San Francisco

I was just looking through all my pictures and I realized that some of you might be interested in seeing Robbie's mostly unfinished apartment in San Francisco. These pics were taken over a week ago and from what I hear there has been lots of progress made since I left (yes, it's true everyone, Robbie can get things done without me!) The apartment is in Potrero Hill, which is just a bit south of Mission Bay, where Robbie started his postdoc at UCSF this past week. It has a great view of the Mission and the rest of the city. Unfortunately, this means it's located on the top of a GIANT hill. Never in my life have I seen hills like San Francisco. What the hell were the city planners thinking? Anyway, it's fine, but it makes for a pretty intense walk to and from the coffee shop. Maybe walking up hills can replace the gym for me when I head out there...

Home again

Hello blog-o-philes, I know its been a while. Our blogging had to stop once we got to Las Vegas because Vegas hotels don't want you to sit in your room and blog, they want you to waste your money in their casinos, so no free internet for us. It was a shame because one of the highlights of our trip, the Grand Canyon, should have gotten some blog airplay (no internet at the Grand Canyon either, although there was remarkably good cell phone reception. Go Verizon!). Today I am too tired to do much of anything (boo redeye from San Francisco) but I am uploading my photos of the whole trip to Snapfish so keep checking for a link.

Also, do you think we should continue blogging? Is my life interesting enough for the internet community? Please leave a comment and advise my future blog-dom.

ABQ to Flagstaff

(K) Hi all. Trying to get my blogging done early tonight. Spent the early part of the day in Old Town Albuquerque, which was sort of like Santa Fe, but not as nice. Had a nice lunch at an outdoor cafe--some delicious chilles rellenos (my apologies to any Spanish-speaking blog readers, I'm pretty sure I don't know how to spell that...but I sure know how to eat them!). Albuquerque was pretty boring, I'm not gonna lie to you-- it's just a big city with a small historic district. From there we had a 4+ hour drive to Flagstaff, AZ. We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived in Flagstaff-- it's a mountain town. Lots of trees and the highest peak in AZ (12,000+ ft.) is our backdrop. It's pretty cool, we are going to explore the downtown area tonight.

Also, I saw a scorpion today! Fortunately, it was behind a glass plate. In an aquarium. In the Albuquerque Rattlesnake museum. One exhibit had what looked like a HUGE black scorpion in it and I totally freaked out and started grabbing furiously at Rob's shirt so I'd have something to hide behind. But then he informed me that the huge black scorpion was fake (it was in there to show how big a scorpion could get). The actual scorpion was tiny and might have been dead. So that was ok. Phew. Close call.

(R) It blog time, baby! Don't know if anyone is still out there but we are now in Flagstaff, AZ. Finished off Albuquerque (again copied and pasted from Ks portion of the blog) in style...we went to old town, looked around and ate some more delicious southwestern cuisine. It was in the oldest building/house in Albuquerque-built in the early 1700s...good food, great iced tea. I/we are really getting into the iced tea thing. It seems like it's all the rage in the south. It cures the heat stroke that you suffer everytime you go out. We went to the rattle snake musem (again in old town). Nice exibits, snakes, snakes, snakes...most of them rattlers. K freaked out over a scorpion in one of the tanks. It ended up being PLASTIC...even after I told her she was still disturbed...I think because of the possibility that one like that could exist (it WAS pretty big). Random thoughts on Albuquerque. Albuquerque is far inferior to Santa Fe, it's basically a city full of national brands and stip malls. The nob hill area was the highlight, pretty cool, kinda collegey. Overall ok city but I'm not obsessed with it. It was like OK city minus the scrumtious steak with just a tinge of Santa Fe.
We once again did what we do best and hit the road, something very obvious as we have crossed the country...there are tons of Subways, TONS. They are everywhere. Who eats that much Subway....is it even that good? Do they need to be at almost every exit? I have spent too much time thinking about this. I was dragging a little bit but Flagstaff has rejuvenated me. Great town. Went to Beaver St. Brewery...their Red Ale was tasty. I didn't expect it but Flagstaff has a forest...a lot of trees and a pine scent in the air. We went there close to 9 pm and the Brewpub was packed out with people eating. In OK city the place would be closed. Everything and everybody is really outdoorsy...a lot of facial hair. I shouldn't have shaved last month.

