Welcome! Here we catalog and reflect on our journey to begin the rest of our lives! Find out where we are and see where we've been. Suggest places to go, questions to ask, get in contact to meet up with us and rock out!
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Author: Erica | December 15th, 2009
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Mount Rushmore
We arrived at my aunt and uncle’s house in Rapid City just in time to avoid driving in a pretty serious snow storm, but my uncle, being the dyed in the wool South Dakotan that he is, decided that a snow storm was the perfect time to go see Mount Rushmore. Turns out, he was right. Our footprints were the first to mark a path through the newly fallen powder and we walked around the monument in the silence that only comes during snowfall. Being there without the usual crowds of tourists did, however, make me carefully consider the point made by opponents to the original plans for Mount Rushmore. They argued that no artist, no matter how talented, could improve the beauty of the granite pinnacles of the Black Hills, and, while I do agree that the Mount Rushmore sculptures are remarkable, they do take one’s attention from the natural beauty that surrounds the monument. Only when snow was in the process of reclaiming Mt. Rushmore by blanketing it in white, was I reminded of the sculpture’s place in the larger environment of the Black Hills. Strange to have a monument to human accomplishment in the midst ofa place whose beauty exists only because it has been protected from human destruction.
Prairie Edge
I don’t normally get in to Indian trading post style stores. They often seem to have more to do with bilking tourists for money than celebrating the Indian artist and their work. Prairie Edge, however, is not that kind of place. The owner’s respect for Indian art as art in it’s own right comes through in the way the art is exhibited and in the forum he provides for artists to show their work.
Firehouse Brewing Co.
After a day spent outside, trudging around in the snow, the hot apple cider and warm, juicy bison burgers at Firehouse Brewing (located in an actual old firehouse) hit the spot.
Tour of Simpson’s Printing
My aunt, uncle and cousin Jon run Simpson’s Printing in Rapid City and we were fortunate enough to get the full tour of the print shop while we were in town. Jon is a real expert on their massive new printer, the Heidelberg Speedmaster 74, and it was a treat to hear him explain the capacity of the press and his ideas for the future of the business. Thanks Simpson family for a great time in Rapid City! We love you all and hope to see you again soon!
The Corn Palace
Driving across eastern South Dakota is a test of endurance. It is flat, it is cold and there’s not much reason to stop except for the bare necessities of gas, food or bathroom. Thus the success of the Corn Palace. When you haven’t seen anything but the wide open prairie for hours on end, a building decorated all in corn sounds downright fascinating. In the end it was ok. It is a building completely covered in corn, but, honestly I would’ve rather stopped at the Laura Ingalls Wilder house (a.k.a the real “Little House on the Prairie”).
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Author: Erica | December 12th, 2009
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Highway 60 from Globe to Show Low, AZ
After much too brief of a stop at my sister Vanessa’s house, we began a new phase of the road trip — the all driving, minimal stopping, hauling of our behinds to get across the country in time to spend Christmas with my grandparents in western New York. But given the fact that we had just spent about 9 months taking our sweet time to get around, we eased ourselves into things by taking the scenic route eastward on Highway 60. In traditional southwestern style, there were magnificent rock formations, stunning vistas down winding canyons and more blue sky than any two eyes can reasonably take in.
Java Blues in Springerville, AZ
Parked between a frost grizzled herd of grazing cattle and an empty highway, we awoke to a very cold morning and a burning need for some hot coffee. We drove into Springerville with little hope of finding a cafe, and with a hefty dose of disbelief we pulled into Java Blues’ parking lot. Turns out, Java Blues had coffee, free wi-fi and a lounge-y atmosphere (the place doubles as a bar at night). Certainly an unexpected and happy surprise on a 2 degree morning.
El Malpais National Monument
In the wilds of western New Mexico, two ancient worlds collide. In El Malpais, a ring of long dormant volcanoes surrounds a plain where lava once flowed like water, stopped only by the majestic Sandstone Bluffs formed when giant sand dunes were compressed and solidified over a period of thousands of years, long before the volcanoes erupted. While at the El Malpais, we explored Lava Falls, La Ventana Natural Arch and the Sandstone Bluffs, and all in the relative isolation to be found in most places in New Mexico. The Atomic Grill in Santa Fe, NM
After a long day of driving and a surprisingly difficult time finding parking in downtown Santa Fe, we were in no mood to search for a place to eat. Luckily, my sister Abby had given us a recommendation for the Atomic Grill, where they put a southwestern twist on diner food and have a significant selection of regional brews. Sean says: Watch out for the Santa Fe Chicken Killer… it’s a tasty brew, but it’s serious.
