You Have To See It To Believe It.

I just wanted to say a few words while we have internet, since we will be camping again for the next few days as long as it doesn't downpour again. Yesterday we drove from the beautiful Colorado where we were surrounded by enormous snow-topped mountains and lush, green trees to the incredible Utah which, so far, looks like we are on another planet-- Mars perhaps. We started off driving through some snow which was unexpected, but then again, everything so far has been that way. As we were driving, the landscape changed completely. All of a sudden we were encircled by a red, rocky desert with no sign of trees or plants, except cactus. While driving down from the mountains, we saw these huge white letters painted on the rocks that said "Hole N' The Rock" so we pulled over to see what it was. I couldn't believe it... there was a house built in the rock. A couple back in the day, well over 50 years ago, somehow came across this area and said... that is where I want to live. Well, now, many years after they have passed, they are giving tours through the home and it supposedly is exactly how they left it. I wish we could have taken pictures, but they wouldn't let us. I loved it though and found it fascinating that people voluntarily lived in a cave in the middle of nowhere.

Then we went to Arches National Park which was absolutely incredible. You will have to take a look at our pictures so see what it was like, but they really don't do it justice.

From there, we kept driving and came across Capital Reef. That is what looked like we had just been dropped on the planet Mars. If Hollywood hasn't made movies about other planets there yet, they should! It's truly like nothing I've ever seen. There were mountains and canyons that were made out of red rocks, dirt, and who knows what. I wish I could describe how cool it was.

Anyways, now we are on our way to go hiking in Bryce Canyon and then hopefully camp out in Zion National Park. We will try to get pictures up soon and update again. Hope everyone is doing well!

--Bri

Rocky Mountain Tops

Hey everyone.. we are sitting at a Starbucks right now drinking down a couple of iced coffees and having a small breakfast before hitting the road to drive through the mountains into west Colorado where we will be doing some camping. We spent yesterday afternoon in Boulder, CO.. and loved it here. It's an awesome town with a great street in downtown that is closed off to traffic and filled with shops, restaurants, and people. We took about an hour to drive up Flagstaff road which climbs up one of the mountains right in Boulder, and gives some great scenery overlooking Boulder and even Denver to the east, and the "14 footers", as they call them here, to the west. The "14 footers" are the white-capped mountains 14,000 feet and higher.

We will have to fill in some more details later, as we are about to start driving now.. but just wanted to drop a quick note because it might be a few days before we can updated again and post all of our Boulder pictures!

Have a great Memorial Day everyone!! Hopefully the rain and clouds will finally clear up sometime while we're driving... it's been days of rain and storms.

-Dan

Santa Fe

New pictures from Alamogordo to Santa Fe are posted! We had a great night here last night just walking around the town and seeing the unique architecture, art galleries, and restaurants Santa Fe has to offer. By the time we got here, unfortunately, most shops were closed, but yesterday actually marked the 400 year anniversary of Santa Fe so there were a few museums open for free. I especially enjoyed the Chuck Jones gallery, which held tons of pieces from the legendary "master of animation." Chuck Jones created the famous Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, and Porky Pigg, which was really neat to see the original works. Overall, I really liked this artsy city, but again, it's a place I would only want to spend about 2-3 days in, because it's small and consists mostly of art galleries.

Due to the rainy weather, Dan and I have decided to take out first detour. Instead of going through the "million-dollar highway" today and then camping in Black Canyon today, we have decided to go through Colorado Springs, Denver, and up to Boulder. We will do Black Canyon in a few days hopefully. Thanks to the great Sean Davies and his family, we will have a place to stay tonight! We are so excited to check out CO and we will keep you updated.

An unexpected, awesome visit!

