Day Fifteen

Friday, May 29, 2009

After waking up, eating breakfast, and catching up on internet stuff, Alan and I hit San Francisco! We started our tour by visiting the Fisherman's Wharf. When we arrived, we were inundated with street vendors, street performers, and lots of tourists. We found the infamous Boudin Sourdough Bakery. We took a tour of the bakery to see how the sourdough bread is made on a large scale. FYI...sourdough bread is my favorite, so I was in heaven!! We then walked across the street to some of the vending carts to get lunch. We did as the locals were doing and ordered clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. It was delicious. We walked into what we thought was a museum. It was a hands-on museum of old-time arcade machines. Alan cashed in a $5 bill for quarters and began to have fun. It was really neat to see arcade games that dated back to the early 1900's! We then meandered to Pier 39 where the sea lions were basting in the sun. I must say...not as smelly as the elephant seals!! We walked along the pier looking at all of the shops. I was presented with an opportunity to be part of market research by taste-testing pastries with a monetary compensation. Alan was bummed that the "research" was for women only. So, I helped keep us on budget by working on our vacation! We took a trolly ride to the Ghirardelli factory/store and had a chocolate fudge sundae. We then drove to the Golden Gate state park to get a good view of the bridge. After leaving the park, we had the GPS lead us out of the city. It took us through the city...down authentic San Fran streets. Straight up then straight down. We were a little worried that the car was not going to make it. We ate dinner at Marie Callender's. Alan and I were surprised that her empire stretched further than just frozen dinners. It was a good meal and a good end to the evening.

Day Fourteen

Thursday, May 28, 2009

We started the morning by continuing on the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) along the pacific coast. On one side of us is the was the pacific ocean and on the other side of us was the mountains. The major difference I noticed between the east and west coast beaches is that the west coast beaches do not have any dunes. Our first stop was the Hearst Castle. On the way there, we traveled through one of the many wine countries of California. We could see rows and rows of grapes! Then we saw many strawberry fields with strawberry pickers hard at work. We arrived at the Hearst Castle and had no idea what to expect. We were given advice by the tour guides to go on the experience tour. We watched a movie about W.R. Hearst and the building of the castle (which he called "the ranch". We took a bus to the top of the mountain and were in awe of what we saw. It was truly a castle, modeled after many European castles. The gardens and grounds were gorgeous. There is no way I can describe with words how beautiful this place was. If you have ever been to the Biltmore Estates in Ashville, NC...think 10x better and grander!! The tour took us around the gardens, the outdoor pool, one of the three guest houses, the ground floor of the castle (cocktail room/living room, dining room, music room, billiards room, movie theater) and the indoor pool. After finishing our tour, we headed a couple miles down the road to the elephant seal viewing area. When we got there, we saw some very fat ground squirrels who were not afraid of people. I had three of then walk right up to me, stand on their hind feet, and beg for food. I did not notice the sign that stated "DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS" until after the deed had been done. Oops! Then we saw 100's of seals beached on the sand. It was molting season, so they were shedding their fur. At the same time, we could not tell by the noises if they were burping, passing gas, or breathing in a funny way. With the stench as a clue, we were thinking of burping or passing gas!! Alan and I thought it would be fun to continue up the PCH. Boy were we wrong. This road is very winding along the mountain cliffs just above the water. About half way down the road we both started to feel car sick from all of the back and forth, up and down motions. The worst part...there was no other road out of the area. We had to get to the end of the road. When we finally got to the end, Alan and I had to get out of the car for a while. We were finally able to get back on the road and finally got to San Francisco.