High Road to Taos, NM
Winding through Pueblo Indian villages and old Spanish mission towns, the High Road from Santa Fe to Taos is a visual tour of the social forces that shaped the southwest. The route is dotted with nineteenth century Catholic chapels, squat adobe houses, motor homes and signs advertising local artists, giving the impression that the human mix along this road has long been an interesting one.
Santuario de Chimayo
Located in the town of Chimayo, along the High Road to Taos, Santuario de Chimayo is a Roman Catholic chapel built in 1816 by a Spanish priest and to this day Catholics from around the world make a pilgrimage to the site to acquire some of the healing “holy dirt” from el pocito, a small dirt pit in a room off the nave. Although I was not in need of the “holy dirt”, I did find the folk art adornment in the chapel interesting and the shrines along the creek that runs behind the chapel were a testament to the importance of the chapel in local religious life.
Bishop Castle outside Pueblo, Colorado
Jim Bishop, castle builder. Is he a visionary architect, metalsmith, mason and carpenter? A madman of the mountain, battling government forces real and imagined? A kook with bottomless energy reserves and an inexplicable calling to build a castle in the woods of Colorado? After meeting him and listening to him rant and rave about the New World Order, the governor of Colorado, the tax code, legalization of marijuana, Social Security and his vow to never stop working on his castle, regardless of who tries to stop him (and the attempts have been numerous according to Mr. Bishop), I would argue that Jim Bishop is all these thing and more. Oh, and the castle…it is simply a thing of beauty. Stone from the local forest, lifted in to place by Jim Bishop, and Jim Bishop alone, to create a structure that towers above the evergreens below. It was thrilling, and, I will admit, more than a bit frightening to venture up into the towers and metal domes of the castle, but I just had to see for myself the heights to which Jim Bishop’s imagination had taken him.
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Author: Sean | December 6th, 2009
Las Vegas is a strange, strange place. People spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to fly in from all over the world, stay in hotels and drop oodles of money into machines and onto felt table cloths. And for what? To get drunk and watch blinky lights and strippers? For my dollar I’d just as soon sit at home with a beer, a flashlight and my wife. Despite the conspicuous and, in my humble opinion, rather stupid entertainment value decadence of the whole place, we did find a couple of things to peak our interest.
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Neon Sign Graveyard
Thanks to the recommendation of Abby, our first stop in Las Vegas was a trip through time at the Neon Sign Graveyard. At the present the graveyard is about a city block holding hundreds of old Las Vegas signs, neon, incandescent and otherwise behind a chainlink fence. It’s not really set up for touring at the present (although that maybe changing in the near future), but it’s really great to walk around the fenced area and see the discarded glitz and glamor of yesteryear juxtaposed with their more modern replacements some 20 blocks away.
Stromboli at Four Kegs
Thanks to the book “Drive-ins, Diners & Dives” that Litty gave us, we found this little joint out in North Las Vegas. A sports bar named Four Kegs wouldn’t normally be our standard fare, but the stromboli was really quite good.
Crystals at City Center
I’m not a mall guy, which is pretty much the 3rd party to Las Vegas’ gambling and stripper culture. However, in addition to the quite high end jewelry stores in the mall, there were also a number of quite neat works of art. From room-sized geometric sculptures wrapped in braided copper to 6 foot high whirlpools encased in plexiglass tubes and ice pillars that melt away as visitors touch them, Crystals was quite a relief from the stench of boring consumerism that pervades most other hotel/casino/mall money pits that we walked passed.
Fountains at the Bellagio
Another gem on the Las Vegas strip is the fountain at the Bellagio. There are some 1200 individually controlled fountain heads and each can change the angle, rotation, and pressure of emitted water. With speakers surrounding the plaza, the fountain plays out a choreographed show to a different tune every 15 minutes and depending on the music the show can be quite a spectacle.
