It was mile 9,672, day 31, the van was covered in subway cups, trash, and nametags, and the Febreeze was being used frequently as we traveled down highway 71. We then arrived at Ben's house where we were greeted by a homemade sign that said "Welcome home "weary" Witt Nation travelers", and his parents Barbara and Tim, who were extremely excited to see us.

After getting some good food and caffeine in us we headed to Graeter's Ice Cream to meet our Columbus alumni. With almost 100 guest signed up we knew it was going to be a great event, but we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. With record attendance, we had almost 200 alumni, students, family and friends attend, making the event the largest yet. We were ecstatic to have so many alumni there to welcome us home!

We can't wait to have another great event tonight at the Grandview Cafe. What better way to end a road trip but with Wittenberg's very own faculty band WittFREE! Hopefully see you there!

After a very exciting event in N.Y.C., we headed to Fairfield, Connecticut, to help the CT Alumni send off the local 2013s. With a great turn-out of almost 40 people, I was thoroughly impressed by the excitement from both the incoming students and alumni. I am thrilled, and slightly jealous, of the new adventure the students are about to embark on, and I can’t wait for them to experience Wittenberg. Board of Director Members Chad Weller ’70 and David Boyle ’69 gave enthusiastic welcoming speeches to the Wittenberg crowd that made me even more proud to be a Wittenberg Alumni.
Once the very successful event concluded, we drove the short drive to Ocean Grove, N.J., located right on the Jersey Shore. We were excitedly greeted by Matt McDonald’s family and friends, who were happy "Witt Nation" had finally arrived. For those of you who know Matt, you will not be surprised to hear that he is like the Ocean Grove Ambassador, everyone knows him! The whole town was very welcoming. After meeting the town, we cooked out and went to bed early eagerly awaiting today!
When I say eagerly awaiting it’s not just because it’s my birthday (haha), but we have a fun-filled day of catching some rays on the beach, surfing and swimming before the lifeguard competition begins! I’m anxious to see how the competition goes; I’m pretty sure the only lifeguard tournament I have seen was on Bay Watch.
Well, we are on the home stretch with only four days left of the tour! I will see you in Ohio, Witt Nation, a little tanner and slightly older.
~Ashley

After a great night’s sleep in St Louis, we were off early to our next stop- Nashville.

The drive proved to be slightly longer than what we expected. We ran into miles and miles of construction and finally decided to get out the ol' Atlas to aid us in finding a detour. Once we arrived in the Music City, we picked up Philosophy Professor Miguel Martinez-Saenz from the airport. We then headed to the "world-famous" Tootsies to meet up with our Nashville alumni. Tootsies had two great country bands playing (Taylor and I, of course, loved the music).

We had a great showing of alumni, even more than we were expecting! We all ordered some of Tootsies famous food, and after Miguel’s tenth time of asking me about the BBQ Chips (that did not exist) I had to explain to him, after we had received our food, that it was BBQ with Chips, NOT BBQ Chips.

Once the event was over we traveled with some of the alumni across the street to Paradise Park... the bar was designed to look like a trailer park. We even met the "judge" of the park, he was very entertaining to say the least. The next morning we ate breakfast at the Loveless Cafe with Jack '73, Cheryl and Chris '10 Nyiri. Apparently, Carrie Underwood had eaten there the week before. We were hoping to see someone famous, but I'm pretty sure we were the closest people to fame there.

We are now on the road heading down to Atlanta. We are excited to see what's in store for us as we embark on our journey along the East coast.

~Ashley

Click on this link to see pictures from the event!

I have fully come to understand the saying "When in Vegas"... but another famous motto we will not conform to saying is "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" because we plan on sharing our entire experience with you.

After the short, but very hot drive from San Diego to Vegas we arrived at the Red Rock Casino where our Vegas event was held. We were immediately greeted by the hotel manager who said "WITTENBERG?! I went to Earlham." Needless to say we immediately received VIP attention. We definitely felt famous. After settling in to our rooms we changed into our swimming suits and literally sprinted to the pool. We applied the SPF to shelter our already burnt bodies from the 110 degree sun and dove in. After about an hour of relaxation we headed back to our rooms to get beautiful for the event.

Thanks to the hospitality of Glenn '71 and Ande Christenson, the event venue was immaculate. After great conversations with our guests and delicious food, Dr. Dan Fleisch Professor of Physics gave an incredible tour of the sky, both virtually from the computer and from his telescope on the balcony. After his extremely intriguing lesson he left our alumni with some truly mind boggling questions about the universe. I know I left thinking extremely deep thoughts.... he is truly a fascinating person. We are going to miss him on the rest of the trip!

