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Friday

2007-06-30T16:02:00.001-07:00

Sorry that we haven't blogged since Tuesday. We had issues maintaining battery power, locating dog-friendly wi-fi access and finding time to just sit down and write. Now that we are home we will finish the daily blogs, posting each remaining day as a separate entry. So the main title will say "Saturday," but the subtitle will actually refer to what day that blog it about.

Got up very early at 5am so that we could get to Arches National Park in Utah before the crowds. We also wanted to get there early enough to avoid detection. See, one of the most iconic landmarks in the nation is the Delicate Arch in Utah. It is a mile and a half hike from the parking area to the Arch. While dogs are allowed on National Park land, they are almost never allowed on the hiking trails. So, yes, we broke the law for a photo opportunity. After all, we had already been thwarted at the Liberty Bell. From a previous trip, we found out that if you go early enough, there's a pretty good chance that you'll get away with it.

We crossed into Utah at mile 7332 and got to Arches National Park just before 7am. Actually a little later than we wanted to. There were a couple cars in the lot, but no park ranger vehicles. We had to hurry past a few other older folks along the hike, but no one seemed to mind to see a dog on the trail. Looking back in the distance we saw a big tour bus pull into the parking lot, so we quickened our pace. We figured we had a pretty good jump on the tour as they would take some time to get organized before they started after us. As it turned out, we had about twenty minutes to ourselves. There was a man and his young son just leaving as we got there, and a couple sitting on some rocks several hundred yards away just hanging out. We were able to take our time, shooting from several different angles. We finished up in plenty of time, passing the older folks as we left. We stopped by where the couple was sitting and spoke to them for a few minutes. They were quite amused watching us taking pictures. It turns out the girl was also from Orange County but now lived in Aspen, Colorado. As we made our way back to the to parking lot, we passed the tour group as well as many other people making the hike. By the time we got back to the lot, it was full and another tour bus had pulled up. Our timing couldn't have been better. We ran into the couple again in the parking lot and they came over to say "hello" again. The girl was an obvious dog-person so we gave her the blog address. She thanked us and said that we made her day and couldn't wait to see the pictures. Maybe she'll get to read about herself. If she does, "Hi" from Dave and Hapa.
(Editor's note: Some people have mentioned that they didn't see anyone in the Delicate Arch picture. You gotta look closely. Kind of gives you an idea of how big the arch is! By the way, in case you don't know, you can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.)

From there, we made the loooooong drive back to Orange County, CA. There's a lot of other stuff to see in Utah, like Zion, Capitol Reef, Monument Valley and the Salt Lake/Park City area, but we had actually been to those places on previous trips. We hit Arizona at mile 7795 crossing the little northwest corner of it and getting to Nevada and the Pacific Time Zone at mile 7825, gaining another hour there. Kind of forgot how awesome the scenery in that area is. It's a deep canyon, with sheer rock walls on both sides of the freeway. We got to Vegas right in the middle of rush hour and were pleased to find the traffic considerably light, especially on a Friday night. Again, not stopping since we had been there already, we pressed on through the city and hit the California state line at mile 7948. The ride to Vegas from LA seems long to many, but to us, it's a breeze. After almost 900 miles and close to 18 hours since we woke up in Grand Junction, Colorado that morning, we got home at mile 8184 at 9:45pm.

We had such a great time on this trip as always. Even though we just got home we look forward to the next one. There is still so much of the world to see!

We want to thank our family for putting us up and supporting us throughout the trip. Thanks to Yvette for coming along with us on the way out. We also want to thank our many Zama friends who either put us up at their homes or at least allowed us to use their home (Steve and Wayne) and the ones who offered their homes to us. Also thanks to everyone who came to meet us along the way (Kathy, Khahnie, Clarence and Joanna) as well as everyone who tried to meet up with us, but the timing just didn't work out. Thanks also to those of you who called and emailed. And finally, thanks to all of you for reading and posting messages. All of your friendships mean a great deal to us. Until next time...!

Thursday

2007-06-30T14:59:00.000-07:00

The town of Colby, Kansas is just east of the line between the Central and Mountain Time Zones. Never understood why four of Kansas' western counties are in the Mountain and the rest of the state is Central, but it may be a little clearer now. As we were approaching the town the night before, we could see sunlight on the horizon until well after 9pm. Even close to 10pm the sky was still not completely dark. Anyway, after getting up in the morning, it was less than an hour before we had crossed into Mountain Time Zone, gaining an extra hour in our day. Forty-five minutes after that at mile 6730, we crossed the state line into Colorado around 9am Mountain time.

From that point it was about 175 miles to Denver. Having been to Denver on our previous trip, we bypassed the city and turned north through the city of Boulder. Boulder seems like a very nice town, although maybe a little crowded too with the all the building they are doing. It looks like it's growing quite fast from the looks of things. We stopped for lunch at the Barking Dog Cafe in Lyons located in the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

From there continued on to Rocky Mountain National Park. The Rocky Mountains were a very nice change from our long drive through the High Plains. We were surrounded by lush, green valleys and high, craggy peaks. The park is also full of wildlife. We saw elk, mule deer, marmots and chipmunks. We took a picture midway through our drive at the Alpine Visitor Center and then a little later at the pass through the Continental Divide. It rained a little bit throughout our drive, but we were still treated to a lot beautiful scenery. Winding our way back to Interstate 70, we returned to one of our favorite areas from last year's trip: western Colorado. Such a beautiful drive. This time however, instead of turning south at Glenwood Springs, we continued west finally stopping for the night in Grand Junction, just short of the Utah state line.

Random Thoughts from a High Plains Highway
Since this was a relatively short post, this would a good time to pass on some observations made during the long drive between Jefferson City and Denver. Driving across western Kansas can lead you mind to wander.

The Hardees fast food chain in the east seems to become Carl's Jr. in the west in this area of the country. It seems that Carl's Jr. bought out Hardees and changed everything about it to look and act like a Carl's. Even the radio commercials are the same with only the name changed. They even both use the "happy star" logo. We saw Hardees up until the middle of Kansas, and then noticed a Carl's in Colorado.

We seem to have left behind the humidity that we dealt with back east.

Starting to listen to a lot of country music and starting to actually like it. Sometimes there isn't much choice. Started listening to it a bit on the last trip, but now actually seeking it out on the radio. Noticing that the lyrics in every single song make sense. Maybe it's the storytelling aspect of the music that makes it conducive to road trips.

Is it just the radio in our car, or do all radios stop at 96.1 when scanning for stations, even when there is no broadcast on that frequency?

And speaking of the radio, when scanning for AM stations, why does it stop only on clear stations during the day, but at night, the scan stops at almost every frequency whether there is a clear signal or not? Maybe it's time to invest in satellite radio.

Dave's Rant
(Editors note: As said on last year's trip, I have been trying to do this blog somewhat from Hapa's point of view, or at least a generic point of view, since it is his blog. But it's time for another rant.)
Why do a lot of cyclists, and I mean bicyclists, seem to think they have some special privilege when "sharing" the road with automobiles. I use the term "sharing" in quotes to denote sarcasm. While I would not consider myself an avid cyclist, I have trained for two triathlons, so I do have quite a bit of experience riding on roads shared with automobile traffic. Even heavy, high-speed traffic. I've always noticed the problem while driving around in Southern California. But after driving across the country, I have seen it happen everywhere.

What I am talking about is that some, not all, cyclists seem completely selfish in terms of the amount of space they take up on the road. Once, on my commute to work here in Orange County, I was flipped off by a cyclist who I had accelerated past so that I could get around him. It was a fairly crowded road with no bike lane, but he made no effort to move over to allow any traffic by him even though he had more than enough space. I had to accelerate past him because I was forced to cross into the lane to the left to get around him, and I was trying to avoid cutting anyone else off in the process. He apparently took my acceleration as an aggressive move and responded with an obscene gesture. If I'm riding in heavy traffic, I have full respect for the cars around me, not only because it's common courtesy, but also because I could DIE! Again, it happened on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. This time I even slowed down and gave the cyclist a wide berth. He made no effort to make any room for me, and gestured as I passed. Although this gesture was tame by comparison, it was clear that he was perturbed for some reason. In Philadelphia, I witnessed a cyclist riding on the wrong side of the street, yell at a motorist for making a right turn in front of him. He was clearly in the wrong, and yet he was upset at the motorist for cutting him off and nearly hitting him. I also saw another cyclist flip off the car in front of me in the city. It wasn't clear why. The driver did not seem to do anything wrong from what I saw. On a relatively deserted highway in the Colorado farmlands, I came upon another cyclist who also did not make any effort to make room. This time I REALLY slowed down, and went around her. In my rear view mirror, I saw her gesture at me by turning both palms upward as if to say, "What the hell?" I even remember reading about a case, in Washington, D.C. I think, about a motorist who got spit on by a group of cyclists, who also hurled racial epithets at her. She was black and they were white. That group illustrates another problem with cyclists who insist on riding two or more across, completely taking up a lane of traffic.

When I am cycling, because my life could be at risk, I am keenly aware of traffic around me, so I don't buy the excuse that they don't hear cars behind them. In fact, it's their responsibility to know what's happening around them. I would try tooting my horn, but who knows how these road enraged cyclists would react to that. Think about it, when someone uses their horn on you, do you really know the difference between a toot, honk or blast? There is no polite way to honk at someone. I think the D.C. case happened as a result of the motorist honking. To me it's about common courtesy.

And what's deal with the fancy colorful jerseys? Am I to believe that ALL these clowns race with Discovery Channel corporate sponsorship? Please, you remind me of those skiers who spend $500 on a new ski outfit and can't even get down the mountain.

