Tillamook and Oregon Coast

After Portland we headed over to the coast where we made a stop at the Tillamook cheese factory!!! I had made it to my Mecca, the home of the most amazing tasting cheese! It was awesome, you took a self guided tour where you could watch the factory workers make, cut, weigh, slice, and package the cheese. They also make amazing ice cream. After the tour we got to taste a bunch of different cheeses. Joe and I then proceeded to the ice cream counter where we ordered some different flavors of ice cream. I got to try root beer float, pumpkin, and cookies & cream, YUM! After the ice cream we headed into the factory store and picked up some different cheeses and postcards. Now that we were stuffed with cheese and ice cream (good thing neither of us are lactose intolerant!) we headed over to the coast to find a campsite for the night. Now by this part of the trip Joe and I were having a hard time deciding where to go and what to see on our way back to California, I think that we were just really tired and couldn’t decide when to be home…
We found a campsite for the night and decided as much to drive down the Oregon coast for a few hours the next day.
The drive down the coast was really beautiful, not as windy as California. The only drawback was that it was very overcast. But none the less we drove down the coast for a good 6 hours, stopping at different spots to take pictures and run through the sand on the beaches. By the end of the day we were pretty tired and decided to head over to the 5 freeway and start driving towards California. We just kept driving until we got tired, found a rest stop and slept for a few hours. We woke up early the next morning and got back on the road, by this time we knew, we were heading home. We got home on Sunday July 12th, just in time to make Joe’s cousin Marissa’s birthday party, which was cool because most of Joe’s family were there and we got to surprise them with us being home.

Portland, OR

We got into Portland around 4 or 5pm and we got a hold of Katie’s sister Jessica so we headed over to her apartment. Jessica was going to show us around Portland. Once again we got lucky and the street right next to her apartment building was open and free parking so we could park the truck and trailer no problem. We walked to the main street of her neighborhood to grab a drink and plan out the next couple days so we could get a good feel for Portland. I forgot to mention but it was really cool when we were driving South into Portland, it is the town of bridges. There is a river (cannot remember the name) that goes right through the middle of Portland, so there are a lot of bridges that let you go back and forth between the two sides of the city, really cool. Anyway we grabbed some beer at a local place in Jessica’s neighborhood and talked about Portland and planned out what we should see. We went back to Jessica’s and BBQ’d some hamburgers and got ready to paint the town the next day. We had decided that we wanted to check out the Japanese gardens and the famous Powell’s bookstore the next day. So we woke up had some coffee and headed down to the bus stop, Portland has really good public transportation. We hopped on a bus and then took the MAX (their above ground subway train) over to the Japanese gardens. We walked up this steep hill to the entrance of the gardens. The Japanese gardens were incredible, so beautifully maintained. I took a TON of photos here, I was completely in my element. We spent a good couple hours milling around the gardens. We then grabbed another bus downtown and stopped and had lunch at Deschutes Brewery, Joe and I both got the beer sampler where we got to chose six beers to taste. They all were really good, Joe got more of the darker beers, and I tried more reds and pale ales. After lunch we headed over to the famous Powell’s bookstore, it is so big that they give you a map to figure your way around. We spent a good couple hours in here as well. All in all a really good day, on the bus ride home we decided to check out the Portland Art Museum the next day because they had a special MC Esher exhibit going on.
The next day we once again hopped on a bus and went downtown. We went and checked out the Portland Art museum and the special MC Esher exhibit. The MC Esher exhibit was totally worth it, even if there was no other art to see that would have been enough for me, it was really cool. It is so amazing how he made the metamorphosis drawings, and did you know most of his works he carved into wood and then stamped onto paper?!? He was an incredible artist. After the museum we went down to a section of downtown where they have a bunch of food carts and you could get any kind of food you want. Joe had Vietnamese, Jessica had Korean BBQ, and I, of course, had Mexican. All of our dishes were really good, and really super cheap! We headed back to Jessica’s for one more night before we headed onto the Oregon coast. Joe decided to hang out back at Decca’s apartment while I went with her to a friends BBQ. Now this was an interesting experience… let’s just say that I met some really curious people. There were hippies, weirdos, and just interesting folk at this BBQ. It made me sit back and think of how many different kinds of people there are out there and how people come together and converse. Joe and I did sort of conclude that Portland people are exclusive and very proud to live or be from Portland, that moving from another place it might be hard to break into the scene… something to think about when figuring where we want to move.

Mt Rainier and Mt St Helens

It was a pretty drive from Richland, WA to Mt Rainier. When we entered into Mt Rainier National Park we were greeted with lots of snow along the different mountains around Mt Rainier. We thought that it was going to be hard to find a campsite because it was the Monday after 4th of July and we thought people would still be on their vacation, but as it turned out the campsite we stayed at was creepy empty. We settled in and then headed up to the visitor’s center to take a small hike and try and get some good pictures of Mt Rainier. Well it turns out that most of the year there is a ring of clouds that hang around the summit of Mt Rainier so we did not really get that many good photos, but the trail we took was still really pretty. As we got back up to the parking lot from the trail we saw a pretty large mound of snow that we wanted to play in, well I ran up it and then ran down, but Joe decided to run up to slide down and while he was running up the camera fell out of his pocket into the snow. Go figure that when the camera gets dropped into soft snow it brakes, not the other few times it was dropped on the ground. It is not totally broken, it just makes a funny sounds every time we turn it on and the lens comes out. It was actually kind of funny for a couple days after “the accident” the camera would turn on and zoom for me but would shut itself off when Joe tried it. (I secretly laughed on the inside…) The next morning we took a long drive out of Mt Rainier to Mt St Helens, unfortunately I was not smart enough to think that Mt St Helens might have a ring of clouds around it like Mt Rainier, so when we finally got close enough, we could not even see the summit because it was under so many clouds. Even though we took the long way the drive was very pretty through different kinds of forests and scenery. After seeing, or not seeing much of Mt St Helens we drove to Portland where we were supposed to meet up with our old roommate Katie Bull’s sister Jessica.

