Road Trip Across America (or at least half of it)

No Broken Bones, No Black Eyes

2009-02-06T22:08:00.001-08:00

We made it! Four days done and no major injuries! After boarding for 5-6 hours a day for the past three days, we've gotten a bit tired. Like, whole-body-hurts-tired as well as just pooped. So, needless to say, we got a bit of a late start today. We decided to stick around Keystone (where we've been staying) for our last day out on the Colorado mountains. And I think it was a good choice.

When we checked out of our condo and headed to the mountain, it was snowing! There hasn't been any fresh powder since we've been here, but the conveniently forecasted snow for this weekend, just in time for our departure. But we got a teensy-weensy taste (I mean, it would have been enough to shut schools in Maryland, but probably not enough for an APL snowday).

Look, I'm telling you guys it's Day 4. And those white spots are snow, not dirty spots on Chris's camera.

Since we were familiar with the terrain, we made our way to our favorite part of the mountain - the North Bowl (Haha, I just realized that sounds like North Pole. I wish there were elves and Santa Claus running around. Now that I think of it, I did see three people heading to the slopes dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Batman, and a wizard. Awesome.). With the snow and all, the views weren't that great. But it was still pretty cool to be up there.

We headed down into the bowl through the trees like before. It didn't take us as long this time though. I'm not sure if it's because we were tired and just looked for the easiest way out, or if we are getting better. I'm going to go with getting better.

We did not hit a single one of those trees.

However, being Day 4 of the epic snowboarding trip (yes, I just upgraded this trip to epic), our legs were a bit tired and sore. Here's Chris showing us all what happens when your legs are tired and sore:

I have to admit there was a lot of that today (from me at least...I was tumbling all over the place). But for any worried readers out there, those pictures are staged. This is just an example of some of the exceptional falls we have had this week. But, we have both come away relatively unscathed. Here Chris demonstrates is snowboarding prowess through the trees:

See, not falling.

We did a few runs in the bowl before we decided we were too tired to keep trying to avoid trees. Since not trying to avoid trees seems like it would just lead to something really terrible, we hit a few of the regular trails.

Look at how the sky has cleared up. Our foray into awesome snowy Colorado weather didn't last long. This is how the entire week as been (I guess you can probably figure that out from all the pictures), clear with blue skies and nice temperature. It's actually pretty warm in Colorado. For some reason I had it in my mind as a frozen tundra in the winter, but the weather was in the high 50s today.

While we were at the summit of one of the mountains I figured I would take a bunch of pictures of the scenery. Because it's awesome.

We left a bit early today to beat the traffic since it gets pretty crowded on the weekends. We were already starting to notice the increase in people and the sudden need to avoid more skiers on our way down. (You know, we avoided them when we could...otherwise, well, snow is soft. Just kidding, we didn't hit any skiers...just snowboarders. Interesting note, when going down a narrower path, skiers with generally call out "On your left" or "On your right" and tap their poles together to let you know they want to pass you and on what side (because with ski goggles you have the peripheral vision of an owl (you know, that's why they turn their heads like 200 degrees, cause they don't have much)), but snowboarders just whiz by you and figure they'll get around you...) (Wow, that was a lot of parentheses. The engineer in me just thought of those last few paragraphs as a math equation and thought you should read the words in the innermost parentheses first, and then go out. But don't do that, because then it won't make sense. Because there are words, not a math equation. (In case you weren't sure.))

Overall, of the three resorts we went to, I liked Keystone the best, followed by Breckenridge, and then Vail. They were all amazing and have no comparison back in Pennsylvania. I now scoff at your little hills and icy conditions Liberty, Whitetail, and Roundtop! It has been a great 4 days of boarding, but I'm ready to sit down for two days and regain muscle control in my legs.

After leaving Keystone we made a VERY IMPORTANT stop at Sonic so we could get more $1, 44 oz slushie beverages of deliciousness, then headed back through Boulder to Vanessa and Ryan's (friends of Chris, whose house we are staying in tonight. They are very cool people with the most adorable baby boy ever. Also, their cat can open closed doors. Like he can somehow turn the handle and push the door open.)

These are the Flat Irons where Chris used to climb and do ridiculous things like hanging upsidedown from ledges. He has the coolest picture ever.

We had a low key evening, mostly just hanging around and we went out to dinner where there were two musicians playing some freestyle flute. Yes, flute. Actually, flutes. It was interesting. (haha, that would have been a funnier pun if they had been playing tubas. Get it? Low key?)

We watched a disturbing TV show about little girls and parents who compete in beauty pageants (together). They have 6 year old's tanning and 2 year olds wearing ruffles and twirling a baton. I suppose there was also an older mother wearing a lot of belly-bearing spandex twirling a baton which might have been equally disturbing. All I have to say is, thank you mom for never making me wear ruffled dresses and acrylic nails and putting me in a beauty pageant. For this, I might forgive you for giving me a mullet when I was 4.

Well, I hope you enjoyed reading the blog for this trip. I'm not sure what we are doing tomorrow, or if I'm going to have a chance (or a reason) to update this anymore. But, Colorado, how I love thee and your snow covered mountains and crazy bike riding residents. Oh, and the Subarus. So many Subarus.

Free Nature Valley Granola Bars: 4...I might have waltzed into the registration office and grabbed a handful. There just in a big basket...isn't that what they are there for?

Subaru Count: Honestly, we were just too tired. And there were hundreds.

Breckenridge or Break-a-rib?

2009-02-05T16:19:00.000-08:00

Oh boy oh boy oh boy. What a day. Today was not my day. Yesterday was not Chris's day. Maybe tomorrow will be both our days.

Today I cheated death a few too many times. (Not really, maybe, don't worry Mom, I'm alive and well and probably exaggerating a bit. We're fine. Really.)

Ok, I have to interrupt this blog to tell you that we are currently watching America's Funniest Home Videos and it's a video of this little girl pulling her own tooth out. It was NOT funny. Just gross. And now I'm traumatized.

And...we're back!

The day started out nice enough. We headed to Breckenridge which is only about 10 minutes from where we're staying. Here's Chris letting you all know it's day three.

We started by going up to Peak 7. Breckenridge has a Peak 7, 8, 9, 10. We're not sure what happened to peaks 1-6 though. Maybe they got lost. Or the people who planned Breckenridge missed a few key days of school. Peak 7 was cool though. It starts out with lots of little pathways through trees and then opens up to a wide open run with plenty of room.

Chris and I generally stick together when we board, because Chris is a saint and will wait for my slow self to catch up to him. Here's a picture of him hauling out after I finally caught up to him.

So, a note about Breckenridge: it's REALLY windy. I'm glad I had my face mask thing on because my cheeks were getting some serious wind-chapped-ness. But, I do have to say, I was blown away by how beautiful it was. And the first run really was a breeze. (Ok, I might have spent the entire day thinking those up.)