Wednesday

2007-06-30T11:54:00.002-07:00

We started the day very early at mile 6003, getting on the road just after 6am. We stopped at this little coffee shop in the town of Warrenton called the Main Street Coffee House. It was run by this couple who had opened their shop almost exactly a year earlier in a historic house built in the 1903. They couldn't have been nicer! They even had dog treats handy. We sat on their porch, drinking coffee, eating a very good egg and sausage croissant (and dog treats) while planning out the day's route. The lady asked if we were traveling and we informed her that we were headed back to California, returning from a trip to Maryland. She told us that their son was a Marine and had been stationed at Camp Pendleton, just south of Orange County where we live. Was afraid to inquire further about him for fear of what the response might be. After talking with her for a bit, we didn't sense that anything bad had happened to him. They were especially nice to us and we do hope that all goes well with them, their new business, and their son, where ever he may be stationed.

After breakfast, we headed for Jefferson City which is, you guessed it, the capital of Missouri. We got there a little before 9am. This was a pretty quiet town, but very nice. Didn't walk around it very much, but we found another little coffee shop to get a refill and we were quickly on our way.

At mile 6228 we hit the Kansas state line around lunch time. As we approached the Kansas City area, we contacted a friend, Clarence, to see if he could meet us for lunch. He works at the huge Sprint global headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas. Fortunately, he and his wife, Johanna, were able to meet us. We ate at one of the many restaurants on the Sprint campus. The headquarters literally make up a city of its own; they have their own zip code. It seems like a really nice place to work with lots of green area between the many buildings. It is a college campus-like environment. There are several cafeteria-style restaurants, coffee shops, a huge state-of-the-art fitness center, a hair and nail salon, a florist, a bank and other retail stores, all on the Sprint grounds. Very impressive. Unfortunately, we had to be on our way pretty quickly. So we said our goodbyes and returned to the Missouri side of the border and headed for downtown Kansas City. We drove around a little bit, making sure to check out the recently restored Jazz District. We also managed to see Arrowhead Statdium where the Chiefs play and Kauffman Stadium, home of the Royals. Kind of wish we had taken a picture at one of the city's famous fountains so we had something to show for our visit. Kansas City is known as the "City of Fountains," boasting the greatest number of fountains in the world second only to Rome, Italy.

Continuing our westbound journey, we got back into Kansas and made the relatively quick trip to Topeka to get a shot of the state capitol building. Topeka is also the site for the famous Brown vs. Board of Eduction case in 1951 which helped to pave the way for integration and the civil rights movement. We drove west through the rest of the city, made another coffee shop stop and got back onto I-70 for the long, straight drive across the state of Kansas. The overcast sky that we had traveled under all day turned to storm clouds as we made our way out of Topeka. As heavy rain began to fall, we made a slight detour off the freeway to the town of Wamego. This small town claims to be the "Oz Capital of the World" and is home to the Wizard of Oz Museum which houses one of the largest public displays of Oz memorabilia. We had hoped for a good photo opportunity here, but the rain and relatively unimpressive appearance of the museum's front dashed those hopes. While continuing off the freeway, we passed through the town of Manhattan and drove through the Kansas State University campus. On our way back to I-70, we happened upon the gate of Ft. Riley. We found out later that this large military installation throughout it's history has been home to George Custer, the famous all-black 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, the soldiers of which were called "Buffalo Soldiers," and most notably, the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division, also known as “The Big Red One.” We turned around at the gate and got back onto the freeway to continue westbound, stopping for the night at mile 6674 in the western Kansas town of Colby at another Wal-Mart. This one was pretty crowded. There were at least eight RVs, about four trucks and a few other cars also camped out there. Doing this saves so much money, especially with amount we are spending on gas!

Back home again!

2007-06-30T00:54:00.000-07:00

Finally home! Sorry, the last time you heard from us, we were still in St. Louis. We have an awful lot to catch up on. We'll post in the morning. For now, we sleep...

St. Louis, Missouri

2007-06-26T21:47:00.001-07:00

Mile 5930

Sorry, it's been almost two full days and 650 miles since the last blog. We haven't had easy access to the internet for awhile because we were in the middle of Indiana farmland for a long time. We are in St. Louis, Missouri now at a place called Coffee Cartel in a really nice part of town called Central Park East. We really need to get caught up, so without further ado...

Monday morning after we left Columbus, we took Interstate 71 south to Cincinnati. A rather uneventful drive as you can't see much from the freeway. Just a lot of farmland. We passed through Cincinnati rather quickly and crossed the Ohio River at mile 5393 into Covington, Kentucky around 12:30pm. Very happy to find that it isn't the "Cincitucky" that we had heard about, but quite a nice riverfront town with a gorgeous view of the Cincinnati skyline. We crossed the Ohio via the Roebling Suspension Bridge which was the longest suspension bridge in the world when it was built in 1866. It served as the prototype for John A. Roebling's design of the Brooklyn Bridge for which he gained greater fame. It also exceeded the Cincinnati bridge in length when it opened in New York in 1883 breaking his own record. From Covington, we drove along the river to Newport where we had our very first ever White Castle experience. For those of you who have never been to the midwest (or seen the movie) White Castle is America's oldest hamburger fast food restaurant chain known for it's small-sized square burgers called "slyders." White Castle was arguably made world famous, or at least world known, originally by the Beastie Boys back in the 80s on their "Licensed to Ill" album. White Castle was made an even bigger name more recently by Harold and Kumar. Never saw the movie actually. Gotta rent it now. By the way, for those of you who read the blog really closely on the Pacific Northwest trip last year, got caught up on the whole "Deadwood" series, still haven't seen "A River Runs Through It" though. Go back and read it, you'll get it. Anyway, outside of the novelty of the small, square White Castle hamburgers, one of us was indifferent to it otherwise. The other one gobbled it up voraciously.

After lunch, we crossed back into Ohio and the city of Cincinnati. We drove around just for a little bit to see the developing riverfront area, but didn't get to see much else of the city. Indianapolis was on our horizon.

We crossed the Indiana state line at mile 5422 about a quarter 'til 2pm and got to Indianapolis at about 3pm and made our first stop at the state capitol building. By the way, some of you are wondering about this obsession with state capitols. It started quite by accident on the last trip. There are some cities that don't have much going on, or at least that we can see from our singular paths through many of the places we have been. Helena, the capitol of Montana, happened to be one of the those places. We stopped there looking for a grocery store to replenish the ice supply and came across the capitol building. The building and the grounds surrounding it were so beautiful that we just had to take a picture. We followed that with Cheyenne, Wyoming and Denver, Colorado, and it just became a "thing." Regretfully, we didn't come up with this when we passed through Sacramento, California, Eugene, Oregon, or Olympia, Washington before that. Now it has become sort of a challenge to see how many state capitols we can get pictures of.

We drove around the central part of downtown Indianapolis briefly and then turned to the northwest part of the city which is home to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Actually, it's in the town of Speedway which is completely surrounded by the city of Indianapolis. The speedway complex was built in 1909 and the first running of the "500" was in 1911, but it was billed the "International 500-Mile Sweepstakes Race." It didn't become commonly recognized as the "Indianapolis 500" until after WWII. You can actually drive under the track into the infield where the Hall of Fame Museum is located.

After that, we headed west, unfortunately right in the middle of rush hour. But congestion slowly transitioned into a rather pleasant drive through Indiana farmland on a single lane highway. We found a campground at Raccoon Lake State Recreation area near the town of Rockville, Indiana. It's a little under 60 miles due west from Indianapolis. We got there early enough to set up camp in the daylight. Actually it wasn't that early. You could still see daylight until after 9pm there. It's only about 10 miles from the Illinois state line and the Central Time Zone. Shouldn't have said anything about the wonderful weather, because the humidity started to kick in. Nowhere near where it could have been, but it got a little sticky.

Apparently, Parke County, where Rockville is located, is recognized as being the "Covered Bridge Capital of the World." So we got up early Tuesday morning so that we'd have plenty of time to make a bacon and eggs breakfast, and break down camp. We spent most of the morning driving around Parke County visiting various covered bridges. You can tell that a lot of them are not shown as originally constructed though. From the outside they look like it, but when you go inside you can see how much refurbishment was done. Probably wouldn't be safe to drive through otherwise. In fact, many of them, apparently, have been moved from their original locations. We actually saw one being constructed, or rebuilt. The main road to it was closed from both ends, but we found a back way to get around it. There is such a large network of farmland backroads that it was pretty easy to do. They probably construct the framework and place the shell of the old bridge on top of it. It was interesting, but after awhile, all the bridges started to look the same, so it was time to head west again. And yes, saw "The Bridges of Madison County."

We crossed into Illinois and the Central Time Zone at mile 5705 around 1:30/12:30pm and got to Springfield, the capitol of Illinois about two and half hours later. Visted the capitol building and then went to the Lincoln Home National Historic Site where Abraham Lincoln lived from 1837 until 1861. Unfortunately, the house was covered in scaffolding and didn't make for a very nice picture. Didn't know they had scaffolding in the mid-1800s. He was also buried in Springfield and we wanted to visit the Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site, but dogs are usually not allowed in cemeteries, especially historical ones like that, so we didn't bother.

