The Month That We Drove Across The Country

The speedometer only goes to 10,000. Did it.

So this is it. 25 days, 26 states, just under 10,000 miles (unofficially we did make it past 10,000 with Katie driving Juliane to the airport-which we totally count). We did it! These are also some of our favorite pictures from the trip (and the funniest ones we didn’t post because we tried to keep it classy).

Our best friend Fred the buffalo on Antelope Island in Salt Lake City.

We would like to give a shout out to everyone we saw and stayed with along the way… Katie’s grandmother in Chicago, Molly in Minnesota, the Ahearn family in San Francisco, Sarah at Stanford, Laura in Santa Barbara, the Winting’s in Long Beach, Carlin, Marcio and Hailey in Dallas, Lara and Travis in Georgetown, the Spillings in New Orleans, Mel in Alabama, and Steph, Glenn, Reilley and Eli in Lexington.  Thanks so much for being our tour guides of your respective cities! We loved seeing all of you!!

Climbing (not walking) the hills of San Francisco

Shout outs also belong to Juliane and Alyssa for flying out to meet us and proving Room 303 can’t be apart for more than a month (this is good and bad).

We know, we are the most awkward people everyone knows.

Also, thanks so much to Nancy’s parents for the hotel points and driving Nancy to and from Katie’s house. And to the Howe’s for sacrificing their car to our travels, sorry for the 10,000 miles we added to the car and the chip in the windshield, the maintenance light that has been on since mile 100, and the faint smell of fast food and farmland.

When we don’t pose for pictures we generally look like this…

We had a lot (a lot, a lot) of time while in the car to discuss our thoughts about this trip. So here it goes…

1. Every coast is the best coast. Seriously, this rivalry about East coast vs. West coast. Stop. No. If you live on a coast you are lucky. No offense to those in the middle of the country, we really saw some awesome places in the center of America; we however, would choose a coast.
   

   Feelings on the hike of death.

2. We may still be unemployed and still very much uncertain about our futures, but at least we have narrowed down that we do not want to be farmers, nor live in the middle of the country. We’re seeing this glass as half full.
3. It’s weird to us how much space there is in the country. Coming from New York City, we expected the farms and cornfields and cows (although we were most definitely unprepared for the amount of cows), but we had no idea how much uninhabited space still exists in America.
   

   Did we forget to mention? We hitchhiked too.

4. WHAT DO PEOPLE IN SMALL TOWNS DO FOR FUN? This remains the great mystery of our trip and we’re not sure if we will really ever answer this question.
5. Driving is the best way to see the country. Flying you can go city to city, which gives you the highlights, but you miss the farms, the trucks, the people in small town America, etc. Despite all our terror about the possibility of living in one of these areas, we all agree that these are the places (most definitely combined with those highlights) that make up America.
   

   No caption needed, just stare at it long enough and you’ll laugh on your own.

6. Animals everywhere might have provided some of the best entertainment, but we decided that buffalo and mule deer (Nancy) are our new favorites. Go google a mule deer. We dare you not to laugh at its floppy ears.
7. Although this trip did not fully deplete our bank accounts, spending our money was completely worth it. Obviously, we were incredibly lucky to stay with lots of people we knew, but paying for gas, hotel rooms, food, and postcards, was completely worth everything we got to see along the way.
   

   Juliane does a push-up in 4 places at once.

8. We have been asked a lot about our “favorites”, whether they be a favorite food or story or place. Our main answer is the worst, we’re sorry but: honestly everything. As cheesy as it sounds, we really enjoyed everywhere we went because even the places that at the moment were miserable (special shout out here to our death march in Marble Canyon), turned into hilarious stories and great… or at least memorable experiences.
   

   Nancy goes for the 90 degree angle at the Four Corners.

9. We can spend excessive amounts of time together (i.e. an entire year of living together and then 25 days straight in a car). This does not bode well for our social lives outside of each other.
   

   Katie pretends like she exercises by doing a push-up at Four Corners.

10. Doing this trip was exciting and awesome for us, but it’s surreal how many people supported us and encouraged everything that we did. Most of the time we find ourselves highly amusing but we don’t think other people usually do and we are blown away by the amount of people that actually read this blog and followed us around the country (not literally… that we know of). So just, thank you for making us feel cooler than we actually are!
    