New Mexico = Old Mexico

(K) Greetings from Albuquerque. I think I almost spelled that right. Today was pretty nice-- almost no driving. We spent our morning and early afternoon walking around downtown Santa Fe and got way distracted by a really cute store called Mindy and Clyde. There we spent way too much money on Fiestaware (now radioisotope free!). We each got some nice pieces, mugs, bowls etc. All super bright, cheerful colors. And the store owner was awesome. His name was Shinji and he was from Japan. He came to Santa Fe by way of NYC (he doesn't really miss the city, he has adjusted to country life, appreciating the outdoors and what not). He told us to go check out the Plaza in Santa Fe, which we did. We saw the country's oldest church, which was built back in the 1600s by Roman Catholic Indians. We also saw this cool hotel constructed in the old adobe style. Most of the Santa Fe architecture was like that, it makes the city very distinctive, I liked it. We had lunch at a cute local cafe called the Guadeloupe Cafe where we drank lots of iced tea. Apparently, iced tea is like, the most popular beverage in the Southwest. It's everywhere. I have to admit though, in the hot sun, it really hit the spot. After lunch we drove to Albuquerque via a scenic route called the Turquoise Trail. We drove though a really cute old hippie town called Madrid (pronounced MAA-drid) and I looked for an affordable turquoise ring in at least 20 different shops. Ultimately, I was unsuccessful, but we met a really nice woman in one of the shops from Mendicino, CA and we chatted with her for a while. It's sort of funny, most of the nicest people we've met have been from New York or California. Maybe we sniff out our own. Albuquerque is ok-- it's a really big city. Santa Fe is only 65,000 people and Albuquerque is 500,000. It doesn't have any of the same cool architecture that Santa Fe had (at least not at the places we've seen). Tomorrow I think we'll walk around the old Rt. 66 region and do some shopping before heading west to Flagstaff, AZ.

Does anyone know about scorpions? Where do they live? I'm terrified of seeing them, seeing that they embody all the aspects of animals that creep me out (lots of legs, would be really crunchy if I stepped on them, and are poisonous). I hope we do not run into one.

(R) Today, today, today, was nice. The driving was downright delightful (more later). We woke up where we went to sleep, in Santa Fe, NM. The architecture is insane (earth tone adobe flat roof), I know I already said this but as we checked out more of the city this was slap you in the face apparent. Even the Chevron's and the Border's books were adobe style. It hard to tell what stores are...normally a Walgreens looks like a Walgreens, but in SF you really have to look at the sign to know what it is. SF is really small, 65, 000 people small. For how small it is, the city (town?) has a lot to offer...a lot of shops, art, and history. We walked around 'downtown' and checked out the different stores and grabbed a much needed coffee at Aztec's. Good coffee...it was a kinda funky cafe, it had a devil George W. head in the corner. Amusing. We drank a coffee and headed back to the story where we spotted fiestaware. Got some good deals and cool colorful items...much needed in my very white/neutral apartment. It is no longer radio active AND it is now microwave and dishwasher safe. What the hell was wrong with the previous generation--it was not only RADIOACTIVE but you couldn't put it in the dishwasher OR microwave? We chatted up the store owner, Shinji, for probably close to an hour. He moved out from NYC about 3 years ago. Big change for him but he seemed positive about it. He pointed us in the right direction for Santa Fe, Albuquerque (I just copied and pasted that from Ks portion), and the Grand Canyon. Also talked race relations in SF...there are many ethnicities in SF including American Indians, Mexicans, Hispanics, and Whites and he mentioned that they are all pretty much segregated. New Yorkers ARE nice! I just had to come to New Mexico to fully realize it. We next saw the plaza/oldest church/old adobe hotel (see Ks part). Had to get one more shot of southwestern cuisine. Went to Guadeloupe's, nice food, cold ice tea. It was hot today, a dry heat, especially in the sun (not unbearable though). The ice tea really hit the spot especially after eating the chedder jalopeno soup. It was one of those times you just close your eyes and take a long sip of the tea and really appreciate the coolness and taste of the drink. AFter lunch and walking around a little more including the art district where there was a bunch of studios (mostly for rich tourists), we headed off to Albuquerque on the scenic route called the Turquoise Trail (what K said about this here). MADrid was pretty cool. We really hit it off with one of the store owners...she's from Cali-Mendicino, CA. Nice place, nice person. With out a doubt-hippie. She is also famous, 'Wild Hogs' was filmed in MADrid and she ended up being and extra in it. She got to slap John Trovolta a high five and was in like 5 scenes. Sweet. The drive was great AND short like 1.5 h or something. Albuquerque has been good, big city, NOTHING like SF. I got a delicious burger at a local brewery. Grilled, topped with green chile, bacon, and pepper jack. Delic-love green chile! Hit the spot. Also, there were a lot of young people around most from the U of NM. GO LOS LOBOS! It was kinda strange since everywhere we've been going out has had a significantly older crowd. Meat head dudes were abundant. It was nice to be the 'mature' one again.

