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Week 53
By Shelby This was our last week on the road. It feels pretty crazy that we’re done. We spent the beginning of the week working from a public library in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I spent the days getting things set up with the apartment and my new job. The weather in Pennsylvania definitely felt colder than…
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Week 52
By Shelby This week was pretty slow. The weather was great, in the 70s and sunny all week in Asheville, North Carolina. For some reason, all the libraries were closed on Mondays in Asheville. We drove to a nearby town to work from their public library Monday. After work, we went to a local southern…
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Week 51
By Shelby This was a busy week for us. We were in 4 states: Mississippi, Tennessee (our last state), Georgia, and North Carolina. We started off the week in Olive Branch, Mississippi, which is 30 minutes from Memphis, Tennessee. Monday through Wednesday, we worked from the public library in Olive Branch. It was pretty nice.…
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Week 50
By Shelby This week had much warmer weather than last week. With the temperature in Kansas being in the 70s and sunny (warm enough for ice cream!), it was hard to believe we had been skiing in the mountains last week. Kansas is also home to Dodge City, which is the windiest city in the…
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Week 49
By Shelby We had a very adventurous week. After working from the vacation rental in Pagosa Springs Monday, we made a big dinner, taking advantage of the stove and oven. We made Greek roasted chicken and potatoes, garlic butter salmon with lemon asparagus, and chocolate chip cookies. I thought it was all very good. Before…
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Week 48
By Shelby This was a pretty boring week to start, travel-wise. There was a winter storm in Colorado in the Rockies that closed all the roads we were planning on driving. Apparently, they drop explosives out of helicopters to cause avalanches to prevent them later on when cars are on the road. I had no…
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Week 47
By Shelby Sunday, we drove an hour and a half to Capitol Reef National Park. Since Capitol Reef is one of the least popular national parks in Utah, we hadn’t expected to have trouble finding parking. Surprisingly, the parking lot was full when we arrived and we had to wait a few minutes for someone…
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Week 46
By Shelby This was a busy week for us. After working at the local library Monday, we went to REI to get some new hiking things. We got micro spikes, I got new hiking boots and wool socks, and Spencer got new base layer pants. We expect the national parks in Utah to be pretty…
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Week 45
By Shelby We worked from our hotel room at the Nugget in Sparks, Nevada from Monday to Wednesday. We had a lot of leftover Chinese food that we ate for dinner. It was great to have a bathroom so easily accessible. We even checked out the pool and hot tub a couple times. Thursday morning…
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Week 44
By Shelby There was a big winter storm coming, so we decided to work Tuesday through Thursday instead and take Monday off to go to Yosemite National Park. Monday looked like the last nice day for a while to go there. Plus, it was also the last day before you start needing to get a…
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Week 43
By Shelby Our airbnb in San Miguel, California was great. It was very clean, cozy, and warm. It was a nice break from sleeping in the car. Monday, we worked and then had leftover pizza for dinner. Tuesday went pretty much the same. We had planned on using the grill outside to cook dinner, but…
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Week 42
By Shelby Monday, we worked from a library in North Hills, California. It was away from the crazy downtown area of LA, but it was still very crowded. The Planet Fitness we stayed at was just a couple minutes away from the library. The parking lot at Planet Fitness was very small, and we saw…
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Week 41
By Shelby Monday, we worked from a local library southwest of Las Vegas. It seemed more like a community center than a library. It was very loud and kids were running around everywhere. We struggled to get a free table to work at because it was so busy. After work, we did laundry. This suburb…
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Week 40
By Shelby Monday, we worked from a local library. We ate lunch in the car. I had an almond butter and jelly sandwich and Spencer had a turkey sandwich. The small table that attaches to the steering wheel has been one of the best items we got for this trip. Spencer uses it all the…
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Week 39
By Shelby Monday, we worked from a local park in Tucson. Because of the holiday, all the libraries were closed. It rained really hard. The roads were flooding. Once the rain stopped, we made lunch under a shelter at the park. I hard boiled eggs for egg salad sandwiches. We also fried 12 single eggs…
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Week 38
By Shelby Monday we worked from David H. Townsend library at the Alamogordo branch of the New Mexico State University. It was eerily empty and quiet because the students were on break. The library was partially up a mountain and had a great view of Alamogordo. After work, we did laundry at a local laundromat.…
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Week 37
By Shelby Monday, we worked a half day in San Antonio from the Japanese Tea Garden. The tea garden was a free city park built in an abandoned quarry. It was very nice. There was a large stone pavilion and stairs that led down to the garden. The large koi pond had a bunch of…
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Week 36
By Shelby Monday, we got up and made the jambalaya we had intended on making Sunday night. Just as we had started cooking the sausage, the power at the airbnb went out. We tried to wait out the power outage, so we could finish cooking but it was getting late. Just as we finished putting…
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Week 35
