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.