As I mentioned before, my newly wedded husband and I got this crazy idea to travel to New York from Pensacola. Literally out of the blue. I have some family that live on Long Island and they are preparing to move farther north so the idea was, let’s drive up to them before they move a few hours farther. Still crazy. So with about one week’s notice to my family, my job, making sure the car was ready for this, pet sitter, and road trip planning we took off. Here’s how we did it if anyone is interested in trying this out.
From Pensacola we drove to Birmingham Alabama for some lunch and to stretch our legs. We went to Vulcan Park which was super cool. It houses the largest cast iron statue in the United States. It is also on top of a mountain so you get a stellar view of the city. This is free to do. If you’re interested in touring the little museum and going up the the platform of the statue it’s $6. For lunch we ate locally. And it was amazing. The Urban Cookhouse is immensely delicious and I might travel to Alabama for that food alone. 
Moving along we got into beautiful Tennessee. We stopped in Knoxville for a quick photo of the sun sphere. The sun sphere is actually free to go up but we just missed its closing (9:30pm everyone, don’t be late). It was nice to see anyway. We continued on to Roanoke Virginia where we got a hotel for the night, the last hotel room in the city somehow…
We left just after 9am so we could make it to New York City in time for our 8pm show. The drive was 8 hours to the hotel but with NY traffic, taking the train from our station to Times Square and finding a restaurant where we could eat super quick we made it literally just in time. Our first night there we saw Phantom of the Opera. Now I grew up around theater so I will always appreciate and love these shows. The hubs is new to all this. I got him tickets to see Mama Mia this year and he loved it luckily! He also got a little more experience on our cruise with the shows on board. But phantom on broadway is the most real deal that you can get. Despite driving roughly 9 hours and being constantly moving since 9am he loved it. I highly suggest a broadway show for anyone who can afford it. If you buy at least a few days in advanced you can get them as low as $30. Anastiasia is next on my list! After the show we just walked around time square, got a delicious cheesecake from Juniors and headed back. 
Our full day in NY was non stop. We went over to the Statue of Liberty first (looking from afar for this trip. In that area Wall Street and the Bull are in walking distance. No. I didn’t touch that bull’s balls. We then made our way to Ground Zero. Let me just say, I didn’t lose anyone I know in 9/11 but it was a truly impactful day in our country. I was in the twin towers a month before they went down. No one could have imagined that was going to happen so I feel fully blessed I saw them when I did. This was the first time in that area since I was up there. Ground zero is a beautiful memorial, one of the most beautiful that I have ever seen. Our photo took a long time to take just because my smile was the most fake I’d ever had and it just looked like I was in pain. It felt really weird taking a selfie there but it was gorgeous. The museum is right next to it and is roughly $20 to enter. The student discount is $17.50 to enter. We then made our way to Central Park. We walked through to the Museum of Natural History. They have a “pay what you want” option so you can pay however much you like to enter but I’ll go ahead and say it, be respectful, don’t be a jerk. Spend a few dollars. Not a coin.
Tired as we were we kept moving. Rafa’s big thing he wanted to do was go to Top of the rock, which is a top of Rockefeller center. It’s $35 to get in but it’s a great view. Truly it is. My main advice is to go early enough where it’s day light so you can get nice photos but late enough where you can wait for it to get dark so you see the city light up. We were there from 6:30-9:30. Got our money’s worth at least! We didn’t know but you can bring food up so if you’re going to spend awhile take a snack. After that, we made our way to Grand Central for some photos and to see the beauty. It’s free to go so why not! After that we went to Times Square for a late dinner then back home.
The next morning we were off again. We stopped in Philadelphia to check out the Liberty Bell, independence hall, and the rocky steps. There’s a lot more to do but we wanted to hit the road because he was so excited to go to Washington D.C. 
Arriving at night in Washington we went to the Lincoln memorial. He’s so impressive and at night the whole monument is lit up which is absolutely amazing. If you’re gonna see something at night I suggest Lincoln.
The next morning we took up close photos of the Washington memorial, White House and visited the national archives. By 12:30 we were on the road again.
I have family in Atlanta so we stayed two nights to rest longer and relax before making our last 5 hour journey back. Basically the first entire month of marriage we were traveling and tending to our relationship to keep us in the honeymoon for as long as we can be.
So far so good!
I hope you all have or find someone to be adventurous with.
Enjoy the journey!
-Jojo
Journeys With Jojo 