lost in america

WE DID IT! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

2009-07-08T22:29:00.000-07:00

july 8, 2009
2:28am we did it. we made it in one piece to albany. and arrived at the exact same time we left san diego 5 1/2 weeks ago. ironic? crazy? yes. it seriously seems like a minute ago we left san diego. 7,960.7 miles exactly to travel all throughout america. i accomplished my goal of driving the entire way so i am stoked. its 54 degrees out. beyond exhausted. best trip of my life and a summer ill never forget. i have always wanted to drive across the country but never did i expect the trip to be this amazing and awesome. this trip has taught me to really let things come as they come. everything happens for some reason. and even the worst of times (driving through nebraska) will wind up being one of our favorite stories. life handed us a bunch of lemons and we drank that lemonade the entire way. i couldn't be happier that i had a great friend like erin along the way with me. we hit 33 states and traveled almost 8,000 miles. i feel so lucky and blessed that we got to have this journey and experience all the things along the way. now that i feel i have seen america to its fullest, i am ready to take on a new and even bigger adventure: backpacking through europe........ all i have to do is save enough money and buy a backpack and here we come.... all i have to say is 'europe. watch out. you are going to have no idea what hit you when we get there"

to be continued.......

"camping in maine"

2009-07-08T22:23:00.001-07:00

july 7, 2009
9:46am leaving jakes. little bit behind schedule. that seems odd. us behind schedule? off to maine to go CAMPING!!!!!!! yayayayyayyaya! so excited.
11:40am we're in maine already. not sure how that happened. got here pretty quickly. we're at 7,540 miles and its 60 degrees. WHAT? pretty much freezing. just stopped to get my second redbull of the morning and firework sparklers. why not? now off to find a camping spot!

2:03pm well its negative 8 degrees and pouring rain here. i guess we should have checked the weather forecast for maine and not just assume since this week in brooklyn was going to be sunny and warm, the whole east coast would be. we're retarded. we know. decided to get lobster here and go camping in vermont. in hopes that its not raining there too. "excuse me" i look over and this lady is trying to get into her shiny new bmw. oh im sorry...i was just on my hands and knees searching the car for pennies, nickles and dimes trying to add up to $3.00 for parking. no worries. we found enough. we're finally going to get this lobster. yay.
2:57pm just got done eating the lobster. thing was HUGE. a bit scary but really good. i only like the claw and tail though. the middle part with guts all over it was disgusting. after finishing the lobster we tried to put him back together again. sometimes i really wonder how old we are. off to vermont. green mountain national forest ... i think?
3:19pm another redbull and ring pop! grape! best one of all! candy makes me way too excited for my own well being. passed a surf shop and thought we warped back to california for a second. surfshops and surfboards always put a smile on my face :)
4:32pm somewhere in new hampshire. not sure if we're going the right way. raining still. driving til the rain stops so we can set up camp. 7,628.9 miles. 59 degrees. omaha by counting crows is playing. feels like we're back in the middle of america. ahhh love it. we're not though. we're in new hampshire. we can make believe though.
5:24pm well how the heck did the 101 just turn into a dead end? where ARE we? rain seems like it might be stopping. our lives are jokes. dead end. 7,672.9 miles. 61 degrees. 2 degrees warmer than before. sweet. do i hear 65? 65? .... how about 70? 70 sold to the two freezing girls not knowing where the hell they are going. if only weather were an auction. id be more broke than i already am.
5:31pm still at the dead end in the process of trying to take a picture i lost the ipod controller..again. after much struggling, finally got it. also put our lantern together during this as well because i thought having the latern on still in broad daylight would help us find the controller faster. it didnt. but it saved us from putting the latern together in the dark.

5:36pm still here. why?
5:41pm blue skies and back on track. thank god.
6:36pm getting off the 101 and entering the unknown....taking a path to who knows where.... a little scared but excited to see what we may find
6:40pm well that was lame. it was a dirt road leading to home in the woods. cool story. we did however see some white horses which was cool. and a ups truck. sweet. moving on...
7:26pm vermont welcome sign. 7,744.5 miles. 66 degrees. warming up. im tired.
7:55pm well, its raining here in vermont now. guess we left maine for no reason...trying to figure out where to go. ps i accidently mistook a wooden moose for a real one.
8:05pm still raining.
9:22pm well it stopped raining in vermont and we were getting very close to the campground in a town called durkas. we got about 5 feet from into the town near the campsite and what do we see but a huge circus tent in the middle of some sketchy field. it was named 'circus smurkas' that was it for us...no way are we camping in a town called durkas near something as scary as circus smurkas. dont feel like camping with clowns tonight. sorry. new plan. we're driving to lake george. we'll be safe there. im glad camping in maine turned into driving to lake george. oh boy. 7,815.4 miles. 58 degrees. oh no its getting cold again. sweet.
9:39pm after changing and cleaning out the car in a parking lot we're finally on our way to lake george.
11:04pm made it to lake george. not sure how. or why. but we're here. stopped at a valero (thought those were only in california, guess not) getting a few beers then finally FINALLY finding a campground to camp at. jesus.
11:12pm i think we're set. cooler. check. ice. check. 12 pack. check. 2 coozies that say lake george. check. 2 fish nets. check. a coloring book. check. are we missing anything else? 'man i need a beer'-erin just stated. yea i think we both do. holy cow.
12:00am exactly. we found...um...a place to 'camp out' we are sitting under a boating dock with our beers, ipod player and lantern of course. this may lead us into a night in jail. we'll see.
12:18ami forgot. we saw a boat called 'the minne-ha-ha" reminded us of our trip into minnesota. made us laugh again.
12:48am just saw a boating patrol. kind of forgot those existed. hope they don't see us. oh no.
sometime around 1:00am "so should we go to sleep or just stay up and leave at like 5am?" as soon as this question came out of my mouth it was proven by both erin and myself that what we were doing was absolutely absurd. we are freezing surrounded by bugs being eaten alive in a private boating dock. we could stay the night but i think we have had enough adventures... lets not push our luck. we both decided to get back in the car and just travel the last 40 miles to albany and sleep in beds...... ps. at least we had our lantern.

slight intermission from the roadtrip; albany & brooklyn

2009-07-08T21:40:00.000-07:00

june 29, 2009 through july 2, 2009
after pulling into where my parents live and sneaking around the corner, trying to make all of their neighbors be quiet to try to surprise them...my mom had looked out the window and seen the whole thing happen. now im not sure if she ran down the stairs or jumped out the window because she was down there within a matter of 2 seconds. super woman? perhaps. then followed my dad. they were EXTREMELY surprised! plan worked. we were excited. but little did i know I would be in for a surprise. out walks my two cousins; amanda & lyndsey and my aunt! best surprise eeeeeeever! at this point i think the whole 'neighborhood' was out gathering around meeting and greeting and whatnot. after being on the road for over a month it was a little overwhelming so we headed upstairs. the next few days were very relaxing and also very fun, filled with amazing food, good stories, and awesome margaritas! the entertainment of my dad trying to turn off the smoke detectors was also one of the funniest things ive seen in a while. coming to albany was a good choice. it was just what we needed. by the fourth day we felt re-cooped enough to get back on the road and head BACK to brooklyn. we do everything out of order with no sense of direction and no plan of action. its the way to live though i swear. nothing can go wrong when you have no plans.

july 2, 2009
12:30pm leaving albany and going back to brooklyn. the car is so empty. its so weird. we bought a tent yesterday for our adventure in maine. so excited for everything and the fourth is on saturday...yay!
3:40pm stopping in a town called ho-ho-kus to eat. the name of this town is slightly terrifying but i'll go with it.... we're in new jersey? how and when did we get to jersey? more importantly WHY are we here again?oh god...
4:37pm we're almost to brooklyn, make this rain stop nowwwwww.
6:08pm easypass. not paid. account low. yep we're back to this again. earlier we went through one that wasn't even an easy pass, didn't stop and looked back to see the lady's head sticking outside the window. almost to brooklyn...didnt i say this 2 hours ago?....damn traffic.....ahhh
6:23pm in chinatown. last time i checked this was not in the agenda. where ARE we.
6:52pm lost in a park. lost in the damn park right next to my sisters house. we literally can't get out.
6:56pm still lost in the park because the gps can't even save us. its telling us to take turns into trees. what is going onnn.
7:17pmwe found parking right away. right next to my sisters apartment. sweet. as soon as we pulled in the spot, it starts pouring. of course it does. why wouldn't it? so now we are relaxing in the car til it stops...or at least calms down. this is FUN. cmon!!!!
7:27pm still pouring. why? please make this stop. can the subway station come to us? rain rain go away
sometime after 8 and before midnight: finally stopped pouring and we were able to book it to the subway. with little direction we found jeffs house where my sister and everyone were. i did however get out of the subway and try to hail a cab to the address when the cab driver said we were only 1 block away. oops. played some games and got a little competitive like i usually do with games (especially trivia- i have to know everything before everyone!). finally called it a night....thank god, we had a yankee game to attend to the following day. yankee game was fun, and hot. we won. of course we did.
fourth of july my parents had came down to brooklyn to celebrate the fourth of july. me and erin found ourselves in the kitchen cutting apples and limes. probably not a weird sentence to most people. but me and erin's fourth of julys usually consist of waking up @ 5:30am, in the kitchen making jello shots and being a little intoxicated by noon...if not earlier. so this was VERY strange. but it was nice. nice to remember the fourth of july for once. the past few years our calendars have been july 1st, july 2nd, july 3rd, july 5th. i feel a few days younger since i got that day back that i normally miss! we had a great bbq and walked through the park where i was complaining the whole time like a little baby because i just couldn't do it. i had no energy to walk through a park. im glad there was some entertainment along the way that kept the walk interesting. after the bbq we ventured on the rooftop of my sisters apartment where we got to see every surrounding states fireworks go off. it was awesome. my mom had about 20 panic attacks though every time we got "too close" to the edge. "too close" to her is roughly 25 feet from the edge, give or take. chill OUT. (sorry ma). after fireworks we came inside to just watch the rest on tv and play catch phrase. i once again had to know every answer and try to be the best! all in all brooklyn was a great time...it always is. good company and good drinks can never not be a good time, eh? but once again we've had enough relaxation and we are ready to hit the road again.

