Nebraska

Nebraska

Day 19- Nebraska...

Salt Lake City

Ensign Peak

Nicole said yes!

Local Brew 

Mormon Temple

Street graffiti

yup, had to. 

Day 17 & 18- Salt Lake city was surprisingly interesting. On one block, you have Mormon conventions and religious destination landmarks, and the next blocks is graffiti, breweries, and tattoo shops. Lots of contrast, like when we drove by the mormon temple with slayer on the radio. We had two close calls while here: The first one involved a 3 foot snake on the trail to Ensign peak. The second involved an old weathered crackhead, who sang guns and roses' "welcome to the jungle", showed us his bicep muscles, and claimed to be an ex professional wrestler. Mike thought about getting a tattoo the whole trip, and when we stopped for lunch the place next door was the perfect spot. Clean, professional, and heavily rooted in traditional tattoo work, it was pretty similar to the shop Mike goes to back home. All in all, Salt lake city was and unexpectedly fun stop.

Reno

losing our gas money  

keeping it classy

10 am slot zombies

 Souvenirs from the buffet

Day 16- Rather than drive 14 hours straight to Salt Lake City, we decided to pull off at Reno, where we got a room at Harrah's for 30 bucks. It was well worth the stop, considering Mike made twice that playing video poker in about 20 minutes. The next morning we hit the buffet, laughed at the maniacs still gambling from the night before, and hit the road. 

San Francisco

Fisherman's Wharf Streetstand food, best fish and chips

Alcatraz

Nicole's favorite sunset ever

Snacks

Naps

Chinatown

We seriously did not have one bad meal this whole trip. 

Day 14 & 15 - After an outstanding drive up the coast to San Francisco, we camped out for 2 nights at Mike's friend Dj's house. Mike spent the first morning surfing my 5:30 am. After that was a trip downtown, where we hung out at Fisherman's wharf and Ghiradelli square. Rather than enjoy the afternoon downtown, Mike decided he needed to have an afternoon surf session... After driving an hour down the coast, Mike and Dj finally found a place sheltered from the terrible weather and howling wind. Within an hour or two, the weather got worse, the temperature plummeted and the wind picked up even more. When they finally made it out of the ocean, we started driving north, directly into 40mph winds. While crossing a stretch of the skyway, notorious for amplifying bad wind conditions, the straps on the top of the car broke, and the surfboards went flying into the air. The boards were held up by the gusting wind for a few seconds, before plummeting right back down into the traffic behind us. One got ran over and smashed, while the other went the through the grill of a russian lady's toyota. After running across the busy highway barefoot to clear the road of surfboard fragments, we calmed the screaming russian lady, and everyone made it out safe. We even managed to climb a cliff and catch the sunset before getting back home. The next day we decided to take it easy, first at the zoo, then later in China town. 

Santa Barbara, Highway 1, Santa Cruz

Santa Barbara 

Indian Food, downtown State St. Santa Barbara

Seals

Highway 1, CA

It's probably illegal, but we're going to build our house here.  Big Sur.

Steamer Lane, no waves for the outsiders. Heavy local vibe.

Mike and DJ, grew up surfing together in Long Branch NJ

Day 12 & 13 - Sat in LA traffic, and eventually made it to the beach by the afternoon. Mike finally got to surf, while Nicole got hassled by local frat boys on the beach. We met up with a few of Mike's old friends at an Indian restaurant in downtown Santa Barbara, then spent the night in Santa Maria. The next morning we drove up the coastal highway 1, through Big Sur, and met another one of Mike's friends in Santa Cruz. We stopped in Big Sur enough to take plenty of pictures, and afterwards spent the afternoon at a well known surf break called Steamer Lane. Afterwards, we made it up to San Francisco. While our drive up the coast was peaceful and relaxing, San Francisco turned out to be quite eventful... stay tuned.

Joshua Tree and Palm Springs, CA

Pee-Wee Herman dinosaurs!

Cabazon dinosaurs

Cholla Cactus Garden

joshua tree

palm trees in Palm Springs

Frank Sinatra's star on the sidewalk

....the little guy

Day 9, 10 & 11

  Another drive further into the desert.  The GPS guided us right through the middle of Joshua Tree National Park and we stopped to check out all of the strange plants and critters.  We didn't even listen to one U2 song along the way either.  Next, we headed to Palm Springs for some old Hollywood charm.  We walked past many great stars like Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Ginger Rogers and Elizabeth Taylor...just to name a few.  After spending the afternoon in this resort style town in the middle of the desert we got the vibe that it would probably be a place where the golden girls would love to vacation.  Outside of Palm Springs we stumbled upon the Cabazon Dinosaurs that you might recognize from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.  Stay tuned for Santa Barbara and San Francisco!

Jerome and Sedona, AZ

Time Travel is in fact possible

view from Jerome

house of outrageous junk

seriously, world's best potato skins ever

seriously, world's best burritos and tacos ever

Maynard James Keenan from the band Tool has a vineyard

Wine flight

view from our hotel in Sedona

Day 7 & 8 - Drove to Arizona, where iced tea comes from. Just like everyone said texas took forever to drive through. We eventually spent the night in Tuscon, and woke up the next day to drive a few hours to Jerome, AZ. Its hard to completely capture Jerome in a photograph, the town and its shops are very unique, and its a historic town 5000 feet up from the desert.  We had some awesome mexican food, bought some funky jewelry and did a wine tasting to get a little sophisticated.  Hats off to you Maynard!  We were trying all day to figure out what the connection was to Jerome for a wine spot but our guess its as good as any.  After the day in Jerome, we headed down the mountain to Sedona.  We were pleasantly surprised when we got to our beautiful Hyatt resort with a balcony overlooking the red rocks (thank you Hyatt points!).  We took the evening to relax, drink a bottle of white wine and watch the sunset from our balcony.  It doesn't get much better than this!  Well...maybe...on to California!