On the surface, a wedding seems to involve primarily two people, the two who are getting married. However, as pretty much anyone (or any book) will tell you, weddings are often the result of the collaborative efforts of many different parties. In fact, I remember fondly from my Slavic Folklore class (???) in college that traditional weddings were a village affair, from the making of the dowry to the wedding meal to the parading of a bloody sheet in the streets the next day. (Ew.)
WVT is not a traditional ceremony, reception, or honeymoon, but I’d like to think that we are following in the time-honored tradition of crowdsourcing our wedding. We’ve already done a fair share of this: Ashley and Tina, my bridesmaids cum web designers, put together this website. And I’d like to think that in lieu of reception activities (DJs, dancing, bouquet tossing), our friends and families will provide the best kind of entertainment: time spent together!
This week, my lovely friend Hannah drew this awesome picture for us. Soon, I will begin my first foray into wedding crafts and attempt to style this into some sort of invitation for our Richmond friends. (We’re thinking about going out in the evening, so in effect, please save the date, May 24th, 2013!)
Gangnam style…still relevant!
Now that it’s time to finish Harrison’s dissertation and look for jobs plan the road trip, we have some questions for you, gentle readers. The US is a very large place, and we haven’t been to a lot of it. We’d love to get some ideas for this road trip from our many friends and family, spread all over the country and with diverse tastes and interests.
Feel free to answer in the comments below or shoot us an email (if you have *private* suggestions, haha).
- What’s your favorite hotel or hotel chain?
- What’s your favorite city in the continental US?
- What’s your favorite restaurant? (RVA people, what’s your favorite Richmond restaurant?)
- What landmark (site, park, monument, etc.) do you recommend visiting?
- What do you do to pass the time in the car (games or otherwise)?
Thanks in advance for your input! We’re excited to read it!
Wedding Victory Tour 
podcasts for the car! wait wait… don’t tell me, radiolab, and this american life!
as someone who also grew up listening to npr i imagine you must be obsessed with my favorite radio shows.
Yes, LOOOOVE NPR. I miss Greta Dollitz!
If we’re suggesting podcasts, I’m going to say that the Skeptics Guide to the Universe is a good one for starting discussions. Sometimes the hosts annoy me and make me angry but it does keep Jason and I engaged in the car by actually debating and discussing the topics with one another.
Favorite restaurant? I always say Maya del Sol in Oak Park, IL. But having also recently gone to Davanti Enoteca in Little Italy in Chicago I have to say that ranks up there.
Hotel-wise we like to stay at Drury Inns where possible.
If you’re going through St. Louis at all I highly recommend the City Museum for a day of fun. I think you guys would really like it if you haven’t been there yet.
favorite hotel: Comfort Suites and Eastland Suites. Some Holiday Inn Expresses are nice, but some are awful. I always try to stay in new hotels because they’re way nicer.
favorite city: Seattle
favorite restaurant: too many to name! Usually I consult Yelp, and I’ve rarely had a bad experience with a restaurant that had 4-5 stars there.
landmark: Niagara Falls
car pastimes: once i found a “would you rather” card game and i told darby it would be great for playing in the car. he said it sounded like a nightmare. he prefers to listen to music and read. i prefer to bug him incessantly while he tries to listen to music and read.
When I drove across the country with my brother (Chris) we listened to Harry Potter books on tape. After 12 hours of wizards your ears start to bleed, so you might want to stick to NPR podcasts.
Austin and New Orleans are fantastic southern cities. Austin has an incredible music scene and NOLA is beautiful with its old historic houses, like Charleston is. From Austin we went to some cave in New Mexico that’s kind of a big deal, and this canyon in Arizona that’s an even bigger deal. Some may even call it Grand.
Since my favorite restaurant in Richmond is Mary Angela’s and that’s probably not much help to you, the only real advice I can offer is using Hotwire for hotels. It’s the best when you’re looking for something last minute in whatever random city you happen to be in, and definitely the cheapest option. Beds>tents.
I don’t have a favorite hotel…I’m not very picky and we did a lot of “Name your own price” at Priceline.com.
Joe and I played 20 questions in the car during our trip. I was terrible at it.
My favorite thing on our trip was the Grand Canyon and the Albuquerque Natural History Museum. And the food. We ate a lot of BBQ and Mexican food–yeah, I know, lot of meat. But the chili salsa you get with New Mexican food is really really good. Sadie’s Dining Room in Albuquerque is a good example of New Mexican food.
If I could do it again I would have done a longer hike at the Grand Canyon and eaten more dessert.
New Orleans is very Southern. The food is interesting–make sure Harrison tries boudin and alligator (at Cochon Butcher, soo good). Avoid Bourbon Street at night if you’re not into creepy middle aged men walking around drinking. There’s some good music though–the piano bar at Pat O’Brien’s is pretty fun.
I second that Austin is awesome. I would definitely live there if it weren’t so hot. Pretty much every bar has live music.
San Diego is great. You can drive to the water and see seals and sea lions and other wildlife. I’m told the zoo there is amazing, but expensive. Lots of Mexican food, obviously. You can even take a quick trip to Mexico–pay 10 bucks to park on the US side, walk to Mexico, eat tacos, wait 90 minutes in line to get back into the US. Meh. The tacos at Maize in Champaign were better than the Tijuana ones.
San Francisco’s pretty cool too. Lots of touristy things to do, obviously. There’s also A LOT of good wine in California, but I know the face you make when you have alcohol, so you can probably skip that (though some of the tours are pretty fun). If you’re staying in Mountain View, you can visit Google. I hear there’s cool stuff around their campus. Since you’re staying with a local, I’m sure you’ve got your plans set for here. There’s good Korean food, ramen, sushi, and dim sum around here. Also, lots of vegetarian options.
I still haven’t been to Monterey, but it’s supposed to be great. They have an aquarium and crazy views.
Sorry that this post is completely out of order and unorganized. I’ve been out of the teaching writing game too long I guess.
If you go to an aquarium, it has to be in Atlanta. They have whale sharks. WHALE SHARKS!
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