50 State Journey

Detailing the adventure that is two friends trying to visit all 50 states on very little money

[korywright-50statejourney]

Vermont Destruction, Niagara Falls & the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame

Days 58 - 60 (September 11th - 13th)

Concord, NH; Rutland, VT; Albany, NY; Niagara Falls, NY; Lockport, NY; Cleveland, OH; Parkersburg, WV; Bowling Green, OH

Our day started off very early as sleeping in the cold was very difficult around 4 AM. We woke up, made a pot of coffee for the road and headed off. We knew that this day would not be very fun because we had planned to stay at a hotel in just outside Albany, NY which was around 10 hours away. We especially needed to make it there by 7 PM in order to watch the Dallas Cowboys play the New York Jets on TV. The day seemed to be going as planned as we drove through Maine into New Hampshire. We made our way through New Hampshire in no time and made a stop into White River Junction, VT. We pulled off into a little strip mall with a big grass area in front of it. Around the perimeter of the grassy area there was a small red train engine followed by a yellow cart and a blue cart. I'm sure that there have been many children that have had the time of their lives riding the train but from the looks of it, I don't think it's been used in quite a few years. The train outside seemed to follow the theme of the mall as we walked into the store. There was a model train set that encircled the store with little puffs of smoke coming from it every few feet. I don't remember the name of the store. They had everything that you could think to make maple syrup into. There was maple popcorn, maple cookies, even maple soda (I couldn't help myself from buying a bottle) and of course maple syrup in many different sizes, shapes and colors. After buying some homemade jams and a few pints of maple syrup we hit the road again. After all, we still had a schedule to keep.

Driving through Vermont after all of the flooding was shocking. Half of the roads were washed away. There were whole trees uprooted from the ground. The damage to one house we drove by was so bad that you could see directly into their basement. The above picture was just one of the horrific views throughout Vermont. Thankfully the roads weren't that terribly bad for us until we got about 20 miles away from the New York border just outside of Rutland, VT. The road was closed. The only major road within 100 miles north or south that led to Albany was closed. The police officer told us the best thing to do would be to head back into New Hampshire and head south around Vermont. We did that. We turned right around and headed back to White River Junction, VT. From there we jumped on I-91 south and headed toward Massachusetts. We didn't want to take anymore chances with road closures so we went all the way down to the I-90 turnpike. After a few more hours of driving, we finally made it to our hotel. The drive we planned to take only 10 hours ended up being 13 hours. 

We had only missed the first few minutes of the game by the time we arrived at our hotel. Sadly, I was really interested in the pregame show since the game was being held in New York on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The game was pretty good. As a Cowboys fan, I didn't really enjoy the 27-24 loss to the Jets. 

A good night's sleep was just what we needed after so many nights of sleeping in the car and camping in the cold. We abused the continental breakfast as always then headed east to Niagara Falls, NY. While driving into Niagara Falls you should watch out for the blue street signs that have a drawing of the falls on them. They are supposed to lead you to the falls but unless you want to go into Canada, they only lead you to the general area. I was a little underwhelmed by the height of the falls but the shear volume, both in amount of water and level of sound, really took my breath away. We talked to some park rangers that told us they light up the falls at night. We didn't want to hang around for hours waiting for that so we decided to head over to Lake Erie. A friend of ours, Justin, had suggested that we dip our feet into each of the Great Lakes. We took him up on it and did him one better. At each lake I was going to fill a little bit of sand into our empty Sailor Jerry bottle so that we would have one bottle full of the five Great Lakes.

We still had one stop left on our tour of the east coast. There was a Friendly's close to Niagara Falls in Lockport, NY. It may have been that particular Friendly's but it was nowhere near as good as I remembered. After we ate, we went back to the falls to see the light show. They do light up the falls every night with an array of colors but sadly on this night there wasn't any music to accompany it. Wal-Mart was becoming our nightly destination as we found another close to the Pennsylvania/Ohio border to stay for the night.

The next morning we drove not too far away to Cleveland, OH to see the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. What we didn't know upon arrival was that due to the agreements with various artists within the Hall of Fame, no pictures were permitted. They were working on a few exhibits so we didn't get to see the whole thing. My favorite part was the Beatles exhibit that they had. They were playing the Beatles anthology on loop. I kept walking away and coming back to different parts. The highest level, level 6, was a dedication to women in music. I was surprised to see Lady Gaga was a main attraction as well as Taylor Swift. I realize that they bring in people but I think they really should've shown more love to bands like Heart or artists like Joan Jett and Pat Benatar. I'm rambling on but the Hall of Fame was really cool and I suggest it to anyone who is a fan of music. Since the Cleveland Browns stadium was right next door to the hall, I had to snap a few pictures for our friend, Matt, since he's the only Browns fan I've ever met.

West Virginia was our next stop. I had been to West Virginia before and it wasn't a pleasant experience. It was nothing but weird hill people and windy roads. We drove into Parkersburg, WV, the closest town to the border, grabbed a slice of pizza at The Pizza Place and drove right back out of West Virginia. A few teenagers outside the restaurant just reaffirmed my belief in weird West Virginian hill people. After a few more hours of driving, we stopped for the night somewhere around Bowling Green, OH. 

Only a few updates left! Stay tuned for the end of our journey!

[korywright-50statejourney]

Basketball Hall of Fame, the Freedom Trail, and the coastline of Maine

Days 55 - 57 (September 8th - 10th)

Bristol, CT; Springfield, MA; Stoughton, MA; Plymouth, MA; Boston, MA; Acadia National Park, ME

We somehow stumbled into a routine of staying in Wal-mart parking lots whenever we slept in the car. We found ourselves waking up the next morning in another Wal-mart. We picked up some Starbucks double espresso shots from there so that we didn't have to stop in the morning. After all, we had a busy day ahead of us. 

We needed to find a laundromat with free wifi close to where we were. We found one that we thought would work for us on Yelp. The Wash Tub of Hartford Laundromat was right up our alley and wasn't that far away according to Google Maps. We went to the area where the laundromat was supposed to be but the laundromat was nowhere to be found. It turns out that Google Maps may have been a little off in their estimation. By a little off I mean 30 minutes away in another town. We soon found ourselves inadvertently in Bristol, CT, the home of ESPN and found the closest laundromat. We wanted to maybe make a stop at ESPN headquarters while there but the laundromat snafu had set us back in time. To make matters worse, the laundromat didn't have any wifi and the prices were a little outrageous. After what would be our last loads of laundry on the trip we popped into a Starbucks to scam off their wifi. The pumpkin latte is pretty good although a bit overpowering (even though I didn't order it). We spent a couple hours updating Facebook and mapping out the rest of our trip through the northeast. After that, it was back to a place that I hadn't been to since 1998.

We made it to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA around 1 PM. We figured we'd have all day to play around in there but sadly they closed at 4 PM that day. The place has changed quite a bit since I was last there. The self guided tour starts with the actual hall of fame portion of the building. It's makes up the entire third floor that surrounds a basketball court on the first floor. The second floor is the informational section of the hall. It starts with a brief history of the game. After that it goes through some of the changes to the game; changes in uniforms, rim and backboard style, and most importantly playing style. The interactive section of the hall comes next. There's a pop-a-shot challenge where you shoot against people to see who makes the most in a given amount of time. There's a virtual challenge where you stand in front of a green screen and digitally play against some of the greats of the game (I completely go beat down by Jason Kidd...) There's also a rebounding station where they keep raising the ball until you can't grab it down. I got to 10'3" which I think is pretty solid. The next section is a hall of broadcasting wherein you can try your hand at commentating on a game. The exhibition on the great teams of the game comes next. There are areas for every great dynasty of the game. There's a spot for the 60's Celtics, 80's Lakers, 90's Bulls and a few college teams and coaches including UNC, Kentucky, UCLA and Duke. Speaking of the 90's Bulls, there is a entire wing dedicated to Michael Jordan. There's a list of all his accomplishments, a wall of his shoes, and his jerseys, including his high school, Olympic and all-star jerseys, are hung from the rafters. The final section of the hall is the first floor which consists of a basketball court, a dunking station with hoops of various size and the gift shop. The basketball court is regulation size but along the sideline there are seven hoops that show the evolution over the years. It starts with the peach basketball and ends with the current basket of today's game. We spent the rest of the time shooting around and attempting dunks at the dunking station that I can apparently no longer do. Getting old is a tough thing to deal with. We looked around the gift shop for a few minutes, picking up some post cards, and hit the road.

We still needed to check Rhode Island off of our list so we headed southeast toward Connecticut. We then cut across central CT to get into Rhode Island and back up in Massachusetts. We were planning on getting as close as we could to Boston that night so we could use the entire next day to explore the city. Thankfully this was the first Thursday of the NFL season and we were really close to Foxborough, MA, the home of the New England Patriots. We stopped to get dinner and watch the game at a place called The Last Shot in Stoughton, MA. The dinner crowd there are incredibly punctual as they all showed up right at kickoff. The game was a shootout in which the Green Bay Packers beat the New Orleans Saints 42-34. Thank you Darren Sproles, my 11th pick and lucky charm for the last 3 years, for scoring 21.62 points for my team. After dinner we again struck out to the closest Wal-mart to call it a night. 

The next morning we woke up early and headed into Boston. We parked a few blocks away from Boston Common and began randomly walking around the city. We somehow stumbled upon The Freedom Trail which is a self guided tour of the most historic buildings in Boston. We started at the site of the Boston Massacre and headed to Paul Revere's house. We didn't stop at every spot on the tour but just hit the basics of Boston. After Paul Revere's house we went to the Old North Church where Captain John Pulling and Robert Newman hung two lanterns in the steeple at Paul Revere's request to warn the patriots that the British were coming by the Charles River. We sat in the seat that Teddy Roosevelt used in 1912 while listening to the presentation of the church. The church is an active place of worship in Boston today. The advanced tour that we signed up for wasn't starting for another 30 minutes so we decided to grab lunch at a sandwich shop down the street called Volle Nolle. If you're around the north end of Boston you must stop in this place. I had the grilled chicken sandwich with some other things that I can neither remember nor pronounce but it was phenomenal. Phenomenal might even be an understatement. My favorite part of eating there was that we hadn't gotten a chance to listen to any Bostonians speak yet and a frequent local customer had come in right behind us and had started up quite a loud conversation with the staff. I would refer to his conversation style has slightly rude but deeply interested in their lives. He kept asking about their families and other frequent customers. It was fun to eavesdrop on. It was about time for our tour to start so we headed back to the Old North Church. The tour began with the bell tower where there are 8 bells, each of a different pitch, that are rung in a certain sequence every Sunday. The bells are rung for 3 straight hours and if they mess up the sequence they have to start all over. The tour guide told us that when the steeple fell over during a 1954 wind storm they rebuilt it with upgraded insulation and it dampened the sound of the bells. What used to be heard from miles away was now only heard in a 3 block radius. We left the bell tower and walked down to the crypt next. The crypt is the basement of the church where they buried the bodies of parishioners in the early days of the church. If you have the opportunity to take the tour, I highly suggest it. After the Old North Church we walked across the Charlestown Bridge to get to the U.S.S. Constitution otherwise known as Old Ironsides. This ship was used in countless battles and the wood they used to build it was so dense that when they peeled back the layers to renovate it they found multiple cannonballs lodged in the hull. The tour was free and they let you walk around the different decks of the ship. After touring the Constitution there was one stop left on our Boston tour. We walked the 2 miles back to the Boston Common and began walking west toward Fenway Park. The housing around Fenway is pretty impressive. There are apartment buildings everywhere and it seems like a very lively place to live. Sadly the Red Sox were playing in Tampa Bay that night so we couldn't get the full effect of the park. However, there was a Dropkick Murphys concert going on that provided a moderate amount of excitement. (Fun random personal fact: my dog, Murphy, is named after the band) We then walked through what I assume is the business district of Boston to get back to the car. The Boston rush hour traffic was a mess but we soon found ourselves heading north on I-95 through southern New Hampshire and into Maine where we stayed at yet another Wal-Mart in Biddeford, ME to stop for the night. 

The next morning we continued down the coast through Maine to get to Acadia National Park. We stopped off at a little gas station along the way that also housed a Dunkin' Donuts. I had already told Johnny that our east coast trip wouldn't be complete unless we ate at both a Dunkin' Donuts and a Friendly's. Thankfully we could now scratch one of them off our list. Being the beginning of fall, their special donut was pumpkin. The gas station also offered a weird blueberry soda so my mouth was bombarded by strange tastes. Soon after, we found ourselves pulling into Acadia National Park. After talking with the rangers there we had a pretty good idea on where to stay and where to hike while we were there. We got our campsite up and ready in no time flat. (We're basically experts at this point) We had about an hour or so left of sunlight so we walked about 200 yards away from our campsite to reach the cliff face of the Maine shore. It's amazing how something can be so peaceful and yet so chaotic at the same time. Johnny stayed up on the cliffs to get some better pictures but I had to feel how cold the water was. I climbed down to where a pocket of water had formed in the rocks which is where I am in the picture above. We hung out listening to the waves hit the rocks and taking in the cool Maine air before heading back to base camp. Back at the campsite we talked about the trip so far and some of the things we had learned while taking down a few of Long Trail Brewery's Double Bag Ale that we picked up at the gas station before. With a few beers down and a dwindling fire it was time to call it a night. We hunkered down in the tent for what was sure to be one of the coldest nights of the trip. 

