Days 18 & 19 - KS, MO, IA, IL, IN

So, we made it out of Kansas alive. The hotel was a lot less creepy during the day. We hit the road and kept heading east. We were planning to stop at the Army base in Manhattan, Kansas to see my cousin, Ricky, who is being deployed this week, but unfortunately he couldn't get off the base. So, stay safe, Ricky!

We left Kansas, drove through Missouri, and ended up in Newton, Iowa for the night. We stopped to eat at this place called The Pizza Ranch, which was pretty good. The next morning we overslept and almost missed the checkout time for the hotel.

After breakfast at Perkins, we were on the road again. We drove through Iowa and into Illinois. We got to Chicago around 6:00 so we stopped for dinner. We ended up in the Lincoln Park area and walked around for about an hour before we found something we both wanted to eat. We ended up at Pasta Palazzo, which was a casual place that made homemade pastas. Speaking for myself, I wasn't crazy about Chicago. We didn't stay long after dinner. We decided to keep driving and get some more miles in. We decided to stop for the night in South Bend, Indiana.

Unfortunately, we don't have many pictures from this leg of the trip. We haven't really seen those great landscapes that we saw in other states. All we've seen for miles and miles in farmlands. Not only that, it has been consistently cloudy and rainy since we left Utah. It has rained the most of every day.

Now we are getting ready to hit the road again. We will probably be home tomorrow or Sunday. See you all soon!

Days 15-17: NV, UT, CO, KS

We made it out of Eureka alive. We hit the road with Boulder as our eventual destination. The route from Nevada through Utah is very scenic. Utah actually seems very proud of its natural beauty and has frequent scenic view points where you can pull off the highway and stand on a precipice and behold . . . THE MAJESTY OF UTAH! We stopped in Green River for the night.

From Green River we went to Colorado. The ride through the Rockies was accompanied by a John Denver soundtrack. I had a certain preconception of the Rockies and was surprised that it wasn't all snowy peaks and pine trees. We saw red layered hills like the ones in Utah, fog covered crags, and the actual "purple mountains' majesty" I've heard so much about. And since it was August we didn't see very much snow on the peaks. We stayed in Boulder, which was really cool. It is a total college town. Eateries seemed to outnumber any other kind of establishment in the area we were in, so I could see becoming very happily fat if I lived there. We checked into our hotel and spent the afternoon wandering the town and checking out shops. The difference between Boulder and Saratoga Springs is that Boulder seems to embrace its college kid community whole heartedly while Saratoga tends to cater more to its summertime horse racing cliental. So basically we saw more than a few stores that catered solely to the sale of pipes and paraphernalia and things that are sure to look rad under a black light.

After an evening of wandering around and checking out stores and street performers (not to mention an awesome candy store that had an entire section dedicated to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) we went back to the hotel and used the pool. In the morning we took another stroll around town and then hit the road. A lot of driving later we're in Kansas. Denver smelled really bad as we drove by it. We made stops for gas, stretches, and food and now we are in a really weird Ramada in Hays, Kansas. You know how a standard design for a hotel is to be two stories in a U shape with parking in the middle of the U? This has the same setup but it is all indoors and it isn't well lit. I think they are currently in the middle of building a bigger hotel around a previously existing one. It really feels like we are in an underground bomb shelter, though. It's kind of creepy.

So if any of you never see us again, assume that we got killed by the zombies or C.H.U.D.s or whatever else dwells in this missile silo of a hotel in Kansas. Know that all of you, friends and family, are much loved and be sure to avenge us!

Anyway . . . here are some pictures from Utah and Colorado!

Day 14 - CA to NV

So, we left Rancho Cordova this morning and got right on the road. We drove east on Route 50 and, let me tell you, that is a BEAUTIFUL drive. We drove through El Dorado National Forest, which was all these winding roads carved into the sides of mountains. There was one point that we were driving probably 7000 feet up on a mountain road and within about 5 feet of us there was a huge, vertical drop. It was scary, but very beautiful. We took this road all the way to Lake Tahoe where we stopped to eat at an Irish Pub. The food wasn't great, but the way the lady at the table next to us complained, you would have thought they served her arsenic. She was not very nice.

