The End

Tara and I left NYC on 06/22/09 and returned on 08/30/09. To save everyone time counting on their calenders that is 70 days away from our apartment. We spent 48 days on the road this summer, 16.5 days at her parents in Austin, Texas and 6.5 days at the beach house in North Carolina. We traveled through 24 states in that time, staying in most of them at least one night (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.) We camped 15 nights, stayed at friends 2 nights, a Bed and Breakfast 1 night, 3 nights at a La Quinta Inn, Doubletree Hotel, Garden Cottages Motel and Holiday Inn, 2 nights at a Best Western and Ramada Inn, and 1 night at a Hyatt Regency, Budget Host Inn, Red Lion Hotel, Snider's Rustic Inn, Little America Hotel, Aquarius Inn Motel, America's Best Value Inn, Hilton Inn, and Hotel Preston. We drove at least 11,046 miles as recorded on our GPS unit (Nuvi), though there were a few trips here and there when it was not plugged in and recording the distance.

As the sayings go "All good things must end," and "All endings are just new beginnings." With that in mind, Tara and I decided on the way up to NYC on Sunday to start a new adventure. On Monday, we went to the City Clerks Office to obtain our Marriage License, and in a limo on Friday, September 4th, 2009 (Tara's birthday) at 10:45 AM we returned to take our vows as witnessed by our friends Sonja Robinson and Ryan, Kirsten, and Millie Matyjasik. We were back in our apartment as a wedded couple by noon. We changed and walked to 2nd Ave to eat lunch at Nancy's Pig Heaven before going to Chinatown to spend $15 on two rings that will due until Leon Mege can make our official set. That night we dined at King's Carriage House with Ryan and Kirsten Matyjasik, Tom and Sonja Robinson, and Paul, Annie, and Lily Byerly to celebrate our new beginning.

Thank you to all who followed our adventure.

Beach Week

Sunday to Sunday - August 23rd to August 30th, 2009

Pine Island, NC to New York City, NY

The week at the beach was the perfect way to wind down after all of the traveling this summer. Tara and I only left the house to hit up the food stores, deciding to spend our time at the pool, on the beach or around the house instead of site seeing. My youngest sister Jenny and her boyfriend Pat arrived on Monday, as did Kim's boyfriend Ryan and his daughter Reece to fill out the house. Lots of swimming, tanning, reading, playing of Catchphrase, Scrabble and Monopoly, eating, cooking, drinking and plain old fun ensued for the entire week. Before we could believe it was Saturday. We set up the tent to clean it out and started the packing process for the last time. We left Sunday morning and made it back to NYC in 11 hours. Amazingly, we found a parking spot right across the street from our building, unloaded the car in three trips, and went to Yuka our favorite sushi place, to celebrate our amazing summer.

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Biltmore and the Beach

Saturday and Sunday, August 22nd and 23rd, 2009

Nashville, TN to Asheville, NC to Pine Island, NC

Following a noisy night in Nashville, we piled into the car and made a direct approach to Asheville, NC forgoing the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. The reason for our haste was the impressive Biltmore Mansion and their Flower Carpet Garden Evening Event. We arrived in Asheville without a problem, checked into the Ramada Inn, checked out the used book store nearby, and headed to the Mansion. We opted to go to the Winery first and greatly enjoyed the tour and wine tasting, wishing that we knew ahead of time that we could have sampled over 15 wines so that we saved the heavy reds for last. We purchased a couple of bottles of wine in the gift shop and drove the 4 miles to the Mansion for the last two hours of the evening event. The place is enormous. In our two hours we saw the Flower Carpet Garden, the first floor and the basement, leaving the rest of the house for the next morning. That night we greatly enjoyed our dinner at Nova in downtown Asheville, although parking was quite difficult and a bit of an issue.

The next day we were up and out bright and early, scoring a free breakfast at the Ramada and headed back to the Mansion arriving right as it was opening at 9 am. We turned in our tickets for the audio tour and crept up to the second floor. We could not have planned this any better as far as avoiding the crowds on a weekend. The night before allowed us to take our time and the same went for this morning as we traveled through the upper floors of this 285 room Mansion barely disturbed by the other visitors. We finished our tour by 11 am and walked through the Italian Gardens and the Conservatory until noon. With an 8+ hour drive staring us in the face we left the Biltmore Estate, grabbed some Wendy's, and hit the road. Aside from the length, the drive went smoothly and we were greeted at the beach house on Pine Island, NC by my parents, Fred and Rita, my middle sister Kim and her daughter Kai, and the wonderful hamburgers that they grilled.

