Final Thoughts and Reflections

***Disclaimer: This post is both the last on this blog as well as a much sappier post. If you aren’t interested in sap, skip to the one below this as it finishes up the story of the trip without getting reflective on you. It is still kind of funny, though.***

So that’s it. Thousands of miles driven, half an oil tanker used, four amazingly hospitable families, and five nights camping with varying degrees of success. A final vacation before truly leaving the Chapel Hill bubble and breaking out into the Cruel Real World.

Quick-Hit Things I Learned:

·        A phone car charger is a glorious, glorious investment.

·        Twelve-year-old rated sleeping bags… aren’t.

·        After a few days on the road, anything less than a six hour drive is nothing.

·        People are much friendlier drivers the further you get from a city.

·        If the mood needs raising, Pitbull is always successful.

·        Asking people for their favorite road song is a fantastic idea, even if you aren’t road tripping.

·        Fire is a difficult smell to remove from clothing.

·        Mongolian Barbeque is only worth it when the parents are paying.

·        Chipotle is worth it even if you have to sell yourself to get it.

·        Inactivity is progressive and contagious.

·        Germans travel to outdoorsy places by the busload.

I need to say something here about my traveling companion and impetus for this whole trip, Conor. For those of you that don’t know, I met Conor only last May when I found out I’d be working on Admissions Ambassadors with him. As Conor and I spent most of the fall working together on a major project, we grew to be close friends. Even as our duties waned in the spring, our friendship flourished and we began to talk about driving out to San Francisco together. By the time I graduated, Conor and I were occasionally showing up to outings and meetings wearing the same thing, which is mildly embarrassing for him considering my fashion sense is somewhere on par with the vision of a mole.

(Moles are blind.)

By now, Conor and I are essentially capable of communicating full trains of thought through half-laughs, eyebrow raisings, and sidelong glances.  Considering I thought we were doing that already, but this trip has taken it to a whole new level. Besides being a phenomenal, knowledgeable, and laid-back travel companion, Conor has 3 qualities that are absolutely essential in a road trip partner:

·        A varied and extremely wide-ranging musical taste and selection

·        A good sense of direction

·        An excellent sense of humor

Of course, Conor has many other qualities that made this trip priceless. He finds beauty in things I simply overlook: a rock formation, a towering mountain, or a flowing river. Where I tend to take these things for granted and focus on the ridiculously fat man in the Hawaiian shirt taking pictures with a Polaroid camera, Conor steps back and sees the scenery. On this trip, he was the definition of “make sure you stop and smell the roses.” Without that, the quality of this trip would have been drastically reduced.

 Also, all of the good pictures are his (photos here). Apparently talent with photography runs in the Farese family. As does a profound love of the outdoors, although a big part of that I’m sure is the influence of the Thacher School. After visiting that little slice of the Ojai Valley, I understand why Conor can appreciate the simplicity of a long hike or a mountainous skyline where I generally don’t.

Conor is also much nicer than I am, is much more cautious about imposing, has far more tact than I do, and is simply much better at subtlety. This was rather important when interacting with total strangers, whether it’s German hikers in Zion or a ‘roided up bartender in Columbus, not to mention that he was better at conveying the gratitude we both felt toward the families that took us in along the way.

BUT: Conor is afraid of heights, and I’m not. Conor 1249, Nate 1.

To be honest, I’m better with the written word than in person, so if we stayed with you and you’re reading this, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

·        To the Millers: I loved the stellar dinner, conversation and the random comings and goings of your son’s friends.

·        To the Matous family: I have no idea how to pluralize your last name. Thank you for the wine, the embarrassing pictures of Conor’s dad, and the room with the dolls. Thank God I never saw Chucky.

·        To the Jensens: Although our stay was brief, thank you for showing me the clear beauty of Ojai, the sheer happiness at seeing ESPN again, and for opening your home to us. I never got a chance to properly say thank you in person because frankly, I really am not a nice person before 9am.

And of course, to the Farese family: Besides the fact that your son is one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met and a person I will consider a lifelong friend, wherever life takes us, thank you for hosting me not once but twice; for allowing me to wax rhetorical about politics and psychology; for allowing me to dare to play that unbelievably phenomenal piano you have; and finally, for quite simply a great time with your kid Conor. If any of y’all are in the D.C. area, please shoot me an email or give me a ring. I’d love to see you.

It’s also my mom’s birthday. Happy birthday, Mom! You’re the best!

Well, this is the end of the blog. I gotta go find a job now. Government? Psychology research? Of course, if you’ve got any openings… Just sayin’!

I hope you all enjoyed reading this thing. I’ve certainly enjoyed writing it; it’s helped me re-discover that I truly do enjoy writing, especially when I enjoy the topic and it doesn’t require sixteen hours of library research.

If you want to know more about my travels, my job search, or me in general, I’d love to talk to you. My email is nafriedm@gmail.com, and I’m pretty decent about responding to things. Stay in touch, godspeed, and adieu!

Goodbye, blogosphere!

-Nate

California: The Final Frontier (pt 1 of 2)

* I need to predicate this post with the following:

I am writing this while on the red-eye flight from San Francisco back to D.C. I need to note the miraculous nature of this flight as there is no one in the middle seat next to me. The guy in 25F and I did a little fist bump when they closed the doors.

There is a man about four rows up from me watching some show on an iPad. He has been watching continuously since he sat down, including during takeoff when even a life-saving pacemaker is pretty much supposed to be off. The flight attendant asked him to turn it off, but no, he had to keep it on.

I say this because he has it perched atop the seat in front of him. Now, I know you sort of have to hold it up, but I am 99% confident there is a better place to put it then holding it up with both hands on the seat in front of you. Which means only one of two things:

1.      He wants everyone sitting behind him to share in the wondrous glory that is the lurid and graphic sex scene. This is definitely a show that doesn’t air before 10pm. PS: The person sitting directly behind him is a maybe-14-year-old girl. She is wearing a Catholic school uniform. I kid you not.

2.      He wants  everyone to gasp that he, Mr. Phenomenal Airline Traveler, actually owns and is successfully using the Overly Large iTouch.

Am I bitter? Only a little bit. I am just a little taken aback at the abject rudeness of completely ignoring a perfectly nice and polite attendant who asks you to turn off your seven hundred dollar ipod.  

Also, group poll: jorts. Good or bad airplane wear? I vote bad. But that’s what 25C is wearing.

-----Anyway…-----

Conor and I spent the night at Cal Jensen’s house, after a remarkable afternoon at Thacher Boarding School, which I covered briefly in the previous post. The nearby town, Ojai, is remarkable for the following reason: everything is named “Ojai” and then the chief product. As in,

·        Ojai Pizza

·        Ojai Burrito

·        Ojai Coffee

·        Ojai Grocery

·        Ojai Sensual Massage

Okay, I made the last one up. But it’s kind of eerie to see the rest in real life.

So we spent a quick night at the Jensen’s, woke up the next morning and were out the door by about 9:30. Commence nine-hour drive to San Francisco. The drive can actually take as little as 6.5 hours, but we wanted to take Route 1 up the coast because it’s prettier. And after all, we’d just driven for nine days. What’s a couple extra hours?

You know all those car commercials where the car is streaking along a curvy, perfectly paved road along the ocean at sunset? That’s Route 1. No, seriously, that’s Route 1. They film all these things on that road. I got to drive, which was AWESOME! I only thought we were headed for certain, painful, cliff-related death four times.

It’s one of those curvy, fun roads to drive on, plus the view was amazing. We stopped relatively early on (maybe an hour into the trip) at a vista point to see elephant seals. They are truly hilarious creatures, because when they are sunning themselves on the beach they look dead. No movement, no breathing, just abject lack of vital signs. It’s really funny to watch, although it’s arguably funnier to watch them try and hump their way up and down the beach.

A couple of funny things happened along the way. First, we tried to stop for lunch at a delightful café right on the water on Route 1 called Lucia’s. And it really was delightful-looking. I sat down at a waterfront table (red flag #1) while Conor went to the bathroom. As I waited for a menu, I realized everyone around me was either old (red flag #2) or very well-dressed (red flag #3). The menu came. The following items were listed:

·        Caesar Salad…….. 16

·        Soup du Jour…….. 12

·        Flatiron Steak.….. 36

·        Bird Feed……………17

Again, last one made up, but you get the point. You’re reading about two kids who camped and couchsurfed across the country to avoid paying for motels. This was way, way out of our price range. So when the server asked me if I wanted a drink, I replied, “I think I’ll wait for my friend to come back before we order.”

Conor comes back and I whispered, “I think we’ll have to find a different place.” Conor opened the menu and literally staggered backward.

We left.

Now starving, we kept driving until we saw another sign for a café. It ended up being a café on the top of an art gallery, conveniently located three hours from civilization on a road with no electricity. Good solid business model. Conor and I paid seven bucks apiece for a cold, prepackaged roast beef sandwich and got out of there.  

Five hours later, we were… still on the road. But almost there, to Conor’s house in San Francisco. We finally arrived around 6:30, unpacked the car (grosssss) and thus concluded our road trip. As before, Mr. and Mrs. Farese were incredibly hospitable to me and went out of their way to make me feel comfortable. I am deeply indebted to them.

I have uploaded most of the pictures to Picasa; you can find them from the link earlier in the blog.

Well, this concludes the story. Conor and I have journeyed close to three thousand miles over nine days, camped four nights, gassed up the car about twelve times in as many states, ran into people from all walks of life, and generally fulfilled the one Myers-Briggs personality characteristic we share – Judging.

I’ve had a truly amazing time on this road trip avoiding the real world. We saw some pretty amazing things – from extraordinary numbers of girls wearing Bumpits to extraordinarily straight roads in Kansas to extraordinary scenery in Zion.

Part II of this post will be separate, since it’ll be more reflective. Half of y’all probably don’t want to bother reading it, so if that’s the case I’ll put a little sap disclaimer on it so you can skip to this one.

So long, farewell, aufweidersen goodbye… Goodbye!

PS: Pictures can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/nafriedm

Start Spreading the News...

I'm leavin' today.

To DC, actually. I haven't forgotten to write about the adventures in Thacher yet, we just had a nine-hour driving day today and I haven't had time to sit down and write about it.

But guess what? Tomorrow I have a red-eye flight back home. Departs SFO 10:30 pm and arrives at 645am in DC.

Guess what, round 2? I can't sleep on planes.

So if you thought some of my other posts were long, wait and see what happens on Wednesday morning when I post the results of 5 hours on a plane with no sleep and nothing to do.

I think I'll probably make 2 posts, actually; one of the usual funny/sarcastic type and one genuine reflection. And then that's it! The blog dies soon thereafter!

Thanks for reading, and keep it up through Wednesday! Conor and I have greatly appreciated your comments thus far, too. Huge ego boosts all around.

-Nate

Vegas, Baby!

When we left off, Conor and I were finishing up our last night camping. After an uneventful night, we took a quick morning hike (in flip flops, great idea guys) up a trail called Canyon Overlook. While the view was great, the company was even better: upon reaching the summit – note: the hike was maybe twenty minutes tops – Conor spots a solo hiker, maybe mid-thirties and wearing a cowboy hat, doing a very strange dance.

The dance looked something like a cross between sideways hip thrusts and the Tiger fist pump. I didn’t see the dance, but Conor re-enacted it for me later. The funny thing was, when the guy saw Conor watching him, he gave a half-embarrassed, awkward laugh and said, “That was my happy dance.”

Happy dance, indeed. After heading down the canyon again, we left for a quick 4 hour jaunt down I-15 toward the City of Sin and the Wild West Inn AKA Days Inn Craptastic Hotel Extraordinaire. Great deal on the room, though. Kudos, Conor!

(We did get a AAA discount. And 2 coupons for free coffee, which we did not use.)

Conor and I executed our gameplan to perfection: eat In-N-Out, explore the city (which we did from 1-3 while waiting for our room to become available), come back and nap, eat dinner and get ready to go out.

PS: When exploring, we walked past a bar where a midget (sorry PC'ers) was announcing that he would be pouring free shots at the bar later. I cannot describe to you how awesome that is. Unfortunately, we never found it later in the night. 

PPS: After our nap, Conor and I versed ourselves in the language of craps: pass bet, come on, place bets, odds on, and the like. We read somewhere that craps is the best thing to play in Vegas because it offers the house the lowest advantage; as we discovered, it is also incredibly dangerous and is a great deal of fun. After dinner, Conor and I hung out in the room awhile, made a budget for the night, and hit the town.

The play by play:

Part 1: Caesar’s Palace.

We lost at 25 cent slots. That is all. Slots are awful.

Part 2: Planet Hollywood.

First of all, while changing locations, Conor and I decided we were going to be British and spoke in London accents all down the Strip. Highlight of the night for Conor: a pair of girls caught wind of our random conversation. One turned around and said, “Your accent is really cute.”

Conor couldn’t wipe a smile off his face the entire night. 

Once at Planet Hollywood, we headed straight for craps. Craps is a BLAST, especially when you’re winning. Which we did in large proportions. Some guy named Art was really lucky with the dice. Thanks, buddy!

And then, instead of walking away, we promptly lost most of our substantial winnings. You all know how that goes… right? Vegas always wins.

Also, Vegas has the most brilliant business model ever. They give you all the free drinks you want and then basically expect you to stick around and spend more money on gambling to make up for it. And you do, my friends. You do. 

We decided to change locales again. This would prove to be one of those Very Bad Ideas. As we were leaving, we ran into a bachelorette party and talked to the revelers for about an hour. And got a picture. Distractions.  Tsk Tsk.

Part 3: Time Dilation…?

We finally ended up at New York, New York (yes, that's a casino) and tried to play craps again… but no one was around! After wandering and betting on random things, we finally realized why there was no one there: it was 3 am.

What the hell? How did time go by so fast? Time flies when you’re losing money. And we did.

So we went home.

Quick-Hit Small Victories:

·        We did not wake up with a tiger in the bathroom

·        We remember everything. We think.

·        Neither of us got married, thank God

·        We didn’t go over budget

·        We did not die or get beat up by bouncers.

Side note: I was unreasonably angry with Conor due to the fact that he wanted to set an alarm for 9am (it was now 4) because he wanted to get to Thacher (his old boarding school) super early. I still am not sure why. He was so dialed in to getting to school that we didn’t stop for lunch. Maybe it was the conversation (we talked about active listening, Bayes’ Theorem, conversationalism, and lots of other things), but more likely Conor just really wanted to see his brother and sister. So cute.

I just realized I use way too many parentheses in my writing. Shame on those of you who call me a good writer. Skilled with punctuation, I am not.

Anyway, after about a six hour drive, we did indeed arrive at Thacher, a beautiful school that is so… Conor that it makes perfect sense. We met up with Conor’s siblings, Gracie and Evan, who graciously showed us around.

So now we’re at the house of a friend of Conor, Cal, whose family has graciously opened their house to us two poor couch surfers. As has been the case across the country, their hospitality has been amazing. 

Well, this is almost the end. Tomorrow morning we’ll go for the scenic drive up Route 1, which follows the beautiful California coastline you see in car commercials all the time, until we hit San Fran and the end of our road trip. I’ll post once or twice more and then be done.

Stay tuned!

-Nate

Angels Landing: "I intensely dislike you right now"

**Update: Picasa is being annoying and the internet is really slow, so picture uploads will probably have to wait awhile.

Conor and I have just finished Angel's Landing, one of the most popular hikes in Zion.

I really, really want to make a Jewish joke here involving long amounts of walking and the word "Zion," but I can't think of one funny enough... Our hike was 4 hours, though. A little shorter than the original.

Anyway, we plan on taking the rest of the afternoon fairly easy, maybe napping, maybe swimming, maybe playing the guitar. Who knows? After a vertical climb at 8am, I'm down for some down time.

Photos are currently being uploaded to Picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/nafriedm/RoadTrip.

Conor's pictures on his good camera will probably not go up till the end of the trip - those are the ones with people in them. Namely, Conor and I.

A quick note: Conor, as potentially previously mentioned, is a teensy bit afraid of heights. So anytime we came around a wraparound or a ridge that was perilously close to the edge, I'd hear a great whoosh of air coming from Conor. When I was standing calmly on a summit (fear of heights is not among the hundreds of things that make me a rather pathetic weenie), Conor said to me, "I intensely dislike you right now."

Call it retribution for running my feet off yesterday, but the only thing I could think to say was, "God, it would REALLY suck to fall off right here."

Vegas tomorrow. 'Nuff said.

Yawohl! Canyons Ho!

**UPDATE: Fixed the apostrophe glitch. Thanks, phone uploading. Conor and I have just finished Angels Landing - pictures will be up on Picasa soon here - so be patient! This afternoon should be relaxing, then we'll head to Vegas tomorrow. Hehe. 

