Long drive north

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I woke up a bit late, but I guess it was needed. Today I am going to drive from Philadelphia up to Marine City, Michigan, all in one go. The GPS says it’s about 8hr drive, but I have two stops on the way.

It is with great sadness I say farewell to my hosts and I hope to revisit soon!

Intercourse, PA:

Now, ever since I first saw a postcard from Intercourse and giggled I thought it would be fun visiting. It’s probably the juvenile part of me talking, but I just have to. Since this location was only about 1.5hr drive from Philly and not such a big detour I quickly entered it to my GPS and headed out.

I arrived there with a big smirk on my face, got out of my car, this beautiful, 82-degree day, with my camera ready and the gag kind of died there and then.

This, very Amish, community gets lots of tourists there just for the name (which incidentally means meeting / crossing) and thus can get some good dollars from them, but s much as I wanted I couldn’t find anything to laugh about.

I would never laugh at the Amish. I might think they have a strange way of living, but they are hard working and dedicated. The town was very pretty and clean and a quiet sense of well-being just flowed over me (if it hadn’t been for the smell of fresh manure).

I met up with a man (probably a town-“original”) by the name of Aaron, a true Dutch descendent, and we had a talk for a while and it was really interesting hearing about his life and his stories (he had been living in Intercourse his entire life).

Satisfied, I started to drive out of Intercourse towards Marine City, MI and the further away I got from Intercourse the bigger the peevish smile on my face grew.

BlueBall and Big Beaver

After Intercourse I passed the town of Blue Ball, which, I understand, can be normal??? Still in a very high-school kind of way hysterically funny... When I later on passed Big beaver I could not refrain from laughing..

Roadworks and speeding.

Now this is something I easily can say I *not* laugh about.. It’s needed, but it slows the pace down tremendously. Not only they seem to be frequent, they are long too.. We are talking of several miles of cones and concrete-barricades. I have already noticed that most drivers speed, but they also speed even more at the areas of roadwork. Not only are the fines doubled – it’s also not respectful to the workers, who have to stand a few feet from cars zipping by doing 65mph. I, for sure, wouldn’t like to do construction work on the roads in America.

The general speeding is also a bit of a hassle for me. I do not want to speed because a) it’s illegal and b) I don’t want to spend money on stupid fines, but it’s almost impossible so not speed, especially in rural areas since I won’t follow the general pace / flow of the traffic and thus be in risk of causing an incident.. I better do whet the fish are doing; be in the middle of the school, not be first, not be last..

Appalachians

If you want to witness something marvellously beautiful I just say; cross the Appalachians during late may. There is nothing more to it!

12 hrs in the car

After spending more than 12 hours on the road I finally arrived at Marine City, MI at 11.20pm. It’s hard to plan for the time. The longer you drive the more things can go wrong, so I’d suggest to add a factor of 0.5 to the estimated time to make up for any events that might occur.

The car behaved really, really, well and I love it for doing so. When I rented it, it was stated (on Hertz’s webpage) that it’d do 28mpg, but by planning my driving I am currently averaging 35. My goal is to get down to 40 before hitting the Rockies.

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Photos

Intercourse
A pretty little sleepy town, which I really must say; I liked

Lube center
Now this could have oh-so-many different meanings when being stationed in Intercourse

Museum
The "famous" museum at the converging point of the intercourse

Appalacians
.. as seen from the resting area just before going up.

Roadworks
.. in the middle of the Appalachians

Comments

[Nettan]

Min fina bror =)
Så kul att få följa din resa, tänker på dig jätte mkt, hoppas du har det bra och givet är rädd om dig! Stor Kram från syster yster Nettan! Älskar dig broder <3

[Gooner]

Kan inte fatta...
varför du skulle tycka det va så roligt med det stadsnamnet ^^ Mer uppdateringar plz, gärna dagligen! Och mer foto =D Uppdaterar din kartbild flera gånger om dagen, så jag har koll på var du e ^^ Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, Spock vaporizes rock, and as it always has, rock crushes scissors.