Glacier National Park

It was about right hours from Yellowstone to Glacier so we stopped halfway and stayed the night in Missoula. The drive from Missoula to Glacier National Park was beautiful. Up through some mountains and then around a huge lake. We could not make reservations for Glacier because all the campsites were full but they did have a campsite that was first come first server so planned on getting there around noon (which is usually the time they make you check out) so we could grab a site before the rest of the world got there. We were pretty lucky and got a really sweet spot under a bunch of trees. We went to the visitor center and checked to see what roads were open and what trail we could get in that day. We decided on a 6 mile roundtrip hike to catch a glimpse of almost the entire park. This hike was very interesting, first was the fact that there are grizzly and black bears all over the park. As we started on the trail I was a little freaked out that we might run into a bear (my brother and I ran into one when we were running a trail in Yosemite) so I had read some material that said to talk loud while on the trail to make your presence known to the bear. I am not sure that I told Joe that I had read this because he thought I was acting really weird talking really loud while on this trail. Then when we were going up the trial we ran into some people who had bear spray (yes there is spray to fend off bears, but it only works once, then run!) but the woman said that she did not see any bears on the trial and not to be worried because all the bear scat (that means poop) she saw was really old. That made me feel better but then we passed another group of people and asked how far we were (because Joe and I were huffing and puffing) and they told us the not so good news that we were still pretty far. About ¾ of the way up Joe and I swear we were going to die (you could tell we were at the end of the trip and we definitely out of shape!) But low and behold we made it to the top and got a really awesome view of Glacier park. After our long hike we headed back to our campsite and were too tired to BBQ so we just had a snack and went to sleep, hoping to get up early the next morning for a long drive through the park.
We debated on whether to take the free shuttle or to drive through the park on the Going to The Sun Road. We waited for the shuttle for a while and just decided that it would be easier for us to just drive the road. They had just opened the road the week before we got there, they had to blast out snow on many different parts of the road. In the middle of the journey we were stopped due to construction, during the snowy winter the snow can destroy parts of the road and when they blast it or it melts off they find the destroyed parts of the road and have to redo them. We were only stopped about a ½ hour, but Joseph ended up talking with a gentlemen who lived in Clovis near his sister and worked for a company based in San Luis Obispo, such a small world. After we got through the road construction we decided to drive all the way into Waterton National Park, which is actually in Canada. I think the total drive to the Canadian border took about 4 hours, but when we got there we had some trouble. Turns out that the day we were trying to get into Canada was Canada Day (July 1st) and the Canadian customs officials were not having a good day (it just so happened that neither were Joe and I). Well our first mistake was that we had firewood in the back of our truck, apparently you cannot bring any wood with bark from America in Canada, the American trees have some disease that the Canadian trees do not. Then they proceeded to ask us a ton of questions, like if we had any alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, and weapons. Not only did they ask us if we had weapons, but the woman went into this long list saying almost every weapon in the book, like we didn’t know what she was talking about. They really gave us a hard time and we even had our passports! They then proceeded to tell us to pull over to the side and wait while they checked our ID’s. Well Joe was pretty pissed by this time, especially since all the firewood we had in the back of the truck he had just chopped all himself in Yellowstone. So he went into the office to ask if he could leave it on the US side so that we would be able to pick it up on the way back out. They gave him a hard time again and the woman was not even checking our ID’s she was just sitting there chatting it up. Joe came back out and then went in again and then they told him that we were not allowed to come into Canada because of a DUI he got 5 years ago, and not only were we not allowed in but would not be able to come in for another 5 years because of this. They were freaking rude, she even had the audacity to say that they were lenient on marijuana but not alcohol. So we got to turn around and head back into the US. Well we had to go through the US customs, and tell them why Canada would not let us in, even though they watched us not be let in. They even pulled the drug dogs on us, freaking stupid. Well as you can imagine our day was just getting worse. At least on the way back out we got to see a grizzly bear, a black bear, and a baby fox. Later on in the day when we tried to go check out a glacier Joe saw a moose! We drove back down the Going to The Sun Road and stopped to take pictures of some Glaciers, it was kind of hard to tell if we were looking at a Glacier or not, but we took pictures anyway. You could say our visit to Glacier National Park was not what we expected it to be. The next day we decided to leave and head to Idaho where we were going to stay the night and head into Washington where we were going to meet up with my sister and some of her family for 4th of July.
We spent 4th of July with my sister, her husband, my sister’s aunt & uncle, cousins, and he mom. We had a wonderful time eating delicious food, drinking, and playing Wii sports. It was really nice to have a hot shower, and be able to do some laundry. After 4th of July we decided to get back on the road and head towards Portland, OR and stopping at Mt Rainier and Mt St Helens along the way.

Cody WY and Yellowstone National Park

We spent a night in Cody, which is the town right outside the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The town is best known for Buffalo Bill (William Cody). There was an entire museum dedicated to Buffalo Bill, but we did not have enough time to check it out. We woke up early the next morning and drove into Yellowstone, it was a gorgeous drive. Joe and I had no idea until we started driving into Yellowstone, how massive the park is. I also didn’t know how cold it was going to be, I actually thought that I might get to go swimming in one of the many lakes, but there was still snow on some of the mountains and some of the lakes were frozen over.
It took us about an hour after the entrance until we got to the turn off towards our campsite. By this part of the trip I had at least got the knack to make reservations before we got to a national park, because we had run into situations where all the campsites were full. Even in huge Yellowstone the first campsite I called was completely booked for 3 days straight. As we took the turnoff towards our campsite Joseph suddenly pulled over and I am thinking “oh shit not again”, thinking that it might be tire trouble again. It was not tire trouble for us but an accident that happened behind us. Joe said it was the weirdest thing, he watched it all happen in his side mirror. There was a van behind us and as we took a turn the van kept going straight into a tree, fortunately the couple in the van walked away from the accident. It was very strange.
We got to our campsite and checked in, we were right on one of the lakes. We set up shop and checked out the scenery right around our space. Joe BBQ’d and we played games, we knew we were going to be in Yellowstone for a few days so we could kick back the first night.
The next morning we woke up, made breakfast, and set out on the road. In the National Geographic book on National Parks, there was a planned out drive route to take in Yellowstone where we could explore all the Geysers (well not all of them, there are sooo many). We detached from the trailer and drove through the park to see Old Faithful. We were quite lucky because when we got there we found out we were only going to have to wait about half an hour to see Old Faithful blow! We walked around Old Faithful where there are other mineral pools and more small geysers. What is crazy is that the mineral pools look so beautiful and inviting but they are boiling hot and the chemical mixture could burn your skin. It was like this all over the park, you would see these gorgeous pools and want to touch them or get in them, but basically your face would melt off! After we walked around for a while we picked a good spot to watch Old Faithful blow. We got a lot of really good photos of it starting, it blowing, and then sputtering to a stop. We drove further down the main road and checked out more mineral pools and geysers. (check out the photos it is really hard to describe what they look like)
The next morning we woke up extra early to walk down to the lake and check out the sunrise. It was incredible, we watched the sun slowly rise over the mountains and the lake. It was totally worth waking up early. After we checked out the sunrise we got the wonderful pleasure of paying $2 to take a shower. The funny thing was, was my shower was this small hose spout where the water pressure was so high that I felt like the water was piercing my skin, and Joe’s shower was a fine Amazon mist! (but I should not complain about hot water for $2) From Yellowstone we were heading into Montana where we would make it to Glacier National Park.

ANOTHER FREAKING BUMP IN THE ROAD!

Our first night in Wyoming we stayed in Sheridan which was about half way to Yellowstone. We woke up pretty early the following morning so we could get to Cody and check out the city before going into Yellowstone. We were about two hours from Cody when we decided to make a pit stop at a rest stop and switch driving. I hopped behind the driver’s seat and started driving towards Cody, we were only about 5 minutes from the rest stop when I noticed the trailer bouncing all over the place, we knew something was wrong. We pulled over at a truck stop and the other trailer tire was smoking! Joe immediately knew that the bearings on the other trailer tire were busted. Luckily when the first tire bearings blew out Joe watched the mechanic very closely and he felt that we would be able to fix this side on our own. We figured out where the auto parts store was and Joe went and got all the things we needed to try and fix it. As Joe was taking the tire off and the parts off a Truck Driver that had parked next to us came over to check out what we were up to. He ended up hanging around for a while “supervising” and putting in his two cents. It took us (yes I actually helped a little bit) 6 hours to get things almost fixed, by then we had lost all light and decided anything else that needed to be done we could get done in the morning. In the morning Joe double checked everything and we crossed our fingers and got back on the road. For those of you that do not know anything about bearings (like I did) let me give you a little run down… when you take the tire off there is a hub that you have to take off and there are bearings inside of the thing that holds the hub on (you can tell that I do not know all the technical jargon!) so these bearings need to be lubed up all the time with grease, otherwise there is too much friction which can cause a fire (hence the trailer tire catching on fire…).

