Texas

So...my kids will be attending the University of Texas when they grow up. They just can't tell anyone they are from New Jersey cause it doesn't fly too well with some of the locals. Austin is awesommmmme though. The place to be is 6th St. They close the street on weekend nights because it gets so crazy. Most people there are very nice. Other's, like the guys we met whom were wearing tucked in flanel shirts with steel toe boots with those little spinning spurs on the back were a bit more difficult. Lets just put it this way...Ted had to pretend to be an ultra conservative republican so he didn't get us beat up because as they said it "A NJ republican just isn't the same as a Texas republican". Had the best BBQ we've ever eaten at Ruby's BBQ in Austin. Our car was towed out of the hotel parking lot so we had to go to a Texas Tow Truck company in the middle of nowhere to pick it up. It wouldn't have been all that bad had the man we spoke to had not been behind a glass window with reinforced steel bars and a dog chained up outside named Chopper.

28 days, 11 states, 6152 miles, 13 major cities, a speeding ticket, a parking ticket, a towed car, and 82 cheeseburgers later...we're now in Houston set to fly home tomorrow. We thought we'd share our perspective on a few of our favorites and least favorites on this trip.

Favorite City: San Francisco

**Note** Vegas was not included in this list due to unfair advantages it has over every other city

Most Boring City: Seattle (yet no rain while we were there)

Best Hotel: Parc 55 in San Francisco

Worst Hotel: Best Western in Carlsbad, NM (We were forced into this one as there wasn't anything for 100 miles)

Most Scenic State: Montana

Least Scenic: New Mexico. Aside from the paper aliens setup around town in Roswell.

Best Cheeseburger: In N' Out in Arizona.

Funniest Encounter: a 4.8ft tall 37yr old asian man named Larry in a college bar in Tucson, AZ who was drinking $1.50 Pabst Beers and kept re-iterating over and over how he hoped he wouldn't go to jail that night

Best new Beer: Shiner Bock sold all over Texas

Favorite Meal: Breakfast at Kono's surf cafe on the boardwalk in Pacific Beach San Diego

Worst Meal: Breakfast at Best Western in Carlsbad, NM. Fake eggs in the one of the largest dairy producing states in the U.S of A.

Scariest moment: At 7000 feet in Grand Teton, an unexpected snowstorm on an unfinished road. For Frank, the 3 times Ted almost accelerated the car right up another car's ass on the highway.

Most enlightened moment: Grand Canyon

Most Memorable Experience: The drive along Pacific Coast Highway. It doesn't get better than that...

Highway Driving in AZ

Grand Canyon

Arizona / New Mexico

The Grand Canyon was one of the most scenic views of the trip. Words can't describe it. We then made stops in Sedona, Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tucson. Stayed overnight in Tucson and went out for beers around the Univ of AZ. After Tucson, we stopped in Tombstone, AZ which is an old western town from back in the 1800's. Had lunch in a Saloon where people were playing poker at one of the tables and there were horses out front like in the movie Maverick. They served us Beer in a mug which I haven't seen in a while. You can shoot guns for $3 there or take a tour of the "Birdcage" which was an old social club back in the 1800's. It was ranked the most haunted building in the U.S.

Today, we spent most of the day in Santa Fe, NM then drove through Roswell, NM. Home of the infamous UFO landing. And boy do they like to celebrate it. If a UFO is landing anywhere I think Roswell would be ideal because those people are really weird.

We're now staying overnight in Carlsbad, NM on our way to San Antonio tomorrow.

La Jolla

LA/San Diego/Vegas

Hello from Arizona. We finally got around to updating everyone. Well, we were in LA for a night which was cool. We met up with two friends for dinner on sunset blvd then went out for bit after. The next day we cruised through the hollywood hills and 90210 being tourists. We attempted a driveby of the playboy mansion and then rolled up in front of the fresh prince of belair house.

Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach are places you can drive thru and forget about all your worries. From Laguna, we arrived in San Diego and stayed with my Cousin Elisa who showed us a great time. Great food, great weather, great scenary and fun people is what makes San Diego an ideal place to live. The second day in sd we headed to mission beach. We were sick of looking at each other so we sat 200 yards apart. Our friend Alicia met up with us that night and frank broke out his grooves in the Pink Elephant club. Felt like an episode of 'In Living Color.' Next day got a run in along the boardwalk in pacific beach. Our friend Adam recommended a breakfast place called Konos. He is a brilliant man.

After an enjoyable stay in sd, we headed to vegas for a solid 4 nights at mgm. Our friend Amit flew out to meet us for the weekend. Lots of hysterical stories have occurred...

Anyway, in Sedona, AZ now after stops in the Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon. We'll update you on those after Sedona.

