Road Trip USA - 2003

UPDATE #7 : The Final Stretch – To New Jersey

By: Ethan Levine

7/23/03 – 7/27/03

We drove into St. Louis with no real problems and arrived at my friend Alyssa’s apartment. We quickly settled in and headed out to dinner after our long day of driving. There’s a section of St. Louis, called ‘The Hill’ where there’s a ton of Italian restaurants, so we decided to splurge that night and eat out at an Italian restaurant. The food was good and the meal was extremely filling. Afterwards, we went back to Alyssa’s to hang out (see Picture #1) and passed out pretty quickly. Our days are so long, we have little energy to stay up past midnight.

The following morning we headed into St. Louis to do a bit of site-seeing. We first went to a popular park called Forest Park (see Picture #2). We walked around the park for a bit and headed into downtown to see the Gateway Arch. The Gateway Arch is a pretty tremendous monument; actually, it’s the biggest in the United States. For those of you that don’t know its significance, it’s supposed to be the gateway to the West as Lewis and Clark began their expedition from St. Louis. Interestingly enough, for us, it was the gateway back East (see Picture #3). They had a pretty impressive museum that gave a detailed description of Lewis and Clark’s expedition and American expansion into the west and the consequences felt by the American Indians. We opted against waiting an hour and a half and paying to travel up to the top of the arch. We walked around Lacleade Landing, a riverside area with a bunch of restaurants. Marc stopped for chocolate milk and complained to get our parking slip validated to give us a discount on parking even though he hadn’t actually eaten a meal. Let’s just say we only had to pay $1 for parking for 2 hours, not bad. And we headed over the Mississippi into Illinois.

On the way to Illinois, we stopped for lunch right near a cornfield and although it wasn’t Iowa, I decided to experiment (see Picture #4). Somehow, I didn’t disappear. Oh well, only in Iowa I guess. On the way to Chicago, we stopped off in sketchy Springfield to check out Lincoln’s tomb. Megan has a certain fascination with dead people, so she wanted to stop. I’m not a big fan of tombs, so I merely sat outside enjoying the scenic cemetery.

Eventually, we pulled into Hinsdale, a suburb outside of Chicago. We were staying with Caroline, one of Megan’s good friends from Dartmouth. She and her parents were so sweet. They took us out to dinner into another suburb of Chicago, Lagrange for a relaxing dinner. Afterwards, we stopped by Blockbuster to rent a video. Under Megan’s authority, we rented “Igby Goes Down.” Wow, that was probably one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Caroline fell asleep halfway through it. I surprisingly was able to stay up through it, dunno how though, I felt dumber for watching it.

The following morning, we took it pretty slow and went into Chicago around 1. Unfortunately, Marc wasn’t feeling well, so he stayed behind to sleep and rest. So, Caroline took Megan and I on a long walking tour of the downtown area of the city (see Picture #5) for about 5 miles; my legs were definitely tiring. We went to go see Buckingham Fountain (see Picture #6) which was pretty. Some dude tried to sell me a postcard for $3 to “raise money.” I told him I didn’t have any cash on me, which I didn’t. Nonetheless, it seems pretty ineffective to sell postcards for $3, but I guess when the guy imposes on you like he did to me, he gets a bunch of people to feel sorry and pay up. I might’ve considered it, if it were $1, that seems a bit more reasonable. Anyways, we walked over to Navy Pier after that and walked along it, looking at the Tiffany Stained Glass Gallery and other cool stuff. This sign (see Picture #7) made me realize that we could’ve driven to Paris and back (well, except for the whole Ocean being in the way) with the amount of mileage we had already accumulated. Thereafter, we walked up to Michigan Avenue, which is kinda the equivalence of 5th Avenue in New York City. There, we stopped at the Tribune Tower, which is an awesome building. Before building it, they had people go around the world to take pieces of other famous building so they could incorporate it into the Tower. They took pieces from places like Notre Dame in Paris, Parliament in London and the Great Wall of China. Very cool.

Getting hungry, we walked over to the original Pizzeria Uno for dinner (see Picture #8). Chicago’s the birthplace of the deep dish pizza. It’s totally different from pizza done on the East Coast. It was really good, definitely glad we stopped. Then we took the “EL,” or Subway to Wrigley Field. Being the baseball fanatic that I am, it was neat to be at the oldest stadium (see Picture #9). Also, it appears as if Cubs fans support of Sammy Sosa has not diminished despite his illegal use of a corked bat (see Picture #10). Marc was feeling better for a bit and met up with us for a drink at one of the local pubs. Unfortunately, he started feeling sick again and went home before we headed out to the bar scene afterwards.

We ended up going to a place called Mother’s. It’s kinda funny when you think about. Let’s say you got a little drunk at this place and you were telling a friend the following day about your previous night; you could say, “Yea, I got a little drunk at Mother’s.” Ok, maybe I just find it humorous. It was a pretty cool place that had a bar, karaoke and a night club. The clientele was a bit older than the three of us, but that didn’t stop us from having a good time (see Picture #11). We hung out for a bit until the karaoke started up. Of course, being the karaoke master (alright, I’m far from it, but at least I try), I joined Megan and Caroline for an ‘interesting’ rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody. I’ll give myself the credit for being the first guy to go up there and do it. Afterwards, others followed. Fortunately. Megan and Caroline went up for another song while I took pictures (see Picture #12). It was a good time. By the end of the night, I had also accumulated a free t-shirt and a blinking light bouncing ball. After taking the train back, I passed out fairly quickly.

The following morning, we slept a bit later than anticipated, but got out fairly quickly after Caroline’s mother had made omelettes for us for breakfast and packed lunches for us. I’m telling you, the hospitality at the various homes we’ve stayed at has been beyond my expectations. People are just so nice. I love people. Anyways, we headed out on the road, driving through Indiana and into Ohio. Well, we were welcomed back into the Eastern Time Zone by being forced to pay tolls in Indiana and Ohio. We also saw East coast staples like Sunoco gas. Ah, it was good to be approaching home. Did you know it costs $9 to travel across Ohio on Route 80? What’s up with that? I’ve never heard of such a ridiculous a cost for a highway. The road wasn’t even very nice.

Eventually, we made it to Cleveland. Marc and I really had little desire to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (see Picture #13); maybe, I’d go when I wasn’t on such a budget trip, gotta pick and choose, so we dropped Megan off and tried to find out how to obtain tickets for the evening’s baseball game. Yea, we kinda got lost driving through Cleveland, somehow ended up in the projects or something. Eventually, we called to find out that there were still 20,000 seats available for the game still and figured we’d just go over there after picking Megan up and grabbing a bite to eat. We did just that, stopping at a nearby Subway. It was a bit weird there – the guys in front of us sang to the servers behind the counter and some homeless guy was accosting the lady for a free cup of soda. We ate our food quickly and headed to the game.

Apparently the game had started at 7 and not 8 as posted on the internet because as we were approaching the stadium, fireworks shot off indicating a homerun had been hit by the Indians. When we got there, the score was already 8-2 in the second inning. Oh well, missed a few runs scored. We got the $5 seats and just grabbed some random ones there as there were quite a number of empty seats. The tribe shouldn’t have let Thome go. Jacobs Field is absolutely beautiful; it was another new stadium just recently built (see Picture #14, see Picture #15). The game was probably the fastest game I had ever been to. Besides the fact that we got there a couple of innings late, the length of the game was only two and a half hours. The Twins didn’t do much to come back as the Indians ended up winning 9-2. On the way back to the car, Marc and Megan wanted me to take some weird pictures of them jumping up and down (see Picture #16). We got to the car and drove to the motel we’d booked the night before in Newton Falls, Ohio. The motel was fine minus the lady in the adjacent room banging on the wall when we had the TV on. The final evening on the trip was pretty uneventful. Marc and I tried to play a prank on Megan, but we really messed it up. It had something to do with me not being able to keep a straight face. Big surprise.

The following morning, we packed the car for the very last time and headed out across Pennsylvania. I’d tell you about all the cool things that happened along the drive home, but I’ll be honest, the most exciting thing was seeing all of the Pennsylvania cops pulling over lots of drivers. It’s a pretty uneventful state. Kind of a downer for the last drive of the trip, but that’s not what I should be remembering anyways.

I’m sitting in the car now approaching my house and writing this final update. I hope you enjoyed all of my updates. I can get a little too detailed at times about my adventures and for those of you that read through them, thank you. For those of you that didn’t, well, I appreciate you not e-mailing me back that you weren’t interesting in receiving the e-mails and just let them clog your inbox's. It’s been an awesome adventure where I’ve seen so many different things that I had never see before. I also saw way too many cheap motels and gas station pumps, which is never all that fun unless you got Marc to keep things interesting by getting in fights with motel staff. I also got to experience the wonderful hospitality of friends and their respective families along the way. Plus, I got to share it all with a couple of great friends who I thank dearly for putting up with me and a lot of my crap throughout the trip (oddly enough, I didn’t really include that in the updates making myself look an angel ;) ). It really has been an amazing four weeks and an exciting 9500 miles (yea, we didn’t do the direct route), and would do it again in a heartbeat (ok, maybe not a heartbeat, maybe a few years, I gotta take a break from roadtripping, but you get the point).

I figured in order to sum up certain points of my trip, I’d cite several of my superlatives.

State I Would Want to Return to the Most:
California

Best Vacation Spot:
Santa Barbara, CA

Best Party City:
New Orleans, LA

Most Underrated State:
South Dakota

Worst State:
Nevada

Best Fast-food Place:
Quizno’s (they opened one in East Hanover!)

