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So, Karasu and I decided to take a MASSIVE ROAD TRIP OF CRAZY PROPORTIONS. Er, actually, Karasu decided that she wanted to do this, and applied to me since she doesn't have a driver's license or an ounce of common sense. Rather than just getting in the car and taking off, I planned actual stops and stuff, so we would actually, you know, see shit.
Day One: Las Vegas
First stop of the day was a Dunkin' Donuts. This is vitally important to all road trips. Then we got lost. Because the donut place was out of the way, and the road didn't connect with the highway the way I thought it did. So, all in all, not an auspicious beginning.
Driving out of Phoenix is incredibly boring, particularly if you've lived there for a really long time. It's all bushes and sand. (I hate the desert! It's full of sand!) Here's how you can tell how exciting these roads aren't: at one point we passed a sign that said 'roadside table, 1/2 mile'. Half a mile later, there was a picnic table by the side of the road. Seriously.
We stopped briefly in Wickenburg, which is a classic "old West" town. Apparently 'old West' is synonymous for 'chintzy crap', but I did get a giraffe beanie baby, so it wasn't all bad.
So.... boring boring boring stop for lunch boring boring OMG COLORADO RIVER boring boring boring OMG DOES IT EVER END boring VEGAS!
Driving into Las Vegas is like entering a different world. A world where, for example, people don't know how to drive. And are crazy. And colorblind. We stayed at the Excalibur. This is because, when I was a kid (like 12, I think?) my family went to Las Vegas so my dad could go to a conference there. We stayed at the Mirage. As a child, I was very upset that we couldn't stay at a "cool" hotel like Treasure Island or Excalibur or whatever. So this time, it was my dime, and we were totally staying at the Excalibur.
Let's put it this way: I was underwhelmed.
.....seriously? It was very... loud and crowded and the medieval trappings were ornamental at best, really only here and there. The Luxor, which is next door, was much cooler.
We didn't have enough money to see a show, so basically we wandered around and took pictures and saw free stuff like the fountains at the Bellagio. We sort of saw the volcano at the Mirage, but the guy behind me kept groping me (I'm dead serious) so his girlfriend could get a better spot (we had waited half an hour so we could have a spot at the railing), and for some reason instead of beating him to death, I got upset and just pushed my way out of the crowd (so now I've learned how I respond to sexual assault, which I guess is a good thing). Amanda stayed at the railing and got some pictures.
The Las Vegas strip is really *long*, which we had not anticipated. We're like, "Okay, to get from Excalibur to the Mirage, we only go past like four hotels, so it can't be that long." Ha! We were walking past Caesar's Palace for a good twenty minutes. The hotels out there are freakin' huge!
Then we ate at the buffet at the Luxor which was OMGSOFREAKINGTASTY.
We *tried* to gamble, but all the slots and everything are set up for people who already know how to gamble. By the time we actually got to the casino floor it was nearly ten PM. The slot machines all cost pennies or quarters but only *took* dollar bills, which I didn't have any of. I went to one of their "bill breaker" machines and gave it a twenty, and it gave me... four fives. Which I *still* couldn't use in the damned slot machines. So we gave up. That's right. We went to Vegas and left without gambling a single penny.
Vegas pictures! (Some, obviously, taken as we left town the next morning.)
Day Two: Death Valley
So we got up nice and not-that-early and had breakfast at the Excalbiur buffet, which was not as nice as the Luxor's but still pretty darn tasty. Upon leaving Vegas, we drove all morning on roads like this:
LOOK HOW FREAKIN' STRAIGHT THAT IS.
It's really amazing I made it to Death Valley awake. Death Valley is surprisingly interesting and has lots of good scenery, so accordingly, many pictures were taken. Did I mention that this saga is really just an excuse to show everyone all the photos we took? No? Well, now you know.
