We're Back Home!

We arrived back home after a short drive from Vegas ~ which normally feels like a long drive but this time flew by.
31 Days, 8,115 Miles, 2,237 Photos and a blog that is nearly done for the year.

Just a few people to send out a Thank You to ~ I know I've forgotten many so I'll update as I remember.

Mom for everything
Andy for the laughs
Boonton, NJ first aid squad for directions
Dad for the tools
Diana early morning coffee
Candace for that beacon
Mike Harrison for the great photos
Aunt Nancy for a nice visit
Johnny the GPS!!!
Mike Hall for the great tour
Otis for a wonderful dinner
Emily for the NYC Tour
The numerous strangers for jumping my car
Larry for the annual lobster
Kim for visiting for dinner
Janice for the directions and map
Sarah for that glass of wine
Kurt for great pizza
Pepboys for the battery
Stacey for tacos
Gary & Jason for the great Italian deli
Dave & Donna for the best suggestions
Chris for the cinnamon
Mike Krull for not killing me
Uncle Bob for all that ice cream
Subway for the $5 footlong
Paul for minigolf
Amanda for the great view
Tammy for lending me a cooler
Grimault's for MOCA recommendation in LA
Althea for the bag of homemade muffins
Mark Driscoll for the laughs!
Mom Johnson for gingersnaps
Lou Malnati for the Pizza!
Jane for aaahhh nothing
And everyone on the blog for following our trip!

Again this year I must thank Cole & Jacquelyn for being such amazing travelers. They pack and unpack the car every night and day, they pump all the gas and clean the windows. Cole took care of all the ice packs each night and had to continue to get the front desk guy to put them in their backroom freezer . . . amazingly he convinces them to do this nightly. Jacquelyn took care of dumping all the trash out of the car each day which is no easy chore! It’s amazing when I stop for gas and Cole jumps out and pumps the gas and Jacquelyn jumps out and washes a streak free window . They’ve never asked “are we there yet” at any age, and mostly they put up with me and my map reading, losing my glasses, and my getting lost and they continue to make me laugh through all the ups and downs of our trips. I’ve blogged all our happy times but there have been some ugly times too and they have hung in there and not only been patent with me but supportive too. I’m so fortunate and thankful for my amazing travel partners!

Jacquelyn's Blog

This 2009 roadtrip has been a blast from start to finish. It feels so weird being home and getting back to all of my activities. I don't know which has been my favorite part, the river rafting, New York City, Chicago or maybe the millions of Dunkin Dounuts in Boston. I can't tell because I loved it all.
I adore the east coast. The only thing I don't like is those mosquitoes they really get on my nerves. I go to bed with 2 bites and wake up with 10. I don't know what they have more of, mosquitoes or Dunkin Dounuts back east.
I've never been to the beachs on the eastern side untill this trip and I don't know why because I love them. The bottom of the ocean floor is so much smoother compared to the beaches in San Diego. The beaches on the east coast also don't seem to have as many surfers which is nice to know a surf board won't come shooting onto the shore and knock you off your feet.
I love all the citys we went to, Boston, New York, and Chicago. I told my mom in every city that I would live there when I grew up. Now I don't know which one to choose. Each city had some things unique about them, and each city had their legandary food. New York bagles, Chicago deep dish pizza, and Boston chowda.
I was planning on doing highlights of the trip, but it was all so great, that it was all a highlight. I love being in the car with Cole and mom, but what I like even more then them is our 3:00 chocolate hour. I don't know if mom told you this or not, but at 3:00 everyday we have chocolate hour. It is mandatory so if you don't like chocolate you won't want to be in our car.
Thanks to everyone who has read the blog this trip and for keeping caught up from the dust storm nearly sweeping us off the road to the beautiful day in Chicago.

PS If your wondering why my hair looks SO good in the picture above. My fabulous aunt DD straightened it for me. DD, get your plane tickets set because you have to do my hair for the first day of school.

Las Vegas

We actually had to wait in line to take this picture. There were roughly 10 people in line waiting to have their picture taken in front of the sign before us . . . this never happened in Iowa and Nebraska.

Beautiful Utah

I did actually tell them not to get too close to the edge! If you listen to this video clip you will clearly hear me say don't get too close to the edge.