By Shelby Sunday evening, we drove from the Gulf Islands National Seashore to Malbis, Alabama. We stayed at the Planet Fitness there for the night. Monday, we worked from the library in Spanish Fort. After work, we did laundry, ate dinner, and went grocery shopping. We were planning on having salads for dinner next. Tuesday,…
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Week 34
By Shelby We had originally planned on only one week in Florida, but since the weather was so nice and there was so much to do we decided to extend it to two weeks. Sunday night we drove through Miami and stopped to take a picture with the skyline. Even at night it was nice…
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Week 33
By Shelby Monday we worked from a library in Jacksonville, Florida. While we ate lunch in the car, we saw some weird birds walk by. After work, we drove an hour south to Palm Coast. For dinner, we had leftover chicken and chickpea gyros we had made Sunday. Tuesday, we worked from the library in…
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Week 32
By Shelby Monday, we worked from the condo and then went grocery shopping. Tuesday, we made dinner after work. We made pasta with marinara sauce and steamed broccoli. Spencer also had a salad. While I made dinner, Spencer finished up getting the car ready to go. He even had time to lay out all the…
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Week 31
By Shelby This was a pretty relaxing week for us. Monday, we worked from Spencer’s grandparents’ Myrtle Beach condo. After work, we made baked chicken, roasted Brussels sprouts and butternut squash, and corn for dinner. Tuesday went mostly the same. The weather was definitely more tolerable than up north. It was usually cloudy with temperatures…
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Week 30
By Shelby This was another great week. Monday, we worked from Tidewater Community College’s Joint Use library. It was very nice, probably one of our favorite libraries so far. Interestingly, there is a naval base in Virginia Beach. We saw jets flying over the college all week. After work, I surprised Spencer with a short…
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Week 29
By Shelby This was a busy week for travel. We took the week off so we could get further south this week. We left Monday morning for Philadelphia, about a 5 and a half hour drive from Rochester, NY. We decided to take a slightly longer route to avoid a $17 toll, which seemed very…
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Week 28
By Shelby We had another great week catching up with my family, so we didn’t do much traveling. Monday, we stayed in Canandaigua, a city on Canandaigua Lake. The night before, we had caught a nice sunset at a park right on the lake. And then an amazing sunrise the next morning outside of Planet…
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Week 27
By Shelby This was another uneventful week for us, travel-wise. We were still in New York, so we didn’t do too much sightseeing or hiking. Monday we worked from the Dunham Public Library in Whitesboro near Utica. I still wasn’t feeling the greatest, so I worked from the car while Spencer was in the library.…
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Week 26
By Shelby This was a very relaxing and quiet week for us. We are back in our home state of New York for my sister’s wedding. It is about the halfway point of the trip for us. We’re taking some time off from all the big adventures to relax, reset, and visit family. Unfortunately, the…
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Week 25
By Shelby This week, we spent a lot of time in eastern Pennsylvania, where we saw plenty of great fall foliage. Monday we worked from the library at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Because it was a holiday, we were able to use the university parking lot for free. That is one issue with using…
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Week 24
By Shelby Monday, we worked from the library at McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland. We love university libraries. They’re usually big, have long open hours, and have lots of seating with power outlets. This college also had free visitor parking, which was great. The only downside was that the parking lot was about a ten…
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Week 23
By Shelby This week was a more relaxed week. We’d been doing so much these past few weeks it felt nice to have time to relax. The weather is getting colder and we got hit by some rain caused by Hurricane Ian. Monday, we worked from the library in Chantilly, Virginia. Unfortunately, Monday and Tuesday…
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Week 22
By Shelby I really liked Frederick, Maryland. It was very clean and the buildings looked new. Next to the library downtown was a really nice canal with pretty plants. The one downside about the library was that we had to pay for parking. Monday, we decided to work from a library outside of town in…
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Week 21
By Shelby This week we worked on the eastern edge of Kentucky before traveling through West Virginia. The weather is finally cooling down after the crazy heat and humidity we’ve been through this summer. Spencer is definitely enjoying the cooler temperature. I’m just wishing it won’t get any colder. Monday we worked from the public…
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Week 20
By Shelby Since Monday was a holiday, all the libraries in Jeffersonville, Indiana were closed. We went to Perrin Family Park to work instead. It was very humid. The temperature was finally comfortable at 75 degrees, but the humidity made it unbearable. Eventually, we had to use AC. For lunch, we made Philly cheese steaks.…
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Week 19
By Shelby This has been an interesting week. We started in a suburb of the third largest city in the US, Chicago, passed through rural Indiana, and ended up near another large city, Louisville, Kentucky. We also crossed from central time to eastern time. This week started in Naperville, a very nice suburb of Chicago.…
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Week 18
By Shelby Monday we worked from the library in Ballwin, Missouri. It was recently renovated and was very nice. In the morning, however, as the brick exterior of the building heated up, it made loud cracking noises. It sounded like people were just clapping randomly every few minutes. It was weird. After work, we went…
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Week 17