    Life imitating art in Austin.

    

    We (and the car) made it!!!

     

The Day That We Finally Stepped Foot On A Farm

World’s largest crucifix

Last we left you, we stopped at the World’s Largest Crucifix housed in a farm/cemetery off the highway. Well, we’re not really sure what could top that greatness but Kentucky did a pretty good job. Possibly one of the greatest things we have seen on this trip was on the side of the highway. A group of cows was sitting, half-emerged in a pond of water. It might have just been too many days and hours in the car, but we found this to be absolutely hysterical. 

Mr. A’s horse farm

 

On our way into Nancy’s cousin’s house we stopped at a famous (maybe?) racetrack, Keeneland. It was Juliane’s first time ever at a racetrack and it was beautiful but according to Nancy’s cousins we missed pretty much everything like the actual horses and barns (not surprising since this is us). We arrived at Stephanie and Glen’s house to feast on delicious snacks and headed back out to (finally!) go to an actual farm. 

 

Courtesy of Nancy’s cousin Glen we got the backstage tour of Mr. A’s Kentucky horse farm. For those of you not in the know about barns and horse farms, Kentucky is the major leagues, the championship round of horses. Barns everywhere else are pretty much what you’d imagine a barn entails. Not in Kentucky, theirs are spotless. We got to meet and pet some of the horses housed in the barn and then saw some fillies (baby horses or as Alyssa would say, small horses). It was a beautiful place and really cool to see close up. 

Nancy and her cousin Eli

 

We went out to dinner at Ramsey’s, the local taste of Kentucky, and ice cream (Katie had peach, Juliane had strawberry with chocolate chips, and Nancy had chocolate coconut almond chip OMG they were amazing). We hung out with Nancy’s family for a little and then went to bed because of the early drive to back to Virginia. We’re on our way home as we write this, and we just stopped at the Jolly Pirate Donut Shop in Huntington, WV which apparently has the “best donuts ever” according to Nancy and Juliane (Katie’s weird and doesn’t like donuts all that much for which Juliane and Nancy berate her quite often). 

 

We’re going to write a conclusion post once we are finally home (really only for Katie though) so don’t get all anxious and sweaty that this is the end. It’s not quite over yet.  

The Day That We Became Teenagers

World’s Largest Rocking Chair!

Early Wednesday morning we left Mel, and Enterprise, to head towards Nashville to live our country dreams. Sidebar, on the way to Alabama we stopped at the World’s Largest Rocking Chair, it was 35 feet tall. Exciting stuff. We didn’t make any fun pit stops like this on the 4 1/2 hour drive to Nashville, but we got there without getting lost so we’re proud of this fact. We went to the Grand Ole Opry, which we really only saw from the outside and the gift shop because we’re on a budget and the backstage tour was not going to happen, still cool though!

At the Grand Ole Opry

We also went to the Opryland Hotel, which is over 2,000 rooms and obviously we got lost there, but we defy anyone to not. We went on the riverboat tour inside (yes, inside) the hotel. The tour itself was a little bit of a rip off, but we made friends with the fish in the river and avoided the high schoolers on the boat with us, so it was a good time. 

The inside river!

We stopped by the Bluebird Cafe, which to Nancy and Juliane, and all fans of the ABC show Nashville, was very exciting; except we got yelled at by a passionate dry cleaner who insisted we not park in front of her store, EVEN THOUGH the sign said we could park after store hours, which ended at 6:30 according to their sign but apparently they were still open at 7. Katie’s not still bitter about this at all. 

 

After this we drove to our super cool hotel (thanks Mr. Buckley!), which used to be a train station and is a national historical site. Unfortunately we got stuck in the corner of the lowest basement floor, next to where the workers headquarters were. So naturally we thought no one would hear us scream which is always comforting. We decided to get take-out and eat in our hotel room so Nancy and Katie ventured out into what one would consider the relatively tame city of Nashville. However, it wouldn’t be a trip with the two of us unless we got lost less than a quarter mile walk from our hotel to the restaurant or found the weird spots and homeless people, and Nashville was no different. We got our food just fine though and ate and watched The Office as we got ready to go out in Nashville. 