After the event we made our way to "the strip" in order to get the complete Las Vegas experience. We explored famous hotels like The Bellagio and The Venetian. Navigating our way around Las Vegas Boulevard turned out to be harder than we expected. Even though Jon Duraj may have led us down a few dark alleys, it was his navigation that brought us to our new friend Franz. Franz is the man who paints the speed bumps at the Bellagio. He paints them once a week and we were lucky enough to find him. Our new found friend let us try our hand at painting speed bumps and gave us some good advice about where to head on the strip. With the advice from Franz and our wonderful Las Vegas alumni, we found great food and had a lot of fun. Viva Las Vegas! 

Click this link to see videos from the event!

Howdy Witt Nation!  Let met just say the first lesson of the West we quickly learned is that "real" Westerners do not say "Howdy." Mostly just tourists...we put a quick stop to that, we blend in nicely now, especially Ben and his goofy hats. Well, after a very adventurous couple of days in Jackson, WY., we hit the road early this morning. We started our adventure by cruising through Yellowstone...not to be confused with Jellystone. Yogi Bear does not live there....my bad Ashley P. In the past couple of days we were fortunate to see lots of wild life, Moose, Bison, Deer, and other little animals, all of which have their own little funny stories. This has truly been a very cool experience. Well, after a few hours of driving and lots of construction we stopped in Bozeman, MT., to have lunch with Susan Welker Benne '02. Bozeman was an extremely beautiful and vivacious town. Susan took us to the perfect little road trip diner and then to an organic coffee shop to refuel before we hit the road again for Missoula. The Missoula event was a great success!!! We had an impressive turn out! The event was sponsored by Sandy Burner '63 at the gorgeous new home of her daughter Julie Gardner. The food was to die for and the company was incredible. I really had no idea we had so many engaged alumni in Montana. Professor of English Bob Davis joined us at the event and gave a riveting talk about finding your creative side and true calling in life. The alumni were extremely intrigued and impressed by his speech. Professor Davis is a great representive of the Wittenberg Faculty who has positively and intellectually engaged hundreds of students who are greatly appreciative. It was a great day here in the scenic state of Montana, it is honestly impossible to explain the beauty out here. Thanks to all of our alumni in Montana for making tonight such a succesful event! Well, we are off to bed earlier than usual and will be hitting the road extremely early for Seattle!!! Keep checking in to see what adventure we get into next! We have a pretty funny prank Ashley P. and I played on Ben earlier today, we will be posting the video soon!

Click this link to see photos and videos from the event!

We woke up yesterday morning with a 9 hour drive ahead of us, the first "real" long stretch to our trip.  The roads of Minnesota and South Dakota were calling our names as we started up the van early.   We vowed that we would get the true road trip experience out of this 500 and something mile stretch... we would stop anywhere that sounded interesting.  So, naturally, the Corn Palace was our first stop.  Corn Palace... pretty self-explanatory, a palace made out of corn, but the architecture was truly fascinating.  My favorite part of the corn palace had to be the picture (made out of corn of course) of Abraham Lincoln on the side of the palace, the detail was incredible.  Next stop somewhere over 100 miles down the road... The Badlands.  I have to admit we had no idea what the "Badlands" actually consisted of, but we knew we had to go there.  We were pleasantly surprised by the incredible and breath-taking scenery. I was slightly disturbed by the "Watch for Rattlesnakes" signs and Ben's fetish wish seeing how close he could pose to the edge... but after my heart stopped beating 1000 mph I was able the enjoy and appreciate the Badlands... such a cool experience. Then just a few miles down the road is where we found our Last stop of the day.  After the build up of about 300 road signs, we found ourselves at Wall Drug... land of the T-rex, 5 cent coffee, and $2 hats...a hot hit on the Fourth of July.  All and all it was a great road trip day.  Tomorrow we're stopping at Mount Rushmore and then starting our journey across the great state of Wyoming.  Can't wait!!!

We are officially on the road and had a sweet start to our 33 day tour with Ice Cream in Cincinnati! Thanks to our sponsors Chip and Debbie Graeter, almost 100 attendee's enjoyed over 20 different flavors of ice cream at the West Chester Graeter's. Today's event was not only great, it was also fun and relaxing; the most stressful situation of the day was trying to decide between strawberry chip and cookies n' cream. I chose cookies n' cream but had a bite of the strawberry chip, both were equally delicious. Well, I have a story I think all of you Wittenberger's out there will enjoy. As we were setting up for the event a father and his three-year-old son were sitting at a table beside us. In the midst of small talk we discovered he was a Denison grad... Well, he walked up to the counter to order an ice cream, trustfully leaving his son in our presence. In a mere two minutes we slyly convinced the boy to say "Daddy, I want to go to Wittenberg!" As soon as his father returned, with only a small reminder, he very cutely regurgitated our line. His father responded with "Traitor!" Well, Wittenberg you should all know that we are starting to recruit early, after today we have a great class lined up for 2023 and also 2028. Wittenberg's future is looking bright. Thank you Cincinnati!