A Quick Update

Last time I wrote, Conor and I were in Denver. There is far, far too much to write to cover it all, and even if I did you all would get intimidated and stop reading at 1000 words anyway. So I will instead provide highlights and interesting observations:

·        Denver morning: Wake up, incredible hospitality by the Matous family continued with eggs for breakfast. Despite my hatred of eggs (see The Great Egg Experiment) they were delicious. We said our goodbyes and headed into the city of Denver to meet Angel Napit and her family for lunch (our trip, unsurprisingly, revolves around food at times). We had delicious Mediterranean food and excellent conversation, then headed for the rather large, square state of Utah.

*The drive over the mountains was SO BIZARRE. We drove from the relative calm of Denver into rain on the mountains. When we got to the pass, it was a full-on blizzard. Then we came down the other side to the arid plains. So weird.

·        We stopped in Grand Junction for gas and also to try and find a place to grab a beer. Conor asked someone where a good place to grab a drink was; the man immediately replied, “Hooters.”

o   I guess he’s got a point.

·        Utah afternoon/night: We stopped in a tiny Utah town to buy food for the night and asked the cashier where we could get a drink. She apologetically said, nowhere. Notice a theme?

·        Camping: We eventually found our campsite for the evening, Fremont Indian State Park. It appeared we were going to be camping on a cliff (not on top of it, literally on the slope) but thankfully, there was an access road that wound us into a little canyon. We made a big fire (yahoo!) and after hanging out for awhile we went to bed.

·        I discovered around 4 am that my sleeping bag has outlived its rating. It is not, contrary to label, rated to zero degrees. It is not, in fact, even rated to 40. I say this because I had to spend most of the night in the fetal position. Once I knew I wasn’t going to freeze, I actually thought it was pretty funny. I was literally curled up in the bottom of my sleeping bag. If anyone remembers Borat, I must have looked like when he managed to put Pamela Anderson in the wedding sack.

o   It better not be that cold tonight, plus I plan on packing my bag with clothes and raincoats like a bird packs its nest with newspaper. It’ll be an experiment.

·        Utah Morning I (today): we woke up around 8, packed up, and headed back on I-70 toward Zion Canyon. We had a moment of nostalgia when 70 ended and turned into 15, considering we’d been on 70 since Pittsburgh. Yes, this was actually a highlight.

·        Zion Canyon: AMAZING. We got here, took a bagillion landscape pictures I’ll have to steal from Conor eventually, and found a campsite around noon. After quickly grabbing groceries, we went on our first hike: Hidden Canyon, a 3.5 hour trek that went up about 850 feet. Call it a baptism by red rock fire, but I was reallllllly out of breath watching Conor the Rock Gremlin scamper his way over yet another seemingly-impossible wall. Conor is a very good, close friend, but the unfortunate fact is that his legs reach about to my shoulders (only a slight exaggeration). Thus, his pace is Usain Bolt to my… whoever the last place guy was. Folks, I was TIRED by the time we got back.

·        And then we went on another hike. No, seriously. It was called Emerald Ponds. It was demonstrably shorter and ended at this crazy rock pond fed by a super-high waterfall. Like I said, I’ll steal pictures from Conor eventually.

·        When we finished Hike Two, we went to eat lunch. We went to sit down under a tree, and I laid down for a second while Conor went to refill water. I don’t remember much else of the last 30 minutes. Conor has a picture of me mouth-breathing while the vultures circle overhead, trying to decide if I’m dead.

·        We saw bighorn sheep. This is apparently a huge deal. Conor tried to explain to me why, but I was more interested in how a ranger could be like 120 pounds overweight. Again, small differences between us.

Random observation from Zion so far: there seem to be three populations of people here hiking around: a) old white people, b) young adult German people, and c) young families. We pondered the implications of this for awhile but were unable to draw any conclusions. Thoughts, anyone?

I promise more to come. I will update when I can – service is pretty sporadic!

Tomorrow we are hiking Angel’s Landing. Google it. It’s terrifying and a five hour hike. I promised someone I’d make it out alive; maybe I’ll get some good pictures out of it as well.

Happy trails to us,

Nate

The Neanderthal Sandwich

This morning, Conor and I were awakened to a rather unusual sound: a goose fight. We decided last night to camp on the lake in Wilson State Park, KS. While beautiful, our campsite selection lent itself to some odd sounds. There were two couples of geese on the lake this morning that decided to duke it out, along with all the strange noises (kind of like dying babies) that entails. 

 Per usual, not my picture. But you get the idea.

After rousing ourselves (note: today marked the first time Conor got up before I did), we packed up the tent and headed out. It was really foggy when we left, so we were kind of unable to appreciate fully the beauty of the park. We have some pretty intense pictures of the Bridge to Nowhere, which should be uploaded soon.

So we drove starting at about 8:30 in the morning (yay crack of dawn wakeups while camping) and headed for Denver. Steve: We attempted to stop and see the World’s Largest Prairie Dog – look it up – but alas, it was closed. THERE WERE BILLBOARDS FOR IT FOR 125 MILES AND IT WAS CLOSED. Kansas, you are dead to me. Except Salina. I like you, Salina. You had a high PQ and you were showing Ironman II at convenient times.

Can you IMAGINE the awkward photo ops. I am SO MAD.

Sorry. We drove rather uneventfully to the state line, approximately 4 hours away.

The story gets interesting once we crossed into Colorado. We stopped about 100 miles inside Colorado (pocket change for us now) in Limon, a sleepy but cute little town. We were starving and looking for something to eat, and I found a restaurant called Ruby’s on my phone that had a review: “Ruby’s is hands down the best restaurant in Limon.” Now, considering this town is a bit on the small side I don’t know what that means, but we decided to stop there. After exploring this quaint, Western quasi-ghost town for a bit, we headed to Ruby’s.

Part I. Ruby’s.

We are promptly seated by what appears to be the store manager, who informs us the special for the day is a steak and cheese sandwich. Despite a surprisingly full menu, both Conor and I elect to get… the steak and cheese. Considering Conor and I are at the point where we are reading each other’s eyebrow expressions (true story), this should not be surprising to anyone.

It is now 11:59 AM, CST. Three minutes later, the entire working population of Limon (approximately fourteen people) arrives to get their lunch. Amazingly, every single person orders the steak and cheese.

We watched as plate after plate of the daily special went by. Apparently, and I missed this, some old guy on his birthday was gypped out of his steak and cheese: they ran out. Conor felt bad. I was oblivious, enraptured with my Tabasco-and-sandwich combination. Typical. It seems someone switched around orders so that the birthday geriatric got his sandwich. Some other poor bastard got a breakfast burrito. Loser.

People tell me I should be nicer. I wonder why.

Part II. Denver Day.

Thus tanked up, we left for Denver. After another two hours of driving, we made it. As we approached, we received an update from Angel, Conor’s friend (and now mine!), that it was HAILING in Denver.

Great. We can see the storm cloud as we are driving into it. It looks… well, scary. Luckily by the time we got to Denver, the weather had cleared. Conor and I parked right in the center of town and started exploring.

This is kind of interesting, because I am amazed by the somewhat… different population. Conor is grinning from ear to ear for the following reasons:

• Pedestrian friendliness
• Alternative fuel/electric buses that are free and plentiful
• Well-planned city design 

I am oblivious to all of these features, and am instead focusing on the girl in front of us with more piercings than limbs, a quarter of a shirt, and short shorts. An odd combination to say the least.

We walked around for an hour, waiting for Angel to get off work. By this point I am in desperate need of ice cream, and Conor and I have a number of the following conversations.

Me: I need ice cream.

Conor: There’s a Cheesecake Factory? (in that half-statement, half-questioning tone we know so well)

Me: No.

Conor: …Okay, there’s a frozen yog-

Me: No. Ice cream.

(Have you all seen the Snickers commercial where the guy is a diva till he gets fed? Yeah. That was me.)

We actually ended up getting frozen yogurt at a place called Kuulture (number of U’s is in dispute). But it was legitimately delicious, I was pleasant again, and we went to meet Angel at a coffee shop named Stella’s.

Stella’s is, hands down, the world’s most delicious-smelling coffee shop. I don’t know what the smell was, but… I want it. We grabbed some much-needed coffee, chatted a bit, then decided to head out to a place called Red Rocks Amphitheater to explore. Red Rocks is a giant stone mass of, you guessed it, red rocks conveniently arranged into a natural amphitheater. Seriously, though, this place was amazingly impressive. Check out the photos on the Picasa site here. Lots of photos of Red Rocks.

So why is this post called The Neanderthal Sandwich? On the way to Red Rocks, I noticed the sky was rather strange. On our left was clear blue sky. The middle was grey. The right was dark black with storm clouds. Like an idiot, I said, “it looks like a Neanderthal sandwich.”

I’ve rarely seen Conor so confused. After laughing in my face and correcting me (neapolitan ice cream, not a Neanderthal sandwich, you dips**t), he said that he was trying to picture what a caveman head had to do with weather.

This is a Neanderthal

This is a Neapolitan Sandwich.

OK, so you had to be there. It was funny to me.

Part III. Denver Night.

After hiking Red Rocks for awhile, we hopped back in the Roadmobile for a quick 10 minute jaunt to the Matous household. Let me digress from my usual tone here for a moment and point out the incredible hospitality we received at the home of Conor’s godparents. They invited us into their gorgeous house, offered us food and drink, and let us shower. We had an absolute feast, cooked by Jeff and Marie, delicious (and unusual!) wine, and great conversation. It’s very easy to see why the Fareses and Matouses are friends – same goes for the Millers. 

Needless to say, Conor and I are beyond grateful for the hospitality and help we have received along the way. If nature extends us the same courtesy, the next two days are going to be spectacular. We’re staying here tonight. Tomorrow is our last day of major driving!! WOW. We are heading to Fremont Indian State Park, about 8 hours away (500+ miles in one day, hooah), to camp prior to heading to Zion Canyon. We plan on spending 2 days and 2 nights in Zion with a potential trip to Bryce Canyon thrown in for good measure. It should be an absolute blast and a major highlight of the trip.

I doubt that I’ll be blogging much during this time, because canyons don’t generally offer Wi-Fi. Plus laptops kind of kill the mood. I will try to update, with pictures, this and Twitter (@nate_488) as much as I can with limited service, so keep checking.

Then, Vegas on Saturday night. I told Conor today that if he roofied my drink (he threatened), he would wake up with Mike Tyson’s tiger in the bathroom. If you didn’t see The Hangover, you didn’t get that joke, but it’s a metaphor for saying “stay tuned.” 

Upcoming: Fremont State Park, Zion Days I and II, and a hint of Vegas...

Smile! Your Mom Chose Life!

Overview: Today was a drive-heavy day (as road trip eventually probably should be) from St. Louis to Wilson State Park, Kansas.

Specifics: After waking Conor up at nine (“Nate, what the hell are you doing?”), we made breakfast, packed up, and left the comfortable hospitality of the Millers.

By the way, breakfast was a momentous occasion because I willingly agreed to EAT EGGS. HUGE!! My Egg Experiment is well on its way to success. For those of you that don’t know, I. Hate. Eggs. Like, to the point where if I smelled them being made, I felt ill. So I decided a couple of months ago that enough was enough and decided to force-acquire a taste for eggs. I know this is possible due to the overwhelming success of the Great Tomato Acquiring of Summer 2009, but it is a more difficult task due to the level of pure evil I generally ascribe to the taste of eggs.

Anyway, it’s progressing. And working.

