Sedona, Arizona!

We'll start today with Santa Fe part 2. We woke up and immediately drove to the Cross of the Martyrs on the recommendation of Sutton. Great call Dave. The Cross of the Martyrs sits on a giant hill and offers 360 degree views of Santa Fe and the surrounding mountains. Enjoy the pictures.


Soon after we made the hour long drive down to Alburquerque, NM to see some Route 66 action and to eat at Doug's friend's favorite restaurant in town. Goose of course led us into traffic and construction. New Mexico has had the most road work so far and it's been brutal. Once on Route 66 we enjoyed the old signs for car washes, motels, and other roadside attractions that are now rundown and closed. We arrived at the Frontier Restaurant and had some authentic New Mexican food. It is HUGE and very popular because it is right across the street from the University of New Mexico. Here are some pictures of our meal, be jealous.


After The Frontier we drove to Sedona. We drove through a pine tree forest and then it started to SNOW. We thought we had hit a worm hole in the space time continuum and shot back to New England. Hours later I had an $8 white russian and knew we were definitely back in Boston. Sedona is incredible, do yourself a favor and Google it because my pictures won't do this town justice. More pics to come shortly.


To get to Sedona we had to drive through the mountains down winding narrow roads close to cliffs and canyons. I had a blast navigating the Stang through the turns and flooring it through the straightaways (Yentch-Think Need for Speed Carbon). Doug was terrified.

The small town of Sedona is great. It is lined with shops and there are red red mountains in every direction. We walked the strip and then ate at the Oak Creek Brewery for burgers. After dinner we tried on cowboy hats and conversed with the lucky locals.

At a small pottery shop the women behind the counter told us it would be sunny and beautiful on Friday, despite the freezing rain that was coming down outside. She promised Doug a copper cactus if it wasnt't. It is sunny and beautiful today, so no copper cactus for Doug.


Welcome to the 21st Century: Something Corporate, Big Japan, & Modest Mouse. Doug was fine with Something Corporate for the first 8 tracks, then couldn't take anymore of Andrew McMahon's whiny voice.

Quote of the Day: Your head is 7 7/8ths, that's uh almost 8- Authentic Cowboy

And lastly, this is for Shawn, closest I could get:

Say Hey Santa Fe

OK kids, I'm finally ready to update the blog for the trek from Oklahoma City to Santa Fe, NM. Sorry that you had to do actual work today. It was 530+ miles and 8 hours for Wednesday's leg of the journey through three states, OK, Texas, and New Mexico. Everything's bigger in Texas, even my pictures.

We drove through the panhandle of Texas, which provided us with some great views. Unfortunately it was pretty overcast and the pictures don't do the canyon photos any justice (see above). They had really cool grills shaped like Texas. Don't mess with Texas.

After driving through Amarillo while starving we decided to stop for food. According to Goose the nearest restaurant was 16 miles behind us, but coming up in 20 miles was Libby's Diner on Route 66. We got off the highway in Vega, Texas. I was excited because the sign said Vega was home to the Texas High School Football Champions. Goose directed us to a road in Vega that I refused to drive down, Doug says I got that from my mother, so we went to Dairy Queen. Our portions were huge, everything's bigger in Texas. We made conversation with a 80+ year old local who only had 1 eye, let's call him patchy. I asked Patchy about their football team and he couldn't remember the last time they won anything, so that State Championship must have been long ago. I wish I had pictures from Vega, it was a typical rundown Route 66 town.

We saw another gigantic cross in Texas. Crazy Christians.

New Mexico!!! Great change in scenery.

Route 66 is completely dead...enjoy the desolate pictues....

Isn't it supposed to be warm in New Mexico? The temperature dropped to below 50 degrees and got even colder since we were climbing into the mountains of Santa Fe. We got off the highway and took backroads North, bad idea. We got stopped by construction, an alien woman, and a pace car. See pictures. The views were great though.

Santa Fe is a really cool city. It is small, flat, surrounded by mountains, and not crowded at all. By flat I mean that the houses and buildings are pueblo style. See pictures. We stayed at the Hotel Santa Fe and ate at Santa Fe cafe. Both were adequate. After dinner we got in the hot tub at the hotel. It was relaxing until we got out, then I froze. It was time to update the blog, but 30 hours of driving in 4 days did me in and I crashed.

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There you go, very detailed and long to keep you all entertained at work. I will try to update in the morning with Santa Fe part 2, Alburquerque, and Sedona Arizona part 1. By the way, I'm three hours behind y'all now.

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Welcome to the 21st Century: Hellogoodbye, Imogen Heap, Mickey Avalon, Motion City Soundtrack, Reliant K, and Rooney. Doug liked Hellogoodbye and hated Mickey Av, who he called sad. He also said it was sad that I don't know who Jane Fonda is.

