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.