After leaving Boston, my sole plans were: visit friends and make it back to Nashville by Thanksgiving! Shrek was running fine, and Donkey tows so smoothly.
My first stop was Philadelphia! After my late start, I spent my first night in the van as expected.
I spent the next day hanging with my buddy Adam! After walking to breakfast at the local cafe, I got to watch him “in action” running the startup Asylon. Damon was at a customer site, but Brent made an appearance in the form of a robot!
“Break time’s over” 
Brent the robot
Next, I visited some dear friends in Baltimore. I had lived near Baltimore from 2012-2014 and it was great to reconnect with Sarah while I was there. I then spent the weekend with Amanda, her boyfriend Scott, and their new house!
Someone’s cool mailbox 
“Needs more Old Bay” 
View from Amanda’s roof deck
The trailer was scraping on some annoyingly small bumps, so I raised the hitch. But first I attempted for some hours to remove the hitch ball of my old hitch and flip the adapter over to gain more height for free. Who knows how long that old ball had been attached, but it was rusty and would not budge. Even with help from an acetylene torch and a 6 foot wrench, it would barely turn. (Thanks though to Garrett for trying!) At least now I could give up without shame, and I bought a new hitch at Walmart to get the raise necessary.
This nut would barely budge, even after glowing red-hot! 
Much better clearance. 
We won’t talk about what happened here… Needed sleep.
With Donkey less hobbled, I made it to North Carolina without a hitch! (Actually, with a *better* hitch! ha..ha…) There I visited Emily at college, Brianna and Nate in Greensboro, and the Andrus family in Raleigh! To top it off, Emily even rode back home to Nashville with me. Was a great end to the trip south.
Is this the hanging rock? 
Found it. 
Hiked Hanging Rock State Park with Brianna
And finally, next time someone says your vehicle has an oil leak:
