Drive I-95 Trip Tips - Catfish, NASCAR and Robots, See us on YouTube - August 2008 Driving North or South along the US East Coast? You are receiving the Drive I-95 Trip Tips because you are a fan of Drive I-95 or Sandra Phillips' Smart Shopping Montreal . If you wish to be taken off our newsletter list, please follow the unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of this email. Please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone you know who lives, works or plans to travel along the Eastern U.S. from Boston to Florida, so they too can learn how to have fun on the road. IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please add info@drivei95.com to your address book so you'll be sure to receive every issue. Sp^m filters will place future editions of this newsletter in your delete file unless it is a recognized address. AOL users, you have to permit mail or your newsletter will be placed in bulk sender or unknown sender list. Hello fellow road trippers: Your vacations or long weekends may be closer to home this year. Road trips are still less expensive than flying, so perk them up with pit stops at interesting events going on right now along I-95. This Trip Tips newsletter will provide you with continuous info on what's happening and how to make your trip memorable. Use our guidebook, Drive I-95: Exit by Exit Info, Maps, History and Trivia (Florida Edition), for colorful easy-to-follow pictorial maps and fun stories. Get off an exit and enjoy some of these: 1 - Catfish Festival - Yum 2 - Burn Rubber 3 - R2D2 Should Like This 4 - What a Zoo! 5 - Free Money 6 - We Two on YouTube 1 - Catfish Festival - Yum GA Exit 3: Nothing goes better with crispy Southern-fried catfish than a succulent serving of country music. Kingsland's Annual Labor Day Catfish Festival is a 3-day event which attracts a crowd of over 75,000 people throughout the weekend, and is a 3-time award winner of the American Bus Association's "Top 100 Event in North America". Scheduled events include a parade on Monday (starts at 10 am), homemade arts & crafts booths, and besides the yummy catfish, there will be a variety of food booths, antiques and collectibles, a children's amusement area, a 5K run (Saturday 7 am), a 25K & 50K bicycle ride, a classic car & tractor exhibition, and the Lions Club annual Pancake Breakfast (Mon 7-11am). Brandi Thornton, an up and coming country music artist, will be entertaining. Dates: Saturday, August 30 - Monday, September 1, 2008. Admission: FREE and Parking: FREE. Kingsland Convention & Visitors Bureau Tel: 800-433-0225. 2008. [http://www.kingslandcatfishfestival.com] www.kingslandcatfishfestival.com or [http://www.visitkingsland.com] www.visitkingsland.com 2 - Burn Rubber VA Exit:79 Northbound, 78 Southbound: Don’t try this right on I-95, but you can catch NASCAR racing close by. The last race of the season at Richmond International Raceway takes place September 5-6 “under the lights”. On Friday you can watch the Emerson Radio 250 NASCAR Nationwide Series race, where regulars beat and bang their way against some of the stars of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. The weekend’s main event features the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race on Saturday, and the tickets go fast. Admission Fee: Friday: $35-45 and children 12 and under are admitted free with a ticketed adult. Saturday: Adults $80-90, and a 2-day pass is $115-$135. If you’re looking for a pit pass (costs extra), ask about the Party Zone on Friday night or the Green Flag Zone on Saturday night, which include, food, beverages, a driver appearance and a pre-race pit pass. FREE parking. Hours: 10 am-11 pm. Tel: Tickets: 888-472-2849, Info: 866-455-7223. 600 E. Laburnum Ave. [mailto:ririnfo@rir.com] ririnfo@rir.com [http://www.rir.com] www.rir.com 3 - R2D2 Should Like This MD Exit 53: At the Port Discovery Children's Museum (voted one of the Top 5 Children's Museum in the US), you can learn all about the exciting world of robots through more than 15 interactive, hands-on and educational experiences. You can help build a robotic probe to explore underwater, in outer space or the surface of Mars or assemble a real robot! Movie Star Robots Hall of Fame: Get an up close look at life sized robots from the movies and television, including Robby the Robot (Forbidden Planet), C-3PO (Star Wars), Gort (The Day the Earth Stood Still) and characters from the animated "ROBOTS". There is also a a video presentation of robots at work at the Ford Rouge plant in Michigan installing windshields and painting trucks. We can’t help noticing that other exhibits in the museum actually feature road trip stops: a gas station where you can pack the car, check the tires' air-pressure and fill the gas tank, a diner and a roadside marketplace - you can never start them too young to enjoy the freedom of the road! 35 Market Place, Baltimore. Dates: Exhibition ends Sept 8th. Hours: (Memorial Day - Labor Day) Mon-Sat 10-5, Sun 12-5; Labor Day: 10-5; September: Fri 9:30-4:30, Sat 10-5, Sun 12-5 (Closed Mon-Th in Sept). Tel: (live human) 410-864-2700 or 410-727-8120. [http://www.portdiscovery.org] www.portdiscovery.org 4 - What a Zoo! CT Exit 89: Azu - This is a buzzing place - a friendly local hangout for all ages and all appetites, from small "bites" to adventurous dinner plates. You can nibble on shrimp fritters, hot and sweet BBQ ribs or crispy stacked onion rings, or chow down on lamb meatballs, lobster mac and cheese, fig/blue cheese pizza, pasta Bolognese or fish tacos. The name? - It's a play on comments about busy nights: "What a zoo!". Directions: S on Allyn St, LT on Library St 400 yds to W Main St, bear left to 3234 W. Main St. Hours: Mon-Thurs 11:30-9, Sat & Sun 7-10. Tel: 860-536-6336. 5 - Free Money Sheetz gas stations/convenience stores are located in 4 states along I-95: Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina (as well as in Ohio and West Virginia). It is a 50-year-old family owned business run by the Sheetz family: Steve, Stan, Louie, Joe, and Travis. We like the M&T bank’s surcharge free ATM’s that they have. They do not charge you anything to withdraw your own money (what a concept!). However, sometimes your own bank has its own rules and might charge something. You can grab a bite inside from their completely made-to-your-order menu using touchscreen ordering. We haven’t dared to try it yet, but this month they feature a peanut butter and jam smoothie. Great for road-trippers too, is that they are all open 24 hours. Tel: 800-487-5444 [http://www.sheetz.com] www.sheetz.com 6 - We Two on YouTube Driving on I-95 can be so much fun and we like to show you how and where to do it, so we started doing YouTube segments - with a bit of a mystery. We find odd places along the way to whet your appetite to hit the road, then we tell you what they are, but we don’t tell you where they are. Try and find us. We have also begun to add copies of our TV and radio inteviews to our web site, so you can watch or listen if you'd like to see us in action. [http://www.drivei95.com/photo_gallery.html] www.drivei95.com/photo_gallery.html What's inside Drive I-95 : Look ahead exit by exit to see which motels (with 800 numbers), gas stations, restaurants, campgrounds, 24-hour pharmacies, auto mechanics, radio stations or radar traps are there, and where you can stay with your pet. We share our stories of the road : history on I-95, museums, trivia, towns to explore or places to run the kids. These can be read for entertainment during the drive, and may entice you to stop, stretch your legs and discover someplace new. PS: Buy the book to plan your Fall trip. Click [http://www.drivei95.com/order_now.htm] here To Contact us: Stan Posner and Sandra Phillips-Posner, Travelsmart email: [mailto:info@drivei95.com] info@drivei95.com Phone: 1-877-GUIDE95 P.O. Box 43527 CSP Roxboro, D.D.O., QC Canada H8Y 3P4[http://www.drivei95.com] www.drivei95.com[http://www.drivei95.com] [http://www.drivei95.com/]