June 21: Hingham, Massachusetts

The next morning was significantly cooler than it had been since we were out west, and we were happy not to need constant soda refills as we drove. We made our way through Maryland, Pennsylvania (where we had our last peanut butter sandwiches of the trip), New York, but -- much to Emily's dismay -- we just barely missed New Jersey. Louisa promised her that she wasn't actually missing anything.

Finally arriving in Connecticut, we were very happy to be in New England. We stopped at Dunkin' Donuts for some iced coffee to celebrate being in our homeland again. We had finally stopped sweating, and we were finally able to find radio stations other than Christian or country.

Instead of going straight to Emily's house, we were invited to dinner at her brother's house to reunite with her whole family. He and Emily's sister-in-law served us delicious Portobello Parmesan and we had our choice of several different pies and cakes. Emily's family grilled us on our trip and asked us if and when we would be finishing our blog. Soon, we told them.

Once back at Emily's house, we unpacked the car and threw ourselves on the couch. We looked through the 1000 pictures we had taken (a selection of which is now available on Facebook) and sat back to watch Ocean's 11 and reminisce about our time in Las Vegas. In the morning, Louisa's brother would be coming to meet her in Boston and they would be eventually heading back to Maine.

We had driven about 8750 miles, seen 8 national parks, passed through 28 states, listened to "Poker Face" approximately 600 times, and the trip was finally -- but sadly -- over.

June 20: Vienna, Virginia

Upon waking, we decided we needed a complete breakfast -- we were tired of dry cereal and peanut butter and jelly. So we headed over to the Waffle House across the street, where we figured we could be immersed in the culture of the area.

The breakfast was delicious and the experience was well worth it, but before we knew it we had to head off. The drive took us through Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia, which were very pretty but almost as hot as the Midwest had been. We managed to finish the book we had been reading, though.

We even decided to embrace the country music that seemed to be on every radio station. We had avoided it our whole trip, though it seemed to be the most popular genre in every area of the country but the northeast. However, we finally realized that if so many people liked it so much, there must be some reason to listen to it. Besides, Louisa had become slightly obsessed with (embarrassingly enough) Taylor Swift's "Love Story" over the course of the trip.

We weren't entirely disappointed by the country music genre. While we probably won't start listening to it daily, we did enjoy the stories the singers told. We could definitely relate -- with the notable exception of what may have been our favorite new song, "There is No Arizona." We were quite sure that there is an Arizona, and that we had been there just days before. Other than the blatant lie that song told, we felt the other songs were very real.

We finally arrived at Louisa's aunt's house (this time on her dad's side), where we had some delicious avocado and tomato sandwiches. Louisa's aunt and uncle showed us a route back up north that would help us avoid the horrors of the 1-95 corridor through Philadelphia and New York. After some more conversation, we all headed to bed. Before we fell asleep, however, we enjoyed some Spanish-language television, which is another of our new favorite genres.

June 19: Jeffersonville, Indiana

After some huge and sweet Long John doughnuts that Louisa's Uncle Jay picked up for us (after a request from Louisa's mother), we headed into Kansas City to walk around the Plaza.

We arrived just before most stores opened, which we were slightly surprised by since we were used to starting our days at 6. Soon enough they opened their doors, however, and we did a little browsing before meeting Louisa's aunt for lunch.

After some slight confusion when Emily was given the wrong menu and thought Louisa was ordering a pizza with chocolate chips on it, we had a pleasant and delicious lunch before continuing east.

Our next destination was Louisville, where Emily's mother had graciously allowed us to use some of her Marriott points to book ourselves a room. We were surprised to find out that the hotel was actually in Jeffersonville, Indiana, right across the river from Kentucky. Although we would be traveling all the way across southern Indiana, we would still have to go into Kentucky and back out again to get to our hotel.