july 6, 2009
10:53am leaving brooklyn and back on the road again. before heading to boston we have to get the oil changed for the third time this trip. we're at 7,334.8 miles. its 75 degrees out and sunny-yay!
3:14pm we're in providence, ri. of course we aren't in boston. change of plans as always. waiting for jake to get home. in the mean time finding some food. we're starving. super nice out. providence is cute.
sometime after 5:30pm after guzzling every drink that was on the menu plus a pitcher of john dalys its time to go to jakes. surprisingly we are barely buzzed. not really sure the explanation for that one.
later that night we went out for a little while with jake, his roommate, and a few of their friends...it was fun times. night ended early because me and erin "wanted to go to bed" remember that trick we do? somehow convinced jake to leave the bar and go get food with us. huge pitas. thankfully im not a huge fan of pitas so when we got home to eat it i only had about a bite or two before i realized i was just drunk and eating what would taste like cardboard any other given time of the day. good night. we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.....camping trip up in maine.

how the hell are we in new york right now?

2009-06-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

june 25, 2009
12:21pm i just asked erin what the date was and she replies, dead serious; "oh yea, i forgot the date changed" yea erin. just because WE lost one night of sleep and think two days was one, does not mean everyone else in the world did as well. woke up at 9:30am. i thought my head was going to explode. any other way than straight forward my eyes looked i felt throbbing pain. its really not the feeling you want to wake up to after being awake for nearly 2 days straight the day prior. i was laying in bed trying to force myself to fall asleep last night (worst thing to do, ps) when my sister texted me. this is at 12:23am last night, which was putting me at 42 hours of being awake. i told her my problem, not being able to sleep & she texts me saying, "just don't "try" to sleep. lay down. count your breath til you hit 1,000. just rest" when i read it i almost died laughing. 1,000? as dumb as this sounded i was desperate so there i was in bed, counting to 1,000. not even sheep. just numbers. 1, 2, 3... well i only made it to about 180 or so. it really works. i would dose off and then realize i was still counting and i swear my order of numbers at around 180 went as followed: 180, 187, 182, 180?, 180?, 182....finally fell asleep. i can count past 180 in real life. now we are leaving for baltimore, md since the plan of going to virginia beach got scratched due to lack of sleep & insanity. ah. having another red bull. the one i had this morning, WHILE, yes, while...taking a shower clearly wasn't enough. 1:39pm stopped to get gas. beef jerky and yet another redbull. decided to get the double sized one. its been an hour on the road and i am already on my 3rd, sort of 4th since its a double redbull. most people's bodies are made up of 90% water. i swear my ratio has gotta be 15%water 75% energy drink. probably not the healthiest of things. back on the road. 92 degrees. and we only have around 40 miles til we hit 6,000 miles. holy shit.
2:15pm 6,000 miles somewhere in north carolina. ps. every year growing up we would go to myrtle beach, sc. before we reached south carolina we would see signs reading "SOUTH OF THE BORDER". it always looked so fun and exciting but we never pulled off to see it, we just would get really excited to see the signs and drive past it. well. finally saw "south of the border" i wish i never have. all of my childhood dreams were ruined because this place was the biggest dump i have ever seen. run down hotels, broken carnival rides, dead clowns....well the dead clowns part isn't true but it might as well be. so disappointed. 3:02pm just put an S and a U to replace the N & R to make it to be south carolina instead of north since we missed that sign. we are not normal, fully aware.
3:18pm leaving the welcome to virginia sign. off to maryland.
6:10pm maybe change of plans? might go see my cousin tim in dc for the night and then head to baltimore in the morning. just talked to sonya. guess we're going to dc. ps. michael jackson just died. of a heart attack? what the heck?
6:42pm apparently farrah faucet and ed mcmahon died too. seriously what is happening. stuck in traffic. accident ahead. oh no.
9:17pm washington dc is the most confusing city to try to get around in. it just took over an hour to drive in circles to find a parking spot. i really hope we are in the correct area where my cousin is..never a dull moment that's for sure. 9:39pm still sitting in the car, not really knowing what to do or where to go and then remembered we have jack in the car. jack daniels! we weren't going to open it until we got to new york but drastic times call for drastic measures. thankfully we parked across the street from a vendor that had diet cokes. it took about 4 trips to finally get the diet cokes because they didn't take card and then i didnt have enough cash but after finally finding enough change in the car we were able to get one diet coke to split. so here we are parked on the side of Constitution St in washington dc, drinking jack & cokes. what have our lives turned into...tim please call soon!

june 26, 2009
8:24am dead. actually dead. not alive. have to drive to baltimore. not sure how this is going to happen. seriously? i can't. i really cannot do this right now. all i want to do is sleep. ahhhhhhhhhhh.
10:19am well we made it exactly .8 of a mile. not even a complete mile. had to pull over next to a lake right near the lincoln/washington memorials. if we had any shame at all at the beginning of the trip it is ALL gone at this point. we took a blanket and a pillow, yes this is in front of tourists and local dc citizens walking by us. . . and we slept. right next to the lake. it actually turned out to be the best idea in the world. we both feel so much better now and are ready to finally continue on to baltimore to see my most favorite person in the entire world sonya!!!! its been two long horrible years since ive seen her so i am sooo excited!!! 11:20am well we're finally FINALLY on our way. seriously? shell gas stop. scrambled eggs, toast, coffee, tea and oj. ha ha. yea right. red bulls and beef jerky, we're ready to go.

june 27, 2009

10:26am leaving baltimore and going back to dc today to walk around. baltimore was a ton of fun. i got to see my bestest friend in america and i love all of her friends there! we went to an amazing seafood restaurant down the street from her apartment and then went to an orieoles game later in the evening. before we went to the game we went to this bar (if i can even call it that) it was the size of about 90 bars put together. it was called pickles. i know why they call it that. its seriously like we are all pickles in a jar. you can barely even move! its crazy! but fun! we weren't at the game very long but we did find a nice cop & a nascar worker; i was able to convince them to let me actually sit in the nascar car, get a name tag (john was my name for this adventure) and wear the helmet. also convinced the cop there to let me where HIS hat and let erin play with the walkie talkie. the things we get away with i'll never understand why we get away with them or how they even occur. but its always a good time. well back to dc and i have no idea where we'll wind up after that..well see.

12:05pm made it back to dc. we're going to walk around for a bit and then possibly drive down to brooklyn to surprise my sister for the night. still up in the air. i just realized my bag is ridiculously heavy so i am about to pull a few unnecessary things out; in the process of doing so i realized what exactly is in my bag: 3 empty sunglass cases, a water bottle, a san diego charger bead, 3 pairs of earrings, a broken bracelet, makeup, the single key, my 'john' nascar name tag, the orieoles baseball game ticket, nintendo mint case, receipts, bottle of vikodin, makeup, an empty mini wallet, my actual wallet, a clutch, a DREAMCATCHER, a SLINGSHOT (seriously? the reasons why these 2 items in particular were in my bag i will never even know the answer), a pack of hair ties, headphones, a belt, and two hot sauces. i am clearly prepared for any occasion or tragic event that might occur. ridiculous.

2:44pm done "sightseeing". our version was awesome. the first sightseeing picture we took was me in a tree. we saw a few sculptures and decided to get drinks. these drinks were actually the best drinks either of us have ever tried. we must have been in lousiana for one too many hours because we actually asked for one to go. we forgot you can't actually carry around booze on the streets in any other normal place. oops. tried to find the lincoln memorial but got frustrated and left. decided to go to brooklyn for the night and surprise my sister. she'll be stoked.

4:13pm just stopped at a rest area. best day in america. they had a dip'n'dots VENDING MACHINE. most amazing thing i have ever seen in my life. i obviously got one. soo good! about 150 miles away from new york. ps. what the hell are we doing?