From there, we jumped on Interstate 55, part of which is also Historic Route 66, and headed southwest toward St. Louis. At mile 5925 we crossed the Mississippi River into Missouri around 6pm. Despite it being close to the end of rush hour, we found parking walking distance from the Gateway Arch rather easily. The area around the Arch was relatively empty as well. But we were lucky enough to find a spot the was virtually deserted to snap this picture. Don't know why no one else was there, because it was such a beautiful site to take pictures. From there we drove west through downtown St. Louis until we stumbled upon this area known as Central Park East. For a Tuesday night, it is surprisingly busy. Perhaps the change in weather has brought everyone out. We hit some showers coming into St. Louis, but now it is a beautiful night with the humidity almost completely gone and a strong cool breeze blowing though the streets. If you come here, Maryland Plaza at the corner of Euclid, where Coffee Cartel is located, is the place to go. In fact, as we sit here at close to midnight, Coffee Cartel is still crowded. They are open 24 hours and they've had a long line at the counter all night. And as we've looked across the street to all the other restaurants throughout the evening, everything else was packed most of the night as well. The ample outdoor seating on this street was full everywhere, as everyone was enjoying the cool night. Everything else is starting to close up now though. Coffee Cartel is still cranking away. Anyway, speaking of "close to midnight" and "closing up" it's time to retire for the evening.

Columbus, Ohio

2007-06-25T07:07:00.000-07:00

Mile 5284

We are blogging from a coffee roasters in downtown Columbus, Ohio called Cafe Brioso. They roast their own beans and have free wi-fi. Can't beat that! We spent last night here in Columbus at a Wal-Mart parking lot. Wal-Mart has a policy of letting people park in their lots overnight. Ever wonder why you often see RVs parked at the far end of the parking lot? We've actually used Wal-Mart quite a bit on this trip. We are finally putting some distance between us and our starting point in Maryland. By the end of our first two days on the road, we were still only one state away, Pennsylvania. We have now made it three states away. Granted, the 14 mile strip of West Virginia that we crossed didn't cover much distance, but at least it feels like we've traveled further. Here's how our Sunday went:

Got an early start leaving Harrisburg before 8am and headed straight for Gettysburg. The town around Gettysburg National Military Park is actually very nice. A little on the touristy side, but that is to be expected I suppose. Spent a little time walking around the historical battlefields and some of the town. It is a town that is VERY rich in history. Gettysburg National Cemetery, where Abraham Lincoln gave his famous address, does not allow dogs on its grounds. So we had to settle for taking a snapshot nearby.

Forgot to mention the scenery from yesterday's drive. After getting east of Philadelphia, we stayed off the major freeways for the most part. A lot of the our trip was spent in the Pennsylvania Dutch area, also known as Amish Country. Such a beautiful drive! Can't help but feel a little sorry for the folks riding in their horse and buggies, with cars zipping past them at high rates of speed. The roads are not very wide at all. And some people don't seem to have the courtesy to even slow down as they swerve around those buggies. I guess the Amish must be used to it though. Getting back to the scenery, today's drive around Gettysburg was much the same. Gorgeous! Wheat fields are actually very pretty. "Amber waves of grain?" Again we stayed off the freeway until about the last 100 miles into Pittsburgh. We took this picture in the town of Bedford, just before we jumped onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It's like something you'd find on Route 66. You don't see stuff like this on most interstates.

We should also mention that the weather on this trip overall has been phenomenal. Not hot, humid weather the summer usually brings to the south and east. We only had one bad night on our way out around the Houston area. But the storm the following day cooled the temperatures down pretty well. There was also one day that was supposed to be very bad while we were in Maryland, but even that wasn't as bad as predicted. The weather since we started our way back has been perfect! Sunny and breezy. Not too hot. We've seen a few showers in Pittsburgh and here in Columbus, but nothing to put a damper on things.

Back to the trip. We got into Pittsburgh around 4pm and immediately experienced the worst traffic of the trip so far. The main freeway into the city was closed, so we were detoured. This created a mess, as all the side streets seemed to be backed up as a result. We eventually found our way through the gridlock by travelling through some questionable back street neighborhoods. But we eventually found the downtown area safe and sound.

No, we didn't make an accidental detour to Manhattan. THIS Carnegie Hall is in Pittsburgh and is part of the Carnegie Museum, also founded by Andrew Carnegie. Next to the it, we found a really nice park called Schenley Plaza with plenty of chairs and tables, some eating establishments, and free wireless internet access. Very nice! It was curiously empty considering it was a Sunday, so we had no problem finding a place to sit and relax for awhile, and grab a bite to eat.

After that, we took a drive around the city, first going across the Monongahela River and up Mt. Washington to get an stunning view of the Pittsburgh skyline and the "Three Rivers." After that, we checked out the South Side area which is also separated from downtown Pittsburgh by the Monongahela. Seemed to be a good place to hang out. Lots of restaurants and bars, and people walking around. Then we crossed back over the river to check out the Strip District. This was supposed to be the really happening part of town. We were disappointed to find it almost deserted. Only counted two restaurants that were open. Actually most of downtown Pittsburgh was very quiet for a major metropolitan center. Granted, it was Sunday, but still would expect more from the second largest city in the state. I would have never expected Harrisburg to put Pittsburgh to shame in this regard. That town was definitely the big surprise of the trip up to this point.

We left Pittsburgh around 8pm and got to the West Virginia border at mile 5132 about 45 minutes later. That narrow strip of that state took less than 15 minutes to traverse before to got to Ohio. We crossed half of the state mostly in the dark and got to Columbus close to 11pm where we spent the night.

Drove into Columbus Monday morning at headed straight to the capitol building and found Cafe Brioso about a block away.

Harrisburg, PA

2007-06-23T21:22:00.000-07:00

Mile 4811

We are staying the night in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. What a cool town! Check out the events that lead us here:

Well, we tried to get an early start. After making what we thought were quick stops at PetSmart and the grocery store, we finally got going in the right direction after 10am. We got off Interstate 95 just for change of scenery before we crossed into Delaware at about 11:40am. That was probably a mistake because we lost a lot of time and didn't really see anything interesting in return. Got back on I-95 and drove through the city of Wilmington. We didn't stop though and couldn't see much of the city from the Interstate. Probably got that backwards. Should have stayed on the freeway until Wilmington, then gotten off to see the city.

We hit the Pennsylvania state line less than an hour later and quickly came upon the city of Philadelphia. We headed straight to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Not to see art since dogs aren't allowed inside, but to run up the front steps. Why? For the cinematically impaired, those are the very same steps that Sylvester Stallone ran up in the famous scene in "Rocky." Cue the music: "Gonna Fly Now." If you remember, in "Rocky III," a bronze statue of Rocky was placed at the top of these steps and was given to the city of Philadelphia as a gift from Stallone after filming had completed. The statue triggered a furious debate in the city over whether the statue was indeed "art" or just a movie prop. Afterall, this was the Phildelphia Museum of Art. As a result, the statue was moved several times over the years, sometimes returning to the top of the steps for another appearance in "Rocky V" and the Tom Hanks movie, "Philadelphia." As a compromise, the statue now sits at the bottom of the steps off to the right. Judging from the line we had to stand in to take a picture, more people probably visit the statue than the museum. We also witnessed dozens of people mimicking Rocky's famous run up the front steps too. Of course, most of them turned around and walked back down instead of going into the museum. Strike a blow for pop culture over art.

After that, we tried to go see the Liberty Bell. But it is protected inside a building so we had to settle for looking at it through a rather small window. And there was a VERY long line to get in to see it anyway. Looked like at least an hour wait.

Disappointed, we pressed north to New Jersey crossing the stateline at about 3pm. Our destination, the state capitol of Trenton, was probably the northernmost and easternmost point of the trip at mile 4591. We'll have to verify that later. Trenton seemed to be a pretty quiet city.

Trenton sits right on the stateline, so we crossed back into Pennsylvania continued working our way back westward. We stopped for gas at a little town called Devon and realized that we were just a couple of miles from Valley Forge. By this time it was almost 5pm and we were only 150 miles from where we had started. The New Jersey trip required us to backtrack. But it was so close and a signigicant landmark, so we went. This is an example of one of our accidental detours. Valley Forge, now a National Historical Park, is where George Washington's Continental Army endured an extremely harsh winter during the Revolutionary War to battle the British who held Philadelphia. As a result, the British departure from Philadelphia was considered key to the subsequent success of the Army and Revolution. Little history lesson there. The National Memorial Arch recognizes the sacrifices of the officers and soldiers of the Continental Army during that time.

After that we headed straight to Harrisburg, hurrying to beat the sunset so that we could get a shot of the state capitol building. We discovered that we had shown up on the night of a local jazz festival. The streets were packed and the city was bustling! Not sure if this town is always like this, but it was a pleaseant surprise. We also discovered (another accidental detour) that the town of Hershey, as in the chocolate, was only 15 miles away. But we decided that we liked Harrisburg so much that we wanted to spend the night there. So we made it to Hershey's Chocolate World with just enough daylight to get a photograph. Incidentally, the town did not smell like chocolate, at least not on this day. After that, we returned to walk the streets of Harrisburg. The town was so vibrant, with packed restaurants and bars, and people walking the crowded streets. Very nice!

Although we hadn't traveled very far from our starting point, is was full day. So we called it a night after that.

Saturday morning

2007-06-23T05:27:00.000-07:00

Mile 4413

Suffiently caffeinated and we are on our way home! We are leaving Columbia, MD and headed for Philadelphia, PA as our first stop.

The car is packed again!

2007-06-22T21:54:00.000-07:00

We are loaded up and ready to start our meandering trek back to California first thing tomorrow (Saturday) morning. This time we'll take a more northerly route. Our plan is head north up to Pennsylvania and maybe a little bit of New Jersey. Then we'll turn west and go through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and finally, California. That is the general plan. But as always, we could detour at anytime if something looks interesting enough!