Best Restaurant:
LuLu’s in San Francisco

Worst Driver:
Megan and Marc (tied)

Best Driver:
Ethan (ok, they weren’t that bad, maybe I’m just a bit biased and oddly enough I was the only one to receive a ticket)

Most Frequently Played Songs in the Car:
Do What the Good Book Tells You To – The Folksmen (A Mighty Wind)
The General – Dispatch
All-Star – Smash Mouth

Most Regrettable Moment:
Getting a ticket in Nocona, Texas

Event I Would Want to Return to the Most and Do Differently:
Receiving the ticket from C. Cox and kicking him where it hurts

Worst Drive:
Sioux Falls, SD to Saint Louis, MS via Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas
Indiana to New Jersey via Ohio and Pennsylvania

Best Drive:
The Pacific Coast Highway in California

Most Annoying Part of Trip:
Packing the Car EVERY morning

Scariest Moments:
Watching a bar fight up close
Sitting in the back while Megan drove along the Pacific Coast Highway
Coming face to face with Uranium Ore

Worst Motel:
Value Lodge – Grand Junction: Grand Junction, CO

Sketchiest Motel:
Motel 6 in Austin, TX

Best Motel:
Holiday Inn Express in Greeley, CO for $40 (Thanks Marc)

Coolest Coincidence:
Going through Cheyenne, WY during Frontier Days and watching a rodeo

Biggest Monument:
Gateway Arch (well, it actually is)

Prettiest Natural Land:
Black Hills, SD

Best Sidekicks:
Marc and Megan :)

I hope everyone else is having a wonderful summer, please e-mail me letting me know what you’re up to if you haven't yet. I’m not a self-centered person that just expects people to read my updates and have no desire to hear what others are doing :). Hope all is well with everyone.

Thanks again,

Ethan

UPDATE #6 : The Long Roads To Nowhere – The Rockies and Midwest

By: Ethan Levine

7/18/03 – 7/23/03

Ah yes, we got to re-enter Nevada. I had missed it so much I was really looking forward to driving across it. Outside of Reno we stopped for pizza at this pizzeria where we struck up a conversation with this dude sitting next to us. Actually, I should rephrase that and say that this dude needed someone to talk to and decided we’d be the victims. We ended up obtaining his business card and a free tour of Reno if we wanted someone to show us around.

Afterwards we drove through nothingness to a ‘cool’ town called Battle Mountain, Nevada where we stayed for the night. The following morning, Megan and I wanted to get started early to get a lot of driving done, so we played a little trick on Marc. We set all the clocks ahead an hour during the course of the night and woke up an hour earlier. Now, you’d say, why didn’t he check his watch. Haha, he broke it in San Francisco and didn’t have it for the rest of the trip. Let’s just say we might just do it again to get an early start. He still has no idea.

So, I was the fortunate one to drive in the morning for four hours to Salt Lake City. Let’s just say, the drive was pretty terrible. I actually went 50 straight miles with having to turn the car slightly at all through huge salt basins. Eventually, we made it to the Great Salt Lake (see Picture #1). It, uh, smelled pretty bad, lots of decaying stuff exists there. It was a pretty big lake though.

We drove into Salt Lake City which is actually a pretty city. Marc needed to go pay his bills (don’t know why he didn’t take the opportunity in California when we had some lazy days) at the nearby Borders because there’s free internet access. Megan and I ate our lunch in the main square, Temple Square (see Picture #2). We began walking around and this Mormon nun asked us if we wanted to do this free ‘historical’ tour around the square. Now, I’m no idiot or anything, and I realize that there’s a reason they offer all the religious related sites for free. One of the tenants of Mormonism is to try to convert as many people as possible to the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints. Yea, so the ‘historical’ tour had lots of Bible passages from the Book of Mormon ingrained in it. We toured all of the ‘historical’ sites that were coincidentally religious sites as well. It was actually very informative and I was cool with it all until we walked into this room where there was a 30 foot statue of Jesus Christ and they told us to be quiet and let these loud speakers make it seem as if this 30 foot statue was talking to us. Yea, I opted not to take a picture in front of it. Don’t worry Mom, I didn’t put any contact information down.

Afterwards, we picked up Marc at the Borders and headed out towards Denver. We had a scrumptious dinner at Wendy’s on the way in Price, Utah and drove through the beautiful mountains and valleys on the way.

We stopped off in Grand Junction, Colorado. We found a pretty cheap motel for a weekend night. It was cheap for a reason. The hallways smelled like urine and the air conditioning in the room did not work very well. Well, in the morning, Marc went to complain to manager about the terrible conditions and asked for a refund. ‘Surprisingly,’ the dude didn’t grant him that, but Marc is still vying to get it erased from his credit card statement and make sure this guy’s out of a business.

The following morning we drove through the Rocky Mountains into Denver. We wanted to go to the Coors Brewery in Golden Colorado, but since it was a Sunday and it was closed, we decided to Quizno’s instead. Thereafter, we headed over to Boulder to check out the cool college town. It was raining a little bit, really the first rainfall we had experienced since July 4th in New Orleans. It’s a nice town, great place to walk around and lots and lots of shops. They also had an arts market going on which displayed lots of regional arts and crafts. We walked around for a bit there into and out of shops. Megan and I also walked up to the University of Colorado which is a pretty university. Marc couldn’t get up the hill. Eventually we all had dinner at a local restaurant called The Sink. Apparently Robert Redford used to be a janitor there back in the day. They also had a really good grilled Portobello mushroom sandwich.

Megan and I then had some of the local Coors light at one of the local pubs which sat right on a stream. Afterwards, I unsuccessfully led Marc to where we needed to be that evening in Greeley, CO. I tried really hard, but the Coors got the better of me. It was kinda funny though as I just failed miserably at leading him.

Eventually, we made it to Greeley, CO where we were going to stay at the Days Inn for the night. Marc had opted for the nicer hotel (courtesy of him) because he wanted high speed internet access. Apparently, the definition of high speed internet access in the Midwest is a data port in the phone. So, the Days Inn mistakenly said that they had one; we cancelled that room, but the Holiday Inn next door said they had it too. Clearly, the data port in the phone was high speed internet to them, so again, Marc was extremely upset just as he had been the night before at the hotel. This time though, he successfully reduced the rate of the room to $40 because he claimed we would have stayed in the nearby Motel 6 if we had known that there was no high speed internet access. Needless to say, we had a pretty sweet expanded continental breakfast the next morning and a free USA Today. Thanks Marc!

After breakfast, we headed up North on a couple day detour from our return back east. We stopped in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the capital of Wyoming. Apparently, the last full week of July every year, a Cheyenne Frontier Days festival type thingy is held. Luckily for us, we were passing through at just the right time (see Picture #3). First we walked through this strip of stores that had been converted into a town from last century (see Picture #4). Unfortunately, as we were walking I felt something hit me. I look behind me and on my shorts is crap! Literally, a piece of crap. I deduced that someone must’ve thrown it at me because I was wearing my Yankees hat. It couldn’t have just fallen out of the sky from a bird because it was too much and the angle just wouldn’t have worked. I cant believe someone would do that, let alone go through holding it in order to throw it at me. For a Yankees hat? C’mon. It’s not like Wyoming and the Yankees have some kind of rivalry or anything. Wyoming doesn’t even have a professional sports team. Their population rivals Essex county. I’m serious. Wyoming has a population of 250,000. My county has more people in it that Wyoming. Now, most of the people are real nice and all, but that’s uncalled for. I quickly wiped it off. Well, with the rodeos and stuff going on around, my shorts’ smell just kinda blended in.

Well, I wasn’t going to let that phase me. We walked over to the Indian Village. Now, I’m not trying to politically incorrect here. The place was not called the Native American Village or even a tribe’s name, but the Indian Village. That wasn’t it. As we were walking over to what appeared to be a show (see Picture #5), the guy told us that, “Yea, the indians are gonna be putting on a show in a few minutes.” Hmmm….appears as if political correctness hasn’t quite hit Wyoming yet.

After walking around there, we went into the park and bought a couple of tickets to the rodeo that afternoon. We picked up some way overpriced lunches and sat down next to these two Western looking men (the cowboy hats clued us into that). They were real friendly making fun of the fact that I was from NJ. It’s ok, he was from Oklahoma. Seriously, though, they were real cool and friendly. I’ve found that talking to local people (ok, in the Midwest, Oklahoma is local to Cheyenne, WY), I’ve been able to gain a greater understanding of the various cultures all over the United States and sometimes get some advice and hints along the way.

We eventually headed into the rodeo (see Picture #6) which was a lot of fun. We saw some Bull Riding (see Picture #7), Steer Roping, Bronco Riding with and without saddles, Calf Roping (see Picture #8) and Steer Wrestling. Honestly, I wasn’t all too sure how the scoring went for all of the events that were judged by style and not time, but it was still a lot of fun to watch

We then headed up north towards the Black Hills. Fortunately, we had made a reservation in advance (in the North, cheap rooms are harder to come by in the summer because there are a lot less motels and a lot of national park sites make it more difficult) in Newcastle, Wyoming, about an hour outside of Mount Rushmore. On the way, we basically passed through nothing. On the way, we passed through little towns that made Nocona, Texas look like a metropolitan area, like Lost Springs (see Picture #9). I question what the minimum population is in order to register something as a town. I mean, my house at home when all of us are there has a larger population than this ‘town.’ Well, Wyoming has a population of 250,000, guess they cant get too picky.

Eventually, we made it to where we had reserved a room for the night, Newcastle, Wyoming. It was a pretty standard 3,000 person town in the middle of nowhere. We got in pretty early, so Megan and I decided to check out the local bar. Wow, this place gets little to no business. We chose the least sketchy of the three bars on the main drag and when we got in, it was just the bartender and what appeared to be her boyfriend. We were just chilling there having a couple of drinks and actually chatting with the two that were there. They were pretty cool and were trying to give us some advice as to what to do in the Black Hills. Well, we did get slightly worried when we found out the guy came to Wyoming because he was in a little trouble with the law. Fortunately, it was just for some illegal gambling stuff.

Then, these two other guys came in, one probably in his mid-30s and the other probably in his 50’s, the older one clearly intoxicated. They began playing some pool and we continued chilling. At one point, the older dude started scratching Megan’s back because he saw she had an itch. At that point, I went to use the restroom, abandoning her. She didn’t appreciate that. Then things started to get interesting. The bar’s owner came in and began accosting the older man about a $20 bounced check in November. He grabbed the older man and threw him against the bar, breaking his necklace. While yelling at him, the older guy threw a punch at the owner, throwing the owner backwards. Later, he claimed that he hadn’t punched him, his arm accidentally moved. Haha. The owner continued to yell at him telling him to get the hell out of his bar. As the older guy was walking backwards to the door, the owner finished it all off by shoving him and the older guy fell down backwards on his butt, sliding towards the door. It was a pretty exciting scene. It was like pay-per-view for free. At that point, Marc was due to pick us up, and Megan and I quietly left thanking them for the evening’s entertainment. So cool, a bar fight in Wyoming!