 Click here to see the photos and videos from the event!

After just one incredible weekend we have already engaged over 100 alumni, friends and students, gathered several stories, made wonderful friends, and in the mean time we only broke one tent and forgot the name tags for one city. One for one, so, I would say we are off to a great start!

Well, I’m here to give you the inside story, the part that makes the road trip… well a road trip. We started our journey down interstate 70, packed, happy and ready. We made our first pit stop in Zanesville, Ohio. An interesting fact about the crews is that we like to prepare ourselves for each city by knowing an interesting fact about the city… we actually have an entire folder called “fun facts”. Well, Ben’s first question to our waitress after she very enthusiastically said “How many?” was “Tell us an interesting fact about Zanesville”, she replied with that same mediocre enthusiasm “There isn’t anything.” We quickly learned after a quick Google search, that Zanesville has the only Y shaped bridge of its kind in the United States. Lesson one for the trip: Google appreciates every city, because it doesn’t live there; In Google we trust.

After the short four hour drive we arrived at the beautiful home of Paul and Cynthia Liefeld. Over 40 Pittsburgh alumni attended, we ate delicious food and had a wonderful time meeting and mingling with everyone. The people of Pittsburgh were extremely welcoming and entertaining! Later that evening, the crew decided to grab a midnight snack at one of the local pubs. As we sat there recapping the night our food arrived. Professor Scott Dooley ordered a veggie sandwich; most would have reason to believe that it would just be the size of a regular sandwich. Wrong. The sandwich was humorously larger than his head, they used an entire loaf of bread for this baby, Dooley made a comment that there was so much bread it could soak up the entire drink he had in his cup with no problem. Ben, (who we quickly discovered will probably never run out of hilarious comments) said with his eyes wide open and stunned reaction on his face “ShamWOWWW”. Lesson two: If someone makes a reference to your food by saying, Shamwow, don’t eat it.

Finally, following the footsteps of last year’s crew, we decided to leave Jill’s name as Jill. Jill, is the talking voice in our Garmin GPS. She talked to us all day on Saturday, guiding us to our successful destination, but later Jill wasn’t doing so hot in the construction zone in downtown Pittsburgh so we turned her down and reverted to map quest and our stealth-like intuition. We made it to Nadine’s Diner, where we met SpartaNation, the traveling crew for York College. We had brunch with the two roadies Jessie and Kristin and talked about their adventure so far and gave them veteran advice for their final stretch. We knew it was a great meeting when the string at Nadine’s Diner broke …not once but twice while we were there. (Nadine’s was featured on the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-in's and Dives… we learned from the show that it’s good luck when the string breaks). After we exchanged gear with SpartaNation and had our quick photo shoot, we were off again. As soon as we got in the van we turned on Jill…but there was no Jill! She wouldn’t talk to us…only silently guide us. We contemplated about what could’ve happened, but then we realized it was Dooley’s fault!!! In his advice to the other road crew he said “Jill is not always right”. Lesson three: Never make Jill mad, she makes mistakes, give her time to recalculate.

Stay tuned to see what other lessons we learn while on the road!

~Ashley

Click here to see the great video SpartaNation from York College put together about Witt Nation!

It’s hard to believe that after months of planning the time has finally come.  The T-shirts are rolled, the van is ready, and hundreds of alumni, current and prospective students, parents and friends are waiting anxiously across the country for the arrival of the crew.  Tonight is the kick-off right here in Wittenberg’s home town of Springfield, Ohio! I’m so excited that I woke up every hour last night hoping it was time to get up; let’s pray this doesn’t happen for every event or insomnia will probably kick in around Minneapolis. Well, this is my and Ben’s first time in the “field” so we are pretty much considered the “rookies” on the crew. I can just see the rest of the crew sitting in their offices now crossing their fingers in hopes that they picked the right “kids” for the job. We were talking about it last night, and we’re pretty fast learners, so I’m going to consider us professionals after this event. Our professor Pam Schindler has been preparing us for years to walk among those in the real world, so I’ll say with confidence that we are ready. I can just picture us now (everything is in slow motion to add effect) driving down the road, windows down, hair blowing in the air, I’m bad to the bone playing on the iPod, Ben and I giving each other a Witt-high-five… wait Ben? Shoot! Okay, just kidding I promise I won’t leave Ben behind at any stop…

On a more serious note, tonight is going to be an exciting kick off to the tour. We have Wittenberg’s very talented faculty band, WittFree, playing great music the entire evening, good food, drinks and lots of guests signed up to attend! It’s going to be a fun night so come out and join if you’re in town!