We hit the road circa 9:30 and headed for Kansas City. Paradoxically, Kansas City is actually in Missouri. I will never understand that one, though I suspect someone knows why. Maybe they had a border war or something. In the home of the Royals and the Chiefs, we stopped in a really delicious, hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint. Steve Miller recommended the place, called Arthur Bryant’s World Famous BBQ. Apparently he went to medical school there. In KC, not the barbecue joint. Small world.

So yes. It was tasty. Because the weather was kind of crappy (rainy, 60 degrees, blah) we decided to push on to Topeka, Kansas, to explore the Capital of the State with Really Long Straight Roads.

Sidenote: the Welcome to Kansas road sign – completely unimpressive. 

(As usual, not my picture.)

Kansas FAIL.

Topeka is only about an hour away from Kansas City, which is kind of impressive because it seems everything is fifty-six hours away from Topeka. Conor was wholly unimpressed with the city. I was a little more tolerant of the lack of people due to the fact that it was a working Monday afternoon, cold, and drizzly. 

But Topeka was a lot smaller than I think we were expecting. Basically there is one street stretching for about three blocks, bordered at one end by a courthouse and at the other with the Capitol. Incidentally, the Capitol dome is green and has a statue of a dude shooting a bow and arrow into the sky on top. The only really notable thing about walking Topeka was that we passed a Christian paraphernalia store with a very special poster in the window. The poster, rather clearly drawn by a child, featured a hand-drawn cartoon child holding a banner billowing in the wind. The banner read, "Smile! Your Mom Chose Life!" with a little inscription underneath saying "Choose life."

Interesting aside: my Torah portion I had to read for my Bar Mitzvah was the chapter where the "choose life" quote comes from.

So thanks, Mommas Friedman and Farese, for choosing life. Happy late Mother's Day. (And my mom's upcoming birthday!)

Back to me. We had to pay at a parking meter. That always kicks you down a notch.

We didn't stick around to explore all the beauty Topeka had to offer, for the following reason: We decided somewhere before Topeka that we wanted to catch a movie. This is somewhat ironic, because one would think that after about twenty logged hours of driving, you wouldn't want to sit in a chair and stare straight ahead for another two. BUT that’s exactly what we want to do! 

Unfortunately, the Topeka movie theater – note singular “theater” – was only showing Avatar and a couple of somewhat unusual movies like “The Tea Cup Fairy.” We left Topeka with the promise of more options in Salina, KS, where we currently sit. Lured by the sarcasm and wit of Robert Downey Jr, Conor and I are currently waiting to catch a 7pm showing of Ironman 2 in the Salina mall.

Notably, Salina is a much bigger town than Topeka, which is kind of weird because to the best of my determination, Salina is 2 hours from everywhere and has approximately zero access points for moving large quantities of materials (namely, access to water or an airport. Salina has neither). This leads me to question what, exactly, people in Salina DO. After all, it is a fairly decent sized town

On the way in to the city, we passed a really ginormous factory that looked like sixteen or eighteen grain silos, all made of poured concrete and welded together. It kind of looked like a thirty-story high panpipe, but all the same height:

(As usual, not my picture)

Anyone who can tell me what the hell this thing is gets a special prize. The picture does NOT do justice to how freaking huge this thing is. By the way, don’t ask what the prize is, because I’m not sure yet.

After this movie, Conor and I will head about another hour west of here to Wilson State Park to camp for the night. We plan on making a campfire and playing cards by the fire, because Vegas rapidly approaches us (Saturday night) and let’s face it, neither Conor or I are particularly well-known for being cardsharks. Although Conor might be a real ace, I have no idea. We’ll find out tonight. 

You Have Reached Fort Miller... and No One Has Died of Dysentery

Blog title explanation later.

As the previous post mentioned, we woke up this morning to the sound of rollerblades, dog, and child screaming. Couldn't have thought up a better way myself. Oh, and it was raining. Thankfully, it had just started by the time we got up, so we didn't get wet. Mostly.

During the drive back to I-70, our trusty Eisenhower Interstate System friend, we drove through the town of Liberty, IN. It is about 9:20 on a Sunday. We saw exactly 1 person. The rest, presumably, were either sleeping or in church...?

We drove about the hour-and-change to Indianapolis, arriving by about 11, to a somewhat creepily deserted town. Indianapolis, of Colts fame, looks JUST LIKE Columbus and Nashville: big wide streets, tall buildings, relatively light on the essential element (people). 

We parked and got out to explore. The first thing that caught our eyes was a giant, phallic tower in what appeared to be the middle of town. Predictably, we headed straight for it.

The tower was the Soldiers and Sailor's Monument, part of a Veterans Memorial Complex; more on this later. The tower had a bunch of inscriptions for the Civil and Spanish-American Wars, and an observation deck at the top. This is hilarious, because I want to go up and Conor is afraid of heights. We went up 321 stairs (whoo) and looked out over the city. Hilarity ensued, as a thoroughly uncomfortable Conor distracted himself with taking pictures.

We went to the other side of the observation deck and immediately realized that the National Mall in DC had been shrunken and rebuilt in downtown Indianapolis (below). Really. Check the Picasa album at the bottom. There was a Lincoln Memorial-esque building at one end, a big long quad, a Washington monument-like building in the middle, and instead of the Capitol was a weird, tall, building with columns and a pyramid on top. Like Giza, but strangely more out of place. 

 (This is NOT Washington DC)

The pyramid-column thingy:

It was not snowing when we were there, obviously.

PS: I pulled the pictures above from Google Images. Not mine.

The pyramid-thingy turned out to be the Indiana War Memorial, a monument and museum to all the Hoosiers who fought in America's wars over the year. After taking a few humorous pictures outside (we might have to wait until the end of the trip to post them as we took them on the Good Camera and not my phone, which is what the Picasa album at the end of this post links to), we went in to check out the museum.