Afterwards, we headed to bed, in the process though, we tackled Marc and tickled him to death. That was fun.

The following morning, we headed towards the Black Hills and South Dakota. I had my doubts about South Dakota, but we had a bunch of things lined up for our visit there. First off, was Mount Rushmore. We got to take a nice scenic drive through the Black Hills, passing the Crazy Horse Monument. It’s funny, they don’t do a very good job concealing it because we just saw it driving on the road. They actually charge $19 per carload to just see it. Yea, we stopped on the side of the road for pictures. When we got to Mount Rushmore, they were gonna charge us $8 to park right there. We outsmarted them; we parked the car one quarter of a mile down the hill and walked up and into it for free. It was quite cool (see Picture #10, see Picture #11) and we got to see it for free.

We then headed towards the Badlands National Park. On the highway, every 200 feet, there was a sign for a place called Wall Drug, a famous drugstore in Wall, South Dakota. In the 1930’s, they figured they could easily draw travelers going to see Mount Rushmore and the Badlands, by advertising free ice cold water on the nearby highways. The gimmick was so successful, that they have blossomed into this one block long tourist trap (see Picture #12). It’s a bit more tasteful than South of the Border in South Carolina, just a bit though. They even give you free bumper stickers to help advertise the tourist site. And they still managed to make me spend $11 there somehow. Oh well, looks like I was another sucker.

Wall, South Dakota was located at the entrance to the Badlands. The Badlands is a national park where we could try out using the National Park Pass. We got much smarter after the Grand Canyon though, as we erased the red check and one of the signatures on the card and Megan signed her name there. Sure enough, they asked us for a photo ID and the new signature worked well enough to gain us free access to the park, so smooth. The Badlands is a pretty park, that had a scenic drive right through the eroded rock formations (see Picture #13). We even took a little walk off the trail where we did a little climbing on the rocks (don’t worry, we checked with the Park Ranger whether or not that was allowed first) (see Picture #14). It was a good time.

We then headed towards the Eastern part of the South Dakota passing into the Central Time zone. We stopped off for dinner in this little town called Chamberlain, where we found some interesting signs like a motel mentioning that imaginary friends were allowed to stay free and another sign announcing the local American Idol winner (see Picture #15). The Subway restaurant was pretty safe at least.

We eventually made it to Mitchell, South Dakota where they are famous for the Corn Palace (see Picture #16). It’s a building made entirely out of corn. ‘Unfortunately,’ we were unable to go inside because it had closed about 10 minutes prior to our arrival. Oh well, at least we got to see the outside. Funny though, I wonder how they rationalize the brick foundation being derived from corn.

We finally made it into Sioux Falls, SD for the evening where we parked ourselves at the local Motel 6. I’ll tell you though, it was much harder getting cheap rooms in the North than it was in the South; I guess the North is just a bigger tourist attraction during the summer. We passed out pretty quickly, knowing that we had a long day of driving ahead of us.

The next day was just driving on the itinerary. We were in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and we wanted to get to Saint Louis, Missouri. Now, to the common person, that means absolutely nothing. Believe me, I would have had no concept of driving time before this trip too. Well, that equals a little over 600 miles, a nice little stroll around the corner. Between the two, there’s really not all too much except a couple of big name cities, Sioux Falls, Iowa; Omaha, Nebraska, Kansas City, Missouri/Kansas. The interstate only traveled through Iowa and Missouri, going right along the Missouri river. In order to peak our interests, we decided to take small detours for about 5-10 minutes into Omaha to say that we had been in Nebraska and into the Kansas side of Kansas City to say we had been to Kansas. Other than that, it was pretty much the most boring drive of the trip (I’d say our drive from Dallas to Las Vegas, NM would have been except we had the exciting adventure of getting a speeding ticket!).

Anyways, we finally pulled into Saint Louis. I guess I’d figure I’d conclude this update at this point in time because finally the roads to nowhere led us to a big city that we were going to stop in on the Eastern half of the U.S. and our drives between large cities wasn’t going to be as long anymore. Also, I figure that whole Gateway Arch in Saint Louis kinda signifies something too. Also, this is already getting fairly long. But you’ll all have to wait to find out how Saint Louis went in my final update.

Thus concludes our long drives through the desert, mountains and prairies. I’m not so sad that they’re over, but we found a way to see some pretty cool and exciting things along the way. We got less than a week left on this trip and I’m hoping the final stretch will prove to be fun too.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Ethan

UPDATE #5 : The Promised Land? – California

By: Ethan Levine

7/11/03 – 7/18/03

Ah, so we eventually crossed the border into California. Let’s just say I didn’t think a place existed that had more traffic than the New York, New Jersey, Long Island area until we got to California. It took six and a half hours to get from Vegas
to San Diego. Megan had told us it would only take three hours (this mistake was cleared up as it should take 4-5 hours when we arrived).

Well, we eventually arrived at San Diego. We were staying with Hannah, a friend from Dartmouth. Actually at this juncture in the trip, Hannah was going to accompany us up to San Francisco on our tour of California. She lives in a beautiful house in Del Mar that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. And when I say house, I’m talking three buildings with an entrance gate. Marc and I got to share one building to ourselves. It was extremely beautiful.

We were most definitely hungry and Hannah and her mother did the sweetest thing for me. They had gone out to get kosher chicken for us so I could eat meat. It was really thoughtful and the dinner we had was clearly the best I had since I left. We even lit the Shabbat candles for Friday night. I was so happy. Also, another surprise occurred when Hannah handed me yet another package from Becca. She had sent me another care package on our sixth month anniversary. It definitely made me smile.

That evening we tentatively planned out our trip through California and in the process made a decision that we’d stay the next day to take it easy and spend another night at Hannah’s house.

The following morning, Megan, Hannah and myself got up early to take a beautiful hike through Torrey Pines State Park. It took us through the hilly area leading up to the coastline and then along the San Diego beach. It was a wonderful way to start the day with its breathtaking sites (see Picture #1, see Picture #2, see Picture #3). We ate really good crepes when we got back courtesy of Hannah’s mom. Thereafter, Marc and I decided to hang around and relax while Megan and Hannah decided to go off on their own into San Diego.

Personally, I got a chance to catch up with these updates and more importantly, finish the fifth Harry Potter! So good! Easily the best one yet. I’m just not psyched to wait another 10 years for the sixth one to come out. C’mon J.K. Rowling! Anyways, I ended up typing these updates on the porch in the sun. Wow, the weather here is fabulous. In the 80s probably, sunny and no humidity. I’m gonna like this upcoming week.

That evening we relaxed, made ourselves dinner, and took a short bath in Hannah’s Jacuzzi. It was really nice and relaxing sitting outside underneath the stars and moon. We retired pretty early that night as we had a big day ahead of us the following day.

The next morning we were treated to some good bagels. Einstein Bros bagels are pretty good; a little mushy, but for the West Coast I was pretty impressed. We then drove up to Los Angeles. I’m telling you, the traffic is probably the worst in the L.A. area. I felt whenever we used any of the interstates in the area there was traffic. Even at 10:30 AM the following morning it took us a half hour to go like 10 miles. I’d hate to drive during rush hour.

We eventually reached Santa Monica where we hung out at the pier. It seems as if the Santa Monica Pier is a haven for homeless people. I guess if I were homeless, Southern California would be the way to go; the weather is the best year round and when you’re sleeping outside every night, that’s something you gotta consider. Now, I heard all these great things about the Santa Monica pier, but to be honest, I wasn’t all that impressed; sure it was a big pier, but it was kinda small relative to places I’ve been in New Jersey, specifically Seaside (see Picture #4). It seemed like it was just the quarter the size of Seaside. You know when you start comparing something to Seaside, NJ, there’s a problem. Then we walked south down Venice Beach which was pretty cool. Unfortunately, we didn’t really have the energy to go all the way down to where the freaks were, but we passed the Muscle Beach and other places along the way. Seemed pretty cool.

Thereafter, we walked along the Promenade and met up with my friend Matt from Dartmouth, whose house we were gonna stay at that night. We grabbed a Jamba Juice. Mmmmm, wish they had these places on the East coast. Those are some good drinks. It’s like a meal in a cup.

We then took a driving tour of L.A., going through UCLA, Beverly Hills and Hollywood. Marc almost got us killed going through a 4 way stop sign trying to follow Matt. They have them all over the place, I don’t get them. One way should have the right of way and the other way should have the stop sign. Or just have freaking traffic lights. In Beverly Hills, we got out and walked down Rodeo Drive (see Picture #5). I was thinking of getting something there, especially something from the art gallery exhibition we walked into which featured original Rembrandts, Picassos, and Mattisses. Let’s just say I was lucky that it was a Sunday and many of the stores were closed while walking with Megan and Hannah.

Afterwards, Matt took us to see the Grauman Chinese Theater in Hollywood (see Picture #6) where the Walk of Fame is and you can see movie stars’ footprints and handprints cemented in the ground (see Picture #7). Then Matt took us up to see the Hollywood Sign which gave you a spectacular view of the countryside (see Picture #8, see Picture #9). We were getting pretty hungry and decided to go to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffle House (highly recommended from many sources). Yep, that’s right, chicken and waffles, what a combo. I opted for the waffles, extremely good! Megan was discussing how she should come up with a restaurant with an odd combo. I suggested kiwi and beef, they’re both good, right? Well, the suggestion was not well received, oh well, I tried.

We headed back to Matt’s house for the evening which was an old Spanish style house from the 1920’s. It was really nice minus the no air conditioning; well, at least we weren’t in the southwest anymore. We tried to go see Pirates of the Caribbean, but it was sold out. After much discussion in the video rental store, we selected Simone. Needless to say, I passed out 5 minutes into the movie.