The second time around we got separated though. And that is when I cheated death for the first time. After two days of boarding, it finally happened. I hit a tree. Granted, it was a tree about the size of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree (with maybe a few more branches) and I'm not sure I was actually moving forward, but I regardless, snowboard, meet tree. We're not really sure where this picture was taken, but it's after I used up the first of my nine lives.

Then we headed back up the mountain. To what I will now call "The Peak of DOOM" (ok, I might be overreacting a little, but seriously...it was scary!). We had to take multiple chairlifts to get there. Here are some pictures of us on those chairlifts unsuspecting of the DOOM that is about to greet us:

We got separated because there was a massive pile-up on the chair in front of me. I did not cause this pile-up. The people I am sitting with are very nice. They are from Connecticut, but have retired here and were singing the praises of the great conditions in Colorado.

So, here is where the chairlift left us off:

Yes, at 12,840 feet. The lift that left us off there is called the Imperial Express Superchair and is the highest lift in the United States. That is very high. But guess what? We weren't done. We went higher.

See me? I'm at 12,840 feet. See that path behind me? With the guy hiking up? Yeah, that's where we went next. We hoofed it up to the makeshift steps holding our snowboards and praying that we weren't going to slide all the way back down. Here's a little exerpt of what was going through my mind:

"What am I doing?

Oh, this isn't so hard.

Ok, nevermind that, now I can't breath.

Hmm..if I just stop here for a little while I can catch my breath.

What the heck was Chris thinking? This is ridiculous!

These steps aren't very big...what if my foot slips?

Um..if I drop my snowboard, how do I get down from here?

Chris, I think I hate you right now.

My legs are burning!

How much futher?

Chris, I definitely hate you right now."

It sort of continued like that in my head until I managed to reach the summit. Yes, summit. Because this is a mountain. Here's a picture of me hauling myself over the edge:

And here is how I spent the next 12 minutes trying not to die:

Yes, on my back, hugging my snowboard with a death grip so that it doesn't go flying over the edge. Because P.S. it was really windy up there. When I finally managed to catch my breath, it turned out it was pretty nice up there:

A whole bunch of skiers came up after us and one of them was nice enough to take a picture of us. We look so calm and happy, but we are actually holding on to each other to prevent us from blowing over. (I'm serious, it was so windy) Also, I'm pretty sure that's Chris, but since exactly 0% of his face is visable, it could just be some random dude.

So, after having a small anxiety attack and collecting myself for a while, we eventually had to go down the Peak of DOOM. I think I mentioned before how I don't like snowboarding near all these steep edges? Well yeah, this was the ultimate steep edge. For the first part I pretty much spent the entire way down sliding on my butt. Lower that CG (yes, Center of Gravity, I'm an engineer, deal with it). But the whole butt thing only got me so far and at some point I had to stand up. Chris led the way because he's awesome like that and much better than me. But, for a short amount of time, I was actually standing up. Proof:

I look pretty hardcore and awesome, right? Well, that didn't last long. Here's how the following few minutes went:

"Oh boy oh boy oh boy...I think I can stand up. Ok, I'm doing ok. I'm not falling down too badly. I'm going to make it over there."

"No I'm not! Now I'm just sliding down this mountain. What if I can't stop? There are rocks up there! How am I going to avoid those rocks? I can't stop! Why am I not stopping?! STOP STOP STOP!! THIS IS SO NOT COOL! HOW AM I GOING TO GET OUT OF THIS?! THIS WAS THE STUPIDEST THING I HAVE EVER DONE! AM I GOING TO DIE?!"

And while I was hoping the mountain was somehow going to just swallow me up or a bird was going to pick me off the side of the mountain, Chris was chilling:

But, because Chris is a saint, after I had a bit bigger than a minor (MAJOR) panic attack on the side of the mountain, Chris coached me down to the bottom. And I made it! And I'm alive and uninjured! And I don't think I will be attempting anything like that again!

That's me at the bottom. I think I managed to put my heart back in my chest. So, here's a picture of the peak that we snowboarded down.

Somehow, after that life-changing excursion, Chris managed to convince me to go back up to the top of the lift (the 12,840 ft part) and then go down again. Sometimes I'm not sure how he persuades me to do these things. But, it turns out it wasn't so bad. And it was pretty!

And this was all before noon. So we decided to head to the bottom of the peak (8?) to have a snack (and lower our blood pressure). It was actually pretty nice going down the rest of the way. Chris is waving "Hi!" to all of you and telling you that you should come to Colorado and hike up big peaks and snowboard through trees (betcha didn't know a wave could convey so much).

Oh, I almost forgot to mention...one of the trails we had to go down to get to the bottom is called Psychopath. And, yes, I do believe Chris is a bit of a psychopath.

Seriously, look how calm and collected the dude is.

We had only explored the right side of the mountain, so we decided that perhaps we should see what other (tamer) things were out there. But...there's a lot:

Now, being Day 3 of the great Colorado snowboarding trip, my legs were starting to give out on me. So we didn't spend that much time on the rest of the mountain before heading home.

Overall, Breckenridge was a lot of fun. I still think I like Keystone better, but Vail less. Lots of fun adventures. Tomorrow we're sticking around here (Keystone) before heading back to Boulder. I'm pretty sure a stop at Sonic is in the cards.

Subaru Count: 75. If Subaru spotting was like Zitch-Dog, Chris would be the Marshall of the game. It's like he has a Subaru owner's honing device.

Vail - Snowboarding in a Skier's Paradise

2009-02-04T16:46:00.000-08:00

You can thank Chris for the lovely blog title today.

So, today we hit up Vail. Pretty much because I wanted to say that I had been to Vail. Of all of the ski resorts we have passes to, Vail is the only one I had actually heard of. This seems to be the case with a lot of people, because Vail was crowded. With lots and lots of skiers. And not so many snowboarders. And we found out why later on.

So this morning we got up early (going to bed at 9:30 sort of lends itself to getting up really early) and headed out to Vail.

Chris drove (thank goodness, read previous blogs about driving through Colorado...and my white knuckles) and I was in charge of the radio station. Funny note, driving to Vail there are exactly zero radio stations. And then you start to get a country music station. No more, no less. Good thing the ride is only 30 minutes.

This is on our first lift up the mountain. You can take it as the Asian peace sign, or the fact that we are on day 2 of snowboarding trip (I would lean towards the second one). Right now it's a balmy 11 degrees out.

I think this is at the top of the mountain. I imagine all of these pictures at the peaks of mountains start to look the same. But you can tell that it's a different day, because I'm wearing my offensively bright orange pants.

We had heard from Avid-Skier-Man yesterday that the Blue Sky Basin was awesome and we should check it out. So we made our way up to look for it. I'm still not completely sure how we made it there, but at some point we were at the edge of the basin (I think).

On our way to the basin there were lots and lots of flat points. For those of you who don't snowboard (probably the majority of you reading this...) for snowboarders, flat = bad. You get stuck not moving forward and since you feet are tied together by the board all you can do is crouch down and pray that you continue moving. Then you calves start to hurt. And if you're me, then you fall. So, needless to say, we ended up stopping a bunch. But then we got to take fun pictures of Chris on a bridge!