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Nashville

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Little Rock, AR to Nashville, TN

Munching on granola bars for a quick breakfast, we left the Hilton Inn and whipped by the Capital Building. We opted to take a circuitous route to Nashville, TN that took us through south Memphis, into Mississippi, and up to the Shiloh National Military Park. But first we needed a hearty lunch and stopped at Lenny's Sub Shop. Lenny's is a chain of shops that operate primarily in the southeast and they pile the meat, cheese and goodness onto their subs. Filled, we made it to Shiloh just in time for the last guided tour of the National Cemetery and a telling of the battle. Somehow, Tara and I were the only attendees on the tour. We were humbled by the beauty of the location and chilled by the events that occurred along the idyllic banks of the Tennessee River in April 1862.

The drive north to Nashville took us along windy, tree covered hills, farms and through quaint towns that we wished we had time to explore. We checked into the Hotel Preston and learned the hard way that it was located right in the flight line of the International Airport. For dinner we headed to downtown Nashville and Pearl Fusion Restro which served a blend of Chinese and Japanese favorites including sushi. A tip for future travelers is do not order sushi in Nashville. I don't know what we were thinking, but our waiter sure was proud to state that he rolled the rolls himself. We survived though and walked around downtown, marveling that every other door was a bar and all of them had a band on stage. We returned to our hotel, had a quick drink at the bar (where there was a band on stage) and retired for the night.

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Little Rock

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Texarkana, TX to Little Rock, AR

With the air full of excitement about our day, we left the worst La Quinta ever, crossed the street into Arkansas, and headed to Crater of Diamonds State Park near Murfreesboro, AR. Nuvi had us exit I-30 at Hope, AR onto AR-34 north, and we passed by a FEMA installation that contained thousands and thousands of fifth wheel trailer homes ready to roll, with what appeared to be officials checking each one systematically to ensure they were still operational. It was the single largest tornado target I have ever seen.

We reached the Diamond Park a little after 10 am. Basically, the entire park is a plowed field where people keep finding diamonds at a rate of 3 a day, the largest reaching 40+ carats; which is not enough to invest in a true mining operation, but more than enough to bilk tourists out of a little cash. There are a number of ways to hunt for the diamonds at the park: dry searching, which entails walking around and looking at the ground, dry digging, which is digging random holes in the ground in the hopes of finding a honker, and wet sluicing, which is what we did in Montana at Gem Mountain to find the sapphires, using screens to wash the dirt and pebbles in a desperate attempt to have the denser diamonds settle on the bottom of the pan so when you flip the screen the shiny aims of our desire would be sitting on top of the pebble pile. We purchased tickets to enter the field and rented some prospecting equipment. Tara took her trowel and started looking for shiny objects on the surface. I filled up the bucket with shovel-fulls of dirt and headed to the water bins. Two hours later we had an expert determine that we were excellent quartz hunters and left the State Park empty handed heading into town for a place called Betty's.

Either Murfreesboro has competing restaurants called Betty's and Buddy's that fit the description of the quartz spotting expert, or they have an interesting accent in central Arkansas. Regardless, we enjoyed our lunch at Buddy's and continued on to Little Rock. We stopped twice at a Books-a-Million and a Hastings Book store. I went into the intended stores finding good deals on audio books, while Tara perused the isles of TJ Maxx and Tuesday Morning respectively.

We reached Little Rock around dinner time, checked into the Hilton Inn, paid the fee to use the wireless connection (which is completely annoying, why do I get free wi-fi at 2 star and below places, but have to pay for it at 3+ star hotels?) and placed our trust in tripadvisor.com to find an Italian restaurant. Cafe Prego was the top rated choice. It was a nice place, with good portion sizes (not too big, not too small) and very reasonable prices, but the food was only a step above alright.

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Texarkana

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Austin to Texarkana, TX

We left the Ewings at 10 am in the hope that we would miss traffic in both Austin and Dallas. Other than a brief slowdown to 35 mph in the middle of Dallas, the drive was smooth, but a little long clocking in at 6 hours. Upon arrival to Texarkana, which is actually two towns straddling the border of two states I hope I don't have to name, we checked into the worst La Quinta we have ever seen. It was clear that this La Quinta was recently some other motel and they just slapped a new name on the front. We were actually looking at the nearby Budget Host Inn and America's Best Value Inn and wondering if they would be better. At least there was free Wi-Fi, so we searched tripadvisor.com for a good restaurant in the area. Having skipped lunch we went to the #1 listed restaurant called Ironwood Grill at 4:30, and it did not disappoint. Tara had the Fish Tacos and I could not pass up their Sirloin which was cooked to perfection. After running an errand at Target, we purchased movie tickets at the Cinemark and perused some of the surrounding stores, spending most of our time in the baby section of TJ Maxx as Tara laid out potential wardrobes for Baby Millie until she was 5 years of age. I managed to talk Tara down to just two items. The movie that we saw was the delightful Julie & Julia. Do not attempt this movie on an empty stomach, you simply won't make it all the way through and you'll rush out to find some boeuf bourguignon.

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Austin: Final Days

Sunday to Tuesday, August 16th - 18th, 2009

Sunday was a wonderfully lazy day in Sweeney. Eloise Pantalone made an incredible lunch of chicken spaghetti for everyone and it was held again at the Akin's home. Tara and I spent the day in the back yard by the pool, reading, relaxing and playing with her younger cousins. That night we stayed at Eloise's. Upon Tara's request we watched Star Wars: Episode I, as she has neglected to see the most recent trilogy. Her only comment was that the acting was horrendous. I'm not sure if I should tell her that it doesn't get any better.

We drove back to Austin on Monday and made plans with Chris, Kristen and Lynn Sheppard for dinner that night. The entire afternoon Tara was anxious, asking if we could call our friends in NYC who were expecting a child at some point that day. The Matyjasiks welcomed their daughter Millie Claire at 3:45 EST and notified the world at 6 EST. Happy and relaxed, Tara and I headed out to the Roaring Fork on Congress and 6th Street to enjoy an outstanding dinner with great company.

Our last full day in Austin. I awoke early once again and traveled north to Round Rock to play Teravista Golf Course. I've had success in the past just showing up to a course and getting worked into the mix. Unfortunately, Teravista was packed and they couldn't get a single out until after 10 am. Seeing as it was 7 am, I decided to go to a municipal course called Bluebonnet that was nearby instead. It was great course to play on my final day, easy enough that I birdied three holes, but hard enough that I felt like I deserved those birdies. The rest of the day was spent doing laundry, packing, and deciding upon what should be left behind (most of our dining supplies since we are not expecting to camp out or cookout). Our last meal was some delicious fried chicken from Golden Chick.

Austin: Week 2

Sunday, August 9th to Saturday, August 15th

Our second week in Austin began with a family pool day and cook out at Bonnie and Phil Doubek's home in Round Rock, TX, northwest of Austin proper on Sunday. Of course it rained for the first time during our visit, but that only served to raise everyone's spirit.

Relaxed and recharged, I returned to Plum Creek Golf Course Monday morning (after learning that Woodcreek Golf Course in Wimberley, TX didn't open until noon; I learned this by showing up at 7 am and the guy vacuuming the clubhouse filled me in. Do they not realize that golfers prefer to play in the morning to avoid the heat?). After my round, I drove to San Marcos and met up with Tara, Edith Stahl, and Gloria Ewing for some outlet shopping. Being covered in sweat, smelly, and sticky worked to my advantage as I was able to sneak off after a short while to shower and relax. That night, Tara and I sought out Asian food and discovered Blue Bamboo with Edith and Greg Stahl. They served very good Thai and Vietnam fare for a minuscule price.

Tuesday was a day of rest, relaxation and laundry. Kent Ewing, Tara's dad, dragged out his fish fry pan, customized and seasoned from a plough disc, to cook up catfish and shrimp for dinner.

I travelled back to The Bandit at 5:15 AM the next morning to make an early tee time. I can almost feel my old golf game lurking in the background and the 240 yard 5-wood that I stuck on the 18th to reach the par 5 in 2 strokes makes me think it is two weeks away. Good thing I'm leaving in less than a week or I could get hooked on golf all over again. For dinner I made a meat sauce with pancetta, Italian sausage and meatballs made from ground venison and bison, all of which turned out better than I could have hoped.

I spent Thursday morning at Avery Golf Course playing my second favorite course of this trip, and the afternoon at the Firestone getting the car rechecked as the Service Engine Soon light flashed on for about an hour earlier in the week. Turns out the other oxygen sensor might be about to fail, but the helpful technicians at Firestone said that the light needs to be on for longer before they can properly diagnose the problem. With all of the good food around the house we had leftovers for dinner.

On Friday we headed down to Sweeney, TX to celebrate Eloise Pantalone's (Tara's maternal grandmother) 81st Birthday. We stayed with Bill and Joy Akin, Tara's Uncle and Aunt, and a host of other family members. The Akin's have an incredible enclosed backyard that is protected by a 20+ foot screen to keep the bugs out, a pool, a grill with a built in sink and refrigerator, a fireplace and a pizza oven. That night we feasted on homemade pizza and tiramasu.

Saturday was the day of the party. I volunteered to keep an eye on the meat that was in the BBQ, which meant I stayed in a lounge chair and/or the pool reading, dutifully checking the temperature every 15 minutes and flipping the meat every hour. Seeing that this job was stressful, Tara enlisted me to assemble the swinging porch chair the family had purchased for Eloise with her cousin Kellen. We finished just in time to rush Bill A. to the emergency room when the broken bowl of cole slaw sliced the tip of his middle finger off. As it so often occurs, the party went on without a hitch, and Bill A. received a heroes welcome upon his return.

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To the Beach

Tara and I will be leaving the comfy confines of Austin, TX on Wednesday, August 19th to reach Pine Island, NC on Sunday, August 23rd. The route has been decided upon, but the daily activities are still up in the air. Any suggestions?

Wednesday: Austin, TX to Texarkana, TX

Thursday: Texarkana, TX to Little Rock, AR (with a diamond mine stop at Murfreesboro, AR)

Friday: Little Rock, AR to Nashville, TN

Saturday: Nashville, TN to Ashville, NC and the Biltmore Mansion (tour tickets and an evening at the flower carpet already arranged)

Sunday: Ashville, NC to Pine Island, NC (expect us late - it is an 8+ hour drive)

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Austin: Week 1

Sunday to Saturday - August 2nd - 8th, 2009

It was a full week in the heat here in Austin, TX with temperatures climbing into the triple digits almost everyday. One of the first things we did was take the car to a Firestone and learned that it was a faulty oxygen sensor which was causing the Service Engine Soon light to come on. $300+ later it was fixed. I've spent the week enjoying the golf courses in the area, which are in surprisingly good shape despite the severe drought, playing with my new clubs that were waiting for me when I arrived. I played at Roy Kizer Municipal GC in Austin, Plum Creek in Kyle, and The Bandit in New Braufels (my favorite) on my own, plus Balcones Country Club near Round Rock with my second cousin Chris Sheppard. (Map of the golf courses) Tara has been shopping and finding deals with her mom and best friend Edith Stahl. We have enjoyed the fine cuisine in the area, Trattoria Lisina Restaurant and Winery in Driftwood, Green Mesquite for their Monday Chicken Fried Steak Special, and The Saltlick BBQ for the best brisket, sausage, ribs, and turkey anywhere, not to mention the great food that we have cooked up here at the house. We have another week + of relaxing here before we need to start making our way east to the beach in NC. We'll be sure to update daily once we are on the road again. Pictures will be posted one of these days.

Day 41

Day 41 - Saturday, August 1st, 2009

Carlsbad, NM to San Angelo, TX

With promises that we would go to Big Bend National Park in southern Texas during a cooler time of the year, we headed into the heart of Texas, leaving Carlsbad, NM, and our questionable motel room, nice and early. Our plan was to stay the night in San Angelo, TX, but following a phone conversation with Greg Stahl we learned that San Angelo was only 3 hours away from Austin. Nuvi was telling us that we would reach San Angelo at 1 pm MT, which meant that we could be in Austin by 5 pm CT. We decided to push through, stopping only for gas, Big Red (my first experience with this delicious strawberry-like flavored soda), and Dairy Queen...twice, once for lunch, once for desert later in the afternoon. We actually reached Tara's parents at 5:30 CT, just in time to get cleaned up and head out for a big family dinner at Flores with her parents, sister, a handful of aunts and uncles, and a multitude of cousins. Relaxed by the excellent food and tasty margaritas, we settled in to the room that would be home for the next 2 weeks consecutively, a rarity to be enjoyed following this lengthy leg of our summer journey.