8:05pm just got to brooklyn. i called my sister to see what she was doing to try to surprise her. i told her there was a huge rainbow and she should go out and see it. she asked me where i was and i told her i had no idea and i had to go. im really bad at surprising people. . . or maybe i wasnt. she later told me she got up from her couch, looked outside because she thought we were there but all she saw was an old man. she said me telling her there wasn't a rainbow outside wasn't the thing that made her think anything weird, it was me saying i didnt know where i was that did. 10 minutes later we arrived at her house and she was SO surprised and SO happy! mission accomplished!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sometime around 10:00pm we hopped in the cab. i looked in the front seat area. there is a BABY suctioned to the window. not a real one, clearly, but still. scariest thing in the world. the cab driver had no explanation to what it was or why it was there. thank god the cab trip was 2 blocks. scaaaaary.

sometime around midnight me & erin once again can't hang. we had to go home. left everyone at the bar and somehow found our way back to my sisters apartment. erin passed out right away but all i could think about was pizza. walked about 10 blocks and finally found some. YES! got a calzone and 4 slices. by the time i got back home, erin woke up and was in the mood for pizza too. no ranch so we settled for tartar sauce and italian dressing. the things you will settle for when your drunk is sometimes disturbing.

june 28, 2009

12:36pm 'try to be here by 1:00pm' ali told us hours ago. that gives us exactly 24 minutes to make it from brooklyn to philly. pretty positive that isn't going to happen. on the road again. of course.

3:07pm in philly with ali! yay!

june 29, 2009
2:23pm a month ago we left. crazy. leaving philly and going to albany for a couple days to regroup and get our things together. heading to brooklyn again on thursday and continuing up north after the 4th of july. will we ever get to albany and stay in albany? probably not. traveling america is just way too much fun.

4:15pm red bulls give you wings. red bull 5 hour energies give you an engine.

7:00pm 7,000 miles EXACTLY we are in albany. this is the weirdest feeling in the world. how the hell did we make it here? i dont understand.............going to surprise my parents :) YAY!

who needs sleep these days?

2009-06-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

still june 23, 2009
8 or 9:37pm (not sure w/the time change and all) stopping to get subway (energy..we'll need it) decided to drive through the night until we get close to savannah ga. it should be close to sunrise by then. sleep on the beach for a few hours (saving $ by not staying in a hotel tonight) and then continuing on. hopefully this plan works. at least we still have a few more adderall to last us through the night.
12:14am pumped more gas because the last shell we were at was complete mayhem. after watching/slightly being mesmerized by the lightning for 180 miles we pulled off to a shell to get gas. im not even sure if we can even consider this stop a 'gas filling stop'. to put this into better perspective; everything im about to write happened all withing 35 seconds. i went to finally change into sweats (which i had been dying to do for 4 hours now) and when i went into the bathroom the door slammed behind me and i got startled thinking it was thunder. i opened the door and realized it wasn't thunder and went back in to find a HUGE mouse so i said screw it and left again. then heard REAL thunder and all of a sudden a torrential downpour rainstorm-hurricane occurred at the exact same moment this happened a hydrolic pimped out ghetto buik rolls up with four dudes with grills. legit grills. metal grills in their mouths and were being obnoxious. erin got so scared she pulled out the gas pump mid pump and yelled at me to get in the car and speed. i, like an idiot, listened. since i accidentally got back on the interstate heading west instead of east and erin, still in a panic told me to turn the lights off and take the next exit without using a blinker. she was convinced they were following us and actually said "what if they pull up next to us.....and try to show us....their GRILLS" i couldn't help but burst out laughing. seriously erin? finally "lost them" and got back on track. heading east and the storm got out of control. i seriously couldn't see shit but was trying to drive as slowly and safely as possible without showing any sign of fear because erin was still in a panic and could still not breathe. "this is just all too much for me at one time" i slightly felt bad but was dying laughing in my head. i'm usually the baby and she is the one smacking me in the head to shut up. clearly she experienced her first pouring rain storm. onto georgia. here we come. another adderall and splitting a red bull trying to make it through the night.
12:35am just got pulled over for the second time this trip. once again we're both dying laughing because this is the funniest thing ever. he comes up to the window and tells me i was going 65 in a 45 and then asks where we're going. at this point who the hell knows where we're going. i tell him we're trying to get to georgia and that we were coming from new orleans. he then looks in the car and says "looks like you guys have everything in there but your kitchen sink" i laughed and said 'sorry i am retarded' and he leaves to his car, comes back (a lot faster than the first time we got pulled over) and says we're good to go with just a warning. SWEET. another warning? this is amazing. i am beginning to love cops. i said thank you soooo much and i also told him i loved him. slightly inappropriate. oops.
3:45am yes. still awake. stopped to get yet another red bull, water and beef jerky. im still not tired. neither is erin. this is amazing. almost sunrise (i think) cant wait. yay.
4:50am still going strong! almost on the 17 N (coast highway) so we're excited about that. almost light out ps. is georgia a state? clearly we dont know. we entered in the dark. left in the dark. never got a picture of the welcome state. damnittttt...
6:11am sun is out and we are almost to our beach.

sometime around 7:00am-ish we finally get to where we think the beach would be. we were wrong. it was a private neighborhood where the guy watching the entrance explained to us how to get to the public beach. so we continue on in the direction he said. cannot find it for the life of us. at this point we both are about to die because we have been driving all night with no sleep. we NEED this beach. where ARE you. continue on, were lost for about 45 minutes and finally...something magical happened....
11:09am i dont even know how to explain this one. we just got back from a private beach that we somehow managed to get into because the guide felt so bad for us because it took us almost an hour to try to find a beach. this place was a palace and we of course felt like queens of the world. why wouldn't we? we had a private beach. when we were planning on driving all night and 'sleeping on the beach in the morning' we thought we were going to sleep on the sand which would have been no problem at all. at that point i wouldn't have cared if someone gave us a 10X10 cubicle of sand with ocean noises in the background. we just needed to sleep. this place had nice padded lawn chairs and umbrellas. seriously? where are we? how did we get here? do we ever have to leave? well we didn't even get any sleep but got to relax and now have a sweet tan. dolphins were swimming by and we also saw a SHARK--- ankle deep. mind you we stepped foot/ankle deep into the same water. ....a shark. so close to the shore. are you KIDDING me? not going in the atlantic ocean ever again thats for sure. 2:11pm still wide awake. still haven't slept. drank coffee. i think im going to drink a rockstar next. and then a redbull. and then probably another coffee and 15 adderal. gonna try to make it to virgina beach tonight. this is seriously insane. leave it to us to drive 22 hours and not sleep and continue to drive.

2:59pm just spent three HOURS at piggly wiggly, a south carolina local grocery store, to get free internet. we both hit a state of delirium. before leaving and heading up north/east i decided to surprise erin with 8 redbulls & 2 huge pixie stix....we need all the energy we can get right now. good to go? lets hope so.

3:08pm still in the piggly wiggly parking lot. we have literally lost our minds. finished our pixi stix and a red bull in 2 seconds flat. could we get a ticket for being so sugar high? i hope not..

4:30pm i feel awake again, yay!....never got a picture with south carolina either oh my god we are on a really bad streak with missing these signs...getting north carolina for sure...

7:00pm we're about to die. need to stop. pulling over & staying the night at holiday inn. the only holiday i am going to be celebrating is sleep.

10:30pm seriously? we are nuts. we are STILL awake. we've been awake now for 39 1/2 hours. its time for bed. i don't even want to know what tomorrow is going to feel like. we have to make it all the way to baltimore, md. we only made it through ONE state today. this is absolutely pathetic. good. night.

why head north when we can still head further down south?

2009-06-24T09:46:00.000-07:00

june 20, 2009

(first of all i would like to say happy yoyo pops day) i got him a card but of course forgot the most important part, well maybe two important parts. first of all i didn't fill it out and secondly i didn't mail it. i did however spend 10 minutes finding the perfect card and let him know that one existed and would be brought to new york upon my arrival (whenever that may be). all he said is to mention it in the blog. which is what this is. happy fathers day yoyo thanks for being the best yoyo in the world! aren't you glad you're going to have your ridiculous daughter back in your life without being 3,000 miles away?...yeah i thought not! see you soon!

moving on...