OKC to SF (that's Santa Fe, not San Francisco)

(K) Hi everyone! We're writing after another loooong day, but fortunately it's the last day we had to drive 7+ hours. Mostly our drive was boring, but there were some high points. We left Oklahoma City around 10:30 am and headed west to Amarillo, TX. There, we had lunch at the Golden Light Cafe, which is apparently the oldest restaurant in Amarillo. If I've learned one thing about America on this trip, it's that stores and restaurants everywhere like to claim to be the world's largest, the oldest, the best, etc. The Golden Light Cafe was VERY local, very authentic. I had a Frito Pie, which is basically chili poured over Fritos corn chips, smothered in melted cheddar cheese. Delicious. I also drank half of what was the largest soda I've ever been served. It's true-- everything is bigger in Texas. We traveled a bit along Rt. 66, which has mostly been replaced with the modern I-40. We checked out the Barbed Wire museum in McLean, TX. Seriously, it's a huge building dedicated to barbed wire collections. Totally random. Also random was Cadillac Ranch (see pic). It's basically a series of cars half buried in the ground on the side of the road. I managed to find a left-behind can of spray paint so now R and I are immortalized, until someone else sprays over us. We made it into Santa Fe around 7pm (thanks to driving through yet another time zone...I LOVE time zones). Usually we try to time the driving so I avoid the "cities" but this time I drove into Santa Fe while Rob blabbed to Jay on the phone (Jay, I love you, but your phone call timing was not good for my stick shift driving). I think I sweated through my shirt but I made it to our hotel, which is very nice (very Santa Fe looking). We had southwestern (think Mexican) food for dinner at a very cute, sort of upscale restaurant called Maria's. I had awesome tamales with green sauce and a deadly margarita. I'm pretty impressed with my high level typing in spite of that drink. THEN we went to "dowtown" Santa Fe, which is like, 3 blocks of cute trying-to-be trendy stores/bars/restaurants and checked out a place called Cowgirl Grill. It was ok, but I was grumpy b/c I thought the bouncer was being rude to me. He asked to see ID and the Connecticut license prints the Date of Birth in the color red, which is very difficult to read, SO I thought I'd be nice and I said "it's printed in red" when I handed him my license and he replied by informing me that we're not in Mexico and he can read English. So clearly, he was a jerk, but the bar was kind of cool.

Oh, I should point out that we are SO close to seeing all 50 license plates. We only need Deleware (fat chance), Wyoming, Alaska, North Dakota and Utah.

