Road Trip Re-Cap

This post has been staring at me for 2 months now, just mocking me. So here it is, our final re-cap of our Great American Road Trip!

The final route

Some of our final journey stats:

• 38 Days on the road (thanks to all the friends with washing machines along the way!)
• 22 States and 2 countries visited
• 6,539 miles traveled 
• 100 (ish) hours spent side by side in the car - that's a lot of radio lab podcasts! 

The final speedometer photo before we sold the Jetta in Tucson and continued to LA in a rental car

• 61 friends and family seen along the way in the order we saw them and lots of new friends that we didn't list
• Emily, John & Graham; Marlene & Bill; Julie & Ben; Nick & Marie, Dan & Steph, Scott, Sarah, Ava & Ella, Bowen, Rebbie & Chuck; Layla, Jeff, Jammi, Kathy, Mary Beth, Nanny, Ant the Man & his lovely girlfriend Marisa; One last fill of Alex; Uncle Ray & Aunt Susan; Tom an SAE brother and great friend; Alejo & Marcela for the amazing wedding; Max & Meng, Brad & SK, Jessie & Katie (the cutest couple); Melissa, George & Ryman, Glynn; Ian, Emily & hot mess Hattie; an unplanned next-door camping visit with Kyle in the Grand Canyon; Chris, my Mom, Bone Crusher & Reily; Uncle Nicky, Sue, Jerry & Holly, Lisa, Colin & Rob, Jude & Payton at Pastiche; Shane in his new SD home; Katie K & Charlie in LA!  
• 1 successful license plate game - we saw all 51, can't forget about DC
• A few notable finds....Alaska was one of the first we spotted outside of Columbus, OH, I speed down the Rocky Mountain Highway after a PT cruiser from Delaware, we found Hawaii rolling into Austin and the last plate we found 1 hour outside of Tucson - South Dakotan's need to travel more.  
• 113 was the hottest temperature we hit in good ol' Yuma Arizona

Our trusty Jetta made it the whole way with no breakdowns. The human travelers also made it all the way with no breakdowns, just a few minor hangry moments (mostly from me). Our little Jetta was heavy on the first leg to Cincinnati where we dropped off more stuff at Chris' parents house (thanks!).

La Jetta will be missed, I do wonder who has her now! 

We also learned a few valuable lessons along the road (as you can tell, I started this list, but never really finished it!): 

• Texans like to speed, which should really be no surprise to anyone, the top speed limit was 85 mphs (137 kmph), yowzer! 
• You never know when you will come across an old friend. We randomly camped next to Kyle and his Grandma in the Grand Canyon North Rim, which is pretty remote. Kyle is an SAE Chris met at Leadership school years before.
• Skunk sprays don't take the cut out of a dog & two baths also do not take the skunk smell off a dog. Poor Ryman! 
• Desiel cars give you street creed with truckers, even if its a Jetta.  

It seems so long ago, but we had a blast and I am so glad we did it! If you ever get the chance to road trip, do it!

Bourke Street Bakery

Ask any Australian "where should I go in Sydney" and they will all include Bourke Street Bakery (pronounced Burk). Lucky us, it is less than 1k (1.6k = 1 mile) from our apartment in Surry Hills.

The line is out the door and people spill over to sitting in the park across the street (like we did)

I can never decide what to order, it all looked amazing, so I just asked the girl at the counter what she recommended for savory and sweet. I wound up with a sausage roll and mini ginger creme brûlée.

I had no idea what to expect with the sausage roll and if I'm being honest, when I saw it I was a little disappointed/scared/wanted what Chris had. Well, I was wrong, it was AMAZING. So tasty, it was definitely a tad on the heavier side for breakfast, but no different than a egg, ham and cheese sandwich in the states.

This little treat was so good, I saved some for dinner

Chris had a ham and swiss croissant and a mixed berry and chocolate muffin. I know people hate this word, but the muffin was so moist. It was the fluffiest most delicious muffin I have ever had!

On another note, if you know Chris, you know he hates sharing food. I kind of can't believe he has been sharing everything with me here - I know this won't last much longer :) But since I also know he isn't reading this blog, I think my secret is safe for at least a little longer.  