The Death Valley set of pictures is really notable mostly because a) it has the only picture of us in the entire vacation, and b) we saw an honest-to-God roadrunner which was very cooperative and photogenic.
Stopping point for the night: Bishop, California. Super 8.
Day Three: Yosemite Driving to Yosemite
So, Yosemite's website had warned me that Tioga road, the highway that takes you through the Sierra Nevadas and through Yosemite park, usually closes sometime mid-November. No problem, said I, there are lots of other highways. The website did *not* mention that they all close in the winter, too.
Our plan, then, was thoroughly thwarted, because we had to go nearly six *hours* out of our way to get to a passage through the Sierra Nevadas so we could see Yosemite. And it was all really torturous driving, too. That was not a day I will ever remember with much fondness. On the other hand, we did see great scenery.
Mono Basin pictures
Sierra Nevada mountain range pictures
We got to Yosemite just about as the sun was setting. There was just enough light left to verify that yes, it was pretty fucking awesome, and we would like to see it. We inquired for hotels. The first one cost 400 dollars per night. We inquired further. We wound up with one that was a mere $105, just outside the park boundaries, and had a hot tub and a restaurant that was way more impressed with itself than it deserved.
Day Four: Yosemite and Monterey
HAVE A BILLION YOSEMITE PICTURES. Including the deer that was standing twenty feet from our car. Seriously, I can't describe this place other than to say: look at the pictures.
So we spent most of the morning there, then moved onwards. Upon leaving Yosemite, we finally reached roads that were not actively trying to kills us. I was so thrilled that we took pictures.
Then we hightailed it across the INCREDIBLY BORING AND EMPTY INTERIOR OF CALIFORNIA (sorry, interior Californians) to Monterey. We did this because we wanted to see the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Many people have extolled the awesomeness of this aquarium. I guess Karasu and I are totally spoiled by the Boston Aquarium, because this one seemed really tiny to us. Of course, we still took lots of pictures. By now, I presume that you're expecting that. =D
Sadly, these did not all come out that well, which is I guess what happens when you put tiny creatures against complicated backgrounds and take pictures through a layer of glass in a dimly lit room. Who would have expected that?
Stopping point for the night: Santa Cruz, California. Quality Inn.
Day Five: Rte 1 (South) and San Francisco
Driving up Rte 1 on the Pacific Coast is supposed to be the quintessential American road trip. Accordingly, we took lots of pictures, including the hawk and egret we saw.
We took very few pics in San Francisco proper, since we've been there before. We did have lunch in Chinatown (where else?) at the R&G Lounge, which doesn't sound like a Chinese place but is FANTASTIC, let me assure you; they've won awards and shit. Then we made a deal with ourselves that we could wander Chinatown until we had each found one purchase we couldn't live without, which took all of, like, twenty minutes. Amanda bought a hanging plant that was growing in a shell, and I bought a Chinese lamp.
Then we went to the Golden Gate Park, where we saw the Tutenkhamen exhibit at the de Young museum. Sadly photography was not allowed. And we saw the Japanese Tea Gardens, which were also excellent and peaceful, which was what we really needed since our nerves were a little frayed at this point.
San Francisco pictures
Japanese Tea Garden pictures
By the time we were done with all that, it was dark, so we headed north. The road immediately became impossibly curvy and then dense with fog. We knew we were making terrible time, plus it was really stressful, so we decided to stop. Sadly, the only place to sleep within a hundred miles was really expensive, but we stayed there anyway because we were desperate. Also, we took pictures, because if we were going to spend $150 for a hotel room, I was going to have a damn record of it. Plus, they served brownies in the morning that had little frosting turkeys on them.
Stopping point for the night: Tomales, California. The Continental Inn.
Day Six: Rte 1 (North) and Vichy Springs
It was still very foggy in the morning, so we drove up the coast a little while longer and got some great pictures, but decided to turn inland pretty quickly.
Once we turned inland, the scenery became very pastoral and nice, and we started seeing lots of vineyards.