Hey all.. just wanted to drop a quick note on here before we set off for a long period where we probably won't have internet for a while. Although we did notice on our last drive that most big rest stops claim that they have wi-fi access, so we might have to check that out. Yesterday was a long drive that consisted of nothing... yet was full of so much! We talked about how it felt like we went through at least 3 different worlds as the extreme landscapes and horizon seemed to "morph" continuously. So although it was a good 9.5 hours in the car, we both agreed that it didn't seem so bad because we were basically in awe of how far we have come and at seeing things we never thought we would drive through. You know places like this exist, but it's hard to truly grasp the vastness of the land and diversity of landscapes until you drive through it. And the thing is, we aren't even a week into our trip, so we know so much more remains to be seen!

Anyway, we finally finished our drive and instead of driving an additional 3 hours to Albuquerque NM.. I got in touch with my cousin Bernadette who lives in Alamogordo, NM which was basically right on our path. She is an air force officer, working at Holloman Airforce base here in town. She lives in a great little house not too far off the highway, and was nice enough to let us stay the night.. and even baked some sort of cookie/cheesecake dessert! Haha whatever it was it was delicious. It was great to catch up with her and see her at her home in New Mexico, and here some of her cool air force stories. So thanks Bernadette for living in "nowheresville" and being kind enough to take us in!! :)

Today we are heading to Santa Fe, NM to explore and stay the night.. before heading into the mountains of Colorado to do some camping and then visit Boulder, CO. This is a portion of our trip that will consist of camping and some extreme sights we hope. Plenty more pictures of San Antonio and our drive through Texas uploaded onto our photo site, so check it out!

-Dan

The Road to Nowhere

We are 8 hours into our drive right now through the middle of absolutely nowhere. I feel like we landed on an undiscovered planet… I mean there is no one around. It’s very eerie and deserted, but extremely cool. If you ever want to get away from everything, I would say you couldn’t find a better place than here. The rain has been very sporadic today, but every time we approach a cloud of showers we have been able to smell it. Do you know what I’m talking about when I say you can smell the rain? It’s that potent, acidic scent that you can’t escape when it’s really hot outside. It reminds me of summer at home :)… which we are very, very far away from right now.

We drove past the stadium where the world’s first rodeo was held, which you can see in our pictures. We also drove through a little town which was completely abandoned and forgotten about with rusted, run-down houses and cars with shattered windows. When you look at our pictures you won’t even truly understand where we are. We have gone through rocky hills, vast flat plains, the Guadalupe mountains, and now we are driving through these mustardy colored hills sprinkled with tiny spiky plants—and no they are not cactus.

Oh and BIG news!! I drove the lunchbox today!! It was quite the exciting event of the day. I guess when there are no other cars in sight and the speed limit is 80, you can’t really worry about anything going wrong. We have about 2 hours to go before reaching our final destination, but first we will be driving past by El Paso. Anyways, we will check back in again soon. New Mexico, here we come!

--Bri

Remember the Alamo!

Yesterday we arrived at the Riverwalk in San Antonio and we stayed at a hotel right along the river-- it is so beautiful here! I never would have thought I would want to vacation in San Antonio, TX because I had no idea what a great little town is here. I don't think it's a place I would want to spend more than 2 or 3 days in, because it's mostly restaurants, but there are things to do for the whole family as well. The Alamo was nice to see, and I'm glad I got a chance to visit, but it certainly is a lot smaller than I expected it to be!

After we saw the Alamo we got some chips and salsa along the river and then spent about 2 hours walking it. The weather here was perfect-- 80's and not a cloud in the sky... I don't mean to brag, I'm just being honest!

And this is a different topic completely, but did anyone see American Idol last night by the way?? I was pretty shocked at the outcome.

Alright well, Dan and I have a 9 hour drive ahead of us to Alamogordo, New Mexico to spend the night with Dan's cousin, Bernadette, who was nice enough to have us at the last minute!

That's it for now... but we will definitely remember the Alamo!

--Bri

Road Trip USA Photos

We finally have pictures posted! Just click the link to the right that says "Road Trip USA Photos" and it will take you to Shutterfly which has all of our pictures. Enjoy!