The drive there was rather boring, as we were very hot and eager to get to our air-conditioned hotel room, complete with shower, bed, and tv. We did manage to find the best gas station store, however: QT (or QwikTrip), which has 32 oz. soft drinks for 49 cents. And believe us, we needed all 32 ounces to deal with the heat.

Arriving at our hotel after dark, we were pleasantly surprised to see fireworks across the river in Kentucky, welcoming us to the region. We decided we were too tired for the pool and went to crash on the bed with the Topsy's popcorn Louisa's aunt had given us. We were desperate to channel surf.

It was a nice, relaxing night.

June 18: Liberty, Missouri

We woke up bright and early for a fast-paced walk to a nearby coffee shop, where we sat outside and enjoyed the sun and some conversation. After saying goodbye to Louisa's aunt and uncle, we started the long trek to Kansas City.

We were mildly surprised to find out that the eastern half of Colorado is much like Kansas: flat and quite boring. Where were all the mountains we had been promised? Apparently we had already passed all of them on the way to Denver. We quickly realized we were in for a long, long day.

Not only was the day long, it was very hot. The thermometer in the car topped 100 degrees. While we turned on the air conditioning occasionally to cool down the car, we mostly kept it off and the windows up to save on gas. We'll just say that it was a very sweaty journey.

Luckily it was broken up with an interesting stop in Kansas. We had seen signs for a prairie dog town with such attractions as a five-legged steer and live rattlesnakes. We decided it was worth a try.

The stop was weird, to say the least. While it was definitely a prairie dog town, with prairie dogs running everywhere, it also had piglets, goats, lambs, coyotes, foxes, and even an albino peacock. We did see the five-legged cow but didn't stop to stare for very long, as we both wanted to look away immediately. It was definitely an experience, and how we will both remember Kansas.

When we arrived at Louisa's uncle's house (catching a pattern here?) outside of Kansas City, we ate some of Louisa's aunt's delicious guacamole while looking at family photos, mostly of Jay and Carole's adorable grandson. After some Starbucks ice cream, we went to bed.

June 17: Denver, Colorado

We awoke in the Holiday Inn Express parking lot, sweaty but happy that there had been no police interference during the night. Since we hadn't seen any signs of a free continental breakfast, we decided to head straight to Arches National Park to do a little hiking and sightseeing.

At Arches we stopped at the visitor center to use the bathroom, and we saw a couple dozen people sitting outside in lawn chairs. Since nothing but the bathrooms were open yet, we were a little confused -- was everybody waiting impatiently for the gift shop to open? Then we realized the real reason these sleepy people were waiting wrapped in sleeping bags at 7:00 in the morning: they were waiting to reserve campsites. So that's why there hadn't been any left when we arrived the previous evening at 7:00 pm.

We wanted to tell everybody that the Holiday Inn Express parking lot was free and didn't require waiting in line at dawn, but we decided to go check out the arches instead.

After admiring the landscape and looking at several amazing geological features while driving through the park, we arrived at the site of our hike. We planned to walk out to see the Delicate Arch, which you probably know as the arch on Utah's license plate.

After leaving our fellow hikers in the dust (literally), we made it up to the viewpoint, where we found only one other family. Everybody else in the park was still waiting for a campsite, while arrived at the top before the sun got too hot and before all the other tourists got in the way of our photos. It was beautiful.

After some more picture-taking as we left the park, we headed off to Denver. The drive through the mountains was breathtaking, and we passed many ski resorts and just a little bit of snow.

Arriving in Denver, we decided to check out some of the sights before heading to Louisa's uncle's house. We stood on the step of the Colorado State House that is exactly one mile above sea level, and we walked around downtown for a little while.

We then surprised Louisa's Uncle John at work, and then drove the few blocks to his house where we could finally relax. After a nice dinner of quesadillas, John's wife Catherine came home and introduced us to the wonders of So You Think You Can Dance, which may be our new favorite show during the Gossip Girl off-season.

After deciding that since we wanted to vote for all the contestants we might as well not vote at all, we went to bed.