Oh, and here's the basin. Can you say beautiful?

I think the bowls are in the basin or something. I'm not completely sure, so we sort of just started snowboarding down. The bowls here were more open than at Keystone, but we found some cool trees to go through.

We pretty much rode up and down the bowls all morning. Here is a sweet action shot of Chris:

Right before lunch we decided to ride down one more time. This is us before the trek down. I pretty much can't stop taking pictures because it's so gorgeous. However, you know what I didn't bring? Something that would actually be useful during this trip? My TRIPOD. Darn it. There are lots of trees and branches to hook it on and not so many people in the woods to take your picture.

We were in search for some fresh powder and we some near the bottom of the bowl. So, like kids in a candy store, we did whatever we had to get there. So this is what we went down:

See that completely vertical wall in the distance? Yeah, that's what we decided to go down. Here's me thinking that this is probably the stupidest idea we've had yet.

And here's me "boarding" down the mountain. More like just praying that I'm not going to tumble head over heels and plummet to my death. But, since you are reading this blog, I didn't die! We made it down and found the powder!

We spent the afternoon the front of the mountain. And took a bunch or ridiculous pictures. This is a picture of me in front of the map of Vail. I think I'm at an altitude of approximately 2 miles. Umm..that might be the most interesting thing I have to say about this.

They also have these hilarious plastic statue things near the peaks. I'm not entirely sure why there are there, but to me, the best use is to take a picture with them. I don't think they beat the statue things at Wall Drug, but these are animals! And they are giving thumbs up!

Our last run of the day was down a trail called "Hunky Dory". If that isn't a great way to end the day, then I'm not sure what is. For the most part it was quite hunky dory, but like many of the other trails at Vail it had lots of flat parts that were narrow and crowded. And lots of these narrow paths sort of had edges to them...where I was sure I was going to fall over. So I spent a lot of time going as slow as possible, being passed by skiers left and right and just praying I wasn't going to fly off the edge and hit a tree.

Overall, a good day though. I think I prefer Keystone over Vail. My legs are currently still working also, which is pleasantly surprising. Now I think we're going to make some delicious dinner. Breckenridge tomorrow!

Subaru Count: 52

Free Nature Valley Bars: 0 (sad)

Correction: In the previous post I mentioned that Chris had been hit by a truck his second year of grad school. It was actually during his first year, but he had surgery his second year.

Immobile

2009-02-03T16:59:00.000-08:00

It's 6 PM and I am currently immobile sitting in our condo. I'm not sure if it's as bad as the post-half marathon crippling, but it's a close second. As I'm falling on my face for the third of fourth time, I sometimes wonder why I like this whole snowboarding thing, but then, well, I have a day like today. It's been a fun day and I have an obscene amount of pictures that I will put in this blog, because pictures are usually more interesting than words.

We woke up far before our 7:30 wake up time because our room was freezing and we went to bed at 10 PM. Oh, and we might have been a little bit excited.

We had some breakfast and waxed our boards. I know this sounds kind of inappropriate (I have to sensor myself a little, my mom is reading this. Hi Mom!), but we did actually put wax on our snowboards. It's great fun.

Then, the snowboarding began!

Look, here's me before getting onto the first chairlift. I am proud to report I did not take out any fellow skiers today after my disastrous day last Saturday when I was unable stay upright and took out no less than 12 people getting off the chairlift (sorry folks!).

This is a picture of Chris at the top of the first mountain. Yes, first, because there are three. Ski Liberty, you got nothin!

The next few pictures are of us shredding some powder. Yes, with the 'g' because we aren't that hip.

It was a great day out. Sunny and not too cold. So sunny that my one eye is actually shut (not just small because I have small eyes, although, my other eye is open even though it might not look like it).

I honestly have no idea at what part of the mountain this picture was taken, but I look happy, so it must have been early before my ankles and knees started to give out.

Oh, fun notes about riding the chairlift:

1. We met a guy who was on his 112th day of skiing this year. How long has ski season been so far in Colorado? 112 days. He's aiming for 240 days this season. That is 8 months people! Pennsylvania and it's pathetic 3 month ski season can suck it! This is how he's spending his retirement. I might have to take a page from this guy's book when I turn 30 and retire.

2. We met a guy from Bethesda, MD. And he lived in Boston. Apparently this world is very small.

We did a lot of riding of various difficulty. Note: I am not that good. But I like to try and figure the burning sensation in my quads is only making me stronger. Yeah Kanye!

Here we are at the top of one of the mountains. Breckenridge Ski Resort is in the background. We're heading there on Thursday. Did I mention Colorado is really freaking beautiful? I think we're at about 12,000 feet and neither of us was delirious with altitude sickness so I count that as a plus.

We wanted to see these mysterious "bowl" things so we rode up to the third mountain (which takes like 5 runs because you have to go up one lift to go down another run to get to another lift to go down another run, etc, etc, etc as you make your way across all of these mountains. It's ridiculous.) We got to the top and the ski patrol guy told us to go down by all of these trees. It was awesome...we were riding through trees (mom, we did not hit any of them) and then got to some crazy bump things. This led to me falling about 75% of the time. However, exciting news! Apparently my snowpants can zip to the back of my jacket. This lead to a significant decrease in snow going down my pants. My butt was very happy about this. Here is a picture of me at the bottom of this crazy run (called a chute...I might have wanted to shoot myself halfway down since my legs no longer worked). I am pooped.

However, shortly after we decided to stop being little babies and made our way back. And lo and behold! We found a bowl! (It was sadly not filled with Cinnamon Toast Crunch) Here's the bowl:

Turns out a bowl is, well, bowl shaped. And you start at the top and go down to the bottom, but it's very natural terrain. We went through more trees (mom, again, we did not hit any!) and got to make our own pathways and stuff. They were definitely my favorite part of the day. However, riding bowls is hard. A lot of what is is there is fresh powder. The best way I can describe riding on fresh powder is that it feels like you are riding on a cloud (I know, I played Mario Bros once or twice in my life). And like riding on a cloud, when you fall on powder it doesn't hurt. However, also like riding on a cloud, when you try to put your hand down to push yourself back up, you sort of just sink. Until you are up to your shoulders in snow with your board buried under a couple of feet, resulting in your writhing around for 10 minutes trying to put yourself right side up (which may or may not have happened to me many many times). Anyways...the bottom line is that you get tired. So here is a picture of Chris "resting" (or falling, or recovering from falling):

We rode pretty much straight through from this morning until just after 3 PM. We decided that if we stopped we wouldn't get going again so we powered on. The entire day I had been wanting to ride on the GonDOLa (as the nice young lady at the desk pronounced it), but we didn't make it there until our last run. Here's a picture of me on the GonDOLa:

My smile looks pretty fake because I'm pretty sure I'm summoning all of my energy lifting those cheeks into that insincere grin.