Sitting in the lobby at Caesar’s Palace
Since giving away our money isn’t our idea of fun, we opted to just park ourselves on a bench in the Caesar’s Palace lobby near the elevators. It’s quite a show watching people come and go from their gambling and debauchery, often either enflaming or attempting to abate the accompanying marital strife.
Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam is an amazing feat of engineering, especially considering that it took only 5 years from breaking ground to completion. For all the folks out there who refuse to accept that anything good has ever come out of government, I suggest you make a trip to Hoover Dam. Drive over to the Arizona side to park for free rather than pay to park on the Nevada side. For security reasons, they’re building detour highway to divert traffic off the dam, making it unclear how visits to the dam will be managed in the future.
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Author: Erica | December 5th, 2009
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Driving through Mojave National Preserve
Sean says: Thanks to a recommendation from Michael, we made our way from Joshua Tree to Death Valley via the scenic Kelbaker road through the Mojave National Preserve.
Zabriskie Point in Death Valley
Sean says: Zabriskie Point is a nice stop on your way into Death Valley from the southeast entrance. From on top of the vista point you get a great view over the badlands and into the valley. Hiking on the 2 mile loop trail into the badlands was interesting in parts with somewhat different views of the area, but was very badly marked, so we spent a bit of time wandering aimlessly in the various washes and to this day we’re not exactly sure where we were supposed to be hiking.
Devil’s Golf Course
I could think of much more uncomfortable and inconvenient things to do on the jagged salt crystal formations at Devil’s Golf Course than playing a round of golf, but I suppose the namer was pining for the lush greens of another place when he looked over the sparkling field of white in Death Valley. Perhaps if he had stood quietly for a bit longer, the spot would have been christened for the soft symphony of metallic pings that heralds the destruction of salt crystals as the sun warms them throughout the day.
Salt Flats at Badwater
The heavy footsteps of the crowds have flattened the Salt Flats into a thick crust, so to see the intricate beauty of the crystalline salt structures we had to walk away from the parking lot until the crust became more uneven and eventually blossomed into a field of tiny, icy growths.
Artist’s Drive past Artist’s Palette
Sean says: When I saw Artist’s Palette on the park guide, I thought it would be neat, but figured we’d already seen the Painted Desert in Arizona earlier on the trip. However, the Artist’s Palette drive was really something and quite different than the Painted Desert. Imagine streaked hills similar to the Painted Desert in the background, but hill size dollups of red, white, purple and green paint in the foreground that really give the impression of an artist’s palette. Give yourself the better part of an hour to really take in surroundings and finish 30 minutes before sunset to get the best light (that we unfortunately missed). Showers at the Stove Pipe Wells Motel
Sean says: Nice hot showers at an ok price ($4 each). Don’t expect the wifi to work unless they get a better IT team. Also be warned that they have a security guard that circles the motel in his golf cart. Since the motel is in the middle of nowhere (i.e. Death Valley), the security guard’s only real concern is finding penny pinchers like ourselves that didn’t shell out the $80 to stay at the motel (and were trying to avoid shelling out $15 for a spot in the “campground”, i.e. parking lot across the street). Our van’s incognito exterior might have slipped under the radar had it not been for the light of my computer screen as I tried to edit a few pictures before going to sleep. After peering past our blinds with his spotlight and rapping on our window to kick us off the motel’s private property, we headed up the road 10 miles to the free Emigrant campground.
Emigrant Campground
After our trip’s first encounter with a motel security guard (see Stovepipe Wells above), we made a late night drive out to one of Death Valley’s free campgrounds. Since we arrived there well after sunset, it just looked like a sanctioned parking spot to us, but upon waking, we found that Emigrant campground is in a satisfyingly stark part of the valley. And although it certainly looks remote, there were flush toilets and potable water available.
Mosaic Canyon
Mosaic Canyon was simply one of the most sensorily satisfying experiences on the road trip. The smooth marble walls ran like water underneath my fingertips as I walked through the narrows. The colors of the rocks flowed together in a current of gold, white, orange, purple, green, black and blue. And just when we were about to turn around, the sky opened up into a brilliant blue, the sunlight flowed down the canyon walls and we stood there stunned at the beauty of it all.
