11 posts tagged “driving”

So anyway, I forgot to mention that while we were in Vegas we got our window fixed at the local VW dealership. This made another drive through the desert far more enjoyable as we didn't both have pounding headaches thanks to the rushing air.

While there were more mishaps still waiting for us on the trip as a whole, the drive to L.A. went by without incident and we were able to get in and spend some time that evening with Waldo and his girlfriend Josephine Ofins.

Here is the trip progress as of our arrival in the LOs  if there is still anyone out there reading it.

Trip Mileage so far: 5553
States driven thru: 17 (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, plus the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Ohio (x2), Indiana (x2), Illinois (x3), Wisconsin, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California)
License Plate Game Progress: 50 of 50, plus DC, 5 Provinces and Special Diplomat Plates.

So, in the end, we made through our whole Grand Canyon experience without losing anything from the car.  After spending all the time we could spare basking in the remarkable beauty of the Grand Canyon it was time to make the trip through the desert to make our planned nighttime arrival in Las Vegas. The trip was obviously partially influenced by the fact that we had to make said trip with the driver's side window missing. The heat of the desert wasn't so bad, because even though it was over 100 degrees at night, we could still use the air conditioning if we were willing to sacrifice gas mileage. The part that sucked was the fact that with the window all the way down it isn't too fun to drive the 70-80 mph required to arrive in Las Vegas before 2 in the morning. Yet, alas, we made it in the end, and it wasn't all that bad after all.

We found our way to The Strip in Vegas as visions of Swingers and Ocean's 11 flashed past my mind's eye. We made our way from long red light to long red light until finally we laid eyes on the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino where we would be spending our two nights in town. We dropped our three windowed car at the Valet Parking Station, gave our luggage to the appropriate hotel employee, and tiredly stumbled into the lobby, covered with the dirt of the Grand Canyon. Personally, being new to the whole Hotwire.com thing, I've paid attention from place to place to see if the Desk Attendant would be rude or condescending when they saw we were paying much less per night than the hotel's other patrons; in no city was I more curious about what our reception would be than Vegas. Little did I know that our experience would be quite the opposite of 'rude' or 'condescending', on the contrary, as we checked in we were informed that since they had a free suite they were upgrading us for free. Keep in mind that we were already paying 150 a night for a room that was supposed to be 300 a night, for a standard room, so the upgrade to a suite on top of all that seemed too good to be true. Even after we were upstairs we thought we were on some hidden camera show or something. The best part, we could see the Bellagio Fountain from our suite window, all that was missing was a background rendition of Clair de Lune. (more blog after the pictures.)

 

After getting settled into our room and showering off the dirt, we made our way out to the non-stop party that is Las Vegas. It was certainly something to see, although the 'splendor' was a bit cheap after seeing the natural beauty of the Grand Canyon earlier that day. I will say that Vegas has its upside. It is nice for a night owl like me to know that at 3 in the morning I can still find a Starbucks or 24 hr. cafe to be surrounded by people in a city that literally never sleeps.

We enjoyed our 40 hour stay, visiting the various casinos, seeing all there was to see, we even took in a ridiculous Pirate show in front of the Treasure Island Hotel and Casino. And while there is something to be said for the appraisal that Vegas is basically Disney World for the depraved, there is also fun to be had by those who aren't looking for gambling, prostitutes, strippers, or the late night club/drug scene.

So, with Vegas officially 'visited' we could finally head to Los Angeles to spend the next two weeks with W. and his girlfriend J.

 

Sorry everyone. I know it has been a long time since I left everyone hanging about the whole window incident. Sadly, this much time will make the conclusion of the story inevitably disappointing. So, as I was saying...

With the window stuck inside my door I informed my car, the door, and the window that I was very angry with all of them. We were worried as we tried to figure out what we were going to do that this sad development was going to be a damper on our Grand Canyon experience. The greatest fear was that we would have to miss the Grand Canyon altogether. Mind you, we have a tremendous amount of stuff in our car. Two laptops, one of those little personal DVD players, all of our clothes, my ipod, tons of DVDs; basically a large assortment of things that are worth stealing and can be carried quietly away by the handful. It was troubling to consider the prospect of leaving the car unmanned (and unwomanned) for a large period of time with no driver's window. Fortunately, after a few moments, we realized we could just move everything valuable into the trunk and let the car alarm keep everything safely locked away there if someone were to open the door through the window.