The following morning we headed out towards Santa Barbara. I got to drive up along the Pacific Coast Highway with the mountains to my right and the Pacific Ocean to my left, it was a really fun drive. We were checking out a bunch of campsites at beaches, but we didn’t realize that these campsites were away from the beach with beach access, so we were like, ok, let’s just sleep on the beach that night.

We walked around Santa Barbara for a bit. It really is a beautiful town with a ton of restaurants and shops (see Picture #10, see Picture #11). Afterwards, Megan, Hannah, and I hung out on the beach while Marc took advantage of the free Internet access at the nearby Borders. The beach was quite relaxing and by late afternoon, the weather was really enjoyable (see Picture #12). We grabbed some food at the supermarket and then headed to a spot on the beach where we used the portable stove to cook ourselves dinner (or maybe I should say where Megan cooked us dinner). We were a bit sketched out by the homeless people sleeping right by us, but I looked at it as a cultural experience :) It was a beautiful night and we easily fell asleep after having a couple glasses of wine each (yea, alcohol was definitely illegal on the beach).

When we woke up in the morning everything was soaked from the moisture or something like that. Oh well, I guessed they’d eventually dry. Plus it was my Birthday!!! Woo Hoo! All presents should be sent to 8 Thurston Drive; Livingston, NJ 07039; I will receive them when I arrive home. Thanks in advance. At the crack of dawn, the brilliant duo, Megan and Hannah decided to go skinny dipping in the ocean in the 60 degree weather. Let’s just say I was fortunate they didn’t invite me for various reasons. Megan and Hannah had ‘secretly’ planned to cook something for breakfast in the morning; French toast and eggs. Not that I didn’t realize something fishy was going on when they told me at the supermarket they had to go get some “other” things for themselves. I’m good at playing dumb (sometimes I don’t play it I guess). Mmmm, it was really good and a great start to the day!

So, we began heading up North to San Simeone where Hearst Castle was located. When we arrived there we were unpleasantly surprised when they let us know that we had to wait almost 2 hours for our tour. Fortunately, they had a stellar 45 minute movie available for us. Unfortunately, their A/V equipment was malfunctioning and we had the pleasure to view this ‘fabulous’ movie sitting 50 feet away on a 17 inch TV screen. The tour itself was amazing; Hearst Castle was a beautiful blend of Greek, Roman, French and Spanish architecture thrown into one complex. Whether it was the Neptune Pool (see Picture #13), the castle itself (see Picture #14), its rooms, or the Roman Baths (see Picture #15), everything was spectacular. Wayne, our tour guide, was a little quirky, but made sure Marc was ostracized from the group by using flash photography when it wasn’t allowed. Overall, definitely worth the $18 for the tour.

Afterwards, we headed towards Monterey via the cliffs of the Pacific Coast Highway. The Pacific Coast Highway was a beautiful drive with awesome views. Clearly, we were fearing for our lives around 20 mile per hour blind turns with 500 foot cliffs to our side. Along the way we stopped a few times at vistas and got some sweet views (see Picture #16). The drive took a bit longer than anticipated so we drove straight through into San Jose where we were going to spend the night with my friend Tina and her family.

Tina and her parents were so hospitable to all of us. We arrived and sat down immediately for dinner. Her family is Italian and they had prepared an Italian meal for us. Her mother served us a lasagna type dish with focacia on the table. I figured, wow, this is a really nice dinner. So, when she asked if I wanted seconds, I figured sure, I’ll have a little bit. Little did I know, that was just the first course. Well, let’s just say we were fed quite well that night (see Picture #17). Since it was my birthday, they put a couple of candles in a Tiramasu cake (which was SO good!). We went to bed pretty early that night as our stomachs were still digesting the massive amounts of food.

The following morning we thought we’d get a fairly early start, but didn’t realize we’d have another multi-course meal for breakfast. Then Tina’s mother gave us an entire orchard of plums as well as a whole bakery’s worth of bread to take with us. They were so nice and made sure we were eating enough. Looks like Jewish families and Italian families have a lot in common.

Eventually, we got on the road and headed southwest to Santa Cruz for the morning where we checked out the boardwalk there. Afterwards, we visited UC – Santa Cruz where they have beautiful redwood forests and we ate our lunch enveloped by huge redwood trees.

That afternoon we drove up to San Francisco where we first headed towards the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge is absolutely beautiful (see Picture #18) and you could also see a pretty nice view of Alcatraz. Afterwards, we navigated our way through the hilly streets to Ghiradelli Square. That’s right, as in the chocolates. They had a factory and ice cream shoppe there which had free samples as you walked in the door. I’ll be honest, I walked in and out of the door a few times in order to get some of that free chocolate. Hannah, Megan and I shared a banana split while Marc had, guess what? A chocolate milk. Well, at first they said they didn’t have it. Ghiradelli Factory (see Picture #19) doesn’t have CHOCOLATE milk? Well, let’s just say that after asking the manager, Marc was somehow able to obtain a glass (who would’ve figured?).

We traveled to downtown in search of a restaurant to go for my birthday. Yea, it was the day after and I had eaten everything but the kitchen sink the night before, but the three of them insisted upon treating me to dinner for my birthday (I’ll be honest, I didn’t argue all that much with them; it really was very nice of them). Eventually, courtesy of Let’s Go, we went to this trendy place called LuLu’s in the South of Market district. The food was SO good. Mmmm….By far the best restaurant we had eaten at on this trip. I guess there’s not much competition when you’re pitting this place against Wendy’s and Quizno’s Subs.

Afterwards, we dropped off Megan and Hannah as they were going to stay with a friend in San Mateo while Marc and I were going into Berkley to stay with a friend from high school, Steve. We drove over the Bay Bridge which I think has to be longest bridge ever created. It was like 5 or so miles long. Ridiculous. They only charge a toll one way over the bridge, inbound into San Francisco. Funny though, usually you get hit up for that eventually, but we weren’t planning on driving back into San Francisco so we got away without paying the toll. Budget trip, sweet.

We eventually found Steve’s place in downtown Berkley where we hung out, caught up and went to bed. The following morning we had to get up really early because Steve had an interview in the city with a temp agency. Oh, it looks like some people are doing useful stuff with their summers unlike the three of us. Oh well, at least we’re having a great time. While Steve was interviewing, Marc stopped in two different cell phone stores and a watch shop to get his cell phone and watch fixed. See, the day before, in Union Square, Marc and I raced each other and he broke his watch on my arm. Don’t ask, I have no idea. We then walked down to Pac Bell Park, the home of the San Francisco Giants to see if we could pick up some tickets for that evening’s game. Fortunately, we were able to obtain some pretty sweet seats. The stadium is absolutely beautiful, just built about 3 years ago; I got really psyched up for the game later that day. We headed back up towards Steve to meet up with him after his interview. We stopped at another cell phone store along the way. After meeting up with him, we stopped at a couple more cell phone stores. Sometimes, the sights that make a city unique aren’t enough for Marc, he likes to check out the cell phone stores too.

Eventually we started to tour and we took a walk through Chinatown which is apparently the biggest Chinatown in the U.S. (see Picture #20). It was cool to walk along the streets going into the shops and see all of these cheap trinkets. The people were pretty nice for the most part, except when we went into this one store. I was examining something, by picking it up and looking at it, deciding whether or not I wanted to buy it. The dude in the store yelled at me, “Look with your eyes, not with your hands.” First of all, I’m not 5 years old and need to be yelled at like you’re my mother. Second of all, duh, that’s what eyes are for, I don’t need a Kindergarten lesson. So, I obnoxiously picked it up again, put it down and walked out. The next store over, I bought one.

After Chinatown, we walked through North Beach which appeared to have some really nice Italian restaurants on our way up to Fisherman’s Wharf. At Fisherman’s Wharf, we walked around and got some nice views of Alcatraz (see Picture #21). We also got a chance to see the sea lions there (see Picture #22). Afterwards, we rode one of the cable cars back to the main area of the city go pick up Marc’s cell phone

Steve then left us as Marc and I grabbed some dinner before the baseball game. We took one of the aboveground subway lines to the game and got to our seats. Pacific Bell park is absolutely beautiful from the inside (see Picture #23) as it sits right on the cove where homerun hitters like Barry Bonds splash shots into the water. Unfortunately we saw none of that. But I got a cool shot of Ray Durham hitting a single up the middle (see Picture #24). The stadium is a bit on the small side, seating just over 40,000. Although it was nice and new, it was still no comparison the atmosphere you’d find at Yankee Stadium. At Yankee Stadium, the crowd is awesome and you really feel into the game. At Pac Bell, you could almost doze off because it would get so quite. And it’s not like the Giants are a bad team, they went to the World Series last year and have some awesome players. But it was so quiet when a run wasn’t being scored by the Giants except for some dude behind me yelling to players and telling them to splash the ball (hit it into the cove). The most excitement occurred when everyone did the wave. Well, I must say they did a damn good wave.

We headed back to Steve’s after the game and passed out immediately, we walked a ton that day and had no energy. The following morning, Megan and Hannah took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit System), i.e. the subway. Speaking of which, why must other cities come up with these witty acronyms or names for what can just simply be the Subway. It’s not like NY has copyrights on it or anything. The T? I mean, come on, it’s not a T, it’s a subway car. The Metro? Give me a break, it’s a subway system. The Underground? No kidding! It’s underground, it’s a subway system. Anyways, they met up with us for a quick breakfast and we headed out. After dropping Hannah off at the Oakland airport, we headed EAST! That’s right, we embarked on our return.

Unfortunately, driving through California requires you to sit in the car three times as long as one would ordinarily sit in the car because of the wonderful traffic. We took about 4 hours to go 100 miles. Yea, not such fun times. Oh well. Eventually, we made it to Lake Tahoe just to see it (see Picture #25). And then we headed back into Nevada.

