The Final Days

Upon the recommendation of Jocelyn, we woke up early in Flagstaff to head to the Grand Canyon and catch it in the morning before the colors are washed out by the full daytime sun. We climbed further into the  mountains down single lane roads to get to the Grand Canyon. We went the the South Rim where Mather Point and Yavapai point are the look out points. Before we even stopped the car to get out we could see the spectacular size of the canyon.  We got some great photos and climbed around a bit, although there was some snow and ice which made things just a little bit more scary. The canyon was truly amazing.  From one look out point we could see something on a trail deeper in the canyon, in the visitor center we could see through a telescope that it was mules and people 6 miles into a canyon tour.

After the canyon we made our way to Vegas. Las Vegas is almost a straight line from where we were at the canyon; however, there are no rods that lead straight there. We did some backtracking through the snowy mountains and just a few hours later, we were back in the desert. Ben asked if we were going to cross the Hoover Dam, and me being the geography star I am, I said “I have no idea, I think that’s in Utah.” Sure enough we passed through the Hoover Dam an hour later. We stopped and took pictures and looked around a bit. Everyone is supposedly bigger in Texas, but between the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam, everything seems to be bigger in Arizona. Crossing over the Colorado River at the dam, you also cross into Pacific time and Nevada. We hit our final time zone and it was onto Vegas.

Las Vegas is an oasis in the middle of the desert. It littleraly is an urban sprawl that pops out of nowhere. We checked into the 30th floor at the Monte Carlo and went to check out the Strip. We saw the water foutnian show at the Bellagio and wandered hopelessly around the Miracle Mile Shops looking for something to wear as each of us were out of clothing on our 8th day of travel.  We went to a steak house at the hotel for dinner and had our only expensive meal of the trip, then went on to gambling. Ben and I are terrible gamblers. We both lost ~$15 on nickel and two cent slots and were content with that. The more entertaining part of my night is when a guy put his ciagatte out in Ben’s beer bottle. Ah, Vegas hospitatlity. Sure enough, a woman working at the Monte Carlo who checked our ID’s was originally from Somerville. Small world yet again.

We failed to stay out all night in Las Vegas as we were both exhausted and I wanted to get up early and head to my new home. This morning we headed towards San Diego, getting In N Out on the way of course. The scenery got more and more beautiful as we headed towards SD. Unfortunately we hit a rare overcast day in San Diego, but tomorrow is another day, and we both made it to San Diego alive albeit exhausted!

San Diego!

We finallt arrived in San Diego after seeing the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and Las Vegas. We are exhausted and filthy. Better post and more picutres to follow!

Flagstaff does not suck

Today’s drive was fairly uneventful but amazingly scenic (we took 106 pics over 8 hours). Within 20 minutes we were FINALLY out of Texas, and very happy about it. Our drive then headed through New Mexico which was fairly scenic but not much there at all. The most interesting part of our tour through New Mexico was when we had to go through a border patrol stop, 50 miles from the Mexican border. It was all very confusing and all I kept thinking was “Please don’t make me open my trunk!” My trunk is packed to the gills an has not been opened since Fall River. Luckily we were waved through without incidence.

We then made our way into Arizona which was also scenic and got better by the mile. Soon enough we were traveling in and out of great hills and plateaus and peering over valleys from inside the car. These sites were punctuated by Tucson, Tempe and Phoenix which were literally blips in the desert. We saw our first cacti, and then saw hills covered in great tall cacti.

As we headed into Flagstaff we continued to inch up in elevation towards 5000 ft only to arrive in Flagstaff and be at an elevation of 7000 ft. Mt. Washington in New Hampshire has an elevation of 6000 ft. As we got closer to Flagstaff we saw snow and two elk! After being moments from Mexico and driving through the desert for hours we arrived in a  great little ski town. There is a quaint downtown and the city of Flagstaff has a great feel to it. We quickly went out to dinner at the Beaver Street Brewery which had awesome reviews online and it didn’t disappoint. We had a local beer and a good dinner and then explored the town a little. Flagstaff is a great little ski town, and made our short list of places we would actually come back to. Ben researched the town after we got back to the hotel and found out it was actually “founded” by a scout troop from Boston. Maybe that’s why we actually like it.

Tomorrow it is off to the Grand Canyon and then to our final stop in Las Vegas. Roadtrip 2k9 is coming to a close, but it will be nice when our muscles are no longer atrophying from sitting down so much!

