Friday, September 19, 2008

According to Santi

Thanks to Santi for reminding us to keep blogging! We haven't always had the most reliable internet access and our dream of blogging every night faded quickly.

We spent the last four days visiting family in the South. After we left our great hotel in Arkansas (can't beat Hampton Inn!) on Tuesday morning, we drove to the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock. Since it's a bit like a museum of the 1990s, we had a blast reliving all of our favorite moments during our favorite President's tenure. Although, I'd recommend skipping the library's restaurant...

From Little Rock, we took the back roads to Jackson, Mississippi. It was amazing to get off the interstate for awhile and actually SEE the Mississippi river! Plus, we were both excited to add another state to our list since the back roads took us through Louisiana in addition to Arkansas and Mississippi.

To drive along the river felt like we were driving back in time (except for the many, many Tyson Chicken trucks passing us in the other direction). Like good Yankees, we were impressed with the levees, the swampy waterways and the fields of cotton. We also couldn't miss the rural poverty that is still pervasive in the deep south.

We arrived in suburban Mississippi to visit with Steve's Dad and his wife. Other than a short drive to the Jackson reservoir, we didn't see much outside their sprawling development. I guess we'll have to do the historical trip to Mississippi another time!

Since it's time for us weary travelers to turn in (at yet another Hampton Inn!), we'll finish telling our story in the next few days. We should be in Ann Arbor ("home"?) by tomorrow afternoon.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Our trip...

We thought it might be helpful for you (and us) if we showed a map of our trip...

We're going/went here:




View Larger Map

Monday, September 15, 2008

As dry as a...

Well, it seems to be as dry as a desert around here. Go figure! We've both been liberally applying the only lotion we have handy which just happens to be hemp lotion from The Body Shop (it's great stuff, by the way!). So not only do we look like San Franciscans, we smell like San Franciscans, too...

Saturday was our long drive through the desert from the Grand Canyon to Santa Rosa, New Mexico. We spent most of this leg of the trip following the old Route 66. Luckily for Steve, I was able to sing snippets of the Route 66 song for his enjoyment all day long.

It turns out that we were also following the railroad tracks most of the day, as well. We needed a food and bathroom break near Winslow, Arizona and just for "kicks" we got off I-40 early to take Route 66 through what looked like a pretty dilapidated town (Dairy Queen for lunch, anyone?). Just as we were giving up on local restaurants, we came across a beautifully restored hotel at the end of the main street. It was La Posada hotel, a lovingly restored railroad hotel built in the 1930s. It was the perfect dessert oasis for us weary travelers!

We sat down for a wonderful lunch at their restaurant, the Turquoise Room. The service was outstanding and I had their "signature" soup-- half black bean and half cream corn. It sounds odd, but it was delicious!

Steve and I wandered the grounds for awhile and watched a few trains pass on the railroad tracks just behind the hotel. We also amazed at the $99 a night rooms. How had we missed staying here?

The rest of the desert loomed before us and we had a fairly uneventful drive through the rest of Arizona and New Mexico (although see our earlier post about funny signs in New Mexico!). I was particularly excited about the storm clouds building on the horizon... I have been longing for a "real" thunderstorm after living in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, the thunderstorm stayed to the north of us, but we were able to see the desert outlined against a beautiful dark sky.

We stayed the night in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. While our hotel was the omnipresent Holiday Inn Express, it was on Route 66. So, after having much success with Route 66 in Arizona, we got off the highway early and traveled Route 66 in to town. It made for some great pictures with the "retro" vestiges of Route 66 highlighted against the darkening storm clouds.

The very nice desk clerk at the Holiday Inn Express suggested that we eat dinner at Lake City Diner in downtown Santa Rosa. Again, we were treated to a great service and a great meal. The diner was in an old bank building on the very small main street in downtown. We both enjoyed a few beers and some delicious Mexican food, albeit served in a leisurely manner. It was a fitting end to the day.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Day 2: Much better than Day 1, but not quite "vacation" yet




Start: Bakersfield, California
End: Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona - Mather Campground
Date: Friday, September 12
Highlights: Needles (?)

