Mile High City to Sin City

We are literally on the home stretch now. Craziness. We got into Denver on Tuesday afternoon, and we hung out at the mall/apple store while we waited for our friend Alina to get off work. Once she did, we met up with her at the Cherry Cricket, where we also met up with our friend Matt, and we ate and got drinks till midnight or so. We also had the long awaited meeting of her boyfriend Kenny. Pretty cool guy; I approve :).  

After that night, we woke up and headed over to the Coor's Brewery. On the way, we stopped at the red rock ampitheater, which is literally a theater that has been put into the side of a mountain. It was quite the site to behold.  From there, we headed over to the "Biggest" brewery in the world.  It was interesting, though the audio tour dragged on at several parts.  We got some free samples, but the guys had too much beer the night before, and the girls don't drink much beer, so we ended up only having a couple samples each.   From there, we headed over to Wash Park, where we enjoyed margarita bottles and played some Boccie ball.  I won, of course.  After that, we went to Casa Bonita to realize a dream of mine since it was shown on my favorite show of all time, South Park. Well lets just say that SP kind of exaggerated how awesome it was. And by exaggerated, I mean they lied to me. The food was really bad and we had to buy a dinner to get in. The divers weren't that great, and Black Bart's cave was pretty lame. Overall, it was disappointing, but we were with good friends, so it wasn't too bad. 

This morning, we grabbed breakfast with Alina and Kenny before we started the long drive to Vegas.  We did 3 hour shifts, so it wasn't too bad, but Utah is freaking lame. There is literally 100 miles between food and gas places. It's just alotttttt of mountains and plains, which get old pretty quick.  Once we got into Vegas, we got stuck in really bad traffic, and after moving a quarter of a mile in half an hour, we hoped off and took surface streets to our first In n Out in a month. mmmmmm. After that, we checked in to suite in MGM Grand, which we got thanks to my players card. And it is niceeeee. The shower is huge, and there is a TV in the bathroom mirror.  The bed is also nice, and the set up of the room is awesome.  We went down to New York New York, where we did some gambling. Kristal ended up down 40 on the session, and I was down 60. Going to put down some Super Bowl bets tomorrow. Thinking the Bengals at 22/1, Texans at 28/1, and Packers at 8/1.  I'm not sure though I might just bet on teams to win the AFC rather then the SB. Gonna check those odds. 

Tomorrow, we head home. Its been a wild ride, and you can expect a lot of lists of the favorite things we have done, eaten, and various other wrap up type posts. Thanks for reading!

The Long Road to Denver

Today we started the long drive to Denver. We're still about 6 hours away and have stopped in some convenient hotel for the night. Yay for free hotel wifi!

While driving days are usually boring, I find them relaxing after cramming in as many sights as possible in all the cities. However, this one had a couple stressful moments.

Cruising down the I-80, just before we hit Des Moines, we ran in to some traffic. While not unusual by any means, the cop cars that sped past us tipped us off that something had happened. After crawling by in traffic, we come upon the accident. This was the worst wreckage I have ever seen in real life. The front of one van was all smashed in and it was stuck in the grassy median between the highways. This was nothing compared to the car, or rather what was left of a car, on the road. This was a blackened piece of metal that was barely recognizable that it was ever a car. The front was smashed in, the back end was completely gone, and it was charred to a crisp leading me to believe it caught fire or exploded after impact. Seeing something like that really makes you slow down and think about life.

Hours later, the sun has set and we're planning which city to stop in for the night when the sky starts to light up every few seconds. We're driving on the highway and in front of us on both sides of the road are major storms with lightning in the sky every 10 seconds are so. We continue are drive and enjoy the lights for a while and then the rain starts. We're driving towards the storms and the rain just gets worse and worse. I'm glad KT was behind the wheel, because I would have just called it a night during this storm. The rain was coming down in sheets and the lightening was the closest and most frequent I've ever seen. The Nebraska landscape was pitch black but the lightning was striking often enough that they might as well have been acting as street lights. After about 30 minutes of driving through this madness, we finally pass through the worst of it and can see the street again and the lightning slows to only 3-5 flashes per minute. WE MADE IT THROUGH!