We've spent all of our stay here in Maryland just relaxing and being with family. On Wednesday, we did get a chance to get back to Washington, DC. And, of course, we snapped a few more pictures:

The World War II Memorial

The Korean War Memorial

The White House

The Marine Corps War Memorial (aka the Iwo Jima Memorial)

Annapolis, Maryland

2007-06-15T12:21:00.000-07:00

We made a quick trip over to Annapolis, the state capitol of Maryland. It's only about 45 minutes from Columbia where we are staying. The Maryland State House, as it is known here, is the oldest state capitol in continuous legislative use, dating to 1772.

We went to Annapolis harbor, which sits on the Chesapeake Bay, hoping to find a fish market so that we could bring home fresh fish for dinner. Unfortunately, the big fish market that used to be there many years ago was apparently wiped out by a flood caused by Hurricane Isabel in 2003. It has since been replaced by a food court and there seemed to be no other options. We asked around and no one knew of any fish markets in the vicinity. Very sad. A harbor town with no fresh fish. There were a few seafood restaurants, but even those seemed to be importing their fish from inland sources. This was evident by the seafood delivery trucks from Jessup, MD, a town about 25 miles inland from Annapolis.

Destination achieved!

2007-06-13T11:14:00.001-07:00

Mile 3885

Well, we FINALLY reached our destination in Columbia, Maryland last night! We will spend a little over a week here and down in Calvert County visiting family. Unfortunately, Yvette already caught her flight this morning to return home, and won't be joining us for the return trip. It was nice having her company on the way out. Thank you, Yvette!

We didn't cover a whole of ground since our last post, but we sure did see a lot! Here's how it happened:

We got up Tuesday and had a leisurely morning, having breakfast with Steve at his home. We are so fortunate to have friends open their homes to us! Thank you all who have offered to have us over or have met us along the way of our trek across America. We are sorry that we didn't get to see everyone, but we had to get to Maryland so that Yvette would make her return trip in time. After breakfast, we packed up and made the very short trip into downtown Richmond to visit the Virginia state capitol.

After that, it was about 100 miles to the Washington, D.C. Luckily, we found parking right next to the Washington Monument which was our first stop. For those of you who have been there, you know how rare that is to find. There are more famous landmarks in this city then anywhere we have been. So we did our best to see the big ones.

Lincoln Memorial

Tidal Basin and Jefferson Memorial

The Capitol Building which had some nice cool grass.

We did our best to see the White House, but security is so strict around there now, we couldn't find parking close enough to walk over to see it. By the time we got to it, it was rush hour. Rush hour in D.C. really limits your parking options. If you are parked on the street in a restricted area after 4pm, they actually ticket you and then tow you car up onto to the curb to open up traffic lanes. There are so many cars to move that it's too difficult to tow all of them away, so they just drag them all up onto the curb. Anyway, we only caught a fleeting glimpse of it the White House. Maybe we can go back and see it later while we are here in Maryland.

Unfortunately, we left D.C. in the middle of rush hour so it took awhile to get out of the city. The spectacular thunderstorm at the time probably didn't help matters much either. Once we got out of the city, however, the roads opened up and the sky cleared. So we had a pretty nice drive the rest of the way to our destination, arriving in Columbia, MD around 7pm.

While we were out for dinner with family that night, Yvette caught very first firefly. Like many of you west coasters, she had never even seen a firefly before last night near Richmond, let alone caught one before. For those of you don't know, during the summer, this is a favorite activity for children (and adults!) in the evening. Fireflies, or lightning bugs as they are sometimes known, come out just as night falls and use bioluminescence to emit a yellowish glow to attract mates and prey. They fly slowly enough so that anyone can easily catch one. Little biology lesson there. You can read more about them here.

With a belly full of Maryland crab, we were able to settle down for the evening and get the full nights sleep we had been missing on our week long journey. No need to hit the road so early the next for a long day's drive this time.

We will be here for a little over a week and will continue to blog if anything significant happens. We will get back into the full swing of things on our way back west, this time taking a more northerly route. So keep an eye out on the blog to follow along with us on our way home. Our friend Jen had posted a message asking why there are no people in the pictures we post. So here's one from the road:

The front seat is usually dog-occupied on these road trips, and there was no reason for it to be any different on this road one just because there was an extra person along for the ride!

Richmond, Virginia

2007-06-12T04:48:00.001-07:00

Mile 3710

Another night with a real bed and a hot shower last night! We are in Richmond, Virginia staying at our friend Steve's house. What a nice house and a HUGE yard. Lots of room to run around! Steve was kind enough to treat us to a late night supper when we arrived. What great friends we have! It's been a couple of days since the last blog so let's get caught up:

We checked out of the motel in Mobile at around 7am Sunday morning and soon found ourselves crossing into Florida an hour later at mile 2506. We drove along the gulf coast of the Florida panhandle from Pensacola to Fort Walton Beach, then cut up north to get back into Alabama.

We took a VERY nice drive off the Interstate up through central Alabama passing through many small rural towns. Those drives are always so interesting. We like small towns. We got to Montgomery, Alabama at mile 2836 and took the obligatory state capitol building picture. What a quiet town Montgomery seems to be. Perhaps being Sunday in the bible belt keeps things mellow like that. The streets were almost deserted in the downtown area.

By mile 2923, we found ourselves in Georgia at 3:29pm. We rolled into the huge city of Atlanta a couple of hours later and headed straight for the state capitol. The statue in the picture is John B. Gordon, a former Georgia Governor and Senator. There was a Braves game about to get underway, as we saw the fans headed for the game as we drove past Turner Field. In stark contrast to Montgomery, Atlanta was as busy as a big city should be. Hundreds of people were gathered at Centennial Olympic Park watching a fountain show set to classical music. Not quite the Bellagio, but it sure drew a crowd on this hot Atlanta day. We spent awhile driving around downtown Atlanta, looking for interesting things to take pictures of. I think we found one. Atlanta seems to be a great city and regret that we only spent a couple for hours there. But as it is with every other stop, we had to keep on going.

As night fell, we crossed the state line into South Carolina at mile 3108, and then North Carolina right after that at mile 3182. A little over an hour later driving up toward the mountains, we mistakenly made a wrong turn while looking for a campground. We ended up in the city of Asheville. What a great discovery! It sounds funny, but even though everything was closed, it looked like such a fantastic town. We couldn't wait to revisit it in the morning!

We eventually found the campground by close to midnight Sunday night, quickly made camp, built a fire and even managed to cook some dinner. We camp the way you are supposed to do it with a tent and sleeping bags. Oh, and of course, the laptop for blogging. (This campground has free wi-fi access!) Sleep came quickly as we had covered a lot of mileage that day.

Monday morning, we made a camp breakfast of coffee, oj, bacon and eggs. We broke down camp and then went into Asheville to check out the town in the daylight. We were right! It was a neat little city. Lots of cafes, coffee shops and people on the streets. We finally got onto the Blue Ridge Parkway at almost 11am at the Asheville entrance. We covered close to 300 miles on the Parkway, exiting at Roanoke, crossing the border into Virginia along the way at mile 3428 of our trip. Unfortunately, we were not treated kindly by the weather gods and could not enjoy the beautiful views we had been expecting. Most of the day was cloudy with heavy haze obscuring the mountain scenery. However, it was still a very pleasant drive, taking us almost eight hours to complete. We cut eastward across Virginia via Highways 460 and 360 into Richmond and arrived at Steve's house around 10:30pm.

Mobile, Alabama tonight!

2007-06-09T21:15:00.000-07:00

Mile 2532

Our first night of the trip in a real bed! It's Saturday night and we have checked into a Motel 6 in Mobile, Alabama. Here's what's happened since our last post on Friday afternoon:

At Wayne's suggestion, we took a nice early evening drive off the Interstate up to Austin via Highways 281 and 290. A very nice city that is said to own the nation's largest state capitol building. We also took a cruise down the famous 6th Street to soak in the college town atmosphere of the University of Texas.

From there we continued east along Highway 71 and stopped for dinner at a restaurant called the Roadhouse in the town of Bastrop. They boast having hamburgers voted the best of '03, '04 and '05 according to the t-shirts they wore. Of course, we haven't been to a restaurant yet that didn't claim to have something voted the best. And you never know exactly who did the voting. At least this place gave years for when the voting took place so at least you know it wasn't decades ago. So we had the deep-fried cod. There was man playing some live blues/country/rock. He did pretty well with the Johnny Cash stuff.

Continuing on 71, we eventually met back up with I-10 leading us to Houston. We pulled over at mile 1970 in Pasadena, a suburb of Houston, to spend the night. The weather is starting to turn ugly. Very hot and humid. Welcome to the deep South!

Bright and early at 6am on Saturday morning, we made our way just southeast of Houston to the Johnson Space Center. Nothing was open yet, but we just wanted to take a look. Unfortunately, there isn't much you can see from the front of the building. We returned back up north into downtown Houston just to take a quick look around before continuing our eastward trek.

We stopped at a Waffle House in Port Arthur, TX for breakfast before crossing over the state line into Louisiana around 11am at mile 2138. When we got to the capitol city of Baton Rouge, it was Yvette's first trip east of the Mississippi. The capitol building itself is said to be the tallest one in the nation.

We got to New Orleans just before 4pm and drove by the Superdome, home of the Saints. It still has the "We're Back!" banner on it from the city's celebration of the team's return to post-Katrina New Orleans. On our approach to the city, things seemed to be either pretty well fixed or hidden to the casual visitor. If you didn't already know what had happened to the city, you might not even realize what they had been through. The French Quarter seems to be back in full swing with all the activity on Bourbon Street as well as everywhere else. We managed to chow down on some real N'Awlins dinners of red beans and rice with sausage and chicken jambalaya before taking off.