[korywright-50statejourney]

Rocky Balboa, the Jersey Shore and the Big Apple

Days 53 & 54 (September 6th & 7th) 

Smyrna, DE; Philadelphia, PA; Atlantic City, NJ; New York City, NY

We started off the morning just outisde Smyrna, DE where we stopped in at a Wal-Mart to stay the night. We reached Philadelphia just before 10 AM as the rain started to come down. Having missed our exit we took the long way around north Philly to get to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Aside from the art that's in the museum, this place is known for something completely different. It's the sight of the stairs Sylvester Stallone ran up during his training montage in Rocky. Naturally I wasn't going to let the rain deter me from recreating an iconic scene from my childhood. Also, it was one of the few remaining things on my 30 list. There's a fairly sweet video of this that I'll be putting up after this article. We found the Rocky statue on the right side of the stairs, took some pictures and then proceeded to our next stop in Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell. I had already been there before so I walked around a bit and got some free tickets to enter Independence Hall while Johnny listened to the guide about the Liberty Bell. We had to wait around in the rain for a couple minutes before the tour of Independence hall started but luckily we thought ahead this time and brought umbrellas. We were lead into the east wing of Independence Hall to a room with rows of chairs and a big painting of George Washington signing the Declaration of Independence. Our guide began talking and was very knowledgeable however we weren't able to get the full tour because halfway through her presentation the fire alarm went off and we were then led back out into the rain. After a few minutes we were then bumped up in the tour to the sight where the Declaration had been signed. There were many things about this trip that I found interesting. There was a painting hung in the court room that had been there since the revolution. The story goes that a picture of King George III had hung there before the revolution and in a sign of independence it was taken down, paraded around the streets of Philadelphia and burned in the town square. After glancing in and out of the rooms of Independence Hall we began to get quite hungry. There is no way that we could come to Philadelphia and not get a Philly Cheesesteak. We walked down a few blocks away from the hall to a place called Sonny's. Sliced steak, provolone cheese and sauteed onions, nothing could be better. They get extra points from me for having Wild Cherry Pepsi fountain drinks. We had just enough time after eating to get to our car before the meter ran out. The meter maid was just 2 cars away from us when we got there.

Our next destination was Atlantic City. I had heard of the New Jersey Turnpike but didn't realize how big it is. You literally can't get anywhere in New Jersey without paying a toll. The good thing about the east coast is that you can be anywhere in a matter of hours though. We arrived at our hotel in Atlantic City in just over an hour. We got a great deal at the Showboat. The hotel room was excellent but they gambling was subpar. Every blackjack table in every casino was a $10 minimum. We found 2 tables at the Trump Taj Mahal that were $1 minimums but if you bet less than $10 you had to pay an extra quarter just to play. It doesn't seem like much while you're playing but if you're there all night (like we were) a quarter every hand adds up. I ended up down about $15 on the night but most of that was from paying quarters alone. We walked up and down the Atlantic City boardwalk after playing for a few hours. They had a big monopoly board located just outside the hotel. Interestingly enough, the streets in Monopoly were based on Atlantic City. After that we went back to the hotel to get some much needed sleep and prepare for New York City.

It was raining when we woke up in Atlantic City. We packed up our stuff and headed down the New Jersey Turnpike to get to New York City. Our first stop was the Statue of Liberty. It was hazy from the rain but you could still make out the statue clearly while catching the bottom half of the New York City skyline behind it. After taking a few pictures we headed toward the Holland Tunnel to head into the island of Manhattan. We drove around frantically in the New York traffic. We were so discombobulated that we accidentally drove across the Brooklyn bridge and had to find our way back across before stopping to park at the closest parking garage. After having a somewhat heated conversation with the parking garage attendant we walked down Wall Street to get the famous bull statue. Naturally Johnny was more excited than I was to be down on Wall Street.

The 9/11 memorial wasn't open to the public at the time we were there. There were 20 foot tall barriers surrounding it with information about the memorial printed on them. I was very impressed with the WTC 1 building though. With the haze over the city, I couldn't see to the top of the building. We took in a few solemn moments at the site then decided it would be best if we rode the subway uptown. We walked down the stairs of the subway station where we were stopped by a man who I'm 100% sure was trying to scam us. He kept saying that the machine was broken and that if we gave him $5 he would let us use his subway card. The conversation turned ugly when Johnny asked the man if he worked for the transit system and he replied very condescendingly "of course I do, sir." We didn't want to deal with this guy anymore so we just decided to walk for a while and take in the city. 

Our next stop on our NYC tour was the Empire State Building. It wasn't all that impressive with the clouds covering up it's summit. We continued walking down Broadway as the rain started to pour down. A sea of umbrellas filled the sidewalks as the gutters started to fill with rain. I didn't feel New York City's apathy until a tiny woman with a pointy umbrella poked me in the eye while walking next to me and didn't think anything of it. I was overwhelmed by the constant up and down motion of people trying to dodge one another's umbrellas. We stopped off for a bit at Macy's on 5th avenue, the World's Largest Macy's. This is seriously the biggest department store I've ever been in. We came in one door, went to the bathroom came out what I thought was the same door and ended up 3 blocks away. The good news is that even though we were slightly lost at the time, we popped out in front of Madison Square Garden. 

The next destination we had in mind was a big one, Times Square. We walked to the middle of it and I was amazed by how bright the square was. It was midday but this point. There was nothing but LED lights in every direction. Our time was running short as we only had 8 hours to park. We quickly headed toward Rockefeller Center, my last stop in NYC. Along the way we saw Radio City Music Hall and the GE Building which houses NBC Studios. I was sad to discover that they hadn't started the ice skating rink yet. I had to do some digging to find out that they start that on October 8th (if you're in NYC after the 8th, go skate and take a picture of it for me). Our time was almost up so we flagged down a taxi and made our way back to the parking garage. In only a few minutes we picked up the car, made sure the shady attendant didn't take anything and we headed down the FDR East River Dr out of Manhattan. We stopped off a few hours later in New Britain, CT to stay for the night. 

[korywright-50statejourney]

Basketball Rivals, Civil War Endings & Our Nation’s Capitol

Days 51 & 52 (September 4th & 5th)

Chapel Hill, NC; Durham, NC; Appomattox Court House, VA; Fredericksburg, VA; Washington D.C.

We started off the next day by heading north into North Carolina. We went up through Raleigh to reach out destination of Chapel Hill, NC. There, we walked around the campus of the University of North Carolina. It was the Sunday of Labor Day weekend so there wasn’t much going on here. We were able to walk inside the football stadium and take pictures, which was cool because they were still cleaning up from the season opener the day before. The Dean Smith Center was a different story however. It is only open on Mondays through Fridays so sadly we weren’t able to get inside. We had to settle with peaking in through the doors and taking pictures of some of the surrounding décor.

Since we were so close we figured that we had better drive the 8 miles to Durham where Duke University is located. Duke University is a very different campus in my opinion. Everything there screams expected excellence. Every building is made of the finest stone while every student seems to be walking around with their chests puffed out. Sadly, we were also unable to get into Cameron Indoor Stadium. However, the football stadium was open so we were able to at least get some pictures of Duke Athletics. We spent so much time at the campuses and driving that we had to stop for the night just inside Virginia at a Wal-Mart for the night.

This day is one of my personal favorite days of the trip. We started off in Appomattox Court House National Park. Appomattox is the location where General Lee surrendered to General Grant on April 9th, 1965. Many people believe that this event happened at the court house. However, it actually occurred at the home of Wilmer McLean down the road from the court house. We stopped into the court house to watch a short video of the event then went to Wilmer McLean’s house where it had been redone to reflect the picture of the surrender that was drawn in 1945. After that we walked a few houses down to the Clover Hill Tavern which was where the union printed up the 28,000 paroles for the surrendered confederate soldiers on just 2 printing presses. We walked around a bit more trying to soak in the history that had taken place there before making our way out of the park and towards Fredericksburg, VA. Not 3 miles outside of the park however, we were stopped at a road block. We believe the Virginia State Police were looking for a fugitive of some kind and were setting up road blocks coming out of Lynchburg.

In Fredericksburg, we stopped at the Sunken Road. The Sunken Road is the spot where the confederacy bunkered down to stop the advancing Union army from coming up the hill. It is one of the best geographic military advantages I’ve seen. Much of the road has been rebuilt but there is a section of the stone wall running along the road that is still intact. We took the self-guided walking tour along the road and up on the hill where the cemetery is located. There were so many unidentified bodies at this battle that many of them were buried together with just a plot number and the number of bodies buried carved into the headstone. It was a very hallowing place to walk around. The immensity of what happened there soaks into your bones as you walk around and discover just how many lives were lost.

After Fredericksburg we went to our nation’s capitol, Washington D.C. We drove straight into the city before finding a parking spot just outside of the national mall. We walked straight down the mall to the Washington Monument which, as Johnny has told me, was cracked during the earthquake a few weeks ago. After that we walked down the recently dug up reflecting pool on the way to the Lincoln Memorial. I was really looking forward to getting a picture of the Lincoln Memorial in the reflection of the pool but it was nothing more than rocks and dirt. After the Lincoln Memorial we walked another couple miles across the Arlington Memorial Bridge to get to John F. Kennedy’s grave and the Eternal Flame that is located just above. At about this time the rain started pouring down and due to our poor planning, we only had one umbrella and left the camera bag back in the car. We needed to protect the camera so Johnny used the umbrella to cover the camera while I walked side by side with him in the rain. Also located in Arlington National Cemetery is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I didn’t realize that the tomb is guarded day at night by a marine that paces back and forth in front of it. The rain was pouring down as hard as ever at this time. The marine guarding the tomb wasn’t flinching as the rain beat down upon him. It really put into perspective what we had been walking through. We were scurrying from under tree to tree in the hopes of not getting wet and this man was standing upright taking the storm head on in service to this monument. We had been walking for many miles and time was against us so we jumped on the subway back into the downtown Washington D.C. Once off the subway, we walked a few blocks to reach our destination of the White House. Michelle Obama has really been doing a good job on this health food kick if you ask me. She put in a big garden outside the White House with local children that is specifically used to feed people in the White House. We took a few pictures before heading back to the mall to get some pictures of Capitol Hill. When we arrived at Capitol Hill we were approached by a local news reporter and his cameraman. He told us that the Postmaster General was addressing congress the next day stating that if the post office didn’t receive funding they would be forced to make some drastic changes. He asked if he could get our reactions to that on camera and we obliged. Johnny went first giving such a good answer that I didn’t want to say anything. The camera turned to me almost immediately after Johnny was finished and I stuttered out my short answer. The reporter thanked us and told us to look for the responses on the 11 PM news on Channel 9 WUSA. We didn’t think much of it and continued to take pictures at Capitol Hill before getting back to the car to get into Maryland to stay for the night.

This was the beginning of a hectic New England schedule. The days to come will include Philadelphia, Atlantic City, New York City and Boston. 

[korywright-50statejourney]

Seafood Nachos, Spanish Moss & Southern Hospitality

Days 49 & 50 (September 2nd & 3rd)

Mobile, AL; Destin, FL; Savannah, GA; Folly Beach, SC

We woke up at the rest stop having not really gotten a good night’s sleep because of the heat so we went to a little coffee shop in Mobile, AL named Carpe Diem Coffee & Tea Co. The coffee at this place was amazing and led Johnny and I to discussion about Springfield needing to get a coffee shop like it. We finished our coffee and hit the road again to keep ahead of the impending storm.

Johnny has spent enough time in this area that he drove me around giving me a improvised tour through northern Florida along the coast. We stopped in at a place he had been talking about for a while in Destin, FL named “The Back Porch”. The whole restaurant is tables facing out into the ocean next to open windows. We ordered an amazing plate of seafood nachos and finished the meal with some delicious key lime pie before hitting the road again. Florida is a huge place and really needs more time to fully be explored but with our time situation we needed to stay on the road so we spent the rest of the day driving through the northern part of Florida before stopping at another rest stop in Georgia to stay for the night.

This has to be the busiest rest stop in America. All night long people were constantly pulling in next to our car, slamming their doors and leaving a few minutes later. Combine that with the humidity and I think I may have gotten somewhere around an hour and a half of actual sleep. We soon found ourselves pulling into Savannah, GA. We drove down a cobblestone road to park just a few blocks away from the riverfront market. We grabbed some morning coffee at a little shop just outside of the market named Vic’s Coffee Shop. This place had some excellent coffee and the woman working the counter used the word “ya’ll” which instantly set me at ease. After our coffee, we strolled up and down the market before heading into the town to visit some of the many squares in the town. I found it interesting that the founder of the city purposely put so many squares in the town to confuse any would-be attackers who marched on the city. Every square had a different statue in the middle with many benches around it. Everyone you look there’s Spanish moss hanging from the trees. Everything seems to move a lot slower in Savannah. Cars actually stop in the middle of the city to let someone in who has been at a stop sign for awhile. In one of the squares they have the supposed bench where Forrest Gump sat and they have an impersonator run through the town hourly. We walked around for a bit taking in the city and listening to bits and pieces of trivia we overheard from passing tour buses before leaving for Folly’s Beach just outside of Charleston.

Folly’s Beach is a beachside town stretching a few miles along the ocean. With it being Labor Day weekend we were pretty hard pressed to find a parking spot but after a while we finally did and were able to get into the water for a bit. The waves weren’t nearly as unforgiving as the Hawaii waves so it was fun to float around in the water and try to high jump the bigger waves. After swimming we dried off and went to a pizza place we had seen on the outskirts of town named Woody’s. The pizza was iffy at best but the Yuengling beer to go with it was delicious. After we ate we heading to the Super 8 motel in Ladson, SC where we stayed for the night.

[korywright-50statejourney]

Southern Decadence, Security Guards and NFL Games

Day 46 (September 1st)

New Orleans, LA

We woke up at the Super 8 motel in Port Allen, LA. It’s amazing how much a good night’s sleep can affect your abilities. When we spend nights in a hotel and I can stretch out for a full night it completely refreshes my mental capabilities. Thankfully, we didn’t wake up to the sounds of the front desk telling us someone broke into our car so our day already started off on a good note. We spent the morning doing our traditional hotel morning routine: dominate the free breakfast, leach off their free internet and catch up watching ESPN for a couple hours. Not soon thereafter we packed up our stuff and struck off for New Orleans just an hour and a half south.