Crazy Horse Memorial & Hill City

We woke up in Custer State Park to another beautiful sunny day. We packed up the Lance (our trailer) once again and headed out on the road. Crazy horse is less than 20 miles away from Mt Rushmore but a world away from it in what the memorial is trying to achieve. When we arrived at the memorial they charged us $10/ person, and I thought wow that is kind of stiff. What I learned throughout the visit to the memorial changed my mind entirely. Once we got inside they showed us a short film on the story of Crazy Horse, the memorial, and the sculptor. I do not have all the facts about Crazy Horse, but the jist of the story is an 1868 treaty had deeded the land (the black hills and surrounding areas) to the Sioux Indians, but their ownership only lasted 6 years. When gold was discovered in the area, the U.S. government reclaimed the land. In 1876 the government ordered all the Sioux onto reservations, but three Indian chiefs, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Gall organized a resistance. (which eventually destroyed the 7th Calvary at Custer’s last stand at Little Big Horn.) Their victory was short lived, Crazy Horse was stabbed in the back by an American soldier and they were ordered back to the reservations. Joe and I were really taken aback by listening to this story. It is sad that we do not know this and other pieces of our history, even if we did things that were not right. As we walked through the exhibits you had this sense of shame that our fore fathers drove these people of their lands into reservations. It was eye opening.
The story of the memorial and sculpture itself is just as interesting. The chief of the Sioux Indians commissioned the sculptor. This was in the 1940’s, the sculptor was not offered any payment for working on the project, which was okay with him. The sculptor (sorry cannot remember his name) actually worked under the sculptor of Mt Rushmore for a while, and was actually fired by the sculptor of Mt Rushmore. (lots of interesting crazy stories around both memorials) The project is solely funded by donations, entrance fees, revenue from gift shop, and money made by the sculptor and his family. When they arrived at the memorial site, the sculptor had to build his family a home, and he also built a farm to be able to earn money to take care of his family while working on this project. Currently they have the face of Crazy Horse complete. In the museum you can see a scale model of the sculptor and also what the memorial grounds will look like when they are finished. They are planning on building an Indian University, medical center, and cultural center, along with the memorial and the museum. All of the granite that they are blasting off they are reusing for all sorts of things, they grinded it down and built many of the roads around the memorial. They will also be using the granite to build a lot of the buildings for the medical center, school, and cultural center. The original sculptor passed away in the 80’s but the project is being kept in the family, one of his daughters is now the head sculptor, and 7 out of his 10 children work on the project everyday. It was such an interesting day, very educational!
After Crazy Horse we headed over to Hill City where we were told that we could get a steak dinner for $8.95! Hill City was on the way out of South Dakota heading towards Wyoming. We got into Hill City around 3:30pm and we walked around looking for the Alpine restaurant where this famous cheap steak dinner was to be served. The Alpine restaurant was actually part of a small bed & breakfast type hotel. We went to check out the restaurant and realized that they were not serving dinner until 5pm, so we walked through the town looking for somewhere else to eat and decided that it was still worth it to eat the steak dinner and we would just waste the next hour and a half window shopping. We headed back to the Alpine restaurant at 5pm and it was already packed! We only had to wait a few minutes and got a table. The waitress arrived and ask Joe and I if we had ever been to the restaurant before and we replied no. She said there were only 2 things on the menu, either a 6oz. Or 9oz. Filet minion steak. The steak came with a wedge salad (just iceberg with dressing), baked potato, and texas toast. 6oz. was $8.95 and 9oz. Was $10.95. Joe and I each had steak, wine, and dessert and the total bill before tip was $37!!! Amazing, it was delicious! After our awesome dinner we got back on the road and headed to Wyoming. We were going to Cody for a night before heading into Yellowstone National Park.

Custer State Park, the Black Hills, SD

We drove through the Black Hills National Forest to get to Custer State park. We were a little weary about getting a campsite in Custer because we had heard that they had booked a lot through the summer already. We stopped in the park office and talked to a really nice ranger who let us know where to try and get a campsite. It was right near the lake, and we were lucky in getting a spot, because the spot we got was beautiful, right near the creek, right by the lake, it was awesome. We got there in the afternoon so we decided to set up shop, have a bite to eat, and drive through the park and check out Mt Rushmore. The drive through the park and through the Black Hills was beautiful, not too windy but there were some spots where you would have to go through a tunnel only one car at a time. It was pretty fun because you got to honk a bunch while driving through. One of the tunnels you drove through the tunnel framed Mt Rushmore perfectly. It was about dusk when we arrived at Mt Rushmore, we knew that we were coming back the next night to see the light show so we just walked around a little bit and took some pictures. When we drove back to our campsite we got stopped on the road by some bison. This was our first encounter with the buffalo and let me tell you there are bigger than you think! They were crossing the road, just meandering across slowly. We were able to get some good photos of them because they were so close. Later after our encounter we talked with a ranger who said that the bison have come pretty accustomed to cars but not really motorcycles, which we found out the next day. The next day when we were driving through the park we encountered some more bison and a motorcycle did not want to wait for the buffalo to cross and when it revved its engine the buffalo sort of charged it. Pretty amazing animals.
We spent the second day in Custer at the lake, the water was cold but Joe and I still got in. We took a trail that looked like it went all the way around the lake, but halfway through we kind of had to make our own trail to get across the lake and back onto the real trail. It was a beautiful day of sunshine and a nice nature walk around the lake. After the day at the lake we BBQ’d early to be able to make it to the light show at Mt Rushmore. When we went back to Mt Rushmore we took the trail that got you as close as you possibly could get to the mountain with the famous carvings on it. Along the trail there were stops to read about each president and sort of why they were chosen to be part of the memorial. After we walked the trail and got some really great shots (or at least we think that they are good) of the four presidents on the mountain of granite, we headed down to the amphitheater to get seats to catch the light show. Before they lit up the mountain a ranger gave some history about the project, the presidents, and also some trivia questions about quotes of the presidents. We learned later after this evening that Mt Rushmore was never actually finished. When the government took over the project they stopped putting money into the project and the sculptures are incomplete. They were originally supposed to be full busts of all four presidents. If you look close enough you can see the top of George Washington’s jacket, but that is it. When you see the scale model of what it was supposed to look like it makes you a little sad that it was never finished. After the show we drove back to our campsite and got ready to leave the next day to see the Crazy Horse Memorial and hopefully get a good steak dinner in Hill City.

The "Bad Lands", the badlands national park

Joe and I were very lucky to learn so much Native American history while traveling. It became really strong while we were in South Dakota. As we drove into the Badlands the scenery was really indescribable. You could see these crazy mountain formations that looked like they were made out of many layers of sand, and they went of for miles. An almost never ending vast of these mountains, along with lots of prairie land. We had heard that the Lakota Sioux Indians had named this land “ the Bad Lands” and some French travelers had said “ they were hard lands to cross.” Even the famous artist Frank Lloyd Wright described them as “ an endless supernatural world…” I would have to say when Joe and I were driving through them I got a really weird spiritual feeling by looking across this vast land. It really showed when we got back from driving around the park and I had taken over 200 pictures and it was really hard to tell a lot of them apart but I could not stop taking photos.
Our stay at Badlands National Park was quite interesting. The second day we were there we drove out to the town of Wall. Where after all those signs on the highway, we finally checked out Wall Drug. As the story goes this woman and her husband own this drug store in Wall during the Great Depression. One day the woman was laying down in the hot afternoon trying to take a nap but the buzz of all the traffic on the highway was bugging her. This is when the light bulb came on, she thought if she offered all these drivers free ice water they would come (reminded me of Field of Dreams, “if you build it, they will come”). Even as her husband was putting up the first sign “Free Ice Water, Wall Drug” they had to hire more help, they were getting tons of traffic. The husband figured the more signs he put up the more people would come, he even had a friend put up signs in Europe stating how far to Wall Drug during WWII. Today there are signs in all kinds of illogical places stating the distance to Wall Drug, but what does make sense is the amount of business they do now. The actual Wall Drug that is there now is about a block long, with many different shops in one. They still have free ice water… among ice cream, fudge, candy, and souvenirs. Joe and I took some hilarious photos among the figurines they have around. They even had a huge Jackelope that you could get on top of! (Joe riding a jackelope, awesome!) We also got our free Wall Drug sign, wherever we end up we can write the mileage to Wall Drug and send them a photo… seriously crazy stuff!
When we got back to our campsite at Badlands NP we met some interesting people. There was a woman who was driving one of those HUGE RV’s that look like a coach bus and trailing a huge SUV, was doing all this by herself! She was a character, said her and her husband were “free spirits” and she had been in Florida or Illinois (she talked really fast) and was bored and decided to go meet her husband who was doing some work with a Native American tribe near Yellowstone… We had heard this weird scream in the middle of the night and it turns out that it was this woman, one of her dogs had bit her in the middle of the night… a dog she had had for 6 years, crazy! Joe ended up helping her get her SUV back onto the trailer she was towing with the HUGE RV, if Joe hadn’t offered I do not know how she was going to do it on her own. I gave her many kudos for doing what she was doing on her own, I mean I had been traveling with Joe for 6 weeks by then and it was still pretty hard!
We also met this guy who had packed up all his stuff (well not all of it…) and packed it onto his motorbike (not a large motorcycle, you will have to ask Joe what it was) and left San Francisco to drive cross country and was planning on ending up in Arizona for grad school. He had some good insight since he had basically just driven the route that we were planning on heading into. What was really interesting about him was not that he was traveling by himself, but that he had some radio production background (Aengus if you are ready this sorry if I get some of my facts wrong!) and in all the places he had stopped, he would ask some people these 2 questions and then record their answers. I think that he is going to make a video or book about it. The two questions (if I can remember correctly) were “what are you most afraid of right now?” and the other was “what are most excited about in your life?” He said that he got some really interesting answers, the only one I can remember is this guy said that he was most afraid of the world ending due to the Aztec calendar… hahaha I am still laughing.
Even the park rangers at the Badlands were interesting. When Joe and I had got back from Wall Drug, Joe had asked me to get out of the truck to put the tail gate down to be able to hook back up to the trailer. Well when I was about to step out of the truck I noticed a huge black thing on the ground (the ground was basically made up of white rock) and what was it… a freaking spider! Well I got out and scaled the truck (staying as close to the truck as I possibly could) and then I ran into the trailer. Joe got out wondering what the heck was wrong with me and I pointed out the spider. I sat there and watched it scurry across the road. Joe had said that he saw one of the same spiders earlier when we were driving through the park. So he stopped and asked a ranger what kind of spider it was. She told us that it was a wolf spider and she proceeds to go into this story about how her friend got bit by one and it turned into a huge crater in the skin and had to go see a doctor… but they are mostly harmless… yea freaking right lady! Let’s just say I was once again super freaked out!
The Badlands were beautiful and the experience interesting time to go check out the Black Hills and Custer State Park.