 

Thanks to Nancy’s sister-in-law, Julia who went to undergrad at Vanderbilt, we had a good idea of where to go, and thankfully Broadway, the street where everything happens, was really crowded for a Wednesday. The most amazing part of going out in Nashville are the live bands at every single bar, playing great country music. Except we heard Sweet Home Alabama more than 3 times which was weird considering we were not in Alabama. But the people were very friendly, and sometimes too friendly. We’re looking at you middle-aged man who thought Juliane was 16, Nancy was 17, and Katie was 18. Yes, we are indeed old enough to be in the bar and drinking legally. But thanks for the ego boost for thinking we’re teenagers, we really appreciate it. 

 

The next morning on our way out we went to a store that had a buy one, get two free deal on cowboy boots! There are three of us so this was pretty much fate, thank you to Vincent’s mom, Mrs. Winting, for warning us this store existed. After this we drove to Lexington, Kentucky to stay with Nancy’s cousin Stephanie and her family. Spoiler alert: we got to see the World’s Largest Crucifix on the way, needless to say, it was a good time. 

The Day That We Overdosed On Sugar

Sunday we drove from Texas to Louisiana, which is a solid day’s worth of driving so we left early. By the time lunch rolled around, we were starving and had run out of bread for our usual peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So obviously we had to stop at a Cracker Barrel. After witnessing an actual screaming match two women had about Jesus (welcome to the South), we sat down to order. Now. Cracker Barrel is known for the biscuits and cornbread they serve when you receive your meal, right? Well Miss Juliane really wanted her biscuits and the waitress seemed confused, because you know, every table does eventually get the biscuits, but every table does not ask three times. Anyway, the kitchen was out of biscuits leaving our waitress, Crystal, in quite the panic over these biscuits. Juliane finally received her biscuits (hot out of the oven!) and her day instantly turned around, she even saved one for the road!

Very excited about beignets

We arrived in Slidell, LA on Sunday evening and were welcomed with a Cajun meal courtesy of the Spilling family.  We were also treated to much entertainment/amusement by the six small children running about their house.

The next morning we arose early to get Beignets at Cafe Du Monde for our “healthy” breakfast. We spent the morning walking around the French Quarter and were treated to lunch by Captain Rob (Nancy’s family friend). He also gave us a tour of the Garden district. We then rode the trolley (the oldest in the US) back to the flea market in the Quarter and treated ourselves to a classic New Orleans hand grenade (happy hour after all is 10am-4pm) before we enjoyed po’boys for dinner.

Hand grenades!

We then went on a ghost and vampire tour of the French Quarter and heard creepy stories about various old houses in the area. We learned that most of the wicked women in these stories have red hair, therefore Juliane and Katie’s nightmares have switched from large animals attacking them to Nancy as the villain. 

Most haunted building in the world!

We decided we hadn’t had enough sugar in the day so we had another order of beignets!

New Orleans sunset

The next day we spent the morning with Cinda and headed out to eat lunch at Commander’s Palace thanks to Mr. Howe! The food was delicious!!

Commander’s Palace fancy lunch

Nancy and our gracious host, Cinda.

We came all the way to Enterprise, AL to visit our friend Mel. We visited Mel previously in Germany a few years ago when she was stationed there and we’re so glad we got to see her in the states!! Fun facts: Enterprise Rent-A-Car was not started here BUT the largest monument dedicated to an insect is in the center of town. Here’s to you, Boll Weevil Monument.

Nancy and Mel!

After Mel we are heading to Nashville to pretend like we live in the show!!

The Day That We Messed with Texas

We wrote this post on Sunday, June 23, but did not have internet to post it! So expect another post about New Orleans soon!!

We spent the weekend traveling the giant state that is Texas.  We started our adventure with a 7am departure from Great Sand Dune National Park and a 8pm arrival into Rowlett, Texas (about 30 minutes from Dallas).  The drive was uneventful, full of the usual farms and cows and more cows (Katie decided that on town line signs along with the town’s population the cow population should also be listed). The most eventful part of our journey was Nancy’s incident at a Walmart gas station in which the gas gushed out of the car all over her. Needless to say Nancy is extremely excited to return to NJ where she does not have to pump her own gas.

When we arrived in Rowlett we were greeted by Katie’s sister and brother-in-law, Carlin and Marcio. After a delicious homemade dinner we instantly fell asleep to be awoken by Katie’s niece, Hailey, at 7:30 am. 