The city of New Orleans was very overcast that day with the onset of Tropical Storm Lee just off the coast. It alternated between sprinkling and spitting rain the whole time we were there. We parked the car in a lot a few blocks south of the Superdome and began walking toward Bourbon Street. I had thought that Bourbon Street ran perpendicular to the Mississippi River so we walked in a big U around Bourbon Street before finally having the chance to walk down Bourbon Street. We began walking down Bourbon Street and something strange was going on. Before this we had seen many pretty girls walking around New Orleans but for some reason at Bourbon Street there were nothing but guys at this point. We walked a couple blocks before I heard Johnny say “Whoa, there was a dude dancing on the table in that bar wearing a banana hammock!” Suddenly it all clicked in my head. There were rainbow flags hanging from every bar. There wasn’t a girl to be found in sight. There were posters up promoting “New Orleans Southern Decadence”. I quickly pulled up Wikipedia on my phone to see that Southern Decadence is New Orleans weeklong gay pride festival. I had gone in with the impression that there were going to be busty women hanging from the balconies showing their goods for beads. Instead, there were effeminate men wearing tight clothing as far as the eye could see. I have nothing against the homosexual way of life but it was incredibly uncomfortable being the only straight guys smack in the middle of Southern Decadence.

The New Orleans Saints were playing the Tennessee Titans that night at the Superdome so we walked up to the stadium to see if we could score some tickets. We waited until the ticket office opened and they told us the cheapest tickets were $60 a piece for nosebleed seats. Needless to say, we walked away. We still wanted to go to the game though so we had a plan to get some online at a hotel business center. On the way to the nearest Holiday Inn we talked to a scalper who wanted $50 a piece for tickets. We told him that was too much and he told us to make an offer. We told him that we were looking for something more along the lines of $30 for both tickets total. Apparently that wasn’t something he was interested in and he walked away without saying anything. After that, we made it to the fanciest Holiday Inn in the history of man. All of the employees were wearing suits. We asked a skittish young man behind the counter if we could use their business center and after hesitating for a second he told us the business center was just for hotel guests. He did however tell us that the public library was a block away and that we could use their facilities.

We walked into the library and up to the humongous front desk to ask where the computer lab was. The woman sitting behind the counter said that we needed to talk to the gentleman at that business & technology desk. The man gave us a temporary code to use the computers but we had to schedule a time to use them. The nearest time was 15 minutes from then so we sat at a nearby table and tried to see what we could bring up on StubHub on our phones. Not soon after we were able to grab a computer and sign in. We had to accept the terms for using the computer before getting to the internet and after that we had 30 minutes to use the computer. We found 2 tickets in the upper terrace for $13 a piece! We went through the whole process and just before paying something happened and we had to start over. We were then able to find 2 tickets closer to the 50 yard line for only $11 a piece! We went through the whole process again and just before paying something went wrong again. The cut off to get tickets on StubHub was in 15 minutes and we were only allowed to use the computer for 20 more minutes so we had to hurry. We went back to the main screen and this time we were able to find the same tickets in the upper terrace for only $9 a piece! We were so ecstatic with this price and finally got through the payment process. Everything was going great until we received the email with instructions to download our tickets. The email contained a spot for the tickets but no tickets were there. We only had 3 minutes left to use the computer at this time. We printed off every bit of information we thought we would need at the time and went outside to call StubHub. After waiting on hold with StubHub for 20 minutes, Johnny finally got a hold of a representative. He told the woman on the other end our problem. She understood and sent the tickets directly to Johnny’s email. We went back into the library and thankfully our computer was still available. Johnny furiously logged in to his email and nothing was there. There were no new emails at all in his inbox. “She said it might take five minutes for it to show up” Johnny said to me. Five minutes came and went. Then six minutes and seven minutes soon followed. Around the fifteenth minute when Johnny and I had almost reached the end of our rope and were pulling out the phone to call the woman back, the email appeared. Both tickets were intact and able to print. We printed them off and quickly walked down to the stadium. We walked through the Champion Square, a fan experience area on the south end of the stadium which is basically a spot for bands to play and people to buy $8 beer before getting into the stadium. We reached the entrance gate and were preparing to go through when a rude and rotund woman told Johnny to put the camera bag on the table. She then asked to see the zoom lens. She took it out extended it all the way and put it on the table. “See. You can’t have lens that are over 6 inches.” She said snidely pointing to a piece of paper taped to the table. Johnny asked if we could leave it with them until after the game. She said no. He asked if there were lockers at the stadium we could use. She said no. She then told us that we’d have to take it back to the car and that that was the only option. The inherent problem with this was that we were exactly sure where the car was and we only had about an hour before kick off. Don’t get me wrong, we knew the general area of where the car was and we would have been able to find it without any problems but being under the gun we didn’t want to walk around in circles clicking the unlock button like an old crazy woman at a shopping mall.

Johnny was fuming. Steamed seem to be coming from his ears as he strode faster than normal weaving in and out of people happily on their way to the stadium as I struggled to keep up. We made it at the car in 15 minutes after taking the long route in the wrong direction for a bit. We walked with the same fervor back to the stadium as we had getting to the car and walked up to the same lady at the same gate. This time she looked inside the bag and let us pass without any hesitation. They patted us down not even bothering to check our pockets. The most frustrating part was that we could have walked around the corner, put the zoom lens in one of our pockets and walked right in.

The football game was what you would expect from a preseason football game. There were a lot of guys whose names I didn’t know playing very hard for that last spot on the roster before final cuts were made. One name that stuck out was Chris Johnson, the star running back for the Titans who earlier that day had ended his lockout and signed an extension with the team, who was suited up and actually got in for a few plays. The only downside I have with the game was that the reception in the stadium was horrible and I wasn’t able to look up the Cowboys score.

After the game we went back to the car and had decided to try to get as far east down the gulf as we could in order to get out of the path of Tropical Storm Lee. We made it in and out of Mississippi in an hour before stopping a few miles into Alabama at a rest stop to stay the night. 

[korywright-50statejourney]

Superman, Blues Music and Diamond Hunting

Days 45-47 (August 29th-31st)

St. Louis, MO; Metropolis, IL; Nashville, TN; Memphis, TN; Little Rock, AR; Murfreesboro, AR; Baton Rouge, LA

The second half of our trip started with seeing some friends. Our fantasy football draft was being had at our friend Justin’s house so we decided to go down and take off from there. The fantasy draft went off without a hitch (I, of course, have the best team) and afterwards we spent the afternoon playing wiffleball in the front yard. We stayed the night at Justin’s before making our way back into Illinois and down to Metropolis. Metropolis is known primarily for being the home of Superman even though the only thing it has in common with Superman is the name. They have a Superman museum that we had previously been to but since it’s been over 5 years since we’ve visited we decided to try it again. The town is somewhat low key unless you go during the annual Superman festival in July. For any fan of Superman, this is the place to be in July. Metropolis is located right on the border of Illinois and Kentucky so it was just a stone’s throw to continue on south into Kentucky. We plan to hit Kentucky a little bit more in the trip so we drove right on through to Nashville, TN.

When we looked up what to do in Nashville, Broadway was on every list. Broadway is littered with honky tonks and memorabilia shops. We walked the strip for a while before decided to grab a few beers and listen to some music at the Whiskey Bent Saloon. We listened to a singer named Taria that was very good in my opinion. She interacted with the crowd well, had an amazing voice and frankly was not too hard on the eyes. We needed to get back on the road so we finished our Yuengling beers and headed for Memphis. We ended up spending the night sleeping in the car at a rest stop a few miles outside of Memphis.

We woke up the next morning, stopped in at a donut shop just off the interstate for some coffee and donuts and headed down toward Beale Street in downtown Memphis. The primary stop on around Beale Street is Sun Studios where Elvis recorded his first album. Many other artists have recorded their music there as well but Elvis by far is the most famous. Even walking down the street at 10 in the morning you get the sense that this place is a crazy party place. Again we keep showing up at these places known for their nightlife early in the morning. We walked up and down the street with our makeshift tour guide, a homeless man named Tom who was very knowledgeable about the area. We then walked a few blocks south of Beale Street to a little restaurant called Gus’s World Famous Chicken. The name makes a bold claim but the chicken more than lives up to it. We originally went in because we were told the fried pickles were something we needed to try. The fried pickles compliment the delicious and juicy fried chicken very nicely if you plan on stopping in.

We left Memphis and headed west toward Little Rock, AR. They must really love former president Bill Clinton here because his name is slapped on the side of everything. We stopped off the interstate to check out the city wide farmer’s market located at Riverfront Park. I couldn’t help myself and I was compelled to pick up a large container of blueberries for only $3. Sadly, not much was going on in Little Rock so left town heading southwest to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, AR. We arrived late in the afternoon so we got a campsite and set up the tent for the night deciding to dig for diamonds the following morning. There wasn’t anybody in the grounds except for us and a couple who we camping a few sites away from us. The heat and humidity were unbearable there so we went back into town to get something refreshing to cool us off. When we came back we threw around the football for bit then decided to finish off what was left of the Sailor Jerry. Nobody likes to drink alone we a conversation was stuck up between us and the camping couple next to us. We spent the rest of the night trading stories and drinking with Jackson and Stacy before trying to get some sleep in the sweltering humidity.

The next morning we slammed some water and headed into the park with our rented equipment ready to make our fortune in diamond hunting. Sadly, after 3 hours of digging and sifting around in the dirt the only thing we found was a moderate sized piece of Quartz. We showered up back at the campsite and hit the road towards Baton Rouge, LA. We stopped off for the night at a Super 8 motel just outside of Baton Rouge in Port Allen, LA. There’s not much to say about this place except it allowed us to catch up on True Blood and they have a guy at the continental breakfast whose sole job is making you the perfect waffle.

New Orleans is a story on it’s on so we’ll save that for the next post.

If you have any comments or questions you can get ahold of me on twitter @KoryWright or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/KWright43

[korywright-50statejourney]

The Alamo, the JFK Assassination and Kansas City Barbeque

Days 40-42 (August 24th – 26th)

San Antonio, TX; Austin, TX; Dallas, TX; Oklahoma City, OK; Wichita, KS; Kansas City, KS; Springfield, IL

For as hot as it gets in Texas during the day, the nights cool off more than enough to make it comfortable. At certain points in the night I actually got a little chilly and was forced to curl up in the fetal position to keep some warmth. We stopped at a rest stop just outside of Sonora, TX for the night before setting off toward San Antonio.

We woke up fairly early and arrived at San Antonio around 9 AM. We arrived later than the morning traffic but earlier than the crowd at The Alamo so again our timing was impeccable. The Alamo is kind of a strange sight. There are towering buildings all around it yet there it sits in the heart of San Antonio untouched. We walked in under a stone archway. It must be true that people as a whole have grown taller than in previous years because I had to duck under every doorway we went through. It was a really neat place to walk through. There’s a main courtyard that is surrounded by a 10 foot tall stone wall. Along this wall there are smaller bunkers and in the center of these walls is the building most associated with the fort. We walked around the fort for awhile, going in and out of the bunkers, before heading north to Austin, TX. There wasn’t much to photograph in Austin other than the capitol building and the new headquarters for a company Johnny has been following. There is however a lively bar scene that we were unfortunately far too early for having gotten there around 1 PM. The majority of this day was spent driving as we then headed further north to Dallas where we stayed for the night in a Best Western Plus. We arrived in the afternoon to give ourselves enough time to lounge around and unwind. With the temperature being in the lower 100s we spent some time down by the pool where I perfected my underwater swimming technique for a bit. We had worked up an appetite swimming so we ventured over to a pizza place called Serious Pizza. This pizza place had almost 20 specialty pizzas all of which with a more colorful name than the last and even more styles of beer. We order a “medium” 19 inch pizza and had a few pints of Rahr brewery’s Ugly Pug black lager. I didn’t know what to expect from this beer but it was surprisingly smooth and refreshing. We stuffed our bellies full of pizza and went back to the hotel to settle in for the night.

We woke up the next morning, again demolishing the hotel’s continental breakfast, and set off for downtown Dallas. We went to Dealey plaza which is most famously known for being the spot where John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I’m going to try to pick my words carefully as many people have many different ideas as to what happened that day. I have done a lot of research on the subject of the assassination and the conspiracies that have spawned from it. It is strange to say but it was really fun for me to being around this place that I knew so much about but had never been to. I began giving Johnny a tour of the plaza as we walked around. I showed him the spot where Lee Harvey Oswald was when the assassination occurred. I showed him the route the motorcade took. I was interested to see that on the roadway there are two X’s marking the spots where JFK had been shot. We continued walking around as I showed him the area known as the Grassy Knoll, where many conspiracy theorists believe the second shooter was standing. We saw the spot where Abraham Zapruder was when he filmed the only recognized footage of the assassination. After my makeshift tour of the plaza we talked to a local historian who had his own views on the assassination. I don’t want to put his findings on here but they are very interesting and we did take some items back with us so if you would care to discuss it both Johnny and I would be happy to talk about it. Being the die hard Dallas Cowboys fan that I am I forced Johnny into stopping at Cowboys Stadium. It’s much different than some of my other favorite sports centers. With Wrigley Field, there’s a sense of tradition running throughout the neighborhood. Cowboys Stadium is adjacent to The Ballpark at Arlington, both of which are off the interstate surrounded by water parks and theme parks. At Cowboys Stadium everything is brand new and state of the art. Jerry Jones definitely spent a lot of money making this the most tech friendly stadium. Sadly we were there on a Thursday so none of the fancy bells and whistles were lit up but it was still awe inspiring. I unpacked my Troy Aikman jersey and snapped a few pictures in front of the stadium while the PA system let us know that we could take a self-guided tour through the park but I’m sorry to say we didn’t have time for that. It will just be another thing to come back to Dallas for.

