The left coast and beyond.

It's been a busy week but finally, here's another post. We spent four days in San Francisco and got a good opportunity to explore the city. We went on a run towards the Golden Gate bridge, tried to check out Coit Tower (but the elevator was broken), walked around Union Square, and even got to play some frisbee for an hour or two in Golden Gate Park. After a few good days of good weather and a few good nights out in San Francisco, we packed up the car and headed towards Thousand Oaks, CA.

On the way to Thousand Oaks, we spotted an exit for Cupertino and had to make the stop at the headquarters of Apple Inc. After some pictures and a stop into the Apple store, we were on our way. We spent four nights in Thousand Oaks with Alex's brother John and his wife Sandra and son Henry. Our first full day we drove to Venice Beach and walked around the beachside shops and got a chance for a workout at the original muscle beach. We spent the rest of our time in California surfing in Malibu, racing go-karts at an indoor track, and spending plenty of quality time with John, Sandra, and Henry. On our last night in California, John took us out to Dodger Stadium to see them play the San Diego Padres, which was a blast.

After leaving Thousand Oaks, we drove to the Hoover Dam, just outside of Las Vegas. We got to go down into the dam to see the turbines and saw a presentation about the dam from the 1940s. After the Hoover Dam, we continued the drive to Williams, AZ, just outside of the Grand Canyon. The following day we got up and spent about four hours hiking around the Grand Canyon and taking lots of pictures. Once we did enough exploring, we got back into the car and headed off towards our next stop, Phoenix.

On the way to Phoenix, we made a stop for dinner in Sedona, AZ. The drive coming into Sedona is absolutely beautiful, and the town itself is quite amazing as well. We sat down for dinner at Open Range Grill, which had some awesome views, and ate dinner along with watching the end of the Stanley Cup Final. We left Sedona after dinner and drove through the night to Phoenix.

We spent next to no time in Phoenix, which is mostly because we were ready to get going on the rest of the trip. This morning we left Phoenix and drove to Las Cruces, NM, where we are staying tonight. We got some pizza and saw Terminator Salvation, and we'll be getting up early tomorrow to drive to Roswell, NM, where we'll be til Monday. It was Colee's birthday on Thursday and mine is today, so thanks for the good wishes and rest assured that we're enjoying our time on the road. Thanks for the comments.

So it's been a few days...

We've been on the go for the past 6 days, staying in a different place each night. Friday night Arches National Park. Saturday night Bryce Canyon National Park. Sunday night Zion National Park. Monday night Las Vegas (uh oh). Tuesday night Sequoia National Park. We reached San Francisco Wednesday evening and will be here through Sunday. It's nice to finally have a "home base" for a few days.


Bryce Canyon was awesome. Deep canyons filled with "hoodoos" stretched as far as the eye could see. Hoodoos are the spires seen in our pictures of Bryce Canyon. Mike and I have discussed which park in Utah was our favorite and decided it was too tough of a decision to say that one park was worse than another. I will say that if we were able to spend one additional day/night in one of the parks, I would have chosen Zion. Zion was filled with incredibly steep cliffs/peaks. This park was unique in that the park wasn't filled with mountains like we had been used to seeing. Instead, it was filled with cliffs and peaks that rose almost vertically. There wasn't gradual elevation changes like what's seen with normal mountains. It was, 0 feet... look straight up and... 2000 feet. Monday night we stayed in Vegas and had our first legitimate shower in over 72 hours. Calm down, calm down... we were able to wash up to a certain extent. We didn't live like cavemen for 4 days, psssh.

Vegas was great. We did what any two, typical college grad students would do: stayed up late and gambled... a little bit. After all was said and done, we had a fairly inexpensive and fun night. Both of us came out about even and had a great time winning, and losing, money. We stayed at the Golden Nugget which is located in the downtown area, not off the Strip. We spent the first couple hours of our night strolling down Las Vegas Blvd, watching the Bellagio Fountain, and cruising through several big name casinos. The remainder of our night was spent in the downtown district, hopping between roulette and black jack tables.

Tuesday we drove to Visalia, CA. A small city on the outskirts of Sequoia National Park. Fortunately, we had a small, Celebration Station-like place right next to our hotel. Mike and I spent about an hour at the batting cages, mashing baseballs over center field's 10 foot wall. Yeap, that's right... Mike McGuire and Alex Bonds were in the house. We also visited the local Regal Cinemas and saw "Up." A bit sad, but a great flick to say none the less.