Katie and Hailey

 After a morning of food and entertainment courtesy of Hailey (well food from Carlin) and a much needed car wash, we left to explore Dallas. After circling (literally, their streets are so confusing!) for a bit we headed to Georgetown (30 minutes north of Austin) to meet the rest of Katie’s family for her cousin’s rehearsal dinner. On the way we stopped at Whataburger (recommendation from our friend Ann), and were shocked by the size of our meal. The SMALL milkshakes were 20 ounces!! Also, on the highway to Georgetown we saw our first Dunkin Donuts in the west, it was very exciting! 

The “small” milkshakes.

Nora and Katie with the newly weds!

 Saturday morning we filled up on the free breakfast at the hotel (thanks Mr. and Mrs. Howe!) and went into to Austin with Katie’s little sister, Nora. We decided to hunt for cowboy boots. This search ended at the price sticker (some were $700!!). However, we enjoyed walking around S. Congress St. and going to the markets and shops. 

Nancy and Juliane at the Alamo

 

After lunch Katie and Nora went back to their family to get ready for Lara and Travis’ wedding!! The wedding featured Zac Brown songs and bacon wrapped shrimp, chocolate covered BBQ fritos and bacon topped cupcakes! Oh and also you know, Lara and Travis and their marriage and things. 

Riverwalk

 Nancy and Juliane were sadly not invited to the actual wedding, so they headed out to San Antonio. After circling the Alamo twice they found the Alamo hours faster than the Grand Canyon. After their self guided tour they headed to the river walk where they once again walked the wrong way down the path, but eventually found the restaurants and shops everyone raves about. After a traditional Texas BBQ dinner, they headed back to Austin to experience 6th Street. After a beer and some live music they drove back to Georgetown to get some sleep before being awoken early once again to get on the road to New Orleans to see Nancy’s family friends, the Spillings.

P.S. We wrote a guest post with advice for roadtripping on our friend’s blog, Shades of Sarah!

The Day We Became Sand People

Yesterday we endured a very long drive from Marble Canyon to Great Sand Dunes. We made several pit stops including a set of dinosaur tracks (one of the oldest and most preserved set of tracks in the world!), Horseshoe Bend and Four Corners and we eventually arrived very late at night to our motel. 

Dinosaur Tracks in Arizona

At the Four Corners! We wish Alyssa was still with us for the fourth state!

Horseshoe Bend in Page, AZ

Today we spent the morning at Great Sand Dunes National Park. We rented sand sleds and headed to the “slopes”. We spent most of our time hiking up these mountains of sand and only rode down three times. The wind was unbearable and the amount of sand on and in and around our bodies was abnormal. We’re still not sure whether or not the awesomeness of sand sledding was outweighed by the horror of getting pelted by high velocity sand. We are 100% sure we will be scrubbing sand off our bodies for the next month. 

Katie’s first attempt

Nancy and Juliane attempting to climb back up the sand mountain

 In the later morning (because we didn’t last too long at the Great Sand Dunes) we took a death climb to Zapata Falls, a four mile drive from our hotel. It was really pretty, we had lunch on a rock in the middle of the river with the waterfall around the corner. It was lovely. Until we attempted to make our way back to shore. The website does warn against the slippery, algae covered, wet rocks that you must climb over and on to get to the falls. It does not warn against the frigid temperature of the water or the fact that you cannot do it with just sneakers on, or else they will get completely submerged in water. It also does not warn against the broken climbing wire they attach to the rock to “help” your climb. This was the downfall of Juliane’s fall. 

Zapata Falls

 So not only were all of our feet numb from the cold (and probably on the way to frostbite or something equally terrible), but our brave leader Juliane slipped and fell on the rock wall on her way back to shore, and Katie fell directly on her knee in the river with nothing to break her fall, because obviously saving her cell phone and Nancy’s DSLR camera from the water were more important than her personal safety. 

The injured.

But after a beer and some ice on our wounds to ease our pain, we attempted to go back to the Sand Dunes. We had two mini rides before we called it quits for the day and headed back to fill our motel shower with sand. And we’re probably going to sleep on farmer’s hours (sunset) because we have a 12 hour drive tomorrow to see Katie’s sister Carlin and her family in Dallas before heading to Austin.