After recovering from a pretty crazy first day of our trip, it was great to be driving during the day! The mysterious Bakersfield Smell had disappeared, thank goodness - I was afraid that the A/C had broken in the car. Southeast California and Arizona pretty much look the same. We stopped in Needles, Calif. for lunch. We made a pact to eat at local places for at least one meal per day, so the McDonalds in Needles definitely did not count. I really don't remember the last time I ate at McDonalds...and this one was under severe construction. It's amazing what "making good time" will do to your eating habits! Interstate 40 pretty much parallels the Historic Route 66, or what is left of it, and I'm sure Needles had much more prosperous times in its past.

I also have to admit that our itinerary really planned for us to fly through the western US and spend more time in the Southeast with my family at the end of the week. If it seems like we're not appreciating something enough, then we probably aren't. Wouldn't it be nice to have all the time in the world to see all of the amazing places off of the interstate??

Southeast California and Arizona pretty much look the same; the Colorado River forms a stunning string of green vegetation in an otherwise brown landscape. Libby and I figure it will actually sink in that we're moving once one of the following happens:
  • Rain
  • Green trees
  • Grass
  • Corn
None of those happened on Day 2, so we're obviously still in denial.

We arrived at the Grand Canyon tired again and set up the tent. There are SO MANY foreign tourists at the Grand Canyon! We were definitely in the minority as American tourists.

Since we arrived so late, we saved the actual canyon-looking for Day 3. If we weren't also racing a moving truck to Michigan, we would probably go on a hike...but I think canyon-looking will have to do this time around. Stay tuned for canyon-looking tomorrow...

p.s. If you haven't met Bill the Monkey, let me introduce you. He was born several days ago at 6th and Market in San Francisco, and was rescued from squalor by our friend Jim and given to us, his new foster parents. I'm a big fan of Ghostbusters, so see if you can figure out the inside joke. Bill really doesn't seem to like elevation changes, temperature changes, or other ideal gas law variable changes...we'll see how he does in the next few days!

You can drop litter in New Mexico

Here are our favorite signs-- we'll keep adding as we go

New Mexico:
  • Do not throw litter (can you drop it instead??)
  • Gusty winds may exist (there MUST be a simpler way to say this)
  • Don't drive on median (okay)
  • Keep off shoulder (why not just say "Drive on Road"?)
  • 30 Modern Stations (advertising all the fantastic things in any given city)

Texas:
  • Worlds Largest Painter of Commercial Airplanes (anyone consider spell-checking a large billboard in the middle of a major city?)

This day can't get worse, can it?


The first day of our cross-country road trip was supposed to include light cleaning of the apartment, a quick exchange of keys with our landlord and hitting in the road by 2 pm to make it to Barstow by bedtime.

Instead, it went something like this:
6:00 AM Wake up COLD on the deflating air mattress on our bedroom floor
6:30 AM Find myself with my head in the freezer, scrubbing frozen beer off the shelves and trying not to inhale too many cleaning fumes
9:30 AM Drop off last-minute prescriptions
9:50 AM Orthodontist appointment to remove my braces (yay!)
10:45 AM Rush back to apartment to scrub floors and clean toilets
1:00 PM Meet landlord and hold our breath for the walk-through; turn in keys
1:30 PM Take a deep breath because walk-through went fine
2:10 PM Return to orthodontist to have retainers fitted; find out retainers don't fit
3:00 PM Last-minute lunch at Zachary's
3:45 PM Pick up eyeglasses
4:20 PM Return to orthodontist to pick up retainers; find out again that retainers don't fit
4: 20 PM My husband runs all over Oakland for final errands
[Note (husband): Returned cable modem to Comcast near airport, picked up extra prescriptions, ran into Trader Joe's to use the restroom...]
5:45 PM Retainers finally fit! Cancel hotel reservations in Barstow; make reservations instead for Bakersfield
6:00 PM Have on-the-go conversation with my boss about consulting work; get stuck in traffic
7:30 PM Eat leftover pizza in a truck stop parking lot on I-5
11:30 PM Pull into hotel in Bakersfield; gag at the smell in the air (what WAS that??); gasp at the cost of a room at the Holiday Inn Express
Midnight SLEEP

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Heading East

After four great years in the Bay Area, TBF and I packed our bags and are moving to wonderful Ann Arbor, Michigan! We still plan on blogging - especially during our road trip. We're actually already on Day two of the trip, so stay tuned for the juicy details...we promise to fill you in and hopefully provide some pictures.