Wednesday we spent all day in Sequoia National Park, walking amongst trees several thousand years old. These trees were amazing. Every few feet we were spotting another jaw-dropper, claiming it was bigger than the last tree we'd seen. We climbed Moro Rock and enjoyed the picturesque view from the top. See pics to appreesh.


We made it to San Fran last night and posted up in a cheap-o motel. Today, we checked into a Marriott Courtyard in the Fisherman's Wharf area. Check back for pictures of the San Fran community.

Stay tuned.

Colorado and Utah, my two new favorite states.

Well we made it safely to Denver from Kansas City, and met up with Crisco and Joe G at their new place. Crisco got the opportunity to write our last blog post to keep things interesting. We did in fact catch a Rockies game thanks to Joe, and although the Nuggets were in town, tickets were a little too pricey so we settled for some good nights watching the games at the bar. We spent some time in downtown Denver and on Tuesday night got to see Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction in Englewood, which was awesome. Jordan came in town on Wednesday and on Thursday morning the three of us headed out of Denver towards Vail.

The drive from Denver to Vail is absolutely unbelieveable. It's the end of May and there's still plenty of snow atop the Rockies, making for a nice scenic drive. Once we got into Avon, just outside of Vail, we chilled at Jordan's house for a little bit before loading up and heading out into the woods with Pete and Drew. Since Drew works at a ranch outside of Vail, we were able to stay at the ranch for the night. This place was incredible, hopefully we'll get pictures up soon. Behind our cabin was a lake surrounded by snowcapped mountains, and as soon as we got there we hopped in a canoe to paddle around and try to catch some fish. We ended up building a campfire and cooking dinner before chillin out for a while and eventually getting some sleep.

Friday morning we woke up, stopped back by Jordan's house, then left Vail for Arches National Park. Once we got there, we went to Balanced Rock and then hiked up to Delicate Arch. We got a little lost on the hike but we eventually got to where we needed to be and it made for a good adventure. Once it started getting late we headed for a campsite to set up camp, eat, and get some sleep.

This morning, Saturday, we headed back into Arches to check out some of the remaining sites. We started with Landscape Arch and a few others before going to Turret Arch and the Windows on our way out. Right now we're driving down highway 70 towards Bryce Canyon National Park. Colorado and Utah are definitely nature at its best, and were having a blast trying to check it all out.

My so called life.....

Well here we are. Another day on the road. Another mile in the rear-view. Life on the road sure isn't for anyone. One thing's for sure: We're not in Kansas anymore. In fact, we're in Colorado.
I ate a plate of Rocky Mountain Oysters today. MMmmmMMMmmmm. I had to ask for seconds. It was a page straight out of the book of "Bizarre Foods w/ Andrew Zimmern." I have always been very skeptical when it comes to dealing with seafood, and I never would've guessed that I would become seafood's biggest fan here, in land-locked Denver.
The altitude really hasn't gotten to me much like I thought it would (knock on wood). I have been trying really hard to get rid of my wife-beater tan, a day in the sun today at Coors Field today should hopefully take care of that. We got tickets to watch the Rockies play the Dodgers today.
The Rockies lost in a game that came down to the final at-bat. There was rioting going on in the several blocks surrounding the stadium. Women and children were crying. Grown men were crying tears of rage and fury. The streets were aglow with the rows and rows of hybrid cars and organic food wrappers, #'s 1&2 on every Coloradan's list of priorities in life.

"Game time baby." - Tedbreak (2007)

An awesome weekend in Chicago, now off to Denver.

On Thursday morning we took a 6:20 flight from Kansas City to Chicago. After a train ride from the airport into the city, we met up with our friend Kyle to drop our stuff off and get our bearings. We caught a train towards Millenium Park and spent a good amount of time walking around the area, checking out the shell, the bean, and the fountain. We walked all the way through Grant Park then took the bridge up to the Art Institute. It had some cool photography and some weird modern stuff but it was definitely worth visiting. We then walked to the Field Museum of Natural History and scoped out some stuff on ancient Egypt and the T-Rex skeleton they've got on display. After an hour or so we went to grab some dinner and meet up with Colee's friend Ben. Ben showed us around Wrigleyville and we stopped by Cubby Bear and Vine for some drinks before meeting up with another friend, Jimmy, at his dad's condo in Old Town. After watching some basketball we headed to McGee's Tavern for some nightlife.