Miles Traveled: 4011.9 miles

Day Thirteen

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

It was an early start this morning. Alan didn't go to sleep and I woke up at 3am. Alan was unable to get the shirts done since Kinko's did not have an ink jet printer. The laser printer melted the iron-on transfer sheets. We headed to "The Price is Right" location and got in line at 4am. The line stretched around the corner. At 6am, the crew started handing out Order of Arrival passes. This pass determined if you were going to get on the show or not. If we had gotten in like 45 minutes later than we did, we would not have made it on the show!! We had 2 hours to kill so we went to get breakfast. When we returned, the rodeo began. We were called to get into numerical order according to our Order of Arrival pass. We were given our name tag, along with our contestant number, and lots of paperwork. We had to fill out a card that told a story why we were there. After all of that was done...we waited. We had to wait for our interview with the producer. By watching the interviews of other possible contestants, Alan and I had our hunches as to who was going to get picked. When we had our interview, we knew that we were not going to get picked...oh well. We were then herded through security and another holding area. Around 12:30pm we were escorted into the studio. We were both amazed at how small the studio was. Due to security, we were not able to take any pictures once we entered the CBS lot. The taping was awesome! We were seated front and center. The hunches we had were correct. If you want to see what happened in the episode and to see us in the audience, you should tune into the Price is Right on CBS on June 15, 2009!! After the taping, Alan wanted to take a nap. We went to dinner with Whitney and Mark at Rush Street where I had the most amazing meal EVER!! It was delicious. After dinner, we said our goodbyes and hit the road toward San Francisco.

Day Twelve

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Today was a late start. Whitney had things to do today, so we were on our own. Around noon we finally got moving. We headed to Venice Beach to check out the scene. And what a scene it was. We both felt like we traveled back in time...back to the 70's/80's. 80's music was playing, bodybuilders were walking the beach, and we even caught a glimpse of neon clothes and funky hair! In addition to that, there were street vendors and "medical offices". There were RV's parked in the parking lot that looked like they have not been moved since the late 60's. It was definitely an experience. We then traveled to Wal-Mart to get supplies to make t-shirts for "The Price is Right" taping. That night, we decided to cook dinner with Whitney and Mark. Alan created a design for our shirts and headed to Kinko's to have it printed onto iron-on transfers while I went to bed. We were going to have to wake up at 3am to get in line, so I went to bed early.

Day Eleven

Monday, May 25, 2009

With an early start this morning, Alan, Whitney and I loaded into the car and headed to the San Diego Zoo. It took us 2.5 hours to get there. We started with the sea lion show. It was so cute to see the sea lions do tricks. One of the sea lions was a rescue that they tried to re-release in the wild...the only problem...he kept coming back. As a result, he became part of the show. We walked around the rest of the zoo to see the multitude of animals. The best part of all...the Tiger enclosure. There were 4 tigers in the enclosure that were playing with each other. The four of them put on a show for the audience. The zoo was definitely large. On the way home, Whitney and I were pooped and decided to take a nap. That night we went to dinner and a traditional sushi restaurant where the chef make the sushi and puts it on a conveyor belt for you to pick up at will. Not only was it fun and exciting, it was delicious.

Day 10

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Today we decided to go to the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum Row. The tar pits is a place where Ice Age animals became trapped and now the bones are the best preserved of any skeleton living during that time. When we walked into the park, I could smell the asphault! The museum was smaller than I thought, but there was an area to watch the archeologists work on all of the found fossils. From the tar pits we went to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art). This was more Alan's cup of tea rather than mine. Alan could sit and look at a painting and come up with a bunch of intellectual "stuff" to say about it. With me, I look at it and determine if it is pretty or not and then move on. Alan seemed to enjoy himself! Following the museums, we went with Whitney and Mark to a BBQ for dinner. All in all...a pretty good and relaxing day!