Overall though, today was AWESOME. Snowboarding on a weekday (and on a mountain (s) with a vertical drop greater than 600 ft and more than 12 runs) means that it isn't crowded and you have lots of free space to do your thang. Some of those bowl runs are so peaceful and beautiful because it's just you and the trees (because Chris is waiting for you to dig yourself out 5 minutes ahead). Tomorrow we're hitting up Vail (because I want to say that I went to Vail) and they apparently have some amazing bowls.

We're now livin' it up and maybe cooking dinner (or going to sleep).

Free Nature Valley Honey Oat Granola Bars aquired today: 4 (they just give them to you when you buy your lift ticket. Coloridians (?) Colorado-ites (?) Colorado-ese (?) are quite nice like that.

Subaru Count: 6 (we didn't actually drive anywhere today, so it was only what we saw in the parking lot).

Peace out homies!

Subaru Count

2009-02-03T06:26:00.003-08:00

Oh, I forgot...we did a Subaru count while we were driving around.

Subaru Count: 138...and then we lost track

Colorado!!

2009-02-02T19:37:00.000-08:00

I'm stealing the blog for a while to keep you all updated on every tiny detail of this trip. I'm not sure how much of this trip is going to be blog worthy, but so far it's been pretty hilarious and I feel the need to share my stories with you. If it gets less exciting, I'll stop, but here it goes...

So, we left this morning around 7. Kelly (my roommate) was nice enough to give us a ride to the airport. However, Kelly drives a Toyota Corolla. Now, fitting two board bags, 2 suitcases, a duffel bag, two backpacks, and three human beings into a Corolla takes a little finagling. We managed to get us all in with my knees against the dashboard and Chris sitting in a S-shaped position. Luckily it's only a 7 minute ride to the airport.

The airport was uneventful, as was the airplane ride. It was a four hour flight and we got to Denver on time. Our luggage even made it. It's awesome though...at the Denver airport they have these special corrals for skis and snowboards. Look, here's a picture:

They have big signs on them that say, "Do not stand on the luggage corrals", but they are just so perfectly shaped for a person to ride around in. Despite the picture, I did not take a little ride.

My fun with rental cars continues though! When we got to the rental place, they were all out of full-sized cars that had fold down seats so we could put all of our stuff inside. So...they decided to give us a pick-up truck instead. So now we're cruising in the most gigantic Ford F-150 ever. Seriously, I fall out of the truck when I'm trying to get out.

We had the world's biggest lunch with one of Chris's friends. So much Chinese food. But then, after all of that lunch, we decided that we should go get the world's biggest slushies from Sonic. After seeing Sonic commercials and not being able to find one, how could I pass up the opportunity. Funny thing though...the Sonic was down the street from our hotel when we were on our road trip to Boulder! Like, I saw the glorious Residence Inn Marriot.

Look, it's me with a 44 oz slushie. And, it only cost $1 because it was happy hour. This makes me love Boulder even more than before.

After that we stopped at the University of Colorado (who coincidentally call themselves CU) so Chris could say hi to a couple of his friends who are still there. We also met his advisor who tried to recruit me for the PhD program there. Colorado doesn't seem like a bad place to do a PhD. Bike riding, rock climbing, snowboarding...so much fun. But...then I would have to do a PhD. I also got to see where Chris got hit by a truck his second year of grad school. Those big signs were put up after he got hit. Because he got hit. Way to go Chris!

Then we drove to Keystone. Chris drove because, well, he rented the car, ahem, truck, and because the last time I drove through the Rockies I might have had a heart attack. Just a minor one though. It was very beautiful with the snow and the sunset.

Also, Melissa and Elise! We passed the McDonald's we stopped at in that little town. It was as charming as ever, but still no Target, so I'm guessing Elise won't be moving there any time soon.

BUT, the best part came when we got to our little condo. It's nicer than I was expecting (and bigger than Melissa's old apartment...like WAY bigger) with a kitchenette so we can cook lots of food (which we bought...so much food for a such a short amount of time. I hope we actually eat it all because I will be very proud of us.) However, because, why not, our condo has a MURPHY BED. That's right, it folds into the wall! Here Chris demonstrates the folding awesomeness:

Now that we have all this extra space, I'm pretty sure we're (not) going to have a dance party. Actually, I think we're going to go to bed. Up early to hit up Keystone. There are bowls! I'm not sure what a bowl is (other than a container for delicious cereal), so I'm hoping we're going to go to the back of the mountain and find a glorious pool of Lucky Charms or something...yum yum.

Big day tomorrow...here's hoping for no black eyes!

The Best and the Worst (According to Simmie)

2008-08-19T13:03:00.000-07:00

A few more statistics:

- Number of times Melissa pointed out the corn: 26 (I was sleeping for part of the trip, so I might have missed some)
- Number of This American Life podcasts listened to: 8
- Number of pictures taken: 1294 (That is the actual number...no exaggeration)

Here are my opinions:

- Best State: Colorado. I'm currently planning my bid for the next Olympics so I can go live at the US Olympic Training Center and expand my outdoorsiness in Boulder. My love for Boulder was not misguided...I'm smitten.
- Worst State: I actually slept through 95% of Wyoming so I'm not sure if I can really say.
- Best Attraction: Arches National Park in Moab, UT. The blue sky! The rust red rocks! Amazing.
- Most Disappointing Attraction: The Grand Canyon. Ok, ok, I've already been harassed about this...maybe my expectations were too high, but it wasn't my favorite. Sure, it's huge, grand in fact. And the initial reaction is appropriate to the giganticness of it. But after that...it's a big canyon. Let's take a picture, drive a few miles and take another. Still a big canyon. The hike was nice and maybe if we had spent more time there and hiked down in the canyon or did some of the other activities I would have liked it more. It is intriguing though.
-Highest Ratio of "how good it turned out to be" as compared to how horrible you thought it would be": Wall Drug. Not nearly as depressing as I thought it would be. Plus they give you free ice water and stickers.
- Best Rest Stop: The one with the giant slabs of beef jerky by the counter. I honestly have no idea what state it was in.
- Worst Rest Stop: I agree with Melissa, the sketchy Dairy Queen in Nebraska. I would not like to enjoy a tasty thick Blizzard frozen treat there.
- Worst Drive: I got the honor or driving through Nebraska, South Dakota, and the Rockies. I would say the Rockies were the most stressful...let's not drive off the side of a mountain now.
- Best Elise chosen restaurant (Elise actually chose all of them): Macy's European Coffee House and Bakery. My hot chocolate was delicious!

About the last picture...

2008-08-17T22:12:00.000-07:00

You may not be able to read it, but it encourages Olympic athletes to refrain from flushing ace bandages and such down the toilets.

And we're back!

2008-08-17T21:37:00.001-07:00

...in Chicago!

We got up early, had a bite to eat in Madison, WI (a lovely Midwestern imitation of Ithaca), and then barreled through the last leg of the trip.