Quote of the Day: How's the football team? Well, let's just say they like to play- Patchy

Oh Oklahoma

Oh Oklahoma

Today was a great day on the road. The scenery finally changed and we saw green fields, budding trees, and rolling hills. It was also a great day for road signs. We loved that there were billboards that said JESUS right next to the ones for Adult Superstore. My personal favorite was an ad for reverse vasectomy. I mean that's great, but does it really need to be on a billboard? In rural Missouri it does.


It was 500 miles from St. Louis to Oklahoma City. Leaving St. Louis I kept remarking about how sweet of a city it is, but it is completely deserted after 5 pm. Soon I found out that Oklahoma City is the same way. Here is one last shot of the awesome hotel in Clayton/St. Louis. Thank you to Beth for recommending it.

We made great time again today, I drove the first leg and got nothing but sunshine and blue skies, Doug drove second and was pounded with rain. Where there's rain and sun, there's a rainbow.

We made a stop on the Historic Route 66 for the first time. The attached picture is actually from a gas station in St. Louis because the real Route 66 wasn't worth photographing yet.

This is for the kids in the Nintendo generation: while I was driving today I couldn't help but think about how much the views looked like level 3 of Rad Racer. Straight roads for miles and miles, all I was missing was the techno tunes. If only I had to reach black checkered flags to keep moving instead of putting $2.50 per gallon gas in my car...

Oklahoma City is home to the Oklahoma City National Memorial to remember those who were killed in the April 19, 1995 bombing. At the time it was the most violent and deadly act of terrorism on American Soil killing 149 adults and 19 children. The memorial is beautiful and is definitely worth seeing if you are ever in the Ok City area. The lighting was perfect for photography today and I have attached the following pictures.

After seeing the memorial we drove around Oklahoma City looking for a buzzworthy area. Down by the Ford Center people were rapidly filing into the OK/NO Hornets vs. Dallas Mavericks game. This was the busiest area of the city, as everywhere else seemed dead. Then we happened upon Bricktown, an amazing little neighborhood. Oklahoma is the birthplace of Mickey Mantle, so outside Bricktown ballpark, home of the OK City Redhawks, is a Mantle statue and the Mickey Mantle #7 steakhouse. Very cool.

After getting a shot of me and Mickey, my camera died. I would have loved to show you more of Bricktown, but here is a shot that hopefully captures the atmosphere.



Welcome to the 21st Century: Death Cab for Cutie and Stars: Doug really liked Death Cab and enjoyed Stars as well.

Quote of the Day: "Looks like a redneck bus just let out"-Doug while analyzing the line at a Subway in the middle of nowhere Missouri

Santa Fe tomorrow, I'm really looking forward to it since the ride should look like this....

Welcome to Jesusland

Trust Jesus! We left Cleveland this morning at about 9:45 et and arrived in St. Louis at 6:00 ct. So far we have traveled 1,174 miles. On just about every bridge between Columbus and St. Louis someone spraypainted the words 'Trust Jesus'. Gotta love the Bible Belt. Somewhere in Illinois we spotted a 3 story tall cross, it was unreal. Other than that, it was brown fields the whole way. We hit four states today, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri.

St. Louis was definitely the highlight of the day, we even forded the Mississippi River and no one died from dysentery. I saw Busch Stadium and snapped some good shots for Shawn. Next came the Arch it's a lot smaller than they make it seen on tv, but still cool to see.

We are staying at the Seven Gables Inn, which is in Clayton, a city in the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. The neighborhood is really nice and the hotel is pretty swanky. When we checked in we had wine and cheese. Next we headed down the street to an Italian restaurant called Portobellos. We walked aroud Old Town, which has beautiful homes with gas lamps lighting up the front of each house. Before bed they serve cookies, Lyons would love this place.

Here are the top photos of the day: Indiana, Illinois, giant cross, road to nowhere, the Arch, Busch Stadium, pretty downtown Clayton, me in a swanky bathrobe, and the hotel room.


Quote of the Day: "Redneck, Blue Collar" spotted on a t-shirt at a Wendy's in the middle of nowhere.

On the dial: Mike Birbiglia's Dog Years comedy cd, Jeff Buckley, Nathanial Castro, and the local oldies station for Doug.

I am exhausted, check back tomorrow for the Oklahoma update.

Additions: St. Louis is a stange city. We rolled in around 6 and there was no traffic. We walked the streets around 7:30 and there was no one around. This is definitely a city I could live in, it was very quiet and the apartments and houses were beautiful. Very large update on Oklahoma City is coming...