By Shelby This week started our first week back in the east half of the US. To me, it definitely has a different feel from the western half. We’re out of the vast plains of the central US and back into the forested and more densely developed areas of the east. The temperature is cooler…
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Week 16
By Shelby Casper was a pretty neat city. It’s located in the middle of a desert and is known for its oil production. We got the cheapest gas here we’ve gotten in a long time – about $3.30. That was a nice break from the $5 per gallon prices we’ve been paying. On Monday, we…
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Week 15
By Shelby My cold was still pretty bad this week. I mostly rested in the car Monday while Spencer worked from Planet Fitness and then the library. Luckily, I was able to find some shade to park the car in. Unfortunately, the tree providing the shade dripped sap all over the car. After Spencer finished…
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Week 14
By Shelby Monday, we worked from our seaside Airbnb. We moved the dining room table to in front of the window, so we could see the ocean while we worked. Luckily the fog that had been hanging around since we arrived cleared up a little, so we could actually see the water and beach. By…
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Week 13
By Shelby Olympia is very different from Yakima. Where Yakima was in a desert, it seems like Olympia is in the middle of a forest. The weather is much cooler, in the 70s and low 80s compared to the high 80s and 90s in Yakima. It’s definitely a good place to be while the rest…
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Week 12
By Shelby After doing laundry Sunday morning, we decided to move on from Spokane. Neither of us really cared for Spokane. It seemed kind of dirty and the Planet Fitnesses weren’t very nice. We drove a couple of hours to the smaller city of Yakima ahead of schedule. Along the way, we stopped at a…
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Week 11
We took this week off from work, so Monday we were hoping to just relax all day. In the morning, we went to Fort Missoula Historical Park to relax in the car and play video games. There was a small playground we had to check out also. Around lunchtime. We went to Fort Missoula Regional…
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Week 10
By Shelby This week we went through several cities in central Montana. The weather was very good all week in the 70s and 80s (Fahrenheit). We are settling into a nice routine of working Monday to Wednesday at libraries. Sometimes we work all week in one city or drive after work to get to someplace…
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Week 9
By Shelby Monday we worked a little from the hotel we stayed at the previous night, the Days Inn in Fargo. After checkout, we went to Leisure Laundry to do laundry and worked from there. Then we moved on to the Fargo Public Library to finish work for that day. After work, we drove two…
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Week 8
By Shelby Monday we worked from the Kimberly Village Public Library in Wisconsin. After work, we went to Sunset Beach. Since we had been doing so much the past few days, we just wanted to do nothing for a bit. We had mac and cheese for dinner and then we played Minecraft. We worked from…
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Week 7
By Shelby This week, we started working at the university library in Erie, PA at Penn State Behrend. After work on Monday, we drove on to Cleveland Ohio where we ate Wendy’s for dinner. We had a nice view of some Cleveland skyscrapers from the parking lot. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we worked from the…
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New England Review
By Spencer To start the trip we decided to first visit the New England states. We wanted to complete these six northeastern states as a trial run before committing and going west. The plan was to do a loop starting and ending in our home state of New York. This allowed us to visit several…
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Week 6
By Shelby This was another great week. We spent a lot of time catching up with our families in New York. It was great to see everyone and sleep in a real bed for a few days. On Sunday, we had a Memorial Day picnic with Spencer’s extended family. Monday morning we got brunch with…
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Week 5
By Shelby This week we spent most of our time in Laconia, New Hampshire. We worked from the Laconia Public Library on Monday. I found it very cold, so I ended up moving to the car to work where it was warm. After work, we went to a small beach on Lake Winnisquam to eat…
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Week 4
By Shelby Starting Sunday night, we stayed in an AirBnB since Spencer’s allergies were bad, along with my cough. We hoped that sleeping in the car wasn’t making Spencer’s allergies worse. The AirBnB was in Wells, Maine, a tiny touristy town on the ocean. We parked at the beach while we were waiting to check-in.…
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Initial Reflection
By Spencer It’s been three weeks since we drove away from our apartment in upstate NY. We’ve been very busy working, planning, and making memories. The three weekly posts so far have explained all our fun adventures, but I wanted to add a brief post about some of the specifics of how we are adjusting…
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Week 3
By Shelby This week started with our next set of challenges. I came down with a terrible cold. I decided to fight through it and not take the day off from work. We ended up working in a very interesting library in Woburn, a suburb of Boston. The library was old and historic with long…
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Week 2
By Shelby Monday To start this week our plan was to work from the McKillop Library, part of Salve Regina University. It was a beautiful old-style building right across the street from seaside mansions. Work went smoothly. I awkwardly heated up a can of soup for lunch from our street parking spot while Spencer ate…
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Week 1
By Shelby The week leading up to our departure didn’t go quite as planned. We spent the weekend moving most of our stuff out of our apartment with the help of our families (thank you!). We also spent the weekend working on building the bed platform in the Prius and loading stuff into the car.…