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Day 40

Day 40 - Friday, July 31st, 2009

Las Cruces, NM to Carlsbad, NM

The night before we had looked at the National Park Service website for Carlsbad Caverns National Park and learned of a 3 hour expedition through the lower level of cave that left at 1 pm. Even though the website said the spelunking tour was fully booked, we set off in time to make it to the park with time to spare in case they could squeeze in a couple of people. Our travels were going great until we encountered a border patrol stop on RT - 375 W 20 miles outside of El Paso. The Border Patrol agents appeared to be doing a thorough job and we were mentally preparing to unpack the car in needed. As we waited in line to be passed through, Tara admonished me for wanting to ask if I could pet the patrol dog. I ultimately opted not to ask. I also did not respond to the query of if we were American citizens with "Que?" despite a nearly overwhelming desire. We were passed through with no problems, but the delay pushed us past our target time.

We discarded our hopes of a three hour tour and stopped at the Guadalupe Mountains National Park Visitor Center. While continuing on to the caverns, traveling at 60 mph on a flat surface no less, our car shuddered, coughed, and the Service Engine Soon flared back to life. Fearing the worst, but not daring to stop, we made it to the National Park and purchased tickets for the King's Cavern tour.

Neither of us were aware that most of the cave could be explored for free (with our Annual Pass), until we were on the tour. After the hour long venture with an informative and only mildly annoying guide, we struck out on our own to explore the Great Room. The Great Room is a 1.3 mile hike through the largest cavern I have ever seen. The formations were huge, outstanding, and everywhere.

We spent over 3 hours underground and emerged hungry, so with soothing whispers to the dashboard, we headed to Carlsbad, NM to check into America's Best Value Inn. The name is misleading. This "Inn" was by no means a "Value", being one of the more expensive beds we have rented on this trip. It definitely was no where near being one of the "Best" either, coming close to rivaling the Budget Host Inn in Interior, SD as the worst place that we stayed for a night. It was though in "America," but that still doesn't even meet Meatloaf's standard of "two out of three ain't bad." For dinner we went to Lucy's Mexicali Restaurant and enjoyed some outstanding food. We reluctantly returned to our "Inn" and listened to people splash around in the pool well past pool closing time.

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Day 39

Day 39 - Thursday, July 30th, 2009

Farmington, NM to Las Cruces, NM

Having spent two extra days in Colorado, we decided to have a long travel day in New Mexico to reach one of our final key attractions, Carlsbad Caverns, by Friday. We set our sights on Las Cruces, a 6+ hour drive, and the Ramada Inn that we booked via priceline.com. We reached Albuquerque a little after noon, and opted for Lin's Dynasty Buffet for lunch. We were amazed by the size of this place. Most buffets have one, maybe two rows of food to choose from. This place had five, with every type of meat available including octopus, plus a Mongolian Grill option where you chose the ingredients and a cook would whip it up in a wok. To top it off, it cost less than $10 per person with a drink order. Unbelievably full, we visited a used book store before continuing our journey down I-25. We were beyond shocked to drive through the desert in the midst of a down pour, but that is what we had from Albuquerque to Truth or Consequences. The weather cleared by the time we reached Las Cruces and we checked in to our room with a balcony. We ate sparingly at the bar in the hotel, enjoying the margarita special, and retired early.

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Day 38

Day 38 - Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Mesa Verde National Park, CO to Farmington, NM

Our final night in the tent was comfortable, but a little sloped. Wistfully, we packed up the bedroll and loaded the car. We spent the morning touring the park, stopping at the visitor center and the Spruce Tree Cliff Dwellings.

The Pueblo Indians built the dwellings as early as 600 AD and occupied many of the sites until 1300 AD. A drought that lasted nearly a half century led the ancestral Pueblos to abandon the cliffs, but it has remained a sacred site for American Indians in the area. Poor planning on our part led us to eat two Navajo Tacos (taco meat, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, sour cream and salsa on fry bread) before hiking to the dwellings. Other than food caused discomfort the experience was pleasurable and enlightening.