Friday we started off walking around downtown and checking out the city with Jimmy. We eventually ended up at Shedd Aquarium and spent about 2 hours there. The aquarium had some pretty sweet sharks and lots of penguins and frogs and even some monkeys. After the aquarium we decided to take the long walk to Navy Pier to check it out and grab some dinner. After a cab ride back to the condo we settled for some basketball since we didn't have the tv channel that the Blackhawks game was on. I've gotta say, People absolutely love the Blackhawks, and even the dinosaur skeleton outside of the Field Museum was sporting a Blackhawks jersey. After hearing that the Blackhawks won 4-3 in overtime and watching LeBron hit the most clutch game-winning 3-pointer ever, we headed out to Wicker Park for the celebration.

Saturday was an interesting day, which started off with us making our way to the south side of Chicago to check out the Museum of Science and Industry. Within 4 train stops of our destination, the train operator announced that the next group of stops would be skipped, so we just got off early at the White Sox stadium. We thought we were close enough to walk so we started on our hike through the south side. After walking for 30-40 minutes through some pretty sketchy streets, we finally saw another train station and realized we were still almost 20 blocks from the museum. After all the walking, we decided just to head back into downtown and towards our next destination, the Sears Tower. The 103rd floor of the tower was closed for the day, but we were able to get to the 99th and see pretty much the whole of Chicago from some awesome vantage points. After the tower, it was back to the condo for food and more basketball on tv, then out to John Barleycorn for a girl's 21st birthday.

On Sunday, we took it easy and slept in before finally getting up and eating lunch. We packed up our stuff and said goodbye to Jimmy and took the train back to the airport for our 4:15 flight back to Kansas City. Once we landed, Colee's brother Steve and niece Ellie picked us up from the airport and we had a great evening in the backyard with the rest of the family playing croquet, grilling out, and even checking out the amazing deer poop pellets that Steve found. We ended up watching some Deadliest Warrior with Eli before heading to bed.

Today, Monday, we got up at 8am, packed everything in the car and said our goodbyes to Steve, Tracy, Nate, Ellie, and Eli (and Casey and Carson). Right now we are in the car, not too far from the Colorado state line. We're driving through a huge rainstorm but there's not too many cars on the road so we'll be fine. We'll be in Denver tonight through Thursday, staying with Joe and Crisco. This week we'll be going to the Nine Inch Nails / Jane's Addiction show, a Colorado Rockies game, and plenty of other stuff. We'll be putting more pictures on here each day, and work on making the pictures bigger and more accessible when we get some free time. If you'd like a postcard, make sure to email or facebook message us your mailing address. Thanks for the messages and comments, week 1 is in the books!

St. Louis to Kansas City, and off to Chicago tomorrow.

After checking into our hotel in St. Louis on Monday night, we headed out for dinner at Morgan Street Brewery and then had some drinks at another bar down the street before calling it a night. The early part of Tuesday was spent walking around St. Louis, checking out The Arch, Busch Stadium, City Hall, and a few other sights. On Tuesday afternoon we left for Kansas City to stay with Colee's brother, Steve. On Wednesday, we took Colee's nephew out to Worlds of Fun for the day, and had a blast riding rollercoasters and eating overpriced food all afternoon. After his nephew's baseball game and a good dinner, we're finishing packing for Chicago and trying to get some sleep. Our flight leaves at 6:20am, so now its lights out. Suggestions for things to do in Chicago would be awesome. (We've got some pictures up too, finally).

The road trip begins.

At 8:30am today, we left Charlotte, NC, heading towards St. Louis, MO. After about 7 hours, we're almost there but we've still got a little ways to go. We should be getting some pictures up shortly once we get some good ones and we can figure out how to put them on here. We'll be in St. Louis tonight and tomorrow so if you've got any good suggestions on things to do or places to check out then let us know. Thanks for all of the emails and facebook posts, we'll get a quality St. Louis post up soon.

Dates posted.

We sat down today and put together a basic itinerary for our trip, which I've posted on the right. Also found out that Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction will be playing in Denver on May 26 which is perfect. Ignore the photos for now, we'll have a constant slideshow of trip pictures once we leave. A week and a day, and we're leaving- its so close.

The blog is up.

This will be the blog for our road trip across the US and back. We're leaving May 18th from Charlotte, NC. We plan on updating this blog as a way for people to keep track of us as we spend six weeks driving 7,000 miles on our way from the east coast to the west, and back. Hopefully we'll get more information on here soon.