1:14pm so. once again. we are wayyyy beyond schedule. i dont even know why we make plans. we never ever follow them. we were going to leave around 4:30-5:00am so we are now a good 9 hours late. awesome. high five to me & erin. on the road & off to nashville, tn.
1:54pm i literally can not even move. i had to make erin drive which i am actually depressed about because that means i didnt drive the WHOLE WAY. i finally made her pull over after 20 minutes because i couldn't stand the thought that she was in MY seat, in HER car. part of me thinks i should turn around and go back to get those 20 miles i missed but the dying part of me says forget it and move on. we're already 9 1/2 hours behind schedule we dont need to add another 30 minutes to that.....moving forward....
1:59pm someone is selling PIES in the middle of intersection. where are we? who does that?
3:38pm stopped @ shell. need to fill up the gas. also need rockstars. need adderal. need new eyeballs. perhaps a new liver while we're at. i'm exhausted. we were nearly sleeping earlier when a huge tire piece smacked the windshield. i thought we died. of course. i always think we're dying, dead, on fire, etc... erin clarified for me that we were both still alive so i continued to drive, a little shook up, but alive. thank god. we're almost 4,000 miles in (3820.5 as of right now) and we stopped going east & started going south. good plan. this is going to be one long trip that is for sure. anyways onto nashville. minh is going to kill us we're taking forever.
5:45pm buying KFC to have at the kentuky border. so ridiculous but so necessary. the mac & cheese i ordered was obviously also necessary. cow. moo. oops. almost to kansas (wow. as i type this out reading from the journal i realized how dumb i am. KENTUKY. not kansas. these damn K states.) its hot as shit i am melting.
7:23pm stupid kentuky welcome sign was on a bridge that we definitely could not stop on unless we wanted to get killed. we just spent 45 minutes looking for something, ANYTHING with "kentuky" on it. got lost @ university of louiville and finally settled for a picture eating our kfc chicken strips next to a kentuky derby poster plastered against some run down side of a building. whatever. at least it has the word kentuky in it. and cornol sanders even made the picture. off to nashville finally after that detour.
8:33pm just stopped to play with the big dino on the side of the highway. it was actually a bit scary to go up to because it looked like it could come to life at any second. thankfully it was a tyrannosaurus and they have small arms so even if it WERE to come to life it wouldn't be able to pick us up it would just run around looking like the big retard it is.

9:17pm finalllllllllllly made it to TN. we were going to take a picture with the welcome sign but as soon as i opened the door i heard 1,000 rattlesnakes and decided to go with erins first instinct and stay in the car. almost to minhs! yay!
10:03pm made it. pulling up to minhs

nashville, tennesse
we arrived at her boss's downtown condo which was way too nice for someone like me to even stand in. we came in with the intent of going out to see downtown nashville. started drinking moonshine (southern alcohol which is about 180 proof and amazing) and before we knew it me & erin were passed out. oops. can we hang in ANY state besides california? we really are not living up to our reputation of fun party girls in any other state we visit. next day we spent all day at the pool they have on the rooftop. the view of downtown nashville from the top was amazing, you could seriously see everything! it was also a beautiful day out which made life even more amazing. we drank almost 5 bottles of moonshine which led to me turning into a chocolate disaster. the chocolate cake minh had bought erin for her birthday was put ALL OVER ME by erin & minh. since i was a bit tipsy this seemed like an amazing idea. finally realized i looked like a jackass (what else is new) washed up and somehow managed to make it downtown.

first bar minh tried to sign me & erin up for karaoke. when the 2 people before we were supposed to go were as good as professional singers we decided to book it. i looked in the mirror and realized i had pretty much broken out in hives and couldn't figure out what the hell had caused it until i realized it was probably the chocolate that was all over me earlier. thank god it went away shortly after noticing it appeared. i got lucky. since me & erin had got to nashville we had been talking about crawfish so we haddddd to get it. and we did. lots of em. about 900 of the little guys. drinking moonshine all day in the sun and then trying to eat crawfish is a really bad/amazing idea. nashville is a fun time but very very hot. we decided the tomorrow on our way out of town would be our sight seeing day!

june 22, 2009
10:30am just stopped at country music hall of fame. we were a little broke after the weekend so we didnt exactly go INSIDE. we just took pictures in front of the sign. so lame i know. trying to find the grand ole opry. yay. ps somewhere between yesterday and this morning we (we meaning ME.) managed to lose one of the car keys. thank god we have a spare and thank god erins arm is long & skinny enough to be able to fit inside the crack of the window where it was locked. or else we would have been staying in nashville a lot longer than we expected. almost leaving and with a slight change of plans we're continuing down SOUTH to new orleans. we were sitting on the deck and erin said she wanted to see the deep south. i shrugged my shoulders and said thats not a bad idea, im down. when i called my mom and told her we were going to go to louisiana instead of up north and she replied with 'alyson.....thats a really...GOOD idea.' i knew any decision we made from here on out was clearly a GOOD idea. thanks ma.
11:13am shell. rockstars. and beef jerky. clearly breakfast of champions. i think we're ready for louisiana. especially with the cowboy hat i stole in a drunken stooper last night. erin actually purchased hers. i just put mine on my head and walked out, along with a sling shot i also stole. im not usually a kleptomaniac but i had one too many drinks in me and apparently thought i was king tut and could do whatever i wanted. so with our cowboy hats on we really fit in now, adding in the fact we frequently are singing 'song song of the south sweet potato pie and i shut my mouth" yes we fit in for SURE. we would probably be better off just shutting our mouths. we are loving the south minus the 813 degree weather that is engulfing us.
11:18am just had to turn around and go BACK to shell. erin threw out the western side of the map in the atlas that we have been marking everywhere we've been. im going to kill her. but it is fun to watch her have to dig out of the trash can for it. alright she's found it. back on the road.
12:45pm got off exit that read "jack daniels distillery" we HAVE to go.
1:06pm finally here. took a 45 minute detour to get jack's house. it would have been nice if the sign had warned us it was 45 minutes away. all it said was "jack daniels-next right" uh. next right. then next left. then go up 98 stop signs. another. right. yea. it took forever to get here. but we're here so we're happy :)
1:23pm leaving jacks. we're on a first name basis now. now that i learned how he died i figured it was only appropriate to throw his last name out the window when talking about him. for those who don't know how he died, which is probably everyone, here is fun fact of the day: he died by kicking one of his safes in his house trying to get it open and got an infection in his foot, died a few days later. that sucks jack you should have just rubbed some whiskey on it im sure that would have made it better. we bought a bottle in memory of jack and his infected foot and also because we are alcoholics. back on the road & almost to alabama!
3:22pm 4,323.9 miles. just got to alabama. 96 degrees. the south is HOT. holy shit.
3:39pm filling up gas again. i think we were born to be travelers. we're really good at it. alright back on the road again.
4:30pm well once again erins stupid gps has led us to a starbucks. a deserted starbucks. is this a joke? i'm sure you are real sorry starbucks. next time you decide to relocate will you please notify the gps companies. thanks. 4:37pm found one. a real one. thats up and running. thank god.
5:32pm really right now? stopped to get kfc in alabama and the lady a) wouldn't even let me order more than one thing without trying to cut me off and stop the order @ mashed potatoes and b) was SO RUDE at the window. i am confused. why would you be rude? i hate rude people. smile why don't you. anyways. back to the road. i think we're close to mississippi.
6:58pm 4,585.5 miles, 94 degrees. at mississippi. rattlesnakes plus other scary weird noise making creatures is keeping us locked up in the car again & just taking the picture of the welcome sign without us in it. dont feel like dying in mississippi.....mississippi moon wont you keep on shining! cant believe we are here. what are we doing here again? about 3 hours until louisiana! yippee!
8:05pm gas stop. its SO hot out still. 88 degrees. seriously? continuing on... we're keeping ourselves entertained currently by making music videos. featuring us and only us. normal.

june 23, 2009
10:25am on our way to new orleans. we only have about 20 minutes since last night our adventure of trying to find a safe looking hotel brought us roughly 15 exits closer to new orleans than we had originally anticipated. its 99 degrees here right now, this is no joke. the south is serious about their heat. alright here we go. ps only 219 more miles til we hit 5,000 miles since leaving san diego. shouldn't we be 1/2 way across the atlantic ocean by now?
10:51am at the post office waiting for erin to get out. i guess post offices are busy everywhere in america. even lousiana. funny. bored though. here comes the story of the hurricane. just sitting here with bob dylan waiting.....waiting......erin where ARE YOU. i hope she didn't die in there. ill give it 5 more minutes then ill go check on her. too lazy to go now. i am a bad friend. so im sitting out here and there was a mercedes with the plate reading "big ed". my family calls my uncle big ed; mainly for the fact that hes about 8 feet tall but i wanted a picture so as i was zooming in and snapping a HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE man walks out and towards the car. i half assed apologized and he just glared at me looking like he was going to KILL me. maybe erin should be worrying about me out here. holy cow. oh good here she comes, shes alive. off to new orleans.
11:06am gas fill up at shell. water. 2 rockstars. gobstoppers. GOBSTOPPERS? i forgot for a second that i am 23 years old now and no longer should be allowed to publicly get so excited about candy. im sure ill have 20 cavities and a few chipped teeth by the time im done with this box of wonderful candy goodness.
1:15pm just leaving bourbon street in new orleans. its so hot here. we ate the best crawfish in america. we're going to go see some more of new orleans and then head off east to florida and then up north to georgia. talked to our friend lauren earlier and she told us we had to go to this bar called florabama. you can drink while in two states. sounds amazing and unavoidable, we HAVE to go.
2:35pm after leaving bourbon st. we went into a few towns where you could still see all the damage hurricane katrina left. it is so sad to see places still so effected and untouched since the tradgety. its crazy to see all of these places that you read & heard about on the news, in real life. really say but an eye opener for sure. we left lousiana and stopped off at a NASA sight. unforunately it was closed today. i would have loved to go in the room where you can float. i told my dad i was going to the moon. all he said back was "make sure you bring a lot of food, they dont have much up there" knowing me & erin, us saying we are going to the moon next probably isn't even that hard to believe. anyways, off to florida.
3:20pm back in mississippi
3:54pm back in alabama---what the hell are we doing? honestly?
4:35pm 5,000 miles. 101 degrees. almost to florida. this is literally NUTS. erin just saw "florida beaches ahead" sign and says 'well theres something i never thought id see' haha. it so hot here too. and muggy and humid. i forgot how much i absolutely LOVE this weather. ha. ha. ha. oh man. humidity you are not my friend. almost to "FLORABAMA" for a nice cold beer. i need one right about now. im melting again.
5:10pm just got to florida. 90 degrees, cooling down a bit thank god. now trying to find this florabama bar oh boy..
5:54pm made it to florabama. thank GOD. almost died from a bolt of lightning on the way that was literally 2 feet from hitting us. but we made it. and its sunny over here. time for a beer. just one. we...i mean i, have to still drive later.
6:29pm just leaving florabama...thank you lauren! so cool! they have a toy-claw game with real lobsters in it. funniest/coolest thing ive ever seen! we drank one corona light each--- in TWO states at once. guess which states. ha. we also realized we've been to alamaba state line 3 times in the past two days. crazy. a little. we're continuing on EAST. across florida (well see how far we get).. seeing how once we hit tallahassee we lose an hour.

chicago. we're fans. big fans.