I also want to say thanks to everyone who has been keeping up with our blog. It is a lot of fun to come back and see that you are excited to hear what's next. Thanks for the posts too!

--Bri

Don't mess with Texas

Hey y'all! So it's been a couple of days since we've been able to update on here, but we have been busy hanging out in Round Rock Texas watching baseball games, playing guitar hero, and doing a lot of (exhausting) jumping around on a trampoline. So first off.. we left New Orleans early on a beautiful, sunny Monday morning after getting some coffee and beignets at the famous Cafe Du Monde near the New Orleans waterfront in the French Quarter. It was nice to see New Orleans in the sun during the day, where we could see that the French Quarter was a very cool place full of character and charm. But in the spirit of road trips, we had to keep moving.. especially because we wanted to catch my cousin Cameron's last baseball game of the season at 6:00 Monday night.. a mere 500 miles away. The drive through the rest of Louisiana brought us through Baton Rouge and much of "Cajun country". I thought an interesting part of the drive was how often we were on these causeways kind of like bridges, because we were just surrounded by marshy lands and swamp. The farther west we drove the more things started to dry up, and the Texas state line caught us by surprise but then we were welcomed by our favorite state welcome center yet. As they say.. everything's bigger in Texas. The center even had boardwalk type walkways out back that you could go explore, which were built over a swamp filled with wildlife, it was like being at a zoo. The rest of the drive was less eventful, as we got a taste of just how big Texas is.. still another 4.5 hours to go and we are just covering a tiny fraction of the state. After passing through Houston we went through hundreds of miles of country filled with ranches and cattle.

So finally.. after about 9 hours in the car (much better than the day before) we arrived at the enormous baseball complex where Cameron had his baseball game at 6:00. It was great to get there and see him play, these kids are good! His team the SF Giants ended up winning the game and finishing off a great 10-4 season. Round Rock was a great stop for us, where we got to spend two nights with Riley, Cameron, my Uncle Pat, and Aunt Tracy. Their new house is absolutely beautiful, and seems to be in a great neighborhood that Bri and I took a walk through on Tuesday morning. We used Tuesday to relax and enjoy not being in the car, and waited for the kids to get home from school.. and then played all afternoon! Everything from swings, kicking a ball around, drawing, "trampolining", and watching Cameron crush Guitar Hero on expert. On Tuesday night we all went to the incredible Oasis restaurant overlooking Lake Travis.. the self-proclaimed and deserving "Sunset Capital of Texas". Sure enough we had a great sunset, great food, and a great time with the family. This is an area that is definitely not what you would expect when you think of Texas, and it is really a great place.

This morning (Wednesday) we are getting ready to take off on an easy drive to San Antonio where we will spend a night and enjoy the Riverwalk. It's only an hour and a half drive, so we hope to get there and spend some time relaxing by the pool, and walking around the city. This will be our final stop in Texas, before taking off on Thursday morning to make the grueling drive through Texas and into New Mexico.

More to come later so keep checking back! Thanks for all the comments, we really look forward to when we can get to the internet and update everyone to share what we have experienced. :)

-Dan

The Big Easy

Wow, New Orleans certainly is a unique city. It took us about 12 hours to get here, and when we did we were a little bit worried. We had reservations at a hostel, and it confirmed everything I ever feared about hostels in America so needless to say we call the Holiday Inn Express and booked a night there. It ended up being absolutely perfect though, because the hotel was inexpensive and was located only about 3 blocks away from Bourbon Street. We both loved this strip of stores, restaurants, and bars. For dinner we ate some authentic Gumbo soup and Jambalaya- spicy and delicious! People are crazy here too... we saw some interesting things... people riding the fake bull was probably one of the funniest things I've seen though. What a great city!!

Now, we are heading to Cafe du Monde on our way out to get some coffee and beignets, native to this city. From there, we are off to Round Rock, TX to stay with family! We will write more later, but again... so far so good!

We are still working on the photo album, and we added our "total counts" on the side which keeps our long rides a little more interesting.