We left Lake Tahoe and continued our very scenic drive on Route 50 into Nevada. Once we left Fallon, NV the road really became "The Loneliest Road in America," which it has been dubbed over the years. There are practically no towns or services on this road. Eventually it started getting dark and we could see storm clouds and some lightning on the horizon, so we decided to stop in Eureka Nevada. I would guess that the population here is about 300 people. We decided to stay at the only well-lit hotel in town, which is a Best Western. We asked what there was to eat in the area and the receptionist said we could choose the steakhouse or Chinese. We went for the steakhouse, which was also a lounge and casino (meaning it had a few slot machines underneath all the deer heads on the wall).

Now we are sitting in the hotel and waiting for the morning so we can continue our adventure! For now, we added some new photos to the San Francisco album and here are some from Route 50.

Day 13 - CA

So, in the morning we did the very touristy area of San Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf. Erik took us for our very first In n' Out Burger experience, which was really good! We both got Double Doubles with milkshakes.

Then we walked over to the Museum Mechanique, which is a collection of old video games and coin operated machines pretty much since they were invented. The most interesting ones were the executions. You would put in a quarter and a door would open to an execution, like a hanging or a guillotine. I am not sure why something like that would have been made, but they were interesting to see. There was this fortune telling machine there that typed up a fortune for you on an old typewriter that gave really accurate fortunes to Erik, Tommy and myself. It was eerie.

After leaving the museum, we drove Erik to work, where he treated us to homemade lemonade. Then we were off. We decided to take the Golden Gate Bridge, even though it was out of the way. It is crazy how foggy it gets. We took a video going over that we will post soon.

Unfortunately, because of crazy amounts of traffic, we did not make it very far at all. After sitting in traffic for about 3 hours, we decided to pull off the highway and go to the movies. If you ever find yourself in Fairfield, California, I highly recommend the Edwards Cinema. Great theater. We saw Inglourious Basterds, which was a really fun movie. Better than we both expected. After the movie, we drove a little while longer but we didn't get very far before we were both exhausted. We ended up stopping in Rancho Cordova, CA to sleep for the night, which was probably a lot smarter than driving while exhausted.

Onward to Nevada!

Days 11 & 12: San Francisco

San Francisco is a beautiful city! Plenty of cool, independently owned shops, great restaurants, beautiful views.

Yesterday morning, we ventured out into the surrounding neighborhoods after Erik and I altered our beards for maximum stupidity. First stop was the park at Alamo Square across the street from Erik's house. From there you see the famous "Painted Ladies" or as people our age know them as, "The Full House Houses." There was also a cool "shoe garden" where people brought their old pairs of shoes to plant in them. Then, Erik showed us around Haight St., which is the big hippie area in the city and where the whole "flower power" scene started. We checked out all sorts of cool shops and had lunch at a great greasy spoon called The Pork Store, which was very excellent. There was an enormous music store that I could have spent hours in called Amoeba Records, but, luckily for everyone involved, I didn't. We continued our walk through the Pan Handle and then back to the house where we hung out for the evening.

The next day Erik went to work and Alicia and I walked walked in the general direction of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a long and hilly walk but the weather was very nice like a warm Fall day. We spotted an interesting building in the distance and decided to check it out. It turned out to be the Palace of Fine Arts. It was a beautiful curved structure with statues and columns bordering a pond. We saw a sleeping owl, too. Inside the actual building was a science museum called The Exploratorium.

We finally made our way to the beach and got a good view of the bridge as huge billows of fog rolled in. The way fog hangs over the city is really interesting. When we drove into the city, we drove into a fog cloud. From where we were on the beach we could see the dividing line. The bridge and everything to the left was gray while Alcatraz and the wind surfers were brightly lit by the sun, We walked along the shore of the Bay for a while. From there we walked to Erik's restaurant, Rose's Cafe, for dinner. The food was awesome and we were treated very well. We tried beets and prosciutto with melon, fresh spaghetti and steak. With full bellies we leisurely walked back to the apartment, checking out a few stores along the way. We walked down Fillmore Street and they were playing Iron Man in Fillmore Center, so we sat down to watch for a few. By the time we got back we were so beat, we couldn't keep our eyes open.

So, without further ado, here are the pictures (including the beard before and afters): San Francisco