After these past few weeks of talking about, reviewing, voting on, and dreaming of America’s most:

*Beautiful
*Patriotic
*Friendly
*Fun
*Best for food

…small town spots. Team Blue Lollipop Road was inspired to dive into our photo archives and pull out some of our snap shots that reminded us of each category.

*Beautiful

Have you put in your reviews for Best of the Road yet? Where do you like to adventure, eat, drink, play, go? See some of Team Blue Lollipop Road’s favorites here and pipe in with your own reviews, then vote for us here so we can be a finalist team in the 2012 rally!

Team Blue lollipop Road is holding tight in the 2nd spot for the Best of the Road Rally 2012 but we still need your vote!

CLICK TO VOTE FOR US HERE!

Don’t just vote for us, but submit your town, favorite places, food joints and other and celebrate where and what you think rocks in America too! Just a few of my favorites:

It’s been about 10 days since the good madness began for Team Blue Lollipop Road soliciting votes in hopes to be chosen for the Rand McNally/USA TODAY Best of the Road 2012. I have worked my tail off already and can barely sleep at night because I want so badly to go on this trip with my Mom. The anticipation and excitement of it all (and we are not even on the trip yet!)- is the energy I live for. I love it. I love “meeting” new travelers on social media, I love watching the videos from last years competitors, I love reading about small towns I have never been to and daydreaming about going to to them.

…and body!

Yes, that many places in one day and then some. This is where I will ask you to get out a map to follow this story.

No really, go grab a NC map- you are going to need it!

I had to start day #13 at the place where I wrote my first blog post ever; Front Porch Cafe’ in Kill Devil Hills nearly 3 years ago to the day:

BEACH OR BUST!

As I mentioned in my last post, it was clear a few days ago that the Honda Facebook poll and all of you readers here had voted in the winning place for me to visit by a landslide (Statue of Liberty.) I looked at the two runners up (Kitty Hawk, NC and Cape Hatteras Lighthouse) and thought- why not go to all three? So North Carolina or bust!

Whoa. It just dawned on me this morning that I might be nearing the ONE THOUSAND mark and I’ve already hit it! (I’m patting myself on the back right now.) This has been such a labor of love for me. I’ve relished in every minute of creating this thing that has taken on a life of it’s own. Funny, this morning I’m sitting in a coffee shop tapping away at my keyboard as I realize the 1,001 number. I actually haven’t brought my laptop out of the apartment for a few weeks because schlepping it around the city for an entire day while I fight my way through public transportation isn’t the most fun thing to do. I ran out of coffee to French press at home this morning, so here I sit out. I’m glad I hit over the 1,000 mark out during quiet coffee shop time. Coffee shops have provided me hundreds of hours of writing time.

Dear Mom,

Thank you for raising me in a beautiful, safe place where I could run and play:

Thank you for encouraging me to travel and explore:

Thank you for giving me 3 of the best siblings, who have turned into my best friends: