On The Road

Happy New Year!

2011-01-09T20:22:00.000-05:00

We hope you all are well rested and recovered from your New Year's celebrations. Are you sticking to your New Year's Resolutions? Some of my resolutions include spending less, walking more, taking better care of my health and not letting the small stuff get me down.

So here's to an exciting 2011. Before I turn the page completely on 2010, I just want to say what a great year it was. If you don't already know, we got engaged over Thanksgiving! Michael and I had been talking about marriage for a good part of the year and then one day we just found ourselves at a ring shop. After a week or so of looking around we found the "right" one and thus began the frenzy that is wedding planning.

2010 also marks my first complete year away from the East Coast. I was just reflecting on this today as I was trying to remember the exact date I moved to Pennsylvania in 2002. I now remember it was over Memorial weekend that I took my last plane flight to the Philadelphia airport with my 2 cats (with the gracious help of Michelle H) and then a few days later the huge moving truck arrived with all my belongings and my little red truck. Michael was able to make a quick trip back to New Jersey in early December. Unfortunately it was for a sad occasion as he said goodbye to a dear friend and coworker that passed away suddenly.

So here's to 2011. I know our year will be full of wedding planning, decisions to make, dresses to try on. (The wedding isn't until early 2012 so there is plenty of time to get everything done.) What are you looking forward to in this new year? Hopefully we will get a chance to catch up with all of you, our friends and family all across the country.

Gilroy Garlic Festival 2010

2010-07-24T21:00:00.069-04:00

The Gilroy Garlic Festival is a big deal around here. We had so much fun at the Festival last year that we made sure to go again. First up, some garlic fries (above). And then we made our way to Gourmet Alley and the battling flames.

Gourmet Alley is where the famous shrimp scampi and calamari are made, among other foods of the festival. The frying pans are all lined up and see some serious heat. These guys really draw the crowds as they create an amazing show.

The other big event that happens at the festival is a garlic cookoff. Here teams that made it into the final round compete live in front of an audience.

Guest celebrity chef Fabio Viviani of Top Chef fame, did a cooking demo as well as hosted the Garlic Cookoff.

We waited in line after the cooking demo to get a copy of his cookbook and take a picture. Little did I know back then that he would be the first Top Chef contestant that I would meet. (Check out my chef blog to read about the event I did with Richard Blais.)

Our favorite find of the festival was this artist who uses old grape vines as the base for tables.

We would love to have something like this in our house one day. We didnt buy anything from him at the festival, but we will keep him in mind.

Sailing Again, This Time Up the Coast

2010-06-28T11:38:00.009-04:00

We joined our friends on the boat again, this time for a sail on the ocean. They sailed the Sea Angel out of the San Francisco Bay and down the coast to Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay. We met them the next day to sail the boat back up the coast and return it home.

First on the agenda, a Hand and Foot tournament that went well in to the night.

We woke up to this view of the sunrise over the mountain the next morning. This harbor is full of fishing boats.

Pillar Point Harbor is known for the fresh caught fish that is sold directly to the public by the local fishermen. Any day of the week you can walk the pier to find fresh abalone, shrimp and other fish for sale. It is the only commercial fishing harbor in San Mateo County.

I know this harbor because of Ketch Joanne (best carrot cake ever) and this handsome fisherman who stands out front of their restaurant.

All the crabbing nets stacked on the pier ready to go out the next day (boy did they smell).

This time the boat was closer to the condition it would be in for paid charters complete with floral arrangements and all the wood nicely polished.

This is a great shot of the Sea Angel at the Half Moon Bay Harbor before we took off. This would be the calmest waters we saw that day.

Sailing out in the ocean is very different from being inside the protected waters of the Bay. Even those with the best sea legs can get a little uncomfortable from all the rocking in high waves. The picture below is just a small sample of the waves that hit the bow of the ship.

This was Michael's first time sailing on such rough waters and was a little green during the 3 hour trip. He did really well considering this was only his second time ever being on a sailboat. As we sailed up the coast we spied the Golden Gate which meant we were close to home.

View of San Francisco beyond the bridge.

Passing under the bridge was an incredible view and we all took out our cameras to snap pictures.

Another view...

And another....

Thank you Sea Angel for another amazing day out on the water.

Bay To Breakers: 12k across San Francisco

2010-05-17T17:37:00.001-04:00

For those of you not from the Bay Area, the Bay To Breakers is something of an iconic footrace/moving block party through the streets of San Francisco. Every year in May thousands of people go through the backs of their closets, the drawer they never open, that bag that should have been donated to the Goodwill, to find the most ridiculous clothing they have ever owned... and then they go out in public in it. At least half of the 60,000 runners and walkers dress in their best Halloween costumes, participate in group centipedes, create elaborate floats, or take everything off to walk naked. I decided that this year, Michael and I had to participate.

The annual Bay To Breakers is also a serious 12k race that brings runners from all of the world to compete. The winners finished the race in under 38 minutes while we all took 2.5 hours. The race started as a way to lift the city's spirits after the disastrous 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The first run was in 1912 and was known as the Cross City Race. It is the longest consecutively run footrace in the world.

So early Sunday morning Michael, Erlinda, Serafina and I found our way to the start line and joined the crowds standing waiting for the official start of the race. Apparently Thor and Wolverine are fans of the B2B as well...

We participated in the traditional throwing of the tortillas while we waited. Here is a video of the tortilla tossing in action. Then finally the race began and the crowds started to move forward. Here we are approaching Hayes Hill, the only elevated part of the race. I happened to catch a snap of the guy in front of me dressed as the unpronounceable active Volcano in Iceland.

The best part of walking the Bay To Breakers is the people watching. Here are some of our favorite costumes....

A group of adult babies....

The Bay To Breakers brings many people out of their homes to the streets to cheer on the participants. This group of Chefs stood by, beer in hand. Not sure what Flash was doing there, perhaps considering a change of career?

This is the first group of synchronized swimmers we came across...

Here is the second...
Mmmmmm, bacon makes everything better....

The best moment of the day was when we witnessed the spontaneous celebration that occurred when two groups of Crayola Crayons found each other.

And no race is complete without a keg of beer. An impressive use of a skateboard.

The race started in the financial district on the east side of the city close to the Bay and wound through the city. We crossed the 7 mile marker in Golden Gate Park. Now we knew we were getting close to the ocean and the finish line.

Ah, the ocean and the last turn before the finish line...

We made it!

A Year Later....

2010-03-25T23:35:00.001-04:00

I have been thinking a lot lately about where I was a year ago... packing up the house in Egg Harbor Township, NJ and preparing to get on the road for 5 weeks. Thankfully we have this blog that captured all of our travels. I cannot believe we havent written anything since September. Remember when we were writing for you all every day??! Since we left New Jersey a year ago so much has happened. We both have started new jobs, Michael's Mom has a new knee, good friends of ours got married, and so many other great things. One of the things I am most thankful for is reconnecting with old friends here in CA.

Our lives certainly have calmed down since those days of driving across the country but we are still having many adventures around our new home in the San Francisco Bay Area. Just recently we spent our anniversary weekend in San Francisco, tasted some wines here in the Santa Cruz Mountains, checked out the Tech Museum in San Jose and started walking to work. We have lots to share with you and will get busy writing very soon.

One of the funnest adventures we have had lately was sailing aboard the Sea Angel, an 88 foot boat, in the San Francisco Bay. I promise, more about that to come.

We want you to know we miss you all back in New Jersey and wish we could have brought you with us. Please stay in touch and let us know how you are doing.

Sailing in the San Francisco Bay

2010-03-22T19:45:00.000-04:00

We recently had the pleasure of joining my good friend Katy and her husband Jan (Yan) aboard the beautiful boat he currently works on. Katy and I have known each other since college and have had an active sailing past. We were lucky enough to spend 8 glorious days sailing around the Tahitian Islands as well as racing around the Monterey Bay on various boats back 15 years ago. I have greatly missed sailing and my good friend.

What a wonderful twist of fate that we would both relocate back to the Bay Area within a year of each other. Katy and her husband planned an afternoon sail around the Bay and invited us to join. The Sea Angel is currently docked in Richmond which is just over the bridge from San Francisco. We arrived at the Sea Angel Friday night and enjoyed a late dinner aboard the boat. At 88 feet long this boat has a lot of amenities, sitting rooms and sleeping quarters. This is one of the sitting rooms down below.

This is the dining table off the kitchen.

And our room for the night.

We slept through the night and woke up early Saturday morning. Jan had a few things to do around the boat so Michael, Katy and I went into town for some breakfast at Bette's.

We got seats at the counter which allowed us to watch these two short-order masters at work.

We headed back to the boat and around noon the guests began to arrive. We prepared to sail.

We left the dock and headed towards San Francisco.

Our trusty captain at the wheel.

Once we go out far enough to catch some wind, Jan opened up the main sails.

Michael at the bow of the ship enjoying the view.

The crew and guests enjoyed some socializing in between enjoying the beautiful scenery.

And what would a day out on the Bay be without food? Everyone brought a little something to share.

The sailing cant be that rough... our captain kicking back, everything under control.

We sailed by the historic Alcatraz Island, with the Golden Gate Bridge off in the distance.

Saw a few sea lions hanging out on the buoys.

Great day out on the Bay, now it was time to head back in.

Michael enjoyed his first time sailing. We hope to be invited back again soon.

Mountain View to the Golden Gate (aka "A Public Transit Adventure")

2009-09-27T14:30:00.006-04:00

We recently took a trip up to San Francisco with our bicycles with the intention of riding along the waterfront and then taking a ferry to Sausalito. The trip ended up being so much more than that by the time we returned home.

The day began by riding out our front door to the train station which is conveniently located just half a mile away. Using alternate means of commuting to work is very popular in this area. Bicyclists are everywhere on the roads and apparently on the trains as well. There is at least one bicycle car on every Cal Train and 7 trains per day that now have a second bicycle car. Once you secure your bicycle you can head above to a small selection of seats or to another car up front.

Once we arrived in the City our first stop was AT&T Park, home of the SF Giants. It is very hard keeping up with the name of this place, first it was PacBell Park, then SBC Park. How about just picking a name and sticking to it instead of all this corporate sponsorship?

When we were riding around the ballpark we noticed these interesting looking window shades. Turns out they are solar panels.

The solar panels provide energy to the ballpark as well as to other areas of San Francisco.

We rode our bicycles northwest along the bay and passed by the Bay Bridge which connects San Francisco with the East Bay at Oakland. It recently underwent a major construction project. It was closed from Thursday evening until Tuesday morning of Labor Day Weekend while crews worked around the clock to link the existing bridge with a new section built on the East side. Eventually the entire bridge will be rebuilt.

As we rode along the waterfront area also known as the Embarcadero, we passed this fiberglass bow and arrow known as "Cupid's Span". It stands over 2 stories tall and is located in Rincon Park across the street from the Gap headquarters. This sculpture was created by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen who also created this clothespin in my other favorite city.

(For all you skaters: "the Embarcadero is important in skateboard history. This area is in the majority of the 90's top skateboard videos. Embarcadero hence became featured in one the Playstation's top selling games, Tony Hawk Pro skater.").

Once at Pier 41 we boarded a ferry to Sausalito with the bikes. On the way we passed by Alcatraz...

We found this "artcar" on Napa Street in Sausalito permanently parked by one of the many boat slips. I would love to know how long it has been sitting there.

I found this site which gives credit to Heather Wilcoxon, a Sausalito resident and popular artist.

We rode along the waterfront in Sausalito for about an hour, found some lunch at a small grocery deli and then headed back on the ferry to San Francisco.

We continued biking north along the Bay and eventually made it to Fort Point where the Golden Gate Bridge connects with San Francisco.

What a beautiful view it was. The Fort is still there and you can take a short tour through it.

Once we were done taking in the view at the bridge, we turned around and started the trek back south towards Fisherman's Wharf. On the way we passed by the Palace of Fine Arts. This building houses a Fine Arts Theater and the Exploratorium, a museum of science, art and human perception.

We stopped at Fisherman's Wharf to get a quick bite and found this guy to watch our bikes for us.

Michael had the famous Clam Chowder in a sourdough bread bowl while I had a gulf shrimp cocktail.

We finally made it back to the San Francisco train station and waited for the 4:56 back to Mountain View. We were surprised to see the old-fashioned signs still used, no digital flatscreens here. Those signs showing the train departure times have to be changed manually for each train by the station staff.

According to Google maps, it is approximately 43 miles from our front door to the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. So we think we travelled about 100 miles. Not bad!

Saying Goodbye

2009-08-31T15:31:00.005-04:00

Those of you who are connected to us by Facebook may already know we recently had to say goodbye to my cat, Mischief. She was 10 years old and had been with me since she was 6 weeks old. She had been dealing with an immune disorder that caused severe anemia for the last 3 years. And for that she had to be on a lot of steroids and immune-suppressant drugs. I think the long-term steroid use took its toll on her kidneys and she was showing signs of progressive kidney disease for the last 8 months. Over the last two weeks she went into renal failure, for which there is no cure. The fact that she lived with this disorder for the 3 years surprised many vets. In that time she had 2 scary events where she almost died but came back both times and lived a high quality of life. This time the prognosis from the wonderful vets we worked with was not good. They all agreed that this time her body was just not strong enough to fight what was happening.

Mischief came to me from my friend Sean who found her mother abandoned in the mountains of Woodside where he lived. She was born on Mother's Day in the back of his closet. She definitely inherited some of her mother's wild behavior. She was a very active kitten, frequently climbing the window screens when Tim and I would go outside without her. Good thing those screens were the old fashioned kind made of thick metal. I named her "kitten" for the first couple weeks until we could figure out a name. Then one day she was tearing up something in Tim's bedroom that he had just cleaned up and he yelled "man, you are always creating such mischief!". And thus she was named.

This cat was a world traveler. Back in 2004 when I made the move across the country to Pennsylvania she made the trek with me, under my seat on the airplane. She also went with me to New York City when I attended culinary school. This meant frequent trips on the train when I would leave the City on weekends and visit Michael down at the Jersey Shore. She was so good and quiet on the train, but made her complaints loud and clear as soon as we got into the car.

And just 3 months ago, she moved one more time, across the country with Michael and I. This time in a U-Haul and it took us 5 days instead of 5 hours on a plane. She was a great traveller and adapted to a new hotel every night and calmly handled the long days of driving, frequently napping on my lap.

Here are some recent memories of her settling in to our new apartment in California.

Jumping into any open box...

Taking a nap on the back of the couch...

I took her outside on the leash, which only made her cry more at the front door asking to be let out again...

She loved the house in Egg Harbor Township, NJ and watching all the action out the back door...

We found her sleeping in the oddest places...

And always found a way to be underfoot while we were in the kitchen.

The apartment feels empty without her and she will be greatly missed.

Life is a Journey

2009-08-25T15:40:00.000-04:00

A good friend had this cartoon on her travel blog and I could not help myself and had to borrow it for ours. We have had many wonderful experiences out in the world and so many times I have found myself thinking "how would this look in our blog" or "this would make a great photograph". I have even caught myself thinking "this is so great, I have to come back here sometime". I have to remind myself to enjoy the experience right now while I am already there.

We are still enjoying our new surroundings and are trying to get out for some outdoor adventures as much as possible. There have been a couple great bike rides and some hikes which we will tell you more about later. Michael has enjoyed two golf courses within 10 miles of our apartment.

Early last month we found out some friends from New Jersey were in town, Bette and Jim.

We drove them up to Napa for the day and enjoyed some wonderful wines and a beautiful day in wine country.

Next month two more friends from the East Coast will be here in San Francisco and we are really looking forward to exploring the area with them.

My summer cooking for the summer camp on the farm has been amazing and I am sad to see it end. Many times I have driven in to work at 6am and been greeted by baby deer eating along the side of the mountain, a huge coyote walking down the driveway, a fox and owls hooting in the trees.

I picked fresh produce from the small garden for staff meals.

I made some new friends....

I developed some new recipes like this Cheesy Jalapeno Corn Bread. It was a big hit with the campers and the staff served with Chili.

Michael and I got a chance to hike the trails around the farm. Once we made it to the top of the mountain (about 1,200 ft) we were treated to an amazing view of the Bay.

Unfortunately our wonderful summer has had its down moments too. More details about that in our next post.

In the Valley of Garlic

2009-07-27T19:04:00.012-04:00

Michael and I had a great time at the Gilroy Garlic Festival last Saturday. This was the 31st Annual and attendance was just over 108,000 over three days. The festival is held in Christmas Hill Park every year in the town of Gilroy which is just south of San Jose. There were 3 different music stages, Arts and Crafts section, a kids play area, wine tasting tent featuring local wineries, cooking competition including 3 of the Top Chef contestants from last season, garlic themed samples and lots and lots of food!!!!

We basically ate our way through the festival, trying some garlic fries...

Shrimp Scampi and Garlic Bread (you will see how this Scampi is made coming up soon)

Cajun Fried Catfish...

And since one cannot exist on garlic and wine alone, we had some strawberries from a local farm covered in whipped cream...

Not exactly sure of the history of this flaming garlic statue, but they officially light it at the beginning of the festival each year.

What makes "Gourmet Alley", a must-see of the garlic festival is the line of frying pans and various dedicated volunteers cooking the Shrimp Scampi and Calamari.

There are 8 stations lined up with huge iron frying pans...

And once they get the pan hot and garlic sauteed in tons of butter, the guys pour in the calamari and white wine, and the show begins...

Some of the flames were so big they touched the ceiling and bent to the sides. We happened to catch a couple good pics....

No idea who the guy in the garlic costume was!

Occasionally, the chefs would bring out some of the finished product for the crowd to admire..... and smell.... and, fortunately for us, take some good pictures.

Of course, one cannot attend the Gilroy Garlic Festival without taking home some Gilroy garlic.

We spent most of the day walking around the festival and taking in all the sights. We headed back to our car around 3pm and found that most of our parking lot was empty, while there was still a long line of cars waiting to get in. It had been at least 8 years since I had been to the Garlic Festival and I was very happy that we went. This is part of the flavor of the Bay Area that I missed while I was on the East Coast.

Exploring our new neighborhood

2009-07-03T22:19:00.007-04:00

Michael and I have been enjoying checking out our new neighborhood. Mountain View is turning out to be a great place to live. We have so many interesting places close by as well as good restaurants. The Shoreline Amphitheater is just down the road. I attended many concerts here in my teens and 20's. Here is a view from the lawn. For those of you on the East Coast, it has a layout similar to the Camden Waterfront Arena (also known as Tweeter Center).

The Amphitheater is located on the Mountain View Shoreline Park, a 700-acre park with a saltwater lake, golf course and a walking and bike trails. There is going to be a concert on Saturday at the Amphitheater for the 4th of July that will end with a fireworks display. We are hoping to find a spot to settle in at the park and watch the show.

Last weekend we hiked "The Dish" trail behind Stanford University.

The trail is a 2.6 mile walk or 3.7 miles depending on who you ask. There are many challenging uphills but then you are rewarded with a fantastic 360 degree view of the bay once you reach the top near the satellite dishes.

"The radio telescope commonly known as the Dish is the most prominent landmark in Stanford's 8,180 acres of open space. The Dish, 150 feet in diameter, scans the sky, gathering data on distant skies." We thought it was going to be an easy hour walk, but the uphills just kept appearing around every next corner. Finally we reached the Dish and took a needed break.

We did the hike around 8:30am and there was barely any shade. This is a trail best done in the morning. The Bay Area is full of these kinds of preserved open spaces. We all think this is area is jammed packed with people and cars, especially when you see the traffic on the highways during rush hour, but then you get out into an open space like this and you feel so far away from it all.

Next weekend.... The Los Gatos Creek Trail!

Family Reunion in Ashland, Oregon

2009-06-21T22:16:00.013-04:00

We are on the road again, headed north this time to Oregon for a family reunion. My Dad along with my Uncle and Aunt are all getting together with their cousins which they haven't seen in 20 years. I have the weekend off from work so I am taking Michael up to crash their party. Above is the view of Mount Shasta, a sleeping volcano, in Northern California on highway 5. Mount Shasta is not connected to any mountain range and rises abruptly from the flat land around it making it a dramatic view.

I got off work a little late Friday night so we didn't get on the road until after 6pm. This means major traffic jams around the Bay Area as everyone tries to leave the area for the weekend. We made it to Redding, CA around 9pm and decided to find a hotel and stay over for the night. The next 30 miles to the Oregon border are very mountainous with no street lights, which is best to drive in the daylight.

We went looking for breakfast Saturday morning and got a recommendation to check out this place, Lumberjacks "Where the Big Boys Eat!" The food was really good, and only made better by flat screens scattered around the restaurant playing the ESPN Collegiate Lumberjack Challenge. The most alarming category being the "underhand chop" where they stand on a log and swing the axe between their feet to cut a wedge in the log. Some of them DO NOT wear protective gear on their feet.

After breakfast we headed north and crossed into Oregon.

We quickly arrived in Ashland, OR and started looking for my Aunt's house. On the way we passed this little place. For those of you who know Michael's Mom, this might make you smile like it did for us. There is another Patricia Sprague and she is selling Real Estate in Ashland! One of the agents was sitting at her desk in the window and was having a good laugh at us as we jumped out of the car to take this picture.

Ashland is a cute little town at the southern border of Oregon and is home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The town is nestled in the side of a mountain so seeing deer strolling through the neighborhood is pretty common. This one was was eating out of flower beds nearby.

We met up with my Dad and family at a park in town. It was a nice location to relax with the sounds of the creek while we ate and talked.

Trying to get everyone together to take a picture was comical.

We spent the night in Ashland, met up with everyone for breakfast and then got back on the road towards home.

This was a really quick trip. We hope to get back to Oregon soon.

Our First California Road Trip!

2009-06-19T22:16:00.002-04:00

If you have been following along on our travels, you may have noticed that we suddenly stopped blogging halfway through our U-haul trip across the country. We did make it to California and we have been extremely productive with unpacking and settling in. That is mainly why we have neglected to post the rest of our trip.

There were many more interesting sights and discoveries in Wyoming, Utah and Nevada. We have been here for three weeks as of tomorrow and we are loving our new home. But more about that later.

Right now we are on the road to Oregon to meet up with my Dad's side of the family. My Dad, Aunt and Uncle are having a mini family reunion and I just happen to have the next two days off. So we are doing the 6 hour drive up to Ashland which is on the southern border of Oregon. I have not seen my Father and Stepmother for over 5 years and this will be Michael's first time meeting all of them. Should be a great weekend!

More soon.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Finally home! (Day 6 of our U-Haul Road Trip)

2009-05-30T13:08:00.004-04:00

(For those of you following along on our travels via email, this post will appear in your email box a bit after the date we actually accomplished these things. I am just finishing up the details of this post and publishing it now, a month late. On our blog it will appear in chronological order, as May 30th, when we actually finished our U-haul trip).

This is the last day of our second trip across the states, this time with the cat and the U-haul. You can see above just how excited she is to get into her cage again. The cat has been incredibly good the last 5 days going in and out of cages and new hotel rooms each night.

This morning we are in Sparks, Nevada at the Holiday Inn, just outside of Reno. We would have loved to check out the casinos and try our luck at the slot machines, but we are so excited to be this close to home that we just got a good nights sleep and headed out on the road again as soon as possible.

We headed out on 80 West again and crossed into California around 10:30am.

Highway 80 was in bad shape in this part of the state. It was mostly a 2-lane highway each way with lots of twists and turns and really rough pavement. We passed by Lake Tahoe and Truckee, which for those of you back home in New Jersey, is our version of the Pocono's. The traffic getting out of San Francisco on a Friday night during the winter is a nightmare because everyone is heading up to Tahoe for some weekend skiing. We will definitely be back this way sometime soon.

Then we finally arrived in the San Francisco "Bay Area" and crossed the Dumbarton Bridge which connects Fremont in the East Bay to Menlo Park on the Penninsula.

Then we turned onto 101 South towards Mountain View.

We both will be glad to be rid of this U-haul!

We arrived at our new home around 3pm. The first task was to unload my car and return the car trailer to the nearest U-haul so that unloading the next day would be a lot easier. We wont bore you with the details of the VERY unorganized U-haul store in Santa Clara, but we did eventually turn in the trailer, make some new friends that just moved to the area from San Francisco that were waiting in line with us, and then get home, unload a few boxes from the truck and sleep our first night on the inflatable mattress we call a bed.

Tomorrow.... we unload the rest of the truck.

So in total, this trip was:

3,172 miles

5 1/2 days

13 states

and 62 hours of driving

The Great Salt Lake to the Casinos

2009-05-29T23:43:00.016-04:00

Water, water, everywhere; but not a drop to drink! This is not one of those optical illusions. We left Salt Lake City, UT and headed towards Reno, NV on the fifth day of driving with the U-haul. Today was going to be a very interesting drive. We were heading through the salt flats and along the edge of The Great Salt Lake (above).

Surprisingly, they actually mine the lake for salt. I think we both thought this was somewhat of a protected lake, but this is not the case. This is the Morton's factory at the lake below and its' bounty of salt in massive mounds; waiting to be processed and bagged/bottled/boxed for sale.

One of the odd sights was the stone phrases along both sides of I-80 from the Great Salt Lake all the way to the state line.

What's strange about this is that there are no stones visible as far as you can see; except for what people brought out here to spell out what was on their minds. Names, couples, we even saw complete sentences spelled out in rocks. Some of these were there so long, they were actually under water along the road side from rain collecting in the lower areas along the highway.

No, we didn't try to leave our mark, but we did see this, which was pretty darn close.

Then, this strange tree appeared in the distance...

It is known as "Metaphor: The Tree of Utah" or the Tree of Life. "

This is not tourist-friendly as there is nowhere to stop and lots of signs saying "emergency parking only", so I tried to snap some quick shots and we drove by.

Then we hit the brightest, whitest part of the Salt Flats. You can see the crystals sparkling in the sunlight; like shards of broken glass. Really cool to see... and no, that is not snow, it is all salt.

In Wendover, Utah is the world famous Bonneville Salt Flats, the site of numerous land speed records. The races are held every year over Labor Day Weekend. Drivers who reach over 200 mph receive a hat letting everyone know they did it.

We took the exit and pulled in. There was a gas station selling racing fuel (for about $9.50 a gallon) at the exit. We started down the road, but realized that the actual track was WAY off the road. Since we had a U-Haul towing a trailer and getting about 8 MPG so far, we decided that it was not worth the time or the gas to see if it was even open to the public. So we turned around at the first intersection and continued along I-80 in search of the next landmark.

Then we crossed into Nevada!

Nevada gave us probably the biggest scare of the trip. We had a bit of a collision on this leg...

This is.... well... was a genuine Nevada tumbleweed! These are actually bushes that grow in a round shape and eventually die off, lose their roots and get blown away by the winds. They are not a collection of weeds that form in a snowball effect. When it came out onto the road, we both felt the sharp pain in our chests and gasped.... then THUD! Michael said all he saw in the mirror was fragments of tumbleweed. We took this picture about 100 miles up the road when we stopped for gas. The branches were really dense and barbed, which made for fun trying to pull it out of the radiators.

Due to rain and three stops for gas, we chose to stop in Sparks, NV for dinner at an Applebee's. After dinner, Michael said he was done with driving for the day. We didn't make California like we hoped we would. We found a place in Sparks for the night. Here is our route for today....

Day 4 of Leg 2: The Rockies

2009-05-28T10:02:00.013-04:00

We left our hotel this morning and started our trek north on I-25 and as we looked to the left, we saw this amazing view....

It may not look like much from the picture, but this could be one of the most amazing sights we got to experience in all of our travels over the last three months. The front of the Rocky Mountains looked like a huge wall that was still hours away. Last night we were approaching Denver in the evening and were not able to see much of the mountains. So when we walked out of the hotel in the morning light, this view completely surprised us.

One of the things that has NOT been a pleasure on this leg of our road trip has been my view...

We have seen some plains, some hills, some lakes and rivers, but the view in my side mirror didn't change a bit!

I-25 was probably the last easy leg of this trip. Relatively flat land and a straight run made the gas last just a little bit longer.... just a little. After a few hours of driving, we hit....

....a NEW STATE!! Wyoming had the nicest sign that we've seen on this leg of the drive. We also started the trek to the west again. This time, we knew we were getting into some serious mountains. We started seeing signs that said "Tire Chains Required When Flashing".

The hills were beautiful and green with the noticeable lack of trees. But we did see some very big buffalo....

OK, maybe he isn't a real buffalo, but we saw him from quite a distance .... A reminder of the herds that used to roam these plains. Wyoming also had some amazing rock formations....

Some of this could have been created during the construction of the Interstate Highway system, but they are still some amazing sights.

Eventually, we made our way into Utah and yet another new (but sorta been there) state. Utah was part of our visit to Four Corners during the first leg of our road trip. We didn't see a "Welcome to Utah" sign, which was odd, but we pulled into the little town of Park City, Utah that featured the Utah Olympic Park and this....

These are the giant ski jumps that are visible behind a mall in this neat little community. We stopped for a bite to eat at the Whole Foods in Park City which just happened to have a view of the slopes right behind it. Olympic Park was built for the 2002 Winter Games and has now become a center for winter snow sports.

Here is our route from today.

Tomorrow we cross into Nevada.

I turn 38 "on the road"

2009-05-27T23:17:00.012-04:00

More of highway 70 West today towards Kansas. Since it was going to be hard to find a yummy gluten free cake out here in the middle of nowhere, we celebrated my birthday with a Soy Latte at Starbucks, add some caramel and whipped cream, mmmmmm.

As we were leaving Missouri we realized that we did not get a picture of the state sign, so we pulled over at the visitors center only to find this...

Close enough. And it gave us a chance to see the Kansas City Chiefs Stadium and the Royals Ballpark.

Here is a much better picture of both stadiums.

Then we crossed into Kansas, which we would spend the next 6 or so hours driving through, with one nice surprise.....

I received a phone call from Michael's parents saying they were a mere hour away from us. (They have been on the road heading from Tucson, AZ back to New Jersey for the last 2 weeks.) They changed their route a little to try to meet us on highway 70. We found a place to turn off the road where 70 and 75 meet just outside of Kansas City and had a pow wow in the only parking lot we could find that would fit our vehicles. It was so great to see them!

The only excitement on the road this afternoon was passing a windmill farm.

I thought this old windmill in the field in front was particularly cute and a nostalgic touch, compared to the massive, "modern" windmills behind it.

Then we entered Colorado and the Mountain Time Zone.

And were treated to a beautiful sky as the sun went down.

We arrived in Denver around 9pm, and had dinner at the Cherry Cricket. They are located on E. 2nd St in a really cool shopping and business district. Unfortunately, it was around 10PM, so most of the stores were closed. This also happened to be another Man vs Food moment (like we didn't think about this before we arrived) and we were not disappointed.

They are known for their burgers, more specifically, the toppings you can choose from to put on your burger including: BBQ sauce, fried eggs, bacon, sauteed mushrooms or onions, jalapenos, cream cheese, and the list goes on.

These could very well be the best burgers that we have ever had! Michael had the Cricket (1/2 lb burger) with smoked cheddar, bacon, lettuce, tomato, fried egg and BBQ sauce. I chose the Jr. Cricket (1/4 lb.) with sauteed mushrooms, sauteed Bermuda onions, lettuce, tomato and bacon. We passed on the fries, but probably should have given them their due.

After dinner we drove just a little farther out of Denver and checked into the Sleep Inn in Thornton, Colorado (also known as North Denver). Tomorrow we head up highway 25 to Wyoming and then West again. Here is our route from today.

Tomorrow, we head for Salt Lake City, Utah! (That's the way they print their state name on their license plates)

Four more states today

2009-05-26T23:30:00.006-04:00

We had a restful sleep at the Staybridge Suites last night in West Chester, Ohio. Really nice hotel if you are ever in the area, and they take pets. We headed out on 75 south to catch 71 again and then quickly crossed over into Kentucky.

We also passed through Indiana

and Illinois.

Many of the pictures on this route are not as good as on our first trip. I have to snap them quickly as we pass by as it is not convenient to pull over or turn around in this U-haul! So we will just have to make due with what I got.

We pulled over into a rest stop in the afternoon to bring the cat into the main cab with us for awhile. She did really well and fell asleep on my lap for a couple hours.

We both were really excited to see the Arch in St. Louis.

It is such a unique city landmark. As soon as we got close enough I started snapping pictures. Then the skies opened up and it started pouring. We both had hoped we could stop to see the Arch in person and take a trip to the top, but with the cat in the car, and the thunderstorm, we decided to keep moving.

We stopped in Concordia, Missouri for gas and found a barbecue place not far, Biffle's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que. Michael got a sampler plate of ribs, brisket, pork and ham. Those ribs were good, but still don't beat Tim's!

We stopped for the night in Independence, MO just east of Kansas City. Another really nice hotel and very friendly staff. We drove 612 miles today and 635 miles yesterday. Here is our route from today.

Day 1 - Back on the road again

2009-05-25T23:00:00.006-04:00

Well, the first leg of the trip was very familiar, at least to me. First, we needed to get out of New Jersey. This was basically the Atlantic City Expressway to the Walt Whitman Bridge into Philadelphia. The two of us have made this drive many, many times sice we started dating over 3 years ago. This time, however, was a bit sad. The recognizable skyline of Philadelphia was showing itself off to us one final time. We took the PA Turnpike west out of Philadelphia through the northern most part of West Virginia...

... and almost immediately into Ohio.

I have been out to Cincinnati for quite a few Bengals games over the past 9 years. No game to go to this time; just some friends of Andrea's that had relocated from the Bay area many years ago. Here is our route for the day.

It is finally time...

2009-05-24T18:00:00.003-04:00

This is the view out front of the house right now. We have the Uhaul packed and my car loaded onto the trailer. Just a few things to finish up in the house and then we leave first thing tomorrow (Monday) morning. Loading the car was easier than we thought it would be.

This is how the truck looked yesterday morning.
And this is what it looks like now.

We picked it up a couple days early so that we could pack up our stuff and put the house back to normal. It took us a lot longer to load the truck and we had A LOT more boxes than we thought! Not sure where it is all going once we get to the apartment.

This afternoon we took a break and walked over to Little's Dairy Bar (as mentioned in one of our very first posts) so Michael could enjoy one more sundae.

As we were walking home we determined this place has been here for over 35 years.

Michael's favorite is the "Superbowl".

I opted for the root beer water ice layered with vanilla ice cream. Just like a root beer float!

Ok, now back to work. We are planning a route through the middle states that should take us through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. We will try to keep the blog updated, but we will be doing a lot more driving and almost no sightseeing on this leg of our trip. We anticipate we will do the cross-country drive in about 6 or 7 days. Stay tuned!

Our new home in Mountain View

2009-05-05T19:19:00.001-04:00

After 5 grueling days of apartment hunting, we found our new home!
We spent four straight days looking at apartments. We stopped into about 35 locations, walked through about 20 units and finally settled on this place...

The kitchen is not perfect, but it is far better than most of the places we saw. It may be small, but it has lots of light and adequate counter space... very important details to me.

We did spend a few nights in the new place already (since we got it much sooner than we thought we would)....

Perhaps the best part of all is the clubhouse, pool, hot tub and common area.

We both plan on spending time in the swimming pool and exercising in the gym.

The hot tub is off in a corner which was a nice touch.
This will be home for at least the next year. We have a nice size patio that will accommodate an outdoor table. What's really sweet is that this location ALLOWS GRILLS!!! Michael will be able to help with the cooking! We have an air mattress (see the bedroom photo above) and the living room has enough space to lay it out for guests to sleep over.

We are excited to be done with the hunt for an apartment and can't wait to get everything out of the NJ house and into our new place. We are also looking forward to having guests over for dinner, games, a BBQ or just drinks. We will be spending another 5 days here in California and then we head back to New Jersey.

We will be starting the second leg of our trip on Monday, May 25th. We will be driving a Uhaul with all of our stuff and towing my car behind it. Our route is through the middle states mainly on highway 70 to highway 80. The trip should take us 6 to 7 days. We will try to update the blog on our travels, but these will be much longer driving days than our first trip. Stay tuned!

We have arrived !!

2009-05-02T01:12:00.000-04:00

So, it's been a while since we posted to the blog. Well, we have arrived in California and immediately jumped on apartment hunting. But before we go there, we wanted to give everyone a quick recap of the last 5+ weeks "On The Road With Mike and Andrea":

Week one took us through the eastern seaboard from our old home in southern New Jersey all the way down to Savannah, Georgia and into Atlanta. Along the way, we saw Virginia Beach, the amazing Angel Oak in St John's, SC, the Outer Banks and the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras, NC, what used to be the military base where Michael was born and Coke World in Atlanta.

The second week saw us travel through the southern part of the Great Smoky Mountains, border to border across the state of Tennessee (that would include Graceland, The Lorraine Motel, Beale St and breaking 100,000 miles in the Lexus in Buffalo Valley), border to border down Mississippi (stopping in Canton and eating, drinking and singing the blues at RJ Barrel's & Company in the town square at Canton), into Louisiana for one fun night in the French Quarter in New Orleans and across the bayou into Houston, Texas.

Week three, for the most part, was spent in the great state of Texas visiting friends from both coasts that have relocated to Austin. We also saw the 72oz challenge at the Big Texan Steak Ranch, visited Earth (Texas) and ALMOST got a speeding ticket (Thank you Mr. Texas State Trooper for giving us a warning). We made it into New Mexico to visit Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

Week four saw us make a change in plans and adjust our route. Instead of heading south into El Paso and up to Vegas through Arizona, we chose to head north to the Four Corners region, across the top of Arizona and south through the state, visiting the Grand Canyon, one of Michael's high school classmates (and fellow wine guru) and then his parents in their winter home in Tucson.

Week five would be our final week of this part of the journey. We drove out of Arizona along Interstate 8 with the Mexico border in plain sight on two separate occasions. We visited San Diego, saw another one of Michael's high school (and skydiving) buddies in Los Angeles, checked out Hearst Castle, the Pacific Coast Highway, some sun-bathing Elephant Seals, Santa Cruz and finally arrived in Mountain View, California.

The grand totals for the grand adventure (part one): 35 days (exactly 5 weeks on the road), 7745 miles (and one major repair) and 17 states (including New Jersey and California, of course).

We are in the Bay Area and will be staying in one place for now. We have started looking for apartments and checking out neighborhoods. Our plan is to be back in NJ to begin the second leg of the journey across the middle of the country Memorial Day weekend. This one will be a lot quicker (Michael wants to finish it in 5 days... we'll see about that) and with a lot less sight seeing. We will still blog when we get a new place, when we pack up in NJ and when we start part two of the trip across the country. Stay tuned....

Day 35: Monterey Bay and Santa Cruz

2009-04-28T23:48:00.001-04:00

We left Monterey this morning and drove up the coast to Santa Cruz. Highway 1 is bordered by a lot of farm land with fields of strawberries and artichokes (above). We stopped the car and I took the picture of the artichokes from the side of the road. I haven't seen the plants this big before, they must be ready for harvesting soon.

Then we got to Santa Cruz. Michael and I had visited Monterey before but we missed seeing Santa Cruz on the way. I wanted to show him where I spent a lot of my summers when I was younger. This is the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. It is mainly an amusement park with some rides and lots of games. Similar to Ocean City, NJ but bigger rides and a MUCH shorter boardwalk. The beach here is where many volleyball tournaments are held.

We left the beach and drove over the mountain on 17 to highway 85 which drops you right into Mountain View. We will be spending some time here to start our apartment hunting. We are trying to stay close to the Los Altos hills where I will be working for the summer.

And that wraps up the first leg of our cross country trip. For all of you who have been following along with us, you may be feeling as disappointed as we are. We have loved travelling across the states and seeing something new every day. We are definitely feeling a little melancholy about arriving at our final destination.

We will be here in the Bay Area for 2 weeks looking for apartments which means the blog may be a little quiet. In addition to the sights, eats and events that we will engage in during our hunt for a new home, we still have the second leg of our trip coming in May where we fly back to New Jersey, pack up the U-Haul and drive back across the country. That will be a MUCH faster trip with a lot less sightseeing. However, the blog will carry on and we will throw up a post from time to time and give you an update on where we are and what we are doing. Talk to you soon and keep following us... On The Road!

Day 34: Hearst Castle and the California Coast

2009-04-27T23:47:00.000-04:00

We started our day by having breakfast at the Apple Farm in San Luis Obispo. I have eaten here once before and remembered it as being a really good meal.

The Apple Farm is a restaurant but it also has a hotel and gift shop full of apple-themed items. They are known for their homemade muffins with warm boysenberry compote (above) and apple sausage (below). We were not disappointed.

They have a lot of old produce crate labels around the restaurant and I recognized this one from my hometown of Paradise. I have a broken piece of an old crate with a faded version of this label. Nice to see it represented here.

We headed north on highway 1 to San Simeon to visit Hearst Castle, the home of William Randall Hearst. Hearst Castle was built on a 40,000 acre ranch in the hills of San Simeon. William started construction on the castle in 1919 and it continued through 1947 even when he no longer lived there due to ill health.

The house features both an outdoor and indoor pool.

View of the outdoor Neptune pool from above which was rebuilt three times to bring it up to the size it is now. The first two were not big enough for all the guests that ended up at the estate each weekend.

Covered seating area around the pool which overlooks the coastline. Mr. Hearst took a long trip to Europe as a boy and was greatly influenced by the architecture in those other countries. You see a lot of columns and marble statues here.

This is one of two houses by the pool used by his guests to change before they went down to the pool. Even though it is just a "pool house" he spared no extravagance.

The ceilings are painted with gold.

This is the dining hall in the main house also called "Casa Grande".

The indoor pool is covered in beautiful blue tiles and all of the yellow you see are painted with real gold leaf. The pool is currently empty so that some repairs to the filter system can be made. The guides told us that almost all of the staff is taking pictures of the pool because it is the first time it has been emptied out in all of the years that they have been working there.

Once we left the tour at Hearst Caste we headed north on highway 1 again and passed along some beautiful views of the coast. This beach at first looked like it was full of rocks... but once we got closer we realized they are all Elephant Seals.

Hundreds of them covered this beach all basking in the sun trying to stay warm.

Most of them were sleeping, but a couple loud barking squabbles broke out in different places on the beach.

We were quite far from Hearst Castle when we saw this sign (about 5 miles). They really do own a lot of land out here.

View of one of the many bridges along Highway 1 between San Luis Obispo and Monterey.

Our beautiful cliffs and coastline. There are points along the PCH that take you several hundred feet above the ocean right along the edge of the cliffs. Quite a spectacular feeling.

We ended the day in Monterey. Found a hotel near downtown and had dinner at Esteban, a place we had visited the last time we were in town. The food was so good that as soon as we realized we would be in Monterey for dinner, we knew we had to go there. Unfortunately, the weather was quite cool and kept us from dining outside by their fire pit. OK, we chose not to dine outside, but we celebrated our upcoming arrival in the Bay Area with a nice glass of wine inside with a fantastic tapas dinner and then headed off to bed. Tomorrow, its Santa Cruz and then Mountain View to look for apartments. Here was our route for today. Almost there!

Day 33 Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo

2009-04-26T11:27:00.000-04:00

We left Los Angeles today and headed up highway 101 North to Santa Barbara. This is a beautiful part of the coast line without all the tension of living in LA. I figured a stop at a winery was in order but there are soooooo many in this area to choose from, how could I pick just one? So I found one that is organic, Sunstone Winery. It is a little north of Santa Barbara just outside of Solvang.

We opted to share a tasting of all the whites and reds. The whites were ok, but the reds were fabulous! We tried the 2003 Fred's IN-XS which was by far our favorite, even over the reserves. The building was beautiful as well and made our visit very pleasant. The whites were poured outside and then you have to go into the cellar with the barrels to taste the reds.

Then we headed into Solvang, a small town settled by immigrants from Denmark around 1914. The entire downtown looks like a small European village where you can buy some traditional wooden shoes or freshly made danish.

I have driven through here before on my way to Los Angeles from San Francisco and just had to bring Michael through.

Then we turned a corner and saw Andersen's Restaurant. I distinctly remember this Pea Soup and the two cartoon chefs working hard at splitting the peas (their names are Happea and Pea-Wee). Perhaps my fellow Californians can help me remember why these guys are so famous. I think Andersen's may have had a canned soup that perhaps my Mom used to buy?

We continued to drive north on 101 and stopped for dinner in Pismo Beach. The food wasn't great, but the view was.

We made it from Los Angeles to San Luis Obispo today. A lot of nice driving along the coast enjoying the sun and cool breezes. We are spending the night in a Quality Inn and doing some laundry. Tomorrow, we head to Hearst Castle.

Day 32 Los Angeles

2009-04-26T02:08:00.000-04:00

We arrived in Los Angeles last night after the San Diego Wild Animal Park and were happy to spend a couple nights with Steve and Jen in the "valley". Michael went to High School with Steve and his older brother, Bob.

We spent the day driving around Los Angeles trying to hit all the main spots that make up the diversity of the area. We headed west towards Santa Monica and the Pacific Coast Highway from Steve and Jen's house. Once we got to the PCH (Highway 1), we turned north and drove along the coast to Malibu. We just happened to see this Muffler Man on top of a La Salsa restaurant along the Pacific Coast Highway. This is the first spanish one I have seen.

I looked him up when we got home and older pictures show food items on top of the tray he is holding. He has all the same physical characteristics of the other muffler men, muscular arms, small waist, square chin, with the addition of a mustache, sombrero and the tray and a more spanish style paint job.

Once we were done at the beach, we headed inland towards the La Brea Tar Pits. I remember driving by this as a child and being able to walk up to a rickety fence and get pretty close to the pit. I also remember it having a lot more tar. The life-sized fiberglass models of the wooly mammoths here are an example of an Ice Age species that may have died in tar pits like this one.

There is a really nice park built around the tar pit and a museum that holds the worlds largest collection of extinct Ice Age fossils. The bubbles in the water below are actually caused by natural gas (methane) escaping from fissures below the lake. The surface oil slicks are composed of asphalt and there is a very strong smell around the park like a new road is being paved.

"For thousands of years asphalt has seeped to the surface here at Rancho La Brea, from an underlying oil field. These seeps became unique death traps for countless Ice Age mammals and birds making Rancho La Brea the worlds richest deposit of Ice Age fossils."

We walked into the museum but it was about to close. We took a quick look through the gift shop and saw this.... a play "tar pit" complete with saber-tooth tiger and wooly mammoths.

From there we drove down Hollywood Blvd and visited Mann's Chinese Theater ( which has gone back to being called Grauman's Chinese Theater). This is where all the movie stars pose to have their hands and feet imprinted into a block of concrete.

We walked along the stars on Hollywood Blvd.

Then we headed up the hill to the Griffith Observatory. I have never been up here because it has been closed to the public. I heard it is now open, and obviously so did everyone else because there was NO parking. We had to park along the road that leads up to the observatory and do a 15 minute walk up the hill.

This observatory is known as being one of the filming locations in Rebel Without A Cause. It houses a 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope which millions of people have looked through since it opened in 1935.

It provides a great view of the surrounding valley and a hazy view of the city of Los Angeles.

We stayed just long enough to enjoy the sunset, and then it started to get really cold so we walked down the side of the mountain back to our car.

A "must have" LA culinary experience is a burger and fries at an In-n-Out Burger. It is a fast-food burger joint which is known for its great burgers and freshly made fries. They use whole potatoes cut fresh while you are putting in your order. The founder of In-n-Out is also credited as creating the first drive-through.

For those on the east coast, this is comparable to Five Guys Burgers & Fries. Fresh, not frozen beef, potatoes that are cut into fries on site as they go into the fryer and I got mine "protein-style" wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun. YES!

After our gourmet dinner, we went back to Steve and Jen's house in the San Fernando Valley and enjoyed a night by the firepit with friends in their backyard. Thanks so much to them for giving us a comfy room to sleep in for two nights. Sorry our visit couldn't be longer.

Here is our route from yesterday and today. Tomorrow, we head up the Pacific Coast Highway to Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo.

Day 31 Exploring San Diego's Wild Animal Park

2009-04-24T11:01:00.001-04:00

I visited San Diego only once before when I was 18. I went with a girlfriend and it was our high school graduation present to ourselves. It was our first time away from home without any parents or chaperone's and we picked San Diego because that was about as far as we could drive in one day. San Diego is known for its mild climate, sunny days and for its zoos including the Wild Animal Park and Sea World. We only went to Sea World on that trip and I have wanted to come back and visit the Wild Animal Park ever since.

The park has a main path that you can follow which they call the "safari walk". It takes you through all the animal exhibits that represent the different parts of Africa and Asia. We took A LOT of pictures so we are only going to show you the ones we thought were really interesting.

We first walked by the gorillas.

There were 6 or 7 gorillas in this exhibit, but these two reminded me of two old men sitting back on a street corner keeping an eye on what everyone is doing.

This is a Red-knobbed Hornbill from Asia and is not endangered.

The part we really wanted to do was the tram tour around the large, open parts of the park with the larger animals. Their enclosures are set up to simulate the conditions of their native habitat. All the regions of Africa were represented (as close as possible), including the Sahara, South Africa and the coastal regions. The zoo dedicated over 1800 acres to the Journey Into Africa portion of the park. There were several "tours" available, including a photo tour that is given in the back of a truck, similar to a photo or hunting expedition you would take in Africa. This went deeper into the animal's habitat than the tram and was more intimate (8 riders per truck).

We opted for the tram tour. The driver/guide enjoyed taking the drive. He knew a lot about the animals and was quick to spot things of interest like this ostrich checking on her nest full of eggs.

This herd of giraffes began to trot and race down the hill towards another herd. The newborns were the most energetic and active of the bunch.

Some rhinos sleeping the afternoon away.

And then we got close to the African Lions....

real close.
There were lying on an elevated rock just on the other side of a glass wall where everyone could get a really good look at them. They didn't seem to be bothered by us one bit.

When I first saw this bird I thought he was a statue.

But then his feathers ruffled in the wind and he turned his head. He is a Shoebill from Africa. Really, the craziest looking bird I have ever seen. I think it is because of his size that he doesn't look real. He is larger than any other bird I have ever seen.

But that isn't the most surprising part of our visit. We passed a large pond where you could buy some food pellets to feed the ducks. We got a handful and started to toss them out to the various ducks out on the water and suddenly these dark figures appeared below the waters surface...

These were catfish that normally are bottom feeders. But today, they wanted a little more than just junk from the lake's floor. They were competing with the ducks for the food.

We spent a lot more time by the flamingos than I thought we would. There were one or two babies including this gray fuzzy one at the edge of the island to the right.

Then we saw this one stand up and she had an egg on her nest. She is trying to turn it over with her beak.

This is a Secretary Bird. Another really interesting and large bird. It never came over to whereI could get a good picture.

He had an issue with one of his pen mates and was running down the hill with his wings spread and beak and neck extended. He spent the rest of the time pacing along the fence. We never figured out just what ruffled his feathers. This is an Okapi from Africa. It looks like the offspring of a zebra and a horse.

This is an Abyssinian Ground Hornbill. He was busy gathering sticks and bringing them back to the nest for his female companion.

The main mission of the zoo is animal conservation. Some of the animals we saw are the last of their kind. We really enjoyed our visit here and having the opportunity to get a look at animals that we have never seen before. Plus it was a nice sunny day and we didnt have to drive all day.

Day 30 Welcome Home

2009-04-23T21:30:00.003-04:00

We left Tucson this morning and made the longest drive of this trip so far. We did 449 miles from Tucson to San Diego, CA. First we had to say goodbye to the parents. Here they are in front of their winter home. We will miss them!

We drove out of the Rincon Country West RV Park.

And headed north on 10 to highway 8 west. Not much to see on the road until you cross over into California. New State!!

After crossing into California, we noticed some incredible sand dunes along the highway.

This is the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation and Wilderness Area. I really wish I had the vehicle to play around in here. The dunes were such a beautiful golden color and completely smooth and pristine.

Then, we came across this extremely interesting part of the California landscape....

These mountains are made up of millions of boulders. It almost looks like the remains of a blasting or mining site where all the rubble has been piled up into massive mounds. We drove through mountains like this for at least 30 miles. Quite an interesting sight.

Of course, what's a trip through the California mountains without seeing some of these....

This pales in comparison to the wind farms of Texas, but these will be a common sight throughout California as we continue our journey through the countryside.

And that is for our trip today. We arrived in San Diego while it was still light out, got a hotel and then headed north to Mission Beach and La Jolla Cove to watch the sunset. Unfortunately it was really cloudy and there wasnt much to see. We will have plenty more opportunities for a sunset over the ocean. We drove along the beach and enjoyed looking at all the beautiful houses and watching the surfers. We got a quick dinner at the Whole Foods in La Jolla and headed back to our hotel. Tomorrow, the San Diego Wild Animal Park!

Day 28 & 29 Spending some time in Tucson

2009-04-23T00:47:00.000-04:00

Michael's parents took us out the first day to see a few things around the city. Since it was going to be pushing 100 degrees, we decided to start early and take it easy during the afternoon. The morning stop was the San Xavier Mission.

Mission San Xavier del Bac was founded by a Jesuit missionary in 1692. The present church was built by the Franciscans in 1797. It continues to serve as a parish church for the local Indian tribe.

The stonework inside the mission's cathedral was simply amazing. All of this is carved from the walls of the cathedral, not added to the walls.

The gardens offered some great examples of the vegetation that the desert climate has to offer.

This is a Saguaro cactus below which is most commonly known for having a tall trunk with "arms" coming out of the sides. They can grow up to 50 feet tall, hold over 200 gallons of water and live to be over 250 years old. The arms do not start to grow though until the cactus reaches at least 50 years old. The holes in this one were nests created by birds.

We also found some Prickly Pear Cactus that were starting to bloom.

We also go to see some more native wildlife. The little guy on the top of this cactus is a round-tailed ground squirrel. Apparently, they fancy the flowers that are on top of this rather prickly cactus. He had no problems scurrying up the sides to get to the blooms, and yet we cannot get near it without injury.

On our way back to the house, we saw this interesting duo. It was a pair of lizards or geckos. Each one had to be at least 25 feet in length.

These were placed in the median of the highway by the city. Their "scales" are actually mosaic tiles and random pieces of glass and mirror. They were really quite spectacular in person.

Then, thanks the family's military background, we were able to get a pass to enter Davis-Monthan Air Force Base to cruise the military's "boneyard". This is where they drain, prep, seal and store all of the retired aircraft from service. This was a sight to see. As you can see from the photo, this is still a very active base. They were flying the entire time we were here.

From there, we headed back to the house and out to dinner. We ate a a really good Mexican Restaurant call El Charro Cafe on Court Street in Tucson, AZ. They have been around for some time and the food backed up the hype. This is the "alleged" birthplace of the Chimichanga. Basically, this is a fried burrito that is topped with enchilada sauce and cheese. You get the size of a burrito with the saucy baked goodness of an enchilada. Yum! If you find yourself in Tucson, do look this place up; you will not be disappointed.

As we left the restaurant, Michael's parents took us up "A" Mountain to see Tucson's version of the valley in Los Angeles...

This is one view of the city. You can see this sight for almost 270 degrees around the top of the mountain. Quite amazing to see just how large the city of Tucson is.

** This is where I turn over the commentary to Michael **

The next day, my dad and I headed out to play a round of golf while Andrea stayed at the resort by the pool. OK she was doing wash, organizing photos, going through her notes and preparing the blog, but she did spend some time at the pool.

We played The Pines Golf Club at Marana.

This course is part desert and part quarry. The front nine holes were relatively flat with dirt and rocks as your "rough". The back nine was very elaborate with elevated tees and greens and lots of valleys to traverse. It also featured some nasty rough that you just can't hit out of. While I was there, I did get to see some more interesting wildlife.
This is the world famous roadrunner. He's not purple and does not have a neck like a giraffe. He does have a tuft of feathers on top of his head and can run quite fast. They tend to chase and catch grasshoppers and lizards... unless you toss a cheese cracker out of your golf cart.

I also saw this scurrying across one of the tee boxes.....

I believe this is a baby Gila Monster, but I am not sure. It has long front legs and runs quite elevated from the ground, with motions similar to an alligator. The stripes on the back of the torso by the tail are unique. It was a really nice day spent relaxing in the desert. Tomorrow, we head out to San Diego.

Day 27 - Tucson and the parents

2009-04-20T23:00:00.015-04:00

Today, we get to visit my parents for a couple days in their new winter home in Tucson, AZ. But first, we have a few places to visit and things to see. In keeping with my hobby this trip, we stopped at the home of the Arizona Cardinals in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix.

What makes this stadium particularly cool is that is has a retractable roof and slide-out field. This is the first fully retractable natural grass playing surface built in the US. It rolls out from south side of the building where it is exposed to natural light. Having the grass field move out of the building also allows it not to be damaged when other events are taking place at the stadium. This is what it looks like when it is rolled out.

The second stop on our trip today was to Pie Zanos on N. 20th for lunch. Andrea found this place on one of her gluten free websites. This is a "make your own" pizza joint where you step up to the counter and get to custom-make your pie. You have to choose the crust, sauce, cheese, veggie and meat toppings and any additional spice blends. Then you sit down while your pie goes through the oven and is brought out to your table.

Andrea had the gluten free crust with a mix of the tomato and pesto sauces while I had the white garlic crust with tomato sauce, pepperoni and sausage (I know, it's a bit boring, but it was good). Highly recommend this place if you are in the area. Sadly there is only this one location.

Wasn't it just 32 degrees out and snowing 2 days ago??? This is the first time we have seen 100 degree weather on the trip. Welcome to the middle of Arizona!

And then we finally arrived in Tucson. We saw a couple of these on the cars...

And we went in search of this Muffler Man, he did not disappoint. This one is considered a "Paul Bunyan". His face needs a repaint as you can see the black lines down his face and the eyes have faded.

He is holding this really cool ax.

But what is the small fence around his feet for? Is that so he wont walk away? Or perhaps it keeps cars from backing into him, but how can you miss a 20-foot lumberjack in your rear view mirror?

One more roadside oddity before we head to the RV park, this large stone wine bottle in front of the Boondocks Lounge.

Then we arrived at the Rincon Country West RV Resort, new winter home of my parents. They just purchased the permanent unit on the left (with the green Honda).

Across the street from them is their RV which will be our home for the next 3 nights. The blue and white dolphin, second from the left.

Once there we were introduced to Happy Hour, it has to be 5 o'clock somewhere right?!

We had a nice candlelit dinner out on their patio as the sun went down.

Dad just couldn't keep still for the photo. Here is the short route that we traveled today.

We will be on break for a few day, relaxing, catching up, meeting my parent's new friends, doing wash and decompressing. We needed a little break to just chill. Don't worry, we will be getting back "On The Road" soon.

Day 26 - Sedona and Phoenix

2009-04-19T11:00:00.010-04:00

The highlight of today wasnt the views or the canyons, it turned out to be the food and the good friends. We started out in Flagstaff and had some breakfast at the Campus Coffee Bean. It was next door to where we had dinner last night, Flame Broiler. We took a peek in last night thinking that we would just come here in the morning for some coffee but were happy to see they did breakfast too. From the outside it looks like just another mall shop.

But inside, it is a cool college town coffee meca.After we filled up on nourishment we headed south on 17 again then 89 S towards Sedona. Sedona is a beautiful area surrounded by red rocks that suddenly appear around a turn and look nothing like the brush covered mountains around them. The town of Sedona has a bustling main street, but it is mostly shops, restaurants and tours, so we took a couple pictures and moved on.

Once in Phoenix we stopped at a local sports bar for some lunch with the hopes of catching some of the Flyers hockey game. The only games playing on the 12 flat screen tv's were the Diamondbacks/Giants baseball game and the Lakers/Jazz. We had no idea there were that many transplants from California here. Michael's old classmate from High School, Roy met us for lunch along with his wife and their new 7-month old son.

After lunch we found a hotel and then headed to the northern part of Phoenix to meet up with an old friend of mine from college and the Redwood City Red Morton days. Sadly I did not take ANY pictures of Judy, her husband Brian, their three kids or their three dogs, but I did happen to take this one of the outside of their house when we first arrived.

What a wonderful night of catching up. Hopefully we will get together again very soon. This was a very short trip again today. Tomorrow we head south to Tucson to visit with Michael's parents. We will be spending a couple days there, which is why the blog has been a little quite. We get on the road again on Thursday towards California, which will be our last state for this leg of the trip.

Day 25 - Beauty on a Grand Scale

2009-04-18T23:00:00.009-04:00

We both have been looking forward to today since the first talks of making this trip. We left our hotel in the Navajo Nation (in Tuba City, AZ) and made the 2 hour drive up Route 89 and US 64 to the eastern entrance of Grand Canyon National Park.

The one disappointment for me (Michael) was the Grand Canyon Skywalk I had read about and was looking forward to seeing. This is not in the main Grand Canyon, and once I talked to a ranger about it, it made perfect sense that the National Park would not build such a thing. It is in the western canyon that is privately owned by the Hualapai Indian tribe. Come to find out, it is quite expensive, is not over the main canyon, is only 800 vertical feet above ground and no photography is allowed. In other words, don't bother.

This was still a big day, a long day and a gorgeous day. We could not have asked for better weather. We hiked, climbed some rocks, walked some paths and got a mild case of sunburn (it's hard to think about SPF when you had a wind chill of 15 and snow falling the two previous days). No muffler men, no funny road side oddities or incredible foods, just lots and lots of pictures and taking in the amazing views.

There are two people sitting on the white rock to the left in the picture below. There is a white and a black dot on the very edge of the flat surface at the edge of the rock. We hiked down and met the guys as they were coming back and turns out they are from New Jersey... and just crazy enough to climb out to this point.

Michael braved walking out to another point on the rocks but could not bring himself to go out to the very edge as it looked like these rocks were barely hanging on.

Once again, the pictures can never take the place of seeing this in person. For those of you who have been here, you know what I mean.

We met a very nice young couple at another lookout point that took this picture for us. They were on their way to North Carolina from California. Seems that we were crisscrossing the United States going in opposite directions.

You can see part of the Colorado River in this one. It looks like there is very little water down there, but we did see some rapids at a couple points.

This is our one encounter with wildlife today, well, other than the HUGE black ravens flying around.

We started seeing these piles of branches and brush along the road in the park, then we came upon a sign that said something like "planned fires ahead, please do not report". The park cleans up the floor of the forest in some parts and does controlled fires in order to protect the forest from larger destructive fires. The trees also need the fire in order to drop their seeds for future growth. I could imagine it would be very alarming to see smoke so close to the roads and the rangers must get flooded with reports.

Once we were done in the park, we headed south into Flagstaff. We both wished we had planned an extra day to travel down to the canyon floor. That will have to be for another time.

A very short route today, but very meaningful miles on the car.

Day 24 - Mesa Verde and Four Corners

2009-04-17T23:00:00.011-04:00

After spending the day in the Petrified Forest yesterday we made it up to Cortez, Colorado for the night so that we could be close to Mesa Verde National Park. I have wanted to visit this park since seeing pictures of it a very long time ago.

First, we had to drive 15 miles from the park entrance to get to the Visitor Center. The 15 miles included a lot of windy road and SNOW! We were not prepared for the snow storm we drove through and we were getting really worried that we might not be able to hike into the park. The rangers calmed our fears and explained that we were at a much higher altitude at the entrance than we would be once we got down to the Cliff Palace loop. So we purchased our tour tickets and headed down the road. We found some real wild life along the way.

This was the largest wild turkey we have seen on this trip. He was walking down the road behind two females and became very agitated as we slowed next to him. This picture was taken just as he was fluffing up his feathers. Then we moved along and met our ranger guide at the beginning of the hike.

We visited the Cliff Palace which is only one of the many cliff dwellings in the park. It is the one most shown in photographs. It is estimated that they were built sometime around 1200 AD. To get there we did a lot of climbing and went up ladders that looked like this...

During the hike down you come around a corner and suddenly see this....

It is amazing how this all was built into the side of a mountain. The Cliff Palace had 129 rooms and eight kivas and they think 60 to 90 people lived here. Check out the beautiful and perfect brick work. They chiseled square bricks out of sandstone and the mortar was a mix of sand, mud and water.

Some of the holes in the rooms are windows, but others are doors, even the really small ones.

What you cannot really see in these pictures is just how high off the ground we are. This may help a little

These pueblos were built into this cavern several thousand feet from the bottom of the canyon. How did they get up here?

After we left Mesa Verde we headed south west and stopped at 4-Corners where the state lines of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet. You just feel compelled to do something silly at the marker site like try to have all hands and feet in the different states like the woman below.

We also found the girlfriend of the bull that guards the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Texas on our drive today. (See our post from Amarillo) She is standing in front of an old bar and grill that looked closed down.

Here is our route from today. We started in Cortez, CO, drove through the Mesa Verde National Park, headed south on 160 and ended in Tuba City, AZ

Route Map part 3

2009-04-16T23:50:00.000-04:00

22 days, 13 states and 5,370 miles.

This is the third leg of our trip. Some observations...

Even though the economy is down, many people are still travelling within the United States. We see an average of 30 to 40 motorhomes on the roads every day.

All of the cheap motels have free wireless internet and a continental breakfast.

The United States has A LOT of cool things to see!

Day 23: The Petrified Forest

2009-04-16T23:42:00.011-04:00

Big destination of the day: Petrified Forest in Arizona. But first we came out of our hotel room to find this....

Apparently it got cold enough last night to snow. It wasnt enough to cause any problems as none of it stayed on the roads, but we were a little shocked when the car said it was 32 degrees out.

So we hopped on to I-40 West (seems to be the highway of choice since Texas) and headed to a "New State!"...

It is a strange experience to drive through the desert of Arizona and see snow on the sides of the roads and mountains. Anyway, we finally reached our destination.

What neither of us knew was that this was also the home of the "Painted Desert". It is named so because of the vast array of colors that are visible in the rocks, mountains and in the ground cover and botanical life. When you factor in the sun, clouds, haze and season, you really do get some amazing colors.

Unfortunately, the sun was in the clouds more than it was out, so some of the vibrant colors just weren't "in season". Still, the views were amazing. As it has been a few times on this trip, the pictures do not do it justice. This is something that really needs to be seen to be appreciated.

Now on to the really good stuff. The objects in the picture below are not rocks, they are part of a tree that has become petrified. This used to be one long tree but now there isnt much left of it because of the years of looting that happened before this became a protected national park.

These trees were all dead and laying down before they became petrified. It is believed that they were washed from where they grew during floods and accumulated in sandy river channels. Then the beds of trees were covered by volcanic ash which preserved them and provided the silica which "helped to permineralize the buried logs, replacing wood with silica, colored with oxides of iron and manganese." So basically, the structure of the trees have remained the same, but minerals have exchanged places with the wood. They are cool to the touch like touching marble, very strange indeed.

There are several prominent colors in the petrified trees; each one caused by a different mineral. the red and pink are produced by the presence of hermatite (form of oxidized iron). Yellow, brown and orange are goethite, green is pure reduced iron, white is pure silica, black is either organic carbon or pyrite and purple and blue are manganese dioxide.
It is interesting how the colors of each tree can vary so much. Some have a beautiful mix of colors like above, and other were almost completely white or gray.
There is a good explanation of the process of petrification on wikipedia. There was a sign posted that the conditions after Mount St. Helens erupted were perfect for the creation of a petrified forest if it all had not been cleaned up.

We probably took about 250 pictures between the two of us in this park. The largest of the fields is Crystal Forest. You can walk the 3/4 mile path through this field of petrified trees and get up close to them. At every peak in the path, you see a new field arise, making the area look like you are on Mars.
This was one of the places on Michael's list of must-do's and I am very thankful for that. The Petrified Forest is definitely in both of our top 5's from the trip.
Here is the route that we completed today.

Not one of our longer travel days, but certainly one of the best days of the trip so far. Tomorrow, we head up to Mesa Verde National Park and continue.... On The Road.

Day 22: Slight Change in Plans

2009-04-15T22:45:00.015-04:00

We originally planned to keep driving south in New Mexico towards El Paso and then head over to Tuscon, AZ. But something just wasn't feeling right about the next leg of the trip. We sat in the hotel room last night with the map and looked at all of our options. I really want to see the cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, CO and we missed seeing the continental divide yesterday, so we changed up the plan. We are heading Northwest today and then will pass over into Arizona from the north to see the Grand Canyon and then drive south to Phoenix and Tuscon a day or two later than planned.

The first stop today was breakfast in Albuquerque at the Frontier Restaurant. This place was recommended to us by the owner of the Life is Good store in San Antonio. He is from here and was excited to hear that we were travelling through his home town. He insisted on giving us a list of places to see and eat. Thanks Jake! So here's our breakfast.

We both got the #1 and you can choose to have either toast or fresh flour tortillas with your meal. (I passed on the tortillas, but somehow they ended up on our tray anyway). They also have huge cinnamon buns and fresh squeezed orange juice. The gem of this place is the "fresh squeezed OJ". They have a machine that feeds oranges down a chute into a juicer. Nothing beats real, fresh orange juice that is just squeezed. We liked the juice so much we went back up and got a large to go. The tortillas were soft and warm and the cinnamon bun was coated in butter and was delicious! (yes, that's Michael talking). How do you top a breakfast that is "out of this world"?

How about Satellite Coffee a block away from the Frontier Restaurant. They had a very interesting latte that I had to try, the Mexican Latte; made with shaved Swiss chocolate (not very "mexican") and cinnamon, mmmmmm! Michael stuck with the familar White Chocolate Mocha.

All of this is across the street from the University of New Mexico and must get a lot of college student business.

From there, Michael decided that he HAD to get the car washed. The mud from Texas was still in the wheel wells and had to go.

After a quick shopping trip (hotel dryers are temperamental and not kind to clothing), we got back on the trail. Once on the road, the scenery changed dramatically. No more flat land, and everything had a red tint.

This sign was a little alarming. It is due to the strong winds that bring up huge dust clouds. We luckily did not have any problems.

Our second destination was the "Land of Fire and Ice" outside of Grants, NM.

There is an ice cave and a dormant volcano on the property and on the hike to both of them we passed along the Continental Divide. We took the trail to the volcano first and saw a lot of crazy trees like this...

And this one. You may notice that the bark on the tree below moves in a twisted circular pattern. Trees growing in lava find it hard to establish deep roots. The result is they grow to be twisted and gnarled. We saw many more that were twisted more than this but did not photograph well.

The entire trail is made of old lava that has dried up and become rock. Sometimes we saw large mounds of lava like this with holes and crevices all over it. The handout we had said that these could be a good home for rattle snakes! From some of the lookout points along the trail our guide pamphlet said there were 15 other volcanoes that could be seen in the distance.

We could see the path of the flow along side the trail as we slowly climbed the side of the volcano. Here is the view from the top, as far as the trail will allow. The inside of the cone looks really smooth and is the color of dark chocolate. Notice the couple of white patches of snow. The Bandera Crater is the largest volcano in the region. It erupted around 10,000 years ago. The crater is 1,400 feet wide at the top and 800 feet deep. At this lookout point we were at an elevation of 8,036 feet.

Then we hiked the trail to the Ice Cave.

You eventually come to a staircase at the top of a vast hole in the ground.

Then you have to climb down the stairs. As you walk down you can feel the air getting colder.

The ice cave is located in part of a collapsed lave tube. The combination of cold air settling and the insulation of the porous lava keeps the ice frozen year round. The ice cave never gets above 31 degrees. The green tint to the ice is actually an Arctic algae.

You can see the wall of ice to the right behind the fallen rocks. This wall was once nearly 12 feet tall. This was from the Native Americans mining the ice from the floor. When the mining stopped in 1946, it gave nature a chance to fill in what was taken. Now, that wall is only about 3-4 feet tall and the ice floor is about 20 feet thick. They estimate the deepest and oldest ice is about 3,400 years old.

We hopped back in the car and carried on. We found this official sign for a spot along the Continental Divide.

The next big town was Gallop, NM so we drove through it to find some dinner and a hotel for the night. The main street happens to be Route 66 again and we saw more old motel signs.

As we were driving around Gallop, we spotted this guy on a side street.

He is standing on the roof of a used auto lot and is called a "Dude Man". Check out his cool gun holster. This makes our fourth Muffler Man sighting of the trip.

Here is the route from today. Tomorrow, the Petrified Forest.

Day 21: Welcome to New Mexico

2009-04-14T23:20:00.009-04:00

This is Michael's favorite sign of the entire trip.... 75 miles an hour (which really means 80). Going to be hard to go back down to 65!

We started our morning in Amarillo TX. We heard the restaurant at the Cattle Auction was good eats so we headed in that direction. Now this might not be your idea of the place to eat breakfast, but the people they are feeding are local, no-fuss cowboys and I expected that the food has to be good enough for them. The parking lot was full of these kinds of trailers. Either this guy was expecting to buy today, or he had some to sell.

We walked in and felt very out of place. Everyone in there was over 50, had cowboy hats and boots, and a couple had spurs, though I doubt they still rode. Michael ordered the chicken fried steak and I got a couple of eggs. We were not disappointed. They only hold sales on Tuesdays so we lucked out in that we were there on the right day. So I got really curious to see how a cattle auction worked. We walked up to the stands and had a seat.

We knew that we looked like we didn't belong but we just hoped that no one would kick us out for not being serious cattle owners. Each heifer or bull was brought in one by one and the auctioneer (second from the left in the white hat) rattled off prices until "sold". He even knew the names of all the people bidding. It was nice to see that things still run like they always have in some parts of the world. No big corporate businesses, just small ranch owners looking to add to their stock.

Once back in the car we continued to head west. There is a small stretch of the old Route 66 in Texas off I-40. We decided to pull off and drive it.

I think a total of 2 people lived there and it all looked like this.... not very interesting.

Then we crossed into New Mexico. New State!

Once in New Mexico we got off the main highway again and onto old Route 66 where the towns still have some life in them and have left the old signs up.

This would be really cool to see at night when the signs are lit up.

We arrived in Santa Fe pretty late in the day, too late for lunch and too early for dinner. We found a small coffee shop and went in. The owner was native american and was explaining the 2012 Mayan prophecy for the end of the world to a couple that was sitting inside that just happened to be from Fremont, CA! Santa Fe is a really cute town where everything looks like this in the main square....

We did not spend much time in Santa Fe as most of the shops were closing up. We headed south to Albuquerque and found a place for the night. Here is our route. Tomorrow...ice caves and volcanoes....

Day 20: Cadillac Ranch

2009-04-13T23:30:00.000-04:00

This might be my favorite composed photo op of the trip so far. Cadillac Ranch is on what used to be Route 66 west of Amarillo, TX. You can easily see it from the highway, but you have to get closer to really appreciate it.

There is plenty of parking on the frontage road, and you walk through an open gate to get into the field. The three men in my picture below were from the Czech Republic, flew to Florida, rented motorcycles and were riding across the states to California.

The cars were originally covered in spray paint, but it seems that people have taken it upon themselves to leave their artwork as well. The cars did not look at all like what I had seen in pictures, because of all the repainting.

Cadillac Ranch was "built in 1974, brainchild of Stanley Marsh 3, the helium millionaire who owns the dusty wheat field where it stands. Marsh and The Ant Farm, a San Francisco art collective, assembled used Cadillacs representing the "Golden Age" of American Automobiles (1949 through 1963). The ten graffiti-covered cars are half-buried, nose-down, facing west "at the same angle as the Cheops' pyramids."

Michael left a little artwork for us as well.

Wikipedia has an interesting picture of it from space.

Day 20: Earth, Wind and Beef

2009-04-13T23:05:00.014-04:00

We had a very interesting drive from Abilene to Amarillo today. We were driving along highway and saw these windmills off in the distance. The first set was on top of a hill and we got off the highway and headed towards them, but could not get a good picture. I got on my phone to try and find out what they were and discovered that Texas is the leading wind state in the US.

Then as we kept driving we saw an even larger farm of these windmills which we think was the Sweetwater Wind Farm which sends all of its power to San Antonio.

When we pulled into the next town to get something to eat, we found this yard containing all the wind mill parts.
We also saw a lot of these today. Sometimes there would just be one in a field, and other times there were more like with this one. The town of Lubbock had very little to choose from for lunch but we did find the Burrito King. Way more exciting than Burger King.

They serve very healthy portions and everything was really good. I recommend a stop here if you are ever passing through Lubbock, TX
And then we headed towards a little place called Earth, population 1,109. I saw it on the map and in order to get there it would take us off the main interstate. We both enjoy getting off the main road for awhile since it gives you a better view of the land and how people live.

It is a very small town and we saw maybe 3 cars on the road when we were there, but with a name like that, we just had to stop in. We did find a post office and decided to mail some postcards.
We had two unexpected stops today for giant cowboys. We were driving along highway 27 N in Canyon, TX and saw this guy...His name is Tex Randall and is touted as being the "biggest texan". He is in really bad shape with flaking paint, holes in his boots and his fingers are falling apart. Apparently Tex served his purpose and was forgotten a long time ago. He even had a cigarette in his hand which was shot out according to roadsideamerica.com.

When we drove into Amarillo and were looking for a hotel off I-40, we caught sight of this guy on the side of the highway. He is a muffler man, but his hand position isn't the same. He is considered a "mutant" as body parts have been changed from the original casting. I think his right hand is supposed to be tipping his hat.
Check out his detailed boots and real spurs.

One of the reasons we have been looking forward to Amarillo is this place, The Big Texan Steak Ranch, home of the Free 72oz Steak Challenge. It is another Man vs. Food item, but we would have ended up here anyway with the shameless plugging everywhere including the free limo service offered from our hotel.

The rules for the steak challenge: If you can eat the 72oz steak, a roll, 3 fried shrimp, baked potato, and a salad, all within ONE HOUR it is free. You can even watch the challenges on a live webcam. Click here and then on the button that says "72oz steak live webcam". We had a couple friends watching it while we were there, including one from Italy.

After we sat down to our table and ordered, we discovered that someone was taking on the challenge that night! Our waitress said that there is usually about one person every night that does it, and 1 in 7 finishes it. So here's the challenger for the evening:

Michael is from Vineland, NJ (small world?) and on his way to California, but planned this stop for the night in Amarillo just to take the challenge! You can see the crowd gathered around him as he began with 60 minutes on the clock. Then I caught a picture of him at the 30 minute mark... he didn't look as excited as before.

Unfortunately Michael didnt finish the challenge and had to pay the $72 bill. He DID finish the entire steak though, but did not make it through the roll and salad.

Tomorrow, the cattle auction. And here is the route from today.

Day 19: North to Dallas

2009-04-12T22:03:00.012-04:00

We left Austin this morning and travelled north on I-35 into Dallas. The one thing we both wanted to see here is Dealey Plaza, the location of John F Kennedy's assassination. Many people told us we should go see this. The picture below shows the X on the street where the first shot hit Kennedy while in his car. The brick building behind is where Lee Harvey Oswald was supposedly standing, on the 6th floor all the way to the right. The picture below is the view going the direction the cars were at the time. I happened to catch a picture at the moment when no one was in the way.

The street was full of people wandering around and running into the street to stand on the X and get their picture taken and then run back to the sidewalk when the cars started coming. It was kind of a strange sight.

As we walked around the street and perused the museum gift shop all I could think was "that poor woman". What his wife had to go through that day I just cant imagine. How she got through it all, I dont know.

**And here ends Andrea's commentary for this post, and begins Michael's**

After checking out a huge piece of American history, we went in search of the new Cowboys stadium. Driving up to it from a distance it reminded me of a giant computer mouse. But as you get closer it is a architectural marvel.

This new stadium is suppose to be ready for the start of this season, but there is a lot of work to be done. They better be ready by Feb 2011, because they will be hosting the Super Bowl that year.

This is a far cry from the old place, which looks like it is already being taken apart.

Right across the street (not in a Philly sense, but in a Texas sense) is the Texas Rangers ball park.

I'm not big on baseball, so I don't know the official name. What I'm bummed about is that the Orioles came to town for a three game stand the day after we left for Amarillo. It would have been cool to see the O's while we were on the road, but it was not to be.

The complex here is going to be pretty sweet. They are putting in rivers and waterfalls, bridges and picnic areas, parks and more... all right next to Six Flags over Texas.

So, after hiking through the mud of the construction site to get our precious photos...

(OK, my precious photos) of the new stadium, we started our journey towards Amarillo. We got out of the DFW area and settled in for the night in Abilene. Here is our route for today.

Got Bats? Day 17 Part 2

2009-04-11T23:15:00.001-04:00

One of the highlights of our trip through Texas has been watching the bats emerge at dusk from the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin. It is really hard to describe this event without being there. We stood on the river bank beside the bridge and got a really good view as they emerged from the bridge. The people that stood on the bridge could see them coming out from under them. The bats move so quickly that it is really hard to get a good look at them.

See the darker straight lines under the bridge? Those are the crevices the bats sleep in during the day.
"When reconstruction of the 947-foot Congress Avenue bridge was completed in 1980, the Mexican free-tailed bat found the underside vertical crevices to be the perfect roosting site. There are 15 of these crevices across Congress Avenue and 14,000 linear feet of potential bat habitat. On an average night, scientists believe the bats travel an average of 20 miles radius from their roost, often flying in the same direction. They tend to fly east in search of farmland, where insects are most plentiful."

People show up in kayaks on the river for the event as well as take boat cruises that hang out under the bridge while the bats come out. We took some video that we will try to post as well.

On Saturday morning we had another Man vs Food moment. We went in search of Round Rock Donuts, in the town of... you guessed it, Round Rock.

I heard this place gets mobbed on Saturday mornings. We arrived around lunch time and there was line inside as well as a line in the drive through. They have a donut called the "Texas Donut" which is the size of a pie plate and equals the dough in 12 donuts. We stayed away from that one.

We were very slow deciding our order and the lady helping us asked if this was our first time. When we said yes, she said wait a minute and she went back into the kitchen.... she came back out with 2 fresh from the fryer, warm, glazed "round rocks" for us. Michael said it was amazing. So we bought a couple of those and one of this guy... I forget the name of it but it was chocolate glazed and filled with custard.

And then we ended the day (and our last night in Austin) appropriately... with a game of washers.

Next stop, Dallas/Fort Worth... but first, we need a good night's sleep.

Day 17 and 18: More about Austin

2009-04-10T22:00:00.006-04:00

After picking up our car from the dealership in Austin we headed into downtown to check out the Whole Foods. This store happens to be connected to their headquarters and is unlike any Whole Foods I have been in before.

There are restaurants spread around inside the store in the food sections they represent. Like a seafood counter in the seafood section, a raw bar in the produce section etc. Walking through the store is quite overwhelming. We came to check it out because my friend Isabel just got a job here in the Corporate Headquarters (which is the building peeking out from behind the store above). It wasn't time to meet up with her yet, so we headed downtown to the Capital.

We were there on Good Friday so the building was void of any government officials, just us tourists and tour guides. We jumped into a tour and got to see rooms like this, The House of Representatives.

We found out that Texas did not want to fall under the rule of ANY country. They wanted independence from Spain and Mexico, but also the USA. This is one of the reasons for their political system of Senators and Representatives within the state. Apparently, they also have the ability to secede from the union at any time. And here is the view of the inside of the huge dome. It is quite beautiful. And of course it has a star in the middle and the letters spelling t-e-x-a-s.

Then we headed back to Whole Foods and had lunch with our friend, and got to see her new apartment. She also showed us around her new neighborhood and turned us onto this place...

It is a large empty lot on S Congress Street with a couple trailers on it that are food vendors. The one on the left is a popcorn company, and the one on the right with all the people in front is hey cupcake. We decided we had to swing back there later and I convinced Michael to buy one. He ended up with four.
Then after we picked up the dessert, we swung around the block to South 1st Street to the Trailer Park Eatery. Home of Torchy's Tacos.

This is another empty lot with 3 trailers that are food vendors with a very nice seating area outside.
We opted for 3 tacos from Torchy's: I had the Migas Special (up front) made with scrambled egg, poblano peppers, chopped tomatoes and onions, and crispy tortilla strips. This one is in the running for the best taco I have ever had with that one at The Cove. I may have to go back to both places just to make up my mind

Then we also ordered a Ranch Hand with scrambled egg, steak, cheese and tomatoes and the Jalapeno Sausage Taco. They all were delicious. Torchy's uses all local meat from reputable Texas-based businesses. Then after dinner we headed down to the Congress Street Bridge to participate in a nightly Austin ritual that you have to see to believe... but that will have to be done in Part 2.

Day 16 - BBQ, R 'n' R and MGD (sort of)

2009-04-09T23:00:00.000-04:00

**NOTE: Vegetarians be warned.... Intense scenes of sausage making, meat grinding and barbecued ribs, reader discretion is advised.**

I have to go back a few days to bring you up to speed on our journey.

While we are in the Smoky Mountains, I'm getting a strange burning smell and a rattling coming from the car. The smell went away after we got out of the mountains, so I brushed it off. But the rattling wouldn't stop. I called the Lexus dealer in Austin to see if they could take me in to look at it. So much for getting work done and inspecting the car before the trip.

The dealership in Austin is huge. Remember, this is truck country. The idea that a Lexus dealer would need to be this big in this neck of the woods is astounding. The customer waiting area is in three sections; an "office" with three PCs with internet leather chairs,a lounge with TV, beverage cooler and all kinds of food and a third "quiet" room with a dozen or so plush chairs.

Apparently, something went wrong with the brand new back brakes causing the rattling (since I didn't hear it applying the brakes) and the grooving and smell. It also needed a ball joint replaced (which should have been noticed by Point when they did the under carriage inspection).

Fortunately, the dealership here in Austin had all the parts in stock and plenty of people to take care of it and get us back on the road safely.

Unfortunately, it screwed up our schedule of visits and events over the past couple days. We have things to do, don't the car gods understand this??

Our first visit is with Tim and Kirsten. Tim is a friend of Andrea's from her California days. He moved here with his company back before Andrea moved out to the east coast. On tap the first night (no pun intended) was drinking! We just met, got to know each other, drank some beer and talked music and food among other things. By 1:30AM, we thought it might be a good idea to call it a night. After all, I had to get the car to the dealership Thursday to get looked at.

We woke up Thursday at about 9:30AM and had to get our act together. I took the car in while Andrea did some laundry and blog from the previous couple of days. I got a loaner for the day after the diagnosis and we headed back to Tim's for "sausage day". Being the hunter that Tim is and given the fact that he has a large chunk of property with lots of game and wildlife, Tim doesn't buy much meat. He had some venison that was in need of packaging, so we made venison sausage. OK, so he did buy a pork shoulder and some bacon slabs to add to the venison, but still... He also had some ribs that he BBQ'ed up while we were stuffing sausage.

You need the right tools for this job, and he's got a nice BBQ/smoker. It's "seasoned", but it works like a champ.
So back to the sausage making. First things first, you need to pick a recipe. We liked the sound of the tequila in this one and then we doctored the recipe up a bit. by adding ground bacon, pork and crushed red pepper flakes.

Then you bring together the sausage-making dream team.

When all the meat has been cased we vacuum-packed and tossed them in the freezer.One set of links went in the smoker and then the real fun began. Here in Texas, that's drinking beer, listening to music, enjoying some fine fresh BBQ ribs and sausage and playing washers
I've seen this around in various forms. My friend Brian has a portable set so you can take it with you. These are more like horseshoes in that you need to commit space in your yard to them. Regardless, we had lots of fun. We also got to play with this guy....

That's 10-month old Travis above, and this is big brother Garret...

And here are the finished ribs. Perfectly smoked and good enough to turn in to the judges table.

And the smoked Venison-Pork-Tequila Sausages.

Because of the long night before, we called it an early night at about 12:20AM. After all, tomorrow we were going into the city to return the loaner and pick up the car AND to meet up with couple number two; our co-transplanters from Washington DC, Brian and Isabel.

Day 15: Made it to Austin

2009-04-08T14:19:00.001-04:00

The Texans sure do love their stars. Spent a little more time in San Antonio this morning, had some breakfast at the Whole Foods and visited The Alamo. I was hoping to hear one of the docents give their oral recount of the history and final days of the battle at the Alamo, but we must have hit a break time or lull. We waited in the square but no docent showed up.

The Alamo is known as the site of a "heroic struggle against impossible odds — a place where men made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom." Time moves on as does progress and the Alamo is in the middle of a big city and surrounded by large buildings and restaurants and tourist traps. It is hard to imagine what the area looked like back a the time when it was a working fort, but I still felt what a special place this is by being there.

Then we got hungry so we headed to The Cove. I saw this place on Diners, Drive-ins' and Dives right before we left the house in New Jersey. I am so glad I caught that episode. This was the best fish taco I have ever had. It was filled with freshly grilled mahi mahi and topped with some cabbage and a spicy white mayo (not your average tartar sauce). Michael had the Bison Chipotle Burger. It came with sweet potato fries and a side of their chipotle mayo. YUM.

Completely satiated, we headed north to Austin. Not much else to report about today. We are staying in Austin for 4 days so that we can visit Tim and Kirsten and Brian and Isabel. It will be nice to stay in one place more than one night. Not much movement on the map today.

Route Map

2009-04-08T09:42:00.004-04:00

14 days, 12 states, 3,788 miles.

6 Days Inns, 1 Quality Inn, 1 Sleep Inn, 1 Wingate Hotel, 2 EconoLodges, 1 Best Western, 1 Holiday Inn and 1 Ramada.

Officially two weeks into our trip and the map above shows the route from the second leg. We completely missed Alabama, but were able to get in about 5 miles of Arkansas. Now that we are in Texas we plan to stay awhile. This will be the longest amount of time we are spending in one state so far since a. its the biggest state and b. we have 4 friends to visit in the Austin area. We area heading to Austin later today after the Alamo and then we will be in one place for 3 days!

And here is the map again of the first leg of our trip.And here is what we did yesterday from Houston, TX to San Antonio, TX. Pretty straight forward.

Day 14 - Houston and San Antonio

2009-04-07T23:20:00.012-04:00

Today was sightseeing day in Houston. Actually, we had some specific "things" that we wanted to see; but first, we went to the Whole Foods in Houston for breakfast. With all the greasy, truck stop type breakfasts we've had over the past week, we needed something a bit more healthy. When we finished and pulled out of the parking lot, we came across WTF moment number three on our journey....

I don't know, I don't wanna know, but I had to have a picture.

After composing ourselves, we carried on to the first of our photo ops of the day. This is the largest example of one of the native animal to these parts, the armadillo. We saw him roadside in Houston...

He is the mascot/guardian/watchdog/tourist attraction for Goode's Armadillo Palace in Houston.

The body is plated in mirrors and his eyes are bright red LEDs. The nostrils are hollow and I'm guessing they steam or smoke when it's open for business (no proof, but I'm blogging, so it makes it all OK).

From here, we moved on down the road to this gem....

This is a saxophone made entirely out of old Volkswagen Beetle parts (or whole cars, as seen below). It used to be painted blue, but Andrea could not find any more information about who built it.
The sax is part of what looks like an abandoned or closed down bar or night club. Vandals have had their way with the property, but the VW Sax still stands.

From here we started south towards the NASA space center and museum. But, before we got to the highway to take us there....

One of the all-time classic stadiums that is looking quite primitive nowadays. The Houston Astrodome played host to MLBs Houston Astros and the Houston Oilers of the NFL (now known as the Tennessee Titans, see Nashville in this blog). It has been replaced by it's new and beautiful neighbor....

Fully retractable dome roof and host to Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004, Reliant Stadium is home to Houston's new NFL team, the Houston Texans (not original, but this is a very proud state).

A few pictures and we were back on the road to NASA. Something that is quite impressive here is the incredible highway system that has been built.

I've seen pictures of Los Angeles, but I did not expect these towering on and off ramps. The picture below is simply what we know as a cloverleaf intersection.

This is the "intersection" of Interstate 610 and US Highway 59 in Houston. What makes this even more insane is that these folks drive FAST!! The off ramps have 55MPH speed limits and a lot of them go onto a side road that runs parallel to the highway that also has cars speeding up to get ON the highway right where cars are coming off! I've had my head on a swivel since we arrived in Texas. I'm loving the 70 MPH speed limits everywhere, but the cops will sit in the shoulder of the road, and run radar by hand out their door and they don't mess around. I saw half a dozen folks pulled over in both directions and two cops running the guns from their cars; all within a few miles of one another. I don't need that trouble.

So after maneuvering through that mess, we got to the NASA museum and we were greeted by some escorts at the gate.

...just like a shuttle landing. You get a few planes to take you into the runway.

When we got to the center, we were not impressed. It looked more like an amusement park that a museum. And with a price tag of $24.95 per person, we decided that it was not worth the price of admission. Besides, I don't think anything can top "When We Left Earth". If you haven't seen this and have any interest in NASA and the space race, watch this mini-series.

On our way out of the NASA Museum area, we spotted this McDonald's....

Instead of Playland, they had NASA PlaySpace. No, we didn't go in to see what PlaySpace was all about, but the astronaut was kinda cool.

So we back tracked to the city to hop onto I-10 West for the third time this leg of the journey. As we came back to Houston to connect with the interstate, we got a really nice picture of the city skyline.

Once we connected with I-10, we were on cruise control (as indicated by Andrea's hat).

We got to San Antonio around 2:30 and we were not very hungry, even though we had not had lunch. We did make a stop at a Gluten Free bakery that Andrea had read about on one of her blog connections. It's a Texas bakery with an Australian flavor...

The Little Aussie Bakery and Cafe specializes in Gluten Free baked goods, including breads, cookies, cakes, pies and pastries. It's a cute little place in a converted home right by a museum in San Antonio. Since we had not had lunch, we sat down for a bite to eat. Andrea had a hot roast beef sandwich that was actually more like a brisket than deli style roast beef.

I opted for the "lasagna". This was more along the lines of a elbow macaroni bake with peppers, pesto and sauce.

Both were quite good. Andrea was so impressed with the bread that she got a fresh baked loaf to go. Now, we can make sandwiches to pack for our long driving days (and, given the size of the states out west, they could become more common).

We then searched out our hotel for the night, settled into our room and headed out for the River Walk in downtown San Antonio.

The River Walk is lined with chain stores and restaurants (Starbucks and Hard Rock Cafe to name a few), along with some local restaurants and some very fancy hotels that are right on the river. Dining can be riverside, along the walk or indoors (but why would you do that). It also has it's own local wildlife...

These baby ducklings sure knew how to draw a crowd. They ate well, too. Everyone was tossing in bread crumbs and any food they had in their hands.

By nightfall, the river is a beautiful sight with very low, accent lighting....

We stopped into a local Life Is Good shop and talked to the owner, Jake Gray. As we began talking about our road trip and our planned route, he gave us some local info about Austin and San Antonio, as well as some points of interest from his old home town of Albuquerque, NM. He wished he could tag along, but wanted to make sure we had some good places to eat, visit and stay. He pointed us in a few directions that should make for a nice trip through New Mexico.

But that's for next week. For now, it's off to bed for some well needed rest. Tomorrow, we visit the Alamo and make our way up to Austin, TX. Keep following us as we continue..... On The Road.

Day 13 - Waffles,Tobasco and Alligators

2009-04-06T21:20:00.012-04:00

Yesterday, we were in shorts all day. This morning we woke up to 42 degrees and a howling wind. I was wondering why the a/c unit in the room didn't wake me up at all... now I know.

We ate breakfast for the first time at a Waffle House.

They are ALL OVER the south. It's been a running joke as we have been on the road. "Ya think there's a Waffle House at the next exit?" They are so tiny, we thought they only did take out. Well, the roadfood.com folks mentioned them during their Q&A session yesterday, so we figured we'd give it a try. It's breakfast, how can you lose. How about a chili and cheese omlette? I thought about it, but opted for a simple ham & cheese.

While we were in Lafayette, we took a detour and headed to Avery Island, LA to check out the true and original home of hot sauce...

The McIlhenny Company started right here back in the mid 1800s making Tabasco brand pepper sauce. The island is actually home to a salt mine that is estimated to be larger than Mount Everest, all buried under the land within Avery Island. It's a private community that has a $1.00 toll that is collected by a guy with a long stick that has a piece of wood with a clothespin glued to it. You "clip" your toll money, he pulls it back to his booth (he goes through the passenger window, the booth's on the right side of the road), clips your toll paid/ parking pass to it with your change, and you are on your way. By the way, there is a hole bored out to pay with quarters.

There was an interesting sign as we entered the parking area....

Seems like they had an issue with the big hurricanes that came through a few years back. Once we got into the parking lot, the second you step out of your car, you smell Tabasco sauce. It's not overpowering, but the hint of it is everywhere around the building.

We went in, sat through a 10 minute movie (that really needs to be updated), then walked by the actual bottling and packaging portion of the plant.

Every drop of Tabasco product is made at this facility. They grow peppers in several countries around the world, but all of the peppers that they use are grown from seeds that they harvest right there on Avery Island. The peppers are mashed where they are grown, then packed up and shipped to Louisiana for the final production process.

We then moved on to the other big attraction on the island...

Something that the McIlhenny family also does is help the environment. They maintain 250+ acres of land as a sanctuary to help the snowy egret. They migrate and nest here every year.

They nicknamed it bird alley. We took a lot of photos, but the camera's limitations and the distance we were held to made it a bit rough. I think it's time for us to invest in that DSLR camera we have been looking at.

The other thing that was prominent at the sanctuary (and something that made walking around away from your car a bit nerve wracking).....

The 14 footer wasn't so bad when he's stuffed on a display case. But when they are alive, in their territory, they don't have to be more than a few feet long, and you get the creeps. Andrea was startled (and it gave me pains in my legs from the tension) when she saw this one as we were walking on a path around a pond....

They were everywhere, and each one we saw was bigger than the last one....

This pair was right at the end of a bridge; this was as close as I got to any of them....

A couple from California were sitting in their truck eating lunch right by one of the gators. He said "they're just as scared of you as you are of them". I'll take his word on it, but I didn't want to test his theory. He said, "there's a bigger one right down there", pointing in the direction we were headed. He was not kidding.....

I did not venture as close as the pair at the bridge, but did manage to get a few good pictures.

It was an exciting way to end our time in Louisiana. But, we had to move on. So it was off to I-10 again to take us to the Lone Star State. We marked the occasion properly... with a picture.

After checking out the visitor center, we stopped in a town called Winnie, TX and had dinner at Al-T's Steakhouse. My first, and probably last, chicken fried steak. It was OK, but I want to sink my teeth into a real, grilled, Texas-sized steak. I think that will be coming up in our days in Austin.

After dinner, we got back on the road and fought off the sun's glare to make our way to Houston. We bunked up for the night so we can explore the city tomorrow and make our way deeper into Texas. And here is the route from today...

Day 12: Leaving New Orleans

2009-04-05T21:33:00.014-04:00

I havent posted our travel route for the last 3 days, so here it is. There are also a few things we left out from the last couple posts that I have to add in like the beignets Michael ate while we were in Canton, MS. I originally had this on my radar to try in New Orleans, but when we visited the Cafe on Canton and the owner was making them fresh, I urged Michael to get some.
We did not originally plan a lot of time in Mississippi, but we ended up spending the night in Canton, and then driving through Jackson. We are so glad we did. Jackson is the capital of Mississippi, and the birthplace of Isabel, my culinary classmate (which makes it even more special). Here is the capital building. Quite impressive.

Side shot...

And then we arrived in Louisiana. We knew we were in the land of mardi gras when we first drove into town and saw this....