However, moving everything valuable to the trunk sounds much simpler than it actually is. We have a ton of crap in our car, being that we are on the road for two months when all is said and done, so it was no small task to prioritize everything in the eyes of a would-be bandit. Most importantly was really just to keep everything out of view that would be enticing, and also keep everything out of easy reach of the window because that would make it possible for someone to take without even the potential of anyone noticing.

So, after finally completing that task and covering ourselves with sufficient sunscreen to protect our skin from the relentless Arizona sun, it was finally time to see what we'd been waiting for.

To set this up a bit more I have (like everyone else) seen loads of pictures of the Grand Canyon, I have seen movies with bits of the Grand Canyon in it. This left me really curious as to what all the fuss was about because, while the pictures were in fact beautiful, I wondered what led to the billing that the Grand Canyon was the one thing that never disappointed and always somehow exceeded one's expectations. I was also given fair reason to be in a bad mood and miss some of the natural splendor due to my own internal pity party. Let me tell you folks, for those who haven't seen it, a glimpse of the Grand Canyon washes away a fair amount of skepticism, doubt, self-pity, and exhaustion immediately; for me it also washed away a fair amount of my fear of heights for a bit and created the strong desire to climb up and down whatever I could find.

The Grand Canyon can really only be described as mindbogglingly beautiful. No string of adjectives can do it justice, no series of pictures can give a clue as to what it feels like to stand at its rim. Even though we visited on June 24th (how freaking behind can I possibly get in this blog?) I still can't really figure out how to describe to you what we saw.

We only visited a portion of the Southern Rim due to our lack of time. It would have taken hours of driving to visit any of the other rims; including the Western Rim which is the home of the new, and already famous, glass walkway thing. Yet even scratching the surface for a few hours was enough to make us feel at once both small and yet significant. It was certainly another experience we feel blessed to have enjoyed on our trip. It even carried us through our drive through the desert heat with the window down.

So, as with many of the awesome stuff we got to see on our tour of the country, I urge you to visit the Grand Canyon should you ever get the chance.

For the pictures the loading process was screwed up so I have them over in the Photos section, they just aren't actually in the blog. So, enjoy them... just not here in this post.

After several legs of the trip passing without incident, I guess we were about due for another adventure. Our plan was to spend the day in Phoenix and then make the short trip up to Flagstaff to sleep. It would help us by getting us closer to the Grand Canyon so it was possible to wake up in the morning and make it into the Park early enough to see the sights and still make the trip to Las Vegas. What we didn't realize was that we had decided to stay in Flagstaff the same weekend as everyone else within a 4 state radius. We tried 8 hotels and not one had a single vacancy available. We would have thought it was poor planning but, alas, the hotel clerks were as baffled as we were at the lack of rooms available. Just one of those things apparently.

So, here we were in Flagstaff, Arizona at 11:00 at night, trying to figure out whether or not we would take a blind chance on staying in Williams (which is by far a more popular place to sleep when visiting the Grand Canyon) or sleep in the Walmart parking lot (which wouldn't have been a particularly comfortable option, but with the cool weather we were enjoying it was in fact an option. We opted for Williams, or perhaps something we saw along the way.

We only passed one hotel between Flagstaff and Williams and it was as devoid of vacancy as the rest. As a side note, to any hotel managers out there, what the hell happened to those signs on a hotel that show whether or not you have vacancy? A sign like this would have helped us save a lot of time running into various hotel lobbys to ask if they had rooms available. Anyway, we dreaded arriving in Williams because even if they did have rooms available the ones posted on the internet were much more expensive than Flagstaff, so we were worried what a good night's sleep was going to do to our already dwindling finances.

As it would turn out, Williams is a pretty cool place. It's one of those little towns that sits on historic Route 66 that has been restored to have the charm of the towns as they existed back before Interstates. Think Radiator Springs from the movie Cars. However, as charming as Williams was the best part was that after two more misses, we found a hotel that had 1 remaining room, and not only was it the last one but it was relatively inexpensive. It turned out to be a good thing that we decided to try Williams. Sadly, this wasn't the end of our adventure.

