Day 6: Scarsdale, NY to Baltimore, MD - January 2, 2009

No sooner had the snow settled on the new year than we began the most grueling stretch of our journey: six straight days of morning-to-night driving in a race to Key West by Wednesday. For this part of the trip, we drove smack-dab through the most densely populated stretch of the Eastern Seaboard. Route 1 would not be Route 1, of course, without its share of bizarre tchotchkes, and the Carpet-Wielding Muffler Man outside Wilson's Carpet and Furniture in New Jersey (featured in the opening credits of the Sopranos) is one of the prime examples of kitsch the highway has to offer.
Note also these amazing free-standing yellow (formerly pink) pants in the truck parking lot:

Our next adventure took us to a graveyard in Linden, NJ, where teenager Ray Tse, thanks to his millionaire brother, posthumously fulfilled his lifelong dream of rockin' a Mercedes-Benz (concrete, in this case). Below, our correspondent mourns the departed.

Further into New Joisey, on the road leading to the AAA-recommended Grounds for Sculpture (which we did not have time to visit), is this, the World's Largest Tooth (note Debs standing among the confused couple staring at it--they are part of the sculpture as well):

There are also a bunch of other works of oversize public art lining the streets of what is an otherwise unremarkable industrial park. We will definitely be back.

The outskirts of Philadelphia brought us the Insectarium, a creation of exterminator Steve Kanya (of Steve's Bug-Off) that presents a bevy of exotic six- (and eight-, and 1000-) legged creatures in sometimes less-than-complete-confidence-inspiring cages. Here's Debby holding a (non-stinging) scorpion:

The Insectarium also featured a quite remarkable exhibit of a dirty kitchen that was absolutely infested with cockroaches--real, live cockroaches that were crawling all over the place. They had it down to the sketchy Brillo pad in the corner. Here's part of the action:

We have found that Google Maps, for all its wonderfulness, has a habit of underestimating the amount of time it takes to drive on local roads. Furthermore, stopping to take a photo op by every roadside attraction tends to add up after a while. This bit of background is necessary to explain why we found ourselves eating a 4pm lunch in Philadelphia with newly-engaged couple Michelle and Keith (congrats, kiddos!):

I helped myself to a "Dog Burger" which was literally a burger stuffed with Roquefort cheese. It's completely intense and ridiculous and therefore great. Kind of like a lot of this crap we see on Route 1. Debby had some kind of weird veggie cake which was also fantastic.

Unfortunately, by the time we left Philly we were driving in the dark (that has been happening to us a lot lately), so photo ops did not abound. Eventually, we pulled into Baltimore for a lovely late dinner with recently-married couple Molly and Brian, whom we later joined at their ever-so-tastefully-decorated house near Druid Park. I borrowed the 3-hole-punch for some more binder-making madness, and that was that for Day 6.

Our route for the day:

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