California was a great time. The place has probably the best weather I’ve ever experienced in the United States, especially up the coast line. We never needed to stay in a motel and we got a chance to camp out on the beach. The traffic is less to be desired and I’m not a big fan of the “We hate America because we’re a bunch of liberals” mentality. Overall though, the people are so nice and the cities fun, exciting and beautiful. It’s a definite “must-return-to” place in the future and I’m glad we stayed for a week.

Back East we go via Route 80. I’m hoping it’s a lot more exciting than people have told us.

Hope all is well with everyone else!

Later dudes and dudettes (California style?),

Ethan

UPDATE #4 : Gotta Love the A/C – The Southwest

By: Ethan Levine

7/8/03 – 7/11/03

As we exited Texas and entered New Mexico I felt refreshed. Actually, I realized I could finally drive again because we had entered a new state and I didn’t feel like a felon anymore. We were driving alongside Old Route 66 via Interstate 40, that’s right, Grapes of Wrath which I found to be pretty neat. One of the stops along Route 66 was Tucumcari. Tucumcari was hitting some tough times, it looked kinda sleazy. We stopped at the local supermarket to pick up some pasta and parked at a local park and cooked ourselves some dinner on Megan’s portable stove (see Picture #1). It was actually a pretty good dinner, Marc and I let Megan cook it while we threw the football around and played on the see-saw.

We headed out and took a scenic road towards Santa Fe that was breathtaking (I tried to keep my eyes on the road as I was driving). When it became night time, we actually stopped the car to go look at the stars. We eventually made it to VEGAS! And when I say Vegas, I mean Las Vegas, NM. We found a really sleazy motel, Marc was less than pleased about the burn marks in the comforter. The beds were surprisingly comfortable and we all slept well.

Megan woke us up in the morning after her run at what she thought was 8:00. Not until we traveled all the way to Santa Fe (about an hour drive) did I realize that Megan actually woke us up at 7:00 because she had forgot to turn back her watch. Well, at least we got a good start to the day.

Santa Fe is a very pretty city with a nice downtown and marketplace (see Picture #2, see Picture #3). We walked around there for awhile buying some things here and there. I was surprised that the artisans who were laying out their work on the ground were actually more expensive than the stores. Go figure. After chilling in Santa Fe for a couple of hours, we headed out towards Bandelier National Monument.

At Bandelier there are ancient cliff dwellings which one could walk to. You can also get some beautiful views of the countryside (see Picture #4). At the museum at the visitor’s center, Marc commented at how the life-size wax figure of an American Indian looked cute. Ah, yes, Marc. Megan and I took a walk to cliff dwellings, the 25 stairs was too much of a workout for Marc. We got to see some cool ruins and cliff dwellings (see Picture #5, see Picture #6). Honestly, they kinda just looked like holes in the rock and if I were walking by and no one pointed out that these were cliff dwellings, I wouldn’t have known. I guess I’ll just take the Park Service’s word for it.

After Bandelier, we headed towards Los Alamos. For those of you who are unaware of the significance of what Los Alamos was, it was the site for the development of the first atomic bomb by the United States during World War II. It was an extremely cool place. We explored the free museums there, one of which was a science museum. I was extremely intrigued by the various projects Los Alamos National Laboratories was developing in R & D. Did you know they won 8 of the top 100 U.S. R & D awards from 2003? They developed things like gravity breakers and superconductor films. Alrighty, I’m a huge dork.

After the museums, we checked out this store that Let’s Go recommended called the Black Hole. This place apparently sold old nuclear lab parts from the desks and chairs used to calculators to bomb shells (see Picture #7, see Picture #8). Wow, this place had everything and it was a huge mess! It was totally cool until the owner came out and started preaching to us about all of the terrible things associated with nuclear weapon research and development. It was alright until he took out the Geiger counter and showed us a piece of uranium. We knew it was time to leave as we quickly departed.

From Los Alamos, we headed back down through Santa Fe, through Albuquerque towards Arizona to get as close to Flagstaff as we could. On the way, we stopped at Walmart for dinner. A funny aside occurred as Marc was using one of the stalls and some little kid starting pulling at his door and then bent down to peek underneath to see if he was doing alright. I, of course encouraged the little kid saying Marc didn’t mind.

After driving towards Flagstaff for a bit more, we eventually ended in Holbrook, Arizona. Well, I guess you never realize all of the wonderful places America has to offer until you actually visit them. Don’t put Holbrook, AZ on your list. The hotel was fine, at least it had a mini-fridge and there were no cigarette burns in the comforter.

The following morning we headed towards Flagstaff, figuring it would be a good place to get our oil changed up. Before we arrived there we tried to see this meteor crater which was a little detour off the road. Well, we unpleasantly found out it cost $12 per person to see the hole in the ground. Fat chance. We continued onto Flagstaff. We pulled into the Mobile station, filled up our gas tank, got our oil changed and ate our lunch, it was a pretty sweet deal for us on the way to the Grand Canyon.

We eventually made it to the Grand Canyon and presented the Park Ranger with our National Park pass that had worked three times previously. Little did we know, but they checked ID at this one. I guess the Grand Canyon is some big deal or something. Well, the pass was not in our names, as it wasn’t ours so we had to fork up the $20 to enter the park. We also got a red check mark on the pass and the lady said if we get another the pass cannot be used anymore. Hmmm…nothing a little rubbing alcohol cant cure.

Let’s just say this hole in the ground was definitely worth it. Marc and I had been to it in the past, but I was happy to see it yet again (see Picture #9, see Picture #10). We would’ve hiked down it a bit, but the signs in the visitor center depicted a picture of a person vomiting due to heat conditions. Needless to say, the 100 degree plus temperature on the rim dissuaded our entrance. On the other hand, we became heroes for the day. This elderly looking couple motioned us that they had found a lost boy whose parents had been calling for him. They told us to go tell his parents when we saw them walking in the other direction. We were like, um, ok. Maybe you should go tell a Park Ranger that he is lost. Instead Marc watched him while Megan and I fetched some personnel. We didn’t even meet his parents. Our charity was anonymous. That’s the highest form, isn’t it? Oh, but I just told you. Oh well.

After being unable to bear the extreme heat, we headed out towards Las Vegas. Ah, Las Vegas. It really cooled off there. The thermometer in the car kept increasing as night approached. That’s usually a bad sign. Let me tell you, I was er…looking forward….to…er…seeing it. Anyways, we got to pass over the Hoover Dam on the way there. Unfortunately, since it was late in the day, we couldn’t catch the Dam tour. Haha. Yes, we made lots of those jokes in the car. We are of age, I swear! It was a pretty sweet site despite not having an opportunity to take the Dam elevators. Ok, ok, I’ll stop now. Lake Mead was also very beautiful (see Picture #11, see Picture #12). And onto Vegas we went.

Along the way we stopped at Quizno’s subs. Did you know they toasted your bread for you? Thumbs up!

Anyways, we were arriving at Vegas on a Thursday night, hopeful to attain a room. To our pleasant surprise we were able to find a $38 room on the strip! Alright, it was the Travelodge and not the Mirage or MGM Grand, but it was near them. Anyways, Las Vegas is definitely not my thing, especially on a budget trip. Let’s just say I needed to get drunk that night to enjoy myself. Fortunately the $6 1.5 Liter bottle of wine definitely did the trick. I’m not a big fan of Las Vegas as you can tell. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a pretty cool place to visit with all the oversize hotels and cheesy attractions (see Picture #13), but the incessant sound of ringing in my ears from the slot machines gets to me after awhile, especially since I wasn’t the big gambling type. I did enjoy the nickel slots though, it kept me occupied for about 20 minutes or so and I only lost about 20 cents. My attempts to attain free mugs from the Aladdin and china from Caesar’s Palace kept me occupied for quite a bit too. We went to the Aladdin, Paris, the Bellaggio, and Caesar’s Palace (see Picture #14). I had an overall good time with Marc and Megan (minus Marc stepping on my toenail, or was it I accidentally kicked his shoe?) and Marc won $25 at blackjack. A good time was had by all.

The following morning we slept late and basically spent the afternoon driving to San Diego. Staying at the Travelodge appeared to not be a deterrent for some topless sunbathers though. I went out to get ice and clearly I had missed the topless pool signs, I guess to each, her own. We left the hotel around noon, California bound.

I must say, the Southwest is notorious for its heat in the summer, but we had no idea. Temperatures ranged from 100 to 120 the entire time! We would step out of the car and the immense heat would make us melt. I felt like I was the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz or something. Except I would have gladly welcomed a bucket of water being poured over me. Let’s just say Marc’s car and the rest of us were extremely happy to exit Nevada and the Southwest onto California.

I have never been to California and am glad that Marc and Megan agreed to spend a ton of time there. So, you shall receive my next update from a place people (those clearly from California) say has the best weather in the country. As long as it doesn’t involve Tropical Storm Bill and/or plus 100 degree weather, I’m game.

Hope everyone else is enjoying their summers, I most definitely am!

Take care,

Ethan

UPDATE #3 : Shoot On Site – Texas

By: Ethan Levine

7/5/03 – 7/8/03

After Houston, we traveled on towards San Antonio and tried to find a cheap hotel along the way. Apparently, hotels increase their prices considerably on the weekend and we didn’t do so well in finding a cheap hotel that night, but it was pretty close to our set budget limit. We only got a one bed room, so we blew up the air mattress in the room and used that too (see Picture #1). The town we stopped in was Seguin, some random town on I-10 on the way to San Antonio. The motel was alright, but we saw the biggest bugs ever. We saw some in the room in the morning. Oh well, I guess it’s good the night was over.

We went into San Antonio for the afternoon after taking it easy in the morning to check out the Alamo. San Antonio is actually a pretty city with a nice city center around the Alamo. They have a whole plaza set up around it (see Picture #2). We got to walk inside the Alamo, it was actually quite cool. They made me take off my hat because I guess they look at the Alamo as still a holy place or almost even a shrine for all Texans. Afterwards we ate some lunch outside at the plaza and then headed out towards Austin.

