Camping in Style

So turns out that a lot of KOA kampgrounds have WIFI. It's sweet! We had a good day yesterday. We drove to Portland because we heard it was a cool city. It seemed pretty cool, but it's kind of hard to really judge a city in a few hours, especially on a Sunday late afternoon early evening. We had the chance to check out two local breweries, Deschutes and Rogue. While in Seattle we picked up a NW beer magazine and there was a big article about Deschutes so we decided it would be a good choice. Tom and his family arrived in Portland to visit his brother Alvin about the same time we did. That resulted in a side trip to play Rock Band for a couple hours. After we left Alvin's place we drove another 1.5 hours South to get to our campground. We are all packed now and about to hit the road, we have about 6 hours of driving to get down to Redwood National Park, should be sweet!

Itinerary for the week:
6/30: Redwood
7/1: Napa
7/2: Napa (probably drive to Yosemite that night)
7/3 Yosemite during the day drive to Cupertino/San Fran that night)
7/4 San Fran
7/5 San Fran
7/6 Drive to LA
.

See ya Seattle

We're packing up to leave Seattle today. We are just taking a short trip down the road to Portland, about a 3 hour drive. We begin or decent down the coast and will ultimately end up in San Diego in about a week and a half or so. Seattle was a good time. There are not a lot of destinations here, mostly just a chill hanging out kind of city it seems, possibly best described as a very large Ann Arbor. It was a good stop to rejuvenate and get ready for our West Coast swing and also get some showers in and get laundry done.

We had an interesting evening last night. Budaj took us to a couple of parties hosted by various other Microsoft employees, which we promptly left. After leaving the second party we set off on a quest to find a store to buy some beer from. This quest turned into us walking for about two hours total and seeing some great sites of Seattle. We got to see the bum central under the highway, they were lined up as far as the eye could see and it smelled of urine. We then ventured into a run down area of town and finally found a gas station that was open. This is when things started to get interesting. We're pretty sure there was some drug dealing going on in the parking lot, then the service attendant talked to us about how there is a lot of crime in Detroit and they have a crooked mayor. As we began our return trip we were fourtunate enough to watch possibly a man dressed as a woman or just a very tall and stocky woman get dumped by her boyfriend in the IHOP parking lot. SHe proceeded to have a breakdown and cry in the parking lot for about 15 minutes before we decided it was time to move on. Finally as we were about 3 blocks away from home we saw what was the beginning of some sweet love being made on the roof of a hotel. Our attention was initially grabbed by seeing someone kind of leaning over the edge of the roof, so we stopped to check it out for a minute and then saw another hand holding a bra over the edge. All in all a very entertaining night.

We're off to Portland now, possibly to hang out with Tom Potti.

Seattle bar review

We've been in Seattle for a couple nights now and we have been pretty lucky with our choices of bars. In particular Budaj took us to a really cool place last night called Zig Zag Cafe. Its a small place by the water, pretty much tucked away and if you didn't know about it you probably would not just stumble upon it, so kudos to Budaj for knowing about it. Zig Zag was not like many other bars I have been to or seen. It is pretty small, but their liquor selection is truly second to none and they have an outrageously knowledgeable staff. The two co-owners work the floor and the bartender pours a mean drink. This place doesn't really fit into the realm of dive bar, but I think we have moved away from dive bar and shifted to just bar review. The picture is a bottle of "Vietnamese moonshine" with a baby cobra in the bottle. The bartender also knows other high end bartenders around the country and even gave Budaj's roommate Martin $20 and a note to give to one of his bar manager friends in Boston when they go back to school in the fall. Highly recommended if you are in Seattle and want a nice chill place with great drinks.

A Milestone

Thank you all for allowing us to reach the milestone of 1,000 views in less than two weeks. The ultimate goal is to have 10,000 hits by the end of the trip, so as always, check this blog early and often.

Week 1 in Review

We have been on the road for just over one week now, so I thought it would be a great time for a recap. We left AA at about noon on Thursday the 19th bound for Best Buy to exchange an iPod adapter then head out for Sioux Falls. We arrived in Sioux Falls late that night with little problem, except for the hail that we ran into about 10 miles from Dakota's house. We got some sleep that night and then the next day we saw the falls in Sioux Falls, started out bar review and I lost in bowling (twice). We left the following day for Mt. Rushmore and along the way we stopped to see the Corn Palace in Mitchell and Wall Drug in Wall. After leaving Rushmore we drove past Crazy Horse and ultimately ended up sleeping in our outdoor estate at a KOA in Spearfish SD. The following day we made our way to Yellowstone where we saw a moose, what we now think is a grizzly bear and a buffalo within 30 minutes. The next three days were spent exploring Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons (check the pictures out via the link on the right side of the page). Wednesday we had a very productive day. We woke up at 5:30 AM to go watch the sun rise over the mountains and then decided to just keep going for the day. We had originally planned on camping somewhere between Yellowstone and Seattle that night and then spending the better part of Thursday driving, those plans were changed and we just drove all the way to Seattle that day/night. We are now just hanging out in Seattle. Budaj (our host) has to work so we are just keeping ourselves entertained during the day. Yesterday we went down to Pike's Peak for the day. It was pretty cool, but not quite as exciting watching them throw fish as I had hoped. Yeah so that is a quick recap of what our first week has been.