Being so close to the interstate it was just a hop skip and a jump to Oklahoma City, OK. We were there in a matter of hours so we decided to take some time and see Captain America. If you see this movie make sure you stay for the scene after the credits. I squealed in excitement at the end of this scene. After the movie we went into the city to eat at Texadelphia. This place was primarily known for it’s burgers but Johnny being the weirdo hippie that he is ordered the “Hippie Chick Salad” and tweeted about it. Since then, both he and Texadelphia have been having a tweeter affair back and forth. Downtown Oklahoma city, around the minor league ballpark, is a really cool place. There’s a man made creek that flows underneath the main street that gives boat tours of the surrounding area. I would definitely recommend spending a day down there if you get the opportunity. After we walked around a bit, listening to a local band that was playing in the courtyard of this area we got back into the car to get into Kansas by nightfall. The only bad thing I can say about Oklahoma is that their welcome signs are horrible. It’s a slab of rock that says “Oklahoma” down in the ditch on the right side of the interstate. You couldn’t see it if you had a telescope. The worst part is that that’s how every welcome sign is in the state. We passed it coming up from Texas but figured we’d be able to turn around as we crossed the Kansas border and get a good shot. We saw the same horrible sign except this time it was covered by a closed right lane and road construction. We have every other welcome sign from every other state we’ve been to but don’t worry we’ll come up with something good for you, Oklahoma. Around 11 PM, we decided to stop for the night at a Wal-Mart in Wichita, KS.

The next morning we stopped in at a local Starbucks and began going east toward Kansas City. You can’t go to Kansas City without trying some of their barbeque. If you find yourself in Kansas City, KS you have to stop in at the award-winning Oklahoma Joe’s for the best pulled pork sandwich I’ve ever had. Sadly, that’s the best thing I can say for our trip through Kansas and Missouri as the road was long and flat and we were excited to get home. We arrived back home Friday night. Saturday Johnny got the back door fixed and the insurance stuff taken care of while I went into AT&T to get my cell phone troubles situated. Later that night my mother and I went over to Johnny’s parents’ house for dinner. If you’re lucky enough to find yourself with a horsehoe prepared by Johnny’s mother in front of you, thank your lucky stars. Johnny had been talking about his mother’s cheese sauce for awhile and it met all expectations. After dinner we went downtown and spend some time with friends before leaving the next morning for the second half of our journey.

[korywright-50statejourney]

Vegas Winnings, Aliens & Old Friends

Days 35-40 (August 18th – 23rd)

Las Vegas, NV; Rachel, NV; 4 Corners; Phoenix, AZ; Tucson, AZ; Roswell, NM

I need to learn from my mistakes and start taking sleeping pills on long flights. The drive from LAX to Las Vegas was around four hours long. Of those four hours, I think I slept for five of them. I missed a lot of desert and Native American casinos along the way but I woke up refreshed from my nap ready to take Vegas down.

Our flight got in around 8 AM (I’m being told all of this, I don’t remember a single thing), we were in the car around 9 and in Las Vegas around 1 PM. On our previous Vegas trip in early July we realized we like staying downtown instead of on the Strip. We were able to get a room at the Golden Nugget for fairly cheap. We weren’t able to check in at the time we arrived due to computer malfunctions on their end so we walked the casino trying to find some cheap blackjack to play without any luck. After about an hour the computers were up and running so we went up to our hotel to unwind after the 10 hour flight. I was feeling refreshed from my nap so I uploaded some Hawaii pictures and caught up on Sportscenter while Johnny took a nap. We showered up and prepared for a subdued but hopefully lucrative night. We learned on our last visit that their was an awesome cheap restaurant inside the California Casino that served up a salad bar, 8 oz. prime rib and a cherries jubilee dessert for about $8. We stuffed our bellies and proceeded to the Keno area of the casino where our friend Matt and I had some mild luck on our last trip. We pooled our money and played 10 rounds. We ended up winning 3 of the 10 rounds to win back $3. We felt great with our accomplishment (even though we really lost $7) so we headed over to the blackjack area. We were able to find two spots at the only $3 table in the casino right in between an older couple on a trip for their 50 anniversary. After playing for two hours and drinking multiple free drinks we decided to call it quits. Johnny left the table up $13 while I was the big winner up $55. We then walked out to Fremont street to try to find the ridiculously good Prince impersonator that we saw on our last visit that I affectionately kept referring to as Imitation Prince. We weren’t able to locate Imitation Prince (my guess is that he hit the big time and moved to Hollywood Blvd while we were gone) but we did find Faux Rod Stewart who I paid a couple bucks to sing me a rendition of “You Wear it Well”. He didn’t look much like him except for the hair but he played the guitar exceptionally well and sounded pretty close to the real thing. After that, I had to stop at a nearby outdoor bar that had a $3 sailor jerry and coke special that I couldn’t pass up. We watched the LED show, which was a video montage of Don McLean’s “American Pie”, then after a quick stop in the Las Vegas Club to lose $20 at the craps table we went back up to the room to crash for the night.

The next morning we spent about an hour in a Krispy Kreme close by to grab breakfast and do some research for our upcoming fantasy football draft. As we hit the road Johnny was as giddy as a schoolboy partly because of the coffee and in my opinion because of our next destination: the Extraterrestrial Highway.

We drove for about an hour and half north until we pulled onto highway 375, labeled by a green highway sign with the words “Extraterrestrial Highway” printed on it covered in random stickers from other visitors. About an hour north is where the famed “Black Mailbox” is located. Replaced years ago by a white mailbox, the black mailbox is an area known for its recurring alien sightings with roughly two to three sightings reported a week. We wrote a letter to our outer space friends and dropped it in the mailbox before heading further north to the Little A’Le’Inn in Rachel, NV. Known as a hub of extraterrestrial activity, the Little A’Le’Inn restaurant specializes in bar food as well as Area 51 information and alien souvenirs. We both tried the “Out of This World Burger” accompanied by a Coors before sticking a dollar with the words “Johnny and Kory, 50 State Journey, 8-19-11” to the ceiling to match the hundreds of others that were already up there. After that I bought an alien head coffee mug, the same which Nick Frost can be seen drinking from when they ate at the very same restaurant in the movie Paul, and a pamphlet detailing where Area 51 is located and some of the entry points. Area 51 is located just 10 miles southwest of Rachel, NV. The dirt road leading to Area 51 was a little too quiet as I thought about what I had seen on the History Channel about the base. In the special a man said that by the time you reached the base they had already taken 300 photos of you, had begun recording your conversation and not only had your identity but the identities of your closest relatives as well. After 10 minutes of driving in speculation we arrived to an unoccupied gate with a sign that read something along the lines of “entry into this base without permission is prohibited. Photography is also prohibited. Trespassers will be shot on sight.” I’m paraphrasing but it was scary and serious enough for us to put the camera down and drive back in the direction we came.

We were still in the mood to do some alien searching so we drove back south to the black mailbox as the sun was setting to hopefully see something in the night sky. As the sun went down flashing lights started to appear on the mountainside in the direction of Area 51. We didn’t pay much attention to them until an orange light started making its way closer to us from miles away. The light blinked a bit the turned left puttering along before shooting faster left at triple the speed it had before. It then slowed down again to a puttering crawl before again tripling its speed left. The orange light then turned toward us as a bright white light appeared replacing the orange one. Johnny became flustered saying things like “We should go. Do you want to go? Let’s go.” as I cooling kept answering his worries with “Not yet.” The vehicle kept approaching silently as the light became bigger and more prominent. About a mile away from us the white light then split into two as we could make out the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. After many pleads from Johnny to leave (I’m sure he was fearing becoming a government detainee and/or experiment) we jumped into the car and sped off in time to make out the likeness of a semi-truck with bright white headlights and orange track lighting approaching where our car had been parked. After a few minutes of deliberation, we decided it was best not to go back and keep moving.

We spent the night at a rest stop outside of Cedar City, UT where the next morning we made our first real breakfast. Bacon and eggs never tasted as good as they did in that aluminum pan over a propane Coleman stove. After breakfast we headed east to Moab, UT, home of Arches National Park. Once there we stopped off at the visitor’s center and took a few minutes deciding what the parts of the park would be the best to see. We decided to go with Double Arch and Delicate Arch. Double Arch was easy to get to. It was located close enough to a road that you could see it from the car. Delicate Arch was a bit rougher to get to. Pretty much all uphill, the 3 mile round trip offered little to no shade with temperatures in the high 90s if not 100s. I will say this for the Arch though; it was well worth the discomfort of the heat to see this arch. The arch is located on the ridge of a basin having been formed by wind rather than rain. We were able to rest under the arch to shield ourselves from the heat while regaining our strength for the hike back. The hike back being mostly downhill was vastly easier. We left Arches NP in just enough time as it started raining upon our departure. From there we drove southeast leaving Utah into Colorado so we could hit another item on my 30 list, the 4 Corners. The 4 Corners is the only point in the United States where 4 states come together: Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. We took some nonsense pictures which to me were well worth the $3 per person price of getting in before pushing further south in Arizona.

We spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot surrounded by RV’s in Flagstaff, AZ. The next morning we went north about an hour to hike through the Grand Canyon. You always hear people say how majestic the Grand Canyon is but it’s really one of those things you can’t understand until you actually see it. We were standing at the south rim of the canyon and couldn’t even see the river at the bottom. It’s massive. We were on a limited timeframe so we only hiked down about 2 miles before realizing that the view wasn’t going to get much better if we went the full 3 miles in. We hiked back out taking many breaks along the way mostly because of me not having the desert hiking gene that Johnny had been blessed with. Going down was pretty easy. Coming back up was difficult especially considering the heat. One good thing about the horrible hike is that there’s an ice cream shop located at the entrance to the canyon. After a scoop of mint chocolate chip for the both of us we were back on the road. We drove down to Phoenix for the night to stay in a Hyatt Place hotel which was excellent. The hotel room felt like a high priced loft. The "living area" had a couch a desk and a bar/sink while on the other end of the room was the "bedroom area" with 2 beds, a huge vanity and bathroom. We were wore out from hiking so we ordered a pizza and watched the Cowboys game before catching up on True Blood and calling it a night.

The next morning we vedged out at the hotel before doing some much needed laundry at the Clean Spin Laundromat in Phoenix. We were trying to meet up with our friend Derek in Phoenix the night before but he had to attend to business in Tucson that night. Lucky for us we were heading through Tucson the next day so we were able to grab dinner at a place called Barrio Brewing Company. We made it there in time for happy hour so we enjoyed some half price buffalo wings and beers while catching up. It was really nice to see a familiar face after talking to strangers for so long. After dinner we said our goodbyes and headed east into New Mexico where we stayed the night at a rest stop just inside the state line.

We were up with the sun the next morning and on the road toward Roswell, NM. As most people know Roswell is the site of an alleged alien spacecraft. As we pulled into Roswell there was a sign reading "International UFO Museum and Research Center, 1 block". After another 2 miles we finally found the museum and were able to get a parking spot right in front. With it being a Tuesday, the museum wasn't busy at all. This place was amazing. I went in expecting to see a bunch of crackpot anecdotes about how "Fire fell from the sky". Instead, there's a huge timeline of the event that happened just a few miles northwest of Roswell. The timeline is supported by dozens of witness testimonies and military affidavits describing what happened there. I'm not going to give away any information but I'll say that I now believe something happened there that night on July 4th, 1947 that the government went to great lengths to cover up. We probably won't put up all the pictures so if you would like to see some of them, we'll gladly show you. We soaked up as much knowledge as we could before making a pit stop in the gift shop and hitting the road again toward San Antonio. 

Our stops in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri are coming soon. Hopefully after that I'll be able to get back in the rhythm of daily blogging!

[korywright-50statejourney]

Waterfalls, Rogue Waves & Double Rainbows... Part 2

Days 27-34 (August 10th - 17th)

Kaua'i, Hawaii

Anini beach, HI; Hanalei Bay, HI; Anahola beach, HI; Haena beach, HI; Poi’pu, HI

I was awoken that night around 1 PM by the sound of a thunderstorm coming from the ocean. I was worried that we were going to be blown away by the storm but like most ocean storms, this one was more bark than bite. It continued to sprinkle for around an hour before I finally fell back asleep. Our surf lesson was scheduled for 10:00 the next morning so I was a little worried that the rain would dampen our experience. I woke up again around 8 bright-eyed and bushy tailed ready to take on some waves. Johnny and I went back into Hanalei a little bit early to get coffee from our usual coffee place, Java Kai. This time, however, we needed to get some food in our bellies if we were going to tame the ocean that morning. I ordered the North Shore skillet. Imagine an omelet as thick as a pie stuffed with ham, sausage, bacon and cheese. I had a slice of that for breakfast with a side of fresh fruit while Johnny had the Kaua’i Waffle, a regular waffle topped with bananas, mangos and coconut syrup.

We were a little anxious to get our surf lesson going so we walked a couple blocks down to the Quiksilver shop to sign in for our lesson. It was around 8:50 so we planned on looking around the shop until 10 but they didn’t open until 9. The lady signing people for surf lessons was sitting outside the shop so we talked to her for a bit. We told her about our journey and she decided to knock the price of our lessons down to $45 a piece because she liked our story. We talked to her for a couple minutes as she gave us directions where to go to get to the spot of the lesson. It wasn’t too far away and I needed to find a new pair of glasses having broken my previous pair in the jungles of Kaua’i so we walked down the street a bit to a small general store. After finding an adequate pair we drove the couple blocks down to Hanalei Bay where our lessons were to take place.

We met up with our surf instructors, Chatson and Keaton, standing around a older model white chevy truck loaded with 20 surfboards. Both were younger than us but not by much. Chatson, in his early twenties, was our primary instructor sporting a trucker hat while Keaton, also in his 20s, showed up later. Keaton had the whole bleach blonde surfer look spouting out words like "brah". After a 10 minute tutorial of where to position yourself on the board and how not to worry about popping up to fast with these waves, we attached our safety straps to our ankles and headed out to the water. The waves were puny but strong enough to take you into the beach if you caught a good one. I was up and riding one into the beach by my third wave caught. From where we were waiting for waves in the bay you could stand up with water up to your chest and hold onto your board. I felt incredibly comfortable with this having no fear of rogue waves or drowning. We stayed out for 2 hours riding various waves into the beach and bailing on the smaller ones that took us nowhere. After that Chatson jokingly said we needed to have a "board meeting" in which he told us we passed our lesson and were able to keep the boards for another hour before they were packing them up for the day. It's amazing how the waves suddenly died done once the instructors left...