Lunch wasn’t completely uneventful because I took off my hat and sure enough there was a white stain on it. It appeared as if a bird took a poop on my head. Right on my new Yankees hat. I mean come on, the Spurs beat the Nets, give people from the tri-state area a break. Maybe they were getting back at me for killing that bird once when I was playing golf. Needless to say, I strayed away from birds the rest of the day.

On the way, we hit the worst traffic yet on the trip. Who would’ve figured the first traffic we would hit since getting onto the Garden State Parkway would be in Texas. The state’s so big, why doesn’t everyone just spread out? In Austin, we found a cheap motel that had a pool! So, Megan and I took a swim where we got to hang out with these two cute little kids of 4 and 5. Their father directed us in the right way for dinner.

We went to this fast food chain called Taco Cabana. Except, it was extremely different from most McDonald’s or Wendy’s that I had been to before. First of all, the food was really good and less expensive for the quantity we got. Secondly, they sold $2.50 Margheritas there. That’s a pretty good deal. Thirdly, the manager of the establishment, Dennis Swinney, wasn’t some pimply faced teenager who seemed his life was over and he was trapped in hell by working at the counter. The dude, was friendly, taught Marc some things about Mexican food, and began giving us some advice on what to do in California when we got there. Actually, he wouldn’t leave us alone, it kinda got weird, almost as if he was looking for an invitation, but at least he was nice.

Afterwards, we drove into downtown Austin to check out the State Capitol which is apparently bigger than the nation’s capitol by 7 feet (see Picture #3). It was quite beautiful. Yea, I’m not quite sure, but there might be some inferiority complex there. I also saw it on a statue which seems to be a complex that resonates throughout the entire South (see Picture #4). Then we happened upon this man who enjoys taking pictures of his cockatoo named Casper, a beautiful bird. He even let us hold it which was pretty cool! (see Picture #5) The problem came when he kept talking to us about all of this random stuff. He was pushing for this huge movement to thank firemen, something like www.LetsGiveThanksToFiremen.com or something along those lines. He also started telling us really bad jokes. After holding the cockatoo, I was ready to leave, as was Megan, fortunately for her, the bird pooped right after he took it back, nearly missing her back. Must be a fetish of Texas birds or something.

We walked down Sixth Avenue and tried to catch the bats, but we missed them. We played pool at a bar, tried to find this bar, didn’t and went to bed. The sketchy Motel 6 that we were at though seemed to have plenty of entertainment. Marc and I snuck into the motel next door to steal some ice on a covert operation. The ice machine at ours was broken (no, we don’t just come up with these ideas to create some fun). It seemed like there was some drug deal going on in the parking lot (Austin is the drug capital of the U.S.) and some random girl in a bikini asked Marc to use his cell phone b/c her boyfriend beats her. Very weird. I was happy no shots were fired through the window and that I woke up the following morning.

The following morning, I stole some more ice and we drove up to Dallas to Ana’s house. The directions were very good and we arrived at Ana’s house on her birthday with flowers in hand. She lives in a very cool house that has a porch on the roof! She even bought kosher cold cuts for me before my arrival (such a good friend :)). To my surprise there was also a package there waiting for me from Becca. She had sent me an ESPN magazine and my favorite candy, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups along with butterscotch candies. I have such a good girlfriend :). After eating, we went into downtown Dallas while Ana ran some errands.

We walked around the West End and visited the place where JFK was shot (see Picture #6, see Picture #7). It was pretty cool and Marc told us about all of these conspiracy theories and I’d tell them, but you guys can open a book too. We opted not to go in the museum for $9 which is ok because he got shot outside anyways and most of the interesting places to see are outside.

We headed back to Ana’s house and went to use her grandmother’s pool, although neither Ana or her grandmother were there. It was a nice pool and we had a good time nonetheless.

It was Ana’s birthday, so she went out to dinner with her family and her family was so nice and let us use their kitchen to make ourselves dinner. It worked out perfectly! We just chilled there the rest of the night. Ana’s family got back (see Picture #8) and some of us began watching “A Fish Named Wanda” and ended up falling asleep.

The following morning after a nice breakfast (it’s so nice staying at such a nice house) we headed out for our epic drive to Santa Fe or as far to Santa Fe as we could get.

Well, it was bound to happen at least once on our trip; hopefully it will not happen again. Of course, I was the sucker. So, we were driving west on U.S. Highway 82 through rural Texas and when I say rural, I question whether these towns that we were passing through had their own post offices. This highway we were driving on had a speed limit of 70 until we entered a town. We knew we were entering a town only by noticing a change in the speed limit. So, we were approaching this little piece of crap of a town called Nocona, Texas. Anyone heard of Nocona, Texas? I doubt it. I feel sorry for the 3,198 people that live in this “town.” I was doubting whether or not electricity even flowed through it.

So, I saw a speed limit sign for 55 and turned off the cruise control to slow down and began braking as I approached the stop light. Next thing, I know this tool of a cop was flashing his lights behind me. Megan and I both looked at each other confused as to why I had been pulled over. So, I open my window and began chatting with this huge hick of cop. He’s like, “So, you in a rush somewhere?” I replied no, jackass. (ok, maybe I just said no). And then he took my license and Marc’s insurance and told me he clocked me at 51 in a 40 zone. I was like, well, I was just slowing down from the highway as I was approaching your terrible, ugly, pathetic town. He ignored me and went back to his car to write me a speeding citation. C. Cox. That was his name. I’d love to make many jokes now about him not knowing how to read or needing orthodontal work or having 3 eyes. But I think I’m just going to leave it at just his name. Let’s just say the dude sucked more than anything.

Anyways, he gave me this citation and made me take a picture. I wonder what he needed the picture for. I’d say he was going to alter it for some type of porn website, but I’m sure he wouldn’t know how to turn on a computer He said that I could call the judge to find out what my fine would be, and I was like, can I talk to him now? So, I made him show me where the courthouse was. It was in some dingy building adjoining some sketchy motel. I spoke to the lady there and she told me I could contest the ticket in 10 days. Hmmm….wonder why they pulled over someone with NJ plates? Although I question whether Cox knew how to read the license plate. Speaking of which, he made sure to indicate on the ticket that the traffic was heavy. That was interesting since the only other car on the road I saw was his. Jackass.

Anyways, the lady in the office said I could serve 12 hours in jail for $100 worth of the ticket (apparently it cost $105) or do community service for $12.50 an hour. Actually, that’s not too bad, I should tell my brother about that job. When we asked about points, they got confused and had no idea what we were talking about. They said they wont report anything to my insurance company if it’s out of state. Seemed like a decent deal to me. I figured, I guess I’m gonna suck this one up and realize that the only revenue this crap of a town receives is by picking up travelers getting caught in their sucker of a speed trap. I was the sucker. Seems like this town has real high aspirations for itself. I felt like I was giving to charity or something.

The rest of the drive was pretty low key as we stopped at a drive-in for lunch. It was my first time at one. I didn’t order anything, but Megan and I watched Marc order. As we passed Amarillo, TX we came upon this sculpture called Cadillac Ranch (see Picture #9). It was pretty cool being in the middle of nowhere and right on the highway. Ana and her family had recommended we stop by it. As you can see, people enjoy leaving their marks there, so we decided to do the same (see Picture #10). Soon thereafter, we finally left Texas. Man, that’s a big state.

Thus concludes my update. As you can see, we didn’t get shot, which was an accomplishment, but I did get hustled. Texas has some nice cities and nice people like Ana’s family, but it sure is big. Took us 3 days to go across it (well, I guess we went at a leisurely pace). We’ve entered New Mexico which means new time zone and new update. We get to see some of the natural wonders that exist in our own country. Should be pretty cool.

I’ll try not to get hustled again in anymore speed traps.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Ethan

UPDATE # 2 : The Deep South

By: Ethan Levine

7/2/03 – 7/5/03

Hi y’all. When I last left off we were driving to Memphis. Memphis seemed to be a pretty cool city from recommendations and guide books, so we figured we’d allow for an extra bit of time there and spend our night on its outskirts. On our way in, we got a room for the evening at a nearby Red Roof Inn for a sweet price.

We looked up a cool looking place in Let’s Go and set out to find it in the city. I had obtained a huge map of Memphis figuring it would be helpful in our navigation. I was almost pitching a tent in the car. Well, let’s just say the roads into, out of and around Memphis make the least sense possible. We followed an interstate into Memphis with signs towards Little Rock and after continuing on it, the interstate just ended. No signs at all…we just came up to a traffic light that made us turn left or right. After asking some people for directions we eventually found our way to the downtown. Then we experienced the wonderful road quality driving along trolley tracked roads that appeared to be blown up in certain areas. Later on, there would be entrances to interstates in one direction and not the other. Additionally, exits would just appear and disappear without signs or acknowledgement. It was quite exciting and let’s just say we used that road map a TON.

We eventually found the hole in the wall restaurant that Let’s Go suggested, P & H Café where the P stands for poor and the H for hungry. The service there seemed to be typical of the type of people in the South that we had been encountering, nice, polite and proper. They didn’t treat us as overgrown children, but rather as adults (although we prolly should be treated as the former). The food was actually quite good and although I was unable to indulge myself in the grilled meat, I was content with the quality of the food and the service. You can always count on Let’s Go, so key.

Afterwards, we drove towards Beale Street and parked our car. This place was extremely cool. There were a ton of live music bars that you could hear just walking down the street, to-go beer and drink vendors and lots of flashing lights. It’s what I imagined New Orleans as, except a little bit more low-key (maybe it was because it was a Wednesday night) (see Picture #1). It also seemed as if the idea of alcohol was a bit different than elsewhere with people walking around with open containers through the streets. I also came across a sign that struck me as funny that kind of summed up the moment (see Picture #2). There were tons of police officers walking around, but all the good they seemed to be doing to stop the 10 year old we saw drinking a daiquiri was taking pictures (which we asked of them). We also walked into the police museum. Seemed a bit of a waste of time, but at least I got a funny picture out of it (see Picture #3).

We took a walk down to see the Mississippi River which seemed like a pretty big milestone accomplishment for us in our cross-country trip. It was just a big river and not much could be seen at dark though.