Road Trip - Day 32 - 36: Tucson, AZ

I always love coming to Tucson! I stopped calling Tucson "home" after a few years of being in Chicago, but now since we are technically homeless and unemployed, this is the closest place to home :)

Not only did we get to see my Mom, but we also got to see Bone Crusher! After almost 6 weeks in Arizona, to say he was excited was an understatement! He did lots of showing off in the pool, diving for balls, chasing lizards and harassing the cats!

Water pup

Victory!  

My Mom will probably be mortified that I am putting this pic up of Reily because it is not representative of him at all, but its too funny! He is the most mild mannered, gentle dog, until you get bones in the mix, which should be no surprise to anyone. This is actually a play action shot, they never stop playing. I think they are going to miss each other big time!  

Reily can fit Bones' whole head in his mouth!

We did all of the normal delicous Tucson spots - Rosa's (best white people Mexican food EVER!), Beyond Bread (yummy), La Salsa (fish tacos and salsa bar), El Charro (Chris' new favorite Tucson place) and Pastiche, where I worked in college. Pastiche had a serious makeover! Its open and the bar is expanded, loved it, we missed Julie and Pat, but we got to see Peyton!

Peyton even let me behind the bar, Rickster never would have done that :)

The El Charro Patio 

And then we tried some new places downtown - which is completly different than even a year ago.  We went to Thunder Canyon Brewery, Reily's, Hub (OMG, the ice cream is so good!) and tried to go to Pizzeria Bianco (a James Beard Chef's restaurant) that just opened that week, but the wait was too long.

Downtown Tucson, so hip right now

My mom also threw a little party for friends and family to say goodbye - it was awesome to see everyone - Lisa, Rob, Colin, Uncle Nicky, Holly, Sue and Jerry all where there.  I didn't take any photos....my cousin did, she of course did not send them to me....I hope she is reading this and feeling bad :)

The trip ended with us selling our trusty dissel Jetta - La Jetta Blunt at Car Max. They gave us a great offer and it only took 38 minutes to sell our car!

La Jetta got us though the whole road trip (well not to LA) with no issues! However, she was the source of our one and only fight on the road - I wanted to take her mid trip to get checked out, you know, just in case there was an issue, I didn't want to be stranded in the middle of nowhere America. And on the other side, Chris thought that was dumb, if something was wrong he didn't want to know. Well, he was right, I was wrong.

It's been real

Thanks Mama for everything! We took over the house for five days packing and re-packing for hours on end. Bone Crusher also ruled the roost, we are forever grateful for you taking care of our furry kid while we had a crazy road trip adventure! 

Mama - AKA Shorty!  

Peace out Tucson, see you in a few years! Love you Mama!  

Road Trip - Day 30 & 31: Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon was the perfect last adventure on the road trip - we still have Tucson and LA, but this felt like the last real part of the road trip. I've hiked the Grand Canyon as a kid, but had never been to the North Rim, neither had Chris. So we took our last shower for 3 days and hoped in the car at 7 AM.

Warning, this is going to be a longer post because we saw so many cool things, (bison, deer, California Condors) but it will be mostly pictures.

Night one we camped in Jacob's Lake - its about 45 miles from the North Rim in the first come, first serve campsite, we were thrilled to get a spot!  Then we explored around Jacob's Lake.

I am beginning to think Chris is not actually afraid of heights, he's 90 feet up on a rickety fire tower

Our campsite day one and the beautiful Arizona sunset!

The next morning we woke up, packed up camp to move to a closer campground, De Montte, which is about 20 miles from the north rim. As we drove into the park this is what we came across....

Well hello, Mr. Buffalo

And then we got to the canyon. WOW! The North Rim is much different than the South Rim - there is much more detail and it way less crowded (its harder to get to, we added 3 hours to our drive each way for North v. South Rim). From the South, I remember the canyon looking very wide, just massive. The North is 1,000 feet higher and I am no geology expert, but I will try - this side has receded more due to more rain and snow creating more "stuff" to see in the canyon. Pictures just don't do it justice, especially ones I take.

We drove 45 minites to the tip of the North Rim stopping along the way for hikes, this hike was a 4 mile loop 

   Before the storm, you could see the mountains of Flagstaff 66 miles away 

The window rock, you can walk out on it

View down from right on top of the window

South Rim is across to the right of the storm

On the way out of the park that night we saw more buffalo. We saw them outside of the park about 2 miles from our campsite, which is apparently rare. There have been recent car accidents killing the buffalo, so Arizona is trying to separate. We also learned that buffalo are not native here, they were brought in by someone in the early 1900s to breed with cows, when it didn't work they sold them to the state of Arizona who now owns them.

There were so many - look in the background

Some up close with the babies 

While we were in the park we went to a ranger talk about the California Condors. If you don't know the story of the condors, I'll give you a re-cap. They were almost extinct, there were 19 left in the wild. A conservationist group worked to capture the 22 birds and breed them in captivity. To make a long story short, it worked. There are now about 400 of them total and 230 in the wild. They are the largest bird in North America, they have a wingspan of 9 feet! You can learn more about them here: Peregrine Fund

We also learned that there is a popular nesting area on the way out of the canyon on the Navajo bridge, they hang out on the getters of the bridge, so we decided to stop to see if we could see some....and we did! We saw 5 birds total, it was pretty cool! You can also look them up by number online.

See, not afraid of heights

Its also a beautiful area - there is a driving and walking bridge

This is F1, 30 and 54. We thought F1 was a juvenile, but according to the internet it was born in 2007. At one point F1 was flapping its wings and 30 got closer and closer....until it basically attacked it and then it flew off the bridge. We thought it was the Mom encouraging the baby to fly, but we were wrong (they are all males), no idea what was happening.

In order F1, 30 and 54.  

Close up, you can see the numbers

This is where it was flapping its wings, 30 was quite interested

This one is H9 and we definitely thought is was a juvenile since he has a black head, which is what the babies have according to Ranger Charlie. But online it says he was born in 2008....I think something is off, because we also saw 77 and online it says he is dead.....

He is super tiny! 

The Grand Canyon North Rim was awesome - definitely go if you have the chance! 

Road Trip - Day 28 & 29: Santa Fe, NM

From Marfa, TX we were headed to Santa Fe, NM. There were a few route options to get there, all pretty much 7.5 hours - we thought it would be fun to drive though Roswell and maybe see some aliens, or at least some crazy people. We were wrong...it was the most boring drive ever, EVER. For all of you who think Tucson to Phoenix is boring, it has nothing on Southern NM. Only do this drive if you have to. You will thank me, so your welcome. We did drive though a big storm & a log came out of nowhere, that we hit. We are both still shocked that there was no damage.  

The only cool & almost scary part of S NM was this storm

Not a great pic, but I captured some lighten, which I was super proud of :)

Once we hit Northern NM it was a different story, it was beautiful and I could smell the green chili that I was about to devour.  

Our lunch spot with an awesome patio

We drove to the Los Almos area and learned about nuclear bombs. Then we hiked in Bandelier National Monument - in case you don't know what it is (I didn't till this trip) it is an area where there is evidence of human living over 11,000 years ago. There are cave dwellings, petroglyphs, little villages and ceremonial sites.

Looking down on one of the small villages - the homes were in a circle 2-3 stories high around the ceremony site

There was a flash flood in 2011 and the hike to the dwellings was covered with wood

The start to the climb up to the main ceremonial kiva 

This makes it look way more badass and steeper than it actually was

Top right is the kiva

Main ceremonial kiva

Day 29 was also our 3 year anniversary! They had a free concert in the park for us, it was perfect! We met some New Zealanders at dinner who sat next to us that we have been emailing with, we will for sure be visiting them in NZ! We also had great food in New Mexico - lots of green and Christmas Chili (green and red mixed).

Bruce Robinson and Kelly Wills - they were great!  

Road Trip - Day 27: Marfa, TX

Marfa, Texas was a last minute addition to the trip thanks to Glynn and Melissa. We wanted to avoid a 10 hour drive in one day (Dallas to Santa Fe) so this gave us a perfect diversion.

The drive there was desolate, aside from a few trucks we were the only people on the road for at least 100 miles. The scenery was pretty, and I can tell we are getting closer to Arizona!

There was a crazy rain storm in the distance

We checked into our swanky tent at El Cosmico. Chris was not impressed, I thought it was cool, definitely a little hippie, but cool nonetheless.

Home sweet home

America!  

We were pretty hungry so we headed out to dinner pretty much immediately. There are only two restaurants open on Monday nights so it wasn’t a difficult decision. We picked Jett’s and were off. Well, Jett had a different idea, we were greeted with a sign on the door that said, “no food, only drinks tonight.” I did have a slight internal panic…what if the other place is closed too….we have one clif bar or a 50 mile drive to another town, that had food, maybe. It all worked out, we ate at Cochineal and it was really good, but they know they have a captive audience and the prices reflect that, of course :) 

Super random beer garden/firewood storage at the Lone Horse

We wanted a little more local color before retiring to our tent, so we stopped in at the Lone Horse Salon, at least that is what I think it was called. That is where we met Tina and she was awesome! She has traveled the world working in International schools as a teacher – she was on a state park road trip of CO and TX in her RV with her 2 dogs, 1 of which had 3 legs. Just to paint part of the picture. I regret not taking a picture with her :(

She was headed to the Marfa Lights and convinced us to go with her. The Marfa lights are these unexplained lights that have been appearing about 10 miles outside of Marfa since the late 1800s. They were AMAZING. So glad we did it - we probably stayed for an hour, with wine of course. We saw up to eight lights at a time and all different colors - green, red, orange, purple. The lights split and merged back together - it was really cool. It definitely something you have to see to believe!

One the way out of town we stopped at the famous Prada display, literally in the middle of nowhere. It is actually about 35 miles outside of Marfa closer to Valentine. It is so strange and I’m pretty sure there is now a bullet hole in the front window, oh Texas. 

We are now about to leave Santa Fe, NM – Southern NM is a strange place and a really, really boring drive, avoid it if you can, but Northern NM is beautiful.  

Road Trip - Day 25 & 26: Dallas, TX

Top Ten reasons we love Dallas, more in chronological order than anything.  

10.  Ian, Emily and Hattie were amazing hosts, seriously, they even gave us weather in the 80s. In Texas, in the summer!   

Is Chris wearing a name tag that says Lauren?

9. There is no shortage of crazies on the grassy knoll, so many conspiracy theorists. There is also a huge X in the road where JFK was shot, it was too eerie and strange to take a photo of for me....although it didn't stop people from darting into three lanes of traffic for a selfie. Seriously, I kind of wanted them to get hit. 

8.  Hands down the cutest pup in Texas, Hattie! Just 9 months old and such a lover!  

Look at that mug - Harriet La'Queeshia

7.  Shooting shit, its not Texas if you don't shoot guns.  If we broke into Ian & Emily's house we would rather have him shooting at us than Emily...maybe but, she did hit 3 bulls eyes in a row! 

One of our targets

6.  The staff of Baby Dolls has their pre-game meal at Velvet Taco, which was delicious.  

5. Everything is bigger in Dallas, EVERYTHING. Especially their trucks and highways.  

Five Deep!  

Texas is that BIG!

4.  But don't worry, Texas is green too. They built an awesome, huge park over the highway that is really cool!

3.  Sunday Funday at the pool was awesome -  after traveling so much it felt like just a normal day with friends!

Emily, Ian, Chris and Me

2.  Enter the grocery store with Ian at your own risk!  Welchs sparkling cider explodes when you drop it and this is the aftermath :) I haven't laughed that hard in a while!  

1.  We discovered that Dallas is definitely a place we would consider moving when we come back to the states. There is no snow, but generally you still get at least 1 ice day a year - sounds perfect.

In all seriousness, we had a great time in Dallas! Thanks for showing us such a great time Ian and Emily!