I felt invincible after our lessons. Surfing was one of the major things on my 30 list that I wanted to check off while in Hawaii. We were a little wore out from surfing but still wanted to do something so we went back to Travis' and Tiffany's hotel to lay by the pool and drink some beers. This continued for a couple hours before like most mammals we needed food in our bellies. Hawaiian cuisine is a great experience. There aren't any food chains or big restaurants anywhere. There's just shacks side by side up and down the main streets of the towns. We went back to Kapaa to a place called Mermaids which specialized in fish and sushi. I still felt incredible from the surf lessons so i ordered the house special, seared ahi tuna cucumbers and sticky rice wrapped in seaweed and a wasabi wrap. Before this I hadn't tried wasabi. I'd had seaweed which I didn't care for but I shrugged it off to a bad batch. As soon as the wasabi hit my lips I felt my mouth burst into flames. My drink, a chai tea with coconut milk, helped a bit but after each bite the heat became more intense. I got through 3/4 of my sandwich before giving up on the wasabi and scrapping the rice and fish out of it with my fork. 

The next couple of days were spent getting pumbled by the waves at Secret Beach by the Kilauea Lighthouse, trying to surf violent waves in Kealia Beach unsuccessfully, drinking Java Kai coffee and lounging around enjoying the Kaua'i atmosphere.

Our second to last day was the most adventurous and most rewarding day of the trip. Johnny and I went as far as the road would take us to start the hiking trail down the Na Pali Coast while Travis and Tiffany took a tour of the same coast in a catamaran. We took the 2 mile Hanakapi'ai Falls trail hiking up and down and along the mountainside leading to a creek down at the beach. From there we took the trail 2 more miles inward through the forest. I don't think there was one square foot of level ground throughout the entire 2 miles. We were constantly balancing on boulders, crossing the creek four or fives times. We went through periods of bamboo forest that creaked and swayed over our heads giving the impression that they could fall at any moment. As the boulders got bigger, the path grew wide revealing a lagoon being filled by a 200 foot waterfall. For some reason I had forgotten my swim trunks in the car but that didn't matter. We had been hiking for so long and the humidity in the forest was so high that I jumped in anyways. The water was frigid. One girl who had gotten there before us was dangling her feet in the water saying that she couldn't feel her toes anymore. Through the waterfall, a group of guys were standing on a ledge regrouping from the chilly water. Johnny and I swam through the water coming over the falls over to the ledge as they were swimming back out. The water was so cold it felt good to get out and stand on the ledge even though the mist from the falls was making the air colder than normal. I was able to check off another item from my 30 list by jumping through the base of a waterfall. I swam like a mad man back to the rocks to get out of the freezing water where we dried off and replenished our bodies with some bottled water and Clif bars before starting the 4 mile hike back to the car. The hike back was definitely rougher than the way there. I thought that it was pretty even between going uphill and going downhill but on the way back it felt like the first 9/10 of the hike was straight uphill. After that workout we needed some actual food to eat so we went back into Hanalei to eat at a place we'd passed a couple times before, Tiki Man Pizza. We arrived around 3:45 but they didn't start serving food until 5 so we decided to have a couple beers and wait. It felt like a very local place where everyone knew each other's names. There was an older man named Richie across the bar from us who was sitting under a picture of himself dancing that was taken many years ago. He looked like he was at least a couple years past dancing. We had a couple beers and then asked what the special was. Our bartender, Julia, told us that they specialized in Mai Tais and that they'd been using the same recipe for 50 years. Not wanting to mess with tradition, we ordered a few to continue the streak. I could see why they've been using the same recipe for 50 years because this was a perfect Mai Tai. If you end up in Kaua'i I suggest you go and get yourself one. We met a lot of interesting people while we were waiting. There was a black guy from Cleveland, a couple from Boston, two couples from California and another woman across the bar that seemed to be another local. We ordered the #9 pizza, the full combo, which was loaded down with everything in the kitchen but the sink. I'm not going to say it was the best pizza we've had but it was definitely the most filling. After eating and saying goodbye to our new friends we went to Haena beach, our last camping spot and the most touristy, to get a different view of the sunset and relax for our last night in Kaua'i.

The next morning we packed up our stuff and stopped off at the Java Kai for the last time. We planned to hit the last spot on the island that we had yet to go. We drove down to the south coast to do some shopping and check out the only beach we had yet to see. I was finally able to find something I thought my mom would like down in Poi'pu before we hit the beach. Johnny and Travis did some body surfing before Travis and Tiffany headed back to the airport. After they left Johnny and I were able to get in some wave football before halfway showering for the first time on the trip (by halfway showering I mean using shampoo so we didn't smell like hobos on the plane). We noticed smoke billowing from about a mile inland while we were packing up our stuff for the flight. A man next to us said that it was probably a brush fire and judging by the amount of smoke they were probably going to close down the main road back to the airport. We packed even faster than and tried to get through the main road before they closed it. We made it through in just enough time to see the cops shut down the road behind us. 

For some reason we had a layover in Honolulu on our return flight to the mainland. The flight from Kaua'i to Honolulu was 20 minutes long. We basically just took off and landed, no actual leveling off. Thankfully there wasn't any turbulence this flight. At Honolulu, I was still pretty nervous for the return flight home so I stopped at a bar in the airport and ordered a shot of Jameson Whiskey and a Hawaii Nui beer. I struck up a conversation with a couple from Malibu who were moving to Washington D.C. in a couple weeks. The man gave me his card and told me to look him up when we got to D.C. and he would show us all the good sights. I also meet a yoga instructor named Sherri who informed me that with my body type the best form of yoga for me would be Ashtanga. I'm not sure if it was the nice conversation or the alcohol but I felt much better about the flight back. I went back to the terminal to meet up with Johnny, Travis and Tiffany where the airline and said that they needed people to check bags for free in order to save space in the overhead bins. Johnny and I both obliged then made our way onto the plane.

Long story short I was still pretty nervous on the plane so I wasn't able to get any sleep. Instead I watched the movie "Rio", a kids movie about a indoor bird that is thrown into the wild. I thought that would put me to sleep but to no success. While everyone around me was nodding off I continued to watch episodes of the TV shows Friday Night Lights, Frasier, The Middle and the Big Bang Theory. Again I couldn't fall asleep. As the plane's landing gear came down, the sun was coming up and I still hadn't slept a wink. I'm not sure what happened the next couple hours because I was basically a zombie picking up our luggage and riding the shuttle back to the car but we were on our way to Las Vegas in time.

We've gotten off the path of doing things during the day and having time to write at night but I swear we're getting back on track. I'm going to write a big column tomorrow about the past week including Las Vegas, the extraterrestrial highway and Roswell, NM. Please stay tuned!

[korywright-50statejourney]

Waterfalls, Rogue Waves & Double Rainbows... Part 1

Days 27-34 (August 10th – 17th)

Kaua’i, Hawaii

Lihue, HI; Waimea Canyon, HI; Kapaa, HI; Hanalei, HI

The flight from LAX to Kaua’i was nothing really special. I was nervous like I always am flying and to make matters worse I didn’t have my Troy Aikman lucky charm to calm me down. We took off around 8:30 and before I knew it we were already above the clouds with just the ocean below us. I tried like hell to not think of that every minute we were on the plane. They were showing “Arthur” as the on-flight movie. Naturally because I was so nervous I couldn’t sleep so I spent the time watching the movie. It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I’m starting to come around on Russell Brand. The flight was around 6 hours long but with the time change it was a 3 hour flight. One thing that I found interesting was that Hawaii doesn’t use daylight savings time. With that in mind, what I thought was a 4 hour difference back home was actually a 5 hour difference.

As soon as the plane started the descent to Lihue I began to feel the influence of the islands. The runway looks like a dirt road surrounded by palm trees on all sides. I’m not trying to say that it’s a sub standard airport. It’s actually got more amenities than some other airports I’ve been in. I can’t tell if they purposely trying put out the laid back island feel or if it just comes naturally. Either way, it was the most comfortable I’ve been landing in a city than I ever had before (that’s saying something). Only the terminal gates are air conditioned. The walkways to and from the gates are outside but it doesn’t matter because it never gets hotter than 80º here. We picked up our one checked bag and loaded down with 3 bags each waddled our way to the rental car shuttle. At the Thrifty car rental place we picked up our Chevy Aveo, a car with high gas mileage, low power and quite a lot of room. We loaded up our gear and began figuring out the best way to tackle the island.

We wanted to hit every bit of the island we could. There’s one major highway on the island that starts on the west coast and runs south around the island through the east coast and finally ends on the northwest corner of the island. We decided to knock out one of the more remote areas of the island first so as to maximize our time and gas. The Lihue airport is located on the southeast corner of the island so we set off west down highway 50 toward the Waimea Canyon. The good thing about Kaua’i is that you can get to anywhere in the island in roughly 2 hours. The island is only about 30 miles long. We decided to take the Pihea Trail located at the very end of highway 550 through the Waimea and Koke’e state parks. We slammed a couple of Clif bars and a bottle of water each and struck out for our destination 3.7 miles down the canyon. We got there rather late so we were worried we wouldn’t be able to get to our campsite on time. On the Pihea Trail there are many different landscapes. The first is a dry, rocky trail that is littered with rocks and boulders to traverse. After that, you get into what we guessed as rain forest. Ferns and Mossy trees are spread through the trail. Thankfully we were smart and came with the necessary equipment for an overnight excursion: an abundance of water, a tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, snacks, and a first aid kit. When the path went from rocky to rain forest, the path became treacherous and slippery. The important thing to remember is to see where you’re stepping before you put your foot down. We had a number of slips but no actual stumbles. About 3 miles in we met up with a creek at the base of the canyon. Going across the creek was a supply zip line that Johnny and I heavily considered riding. Immediately after the zip line the path turned from rain forest to prairie grass at the base of the canyon. Sadly, it was in this very prairie grass that I lost my most precious $5 faux Ray ban sunglasses I bought from Wal-Mart. This prairie grass wasn’t like the kind we have back home. It was as tall as me if not taller and packed a wallop if you were unlucky enough to be struck in the face. After walking through what seemed like 2 more miles of this prairie grass (it was probably more like 50 feet) we reached a clearing where we were planning on camping for the night.

Every campground that we’ve been to so far has been the same type of scenario. We show up, we pay there then set up camp. We had researched the campgrounds of Kaua’i before coming so we knew what we were in for in terms of price. What we didn’t know is that you have to pay at the parks and recreation department some 35 miles back in Lihue. Johnny and I spent a couple minutes looking around the camping area for a bulletin board with a stack of envelopes and a deposit box. We didn’t find anything. It was already 8 PM at this point and there was no way we’d be able to make it out before dark so we set up camp and figured we’d worry about it tomorrow if a ranger came by. Completely wore out from the hike all 4 of us passed out fairly early.

I woke up the next morning before everybody and used my time alone to take some pictures without any interference. After some quality shots, I needed to at least rinse my face so I hoped the fence around the campgrounds and walked down a red dirt road about 200 feet down to the creek. The fog had just lifted so the air was cool and crisp but not cold enough to deter me from dunking my head in the creek. With everyone else asleep I stayed down by the creek for awhile listening to the sounds of the water and the jungle around us waking up in the sunlight. Not soon after Travis came down to dunk his head in the water also. After a little breakfast consisting of Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tarts (my personal favorite) we headed back through the prairie grass and through the forest still dewy from the morning fog making it even more unsteady. The plant life seemed more alive in the morning light as the orchids were all blooming. It made the whole hike back seem brighter and friendlier. Johnny and I struck out a little further ahead of Travis and Tiffany to the highest point on the trail, Pu’u o Kila Point. Once we climbed through the brush and along a steep drop-off we caught a breathtaking view of the valley we just stayed in on one side of the point and on the other was the Na Pali Coast still shadowed by the morning fog. It was a little disappointing not being able to see the coast, which was the main reason we climbed up there, but had the fog not been there we wouldn’t have seen something few people probably ever see. From where we were standing atop the point, the sun behind us formed a rainbow from the fog around our shadows. It’s amazing enough to see a rainbow but seeing it encircling your own head no more than 50 feet away. The pictures on Facebook don’t even really do it justice. Travis and Tiffany caught up with us not long after and we took a victory picture at the point for having made it out of the valley alive. Another cool thing about hiking so early is that the fog was lifting from the coast and rolling right over the path around us and down into the valley we had just came from.

Our main goal is always to try and see as much as we can for as little money as we can. Having camped basically for free the first night there we didn’t want to press our luck so we went back to Lihue to get camping permits for the rest of the time. Our plan was to camp 4 nights at Anini beach on the northeast corner of the island then one night in Anahola beach on the east coast and finally the last night in Haena beach on the northwest corner of the island. The cost of camping in Kaua’i is $3 a person per night. With the 2 of us camping for 6 nights our total cost for lodging for our trip was $36. We paid more for that for one night of camping at a private campground in Grand Teton National Park. Simply put we ended up paying more for beer than lodging throughout our Hawaiian adventure. After getting our camping permits we headed off for Anini beach so we could get a good spot by the beach. After claiming a ridiculously sweet spot 20 feet away from the ocean we couldn’t wait to get in the water any longer and jumped in to the calming water of Anini beach. There’s nothing I like better really then floating around in the ocean. After our brief swim session we went back to Kapaa a few miles south of our campsite to try some of the local cuisine. Johnny and I went to a little shack named “Chicken in a Barrel BBQ” where as you can guess they served chicken smoked in a barrel. We each got the house special: a half of a chicken, a huge helping of sticky rice and a portion of mildly hot homemade chili. The best part about the food other than the mouth watering chicken was that they made their own barbeque sauce. I tried the mild sauce which was smoky and sweet, just the way I like my BBQ sauce. After stuffing ourselves, we stopped in at the local Safeway to pick up some local beer for the night. We went with the Kona Brewing Co. Variety Pack. If you find it anywhere, I suggest going with the Longboard Lager. We hit the sack not soon after having a few beers and watching the sunset. During our time camping, our sleeping cycles synced up with the sun very quickly. There wasn’t a night where I think we stayed up later than 9 PM.

