Well, here I am, back in LA! So I guess that's it for this journal. Perhaps it will be revisited for another vacation, some other time... but in the mean time, thanks everyone for all your comments and for being part of our trip!! Hope you enjoyed it, and now that I'm back home, I hope to talk to everyone personally soon. If you're interested, and you've missed any of the entries, you can check out the "archive" section for all the old entries... Enjoy!

Isn't this the cutest picture ever??

Anyway we travelled from Amarillo to Flagstaff today, via I-40 which runs parallel to the famed Route 66. It was one of our smoothest drives ever (and it doesn't hurt that you can go 75 in New Mexico and Arizona...) plus we gained 2 hours thanks to time zones so we got here around 6 pm local time. We're staying at Howard Johnson's on Route 66, in case you're interested. Right now we're relaxing before tomorrow-- when we finally bring the kittens home!!

Guess that's all. I'll write a final entry when we return to LA...!

Crazy day. We left Little Rock this morning, but as we got closer and closer to Amarillo, we found ourselves in the middle of some very scary thunderstorms. Fortunately Cindy was driving at this point because I was a little freaked out by how hard it was raining and all the lightening. This wasn't just heat lightening-- it was the kind you see in movies and on TV! And of course, we were in the middle of Oklahoma and the entire landscape looked exactly like scenes from Twister. We feared the worst, but we got out of it, thankfully!! I don't know if any tornadoes hit later, but the weather certainly seemed prime for it... We were listening to this almost surreal little local radio station playing a very random selection of oldies. The station kept going in and out because of the lightening. Weird.

Anyway we made it here and now we're getting ready for bed. Enjoy the latest pics... gotta go, Simon is trying to type for me.
'night.

OK I know I owe you guys some pictures-- I'll put them up tonight, really I will --- but we drove 12 hours yesterday from Asheville to Little Rock and I was beyond exhausted once we got here... plus well... we do have 2 little monsters ;)

Anyway I don't have time to post much now cause we're about to leave for amarillo and this connection is pretty slow but anyway we'll be there tonight and hopefully I should have time to get some new kitty pics up...
:)

OK, guys, where did all your comments go?? It was much more fun doing this when I was getting the feedback... Oh well. Maybe I'll put up some more pictures of kittens tomorrow... then at least Sharon will comment!!

Anyway the good news of the day is that Libby (the mother cat) does NOT have FIP. She's at the vet's tonight, after her spaying and exploratory, but she comes back here tomorrow just in time for us to say goodbye to her before we hit the road.

So what else? Mainly we ran some errands today, barbecued in the rain, and fought with North Carolina DMV about Cindy's license plates. Bureaucracy at its finest. Tonight we're packing up the car and getting ready for the trip back. As I think it says in the itinerary, we stop in Little Rock, Amarillo, and Flagstaff -- but we won't be doing too much sightseeing since we have the kittens.

At least I'll be creeping back into better time zones...

all for now...

Well, we're back with the kittens!! Actually, today we took them to the vet to get their second set of vaccinations. I can't believe we get to take Simon and Bianca with us on Friday. It's wonderful... but also kind of sad to break up their little family, you know?? Anyway I know it's what's best for all of us, but it's still sad. Libby, their mother, goes in to be spayed tomorrow and since they have to open her up a little anyway, they are going to do an exploratory to try to figure out what is wrong with her (long story short, she's had some various symptoms that haven't been going away and that the vet hasn't quite been able to diagnose). Anyway she goes in for that surgery in the morning.

Friday we pack the kitties up and hit the long road home!

Not too much else to report... what happened to everyone's comments?? I post photos, stories... and I get no comments! :( Say something, if you're out there!!

I’m writing this update from the road… we’re not going to get into Asheville until probably midnight so I figured I’d be too tired by then to get online.

At any rate, we didn’t wind up going to Niagara Falls. We got on the road a little earlier than expected in Ithaca and we decided we’d seen so many pretty falls there, and since both of us had already been to Niagara Falls, it seemed like a better idea to get further down the road since we knew today would be a long day of driving. So instead, we stopped for the night in Erie, Pennsylvania. Note to Sharon: It was a handicapped room and right by the highway—but we kept the room, lol. This morning we got up and drove straight to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. The Hall of Fame was very cool – but I was bummed because they don’t allow you to take pictures inside. So while I expected to have a whole day’s worth of photos there, we were just able to take a few outside the building. So, no photos. :( But we did get to explore the museum – the coolest thing they had were a lot of original handwritten lyrics by the likes of Billy Joel, John Lennon, Suzanne Vega… even Martika! Did you know that “We Didn’t Start The Fire” was originally something like “Jolene, will you take me as I am” or something like that?? Crazy. The café there was lame, so we decided in the spirit of things to go to the Hard Rock Café, and all we had to do was type “Hard Rock Café” into the GPS, and we were there. Gotta love this car. Anyway we ate at Hard Rock, and then got on the road. Now we’re on the long drive to Asheville to begin the final leg of our journey. Can’t wait to see the kittens!