We had some WiFi issues so we have to make up for our lost day. We spent the night in Greenriver Utah ~ we found a hotel on the river with beautiful views. Met a great family from France . . . Gilles and Katia and their adorable children. We exchanged lots of notes as they had just been in Vegas and were heading towards Chicago. I wish we had taken a picture together and posted them on our blog. We had a 7 hour drive to Vegas and we stopped at every scenic view spot along the way making the 7 hours into closer to 9 hours. When you're on a road and you see a sign that says scenic view it should be mandatory that you stop and take a look. Every time we stop I tell Cole & Jacquelyn that this is the last one I'm going to stop at but my car just turns in without any notice . . . must be the cruise control. The truth is we usually take a vote and we always end up stopping.

Made it to Colorado

We drove from interstate 80 over to interstate 70 and followed that through Colorado into Utah. There are parts of I-70 that are so beautiful that I wanted to turn around and drive it again. The road follows the Colorado River though Glenwood Canyon and is one of the most beautiful roads I've ever been on and I've been on over 7,000 miles of road since the first of July. The north and south bound lanes are at different elevations and they cross over the river and along side and through tunnels. If you ever drive across country make sure you take I-70 through Colorado . . . truly breath taking scenery. But then you enter Utah . . . I think Utah is one of the most beautiful states with it's mountains, deserts, and canyons but the section of Utah that you see off of I-70 shows none of that. We drove for a few hours and saw nothing but strange desert like grounds that looked as if we had landed on another planet. It really was strange and it just went on forever. Somewhere in the middle of this empty road with no towns to be found was a little empty shack . . . as I approach the part of road that the shack is on I see a dust storm approaching. UNBELIEVABLE!!! It was a very small dust storm that had the winds of I don't even know what. Fortunately I was the only one on the road because it pulled my car completely over to the other lane and I absolutely couldn't control it. Cole and Jacquelyn said they felt the car lift up ~ I was too busy trying to hold the steering wheel and yelling. As this wind thing passed over us it hit the shack and pulled more than half the roof tiles off and threw them around. . . . I'm still yelling. Now to recap there's no one on the road and nothing anywhere at all . . . We saw two more approaching after this one passed and I tried to out run one (reflecting back now that wasn't really the right thing to do) The other one I watched come to the road and I pulled over and let it pass in front of us. Amazingly the New Jersey Turnpike doesn't look so bad anymore.

Nutella

Jacquelyn spotted someone with their own bottle of Nutella at breakfast today. I thought I was going to have to restrain her . . . we met the family and they were here visiting from Italy. They were having a problem finding Nutella here in the US ~ I should have given them the extra bottle I have in my car but I wasn't sure Jacquelyn could part with it.

The girls name is Roberta and she is 14. Both Cole and Jacquelyn want her to find them on Facebook so they can have an international friend. Roberta contact us on the blog.

Nebraska . . . it's bigger than you would think!

We spent hours driving through Nebraska. There wasn't a lot to look at but the corn and large rolls of hay.
So to prove that there just wasn't much to do . . . we stopped at one of the first Pony Express Stations. And it was the highlight.

We're happy to finally make it to Colorado and see the mountains off in the distance . . . can't wait for our drive through them tomorrow. A huge Thanks to Sarah who not only let Cole and Jacquelyn take cookies from the hotel lobby, and gave us a dinner coupon but more importantly saved me a glass of wine after happy hour! . . . We'll see you all west of here tomorrow.

Roadtrip Tip

Here's my roadtrip tip of the day: Never eat Snyder's Jalapeno pretzel pieces while driving! They appear to be great tasting pretzel pieces but they get hotter and hotter and you find yourself looking for anything to drink to take away the burn. Tip number two would be don't grab for the day old coffee that has been sitting in your car for possibly two days, because although it takes away the burning at first ~ the mix of the stale coffee mixed with the jalapeno flavor isn't as good as you would think. 4,000 miles and that's all you get for a roadtrip tip.