Sweet Home Alabama

May 17, 2009

It’s 1:45pm right now… wait Dan just checked the time and our clocks switched back an hour, but we don’t know when that happened so now it’s 12:45- weird! Dan is driving us to New Orleans… and yes, it is still raining. It wasn’t too bad getting up this morning at 6:30 since we fell asleep at 9 last night. We drove through Gatlinburg this morning and it was really a cool little town. I would say it’s like a mini Vegas or Orlando, FL squeezed into one little town. I just couldn’t believe how much there was to do there. I would definitely consider coming back at some point to spend a few days camping and spending time in the town. You would need to save up though, because this is a spending city. So far on our drive today, we have been through Tennessee, Georgia, and right now we’re in Alabama. This is quite a long drive though considering we have been in the car since 8:30 and we are due in to New Orleans at 7:30. I just want to get some good food when we get there since we really haven’t had much to eat on this trip. Well, let’s just hope this rain lets up!

--Bri

The Great Smoky Mountains!

We left for Tennessee 10 hours ago from Harrisonburg, and it took us about 7 hours to get here. So far so good except for the rain that is pouring down on our tent right now and the occasional booms of thunder… No big deal. But seriously, the drive down here was beautiful! Somewhat like VA, but much more mountainous and a lot more foliage. I still haven’t attempted driving the lunchbox since it is stick shift, but I’m thinking tomorrow will be the day, especially since it will be a 10 hour drive. We drove through Knoxville which was truly a unique experience. If you are ever looking for a good vacation for the entire family with a little bit of camping and a little bit of anything else you could possibly imagine, this is the place. The town was filled with stores, carnivals and rides, restaurants, entertainment for adults and children—I mean really you could find anything you want here. We even stopped at the world’s largest store of knives… I have a feeling e will be seeing a lot more places like that along the way. Once we made it through the town though, it was back to nature. It is beautiful up here. Our campsite is the only one located on the water with a great view of the river and it is really nice! It would be a little nicer if we could hear the stream through the pouring rain though. Anyways, great start to the trip and I can’t wait to see what else there is to come!

--Bri

Hey everybody! It’s pouring in the Smoky Mountains right now.. luckily we got into our campground early enough to set up camp and get somewhat settled in before it started. We actually thought it was going to storm right when we got here and had to hold off dinner for about 30 mins, but then decided it missed us so we were able to grill up some burgers and beans.. yumm. The drive down was really pretty like Bri mentioned, lots of very scenic landscapes that are very representative of the typical “Virginia” countryside with white picket fences, rolling hills, and mountain ridges in the distance. The Knoxville area seemed really cool, extremely touristy with a lot more traffic than we would have expected, but definitely full of activities. There was even some sort of castle.. I think a kids play place, but I sure wanted to check it out. Tomorrow morning we will be getting up early to pack up camp and head for New Orleans. These first few days are going to really go quick with pretty long drives and just one night in between, but we decided we want to get out to new places and spend some extra time in places out west. Hope to get some pictures up soon!

-Dan

Hey everybody! We're set to hit the road early this morning (Saturday) heading for Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee. We'll spend the night there camping before heading on to New Orleans on Sunday. I put together a picture that is a map of the US with our route drawn on it, along with tentative stops which are red boxes on the map. Check it out!
-Dan

What do you pack for a 40 day road trip in a Honda Element (aka lunchbox)?

And the packing begins... I just got home from graduation a few days ago and before I can even finish unpacking from 4 years at JMU, I have to start re-packing for our road trip across the US! How am I supposed to squish everything I need into one little bag?? I mean, I was able to live with next to nothing when I traveled to the Dominican Republic, but that was only a week. Any suggestions?

Dan and I have been talking about this trip for almost a year now, and it feels surreal that graduation has passed and we are leaving in just a day and 1/2. I don't know how time flies so quickly, but I am sure that it will go especially fast during the next month so I really need to soak up every second and appreciate my time off. First stop- Harrisonburg, VA... sound familiar?