Lots of photos!!!

I'm trying to make up for the recent lack of imagery. But anyway those are photos from the wedding, and a picture of my parents up here in Ithaca. Yesterday we visited the different falls around here and then bbq'ed for dinner. Today we went to lunch, drove around Cornell (my Dad's favorite thing to show off), and now we're getting ready to head to Niagara Falls tonight. Not too many other stories from here... enjoy the pics for now...

SO sorry about the gap in entries. When we got to Vermont, we discovered, much to our surprise, that the place had no phones in the rooms, and our cell phones got no signal-- we were really out in the country!! Anyway I had to forgo the update briefly. But I'm back. I'm back. I'll tell the stories first and then I'll post some new pictures a little later. I'm at my parents' house in Ithaca right now so I'm actually on a high-speed connection -- woo hoo!!

So we left Long Island on a rainy, wet morning and did what most Long Islanders I know have never done -- took the ferry from Port Jeff to Bridgeport. It was actually a really nice ride and quite a bit more relaxing than driving through NYC on I-95. Our car was positioned right at the back of the boat so we had a great view without even leaving the car. After we de-boated at Bridgeport, we drove up to Middletown, where Wesleyan is, and I showed Cindy all around my old school grounds, and we even ate lunch at my favorite Indian restaurant, Taj, which is still there... and the same guy is actually still working there...scary!! A LOT has changed around there. There's actually a movie theater in walking distance from school!!!! SO jealous about this. We didn't have that!!! Middletown has definitely gotten in better shape. I was bummed though because Manhattan Bagel was closed... wanted some of that french vanilla cream cheese (Arwen knows what I'm talking about... ;) ) Anyway from Middletown we drove up to Grafton, Vermont, an adorable little town in the middle of nowhere -- but fortunately our GPS told us how to get there. Almost right away we saw Kelly who seemed SOOO happy. If you're reading this -- congratulations again Kel & Zoe! Anyway we checked in and panicked at the lack of phone situation... but we got through the withdrawl. Friday night there was a party thrown by the parents with a digital montage of their lives, which was really cool to see. Then we had lots of fun hanging out with Arwen and Dave and Kristin and Jim in the game room... (By the way, I won at pool!! Just had to point out that rare event).

The next morning we took advantage of the free breakfast with Arwen and Dave and then we met up with Kristin and Jim to walk around the town. The main attractions in Grafton include the Cheese factory and a sheep barn. Yes, that's a barn with sheep, and a place where they teach you how cheese is made and where you can buy the cheese as well as, of course, maple syrup! Then Cindy and I wandered around town buying souvenirs and we all met up again at Arwen and Dave's house, which kind of became the communal crash pad (thanks, guys!) since we had already checked out of our room.

The ceremony was beautiful, and we caught up with Lauren there too. Afterwards we were served a really good dinner... (Yes, I'm leaving out mention of the "contest"... those who were there know what i'm talking about and those who were not really don't need to). ;) and cake and ice cream, followed by dancing and some sweet parental speeches.

I wished we could have stayed longer but Cindy and I had decided that we were going to make it all the way to Ithaca last night... so we headed out around 9:30 on a dirt road where we actually saw our first MOOSE! I wish I had been able to take a picture of it but I didn't have my camera ready. Anyway we continued on and drove the back roads to Ithaca, successfully averting deer, racoons, squirrels and cats. We made it here very late and found a large racoon ravaging mom's bird feeders. He's caught on tape though, so he won't get away with it!

Anyway... here we are in Ithaca and I think we're going to explore the falls soon--- tonight I'll post pictures! :)

Ok... this one will have to be quick because it's late and I'm using the Rothblatts' internet connection. No pictures to see of Long Island -- we tried to get a good one of the NYC skyline, or what's left of it, but we couldn't get a good pic of it, plus... it was sad. Very sad to see that for the first time since, well, you know. Anyway we're at Jill's house tonight with Jill, Sue, Richard and Jill's parents. The good news is -- I had Carvel!!! (Em's been asking about this one...) Yum.

After spending the morning with Jenny, we surprised Cindy's NJ relatives with an unexpected visit! It was great to meet her random family members, and good for her to see people she never gets to see... dropping in on them when they least expected it!!

Cindy got to experience the LIE -- the world's longest parking lot... and then we arrived at Jill's place and we all went out for Thai food which was really good -- followed by Carvel. We hung out and reminisced -- probably not so fun for Cindy -- but fun for Jill, Sue and me! So anyway we're going to go to bed now -- tomorrow we're taking the ferry to CT and ending up in Vermont! I'm sure I'll have some pictures then...

:) 'night.