The Corn Palace, art made out of corn, amazing!

Along our trip we have been getting a lot of our ideas about what to check out from this book that Joe found called 1000 Places to See Before You Die, USA & Canada. As we drove into South Dakota our first stop was a town called Mitchell. Mitchell is famous for their Corn Palace. (we found out about the Corn Palace from the “1000 Places” book) The first Corn Palace was made in 1892, they decided to build it for the Corn Belt Exposition, which was where the town showcased their most important resource, corn. When you first see the building it is kind of stunning in that weird art sort of way. When you get closer you realize that all the art on the walls and the columns are made out of corn. They grow over 180,000 acres of corn just to decorate the palace, using many different colors and species of corn. The Corn Palace has a different look and theme each year. When they first started local artists would just make geometric patterns and then they began making murals out of the corn. This year’s theme was “destinations”, it was incredible, they had Mt Rushmore, Golden Gate Bridge of San Francisco, Washington DC, Crazy Horse Memorial, the St Louis Arch, and the Statue of Liberty. The artist makes a “corn by number” map for the volunteers who actually attach the corn onto the building. It takes them almost 3 months to remove the previous year’s corn and put up the new “palace”. We actually watched some of the volunteers ( local high school kids) cutting and attaching the corn to the building. They still have an exposition every year after they have finished the palace, bands come and perform, it is a huge party!
We were lucky enough to get some real good advice about visiting South Dakota from a gentlemen that worked the info desk at the Corn Palace. He gave us a map where he highlighted different spots along the highway where we should stop as we were heading to Badlands National Park, and then onto Custer State Park and the memorials. He suggested we stop at a view point halfway between Mitchell and the Badlands, right before you cross the Missouri river, where you had an amazing view and could take some cool photos, also if you went into the info center you could learn some about Louis & Clarke’s travels,. We stopped and took some photos, the Missouri river was huge in this part. We headed on further down the highway, changed time zones, and then finally arrived at the Badlands National Park. I forgot to mention but as soon as we got on the highway in South Dakota we kept seeing these signs for Wall Drug. They were seriously almost every quarter mile, Joe and I were both like what the heck is wall drug and where the heck is it? Because we drove a couple hundred miles and did not run into it. Joe also thought he had heard of it before so I checked in the “1000 places” book and low and behold it was in there. We went and checked it out while staying in Badlands… I get to that in a moment.

Omaha, Nebraska: the Zoo and a baseball game

We left Kansas heading for Nebraska and funny enough we had to drive through Iowa to get to Omaha. We spent one night in Sioux City, Iowa. (another crazy ass storm night to try and sleep through) My dad was telling me that Iowa is where my grandfather Floyd was originally from. When we were driving through it totally made sense, everything was named Floyd, Floyd river, Floyd this, Floyd that. It was really funny.
Once we got to Omaha we went and checked out their zoo. We read that Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo was a strong rival to the San Diego Zoo, so we were pretty excited to check it out. My cousin Alicia had just recently moved back to San Diego from Nebraska so I picked her brain about what to check out (she is definitely glad to be back in California... I cannot imagine why). When we reached the street that led to the zoo we realized that it was literally right across the street from the stadium that holds the men's college world series. Funny enough it had just started that same week that we were there. We were already thinking about maybe trying to catch a game after we checked out the zoo.
The zoo was pretty amazing (I mean I cannot even remember the last time I went to a zoo). We saw all sorts of your normal zoo animals, zebras, elephants, rhinos, monkeys, lions, and tigers, and bears oh my! I have to say seeing the Rhinos was pretty awesome, they are so big and just really interesting to me. We got to see some giraffes and a cheetah pretty close up! When we went through the tiger, lion, and bear section of the park it seemed to be nap time, because literally everyone of the animals was sleeping. They were all so beautiful. The zoo also had this new insect exhibit where you got to walk through a dome full of butterflies. It was crazy that we got to walk through with them all flying around. Well then we went through the other section of the insect exhibit and this was full of spiders, and other bugs. As most of you know, I am very very afraid of spiders so I was a little apprehensive to walk through this part. But it was okay at first because the bugs were in their little glass houses and could not jump out and get me. But as we were walking I saw this sign that said "check out our friends hanging from their natural webs above you, but don't worry they do not leave their webs". I read this and was like "WTF?!?!?!?" I look up and this gentlemen next to me says "oh look at that one right above your head". At this moment I was starting to have a panic attack, so I booked it out of there and waited for Joe on the other side of the door. Seriously not my thing! I could not believe that they would just let these spiders kick it out in the open!!! After my mini panic attack we went and checked out their mini aquarium within the zoo. It was really cool, they had sharks, turtles, and even some penguins! Once we had walked all around the park and had something to eat, we went and saw an imax movie they had playing. It was "Under the Sea" and was narrated by Jim Carrey, it was awesome, it was in 3D!
After the zoo we changed out clothes and bought some baseball tickets. We got to see Virginia vs. Arkansas. We were so lucky it was a very eventful game. We had seats right behind 1st base, anyone who as ever been to a baseball game, no balls are ever usually hit behind first base, but it happened that night, more than once! The game went 12 innings! It was very exciting, we were really happy we took the chance to catch it. After the game we decided to get some hours on the road out of the way and so we headed into South Dakota!

Wichita Art Musuem, KS

Back when Joe and I were in Texas and we had figured out that we were pretty much halfway through our money and decided to start heading north instead of more east, we had decided that we were going to get through the Great Plains states pretty quick. So we looked at our 1000 Places to See Before you Die book and would pick out one or two places to check out and move on, according to our driving path. So Kansas basically had one thing really to offer us, other than their crazy storms, and that was their Wichita Art Museum. So Joe and I went and checked it out... it only cost us $4 a piece, what a steal.
They had this amazing blown glass art that was in the floor, you could take your shoes off and walk on the glass and see all the blown glass in the floor. They had a traveling pottery exhibit, which Joe loved since he is really into pottery. I was very sneaky and took some good photos of some of the art! (I was only supposed to be allowed to take pictures of the art that the museum owned, not any of the traveling exhibits) It was a fairly small museum, but definitely worth checking out on our way through Kansas.
Other than the museum, we did not see much in Kansas, just what we saw from the road. Not our kind of scenery...
Next we were headed to Nebraska!

