ROAD TRIP DAY 2 – PHILLY the city of brotherly love.

Today was the last day of Jay-R’s lease on the apartment so we had to be cleared out by 8am.  We pretty much stayed up all night throwing junk away and packing the bimmer to the brim while still accounting for the luggage that Jojo and Tiff were bringing. After a second all-nighter in a row, we headed back to Rosa’s to get some quality shuteye before our actual drive began.

I want to go off a little right here and talk about folks that take care of their friends, especially on road trips. Along with my brothers and Tiff, I like to count myself as this type of person, but this shout out goes out to Rosa. Amidst med school lectures, studying, and exams, Rosa still had the courtesy to spend time with us, open up her pad, and house us for a couple of hours. I know we all have this type of friend; someone who’ll be there in the good times and bad, but through it all, will weather the storm and still stand by your side at the end. One of Jay-R’s oldest friends from grade school, these two have been great friends for the last 15 years. She is the type of friend who you won’t see in ages but you can pick up right where you left off as if never missing a beat. I myself had the opportunity to go to school with her at UCSD and can also attest that she is a great person and will do great things in her future career as a physician. Perhaps one day, we’ll be colleagues. Nevertheless, thanks for looking out for us Rosa, the Guinto bros greatly appreciate it. Good luck out here.

Having just purchased some new roof racks, Jay-R and I decided to ghetto rig the bimmer with a cargo net since we knew that the car would be overloaded with luggage. We headed over to Home Depot where I MacGyvered a makeshift net from bungee cords and voila, instant trunk and seating space for everyone. With our entire pre-trip errands finally out of the way, Jay-R and I headed to the Five Guys Burgers to await our straggling travel companions.

I don’t know about anyone else, but Five Guys out here on the east coast just makes the wannabe ones sprouting up all over Cali an embarrassment. The patties are juicier, ingredients seem fresher, and the overall burger is just more satisfying. Maybe the workers just don’t know how to grill a patty correctly. Who knows cause In N Out still takes the overall trophy, hands down.

After the quick bite, we posted at the airport cell phone lot and Jay-R took some showroom pics of the car and I worked on the blog. Here are a couple pics:

Touchdown! Finally, Joe and Tiff landed. Kinda funny, since they had to be stuck in the car for another 2 hour drive to Philly immediately after their 6 hour flight. Oh well, I guess those are the pitfalls of traveling. With our crew finally intact, we were on our way to the city of brotherly love, to spend the night. But first, cheese-steaks!

Passing through the outskirts of Philly, we headed to Tony Luke’s, the first spot on our Man v. Food tour. Once we got to the spot, the place was still packed, even at midnight! We fell in line and got one, wiz, with and one, American, with. For those of you low in native, Philly linguistics and proper cheese-steak ordering etiquette like we are (I google it lol), that means we got 2 cheese-steaks, one with cheese wiz, the other with American cheese, both with grilled onions. I liked the wiz better but both were pretty good. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

We stayed at aLOFT, a sister company of the W hotel, and let me say, it was a pretty cool spot to crash at. Kinda reminded me of a low budget Vegas hotel. Pool, gym, bar, I liked it. Here are some more pics:

Well, 180 miles into our trip, we still have around 4500 miles to go and some serious driving. Before that though, Philly tour and NYC grubbin! See y’all tomorrow. LareDevil...out.