Arrrrgh. My computer crashed as I was writing this so I have to write it all over again. This morning we sadly had to leave the kittens for a week to do the northeastern portion of our trip. Everyone’s doing well… though Simon freaked out when I walked into the “nursery” with a bag of carrots. No one else reacted but he ran off and kept eyeing the carrots, looking terrified. We’re trying to figure out if he had a traumatic incident with carrots in his past. If anyone has any ideas on this, let me know. I said to Cindy, “he’s definitely your cat – he’s afraid of vegetables.”

So anyway we took the long trek up from Asheville to Philadelphia today – not as scenic as our past drives, unless you consider construction and old battlefields scenic. But we successfully crossed the Mason-Dixon line and thanks to the Lexus GPS, we were directed accurately straight to Jenny’s apartment. When we arrived in the driveway, it even said “You have reached your destination.” Amazing!!! This thing was truly a trip.

Now we’re here in Philadelphia with Jenn and her husband David – they have a cool apartment with a great view of some river I can’t pronounce. And tomorrow we’re off to Jersey and Long Island…don’t think we’ll find much more scenery there…

Sorry, no new pics today -- have to get to bed really soon because we're driving all the way up to Philadelphia tomorrow. We're still in Asheville -- our first full non-driving day, which was wonderful!! I was able to work out with Cindy's mom's exercise equipment, I watched All My Children, and we went out to dinner at a Chinese buffet. Good stuff. Cindy took care of her drivers' license and inspection and all that, and the Lexus arrived from Jacksonville! It's pretty cool. Kinda weird with its whole touch screen radio and navigation and all that... but cool.

The kittens are doing well. They're jumping around and being cute and Libby (their mom) is doing really well. She had a tapeworm when she first arrived, then some mysterious symptoms, which now seem like they might be allergies. Plus she's in heat -- the poor thing needs to be spayed really soon. She's just the sweetest cat though :)

Anyway I'm sure I'll put up more pictures of all of them later -- but for now, I'm going to try to get ready to get back into the car...

:)

It’s kitten day!!! We arrived in Asheville after a long drive from Alabama, stopping in Atlanta to visit my cousin Jennifer, who is doing great. We got a preview of our upcoming animal adventures when we met her two dogs and her cat. She’s got a great place in downtown Atlanta, and we were sorry we couldn’t stay longer – but we had to make it up to Asheville, another 3 ½ hours away. When we got here, we first met Libby, the kittens’ mom, who is a little angel. We heard that the temperament of the mom is indicative of what the temperament of the babies will be, and if that’s the case, we’re very lucky. Then we met the kittens – all four!! The two that Cindy’s mom is keeping are Rex and Jack, and the two that we’re keeping are Simon and Bianca. If you want to know who’s who, visit our cats page. Anyway, Simon immediately gave me kisses, Bianca loves to be held and cuddled, and Rex and Jack love to play… well, okay, they all love to play, but Rex and Jack are the most active. It’s really wonderful watching their little family interact. We’re not actually taking Simon and Bianca with us until our second trip to Asheville on the way back since they probably would not enjoy the trip up the east coast and back, haha. But anyway they are all wonderful!! I put up the best ones above and if I ever have time to get all the pics up on my imagestation page, there will be more! I can’t wait for all of you to meet them at one time or another. Anyway, it’s been a kitten day, and I’m very happy. Also we get to take a much-needed breather tomorrow here in Asheville, which is nice. Then Wednesday it’s up to Philadelphia…

Morning in the French Quarter was quite different than evening there... but somehow the same. It definitely feels like there's a party going on all the time… but by day while the bars aren’t as raucous, the cafes are full as are the shops. So we were glad that we had checked out Café du Monde last night because the line there was a mile long in daylight. So we at breakfast at Café Beignet at our hotel and did some shopping before checking out of our room at noon and driving to Alabama.

I’m still confused about the gambling laws in Louisiana and Mississippi. If anyone can explain them to me, please feel free to do so. We arrived in Gulf Shores, Alabama around 4:30. Here, we’re staying at Cindy’s Dad’s condo with him and Cindy’s half-brother Ted and his friend Brendan. The beach is amazing here – the softest white sand I’ve ever felt, and the water in the gulf is actually warm.

Anyway – we went out to dinner. There’s no real way to describe this experience… other than that I knew I was in the South when we arrived at Lamberts, home of the “throwed roll.” I’m going on the assumption that they know that “throwed” is not a word, but one never knows. And in case you are wondering, yes, they throw rolls at you. They pitch them. Kind of like in baseball. The problem is you have to catch them. Those who know me know I am not very good at catching. I did catch half of one… I’m not doing an adequate job of describing this place – it’s something you really have to see to believe so please check out the Lambert’s website. What else can I say?