We awoke the next morning and made the 60 mile trip North to the Grand Canyon. It was a nice, relaxing drive. We stopped just before the entrance to the Park at the National Geographic Welcome Center to take in the Grand Canyon IMAX movie, which was worth the cost of admission. You can also buy your pass to park at the Grand Canyon National Park at the Welcome Center so we got that out of the way as well.

Finally it was time for us to see the Grand Canyon in person for the first time ever, so we drove the last mile or so into the Park.

Upon arriving we saw that there was an empty lane for people who already had their parking pass. As we drove over I put my window down the show the Ranger my pass, but the Ranger ended up being on Emily's side of the car so she showed the Ranger our pass and drove into the Park. No longer needing my window down, I hit the button to roll it up, but upon reaching the top it made an odd sound as if it had hit something in the track. Our curiosity was aroused by this odd noise, so I put the window back down to see if it would make the sound again... this was a mistake.

The window made it about half way down before I started to put the window back up to see if it would repeat the odd sound we had heard moments earlier. The window lurched, made a pathetic attempt to get back up as if it were an animal struck with a tranquilizer dart, and then proceeded to drop off the track and into my door. Hoping I didn't see what I had in fact just seen I hit the up button one more time. The motor tried, but there was no longer a window on the track, just a piece of glass that used to be my window, now trapped in my door.

This turn of events made me unhappy.

I suppose technically the stuff that comes next fits into the Grand Canyon post, and this is just the trip to the Grand Canyon, so to find out what happens with the window you'll just have to tune in for the next post. Until then, have a lovely weekend.

The best laid plans of mice and men... you know. As it turned out internet at the hotel in Vegas cost 13 bucks a day. In other words, we didn't have internet access in Vegas. So, now I am even further behind in my blogging. We are on our way to Los Angeles today and still I haven't blogged our time in Denver. It's all coming though, Los Angeles should be a better place to get more blogging done because of how long we are there.

So, California seems like as good a place as any to fill you in on what was the longest leg of the road trip when we drove it, driving from Leavenworth, Kansas all the way to Denver, Colorado.

All in all the trip was painless. We made good time, and found our way into Denver even earlier than expected. It was the first time on our trip where I was blown away by the natural beauty of the landscape. After driving through the mild hills of Kansas (although if you watch the elevation rise the whole state is basically a big ramp) and pushing through the completely flat terrain that makes up the first half of Colorado it is remarkable as the mountains become visible in the distance. Watching the mountains grow in the distance, the peaks stretching across the entire horizon, could be described as 'inspiring' without exaggeration.

As a bonus to the beautiful landscape we got to see was the reality that we didn't have any car trouble. The possibility of having something go wrong over this stretch was certainly in my mind since it was the longest leg my car had yet endured, but all went well!

We also finished off the license plate game for the US on this leg. We didn't even have to make it past the Rocky Mountains before we checked the last plate off the list; for the record, the last plate we got was New Mexico, and we got it about an hour from Denver

Anyway, that's about all there is to say, here was the trip progress as of our arrival in Denver:

Trip Mileage so far: 3542
States driven thru: 13 (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, plus the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Ohio (x2), Indiana (x2), Illinois (x3), Wisconsin, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado)
License Plate Game Progress: 50 of 50, plus DC, 5 Provinces and Special Diplomat Plates: Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, Nevada, West Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Washington, Utah, Wisconsin, Maine, Mississippi, Iowa, North Dakota, Idaho, Nebraska, South Dakota, Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, Louisiana, Montana, Arizona, Illinois, Oregon, Arkansas, Kansas, Alaska, Wyoming, Hawaii, New Mexico. Also: Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan.

Stadium Progress:

This trip: 7 - PNC Park (Pittsburgh), Jacobs Field (Cleveland), Wrigley Field (Chicago), Miller Park (Milwaukee), U.S. Cellular Field (Chicago), Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati), Busch Stadium (St. Louis).

Lifetime: 15 of 30  - AL: Yankee Stadium*, Fenway Park, Oriole Park @ Camden Yards, Tropicana Field, Jacobs Field, Kauffman Stadium, Safeco Field, U.S. Cellular Field - NL: Shea Stadium*, Citizens Bank Ballpark, PNC Park, Miller Park, Wrigley Field, Miller Park, Great American Ballpark, Busch Stadium. (I've also been to a game at Skydome before it was called Rogers Centre, but in the rules I created it doesn't count as an official visit.)

*New stadiums to open in 2009.