Day Nine

Saturday, May 23, 2009

This morning we started with breakfast at a wonderful little place Whitney suggested. We were able to meet Mark, Whitney's boyfriend. From breakfast, we headed to Hollywood to do the tourist thing. On the way there, we drove through the infamous Beverly Hills. We started with the Grauman's Chinese Theater with the forecourt (where all of the foot and handprints are). It was interesting to see how the foot/handprints from the 1930's were much smaller than the foot/handprints are presently. Alan compared his feet and hand to Arnold Schwarzenegger...the hands were the same size...but Alan still has bigger feet. Outside of the theater, there were many people dressed in costumes. We saw Batman, the Joker, Spiderman, Catwoman, Marilyn Monroe, The Little Mermaid, Darth Vader, a Stormtrooper, and Bumblebee. The only costume Alan wanted a picture with was Bumblebee. So, with a small tip, Alan and Whitney had their picture taken with the Transformer. We walked the Hollywood Walk of Fame only to realize that it goes on FOREVER (and we only walked one side of the street). We were able to see the "Hollywood" sign as well; however it still looks small in the pictures. To finish off the afternoon, we stopped by Pink's for one of their famous chili dogs. After putting enough change in the parking meter for about an hour, we got in line for a chili dog. The line for Pink's wrapped around the building!! After an hour passed (and only moving halfway through the line), I walked back to the car and added an hour to the parking meter. When it was finally our time to order, Alan got a chili-cheesedog, Whitney got a chili dog, and me, being the weird one who doesn't like chili dogs, ordered a guacamole dog. The food was great and well worth the 1.5 hour wait for the experience. With Whitney and Mark off to a Dodgers game, Alan and I explored Santa Monica by foot. We walked toward the beach and ended up finding the Santa Monica Pier. The most amusing part was the first place we saw was a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Even though we have traveled as far away from the southeast as we could, we still cannot get away from the South. We walked the pier looking at all of the performers and watching all of the people on the rides. We took a stroll on the beach, which Alan and I think is much nicer than Tybee Island, GA.

Day Eight

Friday, May 22, 2009

Today I was able to sleep in...finally!! We spent the morning packing up and getting ready to check out of the hotel. We decided to only stay one night because we know we will be back to visit in the future. We checked out of the hotel, grabbed a bite to eat, and finished exploring the city. We started by going up into the Eiffel tower at the hotel Paris. From there we were able to see the whole strip and had a great view of the Bellagio fountains. We figured it would have been a better view at night when the strip is all lit up (FYI for our next visit). We went to see the lion exhibit at the MGM Grand. When we arrived, the lion was playing/chewing on a toy and his two handlers were hanging out in the enclosure with him. He was beautiful. There is a glass walkway through the enclosure so that people can get a better look. He was laying on top of the walkway when we went though. The most interesting thing to me was when he licked the glass...his tongue looked just like a house cat tongue (with the spines) just 10x larger. We continued to explore the strip until we had seen all of the major hotels/casinos. We then loaded up in the car, filled up with gas, and headed through more desert to Los Angeles! By the time we reached LA, I was so sick of the desert...definitely not a place for me to live!! One of the main goals we had for visiting LA was to see Whitney, my best friend from high school. And being the wonderful person that she is, she let us stay with her! When we got to her home in Santa Monica, I was surprised at how much of a temperature change there was. We left Las Vegas when it was about 90 degrees and Santa Monica was about 65 degrees. We went to dinner at Wahoo's (known for their fish tacos) where I had my first fish taco! It was really good. We then made our way to the Third Street promenade where there were street performers and many shops to go into. We stopped and had some gelato and visited/caught up for a while.