Now we’re back at the condo getting ready for bed and it looked like the Lakers were about to make it to the playoffs or whatever they’re called… I can only imagine the partying that’s going on in L.A…. ‘Night, all.

It’s almost 1 am here in Louisiana, so this might be a little short – I’m tired! This morning I got up early (even earlier than our normal 8 am wakeup time) to go to Southfork Ranch as soon as it opened. For those out there who happen to not be psychotic Dallas fans 11 years after its cancellation, Southfork was the location site for all the exterior scenes from the show, and is now a museum dedicated to it, and a convention center. Anyway Cindy passed on the chance to experience this in favor of sleep, but I went, bought souvenirs, of course, and saw the very tacky “museum” area with TVs running clips from the show, while the radio played God Blessed Texas over and over again. The walls are lined with magazine articles (some of which I remembered hanging in my room for many years!) and cast photos and whatnot. Very cheesy, but fun stuff. Then I got the tour, where the guide told me all about the “movie magic” they used to film the show, haha. (I should mention, by the way, that I was the only one there for this and got my own private tour) It was silly, but fun. After that experience, I picked up the sleeping one, and we began our long drive to New Orleans. Yucky traffic getting out of Texas. Bleh.

Once we got into Louisiana, things got more interesting. For one thing, gambling is legal in this state – I’m not sure how they set up the zoning laws though, because it’s nothing like Nevada… The “casinos” seem to all be small video poker houses attached to gas stations, like the food mart. Very odd.

Then we got further south and I got to see the swamps and the bayous. That was cool. Note to Sharon: I thought of Greta, lol.

Finally, around 9 pm we arrived in New Orleans. We got off the exit and briefly went the wrong way and found ourselves in the middle of what felt like south central LA. Note to Em: Think those neighborhoods in mid-Wilshire about 5 times worse… Shades of Tijuana too…Anyway we found our way and it’s amazing how you cross the street (Rampart, appropriately enough) and you’re suddenly in the tourist-friendly French Quarter. Again I’m reminded of the problems of unequal distribution of wealth in this country… but anyway back to happier things.

We got to our hotel, which is charming, and then went for a late dinner at a place called Nola, which is an Emeril Lagasse restaurant. I was a bit skeptical because it was one of those places where you have like 5 different servers and you never know who to ask for anything, and the water guy gets annoyed if you ask him for food and the waitress gets annoyed if you ask her for drinks, etc. (Yes, this is one of my many pet peeves because you never know who to complain to if they get your order wrong) But in spite of the weird service, the food was great. Really, some of the yummiest stuff we’d ever had. I got some kind of roasted chicken which came with a parmesan polenta which I was leery of because of the parmesan factor… but which actually was delicious and tasted neither like parmesan or polenta. Cindy got pork chops with really really good brown sugar basted sweet potatoes.

After dinner we strolled the streets and went to Café du Monde for hot chocolate and beignets. And I don’t care what anybody says… it’s funnel cake. A little dougier, but definitely funnel cake. Gotta love that powdered sugar!!!

I think that’s all. Now we’re back in the room… I gotta get some sleep.

By the way, I’ve put a few more pictures up on the photos page if you get a chance to look... :)

Okay, for those who are paying really close attention, you'll notice we've altered our itinerary just slightly. Tonight, I'm in Plano, Texas, just a few miles from Parker, Texas -- home of Southfork Ranch! We hit quite a bit of traffic today in Austin and Dallas and didn't reach Southfork while it was still open, and since it didn't look like we'd make it to Marshall until very late, we decided to stay here, so that I could see the inside of Southfork, and so we could get some sleep! So, we're at the Days Inn in Plano.

It's been a long, interesting day in Texas. We awoke in our San Antonio suite, and immediately headed out to explore the Riverwalk and the Alamo. Cindy was amazed to learn that the Alamo is right in the downtown area, since in pictures it always appears to be out in the middle of nowhere. But it's actually amidst the downtown hubbub. The Riverwalk was pretty -- it's a pretty city, and we spent some time walking around there before checking out of the amazing hotel and beginning our drive up to Austin. PS, there was a cowboy trying to get people to go into some weird museum of animal antlers or something there, who asked where we were from and when we told him, he responded-- Oh, Santa Monica, are you near Montana Ave? Third Street Promenade? Great. The cowboy now knows where we live.

We sat in traffic going up to Austin. We were driving behind a barn for a while, yes, a barn. And at the gas station Cindy opened the gas flap and found two giant locusts in there. All I can say is it's a really good thing it wasn't me or you all would have heard my screams from around the country. No idea how they got there.

Anyway, Austin was a traffic nightmare, but seemed like an interesting city. Mykl introduced us to Bubble Tea, which I had had once before... but this time I was wise enough to order it without the little balls of tapioca. If you've had it, you know what I'm talking about, if not, well, I guess you're just not up on the latest trendy foods. Anyway, for those who are interested, Mykl is doing great in Austin, even if he is calling himself Zaius there. ;) You can see the picture of him above.