The next morning Johnny and I went a little north to a coffee shop we would soon begin to frequent every morning. Java Kai, best known for its famous “shark bite” coffee, serves delicious Kona Coffee, a Hawaii specialty blend. The shark bite that they offer is basically a normal coffee with whipped cream on top in the shape of a shark’s mouth with raspberry syrup drizzled across to simulate blood. Why surfers would want to be reminded of a shark’s bloody mouth, I’ll never understand. After Johnny finished his double espresso and I finished my Kona Coffee we went back down to Kealia beach, a beach we passed on the way to Anini that looked to have some crazy waves. One thing you should know about me is that me and the ocean do not mix well together. When I was in 7th grade, I broke my collarbone boogie boarding off the coast of Maryland. Ever since then I’ve been skittish of going too deep into the ocean. Johnny, however, takes to the water like a fish. We got to the beach and Travis and he swam out to a deeper part than I was willing to go and began body surfing. I went out to just beyond where I felt comfortable and got completely rocked by a wave. That was the end of me going out farther than I felt comfortable for the rest of the trip. We spent a couple hours messing around in the water before starting back to Anini beach. We stopped at a craft fair along the way to see what traditional Hawaiian knick knacks they had to offer. I was looking for a new necklace to replace the one I lost but instead ended up buying two bracelets for $5. Johnny made the steal of a century as he found the same necklace that was going for $40 in Ketchikan, AK for only $8 in Kapaa. We then stopped at a burger joint right next to Java Kai named Bubba’s Burgers. I thought they had some correlation to the frozen “Bubba Burgers” you see in Wal-Mart’s frozen food section so I was a little skeptical. After talking to the people who worked there I found out this Bubba’s Burgers is an only in Hawaii franchise. After learning that, I had no qualms about order the Double Slopper, an open faced sandwich with two meat patties, two slices of cheese and onions covered in spicy chili. Honestly for something called the Double Slopper I was a expecting a bit more. On a side note, anyone who has ever eaten a meal with me EVER knows that I am the world’s slowest eater. I don’t know when it happened on this trip but I now eat faster than Johnny and I can’t tell if I’ve gotten faster because of the lower daily calories and the need to ingest the food as fast as possible or if Johnny has gotten super slow in his old age of 27. After our meal we went back to Anini where we dug out a little pit in the beach and ate s’mores over a beachside campfire before going to bed. Somewhere during our day we found a surf shop that would be giving lessons for $55 so that’s what we had to look forward to the next day. I think that’s a good place to end this one. That’s only 2 days but I don’t want to make this post incredibly long so I’m breaking it up. Part 2 coming soon!

[korywright-50statejourney]

Celebrities, Vomiting & Redwood Trees

Days 22-27 (August 6th – 10th) Twin Harbors State Park, WA; Beachside State Recreation Sight, OR; Del Norte Coast Redwood State Park, CA; San Francisco, CA; Los Angeles, CA

After the debacle in Everett, WA we needed to get some place that would allow us to decompress. After hitting Seattle’s rush hour traffic for the third day in a row we immediately went directly west as fast as we could to the coast. When we reached the coast we stopped at the first campgrounds we saw and set up camp. It wasn’t exactly what we were looking for but it was cheap and had a shower. We set up the tent at a campsite that was surrounded by families with small children. Luckily the people closest to us were fairly quiet and their kids were as subdued as you could expect. They were playing Jack Johnson songs on loop from the radio in their truck which also helped us get into a relaxed mood. Desperately needing to shake away the worries of the past few days we took a few swigs of Sailor Jerry, lounged around the fire and watched the stars for a bit before heading to bed.

The next morning we found ourselves in the middle of a time crunch. The past couple days had put a severe damper on the schedule we had set for ourselves. We had planned to take our time going down the coast, camping and getting in the ocean as much as possible. Now we had to haul ass in order to get to Los Angeles in time for our flight. We wanted to cover as much ground as we could while still maintaining the sightseeing/fact finding nature of our journey. We stopped off at a Rite Aid in a small town once we got into Oregon to pick up a 12 pack of Full Sail beer which is a local brewery self owned by the 47 people who work there. We continued driving for another couple hours before starting the exhaustive search for a campsite on the coast. We stopped at between 5-7 campgrounds before finding one off the beaten path named Beachside State Recreation Sight off the coast of Oregon. We’re getting very adept at setting up our tent and getting a fire going in no time. We got there fairly early so I took the time to catch up on some of the blogging I hadn’t had time to do in the midst of the ordeal back in Washington. As I finished up writing, a fellow camper walked up to Johnny and me and said something along the lines of “You guys look like you know a lot about computers. I’m in the market for a new one. Is there anything I should be looking out for?” We continued the conversation about computers which somehow morphed into a conversation about guns and kept talking to him for awhile. His name was Josh and he lived somewhat close to the campgrounds. He was very knowledgeable about local breweries. We had no idea that Oregon had some much to offer in terms of beer. There are so many different breweries up and down the coast of Oregon. If only we had the time to stop in at one of them… he walked back to his campsite just down the road and Johnny and I went back to our philosophical debate about the differences between the 7th Harry Potter book and the 8th film in the franchise. Out campsite was the closest one to the bathroom so a little later Josh returned with his wife this time. We continued talking for a bit and they invited us over to their campsite to try some of the local beer they had. We learned a lot from them about the local scene. We spent another hour or so there just chatting and drinking before heading back to our campsite in the dark to go to bed.

The next morning it seemed like we packed up camp in record time, stopped off to say goodbye to our new friends and were on the road before the sun was fully up in the sky. One of the places we wanted to make sure we went was the Redwood National Forrest. These trees were immense. We stopped at the sight of Big Tree. Johnny was having flashbacks of Avatar as we wandered through the trails in between the great redwoods. We went a little further down the road where we were actually able to drive through a redwood. Having one of our California goals achieved we still needed to make it as far south into California as we could so we would be able to spend some time relaxing in Los Angeles. We stated getting a little hungry around noon so we stopped off at a little place in Fort Bragg, California that was supposed to have the best calzones in California. I can’t speak for the rest of California but my calzone was the best one I’ve ever had. It wasn’t the traditional calzone as it was stuffed with garlic chicken and mozzarella cheese. Not wanting to waste anymore time we struck off down highway 1, also known as the Pacific Coast Highway. Johnny was driving like a mad man to try to make up time. The road swerved wildly along the coastline turning left and right, going up and down seemingly at random. I held it together for about an hour before I told Johnny we needed to pull over so I could regroup myself. After a few minutes I said I was fine and we could get going back down the coast. Not even a mile later I was completely wrong as the road was the worst it had been the whole day. Johnny had barely pulled the car over as I shot out of the car as fast as I could to the tall grass on the side of the road and let out a bellowing the likes of which haven’t been heard since the time dinosaurs ruled the earth. The most upsetting thing was that I had wasted the wonderful calzone I had previously eaten a few hours earlier. I felt a million times better after that and happily jumped back into the car ready to take on whatever turns the PCH had in mind. Not having an opportunity to get into the water before, we stopped off about an hour south to at least get our feet in the water. I was not prepared for how cold it would be. As I let the water rush over my feet, a swell of cold shot up my spine giving me shivers as it went up. We did some impromptu sprints on the beach to get some blood flowing back into our legs before we had to hit the road again. We arrived at San Francisco around dusk and took some picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz island and the surrounding San Francisco landscape before finding a spot to fill up and continue on down the road.  We drove until dark before finding a Wal-Mart parking lot in Salinas, CA to spend the night in.

Again not wasting any time, Johnny was up and driving before I even woke up the next morning. We wanted to make up some time so we shot over to the 101 and heading off down to Los Angeles. The nearby ocean waves kept calling out to us but we had to stay on schedule and make it to LA sometime that afternoon. We met up with Travis and Tiffany, who had just gotten to their hotel from LAX, and made our way a couple miles north to find one of the places on my list to visit, In and Out burger. Johnny and I both ordered the Double Double which I took to mean it had 4 meat patties but sadly it meant 2 patties and 2 slices of cheese. After we ate we made our way further north to the Santa Monica Pier. We already had everything packed up for Hawaii so the best we could do was dip our feet in the water. We spent about an hour or so soaking up the sun before heading to Hollywood Blvd. We walked down to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre where the have a lot of big movie premieres. We walked up and down the Hollywood walk of fame to try and catch a glimpse of any famous names we might know. In front of Grauman’s they have the area where celebrities have put their feet and handprints in the cement. I found out that I have bigger hands than Matt Damon and the same size hands as Will Smith, Harrison Ford and Hugh Jackman. Samuel L. Jackson however has some ridiculously long fingers. After hanging around there for awhile, we went back to Travis and Tiffany’s hotel where Johnny and I showered before heading to LAX where we planned on staying the night. We weren’t able to stay in our terminal for our flight but the international terminal was open 24 hours. I personally think Johnny chose the international terminal because of his love for Asians. Johnny passed out as soon as we picked a good spot but I was having trouble so I stayed up a little longer watching Wall-E and catching up on some writing. I think I was nervous for the 6 hour flight that was going to take place the next morning.

The next portion of our journey is Hawaii. Rather than write daily about our Hawaiian adventure I’m going to jot some ideas down on my notebook while we’re there and create one long post about the experience. There will be more to follow as soon as we get back!

[korywright-50statejourney]

Townies, Thieves and Bears… Oh My! (Part 3)

Days 20-21 (August 4th & 5th) Everett, WA; Seattle, WA

The woman working the front desk at the Travelodge told us about a delicious steak house just 2 doors down from the hotel so we cleaned up in our room and walked over to the Buzz Inn to get some much needed food. I ordered the most delicious BBQ bacon cheeseburger I’ve ever eaten while Johnny felt compelled to take part in the all day breakfast menu ordering French toast. With our bellies stuffed to the brim, we waddled back to the hotel past 2 construction workers using a mini barbeque grill outside their van.  Weary from the ridiculously long trip through Canada we went to bed almost immediately after getting back to the hotel.

We woke up the next morning walked down to the lobby to eat some of what they called continental breakfast. I had a bowl of generic Froot Loops which was unfortunately the main attraction of their “continental breakfast”. This shoddy breakfast wasn’t the biggest mood killer of the morning. We went back to the room where Johnny fell asleep and I began messing around on the computer while watching TV. Somewhere around 9 the phone rang. Expecting it to be the main office wanting to know when we were checking out I almost didn’t answer it. I picked up the phone to hear a woman say “Hello, do you own a Volkswagen Jetta?” “Ugh… yeah?” I answered. “Well, somebody just shattered your window” she said coldly. I was in shock. I didn’t know how to answer that. “umm… ok. Thanks for letting us know” was the only thing that came out of my mouth. I went over to the bed and woke Johnny up raising my voice to say “Dude, wake up. Someone broke into the car!” We ran out to where we parked the car to see the driver’s side surrounded by a sea of glass with a fresh hole in the back window with bits of glass still hanging from the frame. Each passing second we kept remembering what was in the backseat that they took. The first thing we noticed was the camera. We were so tired from the trip that neither of us remembered to bring the camera into the hotel room. It was the one and only time the camera bag has ever been out of our sight. Next we noticed they got both of our packs still full from the Alaskan adventure. We kept noticing they took nonsensical things. They took Johnny’s pair of sandals but left his expensive shoes. They pushed my shoes out of the way to take the collapsible cooler underneath them. They took both our good dress shirts in the rear window. We called the cops who had already been there that morning because somebody left a van with the windows down running in the parking lot. The same cop that was there earlier in the morning showed up a couple minutes later. We took some pictures from insurance and filled out a police report. Johnny called his insurance company. Roughly 80% of my clothes were in my pack so we needing to find a way to get more camping gear and clothes for me. First thing was first though. We needed to get the window fixed. We used Johnny’s phone to find a good window repair show that had 19 good reviews on Yelp. They said they could fix it in about an hour and a half so we sat down and set to the task of making an elaborate list of items that had been stolen. With the camera and all our belongings it equaled up to about $3,000. Tallying it all up like that was a huge punch in the gut. It could have been a lot worse. My keys with a spare car key were sitting in the passenger door. They could have stolen the car. I don’t want to say this guy was smart but he knew what he was doing. He knew that if you shatter the window and don’t touch the door, the alarm wouldn’t go off. Throughout the day we kept thinking of more things that were in our packs and in the backseat. We found a nearby Wal-Mart to get some general clothing for me and some much needed groceries. Out next stop was a nearby Best Buy to try to find a replacement camera. The thing that pissed us off the most, aside from the fact that some stranger may have been rifling through my underwear at that exact moment, was that everything we had was meticulously purchased. We had comparison shopped and waited for the exact moment when things were at their cheapest. Now we were looking at replacement things that weren’t as good but were still more expensive than their better counterparts. After spending an hour or so in Best Buy and not making a decision we went to 4 different sporting goods stores to try to find cheap camping gear. We couldn’t find anything good until we got to the Sports Authority in Auburn, WA. We were able to get two really good really compact sleeping bags for just about $60. We passed a movie theatre on the way to Sports Authority so with the events of the day we figured we needed a pick-me-up. We arrived at the movie theatre around 9 PM and decided that we had put off seeing Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2 for too long. I had really mixed feelings about this movie. We spent a couple days listening to the 7th book on my iPod and they left a lot out of the movie. If I hadn’t read the book I don’t know if I’d be happy with the movie. The movie seemed to give you just enough to piece the story together but not enough detail to fully appreciate the ending. After the movie we parked at a nearby Wal-Mart and settled in for some much needed sleep.