Leaving New Orleans to the east was quite a different story. Their seemed to be miles of abandoned neighborhoods. Not just buildings, but whole neighborhoods. Of course we didn't have time to visit any of the badly hurricane damaged areas (not that we wanted to) but I'm sure there had to be much worse then what we could see from the Interstate. Very sad.

Crossing the border into Mississippi at mile 2424 show us even worse. We made a detour off of I-10 to the Gulfport and Biloxi region on the Gulf Coast. Almost every building across the street from the beach seemed to have been wiped away. Empty foundations, shells of buildings and even a few piles a rubble where still there to be found almost two years post-Katrina. The buildings that are now standing on the beach are obviously brand new, condos and hotels mostly. Even though we were there to see it, it was very hard to wrap your mind around the level of the devastation that had occurred there.

We crossed into the state of Alabama at mile 2511 at 8pm and quickly made our way to Motel 6. Looking forward to a hot shower and a comfortable night's sleep!

We are in San Antonio, Texas!

2007-06-08T14:50:00.000-07:00

Mile 1674

Sorry, we had some battery issues and weren't able to get an internet connection until now. It is Friday afternoon and we are in San Antonio, Texas. Our friend Wayne was kind enough to let us rest up, get a couple of showers and recharge our batteries (literally!) at his house here. We haven't had a chance to recharge anything since we've been on the road. So the laptop, digital camera, cell phones and DVD player were all running quite low on power. Our only regret was that Wayne wasn't around at the time. He left a key for us to let ourselves in, but we never got to see him. A lot has happened since leaving Las Cruces, so here's the latest:

After our last post at Milagro Coffee on Thursday morning, we headed straight for White Sands National Monument in southwest New Mexico. Doesn't look like much from the outside, but once you drive in... wow! What an amazing place! We had tons of fun racing up and down the dunes of finely ground, pure white sand! It looks like snow! It was very empty too. You could pick your own spot, park the car and not see anyone else around at all. White Sands is the world's largest surface deposit of gypsum, the mineral from which plaster of Paris is made. Most desert sands are composed of quartz and are much more coarse than the fine, powdery consistency of White Sands. Also, unlike other desert sands, they are cool to the touch, due to the high rate of evaporation of surface moisture and also to the fact that the sands reflect, rather than absorb, the sun's rays. Didn't think you'd be getting a science lesson here, did you? If you ever get the chance, White Sands is very much worth the detour off of Interstate 10.

Roswell, not so much. But to be fair, we didn't spend very much time there at all. Roswell, New Mexico is famous for being the site of an alleged UFO incident in 1947. We got there at about 2:30pm and we were running short on time, so we barely had enough time to snap a quick photo. We went to the UFO Museum and Research Center to take a photo from the outside. After being invited (twice!) to come into the dog-friendly museum, we scored a free stuffed alien to play with from the gift shop lady. Unfortunately, we just didn't have any time to spend there. How ironic that the one place that insisted that dogs were welcome, and we just didn't have the time to stay.

After we made our quick exit from Roswell, we had to hurry because Carlsbad Caverns National Park closes their cave entrance at 5pm. The Carlsbad Caverns are one of the largest networks of underground chambers in the world. We made it just in time at mile 1066 twenty minutes before they stopped letting people into the cave. Of course, no dogs are allowed so we had to stop by the kennel at the visitor center, but we made it in time. And we were so glad we made it! What an amazing, amazing place! We had enough time to hike the "Big Room" at a leisurely pace. The Big Room route, just one of the many tours you take in the caverns, is a one-mile, self-guided underground walk around the perimeter of the largest room in the cave. It takes about an hour to complete. The Big Room, which begins at about 750 feet below the surface, is large enough to hold more than six football fields. The sheer size is mind boggling. It's hard to believe the caverns are natural formations because they look like something you would see on a ride at Disneyland. After the cavern hike we stuck around for a nightly event at the cave entrance. Every night at dusk, what seems like millions of bats exit the cave to feed for the evening. The swarm of bats can go on for over two hours!

Both White Sands and Carlsbad Caverns are must sees if you ever get the chance. They are both relatively close to each other. And while you can't bring your dog into the caverns themselves, you can at least bring your dog along to both places. The dunes provide endless opportunities for "crazy runs" up and down the slopes.

We crossed the border into Texas and the Central time zone at mile 1236 at 8:58pm/9:58pm. Thursday night, we crashed in Ft. Stockton, TX. All of Friday morning was spent driving across the western half of Texas to San Antonio. It takes a looooooooong time to drive across Texas! When we finally got there, we grabbed a quick lunch on the Riverwalk and stopped to visit the Alamo. Much smaller that you might think it would be. After that we took the quick trip south over to Wayne's house.

Arizona and New Mexico

2007-06-07T07:23:00.000-07:00

Mile 835

One day and we are already in Las Cruces, New Mexico! We are posting from a place called Milagro Coffee y Espresso just off the New Mexico State U campus. Here's how our first day went:

After picking up our friend Yvette, we hit the road at 6:45am and luckily didn't have to deal with any traffic getting out of Orange County. Yvette is joining us for our trip east just to go for the ride. Like our last trip, we wanted to try to get as far out as possible on the first day before we started doing too much sightseeing since we've seen everything around here.

We made it to the Arizona border (for some cheaper gas!) by 10:21am at mile 225. Sometimes Arizona can be confusing to drive into because you don't know what time it is. Arizona does not observe Daylight Savings Time, so sometimes their time is different from California and sometimes it isn't. Always forget which time of the year it is, and which time it isn't. Hawaii and Arizona (with the exception of the lands of the Navajo Nation in the northeastern part of the state) are the only places in the nation that do not observe Daylight Savings Time. Rolled into Phoenix around lunchtime and visited the state capitol building. One of the least traditional looking ones we've seen. Actually, the original capitol building is a much more elegant structure, but it has been converted to a museum. So in keeping with accuracy, the building shown actually houses the Territorial and State Legislatures, as well as various executive offices. We were also able to go down to Chandler, just southeast of Phoenix to visit briefly with our friend Khanhie on her lunch hour. She moved out here from Orange County last year.

Got to Tucson a couple of hours later where we met our friend Kathy for coffee. Again, just another quick visit and we were on our way.

Just south of Tucson was the town of Tombstone where the famous gunfight at the OK Corral took place in 1881. This picture was taken on Allen Street. The much of the actual gunfight took place on the opposite side of the block on Fremont Street, but the signage was better on the Allen side. Plus, Allen Street is a better preserved (or restored) example of a rugged frontier town of the 1870-80s, and provides a better backdrop representing the Old West. Fremont Street is now also known as Highway 80 and is a paved throughway.

We made it to the New Mexico border by 8:45pm at mile 697 and stayed the night just outside of the town of Las Cruces.

We are on our way!

2007-06-06T05:27:00.000-07:00

Mile 0

Bright and early, and we just about to hit the road. We want to get out of Orange County before the traffic gets too bad. Here we go! Woo hoo!

The car is packed!

2007-06-06T00:13:00.000-07:00

OK, the car is packed and we are ready to go first thing in the morning! Thanks for following along with us!

If you are interested in reading about our last adventure across the western United States, see the previous blogs below.

Final day

2006-08-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

Wow! What a trip! It's good to finally be home! It was a great trip, but it's nice to sleep in your own bed after being away for so long. Here's how the final day of our trip went:

We started out very early this morning, 5:30am (4:30 Pacific Time), and went to the Four Corners National Monument. It's the only place in the U.S. where you can stand with all four paws each in a different state. Originally, the plan was to do this and go straight home. But like the rest of the trip, there were other things to do and see along the way, so we had to make a few detours. So even though we had been there before, the Grand Canyon only added 30 extra miles to our drive so we just had to stop.

Again, the difference between going straight home after the Grand Canyon and detouring to Hoover Dam and Las Vegas was only a matter of a couple extra miles. In reality, of course, the extra miles were much more because we drove around to look at things, but it was worth it. After all, after over 7000 miles, what did a few extra miles matter? After Vegas, it was just a short four hour drive home. Done that long drive many times, but this time it seemed to just breeze by.

Then finally, after 18 days, 20 hours, 45 minutes and 7334 miles on the road, we finally pulled up to the house at 12:30am on Tuesday morning.

We'd like to thank everyone who checked out the blog and also those who left comments. We had so much fun and enjoyed keeping in touch with everyone through this blog. It was a really fun trip and so nice to get away for so long, but we are very glad to be back home.

Home at last!

2006-08-08T01:13:00.000-07:00

Mile 7334

We're finally back home! We will update you all on the activities of our last day on the road in morning. For now... time for sleep...

Final blog from the road?

2006-08-06T20:49:00.000-07:00

Mile 6363

We are at the Lost Dog Bar and Lounge in Durango, Colorado for dinner. This might be our last blog from the road, so here it is:

Right after breakfast we took a walk around the town of Glenwood Springs. Although it's pretty touristy, it would be a nice place to come back for a visit. Paid our respects to Doc Holliday at an establishment that is now a store called Summit Canyon Mountaineering. You can check them out by clicking here. Found out at that store that the area is very good for rockclimbing. Sounds like we found a really good reason to come back.

From there we headed south through the Elk Mountains for some more scenic driving. It was really nice, but when we hit the town of Ouray and the San Juan Mountains, that's when it really got good. Apparently, this stretch of the 550 Highway south of the town is known as the "Million Dollar Highway." It is ranked among the most spectacular scenic byways in the United States. Another gem we stumbled onto. In the picture you can see that the beginning of the drive overlooks the town of Ouray. The drive surely ranked among the best of our trip. We have to thank John and Jen for suggesting this route. Fortunately, the storm that had been threatening since we got into the mountains held off until we got past the 6-mile "Million Dollar" part. We pretty much got hammered with rain until we got to Durango. We found some shelter in one of the abandoned mining buildings that are scattered all along that route. Funny, we thought it was going to be another beautiful day because the weather was so nice in Glenwood Springs.