(R) What can I say, another amazing day. Started off of course in OK city, went throught OK into Texas and finally into New Mexico. It is true what they say, everything IS bigger in Texas. We went into the Golden Light Cafe, the oldest establishment in Amarillo, TX. I ordered the green chile burrito. Super tasty, very large (Texas). Also, K and I started off by ordering a root beer. They came in a HUGE plastic cup (Texas). I mean huge (Texas). You could bathe in that cup....at least wash your hair in it, maybe even get baptized. The locals were in the house at the bar which consisted of like about 6 stools. In fact, on the menu, the owner, who is the 5th owner of the place, talked about how big a part the restaurant played in her life. She went there as a kid, was a server, met her husband, and of course is the owner. She gives a shout out to the 2 pm local crowd...which is when we were there. Pretty cool place. On the way out of Texas played MASH...I ended up married to the server (she was younger and had a 1 year old kid but has never been married and never wants to get married...we heard this as she was talking to the local 2 pm crowd), 2 kids (I would already be half way there with this girl), live in SF, and be a scientist. I think I was also poor but this comes with being a scientist anyway. We stopped by the Cadillac Ranch on the way out...it consists of random cars half burried in the ground at an angle all spray painted up with graffiti. It's in the middle of a huge (Texas) field on the outskirts of Amarilllo. We (mostly K) looked everywhere for a spray paint can (they were scattered around) that we could use to contribute to the art (See pics). K found one and we sprayed our initials...forever there. Jay, someone had sprayed ENGLAND on one of them, I got a shot of that for you right before we covered it up. I took a tons of pics and they all turned out really nice if I do say so myself. After Armarillo, we went on and took a short diversion to McLean, TX on Route 66. Pretty interesting town. The barb wire museum was the highlight...there is like literally 100s of types of barb wire, who would have ever guessed. It was run by some local cotton heads (older ladies-was that not PC?) and smelled just plain old. The town itself used to be a booming tourist town on Route 66...I think tourism really was a huge part of the economy. Now with the new interstate, it is not doing so well. Many of the buildings have been abandoned and are competely decaying. Probably half of the structures are like this. There is about a half a block of main street with a general store, etc. Overall, kinda sad. I could just tell that it used to be bustling back in the day. We entered Santa Fe with K driving. She has lost her confidence and as I just read on her portion of the blog was annoyed at me for chatting Jay up. Hey, we have to make plans for Vegas and the Grand Canyon. It's just simple business. She did alright and got us to the motel no problem (rest easy Jay). The scenery is spectacular and the architecture is unique to this region. Many flat roofs, square stuctures, kinda adobe style (I don't know if I know what that means). Houses were scattered over the dessert on different levels of the landscape. Pretty amazing. Our hotel is like this (see pics). After checking in, we went to Maria's for dinner, as recommended by my buddy Paul, and another local dude in the hotel lounge. It was mm mm good. I had the blue corn enchiladas, super flavorful. And a margarita, it tasted like drunk. The margaritas at Maria's were voted the best margaritas in Santa Fe AND New Mexico. Our server was very nice and another girl there, Margot, was super friendly. Cute 19 year old girl, pointed us in the right direction for the late(r) night hours. New Haven, New York, and California folks need to appreciate that establshments are open late. Over the last couple days places close SO early. It's really unbelievable. I think K explained the Cowgirl...it did have a nice country western band playing. I feel like we really stick out. Maybe it's the lack of cowboy hats.

http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=171693167/a=106186535_106186535/t_=106186535
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=171693163/a=106186535_106186535/t_=106186535\http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=171691629/a=106186535_106186535/t_=106186535
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=171663522/a=106186535_106186535/t_=106186535