2009-06-24T09:34:00.000-07:00

we finally arrived to chicago a little bit later than expected and fell in love with it immediately. it is the cutest little city alongside of lake michigan which could easily be mistaken for an ocean its so big. once we got to hollys place we decided to illegally parked the car. why wouldn't we? after all erin is convinced since her car is from wyoming she wont ever have to pay a ticket outside the state of wyoming. im waiting for the day she gets pulled over and taken to jail for too many outstanding tickets. come to find out by the time we left we had gotten a ticket while there. erin laughed and said 'we'll have to keep this as a memory'...oorrr....you could pay it. first night we went out to dinner & had a few margaritas & called it a night pretty early. the next morning we woke up and decided to be ambitious and go for a run that turned into a walk around downtown chicago, which is probably one of the most amazing places ive ever seen. holly, erin and myself fell in love with every guy that jogged down the path along side of us and declared which one was 'ours' by blurting out things like "RED SHORTS" "YELLOW CAP". 5 years old. clearly. headed back to holly's place and got ready for the night, she brought us to Houndstooth, the coolest bar in the world! every thursday is country night so we had the time of our life.seriously. im moving to chicago. i love it. everyone loves the cubs like we love the chargers in san diego. happy friendly fun drunk fans! its great. love it. seriously i am obsessed with this place. last day in chicago was erin's birthday. it started out pouring rain and we took full advantage of it and went out and played in the puddles/rivers that developed in the streets.we bought a bunch of cubs gear (for when we move there. have to be fully prepared. i love my yankees dearly but seriously...i could become a cubs fan haha)...me & erin loved chicago so much that we decided to bake her birthday cake and decorate it cub style. i know we should be hospitalized for how ridiculous we are in most situations in life but we are just having fun. drank mimosas and baked the cake. we never actually ate the cake but we made up for that by ordering 25 dollars worth of dunkin donuts every night we stayed in chicago. for erin's birthday we met up with few new cubbie friends (im just calling everyone from chicago cubbies)im not sure how long we are going to last in new york because we really really really want to move there. im sure opinions could change once we see the winters but i might be able to handle it. its seriously best place eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeever! thank you holly & megan for showing us the time of our lives.

of course we revolve our roadtrip around beer.

2009-06-24T09:23:00.001-07:00

june 17, 2009
10:40am check out is at 11:00am. we were supposed to get up at 8:00am, work out, shower, and go to milwaukee & continue onto chicago. of course this does not happen. we wake up at 10:30am, 10 minutes ago, realize we have no time to even shower. REALLY?, new plan? this is so absurd but obviously have to admit to it. find the cheapest hotel in milwaukee so we can at least have somewhere to shower. these showers better be worth 50 bucks. oh my god. seriously so ridiculous. why why why. why can't we be normal people. ever?
11:22am we have been driving around trying to find a starbucks for the past 20 minutes. erins grandmother gave her a gps before we left wyoming, we swore to only use it for in town things (such as starbucks, hotels, etc...) we were only going to use an atlas for the rest of our road trip, it is our goal. so far we have done just that. with no mistakes. (yet). but this damn gps brought us to two abandoned places in the middle of nowhere, third times a charm. erin ran into target and i just saw a lady walk out with starbucks. hallelujah. off to our milwaukee hotel..haha
1:31pm just leaving days inn. all showered and ready to go. no it was not worth the 50 bucks but whatever. lesson learned. set alarms that you will actually commit to. time to buy our milwaukee beers then finally off to chicago. dear lord this is out of control.
2:15pm i am SO EXCITED! just got 2 milwaukee bests & 2 miller lights. going to miller park and then finding a milwaukee sign. best trip ever.
2:38pm just drank 1/2 the miller light @ the park it's so cute here. contemplated on going to the game today but its at 6pm and we told holly we'd be there around 5:00. off to find the milwaukee sign.
3:07pm drank the milwaukee best @ the milwaukee population sign. just a few sips. mission accomplished. i love wisconsin. today is FUN! sun is shining. we are happy girls. finally FINALLY off to chicago. 82 miles away we are stoked. pumped on being stoked.

dont ever be mislead by the word 'castle'; you will only get hurt in the end.

2009-06-16T20:28:00.000-07:00

june 12, 2009
12:11pm @ shell station. still in laramie. 18 missed calls and one text messege reading "bo, tried for 3 hours, sorry i am done' from my dad. last night i asked him to wake me up at 6:30am in hopes we would get our laundry done, pack/organize the car & be on the road by 8am. yea... that didn't exactly happen. after 13 shots; including my new favorite, a 'shot-ski', (an actual ski with a bunch of shots on it where people all take it at the same time: AMAZING!...i now have to figure out how to bring ski's w/me to every bar from now on), the plan of waking up that early was completely ruled out and out of the question. i of course got too drunk to tell my dad to forget trying to call me @ 6:30am. so of course 4 hours later we are finally on the road. off to south dakota, here we come, yay!
12:33am still here. still at the shell station. lost the remote control to the ipod. are you serious? it was JUST here. on my LAP. where the hell did it go. i can't do this. ... off we go....
1:46pm still have not found the controller. onto south dakota. i think we hit nebraska soon. i hear its boring. so excited.
3:07pm i see a hitch-hiker. sorry buddy, no room for ya.
4:00pm both me & erin feel like we are going to die. we should not have gone out last night. pulled over to lay down but the first time i did, a frog literally jumped in my face and the second time i laid down i realized i was surrounded by red ants and nearly died. this is horrible. actually horrible. this is NOT fun. nebraska, i am blaming this one on YOU.
6:25pm still in nebraska, not sure if we'll ever get out. we actually had to stop, pull off onto an exit and find something exciting to do. and something exciting is just what we found; GO CARTING! we once again turned into the 5 year old children that we love turning into, parked the car, ran out with our camera as well as the video camera and ran to buy 2 tickets, hopped into line and then got as i would like to describe it; verbally assaulted by the 18 year old guy running them. not only did he glare at us (i think he did anyway. he was wearing sunglasses so im not 100% sure but i can only imagine he was), yelling at us for forgetting to give him the second ticket and then having to fix my seat belt because i couldn't figure out how to put it on. sorry dude, i dont ride go-carts on a daily basis. relax. its NOT that big of a deal. just let two almost grown adults have fun and act like kids. we did have fun though. and off we are again, back on the road!

june 15, 2009
south dakota; finally got there after 10 long hours traveling, we finally reached south dakota; stayed with two friends, bj & derek. we had a blast! first night we went out to the bars; a little different than what i had imagined south dakota to be like. in my head i pictured a bunch of little bars, chill & westernish...nope. completely wrong....next day was so much fun. a day out on the lake on the boat! so so so much fun. i could live on a boat! love it! last day (today) i spent a good portion of the afternoon re-organizing the car which was a complete disaster. this was because the morning we left wyoming we were still so shitfaced the thought of 'packing' seemed so mind-boggling, we instead threw EVERYTHING, loose, unfolded, unclean, into any spot in the car it would fit. after giving me fifteen anxiety attacks between wyoming and the past 2 days in south dakota having it look like that i finally organized it. it took 2 1/2 hours to complete that task. so imagine what it looked like beforehand. so worth it though. i can finally breathe again. no longer are the tanktops mixed in with bathingsuit tops as well as ugg boots and sandals. everything has its own place. so much better. a little ocd i know but its so much easier. ill never let it get like that again. i also found the remote control to the ipod in the process of organizing so that was a p lus. anyways, after that whole fiasco we went bowling (i am becoming a fan of this sport; yes its a sport. when you wake up the next morning sore. that is considered a sport) then dinner on the lake & got back and made a bon fire. before we went outside bj & derek surprised me & erin and came out wearing those pjs that are full body & have patterns on it, little attached feet socks as well. i almost died. funniest thing ever. had some smores and re-lit the fire rougly 52 times because it kept going out. oh yea i also fell over the log and almost killed myself trying to roast marshmallows. all in all yankton, south dakota was a great time...off to see some more of america tomorrow morning.