Trees were dripping with beads. They do not show up that great in these pictures but it is so pretty to look at when you are driving by them. And then we found them dangling from the telephone or electrical wires as well. And we were not even into the French Quarter. I think we saw these along Magazine Street.

And what else can I say about our stay in New Orleans that Michael didnt already mention? It was very cool to be in the city at the same time as the First Annual Louisiana Roadfood Festival by Roadfood.com. I used this website a lot in my preparation for this trip and we have benefited from some of the local hole-in-the-wall places I found there. During the street fair I tried some grilled alligator sausage from a street vendor...

And we enjoyed some local music...
We almost didnt make the cooking class at the New Orleans School of Cooking on St. Louis Street this morning. We ran in right at 10am when it was supposed to start only to get on the wait list for their daily lunch class. Luckily some people didnt show up and we got in. At first I was going alone, but at the last minute Michael decided to join me. We got to sample healthy portions of Gumbo, Jambalaya, Pina Colada Bread Pudding (he got to eat my bowl too) and Pralines. Barbara, the instructor was really fun and taught us a lot about the origins of Creole and Cajun food.

These are the pralines made in the storefront daily. You can purchase just one to snack on or more. The store has lots of interesting local items like spices, hot sauces and cookbooks. I highly recommend a stop in if you are in the area.

And Michael mentioned Pirates right? The town was overrun with pirates...
They all came to town for PirateCon. A gathering of "pirate performers, re-enactors, living historians and casual pirates" from all over the world. You never know what you are going to see in New Orleans.

Day 12 - Taking it easy in The Big Easy

2009-04-05T21:14:00.007-04:00

What a day yesterday, what a night last night and what a day today. New Orleans was everything that we were hoping it would be, and then some. I will admit, I had a bit of a hangover this morning, but it was well worth it. We got up around 8:30AM, three hours later than we have been this whole trip. We decided that we would not stay in the city again tonight, but rather make our way deeper into the bayou. We did do a few more things in NOLA before we left. Andrea knew of a cooking school here that holds public classes on cooking Louisiana style, so we went at 10AM. We watched jambalaya, gumbo, pralines and pina colada bread pudding be made, along with a lesson in roux.

Something we both noticed when we left the hotel was it looked like it rained overnight. This was actually the street cleaners that tore through the French Quarters overnight. I guess this is a regular thing, because every street had been scrubbed down by this morning.

After the class, we went back to Royal Street for the second day of the roadfood.com festival. More experimenting with local fare. After a trip to Community Coffee, we called it a day and started our trek through the swamps of Louisiana. On the way out of the city, I turned a corner to head for the Interstate and there it was; bigger and more incredible than it was on the highway the day before.

The sight of quite a few Super Bowls and, more recently, the evacuation refugees from Hurricane Katrina. To see the pictures from Katrina and then to see it in person, it's amazing to think how thousands of people lived here for days with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

We finally hit the interstate on our way to the state capital. Something to note, the drive into New Orleans on I-55 and the drive out to Baton Rouge on I-10 are both pretty wild. The interstates are basically long causeways or bridges. If you're familiar with the 9th street bridge going into Ocean City, NJ; just imagine that for miles and miles with no end in sight...literally. This is all we saw for two days getting to and leaving New Orleans...

Yeah, there were a lot of bug strikes over the past few days as you can tell from my windshield. What's creepy about these two interstate highways is that below us, in the muck and muddy waters are alligators. Just what you want to know when there is no end in sight to the bogs and swamps. The engineers back in the 50s just cut a path through the swamps to lay the foundations for these highways. If you look at google maps and view the satellite photos, you can see that both I-55 and I-10 are just sitting in water surrounded by trees.

View Larger Map

Our first stop was in Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana. We found that they have two capital buildings still standing in the city. One was the original building, which is a castle of sorts. This was from the mid 1800s and looks like a fortress.

The "new" capital building looked much more familiar to us....

I had to do a search on the 'net to see which came first: the LA capital building or the Empire State Building. This was completed about a year AFTER the famous NYC landmark; sorry Louisiana. However, this is a state capital building, keep in mind. You don't see this very often.

This is the tallest state capital building in the country and it was built in 1932.

This was the view from the top steps of the capital building overlooking the park. There is an observation deck similar to the Empire State Building, but, being a Sunday, it was closed. For more info on this building and the "old" capital building, click here.

We got back onto I-10 (which is going to be our highway of choice over the next 7-10 days) and carried on to Lafayette, LA. We found a hotel here, set up shop and went off in search of dinner. We found Prejean's on I-49 just north of our room. Cajun cooking with bluegrass music to boot.... yee haw! Being this may be our last meal in the bayou, I made it count. I ordered an appetizer of duck and andouille gumbo in a dark roux (imagine the teriyaki taste of beef jerky with the lingering kick of a buffalo wing).

For the main course, I had crab stuffed alligator tail with shrimp etouffee (no picture, I dug in before Andrea could get a shot off). This was a great finish to our Cajun dining experience. The three piece band of a fiddle, guitar and accordion really was the icing on the cake. As we were leaving, I had to get a celebrity photo. This picture is of me with "Big Al".

This is a Louisiana Alligator that was caught in 1981. He measured 14 feet long and weighed 800 pounds when he was caught. The taxidermist estimated his age to be about 65 years old when he was forced into a career change from vicious prehistoric killing machine to a photo op for a local restaurant.

Tonight, it's early to bed and we'll see how early we rise. We are off to Lake Charles, Beaumont and possibly Houston TX tomorrow.

Day 11 - NOLA (that's short for New Orleans Louisiana)

2009-04-04T23:47:00.007-04:00

This is the best day and night of the road trip so far, and as well it should be. We have arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana on a Saturday afternoon. We drove through some of the outlying areas (I went looking for two local Elks lodges, but both of them were closed) and we hit a Whole Foods for some lunch snacks. The Louisiana Superdome is absolutely spectacular in person! It really is a spectacle to be seen.

Then we went to the French Quarters to check things out. Seeing that the coast was clear (we were comfortable with the surroundings), we made reservations for a Holiday Inn right in the French Quarters district for a good rate (not to mention triple points on the hotel Club membership :> ). We checked in, set up shop in the room and headed out to experience Bourbon Street and the French Quarters first hand.

The first task at hand, as it always has been on this trip, is to find some dinner. Being in New Orleans, we wanted non-chain, local food that is done in the traditional way. We first walked through the roadfood.com Food Festival, happening along Royal Street (which happens to be the street we were staying on). I we got to try alligator...

It's not much to look at, but it tasted pretty good. And no, it did NOT taste like chicken.

Once we walked the fair and sampled some of the food we decided it was time to find some real dinner. Being in New Orleans, we wanted non-chain, local food that is done in the traditional way.

We went to Sammy's Cookery for some good ole southern cooking. We were not disappointed in our dinner at all. I had fried Catfish with Jambalaya...

What more could you ask for in New Orleans. It was fantastic! We asked the host if we could have a seat on the balcony by the street, which he took care of for us. It made for a great evening. We were just about finished dinner when the "Pirate Con" parade marched by the restaurant.

Needless to say, there is no shortage of people watching entertainment in the French Quarters in New Orleans. Before the waitress brought our check, I got another Hurricane "to go" and cashed out. We wandered down Bourbon Street, along with several of the side streets just enjoying the atmosphere. We found a place that served drinks "to go". How convenient!

I had to "refill" my Hurricane, so I decided on the large... and it did not disappoint!

There were countless bachelorette parties, tons of beads being tossed from balconies in every direction and a lot of public drunkenness to be seen. It was an experience we hope to duplicate tomorrow night (if we feel so inclined to stay another night in the quarters).

That's really all we have to report. Basically we drove for about 4 to 5 hours, cruised the streets of NOLA and parked our butts in a hotel in the FQ so we could enjoy what this city has to offer without worrying about how to get to our hotel. Tomorrow could be much of the same, but only time will tell. Check back to see what happens on Palm Sunday in the second Sin City... New Orleans, Louisiana.

Day 10: Graceland to Civil Rights to Delta Blues

2009-04-03T23:00:00.000-04:00

We visited some very powerful and historic places today on our trip from Tennessee to Arkansas to Mississippi. First we left the EconoLodge in Brownsville, TN and headed into into Memphis on I-40. We had breakfast at the local eatery, Bob's Barksdale Restaurant on S. Cooper St. Check out that "country ham", you dont find a breakfast like this in California.

Michael already mentioned Graceland, but what is almost more interesting than the house and the planes is this stone wall out front on the street that is covered in personal messages to the king.

We were sadly lacking any Elvis on my iPod so we listened to "Graceland" by Paul Simon while we were here.

While we were sitting eating lunch Michael suddenly remembered that Memphis is where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. We immediately set out to find the hotel.

They have done a really nice job keeping the Lorraine Motel exactly how it was on April 4, 1968. The two cars parked there are similar to the ones that were there at the time. I cant believe we just happened to visit a day before the anniversary events are taking place. The Civil Rights museum attached to the hotel is being dedicated this weekend.And then since we were right there, we drove over the bridge into Arkansas, just to cross it off our list.And then on the way back we caught the Tennessee state sign since the other one was at the Appalachian Trail.

Once we felt that we had seen everything in Memphis, we headed south into Mississippi.

We stopped for the night in Canton, MS which is just outside of Jackson. This bar looked like the only thing open in the town square so we decided to stop in for a beer and some food.

Michael already mentioned his awesome burger. I dont drink beer (darn you gluten intolerance!) so I asked our waitress if they had anything besides beer and she said they had some wine. I said that was fine and when she didnt say anything about what kind of wine would I like, I just figured they must have only one. Then Michael chimed in and asked me if I wanted red or white and she said "I think what we have is pink". Pink! So here is what I got....

As we were eating these guys came in and started setting up. We got to sit and listen to a great blues band from Jackson, MS. What a perfect night. Oh, and my Reuben sandwich had pastrami that the owner Jeff Hammontree made himself. Yum.
I have to say, southern hospitality really does exist. Everyone at the visitors centers, hotels, restaurants, etc have been so friendly and nice.

Day 10 - In the land of the Delta Blues

2009-04-03T22:54:00.012-04:00

Memphis was calling our name for a couple days now. We finally got here today. First thing we did was have breakfast. We went to a little home town restaurant. It's a small, unrefined place with duct tape patching up the vinyl bench seat cushions. They cooked up a mean breakfast. I kept it simple with a short stack and sausage.

From there, we decided to tackle some of the sightseeing we had earmarked. First stop, Graceland.
I know, it's hack, but how can't you? We pulled into the chute they made along the highway, hopped up on the roof of the car and took a picture. That's all, no tour or anything. Next, Andrea had a muffler man to look for, but he wound up being a transient. I guess he gets put away in the off-season? Then, I wanted to see the home of FedEx and here's why...

Did you know that every single package that is handled by FedEx moves through their hub here in Memphis?

If you FedEx a package to your next door neighbor, it travels here before making it to your neighbor. I know, why would you do that, but you get the picture.

They have tons of trucks and probably 100 or so planes on the ground being loaded and/or unloaded at any time. This picture needs to be bigger to appreciate all of the planes on the ground.

After driving around, we headed into center city Memphis and walked the city a little. We headed down Beale St. to see all of the restaurants and bars. ESPN was setting up for Friday Night Fights in the common area off Beale St. We saw FedEx Forum, home to the Memphis Grizzlies NBA team.

We also saw the home of Gibson guitars.

We then walked back up Beale St west to the mighty Mississippi river.

That's were we saw the pyramid...

This seated 20,000+ and was home to the Grizzlies before the FedEx Forum was built a few years back. Apparently, this is now just a vacant building. There is a lot of lore behind the pyramid that it is cursed. Check out the blog posts below:

20 Years of Pyramid Curse • That Darn Pyramid

After this, we went to have lunch back in the city.

This was our first Man vs. Food location of the trip. Bad move, as you will find out later. They feature the "Kookamonga Challenge". It's a 4 lb. beef hamburger with 3.5 lbs of lettuce, tomato, pickle, onion, cheese and bun for a grand total of 7.5 lbs of cheeseburger. PLUS a half pound of fries. The challenge: you and you alone must finish the plate in 60 minutes or less. The payoff: it's free and you get your photo on the Wall of Fame (right next to Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, among others). The cost if you don't finish in 60 minutes: $21.99 (plus tax and tip). Joey Chestnut finished this challenge in an astounding 7 minutes and 36 seconds.

I did NOT take part in this crazy challenge. Instead, I opted for the meatball caesar salad. THe dressing was not typical caesar, but a mustard-ish type dressing with a peppery kick. The plate was dusted with a dry rub that you would expect on ribs. It was surprisingly good.

From here, we decided to hop in the car and take a quick drive to the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial and the Civil Rights Museum.

It hit me during lunch that this was the city that the assassination took place. And as I started recalling all of the history that I learned in high school (and from U2's "Pride (In The Name Of Love)", this is the weekend of his assassination; April 4, 1968. They did a great job of preserving the scene, including the front of the hotel, the cars and the room. Truly a moving display.

We then decided to skip dinner in Memphis and head down I-55 through Mississippi and into the Delta. What sucks is that I chose the Kooky Canucks for lunch instead of some real Memphis BBQ. I figured we would be there for dinner, but at 2:30, we were not hungry and did not want to wait around the city until dinner. Besides, we needed a place to stay.

So we headed out and down the interstate towards Jackson, MS. We made it to Canton, MS, which is about 20 minutes north of Jackson. We checked into the hotel and headed out to find dinner. We came across a square in the town of Canton (which, by the way, is home to the Nissan plant here in the USA). We found Hammontree's RJ Barrel & Co., a creaky, wooden-floored bar and restaurant that was serving up the "Belly Buster" as a special tonight.

Half pound burger topped with sliced ham, a fried egg, cheese, sauteed onions, sliced jalapeno peppers and BBQ sauce. While I have to admit, I pulled the onions and the peppers, I could have eaten two of them. They were that good. Andrea had a Reuben (sans the bread) that was cooked from scratch in their kitchen. We met the owner, Jeff Hammontree, who said they had two being cooked as we ate to be ready for tomorrow.

As we finished dinner, a band came in to set up for the evening. They called themselves the Common Ground Blues Band. Not a bad way to finish up your first evening in the delta region of the Mississippi.

Tomorrow, we are going to explore Jackson, MS and try to make it to Louisiana for dinner. Stay tuned.