Last stop in Oklahoma: Marland Estate Mansion

After Oklahoma City which headed over to Tulsa because we had read that they had some pretty awesome art museums. We were lucky enough to catch the last Laker's game (and they won the championship, of course!) and woke up the next morning to head to the museums. Well turns out that these museums (and most other art museums) are closed on Mondays! We didn't really want to stay another night so we headed on out of Oklahoma for Kansas. Right before we crossed state lines we stopped in Ponca,OK. We wanted to check out this mansion previously owned by an oil mogul (supposedly the mansion was a hearst castle of the great plains...not really).
We took the self guided tour and checked out all the rooms. There was some pretty interesting stuff, especially the kitchen. They had one of the first mechanical dishwashers (think of the ones you see in restaurants these days but just a prehistoric version). All of the rooms were really well preserved, one of the bathrooms (I think it was the son's) had one of those exercise machines from back in the day where you put what looks like a seat belt strap around your booty and it is supposed to rub off the fat... if only that really worked! Another one of the bathrooms had one of the first saunas ever made, to me it looked more like a tanning booth, had tons of light bulbs in it. There was some very interesting art all around the mansion. Once we were all done checking it out we headed north to Wichita, Kansas. And what was there waiting for us... oh that's right another freaking storm!
I must say that I am pretty lucky to have Joe, because I am sure no one else would put up with my "freaking out" about storms. It was the lighting or quarter size hail so much as it was the wind and in a trailer the wind makes you feel like at any moment you will be taken up into the air and that's it, "your not in Kansas anymore"!
I did get some really cool photos of the one of the storms that we were in.

Oklahoma: National Cowboy & Western Museum, Oklahoma City Memorial & Museum

From Austin we decided to go to Oklahoma City, OK, it was about a % hour drive. We were about 40 miles from Oklahoma City when we got our first TORNADO warning. We were lucky enough to be listening to the local radio (by this part of the trip we were pretty tired of the ipod) when the weather center broke in through with the warning. We had been watching the lightning storm while we were driving but hadn’t hit any rain yet and to be honest hadn’t even thought about tornados. Well the man on the radio starts naming off the counties the warnings are in and which way the storm is heading, so I scrabble to find the county names on the map and figure out where the heck the storm is compared to where we were headed. Just as I am finding the counties on the map he saws the name of the highway we are on the the mile marker number, which was oh only 10 miles north of us and we were going to be driving right through it. Luckily the storm was heading southeast and we were heading northwest, so we missed it. But I can tell you this I had never been so scared of weather in my life up until this point (it would get worse later…) We made it safely through the night and headed to an RV park just north of Oklahoma City to hook up and get cleaned up. The next day we hit up to really great museums in OK City. The first one was the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. This museum was awesome! We got to enjoy some amazing local art and contemporary art from over the years. There were these five huge murals in one of their exhibit halls. You would not believe their size, I had Joe stand in front of one while I took a picture so you could get a sense of their grandeur. There were also some amazing statues , one named “The End of the Trail” was just breathtaking. It was of a Native American Indian warrior sitting on his horse in kind of a bent over position. It was beautiful, so critics thought it put Native Americans in a bad light because you could say that the warrior looks like he is defeated, but from my perspective it was moving and I did not get a sense of defeat. What was amazing was the story of how the statue came together and how it ended up in the museum. When Joe first saw the statue in a photograph in one of our travel books he said that it looked familiar and when we got to read the story of how the statue came to be it made sense why he recognized it. The statue was actually on display in Visalia, CA (which is the town right next to where Joe grew up) for many years. We went through a few painting and sculpture galleries and then got to the history section of the museum. Here we learned about Cowboys and Indians. They had an entire section devoted to Western Films and also a section devoted to the Rodeo. I did not think that I was going to enjoy the museum as much as Joe would, but I really did. We were very lucky to be able to take as many photos as we did.
After the National Cowboy museum we went to the Oklahoma City Memorial and Museum, which was dedicated after the Oklahoma City Bombing. The experience put you through all the emotions associated with death. It was weird to feel all these things and know no one who was actually killed or hurt by the bombing. The memorial was very moving, even just by it’s size. The memorial covered not only the area where the federal building once stood, but a parking lot that was across the street as well. We saw just a glimpse of the memorial as we headed into the building where the museum was held. (since I am so behind on these blogs I cannot remember which building it was that the museum was in, but it was basically two buildings away from the federal building, on the same side the bomb went off) Let me give you a little background on the bombing, in case you do not know or do not remember what happened. (this might sound a little cheesy, but bare with me) It started like any other day on April 19th,1995, people got ready for work, dropped their kids off at school and daycare, and headed into the office to start their work day. The Federal building housed many different government agencies, from the CIA, FBI, to social services, and housing development. They even had a children’s daycare for the children of the people who worked there. At 9:02 am the bomb went off, after investigations, they figured out that a Ryder moving truck was parked directly in front of the building and this was what housed the bomb. They bomb blew off about 1/3 of the building, and they shocks were felt up to 2 miles away. Many people were instantly killed, but most were not. After they came to and began to figure out what had just happened to them, they got their bearings together and tried to figure out what to do next. Some were able to escape from the back side of the building, some were stranded on the 6th & 7th floors. In the hours that came after the bombing, the humanity that was shown was astonishing. All emergency agencies (EMS, Fire, Police, Red Cross, etc) came as soon as they heard. The first action was to rescue all the people they could, an hour and a half after the bomb went off there was a bomb scare and all people had to evacuate. Once they were allowed back in the rescuing continued. Local nurses and doctors came in by the hundreds to help, they set up mini clinics to asses injuries and send the worst hurt people straight to the hospitals. Emergency agencies from other states came in to help, the story of the humanity and the community coming together put hope back in your heart that people could learn to live together in this world. The museum took you through the timeline of what I just described to you. They actually have the bombing on audio tape. In a building right next to the federal building they were having a local hearing about water rights and they taped the hearing which in turn got the bombing on tape. They sat you in a room and you got to listen to it go off, shocks you right to the core. After you listen to the bombing you go through a series of rooms that have the events played out in order. They have some of the rubble, personal items from the children and workers they found on display. The timeline and the stories were very moving, to read about how people acted and reacted restored a sense of community in you. It brought one sad thought to mind, why does an incredible tragedy have to occur for people to come together with such force?
After the timeline it goes into the investigation. They actually had pieces of the Ryder truck that they found on display, with maps of where they found them. They found the axle of the truck, 3 blocks away! Gives you a little perspective of the destruction the bomb caused. Investigators were very lucky when it came to catching Timothy McVeigh, he had been pulled over by local police only 2 hours away from OK City. He was arrested for illegal gun possession and taken to the local jail. Once investigators had followed the leads and gotten to Timothy McVeigh all they had to do was go get him from the local police…
The entire story and investigation was very thought provoking, it was good we went through the museum and then went out and walked around the memorial, you got to then collect your thoughts and come back to the reality of your day, not April 19th 1995.
The memorial as I said before was very moving just in it’s size. They took the lot where the federal building was and the adjacent parking lot and dedicated it all to this memorial. On both ends of the memorial stood these huge square arched entry ways, they had 9:01, 9:02, and 9:03 written on them. These stand for the time when OK City was innocent and unknowing (9:01), the time the bomb went off (9:02), and the time that they would be changed forever (9:03). Between the two entry ways was a large long reflecting pool and then on one side was a grassy area with empty chairs. The chairs stood for all those that were lost in the bombing. On the opposite side of the reflecting pool was a huge tree, the Survivor tree. The story about this tree is awesome. It was in the parking lot across the street from the federal building, not only did it survive the blast, but only had a few branches burned. It is in the exact place it was that day. After the bombing they nursed it back to good health and harvested some of the seedlings, after 9/11 one of the seedlings was given to the city of New York. The entire experience was so moving, Joe and I were very quiet for the rest of the day.
From here we headed to Tulsa, OK, and into another storm.