The next morning we woke up and stopped into a local mall appropriately named SuperMall. I was trying to find a University of Washington sweatshirt but sadly they were out of season. I still needed some clothes however so we went into a Marshall’s and I ended up with a pair of UW shorts instead. The whole ordeal with the window had set us back at least a day off schedule. We went back into another Best Buy to try to make a decision on the camera so we could hit the road and try to make up some ground. We talked to one guy about the camera specs and told him our dilemma. He was very helpful and became really interested in our story. As we were checking out another girl who worked there overheard our story and came over to wish us luck. We ended up deciding to go with the same exact camera that we had before. We got back into the car and I had just gotten the battery out to start charging it when Johnny saw that he missed a call and had a voicemail. The voicemail was from the Snohomish County Police asking if we had recently had our stuff stolen. Johnny called them back to see what was going on and they said they had arrested a guy outside of a Wal-Mart with a van full of stolen stuff and wanted to know what he took from us. They had roughly 95% of our stuff. Thankfully we were still in the area looking for replacement stuff so Snohomish County was only an hour north of us. We went back into the Best Buy to return the camera we had just bought. The security guard working the front wanted to know what was going on so we told him about the voicemail and how they had all our stuff. With an excited congratulations he stickered our stuff and sent us over to the returns station. While we were waiting in line the guy that helped us noticed we were back and thought we were unhappy with the product. We told him our story also and he was just as excited as we were saying how nobody ever gets there stuff back. He then went back and told the girl we talked to and she came over to congratulate us. It was as if the whole store was coming over to congratulate us.

The ride up to Snohomish County was as pleasant a drive as you could imagine. Johnny was as giddy as a schoolboy and could barely contain his excitement. I on the other hand wasn’t going to count my chicken before they hatched. I had this image in my head of the camera screen being cracked and borderline unusable while our clothes, although intact had been urinated on. It turns out that my fears were unjustified as the only bad thing that happened was that our clothes now smelled of body odor and some form of drugs. We walked into the police station garage where our stuff was sprawled out on the floor. All our clothes were in a pile and our bags had been emptied of their contents. We had to fill out a police report and scavenger through our own stuff to decipher which was our and which was from some other of our thief’s poor victims. One of the officers held up a small dress asking us if it belonged to us. Johnny coolly replied “That’s mine but I’m not claiming it”. We had a good time with the officers. I asked if he was still in their custody to see if maybe I could coincidently be walking down the hall at the same time as him and accidently put my fist in his gut. The arresting officer assured me that our thief got was what coming to him. Apparently this guy stole a van, dropped off said van at our hotel where he stole the van of a family from Canada. Then he used their stolen van to steal from us before heading to a nearby Wal-Mart to try to steal HDMI cables. When confronted by a worker he brandished a screwdriver and the worker let him go but called the police where they apprehended him outside. We were able to claim back almost all of our stuff minus Johnny’s sandals (which one officer said he was sure the guy was wearing when they arrested him), one glove, 2 sunglass cases, a can of Off bug spray, a notebook, a long sleeved shirt and my good luck Troy Aikman action figure that my mother got me when I was young. Sadly the only reason I brought that with me aside from bringing some luck to the trip was that I have him in my pocket every time I fly and rub his head for good luck as we’re taking off. Of course, when we go to Hawaii I’ll have to find another good luck charm but alas I digress. We claimed our belongings, thanked the officers and headed back down south through the Seattle rush hour traffic making it the third day in a row we had been in it. We made it to southern Washington where we set up camp and had a few beers to toast our good fortune and unwind from the whole ordeal. 

[korywright-50statejourney]

Townies, Thieves & Bears... Oh My! (Part 2)

Days 15-19 (July 30th – August 3rd): Ketchikan, AK; Prince Rupert, BC; Vancouver, BC; Everett, WA

Apparently getting into the United States as an American citizen is a lot easier than getting into Canada. We woke up rather early, walked to our ferry terminal and talked to a pleasant woman behind the counter who told us when we could board the ferry. It wasn’t for another couple of hours so we had some time to kill. With no service, our options were limited. I thumbed through a copy of “Alaska Travel” while Johnny munched on one of our $10 bagels. After I was finished Johnny split half his bagel with me and I gave him my copy of the magazine. We were one of the first ones in line to go through security. These security officials were a lot nicer than the border patrolmen at Oroville, WA. The guard that helped us was an imposing man standing taller than either Johnny or me. He asked if we had any goods we would be bringing in. We answered with just the orange and he said “Have a good trip.” The whole ordeal took about 5 minutes. We read in the local paper that a group of Pakistani men and disappeared from a freighter in Vancouver. We figured that with that going on security would be heightened. The ferry was a lot smaller than I expected. There were only four levels to it and maybe about 20 or so cars to come aboard. We boarded on the lowest level with all the cars and proceeded to walk up the other 3 stories worth of stairs. This was not an easy task when you have 3 days worth of equipment strapped to your back. We found a common area in the highest level and got situated. It wasn’t soon after we departed that we both fell asleep in our chairs. When we awoke a couple hours later (only about 2 hours into the 6 hour trip) we needed a pick-me-up and went to the cafeteria a level below to get some coffee. I don’t know what it is about the coffee we make but all of the coffee we’ve gotten from other places just doesn’t taste nearly as good. I spent most of the voyage catching up on some podcasts I had been a little negligent of.

We arrived in Ketchikan, AK around 3 PM. We looked up the town and Wikipedia to see how big it was and if we needed to take the car. According to Wikipedia the town of Ketchikan is 4 square miles. I took that to mean 4 miles long and 1 mile deep. I didn’t take into account that it could be 8 miles long and a half mile deep. According to the website we booked our hotel through, the hotel was located just across the street from the dock. This was true and false. We got through customs as fast as we had getting onto the ferry and asked some greeters at the terminal where our hotel could be located. One very nice guy who couldn’t have been much older that 20 told us the hotel wasn’t far, just 3 miles south of the terminal. Just 3 miles south?! Why is the internet lying to me?! It turns out that the hotel is located just across the street from the dock. However, that dock is for cruise ships, not ferries. After a second’s contemplation on getting a taxi, we manned up and started walking for the hotel.

The town of Ketchikan is really two parts: the local part which seems to be more bars than houses and the “tourist area” for the cruise ships. A couple days after arriving we decided to take the bus and see what the rest of the town had to offer. We waited for the bus with a man, his wife and their son. The man told us that 10 years ago the town was very different from the way it is now. Everyday 4 cruise ships come in and tourists spill out into the town. With the cruise ships moving in, they bought a lot of the property around the dock and turned it into a strip mall. Every shop is filled with “Ketchikan Alaska!” sweatshirts and shot glasses. The man also told us that when Wal-Mart came in 100 small businesses closed down including his music shop. I had heard of Wal-Mart doing this but had never really talked to anyone it had happened to.

Walking down the main street of Ketchikan you see the harbor all along the right side of the road and a mixture of houses, small eateries and bars on the left. The group of greeters at the terminal made it a point to see that we had to check out “the tunnel” on the way which is in the Guinness book of records for being the only tunnel you can go through, around and over. Trust me, it sounds a lot more exciting than it actually is. We made it to our hotel in no time. At the entrance of our hotel an older man with wandering eyes wearing a cowboy hat and a tattered Carhartt jacket walked up to me and said “I LIKE YOUR HAT!” Before I could say thank you he abruptly stopped me and blurted out “Never mind, that’s just the yellow from your pack!” He then giggled to himself and walked away. After the strange conversation we shot up the stairs to our room on the third floor and threw off our packs in just enough time to collapse completely exhausted onto the bed.  

After showering up, we got dressed and headed down to the bar connected to the Gilmore Hotel where we were staying named Annabelle’s. Johnny took to the local cuisine and ordered a cup of clam chowder and some halibut. I on the other hand being a connoisseur of buffalo chicken was forced to order the buffalo chicken wrap. Surprisingly, the white sox game was on the TV there so we ordered two Alaskan Summer Ales to finish off the meal and struck up a conversation with our bartender, Mike. We asked him what there was to do in this town when it was rainy and his answer was simple… drink. Always being people that do as the Romans do, we ordered 2 more beers. This time Johnny went with a Black Butte Porter and I went with the Alaskan White which was a delicious wheat beer that came with an orange slice. After finishing those, Mike told us that the bar across the street had cheap pool if we were looking to play. This place was called the Sourdough Bar. It seems that our drinking schedule was still in Illinois time so when we walked in at 9 we were the only ones there. Rounding out the day in class we decided to drink the nightly special PBR. We played pool for about an hour or so before what seemed like the whole town descended upon this small bar. I went to the bathroom and when I came back the whole bar was full. A few local patrons challenged us to some pool so we humble said “we’re not that good”. Their reply at hearing that was “neither are we”. We played maybe 6 or so games striking up conversations in between shots. The two guys were younger, close to our age, and were really friendly. My recollection is a bit hazy, either because of the PBR or the absurd amount of cigarette smoke in the bar, but I’m pretty sure we may have just squeaked out a game or two more than those guys. I must say that Johnny and I are quite a formidable team on a pool table. I think we had just began our 2nd game when the came crazy cowboy we met outside the hotel that afternoon walked up to our group and said “I got $20 that says I could whip any of you!” and started to take off his jacket. After we assured him that he would have no problem wiping the floor with us because of our horribleness we exclaimed “Well Hell! You done made me take off my jacket for nothing!” He then looked at me with frustration wanting me to help him put his jacket on. That wasn’t the only strange occurrence we had with the townsfolk. While we were in the midst of our 3rd or 4th game a small middle aged inuit woman walked up, tugged the back of my shirt and said “HEY! That’s a nice shirt!” I was looking quite good in the shirt so I thanked her for the compliment. She then continued to tell Johnny and I that we were really cute. She spouted out a few more nonsensical words before walking away. After we finished our last round of PBR’s we wished everyone a good night and headed back to our hotel to crash for the night. At the hotel entrance, we heard someone yell “Sexy, Sexy!” We turned around and the woman from the bar was leaning against a wall a couple buildings down from our hotel. I did the only rational thing I could think of at the time which was to grin like an idiot and wave my hand uncontrollably like a kindergartener waving goodbye to his parents on the first day of school.

The next 2 days weren’t that exciting. We woke up, again taking advantage of the continental breakfast, and took off around the dock area to see what the tourist shops had to offer. It seemed like there were intervals of jewelry shops mixed with souvenir shops. There weren’t really any shops of substance anywhere to be found. We ate lunch at a little shack on the docks that supposedly had the best fish in town. The Alaskan Surf Fish & Chips was spot on with the assumption. Johnny and I split a Halibut platter that was some of the best fish I’ve ever eaten. The fish was so good it made me reconsider my diet to incorporate more fish. After our delicious meal we felt the need to top it off with some dessert so went to the only ice cream place we could find called the Little Dipper. Their Peanut Butter Chocolate milkshakes are where it’s at. They are super thick and super peanut buttery because they actually use real peanut butter. We killed some more time walking around town through seemingly the same shops before making our way back to our hotel. With the free HBO the hotel offered we watched that week’s True Blood before trying our luck at another local bar known as Arctic Bar. We went with another round of Alaskan beer and sat outside on their porch to hopefully catch a glimpse of the aurora borealis. Since the sun doesn’t fully set until 12:30 we didn’t get to see the northern lights but we didn’t get to meet a rather disgruntled gentleman who was sitting in my seat talking to Johnny when I came back from the bathroom. This man was close to being the most intoxicated I’ve ever seen someone. He was shouting about how he was going to Vegas the next day and that the bartender wouldn’t serve him anymore. He kept screaming that he had a cab coming and when the bartender came up to ask him if he would wait outside she made the mistake of putting her hand on his back. He then took his anger up to a new level and kept screaming a mixture of “Paula wouldn’t like you touching me like that!” and “Paulanna wouldn’t like the way you’re touching my back!” After he agreed to leave, the bartender came up to us and gave us two tokens for free beers for the trouble that had a stamp of two bears doing it bear-style. We were starting to get tired so we started to make our way for the door but not before seeing the same crazy cowboy from the night before sitting at the bar. Making sure we didn’t make eye contact with him we put our heads down and made our way through the exit.

The next day was filled with even less excitement. We wanted to see more of the city so we hopped on the city bus for $2 where we met the aforementioned man and his family. We went to the very last stop on the bus and rode it back to the ferry terminal to see what time they opened. We were hoping they opened early so we wouldn’t have to spend the money on another night in a hotel. Thankfully they opened at 2 so our decision was to tough it out until they opened later that night. On our way back to the docks we walked through the town mall. I think they use the term mall very loosely as there was only about 8 shops in this place none of which carried anything of real value except the furniture store on the bottom level. We spent the rest of the day hanging out on the docks watching the cruise ships depart. We talked to the harbor master for a while as the cruise ships left who told us everyone there basically works for 5 months and then hangs out for the other 7 months of the year. We got another couple of the fantastic milkshakes from the Little Dipper to pass the time. We went back into Annabelle’s to have another conversation with Mike paired with a last round of Alaskan beer before making the trek to the ferry terminal to wait outside. We got there around midnight and used the benches outside to our advantage by sleeping in them with our packs draped over us like a couple of hobos. The rest of the morning was a blur of hazy memories. I barely remember being in the terminal, going through customs or getting on the ferry. I only remember waking up in my sleeping bag on the floor of the same ferry room we had been in on the way there. Getting back to our morning routine we snagged a couple of coffees from the cafeteria and I used the time to listen to some new podcasts from the weekend. We again went through Canadian customs after getting off the ferry but this time I needed to know if they would stamp my passport. After all, one of the things on my 30 list was to travel outside the country. A lady behind the counter told me that they didn’t stamp passports from North America. Dismayed, I walked back to the car to gear up for the arduous trip back through British Columbia.

We hadn’t been on the road for more than an hour before we came across a rather long stretch of highway. It was on this stretch that the most exciting part of the trip happened. As I was driving, I noticed something coming out of the woods on the left side of the road. Johnny exclaimed “BEAR!” as the full grown black bear came lumbering out onto the road. I swerved over to the right onto the shoulder but the bear kept coming. The bear smashed head first into the driver’s side door, a mere 6 inches away from my elbow. In what I’m sure was a shock to the bear, he pulled one of the more graceful spin moves I’ve seen and kept on his path across the road into the woods. By the time I could pull the car over to the side of the road, he was gone. I was preparing for the worst. The door must have a dent in it the size and shape of the bear’s head. We got out to assess the damage and were shocked to see that there wasn’t any damage. The only thing the bear had done was wipe away the dirt on the door leaving a 2 foot long clean swipe under the door handle. We took some pictures of the swipe just in case there happened to be more damage than we could see at the time and got back in the car. Johnny was ecstatic. When we got back into the car he was grinning from ear to ear and kept throwing up his hand wanting a high five and screaming “We just hit a bear!” My reply was simple. “We didn’t hit a bear, he hit us.”

