Bryce and Zion

I haven't been able to write for a few days since we have been camping near these two national parks.

Bryce Canyon was unbelievable. We descended for about 5 minutes into the canyon and proceeded to take the Navajo Trail, which led us through high walled forested areas. We then took the Peek-a-boo Loop. This is a three mile hike that changes continuously in elevation 1,700ft. The from the top of the peaks you could see for miles.

Zion Was very different from the other two national parks. The high gray mountains covered in green forestry are separated by the Virgin River, which flows through them. The trails here were not as impressive as the other national parks, but the sights overall were cool.

Each of the national parks we went too were different from one another and I liked all of them for their own qualities.

Two days ago we went to Las Vegas and yesterday we went to the Hover Dam and the Grand Canyon. Today we are headed to LA and Santa Barbara. I will write about them later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Arches National Park

I ate scrambled eggs for breakfast at the diner next to our hotel and I liked them. This is a really big deal, because normally eggs and the thought of eating them make me want to vomit. They didn't have cheese in them and were very plain, so that might be why I liked them. Also, they were cut into strips rather than chunks. I think that this played a role in my approval as well.

We spent the day at Arches National Park yesterday. We started with a 2 mile hike up to delicate arch, which sits atop a mountain. The wind was so strong it felt like you might get pushed off the side of the mountain. Near the arch itself though the wind died down a bit. It was absolutely amazing.

We then went to Devil's Garden hiking area where we went on a 4 mile hike to see several arches. We had to scale several rock formations and cross an enormous rock fin. We had about 4 feet of rock on either side as we crossed the 300 yard rock fin. There was a drop off over 50+ feet on one side and 150+ feet on the other. The strong winds made this stretch of the hike intense.

We went to the Moab Brewery for dinner, where we all evaluated our sunburns. I diligently applied sunscreen and avoided sunburn everywhere, except for the back of my legs which quite red this morning. Butros and Matt chose to live life on the edge and not apply sunscreen. They were extremely red last night, but Butros assures me that they will both be "bronze and statuesque " by the weekend...we'll see.

We're leaving for Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park this morning, where we will be camping for the next two nights. After that We are headed to Las Vegas.

San Antonio, Roswell and Road to Utah Pictures

San Antonio continued, Roswell, and Road to Utah

San Antonio was such a fun city. We spent the day first at the the Natural Bridge Caverns followed by the Myriad Botanical Gardens. The caverns were humid, fun and amazing. After descending 180ft below the surface our tour guide began to explain the different rock formations. She was promptly interrupted when a foreign couple began to yell about some stalagmite they believed to resemble Grimace, from the Ronald McDonald gang. A southern gentleman, the real salt of the earth type, gave them the biggest "SHHHHHH!" we have ever heard. Matt began to laugh and could not stop to save his life, which caused Butros and me to laugh as well. Later on the trip our 12 year old tour guide asked us to refrain from laughing because it was making her laugh too, which was unprofessional.

We then continued on the a wendy's where Butros was disappointed with his chocolate frosty.

In an attempt to cheer Butros up we went to the botanical gardens, which was also great. We struggled to make it out of the cactus and succulent plant area alive, but thankfully we did.

That night we went to a movie theater to watch the new pirates movie, but it was predictable. the movie theater served beer and food which sounds like more fun than it was. It was more off-putting than awesome.

The road to Roswell started with a 2 hour overhaul of Roseanne's breaks and roters. We absolutely could have died if we didn't get this fixed.

Roswell was alright...the road to it is desolate and depressing. we saw 2 tumbleweed and nothing else for a solid hour and a half.

Camping was a lot of fun. we left the canopy off the tent and saw the stars before falling asleep. We left this morning for Utah, and the initial drive was also boring. we saw 1 tumbleweed and 1 genuine ghost town for the first 3 hours.

We got lunch in Albuquerque at a college place near the University of New Mexico. Albuquerque is so much different than Roswell, in a good way. The road from Albuquerque to Green River, UT(where we are staying for the night) was beautiful. As we left New Mexico and entered Colorado we could see the mountains in the distance and green plants appear.

From Colorado to Utah the scenery was unbelievable. I know that my pictures do not do the images justice.

Tomorrow we are going to Arches National Park and possible Canyonlands National Park. It will be amazing.

San Antonio

Today before leaving Oklahoma City we stopped at the Oklahoma City bombing memorial. It was a nice memorial, and very interesting.

We then left for San Antonio, which was seven hours south. We stopped for lunch in Fort Worth, TX at a Mexican restaurant and the food was delicious. After checking into our hotel we went down to the river walk. The San Antonio River flows through the city and canals were dug to help with flooding. We took a boat tour of the river area, which is lined with trees, waterfalls and fountains. Overall, a great experience. We are planning to go to the Alamo tomorrow morning, and then head off to Natural Bridge Caverns near the city. We may continue on after the caverns to another botanical garden or there is a drive through safari near by.

I'm very tired right now, so I'll elaborate and post more pictures tomorrow.

Oklahoma City

Oklahoma City is much more than I expected. I didn't think that it would be as big of a city as it is or have as much to do as it does. It is really weird to think that the entire surrounding land is extremely flat and primarily farm land.

We went to the Myriad Botanical Gardens today when we first got here. It was pretty cool, there were two main zones a desert climate and a tropical one... all contained in a giant cylindrical greenhouse. We then walked around the Oklahoma City Arena where hundreds of Thunder fans were congregating for the NBA playoff game that was there tonight.

We then went over to a restaurant called Republic, that is a "gastropub". They have 500+ beers, with 190 of them on tap. I started with a Bridgeport Kingpin Double Red which is a beer from Oregon, and pretty good. I then had from Montana, a Big Sky Moose Drool ale which I liked the best. To stall until halftime of the Playoff game we ordered another round of drinks, and I got something called a Snakebite, which is Harp beer mixed with hard cider. I wasn't too thrilled with this combination, but I drank it.

We then went downtown and found an amazing man made canal system that flows throughout the restaurants, bars, and entertainment areas of the city. This was impressive to say the least.

Our hotel is very nice tonight, although the room is a smoking room. The smell isn't actually that bad so it is a good deal.

We didn't end up going to the arch again this morning. We felt that it would take too much time away from Oklahoma City. Tomorrow we leave for San Antonio. I'm pretty sure that we are all very excited, as there are so many things to do there. We're staying two nights, which should give us plenty of time to explore the city.

Oh also, we passed some gems on the way from St. Louis to Oklahoma City. There was the Jesse James Wax museum, which I'm pretty sure was someone's house and the world's largest rocking chair. Had we more time we would have gone to both.

St. Louis Picture Highlights

St. Louis

We started the day today at the Parthenon in Nashville. There is a full scale statue of Athena holding Nike, along with casts of the pediment marbles. It was impressive. We then left for St. Louis, MO.

St. Louis is amazing. The day absolutely had its ups and downs, but St. Louis made up for it. The Arch is HUGE. We started at the St. Louis Zoo, which is FREE! It is in the running for the best zoo I have ever been to. I was less than a foot away from a live penguin and nothing separated us except for air. We tried to ride an egg shaped pod to the top of it, but it was booked for a private party. Who knew you could book a national landmark for a party? We had dinner at Schlafly brewery. It was delicious. We each got a sampler of beers, which had six in total.

After witnessing a robbery at a gift shop(a guy shoplifted 2 bottles of alcohol and the cashier chased him down...the guy got away). We decided to go to Laclede's Landing, an older area of St. Louis. We ended up at a very weird fusion night club...alone in a basement. After some searching, we moved to the upper rooftop patio where Matt and Butros had a few cocktails. The hotel tonight is a huge improvement on the last one. They are both Best Western, so we determined that it was really Nashville that was crummy and not all Best Westerns.

We are going to try to get tickets for the top of the Gateway Arch for tomorrow morning before we go to Oklahoma City, but it might not work out. We are going to go to a botanical garden designed by I. M. Pei either tomorrow night or the next day in Oklahoma City.

Nashville

We went to Jack's BBQ last night for dinner. It was a small place that was very inexpensive. Afterwards we walked around the downtown area. It seemed like there were two main streets of restaurants and bars and then commercial buildings. We walked down to the country music hall of fame, and the symphony building(where a homeless man appeared out of nowhere and aggressively shook my hand and would not let go(i was FAR from alright with this)). We then walked back to our car where we all sanitized our hands.

We attempted to walk to Centennial Park where they have a scale replica of the Parthenon. Halfway there(after walking for about 35min) we decided to turn around and drive to it later. It is much bigger than I thought it would be. We are going to go back this morning to look at it in the day time. We stopped into two bars that were playing live music. We then left around 9 or 10 and went back to the hotel.

Today we are going to head to St. Louis, MO. The weather is supposed to be hot and scattered thunderstorms. It is only a four hour drive, so we'll have a lot of time to do things there. Taking a tram to the top of the Gateway Arch is only ten dollars, so I think we are going to do that.

Stops and Drive to Nashville

the stops we're going to are below:

Charlottesville, VA
Nashville, TN

St. Louis, MO

Oklahoma City, OK

San Antonio, TX

Roswell, NW

Moab, UT... Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park

Bryce National Park, UT

Zion National Park, UT

Las Vegas, NV

Grand Canyon

Santa Barbara, CA

LA, CA

Big Basin National Park(Redwood Forest)

San Francisco, CA

Yosemite National Park

Salt Lake City, UT

Yellowstone National Park

Mount Rushmore, SD

The Black Hills Mountains, D

Minneapolis, MN

Chicago, IL

Cleveland, OH

We just got into Nashville around 3:30pm Central Time. The hotel is fairly very inexpensive, but all things considered the inside of our room is pretty good. There may or may not be a police sting going on in the hotel, as there are 2 troopers cars in the parking lot and fully clothed officers are in a room down the way. We'll let you know if anything manifests from that.

We're thinking of going to Jack's BBQ on Broadway tonight. We are assuming that this is in the downtown Nashville area. Should be fun!

Leaving Syracuse and Charlottesville, VA

Packing and leaving Syracuse went well. Everything we had fit into the van with plenty of room. See pictures below.

The drive to Charlottesville went well with some rain. We had dinner at my aunt's house which was delicious. My cousin got us free tickets to Monticello...Thomas Jefferson's house. It was a good trip early this morning. We then proceeded to go to a sporting goods store, dollar store, and gas station for last minute supplies and an oil change.

We went to AAA to pick up our trip tiks and ended up changing our route a little bit. We decided to avoid potential flooding the in Mississippi region and New Orleans. Instead, we are going to head to St. Louis then Oklahoma City both for a night before going to San Antonio. We're headed out to dinner tonight to a microbrewery called Blue Mountain with my aunt and cousin which should be nice.

Leaving for Nashville, TN tomorrow morning.

Road Trip Eve

After a long day of last minute planning I am almost packed. Matt and Butros, I assume, are also almost packed. Fascinating material so far... We realized that we are actually staying two nights in our first stop, Charlottesville, VA. We already have tour tickets for 9:00am on the 18th for Monticello, thanks to my cousin Mark.

While checking out the tent, we discovered a few starbursts were left in there the last time it was used. They had melted into the mesh screen and the floor of the tent. We decided to purchase a candy free tent, since we would be spending time in bear country in California and Wyoming. Which actually turned out to be a really inexpensive decision.

We keeping hearing that New Orleans may or may not be flooding, which should make our drive and stay there fairly interesting.

We plan to leave by 9:00am for Charlottesville, which means that we need to pack the van("named" by Geneseo friends Roseanne...and will be referred to as such from here on out).

Until Charlottesville...