Florida for Spring Break but there was the biggest storm of New England’s winter coming in 24 hours after I showed up in New England. There was also a winter storm 24 hours after returning to Ann Arbor. Thanks whatever higher power is up there. I appreciate it.
I will also say that New England is charming. The US has endless towns that are lazily designed and forgettable and even the most random of towns in New England have beauty to them, even in the wintertime. No earthquakes mean you can build out of brick and stone which I also appreciate. Brown and Wesleyan also have a standardized architecture style which is interesting because public schools don’t have that. Every building works together to create a unified look at these schools. Whereas Michigan has a modern-style business school next to the gothic-style law school. Or whatever the hell North campus buildings style after. Probably the nuclear reactor kept in the basement of Cooley.
We visited a bookstore that specialized in old texts. There were books from the 18th and 17th centuries in there. We also went to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and its museum which had art and archaeological artifacts. RISD is one of the best art and design schools in the US. Either way, Nina dragged me through on a speedrun of the museum. They got dracaenas (the coins they use in the Percy Jackson series)!
Otherwise, the rest of the trip was lowkey. We walked around during the snowstorm and Nina and her roommate Jane spent time looking at birds. Which looking back one is my high school ex and the other has the name my other high school ex. Huh. That’s weird. I guess I need to go get more wine. There’s a fully vegan food complex in Rhode Island which is sick (Nina’s also a vegan).
This time however instead of standup and wine, we replaced it with shadow and bone and wine to spice things up. Season two comes out in two weeks and I’m so excited about it. It’s got Wylan, it’s got Nikoli, and it’s got a bigger CGI budget for magic! If you have not seen the series and think low fantasy mixed with world war I Russia would fully recommend it. The B-plot is a bunch of thieves from steam age Amsterdam trying to rob the Russian royal family. It’s fantastic.
The Trip Home
Now I just had to make it home. Which was going to be a 12-hour drive. Now I understand that uber drivers tend to drive 12-hour shifts (because of the bonuses) and professional truckers or bus drivers will also routinely drive 12-hour days consistently. But this was going to be the first time I ever drove that far on my own and it was at the end of the trip so I was a little apprehensive.
Honestly, it went by faster than expected. I made it through an unholy amount of extra history episodes. A youtube series that when started 8 years covered classic stories like the punic wars and the battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history, in the second world war but now prefers to discuss a lot of more complex issues in history. Like the prelude to pearl harbor from the Japanese perspective. They’re quick episodes and witty with the breakdown to pearl harbor being broken into six ten-minute episodes but it does a better job at bringing up how often history is crazier than fiction.
(The important part of that series is that the surprise attack on pearl attack was not a surprise in the slightest and the US in their actions accelerated the timeline. Also, the breakdown of intergovernmental communications for both countries was exponential and widespread by the day of infamy).
I drove largely through northern Philadelphia which was honestly a nice background for this time of year. I didn’t have high hopes but there were a few evergreen trees and nice forests and mountains to drive through. Lastly, the huge perk of that I was driving a Nissan vera which got 40 miles to the gallon so my gas bill was thankfully pretty small.
When I got home my room was spinning so I needed to sit down and drink some water then went to bed early but if that was the worst consequence of the drive, well I’ll take it.
Overall, I had a fantastic time on the trip. It was more lowkey than many of the other vacations I’ve taken in the past and I appreciated it. I got to see new parts of the country and realized that living in DC in my 20s would actually be a great time. But overall, I got to spend decent time with many people I do care about (and also they let me sleep on their couch but who’s counting). Kalina and I swore that we would hang out “when college calms down” but we graduated before that happened. It only makes me sad that I didn’t have time to make it to Maine or Boston and see others. But I suppose regret for not doing more is a sign of a successful trip.
Would I change things when I do my next roadtrip? Yeah. Of course. I tend to not be bad at not trying to improve things. I’d go with someone else. I’d plan out every person I’m seeing before I start committing to dates. I’d bring gifts with me. But for how scrappy it was. Meh. I’ll take the lack of crashes and horror stories. Cheers yall.
Dead Man Travelling 