Then we headed out of Austin, hoping to get to Southfork in time to attend the tour of the ranch -- but alas, the last tour was at 4:30 and with the Dallas traffic, we didn't get to the area until after 6. So, as I mentioned, we wound up staying here in Plano. Once again, our hotel was out of standard rooms but they offered us a suite for the standard rate... okay so it's no St. Anthony's, but we've got a nice spacious room in the Days Inn here for just $55. And hey, a bonus... cable here seems to offer an Air Force channel here, where you can learn how to plan an attack and bombing raid. Things I never wanted to know were out there...sigh...

So, after the tour of the ranch tomorrow, we're heading to New Orleans as fast as we can get there... More updates then!!

Oh my God!! So here I am writing from the most amazing hotel room I have ever stayed in!!! Note to Sharon and Em: This place makes our Catalina suite look like a dive!! I've added the St. Anthony to my links of places we're staying... Here's what happened: I was looking for a place to stay in San Antonio, since we hadn't booked anyplace yet, and everyone we spoke to said to stay downtown. Having never been in the city before, we were nervous about staying off the beaten path, and since Cindy has this Disney Discount card, we can sometimes get 50% off at really nice hotels. So, even though it was more than I wanted to spend, I wound up booking a $95 room (with the discount) at the St. Anthony in San Antonio -- a great rate for a nice hotel, but more than we'd been spending at our normal motel 6 type lodging. But I booked it anyway, so that we'd be in a good area, and near the Riverwalk and the Alamo. We arrived, and when we got to our room, I almost thought there must have been a mistake. I'm sitting at the desk in a palatial suite with couches, chairs, an armoire, a dining room table, separate bedroom, and 2 walk-in closets. In addition, the mahogany furniture, ornate paintings and decor are nicer than the Beverly Wilshire. I can't believe I'm here. We didn't want to leave the room for the precious few hours we have here, so we ordered room service and ate at our table, almost embarrassed by our own decadence. Anyway free advertising for the St. Anthony -- I recommend it to anyone who happens to find him/herself in San Antonio. I think it's a little known travel secret that if you make reservations at a nice hotel day-of, you can get a bargain rate on the nicer rooms because they'd rather get what they can, than nothing. So, here we are!

This morning, we woke in our $39 a night room in Carlsbad, which seemed quite nice yesterday, haha -- and went to Caverns. They were awesome!! And going from the tops of the rocky mountains (14,000 feet in the air) to the caves (750 feet below the ground) in just a couple of days is almost unreal. We took lots of pictures of the stalagtites and stalagmites (spelling, anyone??), and we picked up some souvenirs. Then we hit the road for San Antonio, through more and more empty farmland. It's amazing how much unused space there is in the U.S. Cindy says she read that if you took every single person on the planet and set them a foot apart from each other, they would cover only the state of Texas. I'm beginning to believe it.

So through the farmlands of Texas, we made our way to San Antonio. We arrived around 9 pm to find this amazing room, and here we are. Tomorrow we'll hit the Riverwalk and the Alamo, and we'll hopefully see my cousin Mykl aka Zaius in Austin... Plus, the event I've waited for my whole life... we'll be seeing Southfork Ranch (the location from "Dallas")!! All for tonight. Have to go jump around my room!

No pictures today – we spent most of the day driving from Colorado Springs down to Carlsbad, New Mexico. In the morning we went to the Garden of the Gods, which was pretty, but somewhat unimpressive after the splendor of Arches. It’s a small park with some giant rocks, which I climbed on. We took a few pictures there, but nothing great, and I’m once again on the cellular connection… so, hopefully, more photos tomorrow.

Anyway most of the day was spent in the car, except for a few pee breaks in some very sketchy areas. There was actually a bumper sticker for sale that read: “With Guns, Trucks and Beer, who needs women?” Ah, nowhereseville.

It seemed like it took forever to get out of Colorado – and everything from southeastern Colorado to southeastern New Mexico is mainly huge expanses of farmland…endless, endless farmland. We were looking forward to stopping in Roswell and finding some tacky alien stuff, but we were pretty disappointed with what we found. The UFO museum was closed, and other than lampposts featuring “alien eyes” we saw few signs of the famed Roswell mythology. We couldn’t even find an alien café or anything like that to eat at, so we left, a bit disappointed. We did, however, spot a UFO circling the sky above us… Actually, it turned out to be a stealth fighter plane. Not sure which if that’s better or worse…

But fortunately, we got to Carlsbad in time to reach the Carlsbad Caverns by dusk, when 100,000 bats emerge from the entrance to the caves… We were able to watch their nightly migration, which was really fascinating. They were much smaller and quieter than I thought… but it was a really intriguing sight to see.