After our ordeal traveling from Metropolis to St. Louis the trip to Kansas City was gloriously uneventful. Just your run of the mill driving. Here is the trip progress as of our arrival in Kansas City:

Trip Mileage so far: 2941
States driven thru: 11 (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, plus the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Ohio (x2), Indiana (x2), Illinois (x3), Wisconsin, Kentucky, Missouri)
License Plate Game Progress: 46 of 50, plus DC, 5 Provinces and Special Diplomat Plates: Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, Nevada, West Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Washington, Utah, Wisconsin, Maine, Mississippi, Iowa, North Dakota, Idaho, Nebraska, South Dakota, Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, Louisiana, Montana, Arizona, Illinois, Oregon, Arkansas, Kansas. Also: Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan.

Stadium Progress:

This trip: 7 - PNC Park (Pittsburgh), Jacobs Field (Cleveland), Wrigley Field (Chicago), Miller Park (Milwaukee), U.S. Cellular Field (Chicago), Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati), Busch Stadium (St. Louis).

Lifetime: 15 of 30  - AL: Yankee Stadium*, Fenway Park, Oriole Park @ Camden Yards, Tropicana Field, Jacobs Field, Kauffman Stadium, Safeco Field, U.S. Cellular Field - NL: Shea Stadium*, Citizens Bank Ballpark, PNC Park, Miller Park, Wrigley Field, Miller Park, Great American Ballpark, Busch Stadium. (I've also been to a game at Skydome before it was called Rogers Centre, but in the rules I created it doesn't count as an official visit.)

*New stadiums to open in 2009.

So, I am getting pretty behind in my posting lately. I can't fall any further behind or else I'll forget what there is to write about altogether. The good news is that things should slow down quite a bit while we are in Kansas City so that will make it easier to catch up on all my blogging.

I enjoyed Wisconsin much more than I expected to. In addition to having a great time at Miller Park (as I've already blogged about) the people in Wisconsin were by far the friendliest we've met on our journey. Everywhere we went people were courteous and kind, it was great. It also wasn't that sickly sweet sort of nice you often find down south, it seemed genuine, people just didn't seem to have a chip on their shoulder. Perhaps it is a baseball state and everyone is just really excited that the Brewers are dominating in their division so far this year.

Other nice things that made Wisconsin fun to be in Emily already mentioned in her blog, but I'll mention them again anyway:

One was simply a nice Starbucks we found right off the highway that made it possible for us to sit and relax for a while, something we needed. Being away from home Starbucks makes us feel like we are someplace familiar.

Another bonus of Wisconsin was that it was where we went to our first ever Rock Bottom Restaurant. It was great. We hung out, had some good food and great beer, watched the Cavs win the clinching playoff game. It was a great time.  The food was good, with my burger and Emily's Chicken Mac & Cheese:

And the beer was even better:

Emily had something to drink as well:

Alcohol effects Emily rather quickly:

Emily even found a beer she liked, which is just about impossible:

And as if we needed another bonus about Wisconsin, thanks to our sleuthing on Hotwire.com we were able to stay in the Hilton in the center of downtown for super cheap! It was awesome.

The driving itself was uneventful. We avoided traffic again for the most part and had a nice relaxing time at Starbucks. Milwaukee turned out to be just what the Dr. ordered.

Anyway, there's one more blog in the books before I fell any further behind. Here is the ole' trip progress chart in case you care:

Trip Progress:

Trip Mileage so far: 1613
States driven thru: 9 (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, plus the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois (x2), Wisconsin)
License Plate Game Progress: 41 of 50, plus DC, 5 Provinces and Special Diplomat Plates: Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, Nevada, West Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Washington, Utah, Wisconsin, Maine, Mississippi, Iowa, North Dakota, Idaho, Nebraska, South Dakota, Alabama, Colorado, Michigan, Louisiana, . Also: Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan.

Stadium Progress: This trip: 4 - PNC Park (Pittsburgh), Jacobs Field (Cleveland), Wrigley Field (Chicago), Miller Park (Milwaukee).
Lifetime: 12 of 30  - AL: Yankee Stadium*, Fenway Park, Oriole Park @ Camden Yards, Tropicana Field, Jacobs Field, Kauffman Stadium, Safeco Field - NL: Shea Stadium*, Citizens Bank Ballpark, PNC Park, Miller Park, Wrigley Field. (I've also been to a game at Skydome before it was called Rogers Centre, but in the rules I created it doesn't count as an official visit.)