Texas still (mostly) sucks and a change of plans

We left Austin this morning not expecting much of the drive and of El Paso and both sure delivered. The drive continued on I-10 West and we were at least treated to better scenery.  There were great hills and plateaus and fields all along the highway. Ben and I were able to see why Texas is big sky country. We watched the sun set for around an hour and a half and saw different colors in the sky with every passing moment. The pictures probably can’t do it justice, but they come close.

As we inched closer to El Paso we saw a line of bright lights on the horizon on the left side of the car. We were stumped as to what it was, maybe a factory, maybe a city, maybe El Paso? As we got within a good distance of it we finally realized what we were staring at: Mexico. It is quite a site, but we are both fine from looking at it from the highway and leaving it at that. There are some pictures of that too.

We headed towards downtown El Paso which was worse than Houston, deserted and no real center of town. We turned back towards the strip mall of chain restaurants and hotel which seemed to be the only area with any life, and we are staying at a hotel just off the highway there. I went to the front desk and asked for menus to places around the hotel where we could order food.  Hoping for Mexican or some reginonal cuisine, the desk clerk handed me two chinese food restaurant menus and two pizza place menus. We are waiting for our pizza as we speak.

On to better things! We are going to change our route up tomorrow a bit as we realized Phoenix is not the best place to access the Grand Canyon from.  We will be driving a little longer and staying in Flagstaff so we can head over to the Grand Canyon the following day and on to Vegas. But first, we must get the hell out of Texas.

Texas Sucks!

I will keep this one quick and simple, do not come here.

Houston was the scariest and most deserted city I have ever seen, we wanted to stop there for BBQ as it was supper time, so we looked in the gps and it took us to the shadiest part of town immaginable, so we turned tail and headed for the tall building of downtown, we get there only to find the city deserted and the only people out were bums.  We decided we had seen enough and hoped back on the high way for a straight shot to Austin and hopefully friendly people.

Well the road to Austin is through the middle of no where and was slightly terrifying and there is nothing around.  I did manage to hit a racoon on the road a few miles out from Austion however…

Austin would be nice if it wasn’t 35 deg here.  Our hotel is nice and we had supper down on 6th street which was fun, it was full of hipsters and other shady characters, but in general a place that could be fun.

We are leaving for El Paso soon, and hope to just get out of this state as fast as possible.

New photos are up!

Wish us luck.

New Orleans Continued

I will start this entry with some New Orleans stories, because they are so much better than this crappy state.

New Orleans was a blast, when we got there it was down pouring (strange I know), so we checked into the hotel and got showered and changed.  We tried to wait out the rain but at 8:30 we said screw it and decided to go explore in the rain.  First stop was for a po’boy and some beer.  Good stuff.  When we were through I took my beer and walked right out of the restaurant with it, weird feeling.

On to the more exciting stuff.

So considering it was Jan 3rd and raining cats and dogs, Bourbon street was still full of people, so I can only imagine what it is like in the summer and during Mardi Gras.  Our first stop we each had a “hand grenade”  New Orleans “most potent drink”, a bright green concoction of booze that comes straight out of the soda sprayer, mmm mmm.

So we took our hand grenades out into the street to explore, and New Orleans is everything you exxpect it to be and more.  Booze in every shape and form surrounding you, creepy men trying to usher you into shady strip clubs, people on balconies trying to get girls to flash for beads, grown men completely checking out Nikki in the middle of the road right in front of us.  Everything you could ask for.

Our next drinks (pictures are on flickr) was another bright green mix of alcohol and slush, but this was no ordinary slush, it was almost too thick to suck up through a straw and seemed to have magic abilities to never melt.  By this time it started to rain again but we also didn’t care by this point.  Slush in hand we made our way back to the first bar to enjoy our slush out of the rain.  While in the bar we were approached by a middle aged man in a buisness suit, after saying hi his first question was “So do you know where New Bedford is?”  Needless to say we do, and turns out his wife is from there.  She makes him linguica pizza, and he has seen the battle ship but never been on it. Small world.

Well we decided to end the night properly, so we ventured in to one of the strip clubs promising us “bottomless fun!” Well luckily there was no bottomless ness, and one of the strippers was a women in her 40′s with a cowboy hat and pink boa.  It was a good time and caped of the night properly.

We finished up the night with some late night swimming and sight seeing from the roof.

Torrential downpours to dry (hopefully) Texas

We are off to Houston and Austin now. New Orleans was a blast last night. Pictures are up, and a better post on our New Orleans night to follow!