Texas: Part 7, Austin TX

We headed further south to Austin, TX. Austin is Texas’ state capital. We stayed at a Walmart just outside of town the night before we headed into the city. This night was one of the worst storms we had encountered so far. There was the craziest lightning, not mention thunder, and quarter size hail. We are not kidding you folks, QUARTER size hail! Let’s just say it was an adventure and we should have known that was not going to be the worst we were going to see. Joe and I had noticed that whole week we were driving through Texas we saw a lot of motorcycles, and not just one guys rolling down the highway, there we convoys of 4-5 bikes. Well it turns out that it there was a motorcycle rally in Austin that weekend we were there. So as we were walking through downtown Austin we saw a ton of bikes, most were your typical Harley or Indian, but then some were way out there or super tricked out. There were also a lot of bars, pubs, and live music venues. There were a few that had some pretty awesome names, we took some pictures of there décor. We walked from the famous 6th street to the capital, checking out some of the architecture along the way. As we got close to the capital we noticed the street right in front of the capital was blocked off. There were a bunch of workers setting up for a “evil kenevil” type stunt. A guy on a bike was going to jump two Budweiser semi trucks in a row! We didn’t have time to stay for the night to catch the show but I am sure it would have been pretty awesome. We caught a few good photos of the capital and then headed back to the truck and trailer, did I mentioned that Joe parked it downtown?!? He parallel parked it into two spots, we just put quarters in both meters! We had decided that we were about half way through our trip funds and that we were not going to be able to go any further east, so it was time to start heading north… we didn’t know at the time that we were going to be heading into the eye of the storm in almost every state we hit north of Texas…

Texas: Part 6, Dr Pepper Musuem, Waco TX

After we left John & Tiff’s we headed south to Waco, TX. We decided to stop there because they had a Dr Pepper Museum and my Mom loves Dr Pepper! The museum was actually in the building that Dr Pepper was originally made in. It started out as a pharmacy/ soda shop. This guy went to work in the shop and began mixing different syrup flavors to get new sodas. One day he mixed 23 flavors into one soda, tons of people tried it and from that day on it was a major hit! That was the day Dr Pepper was conceived, all those 23 flavors still make up Dr Pepper today. As we walked through the museum we saw how Dr Pepper was bottled, all the different bottles they went through the years, then the different cans, and then the different plastic bottles. The company went through a few different logos and eventually dropped the period after Dr. The museum went further into their slogans and marketing through out the years. Then at the end they had a neat gift shop and soda fountain. Joe and I shared an original Dr Pepper float, made from the syrup, soda water, and ice cream, and man was it sweet!!! It was a true homage to my Mom’s favorite drink!

Texas: Part 5, 6th Floor Museum, Dallas TX

The day after our eventful night at the Rangers game we went to the 6th Floor Museum in Dallas. The 6th Floor Museum is about the assassination of President Kennedy. It is called the 6th Floor Museum because supposedly Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK from the 6th floor window of the School Book Depository. The museum is actually located in the old School Book Depository and located on the 6th floor (you get to see the window that he was at when he shot JFK).
We got lucky and they had audio tours for free so we got to be guided through the museum by headphones. The narrator of the tour was actually a reporter who witnessed what happened and ran into Oswald when running into the depository to call his boss at his headquarters. The tour began with some history about JFK and his campaign, winning the presidency, and the first two years of his presidency. Then it went through that fateful day. Investigators received actual video footage from a woman who was filming the motorcade, they broke it down into photo stills for each second. They had diagrams of where everyone was when the shots came. They also had about a dozen other cameras and film from other spectators all around the streets and grassy knoll. It was gut wrenching watching it happening and listening to people who witnessed it. You were then able to look out the 6th floor window where Oswald was set up with his rifle when he shot the president. You could see the route that was taken by the motorcade, the grassy knoll, and they have markers on the street exactly where JFK was shot.
The tour proceeds into the next few hours after the shooting, the president being pronounced dead, Lydon Johnson being sworn in, the chase and capture of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the investigation. Oswald never actually confessed to the assassination and while he was being transferred someone shot and killed him. The tour goes further into the investigation, which at the time killing the president was not a federal crime so the investigation was lead by the local Dallas police department. (crazy to think that shooting and killing the president of the USA was not a federal crime, but robbing a bank was...) It then goes into other theories about what happened that day... that there was 4 shots not 3, that Oswald could not have acted alone, the perfect bullet, etc. Lots of different theories, lots of conspiracy theories.
The entire museum was done very well, very informative and interactive. It took most of the day to get through it and then we went out to the grassy knoll, which is a beautiful place along the famous street. We were not allowed to take pictures in the museum but I got a lot of good photos in and around the grassy knoll, it was a really beautiful day that day. The day made us very reflective and melancholy.

Texas: Part 4, Texas Rangers Game

We headed back into Dallas on Monday to catch a Texas Rangers game. We went to Brittany's apartment again and BBQ'd and swam in her pool all day until it was time to head to Arlington for the game. The stadium where the Rangers play is located next to the newly finished, $1 Billion, Cowboy Stadium, which was huge! We had some pretty good seats right behind the out field next to the visiting team's bullpen. Once again it was pretty hot but that didn't matter it was Joe's first professional baseball game! It was a pretty uneventful evening until Joe, Tony, John, and Tiff all decided to go get something to drink. While they were all gone a home run was hit right to our bench, literally right where Joe and Tony were sitting. Not going to lie, Brit and I were a little scared to get hit, so a guy in the row in front of us caught the ball and threw it back. But Britt and I did get on the jumbo screen! Joe was sooo pissed he missed it when he came back he never left his seat again, and of course no other ball was hit our way. We all still had a really good time.
We decided to stay another night in Dallas and head to the 6th Floor museum the next day.

Texas: Part 3, Fort Worth, a ride on a Longhorn

After our super fun (way too much fun) time in Dallas we checked out Fort Worth. We went down to the stockyards, where everyday at 4pm they heard the longhorn cattle through town to their other pen. We got there just in time to catch the end of the heard being put in their pen. We walked around the town, everything was centered around the stockyards, I guess they have auctions and rodeos every week! We got a "cold one" and were able to walk the streets with it, which was really nice because once again it was super hot! As we were getting ready to leave to head to the Movie Tavern we saw a gentlemen with just one longhorn letting people take pictures. He let me get on the longhorn (for a price!) and take pictures with it. You would not believe how long their horns really are! It was pretty cool, luckily the longhorn was pretty mellow, the guys said he wasn't "straight from the pasture".
After my date with the longhorn we went to this place called Movie Tavern. It is exactly what you think but better. It is a movie theater where you can drink beer! The boys and I went and saw the Hangover. When you get into the theater it is set up like a normal theater but more space between rows so that servers can get through to bring you beer and not only beer, but food! We're not talking popcorn and nachos, we are talking restaurant food! It was an awesome experience and the tickets were cheaper than seeing a movie in California! The next day was the Rangers game!

Texas: Part 2, Dallas, took us for a ride!

We headed into Dallas on Friday 6/5 and met Brittany at her apartment. Her apartment was really nice and right in the middle of downtown Dallas. We decided to walk downtown and pick up a trolley to go to the restaurant that Britt worked at. It was really hot that day and not just normal hot, no they have this thing called humidity, which makes it like 10 times hotter than it "really" is. So as we were looking for the trolley (Britt was not totally sure where to get on the trolley)so we decided to stop in a pub (you know because it was sooo hot outside). I believe it was called Ye Old Alley Pub, and it was awesome because after we bought a round, the bartender bought us a round! (let me tell you this is not the first or last nice person we met while in Texas!) The girls chatted and caught up, while the boys played an old bar billiard game. Someone else that worked at the pub was nice enough to not only tell us where the trolley picked you up but when it would pick you up. We finished our drinks and caught the trolley to Primo's, another TEX MEX restaurant, this is where Brittany had been working for the last couple years.
Once again we ate delicious food and had a wonderful time with friends and food! Brittany then took us around town to different bars and pubs. We had an awesome time checking out the local scene in Dallas, a little too much fun! Oh I forgot to mention that Britt's dad owns Primo's and was so awesome and bought us all dinner (it was cool because he was there and we got to see him and say hello)! I forgot to mention the freaking taxi's in Dallas... they were ridiculous... Britt had mentioned she hated them but we needed to take one because the bar we were going to was too far into downtown to walk form where we were. So check this out, first the taxi driver did not know where the place was that we wanted to go, he had a GPS! and still didn't know, so I had to take the GPS and find the place! He still charged us (a ridiculous amount too!) I thought taxis in SLO were bad, not compared to Dallas!
The next morning (some of us hurting more than others... me) Britt took us to a local diner to have some hearty breakfast, funny thing we ran into Britt's dad again! Awesome! We took it easy the rest of the day, the boys BBQ'd some steaks and we watched another Laker game. We had made plans to go to a Texas Ranger's baseball game on Monday, can you believe Joe has never been to a pro baseball game, ever?!?

Texas: Part 1,Benbrook, TX, finally getting there!

So the first night we were at John & Tiff's we got to go to where Tiff works for dinner. She works at a TEX MEX restaurant called Papasito's. We were pretty lucky it was Wednesday because it was half price fajita night! (they came with homemade tortillas!!!!) We ate delicious food and had great service all while drinking some fab margarita's (you would have loved Tiff's margarita Mom!)
We went back to their house and played some games and just chilled. It was a very nice change of pace from National Parks and Walmart parking lots! In the next couple days we checked out their city of Benbrook. We went to a man-made lake right by their house and enjoyed the nice weather. As I mentioned before John made some awesome RIBS!!! We watched the first couple Laker games and did lots of laundry.
We got ready to head to Dallas the next to day to visit my good friend from SLO town, Brittany!

TEXAS!

Here we are in Texas. We are staying with my good friends John and Tiffany in Benbrook, which is right next to Ft. Worth. So far we have gotten to eat delicious food (thanks for the RIBS John!), shower without "shower-shoes", and sleep in a real bed. And our good friend from SLO, who now lives & works in Louisiana, Tony came and met us!
We are very lucky to have such wonderful hospitality. We are planning on going to Dallas tomorrow and meeting up with one of my college friends. Then who knows... Austin, Dublin (the town where Dr.Pepper originates, so many possibilities!

Carlsbad Caverns National Park 6/2

After our Super Fun day in Roswell (NOT!) we headed south to Carlsbad, NM. We stayed at a cool little RV park, it had an indoor pool, tire swings, showers, wifi (didn't work that day), the works! We cleaned up, recharged our batteries (ours and the RV's) to get ourselves ready for the big Texas drive.
Woke up early enough the next morning to check out the Carlsbad Caverns NP before our 8 hour drive to Benbrook, Texas, where we were going to be visiting our friends John & Tiff.
The Carlsbad Caverns were quite a bit larger than the previous caverns we had seen at Katchner Caverns in Arizona. We took the "natural entrance" into the caves, which was a huge opening in a cliff. The trail winded down 800 feet into the darkness of the cave. We followed the trail down and down through the "natural entrance" and then headed into the "big room". We got to bring our camera and take lots of pictures. I do not know what my deal was that day (I'll admit it I was a little cranky...) but I was not really into it. Every stalagmite and stalactite started to look exactly the same. But Joe really enjoyed it and took some amazing photos (which was really hard because of the lighting and we are not professionals). The trail took us about 2 hours to complete. We ate our lunch and got ready to make the 8 hour trek to Benbrook.
I started off the drive (which probably wasn't a good idea because of the crankiness) and I swear we were in the twilight zone. The same exact mile of land over and over and over again, no cars either direction on the highway... (anyone ever drive I-5 in California?) After Joe didn't want to listen to me bitch anymore (hey I admit I was a crab that day) we switched and he began to drive. We were about 3 hours away from our final destination when we hit another "road block" yet again.
Here is what happened: Joe mumbles something, pulls over to the side of the interstate and jumps out of the truck super fast. I am like what the heck is going on and he yells at me to get out of the truck. He rushes into the trailer, grabs the fire extinguisher, and runs around to the left side of the trailer. Apparently the left trailer tire was sparking and caught a little on fire. Joe put it out and we pulled off at the next exit to call AAA. Did I mention we were in the middle of the craziest thunder and lighting storm I have ever seen in my life. About an hour later the AAA tow truck got there, another hour later the trailer was on the flat bed tow truck (more craziness to be seen) and we were headed to the repair shop. By Noon the next day they figured out what was wrong and got it fixed and we were ready to get back onto the road. Now I am not really savvy at mechanic jargon so if you really want to know what happened email questions to Joseph.
"On the Road Again..."

Roswell New Mexico 6/1

It's June! Cannot believe that we have been on this trip for almost a month. We have seen many things, but time is flying by way tooooo fast!
After Santa Fe we headed down to the infamous town of Roswell, NM. As we got closer we started to see some pretty strange stuff. We headed over to the local Walmart (you would believe how many there are and how many we have seen) and there painted on the outside of the Walmart were aliens and spaceships! I have to assume that everyone knows why Roswell is famous. If you do not here is a little recap. In 1947 a rancher who lived just outside of Roswell claimed he saw a flying object crash and land near his ranch. At the crash site he found debris that he did not recognize, took it into the local sheriff, who also could not identify. The events that followed were in the headlines in all major newspapers and started one of the largest conspiracy theories.
Let's just say that the town of Roswell took this conspiracy and ran with it. There were aliens and flying saucers on everything from the Walmart to the fast food chains. Everything was UFO themed!!! Even the street lights were topped with alien faces! (Joe was a little freaked out! haha)
The next morning we got up and I thought it would be cool to check out the International UFO Museum and Research center. Wow was I wrong. We paid $5 to get into the most ghetto museum I have ever seen. It looked like a bunch of crazy stoners collected their UFO crap together and hung it on the walls in this museum. Add some "B" movies and art and apparently you have an International UFO museum. I took my $5 worth of photos and we got out of there. WOW.
We headed on down to Carlsbad, NM to hit up our next RV park.

Santa Fe, New Mexico 5/31

We finally got to our next state... New Mexico!!! We hit up Santa Fe, which is a very artsy town with a long old history. We had really no idea where to go or what to do, so what did we do? We hit up the visitor's center... We talked with this very nice lady who told us some of the history but didn't really give us any advice on what to see. We took a map and decided to wing it!
It was a Sunday so we were a little worried that things might be closed (especially with the Spanish influence) but we were really lucky and most things did not close until 7pm. We headed to downtown Santa Fe and the first thing we ran into was the old Spanish Mission. We got to get a glimpse inside right before they started Sunday mass. The inside totally reminded me of the San Luis Obispo mission. It was very beautiful. We walked further into downtown checking out the art galleries and shops. There was a small flea market set up that we were fortunate enough to catch the end of. I got a beautiful hand made silver indian ring. The gentlemen that made the jewelry told me about the stone and that the one I picked (it was soo hard to chose) he had just made the previous day. It was truly unique. We did not have a chance to go to any of Santa Fe's many art museums but we got to take pictures of the buildings they were in. Santa Fe's architecture is really something to look at, all of the buildings we so beautiful. After we walked all through downtown we hopped back on the road and headed down to Roswell, NM. I must say that Santa Fe is definitely a town I would love to visit again!
*I forgot to mention at the beginning that while driving into New Mexico we encountered some crazyiness! While Joe was driving, I was playing some solitare on the iphone (I am hooked!) and all of a sudden he tells me to look out the windshield. What I saw looked like SNOW! But it was really about a 1/4 mile of road that had been hit by hail, hail the size of marbles! We also saw a truck on the side of the road that looked like it had slid off the road and turned onto it's side. Joe pulled over and helped the guys flip the truck back onto it's tires. Both of the right side tires were totally destroyed, we new how they felt since we had not two weeks earlier experienced a trailer flat.Crazyiness!

Garden of the Gods & Great Sands Dunes NP 5/30

After Fort Collins we drove south on I-25 to Colorado Springs. We stopped in at a Red Robin (yum) for dinner to catch the last Laker vs. Nuggets game, the food and the game were awesome!
We woke up the next morning to hit a couple sights on our drove south to New Mexico. We had been given the suggestion that when driving south from Colorado Springs not to take the I-25 but take the scenic route west and then south on the 285. So because we decided to take the scenic route we had a couple of cool things to see. We stopped in at the Garden of the Gods. Basically it is this park where there are a bunch of crazy rock formations in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. We didn't really have time (or a place to park) to stop and walk around, so we just took a bunch of pictures from the car. Some really amazing looking stuff...
We got back on the road and headed south towards Great Sands Dunes NP. This national park is comprised of huge sand dunes at the base of the Rocky Mountains. Even this description does not help paint the picture of what you see. As we drove the long country road into the park you begin to see the dunes at the base of the mountains. While looking at them when you are driving you do not think that they are that big compared to the huge Rocky Mountains. We arrived at the park and did our usual thing of checking in at the visitor's center. We got the unfortunate news that their campgrounds were full (no biggie we had a back up Walmart plan) so we decided to head to the main dunes entrance.
At the main dune entrance you have to cross a stream to get to the dunes. In the spring most of the snow melts off the Rocky Mountains and makes this stream between the dunes and the mountains. It was really neat, kids playing, making sandcastles, all at the base of these enormous dunes. We took in the incredible sights, took lots of photos, and soaked up some more sun before we decided we were too lazy to hike up the dunes. One of the coolest things we saw were kids running up the dunes with slides, tubes, and snowboards to ride down the dunes with. It was really an interesting place to see, we were really glad we caught it.
Now off to New Mexico before Colorado sucked us in for good!

Fort Collins, CO 5/29

Now we had talked a lot about Fort Collins, CO but for some reason I was not that stoked on it but Joe was super stoked on checking it out. And since it was only an extra 13 miles out of our way we thought, really why not?
From different Coloradians ( I might have made that up... maybe not) we talked to we found out that Fort Collins has lots of micro-breweries and also the Budwiser brewery. We thought that we were just going to drive through the town but probably not make it to a brewery. Well... we made time.
We decided to visit the New Belgium Brewery, they are the maker of Fat Tire (I am pretty sure most people have heard of this beer). From the outside their brewery looked pretty awesome, bikes everywhere. We walked in and were greeted wonderfully by a New Belgium employee who informed us that not only were the tours free, you could taste for free! Sign us up!!!
So we had about an hour and a half before the next tour started so we got to sit down and taste some beers. We were also informed that you could send some "coaster-cards" anywhere in the world and New Belgium would pay the postage. We were given a list of beers and told to choose 4 and also put a trivia question (of any subject) on it. The server returned with our beer tasters and an answer to our questions. Joe asked "What was New Belgium's first beer and what year did it come out?", mine was "Can you explain the difference between sweet potatoes and yams?" Joe's answer: technically (as in first produced for distribution, not made in the basement) was Abbey Ale, closely followed (just minutes) by Fat Tire, and I cannot remember what year it was... Mine was funnier... the server couldn't really say anything other than one is orange, but like so many other people they are confused on which one is orange (the yam is orange inside and a sweet potato is white). We then got to taste our delicious beers, talk with some locals, and write a few postcards.
We then took a tour of the brewery, which was pretty amazing. I mean come on you get to find out how beer is made, try some beer, and watch it get bottled. What is really interesting about New Belgium is how sustainable (green) they are in all there processes. We thoroughly enjoyed our time at New Belgium!
It was time to head out of Colorado but still a couple more stops 'til New Mexico.

No Doubt, Denver CO 5/27

NO DOUBT!!!! So as I was looking for Laker/Nugget game 4 tickets on Craiglist when I found out that No Doubt was playing in Denver while we were going to be there! I found some really good seats and at an amazing price and went for it. Got lucky enough to have the gentlemen call me back and were able to meet with him not only to buy the tickets but get a chance to talk with him about moving to the Denver area.
Now most people do not know this but I have wanted to see No Doubt since I was in middle school! (Joseph was so surprised that I had not made a bigger deal out of it)
We drove down to Boulder from our RV park in Loveland and checked out the college town. (It is home of the University of Colorado). It was a pretty cool town, with a really neat downtown area. Joe and I walked around, checked out the scene, read some local papers to see what kind of activities the town offered and then grabbed a bite to eat. We then met with the gentlemen we were buying the tickets from, he worked right in downtown Boulder. We got the chance to talk with him for a couple hours about all the areas surrounding Denver, the economy there, house prices, etc. It was really insightful.
After our meeting we drove around Boulder some more to check out the neighborhoods and parks. Really pretty houses and parks, lots of outside activities. We then drove south to the south part of Denver where the concert was being held. We drove through some traffic but nothing like I have seen in Los Angeles.
Weather was awesome, which was good since the concert was in an outside bowl. Went and checked out our seats, 17th row, right when the first band was coming on. The Sounds were from Sweden and their female lead singer rocked the house (and a crazy outfit!). Next on was Paramore, another female lead singer, who also rocked the house. Then finally NO DOUBT!!!!
What was really awesome about the concert was that they did not have a new album, they decided to do the tour to get inspiration to make a new album. Which meant they played songs from all their albums! Pretty much almost all my favorite songs were played. Joe was awesome enough to take pictures the whole time (he got some really amazing ones, like we were on the stage). It was a sweet night!
The next day we were lucky enough to be shown around downtown Denver by a local. When Joe and I were in Canyonlands NP in Utah we met some people who were from Colorado and one of them was nice enough to give us his phone number and an invitation to be shown around. Well we took him up on it. He showed us all around downtown and took us to lots of different places. We rode the local transportation, a trolley bus, and walked all over. We went to the Hyatt (or Hilton, can't remember) and went to their sky lounge where you can see all of Denver from something like 26 stories up. It was a really cool "big city" town and had lots to offer. Joe and I really liked it (it didn't even scare him that much for a big city).
We were having such a hard time deciding when we were going to leave Colorado. There was one more town we wanted to check out in the Denver area, Fort Collins.

Estes Park, CO and Rocky Mountain National Park

On Memorial Day we drove through some beautiful scenery to get to Rocky Mountain NP. Rocky Mountain NP is actually located in a town called Estes Park. We had meet a guy from Colorado when we were in Canyonlands NP that told us Estes Park was pretty cool and it turned out nothing like we expected.
On the way to Estes Park we got to drive through a little bit of Boulder, CO (where the University of Colorado is) from what we saw it looked pretty neat. We then drove through some little mountains and then the road dropped us right into Estes Park. It was awesome, small town feel with cabin and lake homes. We were really lucky that it was Memorial Day because they had an art expo going on at their downtown park. So we headed more up into the mountains to get into Rocky Mountain NP to get to our campsite and get settled so we could go back into downtown Estes Park and check things out.
It was really nice inside Rocky Mountain NP, it reminded me of pictures I had seen of Yosemite in the winter. Lots of trees, different kinds of trees, all over the mountains. We got to our campsite and set up shop, then unhooked and headed back down to downtown Estes Park. We headed over to the art show, they had lots of local artists and then artists from all over the state and surrounding states. There was jewelry, pottery, wood carvings, photos, and paintings. Lots of really neat stuff and lots of really expensive stuff. Then we walked around the town, lots of tourist t-shirt shops, Indian trading posts, ice cream and candy shops, and restaurants. The town vibe was good, lots of things to do, etc.
We headed back to our campsite to make some BBQ hamburgers and sweet potato fries. (did you know what you think are sweet potatoes (the orange ones) are really yams...)
After we had BBQed it started to rain pretty bad and got pretty chilly. The next morning we got up to go for a hike and then we were going to head over to Loveland, where we were going to be staying for a few nights. We are going to use Loveland as a hub to check out Denver and all it's cities surrounding it.
We decided to take the Bear Cub Lake trail that heads back into the mountains to Bear Cub Lake. I do not know what my problem was that day but I was not thinking too well. For some reason or another I did not bring the trail map...
Well the trail was really nice, we got to see some beautiful sights (check the photos), we got to see a bunch of elk (apparently it was mating season) and lots of streams and mini-lakes. Well we were told that the trail was about 5 miles round trip and we got almost half way but without the map we were a little sketchy on how far to go before we should turn back because it looped into another trail that was like 11 miles long and we did not want to get stuck out there for the entire day. Let's just say that Joe and I were not in the best of moods this day and having no map did not help! When we got back to the start of the trail we looked at the map and realized that we missed the actual Bear Cub Lake by about .2 miles, but we still ended up doing a 4.5 mile hike!
After the hike we drove out of Rocky Mountain NP and back through Estes Park and took a scenic highway over to Loveland. We were pretty excited to get to Loveland because we were going to stay at an RV park for a couple days, so showers, hook-ups, and free wifi!!!
As it turns out while we were driving to Rocky Mountain NP I was checking Craigslist for Laker/Nugget tickets (they were playing game 4 in Denver, but prices were outrageous) and I found out that No Doubt was playing in Denver on Weds night. So I started searching for No Doubt tickets, found some, wrote some emails, and waited to hear from people.
When we left Rocky Mountain NP to go to Loveland I got a call from someone selling tickets, turns out he worked in Boulder, where we were heading the next day so we could pick them up. We got 17th row seats for not 17th row prices!!!! Talking with the gentlemen for a while about Boulder and the surrounding areas, turns out him and his wife moved to this area 11 years ago from Dallas. So we got to ask tons of questions and get real insight on the towns and what they have to offer. We were lucky, we were going to the concert and we got to talk with locals about the area!