The museum was in the basement/dungeon/scary deserted place of the tower, and featured exhibits from the American Revolution, War of 1812, Civil War, Spanish-American "War," World War I, II, Korea, Vietnam, Cold War (?), Desert Storm, Afghanistan, and Iraq. It also had mini-exhibits on "conflicts" like Bosnia. Weird. Basically, if an Indiana solider ever fired a gun in an engagement, this monument had an exhibit for it.

All joking aside, it was a pretty cool little museum. At this point, Conor and I are starving and to go find somewhere local to eat. We asked a older couple on the street where we could get local food. 

The response: "Jimmy John's is right over there!"

Conor: Anywhere that isn't a chain?

Lady: Panera is over there on the corner...

Conor: Thanks ma'am we'll be sure to check it out!

We found a neat little sub place called Penn Station Subs where we got a delicious meal. After grabbing coffee inside a Borders, we left town. As far as our goals were concerned:

• PQ: Indeterminate. There simply were not enough people around to make a semi-accurate judgment.
• Overly compliment someone: abject failure.
• Taste Local Beer: it was 10 am. Everything was closed and it was 10 AM. Give us a break.
• Take pictures with someone. Again, failure.

I really think that you need to give us a pass, though, because there was NO ONE AROUND. We saw a picture of what the tower-thingy looked like on a clear, sunny, non-Sunday - it was busy and awesome. We managed to arrive when the town was still asleep.

Anyway, we headed out of town around 12:45 and headed for St. Louis. We arrived around 445 (made good time, despite pouring rain) and met the Millers, Conor's family friends. And now, our friends! 

I think. We haven't made a mess yet.

The Millers (Steve, Vicky, Becky, Jake, and a sadly not-here Hallie) have been incredibly kind, opening their doors to us and being beyond nice, way beyond the usual. We are greatly indebted to them for their hospitality, an excellent dinner, and most importantly their relaxed and engaging company.

The blog title is a reference to their hospitality. Mr. Miller told us to raid the pantry before we left so we'd be stocked up before we tripped out to Kansas. Immediate flashback (for the video game nerd in me, at least): Oregon Trail, when you -blessedly- made it to a major fort and could stock up on supplies. St. Louis is our Fort Miller! Of course, it was always right after that that someone always died of dysentery. 

Remember now?

"You have died of dysentery." The dreaded words. I think we'll be all right. 

After a banquet of a dinner, Conor and I headed out to meet Kate Jennison, who recently graduated from UNC with me (tear) and is in St. Louis for the time being before ostensibly heading to Boston to join Apple. Great fun, but an early night as Kate is hopping on a plane at 5:30 tomorrow morning. Kate got us a bunch of song recommendations! Objective WIN. 

Speaking of tomorrow, Conor and I will spend some time in the city of St. Louis, potentially busking for the first time (!?!) before hitting up I-70 again. Goals for tomorrow: take a decent picture of a Jesus billboard, don't miss the photo of the Welcome to Kansas sign, and successfully find a place to camp. This will most likely be Kanopolis, but God only knows where that is. My GPS - named Rhonda, for the record - will hopefully take us there despite her rather obvious speech impediment (Rhonda is otherwise known as my phone). 

Pictures from the trip will be periodically uploaded both to twitter (follow me at nate_488) and my online Picasa album. You can find the public album for it here: http://picasaweb.google.com/nafriedm/RoadTrip. Hooray for cloud computing! At some point, we'll take the high-quality pictures off of Conor's camera and add them somehow. 

If the site doesn't work, shoot me an email. It's just easier than posting everything here.

Again, I'll keep posting the Picasa link as stuff gets updated, but keep this and Twitter open! I'll keep trying to post something every day, even if it isn't as long as something like this. 

Small victories from today:

• Conor discovered his cough drops after fearing all was lost
• I managed to take a picture of a road sign with mileage to St. Louis
• We showered
• We saw, and took pictures, of the World's Biggest Squirrel in a park in Indianapolis. I swear to God. This thing was a mutant. It was considering an attack when we left it alone.
• Someone commented on this thing. (Hint. HINT.)

Columbus, OH: Home of the Bumpit and the Bachelorette

Our journey began yesterday morning with a few wonderful hours in Washington, D.C. After walking around the National Mall for a few hours, we noticed a few things:

1. The Prettiness Quotient (PQ) was far higher than I had originally anticipated. For future reference, PQ is a subjective, self-defined measure of the attractiveness of people we see in a given area. Conor and I were repeatedly wowed by the quality of the Washington population.

2. There are an abnormally large number of people wandering around with yoga mats on a Saturday afternoon.

3. Something called the Great Urban Race was in progress, which to to best of our knowledge is some kind of bizarre scavenger hunt across D.C. that often included the use of rather... odd costumes. One team's members were all women dressed in tutus and cardboard boxes. Snoopy and the Peanuts Posse also made an appearance.

Around 2:30 we tired of people-watching the scavenger hunt and set out on our great adventure. Destination: Ohio!

But first, we needed a Pennsylvania break. We stopped in Somerset, PA. A tiny town nestled between... well, nowhere and nowhere, really, this delightful slice of Middle America was a great place to grab ice cream and make fun of Conor for being uncomfortably tall. (See twitter).

Once back on the road, thus began four hours of continuous driving. Along the way, we followed an SUV for about an hour. I mention this because for the entire time we followed, this car drove about 90 miles an hour... with his hazards on, for some inexplicable reason.

Around 8:30 we hit Columbus and the main focus of this story. We ate dinner in the Arena District, so named for the fact that the entire area was planned and built around the construction of an arena for the hockey team (go... Blue Jackets?). We fine-dined at Mongolian Barbeque (yes, THAT Mongolian Barbecue) and met our waiter named Bill.