Ubehebe Crater
The Paiute believed that the first members of their tribe emerged from Ubehebe Crater. In current times, the way the desert mountain falls into itself in a fiery cascade of rust, gold and orange rock tells of the earth’s life blood emerging in violent shower that created, at the very least, a new wrinkle on the planet’s skin.
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Author: Erica | December 3rd, 2009
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Hidden Valley in Joshua Tree N.P.
Joshua Tree is the kind of place where it would be downright difficult to live an ordinary life. Even the rocks and strangely animated plants seem as though they must have interesting back stories simply because an uneventful existence couldn’t possibly result in such strangely shaped creatures. Hidden Valley is evidence that Joshua Tree’s human history is at least as captivating as its natural history. After walking through a small opening in the wall of rounded rock formation, you come out into a large valley surrounded on all sides by more rock. Apparently, in the days of the wild wild West, this valley was famous among cattle rustlers because they could herd their stolen cattle into the secluded and easily guarded spot for rebranding before they were taken to market. These days the main activity in Hidden Valley is rock climbing, but, luckily, the climbers are busy enough in their own endeavors that they didn’t intrude too much in my endeavors to imagine myself standing guard at the opening, watching for the sheriff, while the cattle deeply lowed their indignance at the illegality of it all.
Keys View in Joshua Tree N.P.
Although its name doesn’t suggest anything of grandeur, Keys View is a spectacular vantage point from which to see the sunset behind the mountainous edge of valley below. While there, we shared the view with only a few other people, one of which was a New Zealander whose interests involved computer programming and travel. After several minutes of discussion, we discovered that he was also a DIY electronics person, who was a subscriber to Make magazine and had heard of Sean’s Truth Wristband. What are the odds? Ryan campground in Joshua Tree N.P.
The silhouettes of Joshua Trees and the full moon rising in the distance inspired Sean and I to venture out for a moonlight walk away from our campsite at Ryan campground. As we walked, the palette of grays and watery whites of the desert at night was broken up by the occasional glint of moonlight off the sharp spine of a cactus and the menagerie of shadow monkeys hanging off the feet of the Joshua Trees.
Cholla Cactus Garden in Joshua Tree N.P.
Somewhere after the Mojave turns into the Sonora Desert, there are cactus that jump out and bite. Well, not quite, but if you get anywhere close to cholla cacti their spines will penetrate even the slightest of surfaces touching them. Unfortunately, cholla cacti are also enchantingly fascinating, but temptation fulfilled can be exquisitely painful.
Salvation Mountain
Sean Says: So the story goes, Leonard Knight was flying a hot air balloon over Southern California, when he broke down in the desert just outside the middle of nowhere. Mr. Knight took this as a sign from God that he should take a couple of weeks to make an 8 foot totem proselytizing the Lord’s word. Some 24 years later, Mr. Knight is still out in the middle of nowhere and his 8 foot totem has grown into a mountain and adjoining cathedral of donated hay bails and hand mixed desert adobe with painted on flowers, trees, streams, a yellow brick road, and many bible verses, all in the most fantastically bright colors.
Slab City
Sean says: I first saw Slab City in the movie “Into the Wild” and somewhat dismissed this RV park full of society’s rejects as a Hollywood fantasy. But when we met up with Ryan & Gerit in Red Lodge, Gerit spoke of Slab City as the magical wonderland she had never visited and convinced us that we must go. Turns out that Slab City is indeed a real place, though you might forget that as you drive in past the dream-like colorful display of Salvation Mountain into the RV, hippie bus, trailer and general squatter-rights shanty-town built on the concrete slab of a WWII marine barracks that is Slab City. Unfortunately on our new road trip pace to make back to New York for Christmas we didn’t have time to stay for the nightly music jam at “The Range”, shop at the local garage sale, or visit the local Christian center, but it does look like they have most of the amenities of a small city (except for maybe running water, treated sewer or electricity).
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I love the show so much that I made a fan site devoted to Diners, Drive-ins and Dives with
all the locations he’s been. Guy Fieri was nobody to me until I went to the Byways Cafe on a
trip to Portland. I love local food and hate chain food so it was cool to see a show that
pimped small business. Cheers to you Guy and keep up the good work!