Back to the room we went were I spent an hour trying to send the first update via the web program. Then I just gave up, went against Marc’s orders (he was asleep), downloaded Blitzmail and sent it in a few minutes.

The following morning we poured cold water over Megan in the shower only to find out that she was taking a cold shower, making our actions irrelevant and pretty dumb in the end (random aside).

After purchasing breakfast/lunch, we went down to Graceland! Now, Graceland is about as tacky as a tourist attraction can get. Plus, it cost us $13 to get an audio tour of the mansion (and that was with the AAA discount). I realized why it cost so much, they have so many workers there! I felt that in order to turn left, I needed to have permission by another lady in a white shirt. Everyone that worked there was a lady except Ronea from Romania (I may have made up that name). Anyways, we forked up the big bucks and took the tour; we opted against taking the tour of his airplanes and automobiles for an extra $10. I must admit, they pretty much have the thing down to a science, but I guess one would imagine so with all those tourists there everyday.

The mansion itself was extremely cool with its mirrored ceilings, walls and corridors (see Picture #4). It also had some really tacky but interesting furniture and rooms (see Picture #5). The picture’s a bit blurry because they disallowed flash and my camera doesn’t work so well without flash. Don’t tell anyone, but Marc took a couple by accident with the flash. Actually I’m surprised one of their 3,564 workers didn’t catch him.

Graceland Mansion was neat, but I got kinda bored going through the museum and seeing every single one of Elvis’s 5,000 golden records. It was a fun stop, but we were ready to head out of Memphis after Marc’s untimely ice cream cone.

Our next destination for the evening was Baton Rouge via Vicksburg. We opted to take the slower, and more ‘scenic’ road through the Mississippi Delta (I got the spelling, right?), Route 61. I’m telling you, I’ve never seen a road where the speed limit was 65, just like an interstate with traffic lights (unless you count Memphis that is). It was pretty bizarre, but made the driving a bit quicker. Looking for a place for lunch, we passed through a town called Clarksdale which appeared to be quite sketchy to us. Let’s just say, when you see the local gas station called Mom’s, you pass on through. We were hungry and needed to stop. So, we stopped at a local motor home park just outside Clarksdale and parked out on the grass and picnicked for lunch. It was pretty funny on the highway like that (see Picture #6).

Our next stop was Vicksburg, the historical civil war town where the Confederate Army held out the terrible Union army for 47 days and 47 nights. Well, at least that’s how they tell it down there. At Vicksburg, we went to the National Military Park there (see Picture #7). It was cool to do the 16 mile drive through, viewing the actual battlefield and seeing where the two sides approached from. It was quite funny though driving through the Union side versus driving through the Confederate side. On the Union side, the road was smoothly paved and made for a nice drive. Oddly enough, when we got to the Confederate Side, the roads were uneven, not well paved and dangerous. I guess that’s what happens when you lose.

After visiting the military park, we took a visit to one of Vicksburg’s Mississippi Casinos. Despite rubbing the lamp (see Picture #8), I didn’t win anything (maybe, it’s because I didn’t really put any money down). Nonetheless we got free drinks there, gotta love the casinos like that. Marc ended up losing a big $7.

Afterwards, we grabbed dinner at Wendy’s and set off to Baton Rouge, LA where my friend Matt lives. Most of the trip occurred at night and when Marc got tired and gave me the wheel I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. This road that we were on was very poorly lit and only two lanes so I feared for my life when huge trucks would barrel down the other side blinding me with their headlights. Fortunately, I was able to navigate my way through the backwoods of Louisiana and made it to my friend Matt’s house. Now, Matt was subletting this house from some very successful individuals. For those that know Baton Rouge (I sure didn’t), he lives on Steele Boulevard, on the south side. Yea, you have to go between these huge stone pillars to enter his neighborhood. His house is clearly dwarfed by the other ones around him, but very nice indeed (see Picture #9).

Matt showed us around Baton Rouge that night, driving us on a scenic tour. We saw both the old and new state capitol buildings and both the old and new governor’s mansion. I’ll tell you, for all the crap people give those from Louisiana for being from hicksville, they have some beautiful buildings. We also went to a local bar called Café Reggae. The closest thing there though to making it seem like we were in Jamaica was the small 8 X 10 Jamaican flag hanging from the ceiling.

The following morning we set out for New Orleans. Matt’s roommate Stacy, being from new Orleans, was going to show us how to get to the French Quarter. She was first picking up her friend Kenneth from Kenya to go over to the city with her to see a museum exposition. Apparently, Kenneth won the Harmonica Playing State Championship fairly recently (does every state have this?). He was recording a new album and showed us one of his tracks. Seemed quite cool. He told us to check out his website at www.kennygilmore.com (apparently, they gave him the middle name Gilmore, personally, I think Kenny from Kenya is quite catchy).

We then headed out towards New Orleans. The drive down was quite interesting with the very unstable weather in the area. It would be calm and then up ahead you could see a curtain of rain and sure enough you’d soon be stuck in a downpour. Fortunately, we made it unharmed and after searching out a couple of cheap hotels (with no vacancies), we figured we’d park the car, hang out and figure out the hotel later….hahaha….more to come on that. So, we began walking around the French district. Wow, New Orleans was like no other city I had been to before. The architecture was extremely unique making me feel as if I were in a different country. We walked down Bourbon Street (see Picture #10) and it was pretty amazing. Tons of people walking down with drinks in hand, music pouring out of buildings, strip clubs galore, and “drinks-to-go” all over. It was like an extra huge bachelor’s party. I also found a sign pretty funny. Usually, in economics I learned that as the quantity of a product increases, usually the unit price decreases. Clearly, laws of economics cease to exist on Bourbon Street (see Picture #11). Vendors realize that people just want large quantities of alcohol and don’t care what they are paying.

After walking down Bourbon Street, we explored some other ones, walking into shops and then headed to the Southern section of the quarter to check out the Mississippi. We also stopped at Café du Mond, the famous New Orleans coffee shop and ordered beignets or French doughnuts. They’re pretty much just fried dough (so good), but I felt like I was really experiencing New Orleans. We then took a walk in Jackson Square, watched some fool try to do a balancing act for tips and saw him mess up a couple of times.

Afterwards, Megan and I began participating in the festivities by grabbing a beer to go on the street and walked to drop our stuff off at the car (see Picture #12). Marc was apparently very tired and didn’t really want to go out that night with Megan and me, so he volunteered to find a cheap hotel, rest and pick us up later. Haha. There were literally no hotels at all to be found in the area. We should have figured such being July 4th and all. So while Marc was searching, Megan and I grabbed a quick bite to eat for dinner and then got two Hurricanes to go. As these extremely potent drinks began taking their toll on us as we walked down Bourbon Street, we almost felt as if we were in another reality.

Eventually Marc, found us and we went down to the Mississippi to watch the really beautiful fireworks display. They shot the fireworks off various boats anchored on the river. It was quite cool and made New Orleans a great stop for July 4th. After the fireworks, we stopped in the Clover Grill to allow Marc to get a bite to eat.

We went into the Clover Grill just hearing that it had good burgers. Apparently it was situated next to a gay bar and thus attracted a certain clientele. Megan kept claiming that it was not necessarily a gay restaurant, but I thought it became pretty obvious after realizing Megan was the only girl, the waiter called Marc cute and the hot dog on the menu was termed a ¼ pound of pleasure beef. I cannot attest to the burger, but the fries were pretty damn good.

After grabbing a bite, we headed back towards Baton Rouge (we never found a decently priced hotel) to stay with Matt again. In order to keep Marc up, I began singing and dancing in the passenger’s seat. Needless to say, Marc stayed up. I quickly passed out upon arrival.

The following morning, Megan and I woke up on the early side to go with Matt to the local Baton Rouge Farmer’s Market. There, we each had a sweet potato pie. Now, I strongly dislike sweet potatoes, but Matt kinda bought them and placed it in my hand without really asking if I wanted one. I guess he realized that everyone would like one as I quickly finished mine. It was really good. Megan and I purchased some peaches and a cantaloupe as Matt bought his weekly fruit groceries. I’m psyched to try one of those peaches when they ripen.

Thereafter, we rolled the cantaloupe into Marc’s head to wake him up off the air mattress, packed the car up and set off for Texas. Along the way in the Louisiana bayous, we stopped at a rest stop for lunch. We eventually reached Houston where we pulled off the interstate to look into a cheap place for dinner. As I pulled out the map, two interesting things occurred. First, an SUV limo pulled up and about 15 kids, yes, kids got out of the limo dressed as if they were going to a wedding. Megan felt it might be a sweet 16, it seemed pretty intense and a pretty random place to pull over; although there was a nice view of the Houston downtown (see Picture #13). We pulled out the map to gain our bearings and this couple with a baby asked if we were lost. Responding that we were looking for a cheap place for dinner, they steered us in the right direction as we ate at La Mexicana, a cheap Mexican restaurant with good food. Figuring we still had some daylight, we decided to continue on towards San Antonio and find a hotel along the way for the night.

We successfully made it through the Deep South and into Texas without any “Deliverance-type” encounters. I must say that Memphis is a pretty fun city, Mississippi proved to be pretty boring minus their civil war history, Louisiana was much more impressive than I had imagined, and New Orleans is a must revisit. Now, we’re in Texas for the next few days, gonna hit San Antonio, Austin and Dallas en route to New Mexico. We’re gonna watch out for those ‘cowboys’ in the pick up trucks on the road and make sure we don’t piss too many people off and get shot on site.

Hope all is well with everyone.

Oh yea, if you want a postcard, lemme know from where you want it from and the address you want it sent to.

Adios,

Ethan

UPDATE #1 : And So It Begins

By: Ethan Levine

6/30/03 – 7/2/03

Finally, the big day arrived. Marc and Megan arrived in Livingston the day before we embarked on our epic journey through the wonderful place we call our homeland (and when I say we, this only applies to those that own American passports). We finally set off for our journey around 2:30 in the afternoon on Monday, June 30th. Clearly, we would have left an hour earlier, but Marc needed to take an hour long shower after having surgery on his teeth.