The birthplace of Rock and Roll

(K) Hi-de-ho, neighborinos. We are coming to you live from Oklahoma City, OK (or OKC) and are ready to crash after another long day. Here's the highlight reel:
-We made the excellent decision to spend a little extra time in Memphis and visited Sun Studios, the place where Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis etc. got their recording careers started. Our tourguide Slim was really cool and the tour had a great soundtrack. Definitely worth the extra time + $10. Dad, I got you a cool Sun Studio magnet, no worries.
-The drive through Arkansas was pretty boring. Very flat. And for some reason there were a lot of cars around as we drove through Little Rock, which was not good for me since I can't really drive.
-OKC is also, admittedly, pretty boring. We had a GREAT steak dinner (see pics). I had the T-bone, which is apparently George W. Bush's favorite steak-- Clearly, I couldn't pass that up, since we all know how much I value our President's good taste and opinion on everything. And even though that statement is dripping with sarcasm, the steak was pretty freakin' good. Pretty soon I will fit right in here in the south, if I keep eating like this. Then we headed over to the going-out district, which was amazingly empty. Heard a little live music at a Biker Blues bar and now we're going to enjoy our 5,000,000 calorie piece of coconut creame pie and rest up for another day of driving. Tomorrow, we start on Route 66 to Sante Fe!

Also-- Dad, check out the pic of the UPS buffalo. Awesome, right?

(R) Almost didn't blog...really tired but got a second wind. Had another great day! Woke up in Memphis, TN (pretty rad), after touring Graceland, eating BBQ, and hanging out on Beale St. (which included listening to some really good blues band and sipping on some nice, cold, 'big ass beers' {I just wanted to say 'big ass beers' one more time.}) After grabbing a much needed, very tasty coffee in an up and coming neighborhood just past Beale St. (really close to the Mississippi River), we went to Bank of America to deposit some cash. I, correction, Kristin, was carrying around a wad (and I mean a WAD) of cash. I had to pay the movers in cash and ended up just paying half...also had $$ from the tag sale and selling other funiture. It was folded over and had a rubber band around it AND was put in a plastic zip lock sandwhich bag. Kristin (and I guess I) didn't feel comfortable carrying that thing around. The teller was super nice, like most people around here...while she counted my life savings we chatted about everything, trip, job, etc...turns out she LOVES San Diego, who doesn't? As (K) mentioned we ended up going on the Sun Studio tour. For me the highlight of the trip so far. Really enjoyed the tour. It consisted of two rooms (1) the 'museum' and (2) the actual studio. Pretty amazing, I really felt the history in the studio...Elvis, Johny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis just jamming. Drove through Arkansas and ended up in OK City just in time for a steak (we're lucky, we arrived at 9 and everything closes at 9 pm but this steak place was open 'til ten). The steak was de-li-cious (3 words)!! I had the blue ribbon prime (only 2% of beef qualifies as "prime) 14 oz ribeye. DAMN it was tasty...grilled with a little salt and pepper. That steak in NYC would be $60 just for the steak alone. There was another ribeye that was 28 oz. Are you kidding me, who needs to eat that much steak? Supposedly, someone had consumed ALL of it just hours before we arrived. It looked really cool inside, like a real steak house (see pics)...they played coutry music and some dude with his gf was wearing a cowboy hat. Heidi was our server and she was studying to be a nurse...just took her first anatomy exam on identifying all the muscles. She has her own cadaver and is "over the smell of formaldehyde," which I later found out means she hates it. The place is on a corner of a 4 way intersection...on the other corner was a huge western wear wherehouse clothes shop, another corner had the national rodeo commission, and the last corner had a parking lot with 8 or 9 huge pick-up trucks and 2 cars all in a row. The nightlife was pretty tame in a new kinda downtown restaurant/club/sports arena area...saw a band of older gentlemen (kind of a cross between hicks and hippies) at a biker bar....they played 'Secret Asian Man." I could have sworn that they were singing directly to me.

For more pics try these links...
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=171693167/a=106186535_106186535/fromupload=true/t_=106186535
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=171693163/a=106186535_106186535/t_=106186535
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=171691629/a=106186535_106186535/t_=106186535
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=171663522/a=106186535_106186535/t_=106186535

More pics

(K) Hi again. We managed to upload some photos to Snapfish. You can sign in directly to our account so you don't need to create a user name to see our pics. Go to www.snapfish.com and enter kris.rob.blog@gmail.com as the email address and krisrob as the password.
We hope we can trust you not to order hundreds of dollars worth of photos using our account.
Off to free breakfast (which we scored, along with free parking and internet b/c we had to wait a half hour for our room).