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!

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 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!