What more can we say? Jersey, baby!
Tyler took us to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and he created a little modern art of his own.
A little more culture in NYC: Tyler took us to a trendy new restaurant opened by the editor of Vanity Fair, where the main objective has less to do with eating than watching famous people eat. The food was great, and the company even better: l to r, Mikey's fiancee Blaire, Chelsea, Andy, Tyler's girlfriend Rebecca, Tyler. And it was good that we had a good meal - we needed our strength for the 2 AM cabaret that we went to after dinner. This 21st-century vaudeville show had everything from performance jump-rope to topless modern dance to fire-eating.
After loading the bikes onto the car one more time, we're ready to head out to our final destination!
We've arrived! After lots of rain in New York and Connecticut, we pulled into Boston on a beautiful summer evening.
On our way to dinner in Cambridge, we did a little exploring of the HBS campus: here's Andy in front of the business school library. (The bell in the belfry, cast in about 1790, is getting ready to go home to Russia. It was moved to HBS nearly 80 years ago, when Stalin was about to take it out of a Russian Orthodox monastery to melt it down. I guess the capitalists at the business school didn't think that was such a great idea...)After 5 glorious weeks and about 5,000 miles on the road, we're so thankful that we had the chance to go on a trip like this. Ours is a beautiful country, and we really enjoyed the slice of it that we saw. Thanks so much to all of our hosts, family, and friends who took the time to make a bed for us, share a meal with us, or buy us a drink. It was a great trip!
Gifford & Andy - Gifford Pinchot was America's first professional Forester and is considered the Father of American Forestry. Before Teddy Roosevelt appointed him to lead the country's new Forest Service, he spent some time managing the forests around the Vanderbilt's Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. He really wanted to take a picture with Andy when we stopped at the Biltmore - he's on the left in this photo, Andy's in the pink shirt on the right.
Here we are at the Biltmore Estate in Western North Carolina. Beautiful spot, great history, and plenty of factoids to discuss for at least a few hundred miles.
After Asheville, NC we went to Columbia, South Carolina. We cruised the State Capitol grounds, had a couple of pulled pork sandwiches (a Carolina specialty), and saw more than a few plaques/murals/statues that remind visitors that General Sherman burned the city to the ground in 1865. I guess it's still a touchy subject...
Next stop, Carolina Beach, North Carolina. We stayed with Santa Cruz expatriates Jessica and Shane Keenan, and here we are in Wilmington (the next city up). Known worldwide as "Wilmywood" (the Hollywood of the South), you may recognize this scene as the REAL site of Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill, and on and on! The beautiful people in this photo, however, are not actors, but Jessica, Chelsea, and Shane.
More sightings of the beautiful people in Wilmywood! We had terrific weather, and Andy loved going surfing all week with Shane without ever putting on a wetsuit.
Then on to Norman, Oklahoma, where we stayed with Chelsea's Uncle Rich. He's a professor emeritus in archaeology at OU, so we had a great visit, covering everything from Navajo history to Norman politics!
We had a good long stay in St. Louis with Chelsea's sister Brandy, her husband John, and their two little girls, and here we are at The Gateway Arch. The view from 630 feet above St. L was great, but Chelsea was much happier with her feet on solid ground in the visitor center. By the time we left Brandy & John's house, Andy finished all of his HBS pre-requisites, took his finance class final exam at St. Louis Community College, and really started to vacation!
Test of strength - the Arch passed.
Swimming, slides, fountains, and FUN at the pool with our St. Louis hostesses Mary Grace, Brandy, and Molly (L to R).
Uncle Andy exposing the girls to some local culture at the Budweiser Brewery. 
St. Louis has a HUGE park leftover from the World's Fair about a century ago, and it has a terrific playground. We took the girls up there for lunch and playtime, and I think we had even more fun than they did!
Our last night in St. Louis, we all went to see the Cardinals play the Cubs. A great new stadium, burgers, Budweisers, and enough cotton candy to nearly drown Molly and Mary Grace - everything was great but the score...