As our glorious (and automotive-failure-free) trip comes to a close, we offer you the following facts, figures, and opinions (Simmie and Elise will be following up with their own highs and lows soon).

Roadtrip 2008!
Fuel
-Total distance: 4,605.2 miles
-Fuel efficiency: 43.1 mpg

On the Road
-States visited: 10 (Illinois, Iowa, Colorado, Nebraska, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, & Wisconsin)
-Homework assignments completed: 1
-National parks/monuments visited: 8
-Blights on the National Landscape/Human Spirit visited: 2 (The Mall of America and Casa Bonita)
-McDonalds' bathrooms frequented: 12*
-Number of times we listened to the song by "Panic at the Disco": 12*
-Number of times we listened to the Mamma Mia soundtrack: 4
-Number of friendship bracelets made: 3 (Because we were in the car for 40 hours. And we're 12.)

Food
-Total trail mix consumed: 4lbs
-Total trail mix consumed by Melissa: 3.75 lbs*
-Total Wheat Thins consumed: 32 oz
-Lifesavers consumed: 98*

Miscellaneous
-Number of magicians pitied: 1 (1 very, very sad young man at Casa Bonita)

The Best and the Worst (according to Melissa)
-Best State: Colorado!!! I am buying a bike, strapping it to a Subaru, and never turning back!
-Worst State: Wyoming. It stinks.
-Best Attraction: Rocky Mountain National Park and the Grand Canyon (just wait until you hear what Simmie has to say!)
-Most Disappointing Attraction: The Mall of America (it has nothing on King of Prussia. Plus, there were no bald eagles in cages.)
-Highest Ratio of "how good it turned out to be" as compared to how horrible you thought it would be": Camping! (that is, once I figured out that we probably would not be eaten by an elk in the night)
-Best Rest Stop: The McDonalds in Denver--it had a fireplace in the middle!
-Worst Rest Stop: The scary Dairy Queen in Nebraska. Who ever said that toilets needed to be functional?

Well, I guess that's all. Thanks so much for reading our blog!

*These figures are approximations

Is that a dinosaur?

2008-08-16T20:29:00.000-07:00

[my preemptive apologies for any overlap between my post and Simmie's...I wrote this blog before reading her post because I stink]

Greetings from the road! I am writing this blog as we wend our way through South Dakota, en route to Minneapolis (where we shall, at our parents’ requests, prance about as independent businesswomen and jauntily throw our chapeaus into the air).

I apologize for not updating the blog yesterday. It was my turn to post, and I fell asleep, or rather, I pretended to be asleep while Elise and Simmie prodded me to add a post…I was exhausted because we had had such a big South Dakta day!

So yesterday, we slept in a bit, procured free newspapers and coffee at our swanky hotel (yay Hotwire!), and then hit the road—the rainy, rainy road. The drive proved that driving so much in such a short amount of time can make you a little wacky! Our wackiness apparently manifests itself in a disturbing obsession with dinosaurs! By the way, does anyone know if there are any dinosaurs in natural gas? If you do, please email Elise immediately and ease her mind.

But before we could venture into cosmopolitan South Dakota, we had to drive through Wyoming! Where buffalo (and nothing else) roam! After stopping at a rest stop in Chugwater (a town aptly named after the action one must take after eating Chugwater’s “world-famous” chili!) and nearly being run over by a dozen Mennonites exiting the washroom in height order, Elise and I determined that we had entered a Coen brothers’ film.

We made it out alive.

Then, we stopped at Wind Cave, where we took an elevator down into the bowels of the earth. Our tour guide led us through the many rooms discovered by one Alvin McDonald in the late 1800s. In an attempt to re-create the “sights, sounds, and emotions” experienced by Alvin and his comrades so many years ago, our tour guide saw it fit to turn off the lights! I immediately tried to burrow into Elise’s shoulder. Who knew if this was a normal part of the tour?? Perhaps our tour guide in his olive green get-up and straw hat had finally had enough of forest ranging. Perhaps he would never turn on the lights and we’d stay in there forever, eventually becoming part of the national park.

After a minute or two the ranger turned the lights back on.

This is what we could see with the lights on.

Then we continued driving to Mount Rushmore! The actual monument is lovely, if a bit smaller than expected. However, the little museum in the complex overlooking the monument is quite spectacular (or at least I thought so). Here are some little known facts that we gleaned from the exhibits:
• Gutzum Borglum (the architect) is the best name ever
• In the original design, the presidents were spooning (with Lincoln in the back looking as though he was playing a very important game of peek-a-boo). I know that Simmie already mentioned this; however, after viewing the photo (again), I think you'll agree that this tidbit bears repeating.
• There was a statewide campaign to raise funds for the construction of Mount Rushmore. Schoolchildren were encouraged to donate 10 cents to the cause. Government officials expected to raise upwards of $10,000. Unfortunately, they raised a mere $1,400. Historians attribute this discrepancy to the fact that a new-fangled toy, the “yo-yo,” was released during the fundraiser. The cost of a yo-yo?—10 cents.

After deciding that we could not eat dinner in the disturbing town that has sprung up around Mount Rushmore (think Disneyworld, with motorcycles and many references to the Flintstones. Or, as Simmie just dubbed it, “tourist hell”). Instead, we continued driving to Wall, South Dakota, home of Wall Drug (basically a glorified rest stop that offers free water and bumper stickers), where we expected to encounter an even greater tourist hell. But it was actually quite nice. Elise rode a barrel, and I even found myself a man.

Finally, we watched Michael Phelps win a gold medal (we should just cut an post this sentence to the end of every post). And thus ended our last Friday of the trip.

We woke up on Saturday full of vim and vigor! Why? Because we were going to the Corn Palace and the Mall of America! But before we could see these blights on the American Landscape, we had to visit one last National Park (so as to not feel too guilty).

Before we headed out on our journey, people (including a real South Dakotan!) had encouraged us to visit Badlands National Park. Most described it as being “Mars-like.” They were quite right. You’re driving through flat, flat South Dakota, barrels of hay being the only topographical relief for miles, when suddenly you’re confronted with giant, crumbing, striated mountains.

We took a lot of pictures.

We are currently 100 miles from the Corn Palace! The rest of this post will be added later, detailing our maize adventures!

****

Okay, so the Corn Palace was a bit of a letdown. The roof isn't even made of corn, c'mon South Dakotans! Nonetheless, we did manage to eat some corn, and Simmie bought a bright orange popcorn ball.

Then we drove some more (along the way, passing my favorite billboard so far: "Inspect our restrooms! We do!" In case you were wondering, it was an advertisement for a campground).

Finally we arrived at what we thought would be shopping Mecca--The Mall of America. Turns out it was just another mall. Hmm. At least the pots were big!

Tomorrow we head back to Chicago! I'm a bit sad that the trip is over (though I am really, really looking forward to sleeping and sleeping and sleeping). Tomorrow we'll post some informal polls about our most/least favorite places. That is, unless we all divest ourselves of our belongings, buy bikes, and move to Boulder.