And in lighter news, watch the video/song that inspired our URL. I'm sure most of you know the reference already, but since I have no pictures or sightseeing stories, I figured I'd post it.

The Windy City Blew us Away!

When we started the road trip, we decided to spend 3 nights in 2 cities: New Orleans and Chicago. Well New Orleans did not disappoint, and neither did Chi Town.  We had an absolute blast! On the 2nd day, we started it off with some great breakfast at Pancakes Eggsetera.  I got cinnamon raisin french toast and Kristal got banana nut pancakes which were vanilla and very sweet.  For only $7/each we got so much food and everything was delicious! Afterward, we hit up Michigan street, which is apparently where everything in downtown Chicago is.  We wanted to take a architecture boat tour, but they were all sold out for the day when we got there. We opted for a walking tour that showed the chronology of architecture in Chicago.  It went from a restaurant from the late 1800's (post the great fire) and ended with the Trump Tower that just went up last year.  Kristal also hit up the Art Institute to see the Impressionist and American exhibits, while I decided to go to the public library, which was huge and really cool looking from the outside.  It had a giant sculpture of an eyeball outside, which is apparently a huge photo-opp in the city.

After the afternoon activities, we met with one of Kristal's old high school friends and went to Giordano's for their famous stuffed pizza.  They say the small feeds one to two, but the 3 of us were barely able to finish it off. The pizza was stuffed with Canadian Bacon, Onions, and Mushrooms, and was reallllllly good.  After that, we went to the Bean, which apparently is one of Chicago's most famous landmarks. Its basically a giantic piece of reflective metal in the shape of a bean. Its was really cool to look up from the inside.  Lastly, we went to the John Hancock building to get drinks on the 96th floor and see the Chicago skyline. The drink lounge had a sub par view but Kristal got some photos of the view in the girls bathroom which Yelp correctly said was the best view in the room.

Today, we decided to go to one of the most famous places in all of the sports world: Wrigley Field. When we woke up, we found out that we would be seeing history, as Lou Pinella announced that he would retire after the game for family reasons.  Upon arrival, we decided on a whim to go to a sandwich place called Lucky's.  Upon arrival, we noticed that Man vs. Food was shot there, where the guy ate 3 double stuffed sandwiches. This might not sound like much, but consider that the sandwich has the meat, fries, tomatoes, and slaw, all stuffed into a 2 pieces of bread. It was artery clogging deliciousness.  The game was alot of fun, with a ton of scoring. Braves rookie sensation Jason Heyward did not disappoint, belting two home runs and led the Braves to a 16-5 win.  After the game, we went to the Ukrainian village, but there wasn't a whole lot to see outside of some cool homes and churches.  We decided to head home, and head to a place that never disappoints: Buffalo Wild Wings. I decided to up the spicy level and get Spicy Garlic, which was a big mistake! I'm definitely going to stick to Honey BBQ from now on.  After some trivia, we played our new favorite arcade game: Big Buck Hunter. I got a few game records in our 2nd round, and fell just short of my goal of tying or beating the bulls score of 41 (I got 39).

Well that's it for Chi Town. Tomorrow we head out to Denver, with a pit stop probably in Nebraska along the way.  Just 5 more days left on the trip!  Thanks for reading.

Homeward Bound

After no time at all, we are already over halfway through the trip and are starting the long journey back to LA. Craziness. In our last day at Philly, we went over to Old City to visit some more historical sites. We went to Betsy Ross's old house, and then to Christ Church. Inside, we sat in the same pews that George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Betsy Ross sat in. Pretty cool stuff.  From there, we headed over to Elfreth Alley, which is boasted as the oldest residential street in the US. It was pretty cute. After that, we grabbed one more lunch with our buddy Tina before we headed out to Cleveland!