There are about a half a dozen cliff dwellings in the park and over 4000 archaeological sites overall, but using the guiding principle of "If you've seen one, you've seen them all" we left the park at noon.

We had two options on how to get to Farmington, NM. First, we could back track to Durango and then head south for a drive of about 75 minutes. One thing that has become abundantly clear during this trip to Tara is that I don't like to back track. I can't really explain myself, other than it is akin to admitting defeat, that I couldn't find another route when there are so many roads to explore is simply unacceptable. So the second route, the one that bypassed within mere miles of the the Four Corners Monument, the one that added another 60 minutes to the total trip, became the route du jour.

It turns out that the Four Corners Monument is on the Navajo Nation Reservation and as such the Navajo people charge $3 per person to stand in four states at one time. Surrounding the sand dial without a needle

monument were stands selling a wide assortment of wares from jewelery to pottery to clothing to snow cones. Tara found a vase that she couldn't do without and had the artisan hold it for a picture to preserve the items provenance.

We arrived in Farmington a little before 4 pm and tried to check into the La Quinta. We then realized that we had reservations at the Best Western across the street and went there instead. Finally accepted, we showered and headed out to the Three Rivers Brewery. They had an outstanding selection of homemade brews, ciders, and sodas. I ordered their Drunken Steak which had spent the last three days basking in beer and mustard, while Tara had their pretzel and a bowl of onion soup since her stomach was feeling a little funny.

Full, we raced to the car in the midst of a fierce wind storm and headed back to the Hotel with a brief stop at WalMart for Caladryl lotion to soothe the multitude of bites on my legs and feet. I dutifully applied the lotion every two hours throughout the night.

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Day 37

Day 37 - Tuesday July 28th, 2009

Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO to Mesa Verde National Park, CO

We packed up the campsite and headed to the Office/Restaurant for some coffee and opted to stay for breakfast after perusing the menu. Satiated, we reentered the park and drove to the dunes parking lot. Tara stayed behind in the car and I set off into the dunes.

Imagine the deepest, driest, softest beach sand that you have ever walked upon. Now place that nice beach at 8800 feet and you get an idea for how difficult the 1/4 mile walk to the first small dune was.

I could see people at the top of the highest visible dune and figured they started their adventure at 7 am and not 10 am. I turned back and trudged to the car making tracks in the virgin sand.

The drive west was non-eventful, stopping only for fuel, Sonic, and a car wash. With clouds building and the wind starting to whip we reached the Morefield Campground in Mesa Verde National Park, CO. This is possibly the largest campground in the National Park system with over 400 sites, laundry services, and showers. We found a site that we liked, went to the office to the office to pay before setting up, learned that we were suppose to pay first then find a site, returned to discover that 'our' site had suddenly become occupied, and settled on a serviceable, if a little sloped site at the end of the Navajo Loop. We battled the wind to get the tent up before the rain came and decided to do one last round of laundry on the road.

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Day 36

Day 36 - Monday, July 27th, 2009

Colorado Springs, CO to Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO

Waking up early at the Doubltree in Colorado Springs, CO, I set out to find us a New York style breakfast, thinking that I would have to settle for a Panera, when Nuvi found an Olde World Bagels a block away. I walked across the parking lots, the only person around on foot, and purchased serviceable bagels with the necessary accouterments. We set off shortly there after, hitting the road with a full slate ahead of us.

Our 1st destination was the Garden of the Gods, a city park in Colorado Springs that had numerous rock outcroppings and miles of hiking trails.

We did not have the time to hike so we took in the sights as quickly as possible from the car and made our way to the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. The Fossil beds were formed about 35 million years ago when the Guffey Volcano was spewing out ash and mud, which dammed up a stream creating a 12 mile lake with the perfect layer of muck along the bottom for preserving a whole host of organisms. Insects have been the primary find, but the petrified redwood stumps were the most impressive.

Avoiding a Ranger Bruce clone (Timpanogos Cave) that was guiding a tour, we walked around the easily accessible exhibits and headed on to our third planned stop along twisty roads.

The Royal Gorge Bridge near Canon City, CO is the highest suspension bridge in the world.

