New Road Trip

We are starting to brainstorm our next road trip...I'm thinking Canada, but I'm not sure what Josh wants to do yet.

Any ideas?...

The Road Home

After Zorbing the drive to South Carolina seemed like it would be an easy one. It was the opposite.  Driving through South Carolina was a daunting task, despite my claims that an 8-hour drive no longer seemed that difficult.  It felt as if the state would never end and our destination was on the coast, all the way in Myrtle Beach.  However, we did have an opportunity to see why they are called the Smoky Mountains and we also drove through out fourth National Park.

Smokey Mountains

We detoured a bit away from the beach to visit Mike at work in Conway, SC.  Of course, we ate some much-needed pizza, even if it was Dominoes.  We also had some much-needed cocktails when Mike finally got off work.  After telling as many stories as we could to fill Mike in on our trip, we went to bed after 5am.  This was fine with us because we did not plan on getting out of bed anytime before noon.  It’s that key word ‘bed’ that made us so excited.  No longer would we be sleeping on an air mattress.  And sure enough we did not rise until the afternoon was well underway. 

The day was spent in a relaxing fashion.  There were no National Parks or Historical Archives to explore.  We didn’t have to drive 800 miles to get to our next adventure.  We just simply sat on the couch and watched Cars. Yes, the Pixar movie and then Cars 2, it’s thrilling sequel. 

At one point we went to Wal-Mart, our new favorite store, to try and get Josh’s film developed.  However, you can no longer get film developed in less than a week.  1-hour photo developing no longer exists in this country.  After doing some research, Josh also came to the conclusion that because the pictures are valuable and possibly irreplaceable, we are going to send the film out to a professional company for development.   So you will have to wait to see those pictures, but I can guarantee it will be worth the wait.

We finished our stay in Myrtle Beach and headed towards New Jersey.  It was a surreal moment when we realized that we were heading home.  We were only 12 hours from completing our journey.   North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware were the only states that stood in our path. 

The highlights of the drive included Josh NOT getting pulled over in Virginia, getting gas on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C., and realizing that we could stop off in Belmar to catch some of the Shots and Goggles show at Connelly Station.

We arrived in Belmar around midnight.  Needless to say, Chuck and Sean were pretty surprised to see us.  We made this stop the official last stop on our tour of the USA and neither of us would have had it any other way.  We were evacuated from the bar at one point due to someone pulling the fire alarm.  Despite it being amusing, it was also at that moment I realized I needed to tinkle.  Soon enough we were let back into the bar and the music continued.  We had some beers and sang some songs.  It was awesome, but left us quite tired.

When we got to Josh’s apartment, the only thing on my mind was sleep.  And that’s what we did. 

Zorbing: Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

We awoke in Tennessee and drove into Pigeon Forge for Zorbing. We were surprised to see that Pigeon Forge is actually a big tourist town. There are resorts, restaurants and all sorts of fun things to do. I’ll have to come back for the other stuff. We were there for one thing and one thing only. Zorbing. 

After a hilly drive we arrived at Zorb HQ. We entered our information into the touchscreen kiosks, changed and waited for our van. Yes, there is a van that takes you to the top of the hill. In a way that you would expect if you were on safari, this maroon van came barreling down a gravel path to pick us up. We got into the van (who needs seatbelts?) and proceeded to speed up the hill. 

Jaimie and I are in these balls

This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while and to be honest, I was quite nervous. It’s not every day you get zipped into a bubble with water and pushed down a hill. Of course, I volunteered to go first. The way it works, for those of you (read: most of you) that don’t know what Zorbing is, is as follows: You have the choice between two tracks, straight or zig-zag, and two types of rides, strapped into a harness and rolling with the Zorb or unharnessed. Unharnessed means you sit in the Zorb with some water to reduce the friction and they push you down the hill. Simple. Awesome. It was pretty hot and stuffy inside the Zorb, but the water was nice and cool. I must say, there is something pretty calming about being inside these things. That is, of course, until you start rolling down the hill. It wasn’t long before the gate was opened and I was off. (The guy that launches you yells Zorb on every run. It adds a nice touch.) It’s difficult to explain the sensation of Zorbing, except for the fact that it’s a controlled fall. For me the fun of going downhill without being strapped in is that you end up in some pretty interesting positions on your way down the hill. One of the guys working there informed me that they were opening a location in Boston, but there’s no info on the official Zorb site yet. As of right now, Pigeon Forge is the only place in North America you can do this. At the end of the run, the handler at the bottom of the hill opens the Zorb and takes some pictures, both inside and outside the ball. 

Once we were finished, we were given the option of buying some of the pictures. In the spirit of saving money and not making decisions, we had them put all of the pictures on a flash drive.

Texas to Tennessee

Outlaw

We awoke in Lubbock and started off toward Arkansas. This was a driving day so we didn’t expect anything too interesting to happen – until I got stopped by a Texas patrol car… Ok, so I was going a little fast. The speed limit was 75 and the road was a flat, straight line. This was the first time I’ve had a police officer tell me to step out of the car. I guess you shouldn’t mess with Texas after all. Either way after a nice long conversation with the officer, he let us go. That’s right, I’ve now talked my way out of not one, but TWO tickets on this trip.

Dallas/Fort Worth

Texarkana?...Arkadelphia? Really?

On the way to Arkansas we passed through Texarkana. It’s a pretty interesting town considering it’s in both Texas and Arkansas. We didn’t stop, but I looked up some facts about it on Wikipedia and that was enough for the both of us.