Bar Review x 2

This is going to act as a double review since these were both in the same city. Turns out Grand Tetons is a fairly small park and is also really close to Jackson Hole. Not really paying attention we ended up leaving the park and just decided we might as well go the additional 10 miles and check out the city, so we did. Earlier that morning we had meet a family from Illinois who had been coming to the Tetons for over 30 years and the father had said we need to go check out the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in Jackson. That's exactly what we did. It seems like more of a tourist attraction than a bar, but it was still pretty cool and quite expensive ($11 for two beers + tip). The place is huge. There are two very large bars on either side of the room as well as a smaller one in the back, there are also some smaller rooms downstairs, possibly VIP rooms. All the seats at the bars are saddles, kind of a cool novelty, but could get uncomfortable quickly. They had a decent local beer selection, which we came to discover later that there is a small brewery in Jackson. As we were enjoying out Snake River OB-1 Organic beers Robby came through with a very good text message and told me we should go to the Snake River Brewery for dinner and get the Hefeweizen. Snake River Brewery had delicious beer and good food as well. We got to see one of the brew-masters working on some beer. All in all a very good trip to Jackson Hole! Special thanks to Robby for the great recommendation as well!

Bar Review!

Alright, I told you there would be a barrage of posts once we got to Seattle, so I am going to be working on that all morning. Our next bar wasn't quite as much of a dive as the first, but it was still a cool place. It was in Deadwood and it was the location where Wild Bill was shot. We also got to see his grave. The bar was pretty cool. There were only a few table other than that just plenty of counter space at the bar. They did have PBR on draft, so that's always a plus and it doubled as a casino, much like everything in Deadwood. We walked the strip that was maybe a mile long and everything on the strip is a restaurant/bar/casino or a gift shop. It was a pretty cool city, as long as you were not going to be there long or the only things you were interested in doing were losing money via drinking, eating and gambling.

We Have Photos!

Check out my Flickr page for a sampling of photos from South Dakota, Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons. There is a link on the right side of the page labeled trip pics for easier access.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28002292@N03/

We have video

We told you the posts would get better once we got on the road. We saw this today at Yellowstone, it was way cooler than Old Faithful (which we also saw) Sorry the video is sideways.

We have arrived in Seattle!

So we are about 18 hours ahead of schedule. We decided to just drive all the way to Seattle today. It started with us getting up at 5 AM to watch the sunrise over the mountains and then being too cold to go back to sleep. We decided to just pack up and go. We made to Old Faithful by 9 AM and were out of Yellowstone before noon. It was about an 11 hour drive to Seattle but we gained an hour so got here at about 11:15 PST. We'll get pics and more up tomorrow.

Idaho= No Potatoes

We are in Idaho, and have now have crossed all timeszones. Hopefully the potato fields appear soon.

Montana

It has been a busy day. We woke up at 5 this morning to see the sunrise on the Tetons, and then broke camp by 7. The rest of the morning was spent on the west side of Yellowstone watching geysers...yes, we saw Old Faithful, but Beehive geyser was better, perhaps the best photo I have ever taken. Currently in Missoula in western Montana on the way to Seattle. The weather has been great and people overtly friendly, a departure from Michigan. Perhaps it is our friendly appearance. Also, we've met several alums... they're everywhere.

Jackson Hole

We just kayaked across lake Jenny infront of the Grand Teton itself! Currently in Jackson Hole and will be around town for a little while checking things out. Tonight will be spent at the Signal campsite in Teton national park. Also, we summited a mountain today.

Tetons!

We are atop Signal Mt in the Tetons. Beautiful weather. No clouds around the mountains and we have set up camp. Survived the night in a high grizzly area, things are well. Pictures hopefully soon. Keep refreshing for more updates.