So after driving for a while, we went to the Vichy Hot Springs Resort, which was pretty much as spectacular as you would figure, to go to a real live hot spring on Thanksgiving. =D The scenery was gorgeous there. We took a mineral bath, which felt *weird*. Like being in a bottle of Perrier - it was that bubbly! And even though the water temperature was around 90 and the air temperature around 60, when we got out, we *froze*. It's something about what the mineral water does to your capillaries. By the time we hit the hot tub, about 20 feet away, my teeth were actually chattering. A hot tub has never, in my entire life, felt so good.
Plus, there were more deer.
After that - yep, there was still daylight, we are busy bees! - we drove back to the coast and up to Fort Bragg, which is a quaint little seaside town with Glass Beach, where instead of sand, it's all polished sea glass. Alas, it was very foggy on the coast still, so we didn't get a lot of great pictures of the beach, but we did what we could, valiantly struggling onward!
After that, we finally called it a day.
Stopping point for the night: Fort Bragg, California. Quality Inn.
THE MOST HILARIOUS QUALITY INN EVER. Observe:
Day Seven: Fort Bragg, Mendocino, and OMG WE CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE WHERE'S I-5
Uhm. This was the last official day of our road trip.
We saw lots of cute stores and galleries in Fort Bragg and Mendocino, spent more money than we should have, and went on a picture-taking spree at the Mendocino Botanical Gardens, which were having some sort of mushroom special.
After that, we just got fed up with the twisty windy country roads. We were out of money so we couldn't shop anymore. It was too cold to spend much time on the beach, and we still had a looooooong-ass drive ahead of us. So sadly, the road trip was over.
Of course, that didn't stop us from making a slight detour to go to San Diego and have stew at The Field (best Irish pub restaurant ever), but it would take a small nuclear war to stop us from that. Plus we bought bagels at Panera.
The end.
SOME NUMERICAL DATA:
License plates: 40/50 American states, 4 Canadian provinces, and 2 Mexican states.
Miles traveled: About 2200. I kept meaning to check my odometer but forgot.
Money spent: I DO NOT EVEN FREAKING WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. *cough*
Items on my RSS feed when I got back: 626
CDs listened to: 48. And for the music geek in everyone, in case you want to know what sort of music we listened to, I actually typed out the list. You don't have to read it if you don't want to.
CD list!
A Perfect Circle - Mer de Noms
Blue Oyster Cult - Agents of Fortune
Blue Oyster Cult - Fire of Unknown Origin
Boston - Don’t Look Back
Boston - Third Stage
Collective Soul - Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid
Cowboy Bebop - Blue
Dead Can Dance - A Passage in Time
Dido - Life for Rent
Dream Theater - Images and Words
E. S. Posthumus - Unearthed
Eagles of Death Metal - Peace, Love, and Death Metal
Emily Haines and the Soft Skeletons - Cut in Half and Also Double
Emily Haines and the Soft Skeletons - Knives Don’t Have Your Back
Era - Era
Evanescence - Fallen
Five for Fighting - The Battle for Everything
Imogen Heap - Imegaphone
Imogen Heap - Speak for Yourself
Iron and Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days
Iron and Wine - Woman King
Iron Man (soundtrack)
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti (both halves)
Live - Throwing Copper
Muse - Origin of Symmetry
Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile (both halves)
Noir OSTs 1 & 2
One Piece OSTs 2, 4, 5, 7
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (soundtrack)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (soundtrack)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (soundtrack)
Puddle of Mudd - Come Clean
Pure Moods
Pure Moods 2
Queensryche - Empire
Seether - Karma and Effect
Slumdog Millionaire (soundtrack)
Stabbing Westward - Ungod
The Googoo Dolls - Let Love In
Toadies - Rubberneck
Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes
Tori Amos - Live and Still Orbiting (both halves)
U2 - Achtung
VAST - Music for People