It was finally Cindy’s turn to avoid wildlife on the road… a deer and a jackrabbit. Now we’re in our room at the Continental Inn, and I’m bummed because McDonald’s stiffed me on my hamburger so I had to make do with salad and half a McFlurry (Emily, stop screaming at me… also had a bite of Cindy’s chicken sandwich and I ate plenty of other food today).

Anyway I guess that’s the update. Tomorrow morning we go back to the Caverns to see the interior of the caves, and then we drive to San Antonio…

All is well… enough for now.

So, Blogger was down for maintenance when I tried to upload this… hopefully it will be back up and this will get posted soon. Anyway, we’re in Colorado Springs tonight after another interesting day. First thing this morning we went to the Rocky Mountain National Park. Oh, random sign of the day: by the entrance to a bridge, there was a sign that read:

“In case of flood, climb to safety”

Or, I guess, you could always drown.

Anyway, we went to the park, which was filled with wildlife and… OMG… SNOW. Tons and tons of snow. But I have to say it was wild looking DOWN at the Rocky Mountains. I do believe I know the meaning now of Rocky Mountain High…

Of course (since this is now a daily occurrence for me) I was forced to stop for a herd of bighorn sheep crossing the road. We also saw elk, deer, and numerous birds as well as ground squirrels that we made friends with. One even jumped on my lap (and promptly realized where he was and jumped off!). We ate lunch by Bear Lake, and shared crumbs with the squirrels (don’t tell the rangers). Then we left and headed for Cheyenne, a side trip that I begged Cindy to go on… (“But…but… Garth Brooks and George Strait sing about Cheyenne…. I HAVE to go there”)… She indulged me and we drove up to Wyoming, but Cheyenne itself was something of a letdown. It actually reminded me of Middletown with a cowboy flavor. But I was glad to get the chance to see it anyway since it’s doubtful I’ll ever be anywhere near there again. Oh, and it was back up at 80 degrees in Wyoming… allergies, here they come…

The sky was getting cloudy, so we figured we’d better get out of there fast (ok…Cindy wanted to get out of there fast anyway)… and we escaped before the rain hit. Then we drove down to Colorado Springs where I find myself now. Tomorrow we visit Garden of the Gods and then head down to New Mexico for Roswell and Carlsbad Caverns!!

All for now…

Yippee!! Finally, we have a good internet connection here at the Snowshoe Motel in Frisco, Colorado. So I can write this at my leisure. Forgive me if I'm a little shell-shocked; we began the day in the 90-degree Utah desert and ended up amidst snow covered mountains in 45 degree Colorado. So I've got a little Rocky Mountain delirium going on...

As I mentioned, the day began in Moab, Utah. We drove first to Arches, a national park filled with these amazing natural rock formations. We took a zillion pictures. From there we went to Canyonlands, which is, incidentally, according to National Geographic, the most infrequently visited national park in the U.S. As we approached, I once again was forced to avoid livestock as some cowboys led their herd across the street. This seems to be a pattern for me. FYI, I also had near misses with two chipmunks and a gecko. In addition, we did our good deeds for the day providing a plastic spoon for a tourist in need, and notifying the park rangers that several other travellers had locked themselves out of their car and were stuck in Upheaval Dome. We also decided that Canyonlands was more beautiful than the Grand Canyon, in our humble opinions. It was incredibly hot though. Over 90, I'm sure. Sharon would have died.

(Sidebar here...) Oh, and by the way, I meant to do an ongoing restrooms across America commentary. Don't worry, just the highlights. FYI, the restrooms at the Mobil in Kingman are very clean and well-maintained. And in case you're in need, the women's restroom at the Conoco in the Keyenta, Arizona, featured a vending machine that sold flavored condoms and some other assorted sexual accoutrements. They did not sell tampons. Canyonlands, by the way, has the best smelling outhouses I have ever been in. I'm not kidding.

Anyway, back to the day. After Canyonlands, we drove for just about 5 hours straight (well, except for a pee break, of course) to Frisco, Colorado (which is about 20 miles east of Vail). It was a long, but incredibly beautiful drive, once we got into Colorado. We drove along the Colorado River, and I freaked out when I started to see snow. As we climbed in elevation, the snow got closer and the outside temperature got increasingly chilly. I began to realize my shorts and tank top were not going to cut it here... We quickly checked in, changed into warmer clothes and walked to the restaurant across the street. It was almost 9:00 and we were starving, so we weren't picky, and it turned out to be a pricey steakhouse. You'll all be surprised to hear I ordered chicken ;)

I'm going to update the photo section now... So please check out the "Photos" link on the navigation!!