We took a different route getting through British Columbia, this time making sure we went through Vancouver. The view however was the same with not much needing to be described. We went through the border patrol at Vancouver, the same city where the Pakistani men had alluded customs. We drove up to the border where a man asked us our purpose for coming into the country. He looked at our passports and told us to have a nice day. We had made it back to the United States in one piece. We drove south another hour or so just north of Seattle to spend the night in a Travelodge in Everett, WA where the third and most troublesome part of this story takes place.

Part 3 to be continued…

[korywright-50statejourney]

Townies, Thieves & Bears... Oh My! (Part 1)

Days 12-14 (July 27th – 29th): Spokane, WA; Quesnel, BC; Prince Rupert, BC

Spokane, WA is a great little city. We actually got there earlier than expected and weren’t able to check-in to our hotel. We spent the morning driving around and looking for a place to hammer out the details of our Alaska-Canada adventure. We used Johnny’s Yelp! App on his phone to find a little coffee shop aptly named “The Shop”. It was an old mechanic’s shop that they converted into a café and eatery. If you blinked while driving by you would completely miss this place (which we did the first time). The walls were checkered with intervals of flyers for local indie bands and older classic movies. There was a poster for weekly showings of older movies on the right of the counter. Outside there is a huge white screen painted on the side of the building where they show said movies for free to the public. Of course the movie that they were showing two days after we left would be one of my favorites, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. After planning to go up to Prince Rupert, British Colombia and taking the ferry to Ketchikan, AK we took advantage of our newfound time to enjoy Spokane a little bit. We drove around and looked at some other parts of the city that we otherwise wouldn’t see. We were pretty early checking in to the hotel but they were lenient with us and let us in. Our entire trip so far had been either scorching hot or freezing cold so we were excited to use their pool. Johnny used the opportunity to scare some of the children in the pool area with his strange what he called “pool exercises”. He basically jumped up and down flailing his arms like a mad man. After working up an appetite we again used Yelp! to find a supposedly ridiculously good pizza place on Gonzaga’s campus named Pete’s Pizza. Yelp did not disappoint as this was the best calzone (dare I say best food?) we’ve had to date. With our bellies stuffed with delicious Italian goodness, we wobbled back to the hotel to take full advantage of their high speed internet and catch up on Entourage and True Blood. With our heads swimming with thoughts of what crazy adventures Canada would bring we fell asleep shortly there after.

We seem to be in the habit of waking up before the crowds and completely destroying the continental breakfast our hotels offer. Our favorite thing to demolish is whenever a hotel like the Howard Johnson we stayed at has a waffle maker (I prefer mine with just peanut butter on it but that’s just me). Again taking full advantage of free food, we set off for the Canadian border 3 hours away. The trip there wasn’t that exciting except that we stopped at a place called the Hornets’ Nest in Oroville, WA right on the border. We’ve mostly been snacking on either pizza or burgers when we eat out but so far every place we’ve stopped has been better than the next. This place was no exception. I ordered the bbq bacon cheeseburger and it was great. Even the onions that I normally discard looked to good to throw away.

Going through the Canadian border was the most nervous I’ve been in the entire trip so far. We were waiting in line behind 2 other cars in front of us and all I could think about was “what would happen if they wouldn’t let us in because of the one orange we have in the cooler?”, “what if I have some weird outstanding warrant for a parking ticket I’ve forgotten about without knowing it?”, “I wonder what Canadian prison would be like”. My heart was racing as we pulled up to see a short young man wearing Kevlar and a chip on his shoulder. We handed him our passports with my ID (because that’s what the department of transportation website said) and he took the passports and grunted back “I don’t need this” and shoved my id back at Johnny. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears when he asked “Where do you both work?” Trying to collect myself, I answered “We’re currently between jobs. We both just quit our jobs to travel all 50 states.” His beady eyes peered over the top of his dark sunglasses seemingly piercing into my brain. “Oh god, he can hear my thoughts. He’s going to know about the orange and put us in the Canadian penile system” I thought to myself. While looking up our credentials he shot a look back into the car and said “So if you have no job, why should I let you into the country?” Johnny seemed almost as nervous as I was and stammered “b… b… because I have money?” At this point, I thought we were done for. We might as well pack it in and head back down the coast. “Oh yeah, how much?” said the border patrolman. We told him and he said “are you bringing any foreign substances into the country?” we answered with just the orange and the half drunk bottle of Sailor Jerry’s in the trunk. Almost angrily he said “Pull into the bay. We’re going to have the dogs search your car. You understand that without jobs you boys seem suspicious?” We obliged and pulled into the garage, turned off the car and walked into the terminal. After what seemed like an hour someone finally helped us only to ask us the same questions and say “you guys are good to go.” We stopped at the edge of border patrol to take a picture of the “Welcome to Canada” sign then headed off on our way through the great white north. Thank god that was finally over.

The Canadian landscape was not what I expected at all. For some reason, I was expecting it to be nothing but snow as soon as we passed over. It was quite the opposite actually. Johnny made the facetious statement that it was more like we passed into Mexico than Canada. There were nothing but dry grasslands and tumbleweeds for the longest time. We passed through quite a few little towns on our trip from Osoyoos, British Colombia to Prince Rupert, BC. Our first pit stop was a town a few miles north of the border called Penticton. Driving through, we passed a river where seemingly the whole town was at playing on the beach. People were windsurfing, boogie boarding and generally sunbathing. It was not what I was expecting from Canada at all. We weaved our way through the throngs of beach goers to get the Wal-Mart (Yes they have Wal-Marts all over Canada) on the other side of town. We need to exchange some currency and heard they did that there. We walked in went up to the customer service area and asked if they could exchange our travelers check for Canada currency. The tiny little woman said it was policy to only exchange currency after buying something. We didn’t need anything. We could have bought a couple things but everything is so damn expensive in Canada. We grabbed the only thing we could think of and plopped it down on the cashier’s conveyor belt. She picked up our tiny bag of bagels and asked “Will this be all gentlemen?” The lady behind the counter didn’t seem to know what to do with our travelers check. She stood there while Johnny signed it and then tried running it as a regular check. That didn’t work. Confused she called over her supervisor who told her that the register needed to be switched over to US dollars and run the check as cash then switched back over to Canadian to give us our change back. The American dollar is not what it used to be. With the exchange rate and the overpriced Canadian prices we ended up basically paying $10 for a $2 bag of bagels. Munching on bagels we set off again trying to get as far north as possible before crashing for the night. The road seemed endless and the night dragged on as we searched for another Wal-Mart of decent rest stop to stay the night. Every “city” that was located on the map was no bigger than Riverton. We kept driving into the night before somewhere around midnight I said I couldn’t drive anymore and we needed to find a place quick before I careened us off the road. A couple miles later, we stopped at a shady but harmless enough looking rest stop on Williams Lake. We backed in so as to assure if something did go down we’d be ready to take off in a hurry. We leaned the seats back and prepared for what would most assuredly be our worst nights sleep to date. Our sleep didn’t last long however as around 1:15 a group of teenagers stopped at the same rest stop and were making noise near the bathroom waking both of us up. I was already nervous at this time when Johnny leaned up and said “When did that van get here?” Casually I answered “what van?” He then pointed behind me and I saw a windowless white van with no lights on and no driver parked next to me. “Alright, time to go” I said turning the ignition and putting the car in gear. We drove for another 45 minutes before I saw a Wal-Mart on the horizon in a small town named Quesnel and yelled “We’re stopping here!” probably too loudly and swerved into the parking lot. I was so tired it seemed like I was already asleep before I put the car in park.

The next morning the Wal-Mart wasn’t open yet so we filled up our gas tank at $1.23 per liter at the local 7-eleven, grabbed a couple donuts and a few cups of coffee. There was no dollar amount on the coffee so we asked a worker who was refilling it and she cheerily answered “for you guys, it’s on the house”. We’re not used to this kind of hospitality at a gas station chain so we questioned her motives and said “are you serious?” She nodded happily and went back up to the counter to check us out. Our day was already off to a promising start. The Canada countryside seems to stretch out twice as long as the map says it does. We drove forever before seeing anything that resembled the coast. The weather was closing in as we weaved around the mountains that stood between us and Prince Rupert. Just like in Glacier National Park, the clouds were hanging so low as to block the mountain tops. The coldness seemed to hit before the actual rain started. All of a sudden you could feel the bad weather all around. The rain seemed to seep into every pour. Even though I was completely dry, the weather made me feel damp. The town of Prince Rupert seemed muggy and unclean when we pulled into. The weather made it seem like a shoddy port town that hadn’t been updated since the 1970’s. Every sign for every business was old with at least one light broken. We drove around looking for a place to eat. The only business in town at the time was a Pizza Hut that looked just as dreary and run down as the rest of the town. We walked into a huge seating area where only one other family was sitting somewhere over in the far corner. We sat ourselves and a nice enough waitress came over to give us menus. Again, I don’t know what Canada’s deal is but the prices for pizza were outrageous. On a completely different note, I noticed that they don’t offer Canadian bacon at Canadian Pizza Hut. Filling up on some how overcooked yet still greasy pizza we started the daunting task of trying to find the ferry station in this labyrinth of a town. After finding a ferry terminal station we realized it was for BC Ferries no Alaska Highway Ferries. We went in anyways to see when ours opened and to see if there was a place we could park the car for the duration of the trip. By that time it was already 9 PM so we parked that car and got ready for bed. Johnny immediately fell asleep but I was still wide awake so I took advantage of the time and began watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I had been so excited to watch this every since we got to Devil’s Tower, WY where the climax of the movie was shot. I got through all the boring parts before falling asleep with my computer still on my lap just before the part I had been waiting for so long. Oh well, tomorrow would be another adventure and another state checked off the list.

Part 2 of the US-Canadian Adventure is still in the works but is coming. Stay Tuned!

[korywright-50statejourney]

Canada & Alaska

Since there is no way I'm going to use my phone in Canada I just wanted to give everyone a heads up and we'll be without contact for the next couple of days until we get through Canada. I won't have my computer in Alaska either so the only updates will be on Twitter and Facebook until we get back to the states. We hope everyone back home is doing well and can't wait to see you guys when we get back!

[korywright-50statejourney]

Cloudplay, Waterfalls & Time Changes

Day Ten: Glacier National Park, MT The sun seemed to shine directly into my eyes as I passed in and out of consciousness around 4 AM. I awoke fully around 7 and started in on yesterday’s blog while Johnny was still asleep. Not soon after around 7:30 a park ranger came by to check on the picnic area we were staying in. We had left a box of firewood under a tarp by the car so that we had enough room to lay the seats down. The park ranger got out of his car and the first thing he looked at was our big blue box. Fearing that at any moment he would kick us out of the park, I quickly woke up Johnny. Johnny sprung to life as the park ranger was walking away nonchalantly. The wind was howling outside so there would be no morning coffee this morning. We set off west deeper into the park along the Going-to-the-Sun road toward Logan’s Pass. Not soon after it began to rain but along the way we stopped to view a rainbow, a double rainbow (check out the Youtube video) and a few waterfalls. The land up here is a different green than I’ve ever seen before. Johnny said that the mountainside was so green it almost looked fake like something you would have to photoshop to death in order to get that color. By the time we reached Logan’s Pass the temperature had dropped to 46º. It’s late July and there is still snow all over the mountainside. We stopped in to hopefully get a park map and use the bathroom. Unluckily for us this place had neither. They were doing renovations to the visitors center. There were no park maps in sight but there were port-a-potties located on the opposite side of the parking lot. Leaving Logan’s Pass is where the real fun began. We were so high up in the mountains that we were parallel to the clouds. I’m still amazed that we were not driving through fog but actually clouds making their way around the mountain. Every half mile or so there was a new waterfall seemingly better than the last one. We stopped at an overlook to view a whitewater river rushing from a waterfall and crashing down on the banks below. Passing Lake Mcdonald we stopped in a tourist town known as Apgar. Not much to is really, just a few shops, a visitors center and a little diner named Eddie’s where we stopped for lunch. Luckily for us it was only 11:15 when we walked in so we could still order breakfast. We both ordered the Backpacker which was one giant pancake and two eggs over easy on top. I gave in to Johnny’s method of leaving the eggs on top and pouring syrup over the whole thing. I have to say it was good but I’ll stick to the conventional method of pancakes separate from eggs. Not really wanting to hike anywhere in the rain, we stopped into the visitor’s center to plan our next move. We came to the conclusion that Bowman Lake might be the best option from where we were at to get a good look at the park while staying close enough to get a campsite for the night. The road to Bowman Lake was treacherous at best. Half the time the road was clay while the paved parts were filled with potholes. We took many swooping curves going up and down the hills to reach our destination. There are so many backcountry campers here it makes me a little jealous that we aren’t doing that. We parked the car and walked down a wooded path to Bowman Lake. The view is what I’ve been waiting for the whole time we’ve been here. It’s still very overcast but the lake and the surrounding forest are still breathtaking. I can’t imagine how beautiful this place is in the sunlight. The funny thing about Glacier National Park is there’s only one main road and we were down in by 11 AM. Since the rain wasn’t letting up we decided to try to gain some ground before heading north to Canada. Our plan is to venture more west through Idaho into Washington and hopefully make the 23 hour long drive to Prince Rupert less of a bear. We stopped for the night at a Wal-mart in Sandpoint, ID. I was tired but it was still light out. I looked down at my phone and realized that northern Idaho is in Pacific Time. We had gained an hour unknowingly. I guess I should get used to 19 hours of sunlight if we’re going to make it to Alaska. This is going to be brutal.