How the West was Won

So the West may have been won, but they certainly have not adopted all the technology that we have grown accustomed to back in AA. We lost cell phone reception at about 2 PM Mountain time on Sunday and had to venture out of Yellowstone to get cell reception and internet. We are currently sitting in a little gift shop/coffee shop using their wireless. We have done a lot since the last post including but not limited to seeing the Corn Palace in Mitchell SD, spent some time at Mt. Rushmore, drove by Crazy Horse, found a campsite in Spearfish SD, drove to Yellowstone (while losing cell phone reception), within 30 minutes of being in Yellowstone we saw a moose, a bear and a buffalo walking (possibly drunk) down the road, camped last night in Yellowstone by the lake and today have seen tons of stuff. Our itinerary for the rest of the week is looking like camp in the Southern part of Yellowstone tonight, tour Grand Tetons tomorrow and camp, Old faithful and a bit more of Yellowstone and camping on Wednesday, then head to Seattle on Thursday and stay until Sunday morning. This will more than likely be the last post you get until we get to Seattle Thursday night. Once we get to Seattle we will have a barrage of posts and post a link to our photos.

We Are Still Here!

Sorry for the delays posting. There appears to be no quality phone signals between Eastern South Dakota and Yellowstone. We made it through Wyoming yesterday after camping in the Black Hills just outside of Deadwood the night before. After a smart decision to take a mountain pass into the East Yellowstone entrance we saw a moose eating some delicious things in the first 100 yards. Five miles down the road there was a buffalo walking down the middle of the road not caring that people were all around him. Just past that there was a bear right on the edge of the lake so we had to get up close and take a picture with it. Camping was right on the edge Yellowstone Lake next to a trail that was closed due to bear activity, somewhat unnerving when climbing into the tent at night. It got cold, 35ish degrees cold, but we survived. This morning we traveled the east side of the park and took in all the sights and climbed down several hundred stairs to get pictures of the lower falls. This is really beautiful country and we are enjoying it immensely. Stay current by checking this blog frequently.

Spotty Signals

Seen a lot today. Corn Palace, Mt. Rushmore, Blackhills. We just left Deadwood...

Adios S. Falls

We packing our stuff up to leave Sioux Falls. Today we will be driving to Mt. Rushmore and the surrounding area, where we will be camping. Dakota brought up a great point yesterday and that was to make sure we took a good shower this morning as we are not too sure when the next one will be. We are going from Rushmore to Yellowstone/Grand Teton and camping the whole way before arriving in Seattle probably Thursday the 26th. Dakota put the over-under at 18 showers each for the 30 day adventure, we are currently at 2 each. Let us know and we can keep a running pool and we will keep you updated. That's all from Sioux Falls, hopefully we will be able to find some WiFi on the road in the next couple of days, if not it may be a bit before the next post.

Dive bar review

We decided to try and visit dive bars that we may run into along the way. This is our first one. It was quite a classy joint. We enjoyed a cool refreshing PBR, in the bottle. They had no beer on draft and the other 8 or 9 people were all smoking profusely. In the 15 minutes that we spent in the bar we got some great gossip about some woman breaking up with her boyfriend and her boyfriend getting all drunk and alleging her of sleeping with all the regulars at the Silver Moon. All in all it was a great place.

Busy Day!

We will try to post earlier in the day usually, but this was the first day and we didn't have the password to access wireless at our housing site. We've had a busy few days thus far. We left a bit later yesterday than we had planned, not until about 12:30 or so, but we successfully made the 800 miles drive in about 12 hours 15 minutes. Today has been quite action packed so far. We saw the falls that make Sioux Falls have the falls name, I got a hair cut and we decided to have a running segment on the blog that I will be starting right after I finish this post.

Riding a Pig

Hey KB blog followers, we just crossed the Mississippi and are heading west on I-80 in Iowa. No signs of flooding. We're making good time and the weather is clear. Also, Kyle and I rode a pig...

Late Notice!

Hey, its 11pm here in Ann Arbor and Kyle and I are going out to Charley's for a "going away." Anyone that wants to join feel free to come by.

I finished cleaning our whip yesterday, and will be packing it up with all the essential goods that we will need to go across America. We are now less than 24 hours away from departure.

LSAT check!

LSAT like money in the bank. Next step is decompressing for a few days and packing. I only have to work one more shift at Barton in the next month and that is in about 3 hours (it's going to be amazing not having to work for a whole month.) Also good news for all you east coasters, looks like we are going to be making an East coast swing in early August probably DC, then go see Tab and Baby Boy in NC and Eileen in VA. Thanks to everyone who is already checking the blog keep the hits rollin' and tell all your friends, we aren't coming back until we get 10,000 hits and don't worry I promise the posts will get better once we get on the road.

Countdown 'til departure

The blog goes public!

Our departure in nearing, so I thought now would be a good a time as any to create our blog that we have been discussing for so long now.  We will be blogging out whole experience from the road on a daily basis including sound and video, possibly with podcasting to come, we will keep you up to date on that.  That is all for now come back often as we have an ambitious goal of trying to get 10,000 hits before we come back.  

P.S.  For anyone who reads this before Monday don't forget to wish BIG good luck on his LSAT!