We finally made it to Little Rock, Arkansas to find it was a cool 100+°. And it was going to be 90° at midnight. Wonderful. We set up camp quickly and headed to the nearest Walmart. Interestingly enough, the one we found was the biggest one I’d ever seen; way bigger than the one we went to in Texas. Sorry Texas. Anyway, we got a small fan figuring it’d help a little. It helped a little, alright. Before we went to sleep we decided to light a fire; not for the heat I might add. I was reveling in the best fire I had made yet and along came the dude in the KOA golf cart. He stopped by to inform us that there was a fire ban and we had to put the fire out immediately. That’s ok. We didn’t need the heat and the wood was cheap anyway. Needless to say we went to sleep pretty early last night.

This morning we woke up about as sweaty as we’d expected. We took care of that and went to the Bill Clinton Presidential Library, but not before having some surprisingly good bagel sandwiches at a nearby café. So I had suggested we go to the presidential library as I thought it’d be pretty interesting. More so, I had by chance to geek out in Roswell so, being an English teacher, I figured a library would be right up Jaimie’s alley. It only cost $7 to get in and it was quite worth it. I plan on visiting some of the other presidential libraries when I get a chance. 

We spent a solid few hours watching videos and looking at correspondence between the President and such dignitaries as the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Tony Danza. It was really cool to see letters hand-written by the first two. Tony Danza’s looked like it was a letter to George Lucas written by a 12-year-old.

We left behind sweaty Arkansas and headed in the direction of Tennessee. I say this, and not ‘went to Tennessee’ because for some reason it felt like it took us FOREVER to get to where we’re staying tonight. 

Beale Street

On the way to our camp we stopped in Memphis. Being a musician, it was a must. We went straight to the legendary Beale Street. It was wonderful and I wish we could’ve stayed there longer. Actually it seems like it really comes to life at night, considering there were a few bars that had walk-up windows at which you could buy drinks. We went to Dyer’s, a burger joint that claims it’s been cooking it’s food in the same oil for 100 years. Whatever, it was delicious. Dessert was a deep-fried Twinkie, complete with powdered sugar and strawberry syrup. I didn’t care that we had a 5 hour drive ahead of us. That needed to happen.

Deep Fried Twinkie

It wasn’t really that long of a drive, and we got here in the amount of time we were supposed to, but it felt like we had been driving for days. Jaimie and I could probably stand to work on our conversation skills, too. It was a quiet and pretty uneventful ride. We made it to our camp and set up in the dark. We have a fire going and we finally have decently working wifi. The only setback was when we traveled into “town” the only thing open was a Taco Bell. Not a big deal. I’m used to eating tacos in my car. Oh well, it’s off to bed to sleep to the sound of frogs and crickets. We need to get our rest; tomorrow we Zorb.

Mystery Solved

The birds that I was freaking out with the flashlight are...(drum roll)...


Grey Catbirds!!!

(pats herself on the back)

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Roswell to Texas

We awoke in Albuquerque, had some cereal and headed to Roswell. I expected New Mexico to be a little more sandy but it was surprisingly green on both sides of the car. It was however, flat. Definitely expected that. After only a few hours we arrived in Roswell! Definitely excited. I was in nerd heaven. There were alien-related things everywhere. The Arby’s (ugh) window said “Aliens Welcome.” The streetlights were alien heads. Since the crash site is private property (and I don’t ‘spect them to take kindly to trespassing ‘round these parts) we went to the International UFO Museum (although I don’t know of any branches in any other country; I should’ve asked the 17 year old cashier). We paid our $5 admission and got to see all sorts of newspaper articles on the crash, read stories about other UFO sightings/abductions and look at cheesy replicas and artists’ renderings. It was hokey and I loved it. 

There was a section on Area 51 and Jaimie almost had me convinced that we had driven right past it when we went through Nevada. After double-checking a map I realized she was wrong and I calmed down. We were on a time limit, so we left the museum and went to get lunch. Unfortunately the lady in the gift shop told me there weren’t any alien-themed restaurants. I told her maybe I’d move out here and start one. She seemed more concerned about what time she was going home. We decided to go to Weinerschnitzel, which had been recommended to us by my cousin in San Jose. We drove past that awful Arby’s and got some pretty great hotdogs and fries.

At this point I would like to note an interesting phenomenon. We drove through some small towns on the way to Roswell and they were all deserted. At one point we ran low on fuel and had to stop. Driving through this one town, I noticed homes and closed businesses. No cars. And then we passed the church. Full parking lot. Of course! It was 11:00am on a Sunday in the South. I thought about going in and seeing if someone could turn on one of the gas pumps. Thankfully there were some heathens at the Allsup gas station. We filled up, eyed some rather unsavory food sitting under heat lamps and settled on Moon Pies and Doritos for our post-cereal snack. Moon Pies, by the way are awesome. I don’t know if I’ll be able to find any in New Jersey when I get back, but I’ll try.

It was time to get to Lubbock, Texas. After about a 3 hour drive through fields of cattle and oil pumps we arrived. We set up camp and went in search of dinner. Of course, while in Texas, we had to go to a steakhouse. Of course, it was Sunday, and most of them were closed. We found Texas Land and Cattle, a franchise steakhouse. We ate some amazing steak amongst the heathens and headed back to camp. 

We sat down to work on our blog and apparently there are a number of birds that chirp in their sleep in the tree behind our tent. Jaimie is finding it quite humorous randomly shining the flashlight in their direction and listening to the startled commotion. I would have to agree. Tomorrow we head to Arkansas with a hopefully non-bird-poop-covered tent in tow.

**Jaimie researched Birds Native to Texas and narrowed it down to two possibilities...

Least Flycatcher or Grey Catbird???