Tomorrow the plan is to go to the Four Corners Monument where the states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico come together at a single point. After that we will probably drive straight home since we have seen just about everything else west of that point.

Glenwood Springs, Colorado

2006-08-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

Mile 6122

We are blogging from Glenwood Springs, Colorado right now at Sacred Grounds Coffeehouse. Here's the scoop up until now:

While we were in Denver, it had been pretty cloudy the whole time. As we headed west on Interstate 70 into the Rocky Mountains, it turned into a full on downpour. It kind of ruined the view because the clouds were so low... or the mountains were so high. The going was pretty slow because of the weather and twisty mountain route. Guess we had been pretty lucky this trip with practically perfect weather up until now, especially considering what the rest of the nation was going through. So unfortunately we decided to skip Rocky Mountain National Park.

We detoured near Vail and went south to the town of Leadville. It claims to be the highest incorporated city in the nation. Not sure if that's true or not. There was an event going on there called Boom Days, celebrating their old west heritage as a mining town. They had closed off all the streets for it. But unfortunately, it was raining pretty hard so hardly anyone was there. It's sad, because that is probably their big annual tourist event. This town is so isolated, can't imagine that many people get up there very often. So we didn't even get to see any of the town because of the street closures and rain. It's just as well, no dogs are allowed at the event. Not even walking around on the street.

As we headed back to I-70 the rain started to let up and we were treated to some spectacular views. The whole valley west of Vail is gorgeous. But the real treat was Glenwood Canyon. A gap carved out by the Colorado River barely wide enough to accomodate the interstate freeway with vertical rock walls that shoot up hundreds of feet.

At the other end of the Glenwood Canyon was the town of Glenwood Springs where we spent the night. Quite the bustling town considering it was after dark. We had passed through so many towns where nothing was open after 6pm.

This morning we got up early so that we could head back east through the canyon for one more look. There is a nice hiking/biking trail that runs right next to the freeway and sometimes under and over it that we walked on for a bit. Then we turned around and headed back west again to grab breakfast and coffee at Sacred Grounds. We will be home in another day or two probably!

Interesting link:
www.leadvilleboomdays.com

Denver, Colorado

2006-08-05T14:53:00.000-07:00

Mile 5870

At Dazbog Coffee in Denver now. Just wanted to grab some coffee for the road and post a blog really quickly on our way out of town. Other than our time in Denver, it was mostly a driving day again yesterday, so there isn't much to tell:

After a long coffee break at Dunn Bros. in Rapid City, we returned to Mt. Rushmore for a quick stop for more pictures. Then we headed south through Wind Cave National Park. Didn't get to go in the cave since no pets are allowed, but we did run into all sorts of South Dakota wildlife along the way.

After that, we turned west and crossed the border into Wyoming at mile 5407 and continued south until we got to Cheyenne where we spent the night. In the morning, headed south, crossed the border into Colorado at mile 5750 and continued on to Denver. We had lunch in Downtown Denver with a friend from high school, Yasmin, and her son and two neices.

Post Office buildings

2006-08-05T13:31:00.000-07:00

Remember the statement about post offices? Here's a perfect example. We passed through the town of Hot Springs, South Dakota, population 4201, just before crossing the border to Wyoming. We passed the police station first:

Then several blocks later we saw the post office:

One thing about this town is that it had a really cool coffee place called Flatiron Coffee, so named because the shape of the building resembles the Flatiron in New York. They roast their own beans, but no free wi-fi. But what was striking about this place was that it seemed so out of place in this otherwise rather desolate town. There was a very large, beautiful, grassy patio area where they apparently have a BBQ every Friday afternoon. There was a girl grilling burgers and stuff for the customers. When you stepped inside, it was like you walked into a very cool cafe in the city. Like the doorway was a portal into another place or something. Cool music playing, cool atmosphere. All the customers were 20-somethings, who didn't seem to be locals. But this town was so remote, could they have been passing through like us? Didn't have the foresight to take pictures so you can see it by clicking here.

Finally, heading west!

2006-08-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

Mile 5362

We are at Dunn Brothers Coffee in Rapid, South Dakota right now. They roast their own beans too. Taking a relaxing break after an extremely busy day yesterday. Let's get right into the days activities:

Hit the road early at 6:30 am Thursday morning. Stopped at Java Jae's in Gillette, Wyoming for coffee and a bagel and a quick email check.

At mile 4950 we got to the entrance of Devil's Tower in northeastern Wyoming. Took a few pictures and headed east. We hit the 5000th mile of our trip just outside of Sundance, Wyoming and crossed into South Dakota shortly thereafter at mile 5025.

We had noticed a lot of bikers on the road since way back in Montana earlier this week and didn't really think much of it. Figured that as we got closer to Sturgis, SD, well known as a biker's town, it seemed natural. Then as we got into Wyoming we started to notice that some bars that we passed had "Welcome Bikers" signs. What we didn't realize that this was the opening weekend of the 66th Annual Sturgis Biker Rally. It's actually a pretty incredible event. This tiny town of almost 6500 people surges to over a half million in total attendance. The original plan was to stop by and take a picture by a "Welcome to Stugis" sign or something. We had no idea that we would actually be able to attend the rally. Timing is everything.

After that, we took a ten mile drive to the town of Deadwood where Wild Bill Hickok was gunned down at a poker game. Urmr, take note. The HBO western series is set in this town. Never seen it, but now we have to get the DVD.

We drove about an hour south from Deadwood to get to Mt. Rushmore at mile 5121. Unfortunately, pets are strictly prohibited from entering this place. Not sure why since every other National Park allows them. So we took pictures from the outside. Just 15 miles southwest from there is the Crazy Horse memorial. Now this was impressive. It is still a work in progress so it is interesting to see what they have done and what it is planned to look like. This unbelievably massive project was started back in 1948. The original sculptor died in 1982 but his work continues. So far, only the face is completed. But when it's finished, it will be the largest mountain carving in the world, dwarfing Mt. Rushmore.

From there, we went even further east to Badlands National Park. This was not an originally planned stop, but it was only an hour further, so why not? Glad we made the trip. What an awesome place! The east end of the park where we exited, marked the farthest distance we will travel from home on this trip. From this point, we turned back west and began our meandering journey home. It happened at 9:03 pm at mile 5280. At this point, we were 1106 miles from home "as the crow files." Again, for the geography geeks, this occured at N 43.841, W 101.899. Google map it and you can see where we were.

We camped out near the Badlands shortly thereafter. Slept in the car though. There was a thunderstorm approaching and we didn't want to be in a tent. It made for a pretty spectacular lightning display though.

Whew! What a day! Luckily, we got to see a lot because everything was bunched pretty close together. But it was still a long day. Westward ho!

Interesting links:
Sturgis Motorcycle Rally
Read about the Crazy Horse Memorial

Dave's Rant

2006-08-03T21:14:00.000-07:00

(Editors note: I have been trying to do this blog somewhat from Hapa's point of view, or at least a generic point of view, since it is his blog. But I just had to tell this story.)
I have been been finding myself really losing patience with people on this trip. From the idiotic tourists who go into areas that are clearly prohibited, mucking up the scenery that other people trying to take pictures of. To the inconsiderate RV drivers who can't seem to drive over 45 on 65 mph single lane roads. Either they are cluelessly oblivious to the line of cars behind them, or they just couldn't give a rat's a**. (Sorry for the censorship, but my parents are reading this blog too.) The phrase "people suck!" could be heard emanating from this little SUV quite often. I had found myself losing faith in people as they continued to prove to me that most of them are self-centered, inconsiderate morons. Then last night, I bumped into this girl in the lobby of the motel where we were staying. Actually Hapa bumped into her. I knew I had him around for a reason. We started talking and she asked me what I was traveling for. I told her that this was a post-layoff trip and explained all that had happened with my job. Not knowing me from Adam, she handed me her card and told me about her company, and said that they were in a hiring frenzy. By the way, visit them at www.backcountry.com . Now, they are based in Park City, Utah so it might take a lot for me to move there,. But I was taken aback by her generosity to a perfect stranger. There ARE still good people out there. So thanks to Kristin for restoring my faith in people, or at least reminding me that there is a balance in the world. And it had nothing to do with the fact that she was gorgeous! Thanks, Hapa.

Old Faithful

2006-08-02T23:03:00.000-07:00

Mile 4793

We have made it to Sheridan, Montana and found free wi-fi at Burger King. We'll post this entry and then go a little further and camp for the night. Today was another driving day, but we did get to do something special:

Checked out of the Best Value Inn and headed south. At mile 4490 we entered the Yellowstone National Park west entrance and crossed the Wyoming border very shortly after that. Within an hour we had made it to Old Faithful. We got there just half an hour before the next eruption so we had time to walk around a bit and find a good viewing spot. I'm surprised by how crowded these places have been mid-week. There have been a lot of European tourists on this trip, as well as Americans on summer vacation. After watching the geyser erupt, we headed for the eastern gateway to the park. Unfortunately, this turned out to be quite a headache. There were long delays because of road construction, but it paid off after we got through it. The drive from the east entrance was just stunningly beautiful.