The journey was supposed to be about 7 hours, but it took about 10 hours thanks to a trip through Amish country where we got stuck in 1 lane traffic behind a horse drawn buggy. Combine that with a ton of road work, and we were wiped by the end of the day. We were planning on hitting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but read some sub par reviews online, so we decided to skip it. Its a good thing we kept that money too because it went to good use thanks to all the tolls we had to pay. We ended up paying about 22 bucks in tolls again!!! Come on north east wtf guys!  We got to the Chi Town area around 4 or so, and after braving city traffic for an hour and a half, we arrived at our hotel.  We grabbed some food and hit up a couple bars, and called it a night.  We are planning on taking an architectural tour tomorrow before getting some authentic deep dish Chicago Pizza. Can't wait. Thanks for reading.

The Worlds of New York City

I just realized I never elaborated on Pop Tart World! We decided to spend our one full day in NYC at the brand new Pop Tart World! After a little trouble finding it, since none of the articles gave a specific address other than "Times Square", we saw the multicolored door full of Pop Tarts leading the way to the Pop Tart mecca.

Now, I'm a fan of Pop Tarts after growing up eating them for breakfast, but I'm no where near the fandom that was crying out for this world to exist. Was anyone really? Inside you can make a box of your favorite assorted flavors, customize a t-shirt, and enjoy a slew of Pop Tart infused junk food. KT and I were going to get a box to take home, but they didn't have any new or unusual flavors. It was all the flavors you could find in the store, you just could mix & match them in one box for your conveience. Well, at $1 per Pop Tart, we decided to skip it.

We did order from the Pop Tart bakery where they had a surprising big menu full of baked goods, ice cream sundaes, and somewhat real food with a Pop Tart twist to choose from. We both got a piece of Pop Tart Sushi, since that got the most press from the opening. It was definitely interesting. Consisting of mashed up raspberry Pop Tarts wrapped in a thin slice of Fruit Roll Up, it was sweet, but not as mushy in consistency as expected. At only $0.75 per piece, you gotta try it to get the full Pop Tart World experience. I also got the Mocha Fudge Brownie, which was like a normal Mocha Fudge Brownie, but with bits of Chocolate Fudge Pop Tart crumbled throughout. It was a rich and delicious brownie, but not nearly as Pop Tart infused as I was expecting. KT got a Smores Stick - 3 marshmellows dipped in chocolate with Smores Pop Tart crumpled on top. I'm not a marshmellow fan so I didn't try any, but KT seemed to enjoy it. This was maybe the first time I've ever seen him not finish a desert because it was too rich. So compliments to Pop Tart for using quality chocolate and good sugary marshmellows.

After Pop Tart World, my twitter friend recommended we check out Nintendo World. While Pop Tart World has been all over the press, I had never heard of Nintendo World even though it just opened in May. It was filled with Nintendo merch that if I had the money/space, I would have bought so much! Unforetunately, they also didn't have a lot of sizes since it was a Monday and I'm sure they had a busy weekend. KT bought a shirt for himself and I settled on just taking photos. We also got to play various games at all the stations and see some classic Nintendo products in their display cases. This was definitely an NYC highlight for me!

After all the worlds fun, we went to meet up with my high school friend Taryn to check out her neighborhood. We walked around Washington Heights and the neighboring park, but it soon started to rain so we caught the train back to Brooklyn to grab a delicious Indian dinner with KT's parents. Once again, ethnic food was soooooo good after the long streak of American food all the time throughout the South.

I've uploaded photos from the trip, so be sure to check out facebook to get a visual for all these great places. Stay tuned for more on Philly and now Chicago!

The City of Brotherly Love

Our last day in NYC was spent grabbing brunch, walking through the botanical gardens, and then braving the traffic. We learned from our mistake on the last drive and looked up toll free routes to Philadelphia. After a short drive of only 2 hours, we were in The City of Brotherly Love and ready to explore! We dropped off our stuff at Christina's and let her study/attend Med School things while we went to The Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin's Grave, the US Mint, and the Constitution Center.