More tomorrow! :)

Today began at our wigwam. It was cool. So, I’m a sucker for novelties – sue me. First thing this morning we went to the petrified forest, which was pretty cool – basically it’s wood from millions of years ago that has turned to stone. Not too much to say about that other than that they had some unusual souvenirs that I picked up. Right after that we went to the painted desert. By this point, I wished that I had come up with more Arizona songs for my mix because by about the third time through I was getting a little sick of Jamie O’Neal. Oh and note to self: No matter how hard I try, I still hate Tool. The whole stupid band name=sucky music, still applies. Sorry, Ann and Chris ;) But I tried.

Anyway, after that we spent a long stretch of highway in Navajo country… which was quite an experience. Suffice to say the Navajo don’t seem to believe in fencing in their livestock. First, when I stopped for a pee break at Burger King, two stray cows were hanging out right in front. Personally I believe it was a bovine protest march – all they were missing were signs saying “eat me here.” No one else seemed particularly fazed by the cows. Then—picture driving down the highway at about 65 miles an hour when you’re forced to come to a sudden halt because a herd of sheep is crossing the road. Yup, it happened.

After that we spent a really really long stretch of road in Navajo land all the way through to the Utah border, where we visited Monument Valley and took lots of pictures. Then an even longer stretch of highway pulled us into Moab, where we are now. I’m tired and have to go to bed, so I won’t say much else other than that the road here, though long, was truly indescribably beautiful, and sadly I don’t think pictures can quite capture it.

All for tonight… more tomorrow—hopefully tomorrow I can also add pictures to the photo section – it’s way too slow on the cellular connection, but I don’t have a local access number here… sigh…

At the end of a long day, I’m writing from my wigwam in Holbrook, Arizona. Unfortunately, this won’t actually be posted until tomorrow because the wigwam has no phone and the cellular signal wasn’t strong enough for me to connect with that either. So, by the time you see this, we’ll have checked out of the wigwam, and will most likely be en route to our next destination. So, if I actually get a chance to post all the pictures I’ve been taking… you will see the Grand Canyon in all its splendor. Contrary to Jamie O’Neal’s anthem, there is indeed an Arizona, and a Grand Canyon, and I have the pictures to prove it! J Anyway here was our day:

This morning we woke up in Laughlin, just a little later than scheduled, and before leaving, took a few photos, and held our own little memorial service for Desmond, as Laughlin was his favorite place in the world. Then we began the drive to the Grand Canyon. The ride was mostly smooth sailing, until we got to the Grand Canyon itself which had a line of cars to get in that made Disneyworld seem like life in the fast lane. Once we got in, what can I say? You have to be there to really take it in. The downside is, once you’ve seen one scenic overlook, you’ve pretty much seen them all and we wound up wasting 90 minutes on an awful (and I mean awful) bus ride (we’re talking Kathleen Turner’s failed attempt to reach Cartagena in Romancing the Stone awful) to Hermit’s Rest and back only to see that the other end of the rim was just like the one we’d seen at the beginning… But anyway I picked up a souvenir keychain.

We were there for most of the afternoon. It was pretty hot – probably upper 80s-low 90s. When we finished, we headed back to 40 and drove to a Cracker Barrel outside Flagstaff for dinner. Good stuff. Then we reached our wigwam in Holbrook. It’s a total novelty kitsch thing but I love it – concrete wigwams complete with full bath and A/C (but as I mentioned, no phone). We arrived late, but fortunately Norman Bates… err… I mean, the hotel owner/manager greeted us with the key, and made sure to inform us several times that there was a shower in the bathroom. (No, I’m not making this up) He also made sure we knew that the rooms were furnished just like they were back when he was a little “tyke.”

Cindy, fearing she bears an uncanny resemblance to Janet Leigh, piled the suitcases in front of the door. I’m still not making this up.

Oh, and the whole wigwam shakes when a train goes by.

Anyway that’s all for today. Hopefully when I post this, I’ll post the pictures, too.

Off to bed…

EIGHT freaking hours later... we are in Laughlin. Never underestimate the near impossibility of escaping Los Angeles on the Friday before Memorial Day. We left around 3:30, hoping to beat the rush... but alas we did not succeed. It took us five hours to get to Barstow... normally you can make it all the way to Laughlin in that amount of time, but ah... traffic. Anyway... I somehow managed to only take two pee breaks, one of them in like, West Covina or someplace -- the other in Barstow, the famous halfway point between L.A. and Vegas (or Laughlin, for our purposes) -- and pretty much the closest thing the desert has to civilization. It's basically a fast food mecca, where we ate at Hana Grill. Not too exciting. Cindy drove us out of L.A.-- but I took over after the first pee break for fear that she might pull a Michael Douglas in Falling Down and have an attack of psychotic road rage. She doesn't do traffic well. I don't do mergers well. But, we managed. I don't have any pictures yet cause the first four hours were spent staring at the back of a scaffolding truck, and the second four hours were darkness in the desert... which, if you haven't experienced this, is pretty much a black hole. There was a full moon though. That was cool. But I didn't think that would come across on camera. It was after midnight by the time we rolled into Laughlin and we made the mistake of carrying all of our luggage up in one trip. Note to self: Don't do that again!!

