DATELINE: scaggsville, md                                                    

Author: Andy

I just drove the leg of the trip from philly to just past baltimore. I gave the wheel back to karl to take us the rest of the way to his parents' place. In philly we ate at pat's, the center of my food universe. I took the wheel after pat's and drove up 9th into center city and down market street past the liberty bell. Ilteris wanted a picture of independence hall so I looped around the block. We shot through delaware fairly quickly and have made good time so far in md. I've been really pleasantly surprised how the minivan handles. We have a 2007 dodge grand caravan, and we put a couple hundred pounds of cargo in it. we've nicknamed it 'the cannonball' because when you drive it, you can feel the momentum of all this weight flying forward. Weird thing is, when you are in the driver's seat, it doesn't seem like that big a vehicle. We packed it so that we can see out the rearview mirror, and the side mirrors are good too. The only time you really notice the heft of this thing is when you try to accelerate or decelerate, or if you change lanes too fast.