The tent

2008-08-16T04:40:00.000-07:00

By request of my mother, who posted a comment saying that she wanted to see the tent we used for camping, here's a picture of Simmie and Melissa looking "proud" after we successfully set it up for the first time.

By the fourth night, we were able to set that sucker up in less than five minutes!

Let the Kitsch Begin!

2008-08-15T22:32:00.000-07:00

Melissa was going to blog tonight but she fell asleep, so I will fill in for her.

We got up this morning and left Denver relatively early (although, not as early as we are going to leave tomorrow) on our way to South Dakota. I can't say that I have much to say about the drive because Elise and Melissa drove and I slept in the back seat. I think I'm doing a fairly decent job at not sleeping the entire time I am in the car, but my car-induced narcolepsy still affects me at times (although not when driving).

All I know, is that I woke up somewhere in Wyoming and we were driving next to buffalo! (or bison, I don't actually know the difference.) Here's a picture of one:

After driving for a very long time (again, according to Melissa and Elise, I was sleeping in the back seat) we stopped at Wind Cave somewhere in South Dakota. It was very cool. We took a tour down about 200 ft and got to explore some of the couple of the rooms down in the cave. We have lots of pictures but they don't really look like anything so you'll have to look up Wind Cave if you want to see something.

Next we stopped at Mount Rushmore. They sure do hide that sucker up some winding roads so that you can't see it from the road.

You know, we got there, took some pictures, read some stuff. Fun fact: the original design of Mount Rushmore had the presidents spooning. Elise took a picture:

Notice Lincoln peeking over Jefferson's shoulder. Peek-a-boo!

Our final stop was to the infamous Wall Drug, in Wall, SD. We began seeing signs for Wall Drug somewhere in Wyoming so there was a lot of anticipation. Between Mount Rushmore and Wall probably 95% of the billboards were for Wall Drug.

It was much less depressing than I think we were expecting. Apparently Wall Drug became successful by giving away cups of ice water to travelers across South Dakota which they still do today. And then things went haywire. There are statutes of dinosaurs, singing mechanical cowboys, 6' stuff rabbits, and more kitsch than you shake a Wall Drug walking stick at. We got there kind of late so most things were closed or closing as we got there. We ate some not-terrible dinner before collecting our required Wall Drug souvenirs and took advantage of the photo-op statues.

I look like a giant in this photo.

And Melissa made a friend:

Up early tomorrow. We're capping off our tour of national parks with a trip to the Corn Palace and the Mall of America. Ah, America.

2008-08-14T23:18:00.001-07:00

Hurrah! Hurrah! The Americans win!

The end is in sight...

2008-08-14T21:22:00.000-07:00

As Simmie mentioned in her last post, tonight is the Olympic women's gymnastics all-around competition, so I'll be posting again while she and Melissa watch and scream. (At the gymnastics, not at my blogging.)

Yesterday we drove from the Grand Canyon to Santa Fe, where we visited Pecos National Historical Park. We were originally going to go to Bandelier National Monument, but we were running low on time and Pecos was closer. As we walked into the empty visitor center, the park ranger handed us a laminated guide (labeled "RETURN TO NPS") and invited us to go into the theater to watch a brief informational video. It turned out that the "theater" was a room with ten chairs and a few carpeted stairs, facing a 15" TV on a table. We were the only three people in the theater.

Then the ranger pointed a remote at the DVD player and began the film, which I'm pretty sure was made in the late 1980s -- the narrator was a British woman with a very deep voice, and the video featured men in various goofy costumes, from loincloths to suits of armor that seemed to have been purchased at Party City. The video began with extended aerial footage of what was presumably some kind of land near Pecos, and ended with an extended metaphor about the different kinds of shoes that have walked through Pecos. As for the park itself, Simmie had it dead-on: it wasn't exactly bad, just not particularly remarkable after all the other parks we've been to. The fact that we only encountered one other visitor the entire time we were there implies that we're not the only ones who have made this judgment.

Today we headed out early to go to Denver. We were going to go on a tour of the U.S. Mint, but apparently you have to reserve a tour spot in advance, and by the time I realized this everything was already full. So instead we decided to stop by Colorado Springs on the way to Denver -- but first we went to a Cracker Barrel for brunch! I had never been to a Cracker Barrel, which seems to be part of the quintessential American experience, so I was very excited to finally check that box off my bucket list. (Up next: Dairy Queen!) Here's me playing the peg game while we waited for our biscuits:

According to the peg game, I am "purty smart"!

(A side note: the only paper map we have used this entire trip is the Cracker Barrel map that Melissa picked up a couple of months ago. It's a really good map!)

Okay, enough about Cracker Barrel. After brunch, we drove to Colorado Springs, where we toured the U.S. Olympic Training Complex. You may have noticed that Melissa and Simmie kind of like the Olympics. Here we are pretending that we actually accomplished something:

Then we went to the Garden of the Gods, also in Colorado Springs, which has enormous flat slabs of rock sticking hundreds of feet out of the ground. That was also cool.

Okay, I'm about to fall asleep so I'll speed up a bit. After Garden of the Gods we drove to Denver and went to Casa Bonita for dinner. Casa Bonita is advertised as a Mexican restaurant with "live entertainment" consisting of cliff-diving, dancing gorillas, cowboy shootouts, and some other bizarre things I'm forgetting. It sounded like the perfect kitschy cap to an evening. It wound up being pretty depressing, though; the extremely voluminous crowd of patrons consisted of two primary types:

1) White trash families: a man with a crew cuts and neck tattoos, a bleached-blonde woman in a tube top, and their five noisy, unsupervised children.

2) Hipsters who were there ironically.

I guess we fit into the latter category, although not quite perfectly enough for us to fully enjoy the experience. Here's Simmie and me after dinner (and after I discovered that three out of three toilets in the women's room were not functioning):

And now we're back in the hotel, and Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson just won gold and silver, so I'm going to go to bed.

Sleepy in Santa Fe

2008-08-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

So, I'm currently kneeling at the end of our little tent area posting this. Not sure how long it will be...I suppose it depends on how long my legs hold out crouching like this. I'm going to guess that I won't be a Major League catcher anytime soon.

We got up around 5 this morning in hopes to catch the sunrise over the Grand Canyon. We've gotten really good at setting up and putting away the tent so it didn't take us too long. We managed to get there just as the sun was peeking over the horizon.

Look, Elise looks so happy to be awake!

We drove down to Flagstaff and got breakfast at this cute little vegetarian cafe that Elise found for us (let's be honest, Elise has found all of our restaurant choices and they have all been excellent) and I got a

After lots more driving where we finally seemed to hit the jackpot with roadside attractions (Mechanical dinosaurs! Petrified wood! Giant fiberglass bunnies! Pottery! Blankets! Oh my!) we managed to find out way to Pecos National Park.

Now to be honest, after Arches, the Canyonlands, and the Grand Canyon, Pecos was a little disappointing. It started with a kitchy video about Pecos Pueblo and then we took a little hike around some of the old pueblo ruins.