june 16, 2009
7:36am am i reading the clock correctly? are we really 24 minutes AHEAD of schedule? this is nuts. this never happens. off to wisconsin, land of cheese. before we head there though we have to go back to the 'welcome to south dakota' sign. we didn't stop there on our way in the other night because we were convinced we were in a horror movie and thought we might get murdered. if you haven't personally driven through nebraska at 11pm you wouldn't understand. we have pepper spray, but i dont think that would have saved us. anyways, off to do that and then on the road again. we were going to drive straight to chicago but we want to stay in milwaukee and drink 'old milwaukees'. we are insane, we are fully aware of this. on we go ...or off we go?
7:58am gross. just leaving the s.dakota sign. smells like crap here. so gross. 2 minutes still ahead of schedule. good BYE nebraska forever. you'll never see my face again. (as you can see in the picture below i am clearly disgusted by these states)
9:25am just hit minnesota. its freezing and still gross out. where the hell is the sun? this is ridiculous. almost 3,000 miles, still nowhere near our final stop haha, speaking of haha we just crossed a town called minnehaha, made us laugh.
9:43am stopped to fill up at shell. erin got a coffee, i got a rockstar cause the monster i tried to drink earlier made me feel sick. i also got a $1 luck buck. lets see if i won..........didn't win, stupid.
10:37am we hit 3,000 miles a little while ago, about 60 miles into minnesota. we should be in new york by now. for some reason this doesn't surprise me that we are still 1/2 way across the country. i hope it gets nice out soon & i want to get out of this state asap....stopped to get waters...continuing on....
12:39pm still in minnesota. still raining. please. get. us. out. i am not enjoying this rain. adderall is making life a little bit better but not as awesome as i can imagine it with the sun shining down on us. almost to wisconsin...CHEEEEEEEESE. yay!
1:46pm just got pulled over @ 1:35pm to be exact. in minnesota. i would get pulled over in minnesota. just my luck. seriously? luckily the officer was extremely nice (and cute). when he came to the window me & erin were hysterically laughing, which made him sort of laugh as well...with us. telling you, he was a really cool cop. he asked for my drivers license and i handed it to him and asked him if i was speeding and how fast i was going. his response: "well...when i first met you, you were going about 80....then you started speeding up to about 86-90 once i clocked you" i am seriously the biggest idiot. i honestly didn't even see him behind me. i said sorry and told him we were just listening to music loudly and had to go to the bathroom really bad. honest. at least i didn't tell him i saw a ghost this time (which was still the truth when that had happened years ago) at least he didnt think i was on some sort of drug, he went back to his car and came back 6 minutes later and said we were good to go....with only a warning. SCORE! NO TICKET! HECK YEA! were only about 10 miles away from wisconsin ill make sure to stay at 70 mph until we get there. once we cross the state line i believe i am a-okay with new state police & new warnings. or at least that is what i am hoping because there is no way im staying at 70 mph the entire rest of the way, we'll NEVER get to new york.
2:16pm 2,222.00 (exactly) miles in. @ the wisconsin welcome sign. we made it. yay. about another 200 miles til milwaukee. weeee! im having cheese & beer for dinner.
3:55pm don't worry. we turned around at exit 55 to backtrack to exit 12, approx. 45 miles BACK WEST because 'CHEESE CASTLE" sounded beyond exciting. all i could picture was a huge castle made of real cheese; somewhat of a heaven for me. i love cheese. i pictured it like a willy wonka chocolate factory but a cheese version. there would be cheese bears and cheese canes, cheese drops and a river of flowing melted cheese that we could swim in. well this was NOT the case. just just pulled up and both of us are nearly in tears. one of my eyes is tearing due to the fact that i was completely mislead by the word 'castle' and my dreams were crushed and the other eye of mine was crying because i was laughing so hard. i had mixed emotions. this place is a fucking dump. yea, real castle. maybe a swiss cheese castle, a real hole in the wall. guess we're going in. this is seriously a fucking joke. disappointed but actually not surprised. these sort of things always happen to us.
4:06pm at least the cheese was good. we only had 3 flavors to choose from. we did however get a football cheese cutter. alright, back to to journey to milwaukee. never be deceived by cool words like castle. you'll just disappoint yourself in the end.
9:59pm me & erin have actually become queens of milwaukee, wisconsin. thank you triple a for getting us an awesome room at the hilton with two HUGE PLUSH beds. this probably doesn't seem THAT exciting to anyone else but to us, we feel like royalty right now haha. after living in a storage unit for 2 months and then a car for the past 3 weeks, this is the best thing ever! erin has once again turned the room into antarctica. not sure when we became polar bears but apparently somewhere along the trip we must have transformed ourselves from humans into them. guaranteed tomorrow morning she is going to need red-eyes and i am going to need to be rushed to the hospital to have blood pumped into my body due to hypothermia...AGAIN. i seriously can't feel my nose right now. we got done with a little work out earlier and now we are using the free wi-fi. obviously cannot live without the internet. pathetic i know but whatever. plan for tomorrow is drinking our old milwaukee beers at the milwaukee sign and then heading to chicago to see holly! yay! very very excited!!!!!

blame it on the a a a a a altitude

2009-06-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

june 4, 2009

3:51pm walked all around downtown denver, literally ALL over. it took us nearly an hour to find the denver museum of art. worth the walk though, completely. right now is the psychedelic music/art exhibit which was awesome. it was all about the san fran haight/ashbury times which we had gone and seen while in san fran- so it was cool. i wish more than anything i grew up back then and got to actually experience those times and been able to go to the concerts- that would have been sick. we snapped a bunch of photos which wasn't allowed but we didn't care, we had to. denver is a cool place and am enjoying it very much :)

june 5, 2009
7:27am a really big part of me is very happy and slightly relieved we are leaving denver today. my body does NOT react well with the change in altitude. ladies night at cowboy lounge (free drinks all night long for ladies) yes. free. FREE. not even a penny. just order a drink and its free. i thought there would be a catch and there wasn't. well i guess there was. being shit tanked 2 drinks in. i didn't even believe it until i saw it. well i really only saw about one free drink until it was time for me & erin to go home. we clearly can't hang in denver. so pathetic. i must have got some sort of food before entering the cab because there is sour cream all over my clothes from last night. typical. i swear, anytime i try to eat drunk food it winds up all over me; note to anyone who eats anything involving mustard: WATCH OUT! that does not come out of clothes easily, or at all. i learned the hard way, a few times... anyway, we arrive back @ cody's way before he is even buzzed still at the bar and erin is jealous that i got to eat food and she decides she wants some. but could not figure out how to order pizza online for the life of her. or over the phone. this was most likely due to the fact somewhere along the process of dialing and ordering she switched the language to spanish; idiot. watching her try to order from a spanish menu was probably the funniest thing i have seen in a while. i think she may have even cried. the frustration finally led her to bed. i'm going to say this for the both of us; thank you for speaking spanish. if we had eaten 4 large pizzas 2 orders of bread sticks and 92 hot wings i would not be a happy camper right now. erin is still sleeping and cody is nowhere to be found. leaving for wyoming soon. im excited to be back on the road again. this trip is only 2 1/2 hours long though. piece of cake!
11:23am just leaving codys. off to wyoming. somehow managed to convince cody to let me take his black DC beanie on the road. the reason his answer was yes may be due to the fact hes high as a kite right now. the girl he's seeing works at a medicinal clinic and gave him a pot infused smoothie. i believe this smoothie was at least 3 servings but he decided to chug it within 4 minutes before we left, could barely hug us goodbye and when stepped outside to let us out thought the world looked funny and everything was moving. probably not best idea buddy ;) lesson learned. only drink 1 serving of pot, not 3. all in all, denver treated us well; free drinks, good times and good friends. and found the love of my life; the perfect pair of aviators. i have been looking all over for them and finally met them, i can add them to my collection of 30 pairs i already own. crazy? slightly. onto wyoming here we come yeee haw.
11:39am shell- gas stop. 2 rockstars. ready for the road. 2 gnarly grown weird men just called me & erin "baby" and asked for our numbers. we have got to get out of here.
11:57am i can barely even write right now because i almost just died of a heart attack. thought i jumped into a carpool lane. well this carpool lane turned into a tunnel which had a sign reading "do not enter" i immediately thought we are going to run into oncoming traffic and i panicked. luckily i slowed down and realized we got off an exit, not a carpool lane. we have no idea where we are. a bus station perhaps? i don't know. all i know is we are sitting in the middle of some weird parking lot with the flashers on to write this down. holy cow.
1:15pm @ wyo state line. we look ridiculous taking pictures considering the car we are driving has wyoming plates. we had to get it though. on our way to hike. also played the name the state game. i got all but 3. virginia, west virginia and mississippi. i suck. damnit.
2:53pm just got done hiking at happy jacks in wyoming. about a 45 minute hike. pretty exhausting. we're pretty out of shape. out of breath a minute into it. blame it on the a a a a a a altitude. we're blaming everything on the altitude. getting drunk quickly, out of breath hiking quickly, seriously everything. on our way to erins then meeting everyone at the bar for drinks & dinner. yay.