Before I indulge you all with our exploits, let me fill you in on exactly who my two faithful sidekicks are. Marc Bressman (yes, this is Bressman, not Breastman) and I attended nursery school together back in the day. We went a good nine years attending different elementary schools and middle schools before attending high school together. We’ve stayed close over the years visiting each other at school, hanging out over breaks, and just doing other “fun stuff.” Marc is the type of ‘kid’ that is a 40 year old trapped in a 22 year old’s body. He was the first to own his own blackberry, have the newest cell phone, have a full time job, etc. He’s got a great sense of humor, but will go nowhere without a glass of chocolate milk. Yes, we will have to learn how to scout out the best stops for nice glasses of chocolate milk.

Megan E. Lewis originates from Liverpool, NY. For all of you have never heard of Liverpool, NY (I really don’t know how that’s possible), it’s right next to Syracuse. We met during our freshman outing trips before starting classes at Dartmouth. She may not have remembered my name from that, but I did and so I asked her to join me on this road trip and surprisingly she said yes. Seriously, we’ve been close friends since freshman year and she’s a bit on the tiny side, but she puts up a pretty good fight. We’ll try to make her drive the least amount possible.

Having said that, she was given the keys from the start (see Picture #1). By the way, for those of you that were so unlucky as to not have been part of my voyage on the other side of the Atlantic, I try to include digital photos relevant to the parts of the updates and you can match them up accordingly when I include the title of the photo in italics and parenthesis.

So we set off for our journey, and after traveling no further than exit 7A on the New Jersey Turnpike, Marc felt the necessity to stop off at the first rest stop. No worries though, because we got to experience a guy get in a fight with the geeky 16-year old Pizza Hut Express cashier about standing in line too long and some dude giving lewd gestures behind me and Megan towards Marc snacking down on a Roy Rogers chicken sandwich.

Surprisingly, we hit next to no traffic the entire way to Washington, DC. So, Marc was trying to get in touch with this friend of his (I had met her previously as well and thought her to be extremely weird….I recall meeting her and remembering a story about having a boyfriend from Mexico and after they broke up, she went out with this new guy once and never saw him again…a year later they met up and he mentioned that he had been kidnapped, naturally she suspected her ex-boyfriend). We stopped just north of D.C. for a packed dinner (see Picture #2) which hit the spot at the time, but this girl that Marc was trying to get in touch with never called back even though he left numerous voicemail messages. Nonetheless, we decided to drive into D.C. and walk around the mall. We saw a bunch of the cool buildings that really make us proud to be Americans (again, American passport thing from before). Some of the places we saw were the Capitol (see Picture #3), Washington Monument, Smithsonians, etc. We maybe spent an hour or two walking around, but had yet to hear from the wonderful, oh, let’s call her Julie for lack of a better name (for those of you that don’t understand my sarcasm, in that last line, I actually meant that her name is Julie, just a disclaimer). Yea, she was worthless…she never called back….never….and had originally told Marc it was cool to stay with her…oh well….luckily for us, Marc’s family friends lived in the area, Olney, Maryland.

So, his family friend’s told us to get to get to their ASAP as in 30 minutes. Now, we had to walk back to his car, which took a good 20 minutes. Their place was about 30-40 minutes away. Needless to say, we didn’t make it by the deadline. No worries though, Marc got yelled at (even though Megan and I made a pit stop for about 10 minutes in search of postcards). It ended up working out quite well; we inflated the air mattresses and had a peaceful night sleep.

At least Marc and I did. You see, Megan was sleeping upstairs in the extra bedroom. After waiting for her to peacefully fall asleep, Marc and I snuck upstairs quietly and on the count of three jumped on her. She let out a high pitched scream as if some was assaulting her. To just quiet her and not wake up our generous hosts, I muffled the cry by covering her mouth with my hand. Funny, at the time I did not realize that someone unaware immediately of the situation would probably think that she really WAS being assaulted if her mouth were covered. So, she continued her scream a bit more. Like a little wimp, I ran downstairs to not get in trouble. I left Marc to get in trouble. We went to sleep afterwards :).

The following morning, we got an early start, and then made our first trip to a wonderful supermarket and realized I can just take cash out of the supermarket instead of getting charged at ATM’s…sweet! We got a little lost, fortunately I had the map and found our way back to the road on our way to Shenandoah National Park and the Skyline Drive.

Along this road trip we don’t have to worry about paying entrance into the National Parks because we are fortunate enough to have obtained a National Park Pass courtesy of a Mr. Drew McConville. So, if anyone from the Park Service asks, Marc instantly becomes Drew. I wonder how that works with Megan (note: for those of you that don’t know Megan and Drew are going out).

Shenandoah National Park allows us to drive South via a scenic drive called the Skyline Drive. We stopped into the visitor center to buy some postcards and try out the uniform (see Picture #4). Along the route the Park Service has about a 1,000 different overlooks of the valley area below. It was cool to stop at a couple of them (Span of Shenandoah National Park Overlook), but it’s beyond me why some of these cars would stop at every single one. It’s about the same thing each time, but apparently they need about a 1,000 of the same picture. When they get them developed, they aren’t gonna remember which one was “The Rocky Stairs” or which one was the “Skyline Elevation” anyways. Kudos to them.

We stopped for lunch at a picnic area which had such a force of bugs, Marc was backed into the car, he didn’t know where to go. It was a war zone out there. Megan and I were able to brave it out, but I think Marc might have a shot next time against those intimidating flies. After lunch, we decided to take a hike down to the closest waterfall to the road (believe me, we almost didn’t make it back from this 1.4 mile hike). It was a heavily traveled hike and we came along many different travelers. There was the typical, rugged hiker that had the backpack and walking cane. There was the tough father who would carry his baby in a backpack up the incline. There was also the type of hiker that stopped every 5 minutes to take a picture of the dirt. And finally, there was the type of hiker that would stop every 5 minutes because they got too tired. Everyone was friendly though and we managed well both down and back up. We came across a beautiful waterfall (see Picture #5).

Afterwards, Marc fell asleep and I took advantage of that. Well….I mean I flew down the rest of the Skyline Drive, passing two cars at a time in the 2 lane road (one each way). Good thing he was asleep. We drove all the way down to Roanoke, Virginia to grab some pizza. After passing the first pizza place we saw, Pizza Hut (Marc dislikes Pizza Hut, he dislikes a lot of things), we drove around for like 25 minutes (I was getting REAL hungry, and I don’t mind Pizza Hut). Apparently, pizza isn’t too big in the South. This came as a culture shock to all of us. Eventually, we happened upon a Papa John’s, which met Marc’s standard of approval. I felt like the car was becoming some bureaucratic form of government.

Afterwards we flew down to Bristol, Virginia to spend the night. Bristol is right on the Virginia, Tennessee border and we found a pretty sweet Econo Lodge for $39 a night, not bad? It even had a fridge and microwave in it. And to top it off, they had Krispy Kreme doughnuts for free in the morning! We shared a bottle of wine, played some cards, looked at some maps and went to sleep. Oh yea, I freaked Marc out real bad my jumping out at him coming back from the bathroom in the dark. I think he’s gonna get me back later in the trip.

Ring, Ring. The clock read 6 AM and sure enough the wake up call for the morning rang. If we had specified 6 AM, I wouldn’t have been too upset, but we specified 8 AM. If they had made just a silly mistake of 6 compared to 8, it wouldn’t have been a huge deal. BUT, the guy came to bring towels the night before and asked if it was at 6 and we made a point of correcting him and making sure he had 8. I mean I don’t mean to be obnoxious, but I guess people from Southern Virginia….well, you get the point :).

The following morning, we were so money. We started out a little after 9 and drove straight to Nashville making fabulous time. We first stopped at the Grand Ole Opry. The plaza it was situated in was really beautiful. It seems as if Tropical Storm Bill passed us by without too much bad weather and most of it occurred while we slept at night. Right there was a museum for free, imagine that! It wasn’t all that interesting in that I don’t really know anything about country music nor really interested in learning much about it…but it was a cool museum going through the history of country music. I got to take some fun photos (see Picture #6, see Picture #7).

Afterwards, we hit the largest hotel in the world Opryland Hotel. Who would’ve thought the largest hotel in the world would be located in Nashville, TN? I mean Nashville is cool and all, but it is in Tennessee. I feel not too many people pass through Tennessee (although we just did). They said they maintain 80% occupancy during the year. I mean I guess Tennessee is a stop for most tourists. Anyways, we went inside (see Picture #8) and it was beautiful. It was almost like a mini town with lots of shops and restaurants. It actually had a river running through the whole place and was completely indoors as you can see. We almost felt as if we were in a futuristic colony.

For lunch we decided to drive into downtown Nashville to Centennial Park. For Marc, the food we had bought the previous day was of course not good for him, so he decided to walk and wait at the Mariott for a sandwich he ended up not liking anyways. At this park, they built a full size replica of the Parthenon (see Picture #9, see Picture #10). Megan and I played Frisbee while we waited for Marc to get back from his ‘food shopping.’ The building itself was tremendous (see Picture #11) and pretty cool. After seeing it and hanging around for a bit we decided to head out towards Memphis to find a room there for the night and see Graceland in the morning.

Along the way to Memphis we decided to stop along the way at an adult book store to find adult Mad-Libs. We saw a sign and just stopped off at this sketchy rest stop where across the street from each other were two adult bookstores. One was in an abandoned gasoline station, that’s the one we decided to stop at. The stuff there was pretty raunchy and pretty expensive. I was wondering how these truckers driving 20 year old trucks that appeared to be falling apart could afford buying $200 sex toys. I dunno, but the people that walked in seemed to be pretty sketchy. Couples checking out the newest “Debbis does Nashville” DVD or something. Needless to say the guy missing a few front teeth at the counter had no idea what Mad-Libs were when Marc asked. We got outta there ASAP.

Thus concludes my first update for the cross-country road trip. I hope you enjoyed it. I must admit, I tend to embellish a few things a bit, but all events are inspired by true stories.

Please respond because I enjoy hearing from everyone.

Hope everyone is doing great.

Talk to ya’ll lata,

Ethan