I'm not really sure just how many poptarts you can eat before you wash away every nutrient in your body . . . but we certainly are giving it a try. I had intended to only purchase healthy foods for the car to snack on. Don't know how the 3 packs of poptarts made the cut or the chips, cookies, gator aid, and the gathering of other items that completely fall under the junk food category. I've been looking at a few of the labels trying to find just one ingredient that will possibly sustain me in a 5 hour drive. We went to the grocery store today and bought a bag of spinach and some fruit . . . rethinking the little watermellon and the car utility knife . . . seemed like a good idea before we actually tried it. (that could be another tip)


Today we drove from Iowa to Nebraska . . . we really didn't do a single thing unless you want to include the watermelon mistake. I thought we would make it much further than we did but I was just too tired to drive anymore. Cole and Jacquelyn did go to the waterpark this morning for a few hours . . . we didn't get on the road until around 11:00 and I just had to stop at 5:00. We pulled over and desperately tried to find a hotel . . . not a lot to pick from and Cole and Jacquelyn have become very picky! We finally find a suitable hotel it has just been remodeled and has a large flat screen TV and a beautiful bathroom . . . I open the curtains and we are looking into the Wallmart Parking Lot?? there is a corn field behind the Wallmart to remind us that we're in Nebraska.

Sunday Night

I was told that the trip from Chicago to our waterpark hotel in Iowa was a two hour trip, from the woman who worked at the hotel. We play around in Chicago until 5:00 knowing that we would arrive in our hotel before 7:30 that night . . . well the ride from Chicago to the Waterpark Hotel is actually just over 4 hours. I was exhausted and not up for a 4 hour drive after walking around the city all day, but I had booked the hotel so I had no choice. But the guys working on the road on Sunday Night . . . don't they have a choice??? I was thinking it would be a straight shot to Iowa . . . evidently that's the "work on the road night" . . Guys it's Sunday night, shouldn't you be home watching 60 minutes or something?

We drove the 4 hours and drove though Coralville, Iowa. Really looks like a nice town and they have a very nice watertower. If it hadn't been for the damn Waterpark reservations we would have found a nice hotel in Coralville and settled down for the night. I think Obama was inspired by the watertower . . . doesn't it look a bit like the Obama icon.



Candace if Amanda needs more corn . . . there's no shortage of it here in Iowa!

WaterPark in Iowa

Here's some video from the waterpark hotel we stayed at on Sunday Night.

A Few More Miles to Go!

Fell In Love With Chicago!

We really hadn't expected to fall in love with Chicago but we did . . . and didn't want to leave today. We were going to pass up going into the city but got a referral from a friend to go in and take the SeaDog boat tour of the city and find Lou Malnati's for Pizza. We did just that and found so much more. Mike Hall our tour guide on the SeaDog was excellent! Honestly he was really great . . . we learned so much about the city and he entertained us the entire time. I think he could have been a stand up comic because he really was funny and his timing was spot on. I liked the way he kept things light but continued to teach us about the city. We're not sure if his name is Mike Hall or Michael with a little pause in the middle . . . If you're in Chicago make sure you go on the SeaDog boat tour from Navy Pier and make sure Mike's your tour guide. We haven't made many referals in this blog but this one is a must!


After the Boat tour we went to Lou Malnati's for Pizza because Dave & Donna Johnson insisted that it was the best pizza in the world . . . Oh were they right! We were instructed to order the sausage pizza with the butter crust. It didn't sound good to me . . . and I don't eat sausage. But when in Rome ~ so we ordered the pizza and it truly was amazing, I've never had a better pizza. So all that bragging that the people from Chicago do about their pizza is all because they actually do have the best pizza.


Cole wanted to see the large sliver bean, so we walked around the city until we found the big silver bean.

CHICAGO!

I just heard on the news that tomorrow is going to be one of the ten best days this year in Chicago! And we're heading into the city for a view. When driving into New York City I found myself on every road, underpass, overpass, on ramp, off ramp and bridge that went into the city ~ my GPS brought me on a joy ride around in circles and then just seized up! Each time I would ask someone how to get to the Verrazano Bridge they would give me a collection of lefts and rights followed by a "you can't miss it" and Oh how wrong they were . . . I missed it every time. Honestly I was amazed at how many people told me I couldn't miss it. . . . so with that all behind me I'm still going into Chicago. This will be my first time there and apparently the rain doesn't know I'm in town yet.

We left Pennsylvania this morning and drove for over 7 hours and now we are just outside of Chicago. The drive through Penn was beautiful they have nice roads and beautiful green trees that appear to enclose the roads. Ohio was covered with green fields and old barns . . . With the ammount of rain we've been having I know why everything is so green! This was my first roadtrip on interstate 80 . . . it's one big toll road! Probably why I haven't been on it before now. I'm too lazy to post photos tonight and I'm not sure we have any good ones.