*New stadiums to open in 2009.

After the excitement of watching Lebron and the Cavs beat the Pistons in Detroit on the Quicken Loans jumbotron it was nice to have a relaxing day of driving as our next leg brought us to Chicago. While looking at the map the other day I noticed we'd barely have to get off the highway to go visit the Notre Dame campus so we decided to add that in as a nice break from driving. It ended up being another part of our trip that exceeded expectations.

From the character of the buildings, to the church, to the outside of the football stadium, to the 11 story library, the campus was amazing. It was awesome to finally be able to visit after wanting to for as long as I can remember. The beauty of the campus made one want to stay forever, to lay down in the grass and contemplate life's mysteries.

As far as the driving part of the trip it was another blessedly uneventful day. We even mostly avoided traffic again. Then, as another sign that our trip is ordained by God, my car hit 77,777 miles as we drove into Chicago. If 7 signifies completion then what could 77,777 mean?

Also, I would like to praise Illinois for not sucking. Ohio and Indiana have thus far decided not to join us in the 21st century by adding automated toll booth plazas by utilizing a system like EZ Pass or I-Pass. This meant at every toll we needed to fish around for change. Illinois not only has an automatic apparatus but they also honor our East Coast EZ Pass even though their system is called I-Pass. Huzzah for Illinois!

So, here are the updated trip facts as of our arrival in Chicago as well as some pictures from this leg of the trip:

Trip Progress:

Starting mileage: 77786
Trip Mileage so far: 1404
States driven thru: 8 (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, plus the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois)
License Plate Game Progress: 34 of 50, plus DC, 5 Provinces and Special Diplomat Plates: Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, Nevada, West Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Washington, Utah, Wisconsin, Maine, Mississippi, Iowa, North Dakota, Idaho. Also: Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Saskatchewan.

There was much to see inside, but sadly we couldn't bring cameras inside so we don't have any pictorial evidence to support such a claim. One of my favorite things was the smashed bass guitar which was seen intact for the last time on the cover of The Clash's 'London Calling' CD. Plus I obviously loved all things U2 that could be found inside; this included, among many other things, three of the cars used in the ZOOtv tour. The coolest part of seeing the cars is that they're lit like they were for the tour and they are suspended from the ceiling above the ticket booth as you walk in. Since I never got to see the tour this was awesome. =)

There was also a really cool section on the precursors of Rock & Roll where you could listen to tracks from the men and women who paved the way for the birth of Rock.

Our only regret was that we missed the movie they show on the 4th floor because, little did we know, it closed early for a listening party for Paul McCartney's upcoming album. (Which I have to say I was less than impressed with personally.)

All in all it was a really good day. And I know I've already said this, but it is worth saying again; What a way to spend the summer!

Here are some pictures from our day outside the Rock Hall.

Sadly I have to pack like three posts in now because we were unexpectedly without internet access and I couldn't blog as frequently as I wanted to. Then again, by the time you read this paragraph you very well may have already read the other posts and these words are moot.

Anyway, the second leg of our journey took us from DC to Timonium, Maryland for lunch with Brian; then from Timonium to Pittsburgh to take in a baseball game; then from Pittsburgh to the Cleveland area where we would be sleeping for the next few days. It was certainly a day packed with places to go.

After a tasty lunch at Red Robin with Brian the drive actually flew by. It seemed like we were in Pittsburgh in no time. Fortunately we also didn't hit any traffic until we got into the city itself. This was important because we were cutting it a little close and I didn't want to be late for the first game of our trip. However Brian took priority over an easy drive, which is exactly as it should be.

The game was great, but I'll dedicate a post just to the stadium, as I plan to do for each stadium we visit. Afterward we embarked on our late night drive into Ohio where we bunked down in our little Kabin at the KOA for a good night's sleep before taking Cleveland by storm this morning. All in all it was a great day. I tell you friends, what a way to spend the summer!

Trip Progress:

Starting mileage: 76382
Trip Mileage so far: 962
States driven thru: 6 (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, plus the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Ohio)
License Plate Game Progress: 31 of 50, plus DC, 4 Provinces and Special Diplomat Plates: Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, Nevada, West Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine, Mississippi. Also: Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Manitoba.