An eerie view of Sand Dune National Park from a distance (Unfortunately that pink/grey cloud is from the forest fire behind it)

The Day That We Became Conquistadors

Our new favorite casino

Sunday we left the Wintings’ for the Grand Canyon.  After saying goodbye to Alyssa (she is returning to NY for real life), we took a pit stop in Las Vegas and Katie and Juliane both walked away winners! Obviously they won because the casino we went to was “New York, New York”. We had to win, it was our house (although there’s no Bronx section of this casino, not even for Yankee Stadium and we are not pleased). We walked away winners and now we just can’t ever go back because then we would lose, but Nancy can take a solo trip back. It also was our first foray into southwestern heat and we understand why no one leaves their hotels or casinos, you can’t or you might pass out. 

Part of our death march

 

We finally arrived into what we thought was the Grand Canyon very late at night, and then arose to discover we were not in fact near the stereotypical Grand Canyon (thank you misinforming websites). We finally made the group decision that we were in the Grand Canyon, just the sad cousin to the North Rim/South Rim part; it was the equivalent of an outer borough like Queens, still part of the city but not completely.

Our smiles are sheer joy at the fact we made it to the river

 

After we asked our breakfast waitress for a map of the area and where we should go, we concluded that she may have been out to kill us. The path that she recommended with “some rock climbing” turned into a mile and a half trek into the desert, with 30 foot rock formations that we had to maneuver. It was a long morning. She also recommended sitting out on the “beach” of the Colorado River, obviously blind to the paleness of Nancy and Juliane’s skin and had clearly never felt the ice that made up the water. As a sidebar, she also told us to go on a nighttime walk around our hotel without flashlights, we skipped this amazing opportunity. 

Traffic jams at the Grand Canyon North Rim. A herd of buffalo. Okay.

 

We rehydrated from our intense hike in the Arizona sun and drove back east the TWO HOURS to the actual Grand Canyon. After 6 hours of looking for, and hiking, to find the biggest hole in North America, we finally discovered the Grand Canyon. We may have been the first people to see it based on our excitement, so we’re pretty sure we’re letting you in on a secret; we’d like the credit though please. We soon discovered that it was indeed worth the journey and the pleasure of having nice paved walkways. We greatly enjoyed our dinner and drinks looking out onto the sun setting over the Grand Canyon. 

Hoping this doesn’t need to be explained

 

On our way back we stopped for the second time in two days for the best cookie in Arizona (we think), the second time no one almost died in our attempts getting to these cookies so we have clearly improved! They were amazing and we wish we stayed in the hotel that served them. While we’re at it, we wish we had stayed at the hotel that actually looked out on the Grand Canyon, instead of pretending they did, like our motel. 

Arizona is behind us, and while the Grand Canyon was awesome (in the literal sense) and this experience has given us… something (we’re not sure yet), here’s to hoping sand sledding in Sand Dune National Park and the Four Corners will treat us better. We’re sure everyone wishes they were our traveling companions now. 

The best.

The Day That We Made Friends With Celebrities’ Security Guards

Yesterday we were uber tourists in downtown Los Angeles/Hollywood. We started off the morning right at Cafe Bixby with Mrs. Winting and started for Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards. In Los Angeles they have a wonderful phenomena of putting palm trees along the avenues, making every drive seem like something out of a movie. We saw all the stars on the walk of fame and went to the different famous theaters where important things happen. The coolest one was Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theater with all the handprints and footprints of the select few from Hollywood scene.

 

By this point we decided we had walked off breakfast sufficiently to eat at In ‘N Out, for Katie and Juliane’s first time! It was so delicious we barely had time to document the momentous occasion. After that we hopped back in the car and decided it was finally time to stalk out celebrities. 

 

Well. This turned out to be more of a “who’s gate is more like a fort” rather than seeing anything, or anyone, real. However, we know we were probably in the right place because multiple security guards came out of their hiding places and stared us down, possibly even chasing following us out of the cul-de-sac. Even though we didn’t see anyone famous (that we know of), we have seen more Bentley’s and Rolls Royce’s than ever before in our entire lives combined. 