june 7, 2009
10:52pm i actually ate so much today that it made me sick. i don't get sick. ever. never from drinking. never from eating. never from being on boats. never. but i finally did it. i finally reached the limit of food i can put in my body. i am blaming this one on the altitude. of course.
11:03pm i still can't really move so i guess i'll update the past few days here in laramie, wyoming. home of cowboy joe. first day here was an experience; had dinner and went on to play some pool and drinking 99 bottles of beer on the wall (6 pitchers of beer---same thing) i sucked at pool. blame it on the a a a a a altitude. clearly. moved onto the next bar, 3rd street. had a drink and continued on...to 'the buck' downstairs was pretty legit but upstairs was a whole new story, a 'club' if you will--people grinding on each other like i've never seen. come on dude, its wyoming, seriously? a little unexpected but hilarious to watch (from the corner where no grinding took place- no worries) met some of erins high school buddies, one which had a friend. a cute friend. come to find out this cute friend is from london and has an accent. and i am not one to ever swoon over guys with accents. it just doesn't get to me, we always pass them along to our friend ali, who is notorious for falling in love with foreigners (fact.) but this one got me...swooned? i immediately blame it on the altitude. clearly everything out of the norm is blamed on the altitude. anyway. night goes on...one too many shots and we need to go home. earlier in the day we had addressed to erin's mom no matter what we did or what we said or how much we begged she had to FORBID us from eating after the bars. after we get home we "go to bed" a trick me and erin came up with one of the first days we had met. its where we pretend to go to bed and wait for everyone else in the house to fall asleep and then sneak off to wherever (kitchen, fast food, etc) to eat our late night drunk food. we sometimes actually fall asleep and miss out on the amazing food but wake up satisfied that our drunk idea backfired. SO. we waited. and waited. and what seemed like 2 hours finally came time to sneak (so we thought) into the kitchen. i swear we opened the kitchen door and the refrigerator had a halo on top and was glowing. with cereal and god knows what else in erins hand and a huge knife (probably really unsafe as it is) in my hand about to cut 9/10ths of the chocolate cake to bring downstairs with us, erins mom walks in. without a word coming from her mouth, she takes all of the food (and weapons: my knife) away from us, shoves us down the stairs with peanuts and locks the door. upset at the time we loved her the next morning. night number 2 follows. we are exhausted and leave telling erins parents we'll be back in an hour. apparently the altitude can change time durations now too because we left at 9pm and didn't come back until 430am. that is 6 1/2 hours longer than 'one hour' started at a party where i guzzled 8 glasses of 'hopskip' an awesome drink consisting of beer lemonade & vodka. london and friend walked in surprise! later we all leave and head to the bars. 3rd street bar was bar #1. i, being the complete jackass that i always am decide it would be a great idea to sit on the large stool and act like the bouncer (there actually was no bouncer. not sure why. wyoming is pretty crazy. apparently they don't need bouncers at some bars..or so they thought) i took matters into my own hands and asked everyone that walked in for their id's. 'whats your age' 'whats your middle name' 'well how do you spellllll your middle name' being a complete asshole. 100%. obviously. i would have punched me if i was being bounced by me, especially because 1/2 the time i couldn't even keep a straight face. the next time i had gone up to the bar i ordered 2 drinks & 3 beers and the girl bartender asked me if i was the one checking ids at the door. i said 'ah...yes.....im so sorry' she replied and said 'THANK YOU its getting busy in here, keep doing it!' and gave me all the drinks for free. NO WAY! SWEET! i got to have fun playing bouncer AND drink for free? i love wyoming. night continues on and we're at the buck...again. i stole someones aviators (come to find out was a fellow high school student friend of erins-oops) bars close but we are NOT done partying. not yet. off to erins friends house with 2 cases (because one wasn't enough) of beer. ps london was there and still had his accent. ah. tired to play quarters but at this point me trying to toss a quarter into a cup would be like trying to get an armless man to climb monkey bars- actually impossible. i made up my own version- throw quarter, miss cup completely and knock over MY cup of beer onto the couch. way more exciting. nope. night over. time to go home. me erin and megan arrive back home and are about to raid the kitchen. its 4:30am at this point and everyone is asleep. we're golden. WRONG. kitchen door is shut with a NOTE reading "no snacking :)" yes it really had a smiley face. erins mom had left this note for us. seriously? i nearly peter pantsed myself right then and there. (i didn't.) and i also didn't care about the 'note' i opened the door and thought i was james bond for a second and grabbed the chocolate cake. we ate that in about 2 minutes and finally went to bed. use a lock next time, not a piece of paper. leads onto day #3 in wyo (today), erins parents had a bbq which was so fun. followed by a relaxing evening of a movie, making pizza & relaxing which led to my last post of me getting sick. gross. i think now its about time for bed. yawn. goodnight.

june 8, 2009
5:10pm just got home from bowling. i scored a 66 the first time, beating erin. next time 77, losing and last game; i wished & prayed to the holy bowling gods that i could make it to a hundred. i ended with a whopping 101. nice. i was stoked. at one point trying to bowl i forgot we were bowling and thought we were playing softball, throwing the bowling ball so hard into the gutter it bounced back into the lane. laying low tonight and off to cody, wyoming tomorrow and yellowstone national park which is am sooo excited for.

june 9, 2o09
8:57am just dropped erins car off at her dads shop and on our way up to yellowstone with her mom! i'm not driving, but its okay. we're still in wyoming and technically going back WEST so as long as we are not heading east i'm okay. i just have to drive the actual entire road trip. still wont let erin drive haha.
5:03pm erin is living in a fantasy land. when isn't she though? i'm over here wondering if i'll ever talk to someone again and at the same moment i'm pondering, she looks at me wonders if we'll ever talk to two almost strangers we met again...oh erin. ps went to hot springs, acted like 5 year old children and went down a water slide into the hotsprings. this enclosed water slide was a near death experience. we were only supposed to go one at a time but being 5 year olds we are, we both went down together, going approximately 982 mph almost flipping and breaking our necks. we got yelled at by the 15 year old 'lifeguard' when we both exited the slide. typical. on our way to the house near yellowstone. pps also found out today that the clamata beer i had the other day has clam juice in it. that is disgusting.
5:27pm officially ashamed of myself. "wow look at THAT horse" erin looks "its a cow" ...oops.

june 10, 2009
1:18pm woke up today and went for a run around wyoming. got to 'suicide hill' i know exactly why they named it this. steep hill + high altitude= death. on our way into town to walk around a bit. going to my first rodeo tonight. it should be interesting. i'm excited though.
sometime before the rodeo; we spent all day walking around town; going in and out of shops. bought some more hot sauce which turned out to be the hottest sauce i have ever tried in my life. i'm pretty good with spicy foods/sauces but this one burned my mouth AND lips for a good 15 minutes. i had to use chalula sauce to calm it down a bit. inside one of the gift stores me and erin warped back to being 5 years old again. this happens a lot. we can't act our age anywhere we go. ever. we found some fun binoculars and guns and pretended to go hunting IN the store with fake animals. it was amusing for us, most likely embarrassing for her mom and just plain insane for the customers/workers who were watching us. we have no shame. ah whatever. headed to dinner with erins aunt/cousin and then going to the rodeo...ooooh boy!

sometime after rodeo; rodeo was fun. watching the cowboys ride those animals was pretty funny. actually some of the guys were really cute. but mid watching these dudes ride the bulls/horses/etc... i overhear erin ask her aunt a question, dead serious, "who is THAT clown" ..yes. she was talking about a real rodeo clown, face paint and all. she declared she had fallen in love and continued to watch him/ take pictures of him the rest of the night. oh my.

june 11, 2009

11:45am made it to yellowstone national park a little while ago and are at 'old faithful' right now. we're on top of a volcano which obviously makes me excited because i am a nerd and like volcanoes. weird, i know. moving on. waiting for this thing to go off...

11:47am it went off! nuts! so cool! so glad we have it on video!!!

2:20pm just had some lunch and at the car no we're on our way to see some waterfalls but now we're stuck at a 30 minute waiting zone to move on the road.

7:10pm i honestly think the mountain is growing. i think we are on a trick mountain that is never going to end. just as we think we're heading down it starts spiraling up again. are you fucking kidding me? this can't be real. dear God, please let us down this mountain. i promise ill go to church on sunday if you answer my prayer. PLEASE NOW.

7:18pm so this is what torture feels like.

