Day 32 - Our House

After spending almost a week in Texas we knew we had to hit up a new state. New Mexico is just west of Texas and our next stop was Carlsbad, New Mexico. Carlsbad is home to Carlsbad Caverns, which is world famous for the different stalactites and stalagmite formations 750 ft underground.

We didn’t get into Carlsbad National Park until after 5 but we weren’t planning on seeing the caverns until the next morning. We had to hurry though. It was getting dark and we needed to set up our tent for camping. The large difference this time was that we were doing “back country” camping. This means we had to hike to our campsite and essentially pick our own campsite wherever we could find a flat piece of land. The hike was not easy to say the least to get there. We had probably gone up and down rock filled hills (verging on mountings) for about a half-mile.

Where we chose to camp was relatively flat with little rocks. It was the best we could find without moving forward any more. We were the only ones camping that night so we didn’t see anyone around. There was no cell phone service. We were officially isolated. The scenery was gorgeous. It can’t even be describe in words. Here’s a picture of what it looked like.

Even though we were really “roughing it” I did bring my laptop with me to watch some TV episodes to help pass the time. It got really dark and we headed to sleep.

Aramis

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All the Canyons

After leaving Albuquerque, we headed to Phoenix. Hearing great things about Arizona in general, I was happily suprised by the dry heat, clean city, and peaceful atmosphere. We headed into the city during the day on Tuesday. I kind of expected more from the city but after all it was a Tuesday...so we headed to Scottsdale to spend some more time walking around, window shopping, in the nice weather. Scottsdale was a little ladi-da (spelling?) but very nice. We had a late lunch at Dos Gringros for once again another form of mexican food. Overall my impression of Phoenix was very nice, wish there was a little more going on, but I can't complain.

Our next stop: Grand Canyon. We arrived in time to set up our tent at Mather Campground and cook up some food. Knowing it gets very cold in the Southwest in the winter I was prepared to be cold, but was still shocked. It's great to go in the off season, no reservations for camping, no lines, less crowded, etc, but brrrrrr!!! I think each night (we were there for a total of three nights) was max 20 degrees. The second day we were there we walked to the rim trail and along it for about 2 miles, so neat, just like a postcard as Timmy described. Sunset over the canyon was incredible, to rub it in I send pictures of my mom and Robbie (HA!) Day three there I took some time to do some walking around the campground and back to the rim, but we mostly just hung around and caught up on reading. Next stop....Zion Canyon

We originally were going to camp at Zion as well, but as Timmy and I agreed, another freezing cold night was not in the running, especially with Vegas coming up. So we booked a hotel between Zion and Bryce Canyon. We headed to Zion on our way from Grand Canyon, getting there in the late afternoon with just enough time to do a scenic drive and the Riverwalk. Let's just say the Zion Riverwalk was A LOT different than the San Antonio Riverwalk! Both neat in their own ways obviously, but it was incredible to be in the canyon walking along a riverbed, looking up at these massive rock formations. After ooeing and aweing over Zion we headed to the hotel for long hot showers, comfy beds, and most importantly WARMTH.

We headed to Bryce Canyon on Sunday, about 1.5 hours from the hotel. Much more snow than I expected but once again quite the scene. Timmy and Andy hiked down Navajo trail into the canyon, but due to ice and mud I skipped out on it and instead walked along the rim to Sunset Point. Once again I was very impressed but Zion is still my favorite.

Sidenote......we started watching Dexter in Houston (Timmy's first time)....and just finished season four last night. Not to mention we've been watching it while camping, really roughing it! :)

Onward to Vegas today.........yikes.

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Day 31 - Deep in the Heart of Texas

When we woke up we had San Antonio on our minds. We totally lucked out with the weather. Warm and sunny! Our hotel was a bit further from the downtown area but a 30 minute drive is like a blink of an eye to us "road trippers".

We hit the city and parked a short walk from the Alamo. The outside of the Alamo was very pretty but it was a LOT smaller then what I thought it was going to be. The inside of the Alamo was very bare. They has a couple of glass cases. One of them even had Davy Crockett's vest...or one of them I guess. There was tons of information available, and the fort itself is much larger than just the main Alamo building.

We then set off to some of San Antonio's huge Mexican subculture areas. It was a good walk to the Historic Market Area. Inside this building were countless people selling sombreros, serapes, and other Mexican trinkets. Outside was just as colorful as inside. There were a few people here and there selling things and a couple of restaurants. I had to fight my urge to buy some maracas.

The Riverwalk is what anyone who has ever been to San Antonio would recommend to do. It's really a nice aspect of San Antonio. Along the Riverwalk you may find people walking their dogs or running. You need to go downstairs from the main roads to get to it. We ended up walking on the Riverwalk for a while and then grabbed a late lunch. We took advantage of the happy hour and decided it was tim to go home.

San Antonio was our last stop in Texas.

Aramis

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Day 30 - Deep in the Heart of Texas

Jeff was gone to his big boy job before we knew it. We woke up and packed up the car but didn't go in it. We ended up walking across the street to a bakery for a late lunch/early dinner. They had the best frosted cinnamon rolls I had ever had! It was tall and almost completely frosted. The outside was firm and the inside was still very doughy. De-licious! I grabbed a banana bread to go cause I knew I would be hungry later.

Emma, Andy, and I went downtown again because we missed something that is definitely a must when you go to Austin. Across the river to a stretch of cool little shops. Even though we could see downtown still, the feel of this part of Austin was totally different. We ended up checking out a bunch of stores. They all had there Texas vibe; cowboy hats and boots, lots of leather, and old antiques. Unlike the day before the weather was wicked awesome. Not too hot and not too cold. All I wore was a light jacket. Perfect.

Next stop was San Antonio. We Pricelined another hotel on the way there for a great rate. All we did was watch some Dexter and get ready for the next day.

Remember the Alamo!

Aramis

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The Wild Wild West

After leaving San Antonio, we headed towards Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. Not really knowing what to expect on the drive I was a little shocked at how run down everything looked as we drove on small state highways. But as soon as we reached Carlsbad I was in shock as to how unbelievably incredible our surroundings were. We checked in at the visitor center and drove off the main road on a trail to eventually walk/climb about 1/4 of a mile up and down ranges til we found flat ground. This was all of our first time back country camping so we were a little unsure what to expect. Good thing Timmy brought his laptop so we could watch a few episodes of Dexter, read a little, and get to bed before 10pm. I'll admit I was very nervous being the only people within about 6 miles of any civilization. But soon as a very wet morning came we packed up our stuff and hiked back to the car.

We checked back in at the visitors center and headed into the caverns. OH MY GOODNESS, they were so very cool, much neater than I expected. We walked down into the cavern, took about 1/2 hour to 45 mins and then around what they call the "Big Room" for another 1/2 hour. I think we were all very glad we did the climbing down, which was by far the best part.

After the Caverns we headed to Albuquerque. The next day we took a day trip to Santa Fe, a very small city, especially for the state capital, but we went to the Plaza where there were tons of people, shops, street sellers, etc. We tried to go into the Cathedral of St. Francis Assisi but 29 couples were getting married!!!! WOW. But Santa Fe was very fun, I really enjoyed the atmosphere.

We headed back to Albuquerque for the night and the following day met up with my cousin Danielle, and her friends Jodi and Lynn. THey took us to a local New Mexican restaurant, yumm then we went to the second longest tram in the world. So neat, we could see the entire city and on a completely visible day you are able to see 9% of the state. We said our goodbyes to Dee, Jodi, and Lynn and headed for downtown Albuquerque. It may have been because it was a cooler and darker Sunday afternoon but the town was dead and we didn't end up spending much time at all down there. Timmy was craving some steak so we headed to Texas Roadhouse for some dinner then back to the hotel to rest up for our next leg of the trip.

Onward to Phoenix, Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and then VEGAS

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Day 29 - Beautiful, Beautiful Texas

Because Jeff had his real person job to get to early in the morning, Emma, Andy, and I slept in and headed downtown on our own. The day was somewhat overcast but Austin was still such a beautiful city. One thing that I didn't realize about Austin was that it was home to UT, the University of Texas. It's main campus starts just on the opposite side of the capitol building. When we were driving on the highway towards downtown I could see how enormous it really was.

We parked by some meter and headed towards the capitol. Austin seemed to be a small city. Downtown wasn't to overwhelming and it was easy to navigate because the street leading to the capitol extended along way past where downtown ended, resulting in a great one-point perspective type picture of the capitol.

The day way taken up by downtown and trying to relive our college days by walking through the UT campus. There were clubs advertising things, students in a mad rush not to be late for class, students talking about exams, people reading in the bookstore, and anything else that could spark a memory from only a year ago. Needless to say it made us all a little depressed.

We were all a little bit hungry so we walked to the first Whole Foods store in the country. That's right. An interesting fact about Austin is that Whole Foods got it's big break here. I was a little shocked about learning this myself. I didn't realize that meat-hungry Texans had an appetite for organic mashed potatoes and corn. Go figure.

We headed back to Jeff's apartment only to just pull in when Jeff was as well. We discussed our dinner plans and chose to go to a Thai place on the UT campus. It was large portions for cheap so it was right up our alley. After that we hit up downtown bars. There was one called the Ginger Man that Jeff really enjoyed and he said there were a lot of beers on tap. We stayed there for about two ours chatting, catching up, and had a great time. Unfortunately Jeff had another early morning the next day, so we couldn't stay out ALL night.

Sadly that was the last time we would be seeing Jeff before we left for San Antonio so we had to say our goodbyes. Thanks for the fun time Jeff!

Aramis

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Grand Canyon here we come!

I don't know where we were when I last posted? Too lazy to check. Hahaha. San Antonio's riverwalk was so friggin cool. Shops and restaurants on this big "river"/moat under street level. The one downside to our time in San Antonio? Although the riverwalk was hoppin, the streets of downtown seemed abandoned! I half expected a tumbleweed to roll by! Granted it was a weekday, but I expected to see more than ten people on the streets!

From San Antonio we made the hike through west Texas (a whole LOT of nothing) to Carlsbad, NM. The theme from downtown San Antonio continued through Carlsbad and all of southern NM, that being isolation and very underbuilt communities. From San Antonio all the way to Albuquerque I couldn't believe (as my companions had to hear over and over again) the state of decay! We drove through communities where more than half of the 6 shops in the town were boarded up. Every building looked like it was falling apart. Fields looked as if they hadn't grown any manner of crop in a LONG time and wouldn't be doing so again any time soon. For me, it was heartily depressing. This and the desert was all we saw for hundreds of miles, granted the desert was pretty cool.

In Carlsbad we opted for the back-country camping near the Caverns. We drove 5 miles off the main road on a dirt track and then hiked into "Rattlesnake Canyon" for a mile to find a suitable camping spot. Despite Ranger Rick's commandmant that we hike a quarter mile off the trail to camp, we plopped down as soon as we saw suitable flat ground. We hadn't exactly come prepared to camp on the 60 degree inclines on either side of us, sorry Rick. I found it rather enjoyable to know that civilization was miles away and that we were all alone! Unfortunately it rained all night and we got a little wet, but if it wasn't for the rain it would have been perfect! Absolutely stunning views (hopefully we will be posting a ton of pictures soon, we haven't since D.C.! Sorry folks!)! In the morning we packed up before Rick could come scold us and headed back towards the Caverns.

They have fallen into my "Greatest Things I've Ever Seen" category with ease. Stunning to see how small you were in relation to what Time had done over millenia! Any further description wouldn't do them justice. They were simply beautiful!

We grabbed another Crossland Extended Stay hotel for 3 nights in ABQ. We made a day trip to Santa Fe, which as the capitol of NM, is TINY. As Timmy hypothesized, they MUST have a zoning law against buildings over 4 or 5 stories. It turned out to be a VERY quaint tourist village with a main drag not unlike Chatham.

ABQ would have been a HUGE bust if it was not for Emma's cousin Danielle. She, her partner Jodie, and their friend Lynn took us on the world's second longest Tram ride to the top of Sandia peaks, which overlook ABQ. The ride was certainly a testament to man's engineering skills. Ascended about 4,000 feet to a total height of around 10,000? All with only two towers in between? Crazy. I say that ABQ would have been a bust, because we travelled into Downtown afterwards and it was a supreme disappointment! We could have missed some great elements to the city, but their main drag was short and underwhelming.

Off to see Phoenix for the day!!

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Day 28 - Rocketman

Well even though the big city of Houston didn't draw me in, I did manage to see something that Houston is famous for. A perk about being relatively far from downtown itself was the fact that there was a lot of open space around us. And question you may want to ask yourself is, "Why would Houston have all this unused land far from downtown?" Well the answer is this land wasn't actually "unused". The land was on the property of the NASA's Johnson Space Center. It just so happens that the space center was literally across the street from our hotel and so after we checked out of our room, I walked over to the center. Emma and Andy went to go read at Starbucks. I think they got enough space stuff at the Air and Space Museum in Washington. But for any physics major this is the Holy Grail of all jobs. This is where all the magic happens.

Unfortunately it was surprising cold that morning. A little overcast and a bit of a cold breeze. I walked over anyway though and got my ticket for inside. The first building was very large. They had all different kinds of exhibits and model spacecrafts, authentic spacesuits, tons of history involving the different missions such as Apollo and Mercury, and a three story play area for the kids!

Because it was so cold out I decided not to take the tours. Not to mention the shortest one was 90 minutes. But If I am ever in Houston again I will surely get a ticket for one. You get to see so much all around the property.

I met Emma and Andy at Starbucks and we started our drive towards Austin. After a couple of cities of booking hotels we were back to staying at a mutual friend. Jeff Handel went to school with Emma and Andy in Chatham. He moved down to Austin shortly after he graduated and works.

We checked out his apartment and he showed us around the neighborhood. For dinner we knew we had to grab some authentic Tex-Mex cuisine. The restaurant was more of a diner but the food was real good quality. It was delicious! After our first experience with authentic Tex-Mex, Jeff showed us some of the "bars" he goes to around town. While he was driving it didn't seem like we were head downtown, but more so driving around a small neighborhood near the city. It turns out the many of the houses that I saw were actually bars. We headed into a house and it seemed like it was completely gutted and redone. It was really, really cool. We headed to what I assumed would have been the kitchen to find a fully stocked bar. The atmosphere was really nice. It seemed like we were drinking in our own personal living rooms...but weren't. It made me think of the episode of Seinfeld when we find out George likes to watch movies in his friend's places cause it makes it seem like he is actually doing something productive.

Well we didn't stay out too much longer after that. Jeff had a big person job in the morning and wanted to talk about things that we would like to do the next morning.

You could even say we were feeling Austin-tacious

Aramis

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Day 27 - Half Asleep

We knew that we wanted to travel to big cities in Texas and when we woke up we started looking at things to do in Houston. We were kind of still tired from our time in New Orleans so our motivation to head towards the city was a little low. Not to mention that the top rated things to do in Houston were a bunch of art museums. So we decided to NOT go into the city.

We spent the entire day reading, blogging, recuperating, and watching the first season of a show called Dexter. I won't get into details but I have to say it's wicked good and wicked addicting.

This day was much needed.

Aramis

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Day 26 - What Good Can Drinkin Do

So we all had such a great time experiencing the nightlife. Others felt some side effects from the night before but we had to be out of the Inn before check out and drive off to Houston. It was sad to leave such a great city, but we left just in time before the sky got overcast.

The best part of the day was when we stopped for gas and grabbed a bite to eat at Subway. We were in the heart of Louisiana countryside and there were these two black women working there. They had a full blown conversation with each other right in front of us while they were taking our order and none of us had clue as to what they said. Their accents were so thick that they could have been insulting us and we would have no idea. It was straight up comical.

The rest of the rest of the day was our ordinary Priceline a one-star hotel, check in and use this time to get back to 100%.

Newton's third Law of Motion states that the mutual forces of the action and reactions are equal. So when I conclude that New Orleans hit us pretty hard, this only means that we must have hit New Orleans just as hard.

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Day 25 - The House of the Rising Sun

Well it was a real great first night in N'awlins (as the locals say it).

Today was all about seeing what the French Quarter had to offer during the day. I know that there a ton of other things to see around the city and that the French Quarter is only a neighborhood of it, but why risk leaving the area that was 1 for 1.

So as I mentioned before the neighborhood was more or less a 15 by 10 block neighborhood. There were lots of restaurants, tourists shops, and to my surprise a lot of voodoo shops....go figure. The sun and weather really made the day. Walking right out of our Inn we headed straight for the French Market. Here there were loads of people selling not so much produce as there was small shack style restaurants. One right after the other. I was even tempted to buy some mardis gras beads but we all know there's no justice there. There's only one true way to get beads in N'awlins, but that was my goal later that night.

Along the way to the French Market we saw this iconic shot. This church is the

St. Louis Cathedral. Not to toot my own horn but this photo is certainly postcard worthy huh? Well I am the son of a brilliant photographer and I also happen to see the EXACT same shot on a postcard in a shop earlier that day.

This is what it actually looked like inside. Very beautiful but a little smaller than what I had expected. Although it doesn't like it's big to begin with.

We kept exploring the French Quarter through the afternoon while eating at a very poorly run restaurant near the church. The food was mediocre. I'm telling you though, you could never get board walking up and down the streets of the French Quarter. The architecture alone will make you feel you're in a different and awesome world.

Now to get to the party scene. After being acclimated to the NEw Orleans style nightlife we turned our party style to endurance mode. Speaking from experience, New Orleans is a type of city (French Quarter to b more specific), that the more you go out there, the better it is. We had our fair share of figuring out which way the action was the first night. Now we taken the training wheels off and upgraded to a ten-speed.

We decided to do the same thing we did the night before. Go to the convenience store, grab a 12 pack, head back to the hotel, starting drinking, have a shower-beer or two, and hit up Bourbon Street. Now I don't know about Emma or Andy but I was going to get some mardis gras beads before I left New Orleans. Even on Bourbon Street it really isn't kosher for a guy to flash his chest to a bunch of people on the balconies looking down on the street....and I certainly wasn't going to do anything south of the boarder either. So naturally I resorted to harassing (verging on begging) the women to throw some beads down. One woman did throw some down. She probably saw me as the "runt of the litter" type and hated seeing all the other people get some beads. Well whether or not it was out of sympathy, I achieved my goal. To be honest I really didn't care it they were out of sympathy, I was already pretty drunk at that point....then again, she probably was too.

The night consisted of bar hoppin' and we ended up ending it with some karaoke. Emma and I did a lovely, and my lovely I mean ugly, rendition to a Rihanna song. Oh well! We didn't care! It was a blast!!!

It was around 3 am when we finally went to sleep. One thing that I really took from the night life in New Orleans is...I can only imagine what the actual Fat Tuesday Mardis Gras is like.

Aramis

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Big ol' Texas

After regrouping in Houston, we headed to Austin to stay with our friend Jeff. He took us to a mexican restaurant for dinner, followed by these super cool bars that were once houses. The whole street is a mixture of bars and houses, very cool idea and atmosphere. As Timmy said "it's like drinking in our living room!". Jesse had told me about them before we left but I did not think they would nearly be this cool. The following day we ventured downtown, while Jeff went to his big kid job, and walked around UT - Austin, and some of the main streets. Andy and Timmy went to a movie, while I did some errands and got my "valentines" some chocolates :) Later for dinner we went to my first Thai restaurant and then one of Jeff's favorite bars called the Ginger Man. Before leaving for San Antonio, we headed back to the downtown area, but just a little South of it to a street of a bunch of funky shops. I really did enjoy Austin, small city, with a young feel.

We took advantage of priceline once again and scored a hotel with a gym and laundry. Today we went downtown, toured the Alamo, Market Street, and the ever so cool River Walk. I had heard from a few people how awesome the River Walk is, but it was definitely cooler than I had expected. San Antonio is a very neat city, also not too big, but I did feel like I was in Mexico

Resting up tonight to head to Carlsbad Caverns tomorrow, some camping, and then onto more of New Mexico.....

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Day 24 -

Dinner the night before with Stephanie was really great and always nice to see a familiar face while being away from family and friends....BUT....today we were driving to New Orleans and we could not be more excited!

The drive was nothing special. Just your average 7-8 our drive, no big deal. The last 45 minutes was by far the best part of it. At that point we were crossing over the Mississippi River and if you have never actually scene the Mississippi an you think it's big, it's an understatement. This river was ginormous. Granted we were towards the mouth of the river, but it was a great experience to give me some perspective.

Also around 45 minutes left, we had a great view of the city! Absolutely beautiful city scape. You could tell it was a small city with only a few skyscrapers but obviously the city had a lo to offer.

We knew that we wanted to stay in the French Quarter during our stay so we did do a lot of research to find a reasonable place for two nights. Driving through the French Quarter feels like

you're in a completely different country. The 15 blocks by 10 blocks that make up the French

Quarter had beautiful ar

chitecture, fun colors, and lots of character. Our hotel just sat a quick walk on the edge of the FQ near the Mississippi. Our hotel was more like an Inn and when you exited the lobby to go to our rooms, we were outside in in a little brick maze figuring out which turn to take to get to our room. Even when were outside, while inside the Inn, I knew we picked a great place. And best of all, it was only 4 blocks from Bourbon Street!!!

So we got settled in and with only two nights in town we had to take every advantage of

this awesome atmosphere. We had dinner on Bourbon St. with possibly the coolest waiter. We tried some local beers and Andy tried a local animal. Andy got an Alligator Po'boy. I tried a piece of it and it really didn't taste that bad. The waiter told us the rules on drinking outside and as long as we don't have glass, everything is fair game. Couldn't have been more thrilled.

We ended up heading back to the hotel to get ready to go out, but not before we headed to a convenience store and conveniently purchased a 12 pack of beer to help us get in the mood of the N'awlins nightlife.

When we hit up Bourbon street, it had a completely different persona than 2 hours before during dinner. Don't get dinnertime N'awlins confused with nighttime N'awlins. The picture on the left was shortly after dinnertime. Even on a wednesday night the street was hoppin'. People of all types flocked to Bourbon to see what all the fuss was about. And for me the "fuss" did not disappoint. Emma, Andy, and I bounced around from bar to bar listening to all the great live bands. I can only imagine what Mardis Gras is actually like.

Forecast for Thursday? - Sunny and 60s!

Aramis

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Texas Forever!

For the uninitiated, the title is in reference to "Friday Night Lights." If you haven't seen this series, go watch it. Holler.

Waking up in Houston, headed for Austin. Super amped to see my main man Spike Studley Dudley and I know Austin is gonna be amazing!

Everything so far does seem to be bigger in Texas. Drove through Pasadena on the way to Houston... The houses were... enormous. There are also a lot more pick-up truck drivers. Interesting query, is this related to an increased need for a "work truck," for towing power, and for carrying space? Or this related to an inferiority complex?

Sidenote: I was expecting to see a vast increase in my church sightings whilst in the South? There has definitely been more, but I'm a little disappointed. I think they need to work on their pizzaz, up their level of flash, up their advertisement of the faith! I can't wait to see a megachurch...

NOLA or Nawleens was amazing. Far and away our most costly stop so far on the trip, but I think my companions would agree, we wouldn't have wanted to do anything differently. The French Quarter is so cool! And Bourbon St is absolutely NUTS! So much fun. I think NOLA easily beats out Vegas for "city of sin" title. Granted, we haven't made it to Vegas yet and Vegas has gambling. However, Bourbon St alone, with its more intimate atmosphere, served to squish the hedonism into tighter quarters. Live music and lots of booze floating around. Hedonism without the big architecture and flashy lights (there was still a lot of neon)? Synthesized or distilled sinful atmostphere? In comparing NOLA to other places we have been, it being a tourist destination was brought up as a potential downside. I have to say though that the two most touristy places Key West and NOLA have been my two favorite places! I'm sure that just like in Chatham, once you are living there and NOT on vacation, your perception changes, but they completely mesmerized me!

This week: Austin, San Antonio, and Carlsbad Caverns are for sure. Most likely something else there on the end of the week!

Updated, city rankings coming up!

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Day 23 - The Nashville Scene

Because we got to get a small taste of Nashville the night before, we took more of a relaxed approach to getting ready. I had blog posts to catch up on, we had email to check, and it felt nice just sleeping in for a change.

The first thing we did when we got into town was hit up the Hyaundi dealership, which was conveniently located a little bit further down Broadway. We already had to get out first oil change! Lots of miles means we are burning the midnight oil sometimes….well, car-wise that is.

Already hungry for some grub Andy and I needed to try out some good old Nashville Bawb-ba-Q. I chose the shoulder and he got the brisket. They were delicious! Yum. Yum. Yum. The weather was as good as we could have hoped for too. The more north we were headed, the more worried I was to be slapped back to the harsh reality that winter was still upon us.

Some other sites we checked out were the Nashville Music Walk of Fame and Centennial Park. The Walk of Fame was cool, but Centennial Park was my favorite thing we saw. It was a huge park and had the only replica of the Parthenon in it. Very pretty.

But my favorite part of the day was having dinner at my friend’s Stephanie’s (Merrimack ’10) apartment. She made us a great meal and it was nice to meet some of her friends and she how she was doing. We stayed there for a couple of hours and Andy, Emma, and I hit the town again.

Tomorrow was another day of driving to New Orleans! Two weeks prior to Mardis Gras, but we were wicked excited nonetheless.

Aramis

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Day 22 - On Broadway

Well we were up and on the road by 8:30. With our sights set on Nashville, the drive really didn’t seem that bad. Before we knew it we were heading up to our “Extended Stay” hotel.

A friend of mine who went to Merrimack currently is at grad school at Vanderbilt so I asked her for some suggestions on what we should do once we got into town. She told us that we got to hit up Broadway and check out the honkey-tonks. Well, when in Nashville!

Downtown Nashville was really cool. Broadway was a strip of bars with awesome live music playing inside. I was surprised to see tons of neon signs. It seemed like it was actually a mini Broadway, New York style that is. So we walked into a couple of bars and listened to the bands play. Even though it was a Monday the bands were very good and there was a good amount of people in almost every bar.

We hit the hay early. There was always tomorrow for more honkey-tonks.

Aramis

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Day 21 - Another One Bites the Dust

Since we booked our campground for Saturday and Sunday night a week before we got there, we kind of overlooked that Sunday was the Superbowl. So we made the group decision to pack up really early Sunday morning head off towards Nashville. There was no way we would make it all the way to Nashville in time to see the game, so we drove to Tallahassee and booked a hotel on the way.

That was essentially our day.

Aramis

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Day 20 - Big Green Country

The morning came quick it seemed, although winds were incredibly strong and there was some rain during the night as well. We all have doing a lot of reading during the trip and for the better part of the morning we just sat outside and read our books with the sound of nature and campers as white noise.

Emma found this great recipe online and said all we needed was bread, peanut butter, and jelly. We scarfed down what will be an all too familiar sandwich by the end of the trip and started looking at a map of all the different walking/hiking trails in the park. We decided on the furthest from our campsite, so it was a bit of a drive to get to the start of the trail. A good part about this was that it wasn’t too far away from cell phone service which we took advantage of. I think my mom would freak out if she didn’t even get a text from me after two days. So I had to get my almost daily quota into the parents informing them I’m still alive.

The trail that we chose was pretty easy. It was literally a straight two-mile path towards the inner bay of the southern tip of Florida. We saw some birds and with the help of another couple of the trail we saw a snake. No alligators though. The boardwalk at the end gave us a nice view of the water in the far distance. Like I said before it was the dry season so what would have been covered with water was just dried up. It was still a great way to see the everglades.

For dinner we took out the gas grill and boiled us some water and made some Ramen noodles and oatmeal....as known as the dinner of champions. The rest of the night consisted of some card playing and some book reading.

The next day officially marks 3 weeks since we’ve been on the road.

Aramis

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