 

We kept up the high society living and drove down Rodeo Drive, the street with the most expensive shopping in the world (based on the stores alone we think). We may have creeped out some super wealthy shoppers because we kept staring but we don’t know how we could have looked away! We went to something more our style, the free Griffith Observatory (after a hike up the road from our parking space womp) with amazing views of Los Angeles and the iconic Hollywood sign.

 

 Today we’re off to the Grand Canyon. But our hotel/motel/Holiday Inn doesn’t have an address, just a mile marker off the highway, and has a fish mounted in every room. So we’re thinking internet might not be a thing for a while (just a hunch) but we’re pretty sure we’ll make it there! 

The Day That We Became “Hitchhikers and Friends”

Typical California street lined with palm trees- just like the East Coast right?

Lauren, Alyssa, Nancy, and Sarah at Stanford!

After stopping Thursday morning for breakfast and a tour of Stanford with Alyssa and Nancy’s friends Lauren and Sarah, we continued on this journey. We drove all the way down Highway One, the famous Pacific Coast Highway (of the extreme curves and cliff variety road). Katie and Alyssa loved it and stared out the window without talking much, while Nancy held on to the steering wheel for dear life and guided us down the coast.  

Pacific Coast Highway!

Thursday night JULIANE JOINED US- YAY FOR REUNIONS. We spent the day along the beaches and beach towns of Los Angeles. We’re staying with our college friend Vincent and his mom in Long Beach and spent the morning driving around and seeing everywhere important in Long Beach. We then drove (because this is L.A. after all) to Venice Beach (listening to our friend Nate’s playlist the entire time… thanks Nate for being the only person to send us not just one, but two playlists!) and walked up and down the boardwalk, judging the muscle men at Muscle Beach Gym (where Arnold Schwartzenagger used to work out), and being amazed that people actually get to live on the beach, in the sun, year round.  

Fordham less-than-one-month reunion!

We went up to Santa Monica for the afternoon, getting lunch at a glorious place called Holy Guacamole! Just picture what that entails (not a guacamole bar unfortunately) and you should be good. We went down to Santa Monica’s famous pier and sat on the beach, where Katie touched the Pacific Ocean for the first time and dolphins swam within eyesight of shore. California is not real life.

Cutest Asian couple taking the most awkwardly adorable selfies with a tripod.

We walked down the Promenade and got dinner with Mrs. Winting at Seasons 52 (so delicious, thank you!) while looking out at the sun setting over the ocean. Our waiter questioned why we were all from different states and sincerely thought we might have picked one another up on the road. Plausible. 

Awkward family photo.

 Really all our emotions can be summed up as reenacting the California SNL skits. Tomorrow is mostly super touristy L.A. stuff, typical stalking out celebrity houses and looking at the Hollywood sign, while trying not to get kicked out of Rodeo Drive for looking like bums.  

The Day That We Hiked In San Francisco

If this needs a caption, this is the Golden Gate Bridge.

We finally made it to California! Huzzah! After a very long, boring, scenic drive through the prisons on the highways of Nevada, we checked into our really awesome San Francisco hotel (courtesy of Mr. Buckley!). First things first, we drove to the Full House House (awesome) and subsequentlynever drove again in San Francisco. 

What we can only guess are the fishermans’ boats at Fisherman’s wharf

The next day we woke up early thanks to being on zero time zone and headed to Sears for their famous Swedish pancakes. We then rode the trolley to Fisherman’s Wharf and decided to be the brave (read: dumb) tourists and walk up Lombard Street, the most curvy, steep street in the world (real fact not just our opinion). After breaking a sweat, even in the cool San Fran weather, and being laughed at by locals, we decided to stay on flat ground at Fisherman’s Wharf. 

Riding the trolley– in which we did not fall off or get hit by a passing car, success!

The hills were not our friend

In true California style we had to do a wine tasting, it just happened to be before noon (thanks to our zero time zones). We had chowder and sourdough bread for lunch before heading to Pier 39 and seeing the sea lions (not seals) that took over.

We want this kind of life

After an afternoon of walking and eating more (this is us) we met up with Nancy’s aunt, uncle, and cousins to walk the Golden Gate Bridge and go to dinner in Sausalito, a fantastic end to our short trip to San Francisco. Off to Los Angeles and Long Beach to see our friends and work on Nancy’s tan.  

Nancy with her Aunt Kay and cousins Jeremy and Scott!