A Flip Cam View of San Francisco
My Flip cam never stops surprising me. It is a wonderful “capture the moment” camera. Apryl got it for me last year, and it was a great idea! Here are a few videos I found over the weekend from our Big Adventure.
First up – A quick walk through the Palace of Living Art at the San Francisco Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf
If you look really carefully, there is a wax sculpture that looks just like Apryl.
Next, The Aquarium of the Bay!
a Street car ride of course:
Last, a view of the bridge. Then we continued north.
23 Days, 18 States, and a Camera
It has been about two months since our big adventure wrapped up. We haven’t shared much in the way of pictures, so here is one from each state that we visited.
New Jersey and you Perfect Together
I didn't take many pictures in PA
I discovered my inner narcissist in Ohio
We had a lovely breakfast at The Ambrosia Bella Cafe Angola in IN
Morris Il. was a fun town to find by taking an unplanned turn off the highway
The Mississippi River
Iowa Corn
South Dakota was really tough. We took so many cool pictures. I like this one.
As we drove towards the Devils Tower Apryl was looking down at a map as she asked "Where is this thing?" I said, "There it is." To which Apryl replied "Holy _______'n __________!"
I would like to live in the Pink Coral Sand Dunes of Utah
I can't believe there are no railings around places like the Grand Canyon. Why didn't nature account for tourists that have problems with heights like myself?
We were in Vegas for a total of fifteen hours, so a car shot seemed appropriate.
California is really like three states, so here are three pictures.
Southern CA outside of Palm Springs
Central CA winery
San Francisco Street Car - I think the woman to our left was a spy and was following us.
Our faithful Prius and a snow-covered mountain peak in Oregon. I wasn't supposed to pump my gas... I didn't know.
We went to a wedding in Washington
Seattle was where we abandoned our little Prius that took us many thousands of miles...
... so that we could squeeze into a sleeper car on Amtrak. This was the view up to my bunk. There really was that little room.
Glacier Park Montana looked nice from the train.
This was taken somewhere in North Dakota
Minnesota - Known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes", the state's name comes from a Dakota word for "sky-tinted water".
If you should ever have the chance to visit the Wisconsin Torture Museum... I'm kidding. This was from the train. This was the beginning of our descent into insanity. This train trip was tooooooo long.
In Chicago I played "Untouchables" when we got off the train for a few hours.
"Get out of my way. I need to get off this train." This was somewhere near Albany. We were just about home.
Lastly, one extra photo. This was a picture from the beat Museum in San Francisco. Apparently Kerouac took a hitchhiking trip that was eerily similar to our route.
Not Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, Part 2
Before you read on, you should check out part one of Not Hitchcock’s North by Northwest 2 by clicking ………… here
Part 2
The Imperial Storm Trooper stands revealed as Vandamm, who formerly dealt in state secrets, and was arrested because of Roger Thornhill’s bumbling interference. They both loved the same woman! Men died for their love…. But just now, something surprising has occurred! Their encounter has been interrupted by, well, just see…
"What the HELL is that?"
"What the devil is what?" "Over there you fool! What is that?!?!"
“I have no idea what you’re talking about? Stop mucking about and put ‘em up.”
“It's a freaking dinosaur! Run!”
"A what?"
End of Part 2.
Join us tomorrow for the epic conclusion to this conflict years and light-years in the making!
A Lot Like Mars
We are currently driving through the Mojave desert. It is 106 degrees. The Prius is holding up well and Smashing Pumpkins is playing.
Out of the blue, Apryl says “the Mojave looks a lot like Mars.” To which I reply, “that is because, and I’m fairly sure of this, many Hollywood films have used these mountains to act as a Mars location. ”
Damn you Hollywood for fooling me with your Mars stand-ins! Is everything that you do fake?
North by Northwest 2 – Part 1
“How could this happen to me again? Who the devil is flying that plane?”
VROOOOOOOOMMMMMMM! “I live to do Lord Vader’s bidding.”
“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
Boom! There is a horrible explosion as the propeller plane crashes into a gasoline truck!
"I did it!!!!!"
“You did nothing! Who are you? Who sent you!”/////// “Isn’t it obvious Thornhill old boy? I’m Vandamm! I was trained by Lord Vader so I could return and destroy you!”
End of Part 1…..
Kenab, Utah – A Hollywood Oasis
Previously on the Bigg Adventure: Bikers! Deadwood! Steak Deburgo! Lewis and Clark’s Dog! Polygamy Pale Ale! Rob and Apryl floated in the Great Salt Lake!
Next Stop—-
Kenab: "little" because you can drive from border to border in three minutes flat at 35 mph. "Hidden" because it is hidden away in the mountains like some ancient Buddhist temple.
Kenab is located in Kane County at the southern border of Utah on the western-ish side. The only reason we even found this enjoyable little hidden gem was because all the hotels in the Bryce Canyon area and Zion National Park area were booked. We settled on Kenab. Well, I settled on Kenab. I made a reservation immediately, because there was only one hotel out of the six or so in town that had rooms left. And, that was about six weeks before our arrival! So, I made the reservation. Then I hit google, because I would have to convince Apryl that this strange little town would be worth our time. There needed to be something there!
A townie
The very first search I did for Kenab came back with a page referring to it as ‘Little Hollywood.’ Huh? I clicked. I read. Eyes wide with excitement I discovered that the Kenab area was home to the production of more than three hundred westerns. This is great for me, but will it be enough for Apryl? Probably not. She’s not really into westerns.
The day before Kenab we were looking for another hotel. We still had doubts about our reservation. We were going to stay at a hotel that, on the internet, seemed a little iffy for a town we had never heard of before a few weeks ago. Everything, and I mean everything was booked, which I knew already. Nothing changed. We said “screw it.” Kenab was where we were going to stay for the night. It placed us an hour and forty five minutes from the north rim of the Grand Canyon. Perfect for the next morning. We wake up and we go. Perfect. Almost too perfect—
Kenab Movie House. $2 Westerns on Monday nights at 7pm. I'm moving here.
20 miles north of town is the Coral Pink Sand Dunes National Park. We thought that sounded nice. Who doesn’t want to see a pink dune? There are probably unicorns and elves there too. To get there, our GPS guided us to a barely paved piece of road, skewing off 11 miles straight into the desert. Having seen too many ‘stranded in a weird place’ horror films, I said to myself “This is probably where something horrific could happen… If it’s gonna happen it’ll be here. I should have brought a gun. Where’s my leatherman?” Nothing bad happened. On the contrary, it was an amazing experience.
Pinkish sand and desert plants
The sand was so soft, almost velvety. The flowers and foliage were amazing. There were places to rent dune buggies and dirt bikes. We were not able to do that, but it didn’t matter. Utah is on our short list from this trip of where we are definitely coming back to.
The whole state of Utah from top to bottom offered something different every 50 miles. The landscape is beautiful. The people were kind and welcoming. I’m trying to talk Apryl into a ski trip. I picked up a bunch of trail maps, and am constantly pulling them out of my pocket to say “How’d that get in there?”
Wind battered, sand covered, and sunburned we arrived in town to see the FREE Little Hollywood Museum. Soooo much fun. I played Cowboys and Indians for about an hour. There were props. I had a (prop)gun. Set pieces from dozens of films were on display. I felt like a kid.
Draw!
Fair is Fair!
This land is my land. It is not your land.
We’re in Vegas now. There are explosions outside our room every two minutes. It is very different from Kenab, UT.
Films and TV made in and around Kenab:
The Lone Ranger (1938 and 1956), Stagecoach(1939), