San Francisco, CA

We started the day in Palm Springs, and drove a few miles to Cabazon, where the dinosaurs and restaurant from PeeWee’s Big Adventure are located. Krista said she has always wanted to go there, and hey, it was a little out of the way (like a few hours of driving through the Mojave Desert!) but you have to see things you always wanted to see if you are driving across the country, right?

We toured the dinos – which have recently been turned into the centerpieces of a Creationist Museum, where evidence is presented to refute the lies of Darwin – dinosaurs do not come from birds, just look at them. Humans & dinos DID live at the same time – what do you think dragons are?! Dinos are not extinct. Just check out the Loch Ness monster! Duh!

It was enlightening, to say the least. I would really like to say more about it, but the woman who was staffing the museum got upset that we were taking too many photos of the creationist placards, and asked us if we were going to write bad stuff about them on the internet. Since I told her I wasn’t planning on it, I won’t. I don’t have bad things to say, but the truth – it’s scary. My only comment is that I hope that touring school groups have the good sense to skip this field trip, even if they do have robotic dinosaurs you can ride.

Can’t stop the Velosa-dance party!

Fortunately, the Wheel Inn is staffed by some nice ladies, who were so sweet to us & more than made up for the crazies running the creationist museum and robotic gift shop. We bought some souvenirs and ate some lunch – they even have veggie burgers ! The waitress said “Tell ‘em Large Marge sent ya!” in her best Large Marge voice when we asked about the movie! It was amazing!!!

Krista drove through Los Angeles, which was a huge relief since LA makes me insane! We didn’t even stop at all, and we missed bad traffic, despite my previous experiences in LA traffic. We drove across California and saw a lot of things like big hills, small hills, vineyards, orchards, etc. Krista’s mom told me stories on the phone about how Krista cried as a small child when she was locked in a cell at Alcatraz. I don’t think we’re going to have time to go to Alcatraz and repeat the experience, unfortunately. We arrived in San Francisco, finally! The bridge we drove in on (not the golden gate, but some other bridge) was so gigantic and I was stuck behind a very slow truck. It was really hard to merge fast enough into another lane. We have parked the car and it’s unlikely we will move it again until we leave the city.

Tonight and tomorrow, we are staying in a hostel down by Fisherman’s Wharf. You can see the Golden Gate Bridge from our window, and Alcatraz is visible with a short walk. Krista’s friend totally hooked us up with a sweet free private room, suitable for a honeymoonin’ couple. Tomorrow we plan to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the SF MOMA – many of these paintings haven’t been seen in the US for decades, and who knows when/if they will be back. We’re going to enjoy the vegan restaurants around town, since the home-cooked vegan food my mom packed us has run out, and we’ll enjoy the company of some friends. I can’t believe we’re here in SF already! Time flies! It is really really pretty here, even though we just walked around the Wharf late at night and then came home.

Special Note to my Mom – Alcatraz has an awfully nice lighthouse, maybe you should visit it.

So far, we have traveled about 3,180 miles & still going strong. Thanks for reading!

Palm Springs, CA

Good morning from beautiful Palm Springs, CA. We drove in late last night after dark, and didn’t even realize we rode into a time travel vortex from the 1990s. Oh yes, our fancy Hyatt Regency hotel looks like it was the set for the 1990 hit, Pretty Woman.

More importantly, yesterday was our big big day at the Grand Canyon!! DANG!, that is some kind of natural wonder! Our minds were sufficiently blown by the majesty. Once again, we took 100000 photos but we haven’t uploaded any of them yet. Here are a few quick cell phone shots to tide you over.

Here’s a shot of our shadows holding hands at Grandview Overlook.

Here we are, being newlyweds, at the Grandview Overlook.

We also saw a meteorite crater yesterday (50,000 years old! DANG!) and the Little Colorado River Gorge, which was our “training canyon” to “warm us up” for the majesty of the real big thing. Our theme yesterday was obviously GIANT HOLES IN THE GROUND. We tried to see the Sunset Crater but just plain ran out of time. We watched the sunset over the Western Arizona mountains. Today we’re driving north through California, from Palm Springs to the Bay Area, and we have a few exciting stops planned along the way.

We miss you so much, but I can’t believe we are more than halfway through this trip. I never want it to end! Even though I’m tired of the 3 outfits I have, I am really enjoying living in my car with Krista.

Arizona

We made it safely to Holbrook, AZ. between the Petrified National Forest (we didn’t see this due to the limited visibility in the pitch black night) and the Grand Canyon. Today was a pretty magical day. We covered about 800 miles today, one of our longest driving days, but we had such a great time! So far we have traveled appx. 2,192 miles and visited PA, WV, VA, TN, AR, OK, TX, NM, and AZ. Yes, 9 states in 5 days!

We had a great time in Oklahoma visiting my parents & brother, the dogs and horses. I got to show Krista the sno-cone stand in my hometown, where we got shaved ice in the flavors of Purple Rain & Silver Fox. We visited my old high school & middle school & the public library where I read way too many books as a child. It was remodeled recently, and looks amazing! I wish I could have gone inside, but they are closed on Sundays. It was especially nice to spend some time with my folks, and for them to meet Krista! My mom made us so much vegan food! It was like an all-day vegan feast, starting with vegan pancakes for brunch, and delicious stuffed butternut squash for dinner. Also, she made blueberry muffins, brownies, and tomato/basil pasta salad for the road — what a lifesaver to have easy, delicious accessible vegan food when two hungry newlyweds are crossing the meat-loving Southwest. Thanks, mom! We already miss my family so much, thankfully they are visiting in a few weeks so we don’t have to miss them for long. Krista even got to see all the baby pictures she’s been waiting for, including a baby Jessica wearing a “Where’s the Beef?” t-shirt.

Socks was especially sweet to me. I’m sure he missed me a lot.

Krista said, “Please don’t let them kill me!” when the horses ganged up on her.

My father & the special little lady in his life.

We left early this morning, and drove all the way across Oklahoma & watched it turn into the high plains of the West Texas panhandle. We stopped at a museum in McLean, TX that was half Route66 museum, and half “Devil’s Rope” (aka barbed wire) museum. Yes, we went to a barbed wire museum, and it was pretty awesome actually. We tried to go to an antique mall in McLean, but our plans were foiled by their hours – we were also blocked from visiting an antique mall in Clinton, OK too! Why can’t the antique malls be open on Mondays? We did, however, see the first Phillips 66 retail outlet in Texas – so cute!

We continued on to Amarillo, heading south on HW27 to see the Huge Pair of Legs and the Cadillac Ranch, both art projects from Texas millionaire artist, Stanley Marsh 3. I had such a fantastic time at both of these spots, and Krista took some amazing pictures! We stopped at Walmart – we don’t usually stop there but we were ill-prepared and there was nowhere else around to shop – to buy spray paint, and added our own “JUST MARRIED” graffiti to the Cadillac Ranch. It was more fun than I could have imagined, high up on the list of recommended sites.

We crossed into New Mexico, and were speechless for mile after mile as we just stared at the endless, completely flat landscape. We stopped at Tucumcari Mountain to take some more photos. We drove towards Albuquerque and the Sandia Mountains at sunset. It was impossible to take a picture that did this sunset any kind of justice, but it was without question the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life. Previously, the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen was from the top of a Mayan temple in Tikal, Guatemala, so my standards are pretty high!

We drove in the dark for a lot of hours, missing most of western New Mexico much to our great sadness & dismay. However, we want to go to the Grand Canyon early in the morning, so we needed to make it across the Arizona state line, which we did! We’re staying in Holbrook, AZ tonight, and hope to leave for the big hole in the ground early early early! Then we’re driving southwest to Palm Springs, where we’ll stay the night tomorrow.

OH! I am so tired. I promise to write more about all the weird stuff we’ve been up to, and some time after we get home we will update with tons of photos & more stories! xoxoxo

Oklahoma!

Yesterday was amazing! We woke up in Memphis & realized our hotel was right next to the mighty silvery pyramid of Memphis. We had coffee at the Bluff City Coffee, and walked around downtown Memphis to see the Civil Rights Museum, which has memorialized the exact site where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. We didn’t have time to go into the museum, but seeing the death site was a very moving experience.

We headed across town to Graceland, the house where Elvis Lives. It was super touristy, with lots and lots of lines and one kazillion shops – Buy Elvis’s photos here. Buy Elvis Teddy Bears Here. Buy Elvis in the Movies Here. Buy an Elvis T Shirt Here. And a Milk Shake. The tour was a self-guided audio tour, and I will admit fully that I enjoyed it more than I thought I possibly could. The Jungle Room? Holy macaroni, it was amazing! The stuff from Lisa Marie’s nursery was really cool, too. I feel like Graceland does a good job of making Elvis seem like a real, whole person beyond the American icon.

We ate a late lunch at R.P. Trax and savored the BBQ tofu before we head into the most boring stretch of the drive – out of Memphis, through Arkansas (boring and flat) and through half of Oklahoma. Fortunately it was dark for much of the drive so we didn’t have to stare at the boring, boring boringness of Arkansas. We did have a delightful experience in a Phillips 66 Kountry Xpress, where the whole town was gathered to watch a band cover songs like “Earth Angel,” and got soda from the machine with flavor shots – cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper? Yes please! We also stopped for some Sonic: America’s Drive-In. I, personally, loved Sonic growing up in the southern parts of our nation, but Krista had never had it. The Java Chiller with a Sonic Boom (translation: blended coffee milkshake with an extra espresso shot) was surprisingly not too sweet, and pretty tasty.

Krista drove the home stretch into Oklahoma, Native America, and then I finished up the dark dark drive on the two-lane “highways” until we arrived at my parent’s house (Krista’s IN LAWS cause, hey, we’re married) around 1:30am, and fell asleep for many hours. Now, we are planning out our day. We’re resting here for a day, and then we’re going West!

Tennessee Mountain Home

Our fourth state so far, we have really fallen in love with Tennessee. The rolling Smoky Mountains are sweet, and a few of the tress are changing colors, like bright freckles against the old green mountains. We listened to pretty much entirely Dolly Parton & old bluegrass music yesterday. We woke up early in Pigeon Forge, TN. We ate “lighty” breakfasts at the Old Mill Restaurant, which were super-carb breakfasts that came with grits, biscuits, muffins, homefried potatoes, AND french toast! Carb coma! We drank plenty of coffee & headed to Dollywood.

Dollywood was everything you might imagine it would be. There is an amazing museum there of Dolly’s life, the Chasing Rainbows Museum, with tons of old pictures & costumes & stories. It was definitely my favorite part. We the Waltzin’ Swinger so many times, got wet on the river raftin’ ride, and Krista won a plush Scooby Doo for me with her incredible Skee-Ball skills. The park was very very commercialized and over-produced — not a big surprise, but fascinating to see anyway. We bought several Dolly for President in ’08 bumper stickers. We have a ton of pictures.

We drove to Gatlinburg to see the Salt and Pepper Museum — the only one in the world, with over 20,000 s&p shakers on display. It was really extraordinary – we were both amazed by the collection. It is inspiring to see someone who loves something so much go to such measures to maintain her collection. Andrea Ludden delivered the same verbatim speech to us that she gave everyone else who came in while we were there – “Very good artists have worked on the pieces. Look for the creativity. And they are part of history.” I asked her what her favorite was and she acted like I had just punched her, “No favorites, there are too many.” That woman has spent too much time there because she was *salty* but the merit of the collection redeemed the experience for us.

Driving across Tennessee, we saw a gigantic SUV with a big McCain-Palin sticker on the back! I told Congress, “thanks but no thanks.”

We drove into the Central time zone, which is an experience Krista has never done, and we watched our cell phones reset themselves. We gained an hour! I forgot about that feature of driving west. It didn’t make us any less tired, but it did make our hotel arrival an hour earlier. We wanted to stop various places in the middle of TN, but we just didn’t have enough time.

We stopped in Nashville at a gigantic Whole Foods to refill our personal, bodily gas tanks. The car was getting 41mpg, but our stomaches were empty. We had delicious salad and fruit and a gigantic iced latte, and then got back on the road. That was all that we saw of Nashville. It was, uh, beautiful. At night. In the dark. In the whole foods-yoga studio-plaza shopping kind of way.

In Memphis, we literally got off I-40W and drove 1 block to our hotel, where we promptly fell into a king-sized bed (much much bigger than a queen!) and didn’t even watch the huge flat-panel television.

Today, Elvis awaits. Also, we don’t have anything planned in the way of small roadside attractions between here and Oklahoma, so if you know of anything within a few miles of I-40, please feel free to call our cell phones & give us directions so we can stop. Thanks!

Oh! I forgot

I have been talking in this funny (to me) Sarah Palin voice, especially repeating, “I Told Congress Thanks but No Thanks on That Bridge to Nowhere!” I think it is hilarious, but Krista may tire of it pretty quickly. So I may or may not be at liberty to perform my impersonation when I see you.

Tennessee Dispatch

Good morning from beautiful Pigeon Forge, TN! Yesterday we left Pittsburgh after saying my final goodbyes and cleaning my apartment to a previously unimaginable level of cleanliness. It was a lot easier to leave than I thought it would be. Krista packed the car like the final level of Tetris, and much to my amazement & surprise, somehow everything fit. We are not uploading pictures every night, but we will come back and add some later! Believe me, we have taken a lot of pictures.

We drove south on 79 to 81. We stopped at an antique mall somewhere in West Virginia & bought a pair of salt & pepper shakers – two little bears with their arms wrapped around each other. SO CUTE. We stopped at a Sheetz gas station, where we had a surprisingly delicious iced soy latte (who knew sheetz even carried soy milk?).

We stopped at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (formerly the Weston State Hospital), which is a 150-year old Kirkbride building built to expose the mentally ill to “beauty and light” as a cure for their mental illnesses. We took a tour of the first floor, including the civil war wing, and the wing for the criminally insane. It was really fascinating – from a mental health perspective, to see how treatment had evolved over the years, from the perspective of historical buildings & struggling start-up non-profits trying to preserve things other people would rather knock down. It was really cool, anyway, if you are ever in Weston, WV.

We also stopped outside of Fayetteville, WV, at the New River Gorge National Park, home of the New River Gorge Bridge. The bridge is one of the world’s longest single-arch steel span bridges and was built in the 1970s by two Pittsburgh-based companies – US Steel & American Bridge. Wow! It is long. I mean, it is really really long. I almost wish the outlook had been on the OTHER side, so that I didn’t have think about how high up we were when we finally drove across it. Bridges make me a little nervous to drive on, which I admit is silly since I lived in Pittsburgh for so many years – that city is home to more overwater bridges than anywhere else in the world, yes, even Venice.

Now we are in Tennessee. We slept in Pigeon Forge last night, very near where Dolly Parton spent her formative years. Today we plan to visit Dollywood (“The Pilgrimage”) and make our way across this beautiful state. By tonight, we should be in Memphis. GRACELAND! What day of the week is it? We have no idea! It is so fun to just drive and laugh and see beautiful and weird things together.