I love how close everything is! We were able to walk to all those sites and still meet up with Christina for dinner - an amazing chicken/veggie pizza.from Top Tomato. Instead of hitting the hopping Tuesday nightlife, we decided to stay in and catch up with Christina and play with their bunny.

The next morning, today, we got an early start and went to City Hall, Love Park, Ben Franklin Parkway (the American Champs-Elysees), and the Philadelphia Art Museum. The Art Museum is supposedly one of the best in the nation, but at $18/each we didn't venture in. We saw the best attractions for free - the Rocky statue and the stairway made famous from the films. We took a couple flip cam videos of our ascent up the stairs, and believe me we will be posting that soon!

After the museum we headed back to grab some famous Philly Cheesesteaks with Christina at Rick's Steaks. DELICIOUS! I don't know yet if they were better than the South Philly Exp food truck in LA though. Maybe I'll have to go back for further testing.

After lunch we meant to check out Old City with it's historic structures and oldest continuously inhabited street, but ended up napping instead. The heat and all the walking caught up with us! We're planning on hitting Old City tomorrow before we head out for Cleveland.

After our nap, we got to meet up with another USC friend who lives just a few blocks away from Christina. While making dinner plans, we discovered that every Wednesday in summer it's Center City Sips - Happy Hour deals from a slew of bars on food and drinks. We ended up hitting up Moriarty's Irish Pub for dinner and drinks with Clark and Christina. USC reunion!

The Med Students then left us to study and continue towards their dreams of saving lives, while KT and I stayed in the area to drink and take advantage of the CCS deal. We finished the night in Irish Pub, sadly not Paddy's Irish Pub from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and then came back to catch up on blogging and save pictures to my laptop. Once we have a faster connection, we'll upload photos and those videos. Stay tuned!

Jellies, Sharks, and Sting Rays, Oh My!

Our last day in Baltimore was spent visiting the Aquarium and the Inner Harbor. We tried to go to the Aquarium on Saturday, but the crowd proved too much. Luckily, Sunday was much better because it was rainy and grey so it was practically deserted. The Baltimore Aquarium is one of KT's favorites and he'd been many times as a kid, and now I totally understand why! There's a large shark and sting ray pool in the center that the rest of the exhibits encircle it so you can see it from nearly any point inside. We had a lot of fun searching the exhibits for the hard to find animals - like the poison dart frogs that are about the size of a quarter. They also had a neat rain forest exhibit that was like stepping into Malaysia for a second. There were monkeys, spiders, and birds all around practically roaming free in the rain forest room. It even rained on us!

After the Aquarium we went on a quest for me to have my first crab cake. I just recently started eating sea food and discovered that crab is probably my favorite. So how perfect that we were in Crab Central Maryland! After searching around on yelp to no avail, we just went with Phillip's Seafood right on the Inner Harbor. There was a guy walking around in a crab costume for them and since we got our picture with him we got a free appetizer! We got a crab cake appetizer and I got the crab macaroni and cheese while KT got the shrimp scampi. Delicious all around and we had a great view of the water. I can see this place being incredibly busy during peak hours and sunny days.

After the harbor we had to head up north to The Big Apple. We relied on my iPhone to get us there and that was probably a costly mistake. The iPhone Google Maps app does not give you an option to avoid toll roads, or tell you when a toll is coming up. So, we start the drive and encounter our first toll - $5! Then we continue driving and there was another one, making it $9 just to get through Delaware. We wise up and start looking online for cheaper routes, but it's too late. We're pretty much stuck on the highway the rest of the way and by the end of the trip we had spent $22 just to drive from Baltimore to NYC. We're definitely going to try to find a different route for our drive to Philadelphia!

Once we got in to NYC it was a breeze, KT's parents found a place for us to park for our duration here. We're staying at their condo in Brooklyn which has a great view of the skyline, if only it weren't so cloudy and grey. We're spending today out in the downtown area with no set plan except to check out the new Pop Tart World. We'll be sure to give a full report on that attraction!