Miles traveled: 3548.2 miles

Day Seven

Thursday, May 21, 2009

We awoke early this morning (early being about 4:45 am) when the sun cam up to break down our camp site and start heading to Las Vegas. As we left the Grand Canyon National Park, we passed by several white-tailed deer and numerous elk. According to the GPS, it was only 4.5 hours to Las Vegas. Since we woke up so early, we knew we would have to kill some time before we would be able to check into our hotel. We stopped at Wal-mart for our first oil change of the trip and it took forever. We killed some time by eating breakfast, exchanging books on tape at Cracker Barrel, and then strolled/meandered around Wal-mart. We did make one big discovery...the Wal-mart in Kingman, AZ sells liquor at half the price of regular liquor stores. After getting our car back, we continued on our way and crossed the Hoover Dam. They are in the process of building a huge bridge over the dam to divert traffic. (And just for you, Andrew, I took lots of pictures of the bridge construction!) We got to Las Vegas, checked into our hotel at the Bally's Casino and began exploring Las Vegas. We started with dinner at Le Village Buffet. They had a wide array of foods including Prime Rib, leg of lamb, roasted duck, snow crabs, and tons of desserts. All of the food was amazing. We then made our way to the strip to explore the city. We made sure the catch all of the free hotel shows (the fountains at the Bellagio, the volcano at the Mirage, and the pirate show at Treasure Island). We walked through all of the major hotels/casinos on the strip and Alan tried his luck at gambling in all of them. Needless to say, we are not rich yet. We tried to get chips as souvenirs for family and friends, but we quickly learned that you MUST cash in your chips before leaving the table. I, being the party pooper, needed sleep, so we headed back to the hotel. Alan continued to explore the night life of the city.

Miles Traveled: 3035.1 miles

Day Six

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Today was just a relaxing day around camp and the Grand Canyon National Park. We woke up at day break...thinking it was about 7:00am or so. Alan wanted to see the sunrise over the Canyon, so we hopped in the car and headed toward the rim. On the way, we saw a small heard of elk eating the trees in our campground. Alan's interest was peaked and headed off for a close picture. He was able to get within 5 feet of one of them and got a great close-up shot. Surprisingly enough, none of them were afraid of people. We needed to get some more firewood and ice for the day, so we headed into the small town just outside the park. While waiting for the store to open at 8am, we realized that this part of Arizona does not observe Daylight savings time and it was in fact 6:00 am!! The rest of the day was spent exploring the rest of the national park and listening to some of the various presentations by the park rangers. In the evening, we sat by the fire enjoying the sunset and the sounds of the many insects and animals. We went to bed early with the intention of waking up early to break down camp and head to the Hoover dam and Las Vegas.

Miles traveled: 2,890.3 miles

Day Five

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

We spent a good amount of time on the road today in pursuit of the Grand Canyon. We arrived, set up our camp site and headed to the Canyon. It was breathtaking! You see the Canyon in pictures all the time, but it barely does any kind of justice to the magnitude and grandeur. We walked along the rim taking many pictures and noticing how the Canyon changed with different angles of view. We could see glimpses of the Colorado River and the campground housed within the Canyon. We headed back to the camp site, started a fire, cooked dinner, made s'mores, and popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate our two-year anniversary.

Day Four

Monday, May 18, 2009:

Today wasn't extremely exciting considering we drove most of the day. We left San Antonio with the goal of leaving Texas today. When we entered Texas there were 880 miles before we left the state. The rolling hills of Texas turned into more distinct mountains and the abundant vegitation became sparce and a lot less green. We were entering the desert. There was a point at which Alan realized that we needed to get gas. We saw a sign, pulled off the interstate only to find out that the gas station was closed and abandoned. At that very moment...the gas light came on. My thoughts: we are out in the middle of nowhere and are out of gas!! (Freak-out mode began to rev up!!) The GPS found gas only 15 miles away (but 15 miles off of the interstate) and we were able to fill up without any problems. Thanks to the GPS, the potential crisis was everted!! As we got closer to El Paso, we were able to see the Rio Grande and the mountian range in Mexico. Alan wanted to take a closer look, but with me not having a valid passport, I had fears of accidentilly crossing the border and getting stuck in Mexico...not really my cup of tea! When we got to El Paso, we were within one mile of the Mexican border and could see the Mexican flag proudly flapping in the wind. Alan's two main goals for Texas was to have authentic TexMex and Texas BBQ. Since the TexMex request was fulfilled in San Antonio, we stopped for dinner at The State Line BBQ. It was delicious and well worth the cost! We continued into New Mexico where we were stopped by the Border Patrolwho asked a couple of questions about if we were US citizens and how many people we had in the car. They did not ask for any identification or search the car. Alan and I were worried that we made a wrong turn and ended up at the Mexican border. They assured us we were indeed in New Mexico and heading in the right direction. We stopped for the night in Albuquweque, NM. We will be heading for the Grand Canyon in the morning.