Look, you get to climb down things! There was an threatening rain cloud over us for most of the hike and at times, I was fairly certain Elise was going to get swept away by the winds, but we stayed grounded.

We spent the evening in Santa Fe. It's a very cute little town with lots of shops and there was live music on the plaza. We weren't there for long, but we ate at a place called Coyote Cafe (another Elise find) which was excellent.

Now we're back at the campground ready for our trip back to Colorado and to Denver! (and a hotel room)

Also, people have been concerned about whether we have been able to catch the gymnastics. Don't worry, we have. We're keeping tabs and I would say Melissa and I were slightly depressed after last night's women's team finals. Poor Alicia Sacramone. But tomorrow night is Women's All Around so probably expect a post from Elise while Melissa and I go into cardiac arrest around her.

No, we're not dead

2008-08-12T20:09:00.000-07:00

So apparently Simmie and Melissa have received concerned calls from family members wondering why we haven't updated the blog in two days. Well, we're not dead -- we're at the Grand Canyon, and apparently providing free WiFi is not high on their list of priorities. But we finally found a place, and it just happens to be a sports lounge that is also showing the Olympics, which also just happens to be the women's gymnastics team finals tonight. So it looks like I'll be doing the blogging tonight, while Melissa and Simmie have conniptions on either side of me.

So, where to begin? We reached Moab, Utah on Sunday night, after Simmie drove us through the Rockies over steep, winding roads in pouring rain. Here she demonstrates her 10 o'clock/2 o'clock grip on the wheel:

Anyway, Simmie got us safely across the Rockies, and Melissa took over driving for what would be the most desolate stretch of road we'd seen to date, in Northeast Utah (state motto: "No Services at this Exit"). But then we made the turn toward Canyonlands National Park, and sudenly the ground erupted into enormous red cliffs that towered on either side of us. Canyonlands was amazing and unexpected; it was our first taste of the southwestern landscape with all of its alien features.

We managed to arrive at a hiking path just as a ranger was about to lead a tour, so we went with him on a 1.5-hour walk along the rim of a mesa from which we could see the rest of the park. We were beginning to grasp just how huge everything in the southwest was.

I decided to do some leisurely boulder-lifting for fun.

The next day we went to Arches National Park, a mere day after one of their most famous arches collapsed. The park certainly had its act together: the visitor's center already had laminated before-and-after photos of the arch. (We're also pretty sure that the arch that collapsed is the arch that's on our annual NPS pass -- collector's item!) Arches National Park, as you may have surmised, contains a lot of arches. Huge, naturally-occurring stone arches.

Melissa and Simmie climbed up into one of the arches, but I decided to stay down at the bottom and watch.

After we left Arches, we headed for the Grand Canyon. We took a detour to Four Corners, which was one of the most depressing places I've ever been. Here's a photo!

Basically, we got out of the car, took this photo, waited in line for ten minutes to buy a postcard from an impoverished Native American woman who was also selling frybread out of her trailer, considered using the bathroom but discovered that there were only portapotties, and then got back in the car and left. I think I can safely say that visiting Four Corners once was enough for a lifetime.

So, the Grand Canyon. I'm not going to post any photos of the Grand Canyon because photos don't really do it justice. Nor can words, so I won't try to describe it except as "unfathomable." We briefly saw the canyon on Monday night, but by that point it was starting to get dark so we headed to the campground to set up our tent. We went to the market and got ingredients for a lantern- and citronella-candle-lit dinner.

Then we went to the sports bar to watch the men's gymnastics team finals and drink soda (the bartender: "What, are all three of you driving?" We got carded for the sodas, by the way). After we got kicked out of the bar (all that caffeine in the diet Coke got us rowdy), we headed to an overlook to watch the Perseids. We saw a few good meteors, but there was too much light around us to really see anything impressive. Driving back to our campsite, we encountered an enormous buck leisurely strolling through the campground, in search of food.

Okay, now we're up to today. Today we woke up early and headed for Bright Angel Trail, the main trail that goes down into the canyon. We decided to hike down to the 1.5-mile rest station, then hike back up. There were approximately 5 million signs telling us not to attempt to hike down to the river and back in one day or we would die. We didn't really need any convincing. There were also a lot of signs telling us not to fall off the edge of the canyon or we would die. Once again, we didn't really need a lot of convincing on that point.

So we set out, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (as you can see above). The descent wasn't too bad; the path was a little slippery at some points and there was copious donkey poop to avoid, but it wasn't particularly taxing and we arrived at the rest station in about an hour. And that's where we encountered the Grand Canyon squirrels.

The squirrels in the Grand Canyon have clearly been fed by many, many people. Not only are they not afraid of humans, but they can recognize human food and they will do anything to get it, including trying to grab it out of your hands despite the fact that you are roughly 400 times larger than they are.

While we were at the rest station, we also witnessed a helicopter flying in and dropping off materials to repair a broken pipe at the water pump.

And then we began the ascent. That part... was not so much fun. Hiking uphill in relentlessly sunny 90-degree heat for a mile and a half is not something I would choose to do on a daily basis. But after many, many pauses (most of which were requested by me), we finally made it back to the top, sweaty and dirty and greasy and just generally disgusting. The general guideline for hiking into the canyon is that it takes twice as long to walk back up as it takes to walk down; it took us an hour to walk down and an hour and fifteen minutes to walk back up. I think we powered our way back up the trail because it was so unpleasant we just wanted it to be over.

We showered, ate an enormous lunch, drove to a few lookout points, took a nap, woke up dehydrated, and we've been eating, drinking Gatorade, and watching the Olympics for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow it's off to Santa Fe!

Awe and Amazement

2008-08-10T21:41:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note...seems as if it might start raining any moment, so I gotta be quick.

Left Colorado early this morning. I drove through the Rockies which was amazing although slightly stressful. Driving down steep slopes while raining is not really preferable.

We managed to get to Utah in the early afternoon. We drove straight to the Canyonlands National Park. The entire drive there was amazing. The change in scenery as we drove was awesome. Canyonlands was hot, but beautiful. It was so large and almost inconceivable how great something could be. We were all so impressed by the Canyonlands that we're not sure what the Grand Canyon is going to be like.

In the late afternoon we got into Moab and set up our tent successful. As I write this, the tent is still standing, so I guess that's a good sign. We went for some excellent dinner at Eddie McStiff's (yes, that is the actual name) and managed to con the waitress into giving us a table near the television where Melissa and I managed to spend the entire meal gasping over the gymnastics. We may be camping, but we're going to see our Olympics!

Gotta get into the tent...the rain is here. And hopefully we will be tomorrow morning!

Simmie

Husking and Busking

2008-08-09T22:18:00.000-07:00

It was well past nightfall when we approached Boulder last night, so the idea that we were approaching the Rocky Mountains was a rather abstract one. To the left, the distant sky flashed with lightning from a violent thunderstorm; to the right, the last vestiges of the sunset lingered in the clouds; but straight ahead there was only the darkness of a long, unlit highway. Apparently the Colorado Chamber of Commerce does not see fit to illuminate the Rockies at night with enormous floodlights.