Conor and I have decided that we are going to do our best to ask everyone we have a real conversation with for their song recommendations for the road. After getting the lowdown on where to go to grab a drink after dinner (more on this later), Bill gives us his recommendation: "The Emergency" by BT. Later we checked on this recommendation. Bill: fail. Strange, strange choice, my friend. Unless you love 12 minute techno songs. Which apparently Bill does. A lot.

After dinner, we went to a HUUUUUGE bar called Brothers, which was a cool little bar for which we were completely underdressed (I noticed we were the only males wearing flip-flops in the district). We also noticed a few things about the population here as well:

1. PQ: very high. Impressively so, considering Columbus is not what you think of when you think of... yeah.

2. The bartenders at the bar were carefully selected for their physical attributes. Our bartender looked like a white Dwight Howard, except possibly scarier and more aggressive. Dwight Howard has a genuine smile. Our bartender looked like he would crush your head like a grape.

3. THERE WERE SO MANY BACHELORETTE PARTIES. Conor counted SEVEN in Brothers alone. This is absurd. We managed to strike up a conversation with a couple locals who told us that this is not unusual. Apparently, young romantic hopefuls in Columbus follow the following track:
Date a boy -> get engaged to boy -> go to bachelorette party at Brothers and drink brown things (?) -> get married.

4. For every bachelorette party, there were at LEAST a matching number of girls wearing Bumpets of infomercial fame. It was equally absurd. Conor and I counted eight and probably missed many more. Popular hairstyle, or home of the Bumpet? The world may never know.



(Sidenote: Conor and I have added things to do in each state - and have already failed to do most of these in Ohio. They include: over-the-top complimenting someone, getting our picture taken with someone, try a local beer if possible -fail in Ohio, and note the PQ in everywhere we stop.)

Finally, we decide to move on to our campsite in Whitewater State Park. There is not much notable about this part of the trip except that we had to put up the tent because - you guessed it - it started raining. We were awoken at about 9 the next morning by a screaming kid going by on Rollerblades... pulled by his dog. You can't make this stuff up.

As I write this, we're driving to Indianapolis, where we will probably break for coffee/lunch/busking if the weather improves. End goal for today is St. Louis, to link up with Conor's family friends, pick their brains about being doctors (mwahaha ulterior motives) and grab a shower. Yesss.

More to come! And comment, for crying out loud. Conor and I decided this blog is either going to be an ego boost or an ego destroyer. Please make it the former!

A DC update

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Nate Friedman" <nafriedm@gmail.com>
Date: May 15, 2010 1:49 PM
Subject: A dc update
To: <nafriedm.conor@blogger.com>

As we prepare to head out to Ohio, I wanted to let yall know of a couple things:

I'll often be tweeting during the trip, particularly with photos or cool tidbits of information. Follow me at nate_488.

Second, we're compiling a list of things to do in each state... send us your suggestions and we will be glad to oblige!

Examples include:
Stopping in a bar in every state
Getting to know strangers well enough to take pictured with them
Trying local beers
Taking at least three ridiculous pictures everywhere we stop

And etc.

Comment with your suggestions!

-Nate

On the Eve of Departure...

9:57: Conor arrives at Casa Friedman.

It is the night before we begin our epic journey to the West Coast. In 13 days, Conor and I will book it through the East Coast, stopping for the night in swing-state Ohio at a random campsite (this part of the trip is a bit ambiguous) before heading to St. Louis on Sunday to find Conor's dad's friend from medical school.

After tanking up on good food, goodwill, and potentially some good wine, we will head out to Kansas. I have exhaustively researched (read: 20 minutes searching on Google and calling campsites) camping options in Kansas, since I have concluded the only things in Kansas are:

• Two major universities, KU and KSU (one notable for a basketball championship and a coach who strongly resembles Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka):

KU Head Football Coach Eric Mangino (left) and Willy Wonka's Veruca Salt (right)

• Dust
• A few state parks
• At least seven park employees, two of whom are named Doris
• Dust
• Roads that stretch for 300 miles in a straight line

Anyway, we're camping out in lovely Kanapolis, KS, which although it seems like it has a typo is supposed to be extremely pretty, then heading out to Denver to link up with Conor's long-lost godfather.

Yes, you read that right: godfather.

After attempting to make some money busking, we will head out to Utah.

In Utah we will spend 2 days hiking and camping in the beautiful Zion Canyon area, where both Conor and I expect to witness breathtaking sights and breathtaking stupidity by yours truly as my experience in camping is fairly limited. No Outward Bound trips for me or anything. I've never carried my poop in a bag, never truly hope to, so I'll probably do something drastically wrong while in Mormon territory.

They came to my apartment once. Didn't end well.

After Utah, the M1&M2 parade will hit Vegas for a night. 'Nuff said. We will attempt to a) NOT wake up with Mike Tyson's tiger in the bathroom; and b) to remember most of it, if only to tell you, our faithful reader, about it. It promises to be an epic night.

After Vegas, we'll drive to SoCal (Conor is shuddering as he reads these words) and stay with some of Conor's Thacher friends. Conor is going to attempt to get me to ride a horse. If he succeeds, there will almost certainly be a story in it that involves a) bodily harm to me or b) stupidity, which is always funny. If he fails, I will be on foot chasing the horses. Equally funny, potentially more demeaning.

Finally, we'll head up the coast to San Francisco to make use of the Farese's incredible hospitality, incredible house, incredible city, and, yes Erin, their incredible espresso machine. 

So excited. Stay tuned and check back daily for our thoughts on the trip!

-Nate

PS Conor and I will periodically stop to busk in cities... uh oh.

PPS Thanks to Mike for letting us drive his car across the country! We appreciate the extra space, and I appreciate the extra speed. Lookin' forward to those long, straight roads...