Best Sudden Getaway

Sort of last minute I decided to join some friends for a weekend trip up to New Hampshire, which is a state somewhere that you can drive to from New York. Our group rented two cars, a minivan and a midsized car. The minivan group got their minivan first and then us midsized people had to wait and wait for our midsized car . . . but you know what? They were out of midsized cars, and we had no choice but to be upgraded to a Dodge Durango. With leather seats!


But what's the deal, Dollar Rent-a-Car? Not going to upgrade us to the Aston Martin?


Loaded up, it was time for a roadtrip adventure!


Durango-mate Kristina was like, "Oh good, you take a lot of pictures." (seriously) And I was like "Yes! Support of my constant photography!"


Because, believe it or not, sometimes I worry that I'm bothering you by trying to take so many pictures.


Shortly after beginning our trip we discovered that we had a DVD player onboard our Durango!! Too bad we didn't have any, uhm, DVDs.


And we zoomed up the West Side Highway.



Then I saw my old friend, the Intrepid!


Oh no! It's going away for a while? Good thing I went there in May, on the greatest day of my life.


Not too much later our zooming was stopped cold.


For some reason, as soon as our little Durango Gang came together, I couldn't stop thinking about the Red Lobster or talking about the Red Lobster and before I knew it, I had convinced my travel companions to go to the Red Lobster! Not only were they convinced, but totally into it and calling people with the internet to find a Red Lobster along our route and WOW, we totally went to the Red Lobster in, I don't know, Connecticut somewhere. It wasn't the best neighborhood.


Perhaps I should introduce my Durango Friends? There was Jason and Kim . . .


And Me and Kristina.


I had the Admiral's Platter. It was gross. SO gross.


We spent the rest of the ride joking about how gross Red Lobster is, because, really, it's disgusting. I don't know what I was thinking. I think I get a little autistic about chain restaurants sometimes.

Anyway, after our Red Lobster dinner we just drove and drove and eventually (3 am) we got to the cabin. The other car, the Minivan Group, was all asleep when we got there. And oh yeah, right before getting to the cabin we were pulled over for going 14 mph over the speed limit which, according to Officer Johnson, "wasn't horrible."

In the morning I awoke and beheld the Mulcocks in the living room. If you didn't know, Stephen hates to be photographed.


This is our cabin. And by "cabin" I guess I mean "house," because it wasn't made of logs.


This is the electricity for the cabin.


The reason we were in New Hampshire was that some of the group wanted to run this half-marathon, so us non-runners left the cabin a little later on to meet up with the runners when they finished the race.


We bought gas here.


Stephen, still not down with the photographs.


It took some doing, but we found the place where the half-marathon ended. It was right by this leaning silo.


Before long we found our victorious runners.


Runner Keila won 2nd Place in her Age Group and her award was a Pie! (Which, if you asked all the rest of us, was a lot better than the First Place prize, a basket of apples.)


We got to the race just at the right moment, the moment where they let the non-runners eat the food that the runners didn't finish off.



Apple Crisp, with real apples.


Mmmmm.


Jeff makes up for the pictures that Stephen won't participate in.


This is when I made jokes about having run the Half-Marathon myself.


Walking it off, walking it off.





Then Jeff finished, a little behind me, but the important thing is that he finished and was splashing water on his face up to the last moment.



But here's the thing. Once the NASA blankets come out, the camera becomes Stephen's favorite thing.


Of course, NASA blankets are pretty fun.



I never really paid attention to the names of where we were, but everything looked like it was from the Gilmore Girls.




We stopped at a place called "The Oval" where all the businesses were arranged in an oval around a little park with a gazebo in it (err, I forgot to take a picture of the gazebo). But I did get pictures of the town's fashions.



The Oddfellow's Hall


And Jeff feeling left out.


Until this sign cheered him up.


We ate at El Cantino, home to the Oval's finest Mexican cuisine.




Tacos, New Hampshire style!


While in town Jeff bought a scary movie DVD ("The Screaming Skull") at a Dollar Store, so we got to try out the Durango DVD player with it.


I suppose now is as good a time as any to let you know that I've had a Grim Reaper bandana for a few weeks.



Apparently our cabin was right by a lake.


But we went swimming in the quite warm indoor pool instead.



Saturday night was ate big hamburgers, played Celebrity & Mafia, watched SNL, Jeff killed me at checkers, and everyone fell asleep on couches and stuff.

The Big Bummer was that Sunday in New Hampshire looked like this:


So we just sat it out, ate stuff, cleaned up, took a group picture, and headed home to New York.