But sure enough, when we woke up this morning and went outside... there were mountains!

We set out for Rocky Mountain National Park in the morning, where we used our few precious hours there to drive to a few lookout points and climb rocks by a waterfall. We were surprised by how easily we got winded in the high altitudes, but we were even more surprised by the people biking up the winding mountain roads. Coloradans do not mess around.

From there we went to the Celestial Seasonings factory in Boulder, where went on a factory tour. Since it was the weekend, the factory floor wasn't in operation; this meant that we didn't get to see the tea being packaged (boo!) but it also meant that we didn't have to wear hairnets (yay!). We also got to watch a propaganda video about how fantastic Celestial Seasonings is, and how Celestial Seasonings only uses all-natural ingredients, and how Celestial Seasonings contains antioxidants, and how Celestial Seasonings will make you more attractive to the opposite sex (or the same sex, hey, this is Boulder after all). The takeaway lesson from the tour: tea factories smell! A lot!

Then it was off to the Pearl Street Mall in downtown Boulder, which is sort of like the Ithaca Commons but with more chain stores. Visiting Boulder is kind of strange after spending four years in Ithaca; there are many similarities between the two cities, but Boulder is more... aggressive? Ithaca's quirks are of the hippy-dippy, broomstick-skirt-wearing variety, whereas Boulder's quirks are of the bizarre-facial-piercings variety. In Ithaca, the unwashed hippies sit on a bench and strum guitars; in Boulder, the unwashed hippies approach you and sing at you. There are a lot of biceps in Boulder. And a hell of a lot of Subaru Outbacks. Ithaca : Granola :: Boulder : Power Bars.

We wandered around the Pearl Street Mall for a while, then headed to a Tibetan restaurant for dinner. From there we walked back through the Mall, where we we accidentally got reeled in by an annoying busker who spent far too much time aggressively courting bystanders and not nearly enough time doing anything interesting. ("Okay, okay, the box trick. Here we go. Hey, you! You in the brown shirt! Watch this! I'm going to do a great trick with these boxes! Okay, here we go. Hey you!" etc.) Then we had ice cream, and went back to the hotel to watch the Olympics. And now I'm going to go to sleep, because tomorrow we're waking up early to head to Moab, UT and Canyonlands National Park.

Oh, and to complete the rhyming title of this post, when we got back to Melissa's car in the Boulder garage, someone had thrown corn on the ground behind it:

Boulder is beautiful

2008-08-09T21:53:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Colorado! We woke up early this morning and headed over to Rocky Mountain National Park (see photos!). The sky was freakishly blue, the air was freakishly thin, and we were freakishly excited about the prospect of not having to drive 1,100 miles. Simmie climbed atop a very large rock, Elise ordered a hot dog, and I drank 10 cups of free tea at the Celestial Seasonings factory (Blueberry Green Tea is delicious!).

Then, we headed down to Boulder, where we shopped, ate, and were attacked by a rather annoyingly determined wasp. Now we are cheering for Dara Torres! Go U.S.A.!

We made it!

2008-08-08T22:55:00.000-07:00

18 hours later, one timezone, over 1000 miles, and two tanks of gas we made it to Boulder!! I am currently sitting in our plush TownePlace Suites room which is definitely bigger than Melissa's apartment.

We managed to get up around 4:30, out the door by 5, and on the road by 5:16. Because we are us, we had matching shirts and even looked to be somewhat awake.

We also managed to get all of our stuff into the car. Elise looks like she's in an advertisement for a bulk foods store.

Other than that...pretty much we drove. And drove. And drove. And drove. Oh, and after that? We drove. The following are some pictures of the scenery:

Illinois:

Iowa:

Nebraska:
I was driving through lots of Nebraska so I don't have too many pictures. I bet you can guess what it looked like though.

Colorado:

We did stop in Des Moines. Verdict: Not too exciting. And AAA books are horribly out of date. And we didn't see one giant billboard of Shawn Johnson.

So today...not so exciting. We did manage to get here though and now it's time to sleep so we can have some fun tomorrow....Rocky Mountain National Park, Celestial Seasonings Factory Tour, and I can confirm my love for Boulder!

Night!
Simmie

We still haven't left yet....

2008-08-07T22:03:00.001-07:00

Melissa here...

It's not snowing in Chicago, so we're off to a good start. Elise is a planning god(dess). If it were left up to me, we'd be stuck in the middle of Kansas, with a great hunk of Gouda, but no tent, no whistles, and no flint (Jim actually had to explain to me what flint was).

Road Trip 2008!!

2008-08-07T21:34:00.000-07:00

Hello! Simmie here...

Here's my attempt at keeping a blog for this trip. In case you aren't sure, we're driving from Chicago to the Grand Canyon. Here's a quick overview:

Friday: Chicago, IL to Boulder, CO.
Saturday: Boulder, CO
Sunday: Boulder, CO to Moab, UT
Monday: Moab, UT to the Grand Canyon, AZ
Tuesday: the Grand Canyon
Wednesday: The Grand Canyon to Santa Fe, NM
Thursday: Santa Fe, NM to Denver, CO
Friday: Denver, CO to the Badlands, SD
Saturday: The Badlands, SD to Minneapolis, MN
Sunday: Minneapolis, MN to Chicago, IL

Monday: I'll be not functioning at work in Laurel, MD.

This was created for a couple of reasons:

1. My mother is possibly going to have an aneurysm wondering where I am as we trek across the middle to almost west part of the United States. Possibly this will help quell some of her anxiety.

2. I have a compulsive need to extensively document everything I do when I'm on vacation. Usually this involves me writing until my hand falls off in a little journal which then I give to my mother at the end of the trip to read. She claims she reads it, but I suppose I have never given her a quiz so she could be lying to me. However, since we've entered the digital age and I had to bring my computer on this trip to do my homework (yay grad school!) I figured why not give this a shot. But you are going to be out in the wilderness! How will you access the internet? Fear not my friends. In what I think to be a somewhat sad state, even our campgrounds have Wifi! What is a somewhat sad note on what our lives have become, is a good chance for you. Hopefully every night or so I can update you all on what we have done with our day (hint: driving) and perhaps share some fun anecdotes on the state of our physical and mental stability. Our trip is only 10 days long so I can't promise too much, but I figure this is worth a try.

It's 11:41 PM on Thursday. We're leaving at 5:00 AM tomorrow morning. We appear to be thoroughly prepared thanks in large part to Elise and her outstanding planning. We've got food, a tent, supplies up the wazoo, and a half a tank of gas (what? It's a hybrid).

Tomorrow morning we take on the first 1000 miles of our trip from Chicago, IL to Boulder, CO. If we make it, hopefully we'll still be friends. Time for bed and let the driving commence!