11:20pm after the long train wreck of a day up and down the never ending mountain me & erin finally decide we need out and go get margaritas & mexican. ah. finally we can discuss the ridiculous and absurd events that occurred today. we felt a lot better. we leave cody, wyoming tomorrow morning at 8am and head back to laramie for one more night. then back on the road it is for the two of us and onto south dakota! time for bed. good. night. :)

it WOULD take us 2000 miles to get to denver

2009-06-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

may 29, 2009
roughly 4am- 1st 'pit-stop' at shell. left @ 230 am. we were singing 'in the jungle' not even 1/2 hour into the trip; ridiculous. also, when i say 'singing' i mean YELLING and making weird animal noises in between the lyrics. true story. erin got a coffee and i got a blueberry rockstar. normal choices of drinks at 4am. we also got m&ms, saltines & cheddar crackers. our bill came to $6.66 is that bad luck? sign of the devil? forget it. we stopped thinking anything was bad luck and that everything, even the 9,298 tails up pennies i have been seeing were just GOOD luck. if you think good luck, good luck will come your way. right?
5:13am- had to stop and lay on my stomach for a few due to my infamous stomach aches. sun is coming up in the east so we are certain we are headed in the correct direction. those who know me & erin know its very easy for us to go the wrong way down the highway to get to where we need to be going. so far so good though.
5:45am- middle of nowhere. utica street? where are we? ahhh.. i had to lay once again on my stomach on gravel.
7:00am- second gas pump! about 130 miles to go. loving this.
7:53am- who knows where we are. resembles nebraska. i've never been to nebraska, but if i could picture what nebraska looked like, that's where we were.

may 30, 2009
1:57pm yesterday we walked around san fran (haight&ashburry).. total hippie town. awesome. got around 10-15 records for $30, so stoked. took em & kyle out to dinner-mexican-amazing! then went out to a local bar- manaloa- we were only there about 45 minutes when kyle decided tequila shots were necessary. em took hers, and when i say took it, i mean poured in her tequila sunrise and took a sip. threw up or 'spit up like a little baby' as she would say, EVERYWHERE. all over herself, as well as all over erin. night over. although she proceeded to tell us she was fine and ready to start drinking again. not with that stank on you girl. goodnight emily.

may 31, 2009
11:50am leaving san fran on our way to utah. 2 rockstars, adderall, water. ready set go.
1:02pm talked to my friend TK. he's not going to be living in TN anymore we're still going to venture down to that state to see what its all about. plus our friend Minh lives in nashville so we'll see what shes up to! @ shell, gas stop #1 of today...bought crackers for erin, pretzels for me..gum...no twizzlers :( i can't find them anywhere. what is going on....back to the road @ 1:12pm.
2:27pm just crossed nevada county line, saw a cool river so we pulled over to explore. fun times. i love this trip. i left the car running & the door wide open on the side of the highway. probably not the smartest idea.
4:18pm in reno, nv. just went to a casino. just like the movies. old people everywhere. not a fan. (of casinos, not old people) spent $20, we were up $15, then
6:58pm well i was RUDELY interrupted before i got to finish writing my sentence down above stating the fact that we lost it all. left empty handed and annoyed of reno. while i was in the process of writing down what had happened in the gas station parking lot a man got out of his truck, walked over to the car, looked at me and said "will you move your car before i get back into mine and take out the front of your car" i looked at him with confusion, said nothing, backed up and then rambled on about how much of an ass he just was. i was just writing in my journal, calm down dude. seriously. anway, just ate salads and filled up the gas for the third time today. 2 rockstars and more adderal haha. winnemucca, nv...on to utah!!! lets goooo!!!!!
9:24pm still on the road. gas stop numero 4. except the shell station was broken so we had to go to flying J's where i took an application just in case i might ever move to nevada ill have a flying j card. power bars & candy for tomorrow. we had to put them in the trunk because we would for sure eat them today if they were up here with us haha 9:35pm moving on....

june 1, 2009
9:30am we were supposed to be on the road 3 hours ago. typical. leaving NV and onto utah finally. rockstars? check. water? check. clear eyes? apparently erin needed it- probably from sleeping in antarctica which she had turned our room into last night by putting the AC on full blast. she got dry eyes. i got hypothermia. sweet.
...wait. its 10:30am. forgot about the time change. so we should have left FOUR hours ago. even better.
11:57am almost to salt lake city. i'm gonna marry a few mormans...no big deal.
1:38pm leaving park city, ut now. so cute here. ate lunch at a little sports bar (spicy chicken tortilla soup) spicy is an understatement. i fell in love with a giant dog named Ryder, seriously so cute. now we're off to find the giant arches that i have been dying to see....then denver bound!
3:13pm stopped at a shell outside of salt lake city. slight change of plans. driving to arches national park and then staying the night and going to the park tomorrow morning and through the rockies up to denver afterward. adderal + 2 more rockstars & cheese its. thank god for energy.
5:19pm had to stop for the 89th time today. still on the road on the 70 east. few more hours....
8ish pm finally stopped and found a hotel in the middle of canyons. on our way here we stopped at a few 'view points' for canyons and explored a little bit. stayed far from the edges because i didn't want to die in utah. not today. got some food and hit the sack. after trying to get the internet on my computer for an hour i got frustrated and went to bed. our plan is to wake up at six am tomorrow.

june 2, 2009
8:46am got up at 7:30am, only 1 1/2 hours after we planned haha. on our way to the ARCHES. 2 rockstars, 2 waters, ready!
9:20am seriously? i hate lolly pops. it just killed my stomach. literally had to pull off into a ditch to lay down which more or less looked like i was sunbathing for a few...ah... continuing on... we're at 1,646 miles, still only in utah.
10:15am just got to the first arch, 'balanced rock' 128 feet tall. its awesome. tried to climb up, didn't get that far but still pretty cool. climb up was a lot easier than the climb/stumble down. i'm making erin face her fears of wildlife (snakes in particular) at the next arch. lets see how this goes.
11:15am just got done 'exploring' skyline arch. legitimately... meaning hiking to it, climbing trees, rocks, and dodging lizards & finally getting there. this place is awesome. i kinda wanted to live in the tree i climed. it was the perfect climbing tree. those who know me know i love climbing trees so when you find the perfect tree with branches in all the right spots to position your feet, you never want to leave it. i should have put it in the back of the car. oh wait. there's no room. so stoked we came here today. on our way to the rockies now. yay.
12:10am gas stop, shell. right by the arch national park. yogurt, cheese ritz and chex mix...oh and adderal. we're ready for the rockies. and yes, we have been living off of gas station food. healthy times.
1:38pm just pulled off to find a rest stop. couldn't find one. but i did find horses. i asked the man if i could take a picture and he said yes. he also said something i wasn't quite sure i heard correctly because life couldn't possibly be this awesome. or could it? "do you want to ride them?" i looked at him, looked at erin who was still in the car, thought for a second and said OF COURSE!!!!! OF COURSE ILL RIDE A HORSE. got erin outta the car and onto the horses we were! Doobie was her name "like the marijuana" the older man explained to us. after about 20 minutes there having the time of our life, we had to go, although he asked us if we wanted to go horse back riding in the mountains. part of me wishes we had gone.
3:15pm around 150 miles from denver. just stopped to fill up gas and get 2 coors light (for the rockies of course). no drinking and driving no worries. almost to cody, ka koo.
5:31pm we stopped to drink the coors light in the rockies. we had to. it is pouring rain and freezing but we still got out and did it. then ate awesome soup- chicken tortilla- again! so good, and not nearly as spicy as the one we had yesterday. about an hour from denver...maybe more depending on how slow i have to drive. apparently i forgot how to drive in rain. changed into sweats, so much more comfortable and warm. denver here we come ps rain go away please
5:56pm we just built snowmen on the side of the 70 east freeway. no joke. snow storm in june. this is the greatest thing ever. alright, now on our way to denver.
7:03pm finally at codys yay! as he stood on his porch waiting for our arrival, we welcomed him by going down the wrong one way street. typical.

june 3, 2009
around noon i feel like i am going to die. we went to a little bar last night, had two mojitos and 2 shots of jager which was actually equivalent to drinking an entire keg by myself. i guess the elevation really does make a difference. we're not at sea level anymore toto. i am glad i still have that vicodin left from last week. what? that's what the doctors prescribed it to me for. massive hangovers. right. anyway. at breakfast/lunch down the street from cody's. food hurry up. i need to eat! ps happy birthday ash!!!!!!!!!!! miss her already!

before the trip began...

2009-06-03T12:38:00.000-07:00

may 19, 2009
(10:22 am):
8 days until we begin our trip, so really only one more full week in san diego- craziest thing in the world. i kind of can't believe it. last night in the process of moving/packing i saw (99% sure) an animal in our room which freaked us out more than anything. this animal come to find out was a possum. a possum is living in our room. we wound up finally sleeping on two desks in the office at 4:30 am. so ridiculous. i'm now back in the room waiting to see if the thing will come out and make another appearance. apparently there are a lot of earthquake predictions this & next week up the coast. i hope i finally feel one (as long as i dont die) missed, or didn't really miss, but did not feel the 5.17.09 la/sd 5.0 quake on sunday. bummer.

may 27, 2009
the day we were supposed to leave. until my body decided to do something ridiculous and had to make several urgent care visits. of course this would happen right before we're trying to make a trip across the country. at least they gave me a bottle of vicodin which will come in handy im sure. this annoyance of doctor visits though pushed back our trip two days and we finally left may 29, 2009 at 2:30 am. after my mom had clearly told me not to drive at night. i figured since it was so late in the night it was kind of like it was just "really early" in the morning. it turned out to be the best idea because we hit no traffic and made it to san fran in 6 hours since i decided to drive roughly 95 mph the entire way and managed to make it in one piece and received no speeding tickets. high five.