Now we're about to go to bed. I bought $20 worth of keno tickets, but as usual, I'm losing. Fortunately we will be gone before I can do any real damage to my wallet in the slots or roulette.

Tomorrow, we'll be seeing the grand canyon and spending the night in a wigwam... more from there!! I should be able to get some pics up too...

:) Arika

We leave tomorrow! I think everything's pretty much all set. OK, so I haven't packed yet... but everything is in place otherwise. I finally finished making all the CDs for the trip... which was of course a massive undertaking. But it's done. We've revised the itinerary a little bit, forfeiting Houston so that we can have more time in New Orleans. As it turns out we'll be visiting several random family members along the way -- In addition to my parents, Cindy's mom, Cindy's Dad, and Sue and Jenny, we've now discovered we'll be able to see my cousin Mykl (now known as Zaius) Gilgoff in Austin and my cousin Jennifer Green in Atlanta, plus we'll be crashing with the Rothblatt family on Long Island... who, by the way, just welcomed Sam Alexander Roth Gordon into the world. Congratulations, Jen and Derek!!

Speaking of babies, our kittens have had their first vet visit and they are all doing well. Their mama cat, Libby, has a cough, but she tested negative for FLV, Feline AIDS, and heartworm, so that's a relief. She's getting an x-ray, hoping it's something minor. Other than that, all is well!!

I'll be updating this as often as possible so feel free to check back often. Once we get going I'm sure I'll have much more interesting stories to tell than the kitty health diaries, haha. Tomorrow we hit the road for Laughlin!!!!!!!

The kittens are safely in Asheville!!! This is great news. It looks like the mama kitty, Libby, as well as the black and white one and the gray one, will be staying with Cindy's mom-- their new names are Rex and Jack.

As for us, we'll be taking the little orange one and the little brown tabby-- and their names will be Simon and Bianca!!



I can't wait to meet them. We went to Petco and got supplies for them today... can't believe the trip is 5 days away.

Okay, so we are a week away from the trip. And I'm freaking out about how much we have to do!!! Mainly, we have to:
*prepare the house for kittens
*prepare our car
*buy groceries
*pack (!!)
*make all the music mixes.
*pay rent
*book passage on LI ferry to Connecticut

We have already taken care of a few things-- we got an adapater that lets us hook the laptop up to the cell phone, techno-geeks that we are, so that I can update this site from the road-- while Cindy drives, of course, LOL. I printed out the locations of Carvel and Friendly's and hope to patronize these places as frequently as possible. In fact, I'm going to add them to my links list.

We've made reservations for Laughlin, Holbrook, Moab, Frisco, Carlsbad, and New Orleans, and aren't too worried about finding hotels at the more populated locales. We'll book the rest later.

Getting excited and nervous at the same time. I'm psyched to see sooo many places!! But I'm nervous about being away from my home for 3 weeks, and about the kittens and hoping the move doesn't traumatize them too much...

Guess that's all today. I signed up to take some class at SMC tomorrow from 9-2 (what was I thinking!!???). Grrr. Well, one more week till there are interesting things on this site, and cool photos!!

-Arika

So, the kittens are being picked up this weekend... Cindy and I have been discussing their names. Right now we're thinking about calling them Bianca and Skylar. Thoughts?

In other news... I took the "which Winona are you?" quiz and wound up with Girl Interrupted Winona... though really I think I'm more of a Reality Bites girl..

Which Winona Are You?

All for now. The trip is less than two weeks away!!

Okay, well, I thought I might as well start updating this a little, even though we aren't on our trip yet, as we make our preparations. Mainly because I'm bored of looking at this index page with just one line of "This is the future home of our trip" text! So anyway... our trip is now only 2 1/2 weeks away!!! Yippee!! I got my brand new digital camera to take pictures with from the road. It's a much better one than I expected to get, but Mom and Dad were very generous. So I figured out how to use it and I got an account with Imagestation to post the photos. With Ann's help, I added that link to my 'lil navigation. Yesterday we ordered a bunch of supplies for the kittens to be sent to Jen in Florida, who is currently taking care of them until Steve picks them up and brings them to Asheville. We got an update on their condition -- all are doing well -- they're starting to eat real food, and even the littlest is litter trained now! I wonder if they're ready for the road trips ahead... They will get their shots as soon as they arrive in Asheville-- a vet has already been selected. Other than that... we've booked some hotels for the trip -- some places we're going to play it by ear. I put links up to some of the hotels. What else? Oh, I added Gary's brand new kitten Bronco to the cats page! Welcome to the world, Bronco!! :) Guess that's all for now.

This is the future home of our road trip!