Miles Traveled: 2238.6 miles

Day Three

Day Three: Sunday, May 17, 2009
After leaving the beach in Galveston, Alan decided not to stop for the night. He wanted to keep driving. So that is what he did...he drove and I slept. He would pull over into a rest stop every couple of hours to take a nap. I woke up and we were in San Antonio, TX. At least not having a hotel room for the night kept us within our budget! We were quite impressed with the touristy, downtown areas of San Antonio! Must say, much better than Savannah's tourist district. The first stop was visiting the Alamo. We were refreshed on our early American history as we explored the grounds. We then walked to the San Fernando cathedral. We did not stay long considering it was Sunday and they were between masses at the time. We continued walking to the Market Plaza which is very similar to Savannah's City Market. For lunch, we stopped at a booth where several ladies were making tortilla shells and gordita shells by hand. It was the best and most authentic taco and gordita that I have ever had. It was pretty amazing!! Next was a boat tour through the River Walk area. This area of San Antonio was beautiful, relaxing, and peaceful. It is a different world compared to the bustling city above. To end our time in this city, we took a driving tour of the 4 old Spanish Missions. The most amazing part is that the Mission chapels are still being used on a weekly basis for Mass. We didn't get too far outside of the city before the nice flat plains turned to rolling hills.

Day Two

Day Two: Sat. May 16, 2009 We started off our day at the New Orleans visitors center. A very nice security guard gave us the low down on all of the places to visit and the places to avoid. We started exploring the infamous French Quarter. Much to our surprise, this historic are seems untouched by Hurricane Katrina. The first stop...Bourbon street! It is hard to believe that they can fit that many bars and "other venues" in such a small area. We took a carriage tour of the French Quarter and found out all of the best places to eat and visit. We ate beignets at Cafe du Monde, sampled authentic New Orleans cuisine at a local restaurant, and explored all of the little shops in the area. Alan wanted to visit one of the various cemetaries but we arrived after closing time. Upon leaving the city, we drove down St. Charles st. (better known as the Garden District). We were astounded by the size and the grandur of the houses that surrounded us. We left New Orleans heading toward Galveston, TX. We stopped at the TX welcome center for a map only for Alan to get the idea to go back to Louisana to get a map. Again, no maps were available in Louisana. We arrived in Galveston about midnight and took a stroll along the beach. Must say, I am more impressed with Tybee Island beaches than Galveston beaches.

Total miles traveled: 1108 miles

Day One: Friday, May 15, 2009

Well, we hit the open road today. Our first stop...New Orleans! Nothing really exciting happened on the road. We took I-10 through Florida, which I must say was quite boring until we reached Pensacola and was able to see something other than pine trees. When we crossed the Alabama state line, Alan realized that each welcome center gives out FREE state maps. Being the "frugal" person that he is, he got the crazy idea that these free maps would be his trip souvenir. So, by the end of the trip, I will have to figure out what I am going to do with all of these maps that he collects. Unfortunately for him, the Louisiana welcome center was under construction, so he was not able to get a map from that state...what a bummer! Preparing for the future stop in Las Vegas, we took a detour to Biloxi, MS to try our hand gambling. Being the poor people we are, we each had $5 to blow. I blew my wad on the slots, as did Alan. Then Alan wanted to try his luck at Roulette. He put $5 on black...and being the lucky guy he is (or according to him...a system) he won his $5 back. Moral of the story...I am not to be trusted in Vegas. The millions will be up to Alan to secure! We finally made it to New Orleans and crashed for the night.

Miles traveled: 695 miles

The Night Before the Mayhem

The car is packed, everyone is ready, and the road is open ahead...The trip will start tomorrow!