The rest of the day was spent traveling east across northern Wyoming. This could possibly have been the most beautiful drive of the trip so far. After that gorgeous drive from Yellowstone, the town of Cody was a nice surprise. It's always interesting how you can have nothing for miles, and all of a sudden there is this city in the middle of it all. Cody was very nice town, it had a kind of vibrancy to it. They were advertising a rodeo in town later that night. Wish we could have stuck around for it. Then as abruptly as Cody came upon us, it was gone as we continued east. When we got to Bighorn National Forest, we took the Bighorn Scenic Byway traversing the mountains via Shell Canyon. Wow! The canyon is just amazing! A rushing river with sheer rock walls and the Shell Falls were fantastic! It quickly got dark as we got to the other side of the mountain and we soon found our way to Sheridan.

A lot of driving today so more random thoughts:
It seems like the post office is almost always the nicest building in town. Even these tiny little stops, with populations under 100, always have a really nice post office.

The mosquitos seem to have disappeared ever since we got into Montana.

Country music isn't that bad, ya'll.

Bozeman, Montana

2006-08-01T22:26:00.000-07:00

Mile 4390

We have checked into a Best Value Inn in Bozeman, Montana for the night. Got here kind of early, about 7:45pm, so there is still a couple hours of daylight. Lots of time to relax a bit before hitting the sack. It'll be nice to sleep in a real bed after sleeping bags for the past few nights. Not much went on since we left Columbia Falls:

Today was mostly a driving day. Not much sight seeing. We did stop in Helena, the capital of Montana. Another nice Montana town.

Since there wasn't much else to our day, a few random thoughts about Montana:

We've done a LOT of road trips and no matter where we went, when we would scan for stations on the radio, there would always be a Spanish station coming in crystal clear. California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, even in the middle of the desert, or all along Interstate 40 across the US. There was even one point crossing from Oregon to Washington where the only station we could get was Spanish. That is not the case for Montana. The likelyhood of finding one seems to fade as you travel east.

We don't have any accurate measuring instruments, but the sky here seems to be the same size as anywhere else we have been.

There's a huge anti-crystal meth campaign going on here. It's everywhere, on billboards, tv, radio. Must really be the middle America problem you always hear about.

Took almost a full day to remember that we crossed into the mountain time zone when we got into Montana. Thought we were ahead of schedule the whole time.

The fire that detoured us at Glacier National Park continues to grow with no end in sight at this time.

Forgot to mention, we hit an owl Sunday night on the way up to Glacier National Park. It was very dark but we could clearly see it in the headlights standing on the road in the opposite lane. As soon as we got close it flew right into the car. Very strange. No idea what happened to it.

Also almost hit a deer yesterday. One thing to remember, they always seem to travel in pairs. And it's the second one that usually gets hit because you aren't expecting another. This happened to my brother in Maryland and it did serious damage to his Audi. His warning about two deer saved me this time and another time in Utah. Both were very close calls. Although I saw another one today cross the road. I wasn't going very fast so I stopped and waited for the second one which never came.

Montana Coffee Traders again!

2006-08-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

Mile 4062

We are at Montana Coffee Traders again. This time we are in the town of Columbia Falls. This has become the favorite place to eat breakfast on the trip. They have the best coffee! The waitresses are cute too. They roast their own beans. Not at the restaurant, but a few miles away in Whitefish where they are based. Check them out at www.coffeetraders.com. Anyway, after that little commercial, here's what's happened since the last Montana Coffee Traders we reported from:

We headed up to Glacier National Park. We didn't have any problems getting in through the west entrance. If you remember, we were worried about a reported forest fire in the region. However, we found out when we got there, we were able to go almost all the way through the park and stop five miles short of the east entrance. So, we were able to drive about 45 miles into the park and see most of it. Unfortunately, the plan was to leave on the east and continue on to Great Falls. Instead, we had to turn back and retrace our route back to the west entrance. We did get to see a lot of beautiful scenery though. Never saw "A River Runs Through It" but now it seems like it would be worth a viewing. Even got to see a bunch of mountain goats. We also reached the northernmost point of the trip at mile 3921 at the Loop Lookout. For the geography geeks, that was at N 48.755, W 113.800. At this point, we were 1066 miles "as the crow flies" from home. Thanks to the Canadians, this is a far north as we will get. Blame Canada!

We lost a lot of time backtracking and decided to camp out by the Hungry Horse Reservoir on the southwest side of the park. When we left the park we started out driving around it to the east side so that we could go to Great Falls. But it was pretty late by then, so we turned back and spent the night here. Instead today we will just head south and go through Helena. The talk around town is about the forest fire and it sounds like its spreading rapidly. So our pathway to Great Falls might be blocked anyway.

Kalispell, Montana

2006-07-31T08:38:00.000-07:00

Mile 3856

We are having breakfast at the Montana Coffee Traders Cafe in Kalispell, Montana. Very nice little town. Actually, it's pretty big for being in the middle of nowhere. It's near the west entrance to Glacier National Park. We hope to go up there today, but there are a lot of forest fires in the region, so we may get detoured again. We'll see. So let's get you updated on what's gone on since we last posted.

Got up Sunday morning and decided to go back into Seattle and see the fish throwers at Pike Place Fish Co. They are very entertaining, joking around and having fun with the onlookers. They even have a fake stuffed fish that they throw at the crowd to freak people out. Everyone wanted to have there picture taken with the fish throwers holding up one of their gigantic salmons. The best quote: "Folks, we do sell fish here! This is not the aquarium!" There was also a monk fish (those big flat ugly fish with the big mouth) hanging over the edge of the display. You can see it in the foreground of the picture. When people would walk up to it, the fish guys pulled a rope in the back and it would flip up and scare people.

After that, we hit the road for the long trek across Washington via Interstate 90. We encountered our first rain of the trip on this drive. Not very heavy though. We have been lucky with the weather. It's been perfect! Around mile 3590 we got to Spokane and stopped to look around. We took a walk around the Spokane Falls. Another very nice little big town in the middle of nowhere. Actually, this is a really big town.

By mile 3627 we crossed the state line into Idaho. One of us slept through the entire state as we hit the Montana border at mile 3701. Montana is really a beautiful state. When we left I-90 to head north toward Glacier National Park, we took this mountain road with gorgeous scenery. Another road that followed a river, but somehow this one was even more special. It was a little dark by then, but you could still see everything.

At mile 3815 next to Flathead Lake, we hit the 1000-miles-from-home point according to the handheld GPS. Meaning we were 1000 miles "as the crow flies" from the house in Aliso. Right after that, we stopped for the night near the town of Somers at the northern tip of Flathead Lake. It was only seven miles to get to Kalispell where we are now. Wish us luck! Hopefully, we will be able to avoid the fires and get into Glacier National Park.

Disappointment

2006-07-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

Mile 3162

Well, we were dealt our first major setback on this trip. We are in Port Angeles in northwestern Washington at a coffee shop called Bella Rosa, and it looks like we will have to turn back. We found out that dogs need to have a rabies certificate to enter Canada. We even did research on this before trying but this is what happens when you don't read the fine print. Oh well, it's on to Idaho and Montana instead. We lost a little bit of time driving up to Port Angeles to take the ferry to Vancouver Island. But the trip wasn't a waste because we got to visit Olympic National Park while we were up here. The drive up here was very nice too. So we will return to Tacoma and sleep in nice warm bed at Helen's house again tonight. Then it's back on the road bright and early.

Seattle sights

2006-07-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

Mile 2956

The mileage hasn't changed much because we are still in Tacoma and Helen has been doing all the driving. We are back here at Bertolino's Cafe for coffee and the free wi-fi.

Yesterday, we went to Seattle to see the Space Needle. It's not quite as tall as we expected for some reason. It's not even the tallest building in Seattle, but it is Seattle's signature structure. They must have been following us on this blog because they rolled out the red carpet for us. Actually, it was for the Pacific Science Center's "Festival of the Fountains" black tie fundraising gala.

From there we walked to Pike Place Market, the nation's oldest continually working farmer's market. Unfortunately, most of the shops had closed so we didn't get to see the world-famous salmon slinging at Pike Place Fish. Surprising considering that it was Friday night, but it was nice to explore the city on foot.

Later today, we will be meeting another friend, Luanne, for brunch and then the plan is to go by Olympic National Park and then take the ferry to Vancouver Island in Canada.

Drive-Thru Coffee Shops

2006-07-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of one of the coffee shops mentioned before. They are more common up here in NoCal, Oregon and Washington than Starbucks! Strange considering that they are based in Seattle. But, that's great for me. Some of you know how I feel about Starbucks. I think Eric F. has the right idea about what Starbucks should be used for. Sorry folks, inside joke. Just think: emergency pit stop.

These places are everywhere! Even in almost all of the one stoplight towns we have passed through. Another bonus about these places. Without fail, every single one we went to (and there were a lot) had a supply of doggie treats. There is even a chain, Coffee People, that has free wi-fi.

Tacoma, Washington

2006-07-28T10:46:00.000-07:00

Mile 2951

It's tough finding an internet connection in the mountains! Sorry, we haven't been able to post anything since Portland. We are in Tacoma now, staying at a friend's house. Helen has been great! Not only gave us a place to sleep in a warm, comfortable bed for a change, but also did our laundry! Now we are at Bertolino's Cafe near her house, as usual, drinking cofee. Here's what we've done since Portland on Wednesday. By the way, Portland is a really nice town:

This part of the trip was dominated by mountains. We headed east so that we could circle around Mt. Hood. At mile 2567 we stopped near the base of the mountain where Hapa took a drink from the ice cold White River. Then we headed straight for the Washinton border. We crossed the Columbia River, which is the border between the two states, and drove west along it for a few miles, then turned north up route 30. We stopped for the night at mile 2662 at the Swift Reservoir and camped out.