It is also the biggest tourist trap I have ever encountered (and we stopped at Wall Drug). It costs $24 per person to enter the bridge area. Admission includes a pass to all of the amusement rides and a pass to drive your vehicle across the bridge. Most visitors were walking over the Gorge though and enjoying the warm summer day. At least that is what it seemed from the entrance as Tara and I were not willing to shell out $48 to see a bridge up close. We left the way we came and set of to Salida, CO for lunch.

We found a charming place for lunch called the Laughing Ladies Restaurant, sneaking through the door moments before they closed their lunch at 2 pm. I enjoyed their special pork enchilada while Tara had their black bean soup and salad combo. After lunch, Tara explored the downtown area, while I took a seat at Larry's barber shop. Larry did a fine job, but he staggered me with the $14 price. He then asked what I would pay for a haircut in NYC. I didn't have the heart to tell him I usually pay $10 at a place in Queens, so I said about the same.

Our final leg of the day's journey took us to the Great Sand Dunes National Park, which lies between the San Juan Mountains to the west and the Sangre de Christo Mountains to the east. The valley between was once a huge lake that eventually breached along the southern end draining into the Rio Grande River and drying out. The winds sweeping into the valley from the west pushed the sandy soil against the Sangre de Christo Mountains, and the storm winds from the east built the highest sand dunes in America, with the great dune reaching 750 feet.

Since it was a warm and sunny afternoon we limited our explorations to the visitor center before setting up our tent at the Great Sand Dunes Oasis RV Park just outside of the National Park. The camping area was very rustic, but we found a flat and relatively rock free site that was visited often by humming birds. It was also infested with some type of sand mite or flea that chewed up my feet, leaving 15+ little bulls eyes on each foot. Thankfully they did not itch...at least not that night.

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Day 35

Day 35 - Sunday, July 26th, 2009

Denver, CO to Colorado Springs, CO

A lazy day. Doubletree just might be my favorite Hotel chain. They have a huge strike against them for not having refrigerators in their rooms, but those delicious chocolate chip cookies that they dole out upon arrival make up for so much. The cookies are not quite as good as Chef Allen's at The Buckley School, but they have helped us to survive the long summer without an FBC (freshly baked cookie). I finished my cookie for breakfast as we checked out of our room at the very last moment.

Once again, hoping for the best, we started the car and the "Service Engine Soon" light remained brightly lit. Our plan is to take it to the GMC Dealership in Colorado Springs, CO bright and early Monday morning. In the meantime we headed for WalMart to replace my camp chair. We stopped at a Panda Express on the way for our first true meal of the day and had the best Chinese Food since NYC. When we started the car, the light didn't come on. Relieved and mystified we made our WalMart purchases, and jotted down the names and addresses of used bookstores in the area from the phonebook at the Customer Service area.

Our first stop was the main branch of the Denver Public Library. Ever since Cleveland, OH when we wandered into the library downtown to discover that they were weeding their inventory, and purchased a James Patterson audiobook for $1.00 (which we later sold to a Hastings Books for a $4.50 credit), we have been stopping at libraries on our way looking for deals. Denver's Library was located downtown across from the state capital building

and surrounded by the art museums. It was a nice, peaceful place that felt well used and loved. Unfortunately, the weeding store was closed on Sundays, so we moved on to the Used Book Mall about a mile further south and each found a book. It was right next to a Big Lots, so while Tara perused the merchandise, I looked through another phone book, having lost the original sheet of addresses from the WalMart. This time through I found a used audiobook store in Arvada, CO a suburb of Denver. We zipped north on I-25, and saw that the store was closing for good...on July 31st. Just in time. This store had thousands and thousands of audiobooks and we spent at least 45 minutes sifting through the titles. I found the CD version of the BBC Radio Broadcasts of the original Star Wars Trilogy and nearly geeked to death. I recovered, added a couple of Douglas Adams titles to my haul and joined Tara at the register with her titles of "Devil Wears Prada" by Lauren Weisberger and "Good in Bed" by Jennifer Weiner.

As soon as we exited we noticed the time was 4:30 and headed straight to a Taco Bell to take full advantage of the Rockies promotion of 4 tacos for a quarter that was only going on from 4 - 6 pm. Filled with the goodness that is Taco Bell, we headed to Colorado Springs to another Doubletree and the wonderful cookies that were waiting.

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