Pacific Coast Highway

Pacific Coast Highway

Today, we drove down the pacific coast highway. We drove "17-mile drive" making a stop at Pebble Beach. Next, we drove through Carmel. The beach had a bonfire scent from the night before. Wish we could make bonfires on the beach back home. Next, was Big Sur where we stopped for a late breakfast. A gigantic mountain man sat next to me at the counter. The views going down the coast are incredible. Never seen anything like it in the U.S. We made a stop at Hearst Castle where we took a 2 hour tour. The castle was fit for royalty. We had to go up a 5-mile long driveway to get to the castle on the top of the mountain. Our tour guide was the 100 year old woman from the Titantic...or so she appeared. So the tour guide wasn't very intriguing, but overall it was worth the experience. We're now staying overnight in Buelton, CA. L.A. tomorrow.

San Francisco, Pacific Coast Highway

San Fran was the best city on this tour thus far. We really lived it up. 4 star hotel in the center of the city. My cousin met up and was our tour guide this time around. We toured Alcatraz, drove up the Twin Peaks, drove over the Golden Gate to Sausalito and even happened to drive by the "Full House" house by accident. It really wasn't that exciting. Danny Tanner was smoking crack outside but what else is new. The nightlife is much better than Seattle. Oddly enough, we met a bartender who is from Monroe, NJ who left us with a bar tab of $0.

We're now in Monterey, CA on our way to LA tomorrow. The drive down the pacific coast highway is really something. It's definately one of the more scenic views I'm sure we'll come across on this trip. Check out the pics.

Seattle

Hi everyone. We spent 2 days in Seattle. We visited the famous Pikes Place Market where they sell fresh fish and lots of other interesting foods. We went to the top of the Space Needle which had magnificent views of the city and surrounding areas. We've come to find there are 2 certainties about Seattle. 1: everyone drinks coffee. 2: there is nothing to do at night. Two days of no rain in Seattle which is hard to come by yet there were still no Seattle-ites out to party. So...we departed a day early. We stayed in a small town in Oregon on the way to San Fran. We had dinner in this small pizza restaurant that seemed to be the local hotspot. This place looked like the pizza place in E.T. During dinner conversation, Ted managed to drop almost every curse word in the book, un-intentionally letting everyone know we're from NJ. Just got to San Francisco yesterday. Talk to you soon.

Yellowstone

Yellowstone, Montana, Idaho

Hey all, we are now in Spokane, Washington. So far no rain... Sunday afternoon we drove through Grand Teton and Yellowstone Nat'l Park. Yellowstone was huge and took us 3 hours to drive through from the southern entrance to the northern end. As we drove through the park, Frank and I kept a close eye for all wildlife, hoping a grizzly bear would get on two feet pissed off, so we could capture that for you on camera...but sorry it didn't happen. However, I (Ted) approached a buffalo, sort of hoping to create some kind of trouble (as I said, sort of hoping) but the guy was too consumed in eating grass. After driving thru the park, we stayed in the northern end about 4 miles south of Montana.
This morning we left early since we had almost 500 miles of driving to do. The drive we experienced today was exactly what this road trip is all about..Montana & Idaho had amazing scenary and our drive felt like it was nothing. Even though it breezed by, we are spent, now relaxing in our hotel in Spokane. Anyway, we posted more pics of yellowstone and our scenic drive. Looking forward to seattle tomorrow.

Red Rocks

Denver/Wyoming

Hello everyone! Reporting to you from the middle of nowhere in Wyoming. Trip is awesome so far. Denver was very good to us. Yesterday, we spent some time in Boulder, CO then hit up Red Rocks. Can't even imagine what it would be like to have seen DMB play there. The theater is literally built into the side of the mountain over looking Denver. We posted some pics of it so everyone can see. We had two wonderful tourguides we knew through a friend. These kind women showed us around the city, joined us for dinner and then offered us Montecristo Cigar's, Scotch and some peanut butter cookies. Denver is a great city.
We are now in Wyoming staying overnight in a small town before Yellowstone. They have one of those small old movie theater's like in the movie "The Majestic". We passed the smallest town in the country this morning Buford, Wyoming. Population: 1. Wyoming is very scenic and empty. We literally drove for 20min 36 seconds without actually seeing another car (Ted timed it). The towns are about 75-100 miles apart with nothing in between. We made a quick pitt stop on the side of the road for Ted. I asked him be careful in case a cop shows. He said no worries since we havent't seen one allday. 20 minutes later...Frank gets a speeding ticket. Turns out the police officer was one of the nicest guys we have ever met. He handed me my ticket then talked to us for 10 additional minutes about what sites to see in yellowstone. Wyoming has not been so good to us...