On Thursday morning, we continued north to the east side of Mt. St. Helen's. I wasn't aware of this, but it is currently in the state of eruption. You can actually see steam rising from the top every few minutes. Evidence of the 1980 eruption is plainly apparent everywhere. Although ground level vegetation has regrown, toppled trees numbering in the millions are strewn about for miles. It's very hard to imagine a force that powerful, so when you actually see the devastating result, it's mind boggling. We continued northbound and turned east at Route 12 to Mt. Ranier National Park. You have to have pretty good timing when you come here, because Mt. Ranier is so big at 14,411 feet that it makes it's own weather. For a large part of the day, when we circled it's south side, it's peak was obsured by clouds. As you can see from the picture, the left side is partially hidden. But when we went all the way back around to the east side, we were able to get great views. We were able to get up to 6400 feet at Sunrise Visitor Center to get the best view. This is the closest you can get by car.

By Thursday night, we had made it to Tacoma. We will spend at least a day in the area, visiting friends and exploring the Seattle area. Then it's on to Canada, eh!

Portland, Oregon

2006-07-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

Mile 2482

We are now in downtown Portland, Oregon sitting here in Pioneer Courthouse Square. It's a nice little open area in the heart of downtown. What's happened until now:

After Florence, we took our time driving up the coast exploring all the beaches and coastal towns. It really is a beautiful area. The weather has been perfect! Usually around 65-70 degrees with bright sunshine. A far cry from the triple digits we've been hearing about back home in SoCal. We made it to Astoria, the northernmost city on the Oregon coast just in time to get a few snapshots of the Astoria Column before we lost the sunlight. Actually, it does seem like the days are a bit longer here. You can still see daylight on the horizon after 10pm. After that we crossed the border into Washington to catch Interstate 5 back south. Didn't realize that Astoria was so far north of Portland. We camped out just outside of Portland before driving into the city this morning.

We plan to head east from here to explore Mt. Hood before turning north back into Washington again.

Two detours

2006-07-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

Mile 2202

Sitting here at Big Guys Cafe in Newport, OR. We just visited cousin, Camille. I think the last time anyone in our family had seen her was over 30 years ago! We only had a couple hours to catch up, but it was a very nice visit. They have a really nice house in a great little coastal town. We really like it up here.

There isn't much else new to report since the last blog, but here's what's happened:
After leaving Bend, we really didn't get to see much. We were trying to take the McKenzie Pass which would have taken us just north of Mt. Bachelor (the ski resort) and the Three Sisters Mountains. Unfortunately, we were detoured completely around the range by a forest fire. So that set us back about an hour. And we didn't get to see those mountains.

When we finally got to Eugene, we stopped by just to drive through the downtown area. We really didn't have much time to stop and walk around or anything. Seemed like a pretty nice town though. After Eugene, we headed straight for the coast, but again we were diverted by a closed road. Lost another hour here, but at least the drive was really pretty. Found out later on the local news that one of those double gas tankers overturned and road will be closed for at least 24 hours. Must have been pretty bad because they had to evacuate some local residents.

We made to the Oregon coast by mile 2118, once again just in time to see the sunset. It wasn't quite as impressive because of the heavy low fog, so no pics to post. After that, we checked into the Old Town Inn in Florence, OR for the evening..

Crater Lake

2006-07-24T14:25:00.000-07:00

Mile 1898

Finally found a wi-fi connection here in Bend OR! Up in Crater Lake we were cut off from the world. Barely had a cell signal up there. Anyway, here's what's happened since you last heard from us:

We hit the road bright and early Sunday morning, heading for Crater Lake. Another beautiful drive. The drive started out following the Rogue River through the valley again. Those are always nice. Stopped at this cool site where the river actually flows underground for about 300 feet. Pretty neat. Then the road became a gorgeous treelined strech for miles. Very nice! By mile 1617, around 9:45am, we had arrived. Crater Lake has been the highlight so far. Trees? We see trees all the time. Big ones, like the redwoods are magnificent. But, there is nothing that we had ever seen like Crater Lake! We circled the crater via its 33 mile rim drive and spent so much time around there we decided to camp there.

We left early this morning and now we are taking a break at Di'Lusso Bakery Cafe in Bend. After this, the plan is to turn west and go through Eugene on our way back to the coast.

Another thing I learned about Oregon. It is unlawful to pump your own gas here. Every gas station has pump attendants. In Grants Pass, just after we crossed into Oregon, we stopped for gas, and there were these ladies out there in hot, hot sun, pumping gas for everyone. Not sure if I was supposed to tip them or not. Didn't seem like anyone else was.

Camping near Medford

2006-07-22T22:30:00.000-07:00

Mile 1495

We are camping again tonight. We checked into a campground just west of the town of Medford, Oregon. Got here just before 8pm. That's right, almost three days since we left we finally got outside of the state of California. We crossed the border at mile 1433. Here what's happened since our last post:

After breakfast this morning, we found out that the world's tallest tree is not actually in Redwood National Park. It's in Humboldt Redwood State Park, about 50 miles south, the wrong way, from where we were. We couldn't come all this way and not see the world's tallest living thing. So we decided to drive all the way down to see it. At mile 1257 we found it. They don't actually allow dogs on the trails in this park, but we were able to sneak in and snap a couple of pictures. It was only about 100 yards in from the trailhead. Like I said, couldn't come all this way and not see it. It's a good thing that we made the trip. If you really want to see magnificent Redwoods, go to Humboldt. It was so much better.

Then we turned around and backtracked north, up the California coast. Took another beautiful drive from Crescent City to the Oregon border. This road follows the Smith River, and it was gorgeous! We even made it down to the river once.

A couple things about northern California and Oregon that we noticed. There a lot of drive-thru coffee shops. They are everywhere! So convenient. We don't have many of them in SoCal. I've only see a couple back home. The other thing is that there a lot of hippies. Or at least people who are into the hippie culture. Seems to be a very liberal area too. Saw a gigantic "impeach Bush" sign hanging on someone's house.

We are heading for Crater Lake in the morning.

Redwoods today

2006-07-22T09:30:00.000-07:00

Mile 1180

Sitting at the Beachcomber Cafe in Trinidad getting my morning coffee before the drive through Redwood National Park. Free wireless.

Yesterday, from Redding, we headed directly west on Hwy. 299. What a beautiful drive. It follows the Trinity River for most of the way over the mountains. Around mile 994 we stopped at picnic area that had river access. The fresh mountain water was quite refreshing and we watched river rafters paddle by. We hit the 1000 mile mark at a town called Hawkins Bar. It's so small it doesn't even show up on some maps we had. By about mile 1050 we had made it to the coast. It was just after 7pm and there was still quite a bit of daylight left. So we went south to drive through Eureka, circled Arcata Bay and went north to find somewhere to watch the sunset. We found the perfect place in the town of Trinidad. After that it was too dark by then to see any of the Redwood Trees. We camped out last night at a place called Klamath River RV Park. Pretty nice place. Nice showers.

Woke at 6am and came back down the coast to Trinidad for a walk on the beach. Now we're off to see the Redwoods, then it's on to Oregon!

Back in Redding again

2006-07-21T15:15:00.000-07:00

Mile 908

So we decided to do all three today. Did Shasta, did Lassen, now back in Redding, on the way to the California coast. Here's how our day went:

Got up at 6am and headed straight up north to see Mt. Shasta. The first picture is at mile 715 taken from the town of McCloud near the base of Shasta. From there we were able to loop out east and go straight to Lassen Volcanic National Park. As you can see from the second picture taken at mile 813, it's a little bit cooler there than it was in Redding. I suppose an 8000 foot difference in elevation will do that.

Now, we are on our way to Redwood National Park on the coast. We had to pass through Redding again, so we stopped for a break at a coffee shop that has free wireless. That's how I've been doing all my blogging. Incidentally, many Burger Kings have free wireless access apparently. I haven't tried them yet, but it's good to know. We should be able to make it to the coast by 7pm, in time to see the sunset. I'll let you know.

Redding

2006-07-20T22:32:00.000-07:00

Mile 635

So we just checked into the Redding Motel 6. Not quite the mountain town I was expecting. Maybe because the elevation is 557. Guess I should have researched that better. It's hot here too! It's pretty late and we're very tired.

There wasn't much to ride up here as you can see. That's pretty much all there is to central Califonia. No, there's much more, but the idea was to get as far up north as we could before we started sightseeing. We didn't really expect to see much anyway. We've done that drive a couple times and it's mostly farm land. We had to stop three times to rest because we left so early in the morning, so the drive took longer than it should have. Sacramento seemed to be a pretty cool town.

Not sure what we will do when we get up in the morning. There are three choices and they are all in different directions. Mt. Shasta is about an hour north. Lassen Volcanic National Park is about an hour east. And Redwood National Park is three hours west on the coast. We are doing that one for sure. Maybe we'll get up early enough to do all three. We'll see I guess.

We are in Sacramento!

2006-07-20T15:35:00.000-07:00

Mile 445

Stopped at a coffee house in Sacramento. It's as hot here as it is down SoCal! Here's a picture from the road. We plan to get to Redding a couple of hours north of here and spend the night in that area. Will write more about the trip so far when we get there.

We're hittin' the road!

2006-07-20T02:52:00.000-07:00

Car is loaded and we are finally on our way! Since it's pretty late already we probably will only drive a few hours before stopping. As long as we get out the city. Hopefully we'll at least get past Bakersfield. Didn't really want to go through central California in the daytime because of the heat, but looks like we don't have a choice. We were orginally aiming to get past Sacramento on this first leg. We'll be taking Interstate 5 all the way out of Orange County through the center of the state. Time to hit the road!

We will be leaving in the next few hours

2006-07-19T21:58:00.000-07:00

Not sure if it will be tonight or early tomorrow morning, but it will be soon. Had a lot to do before we leave.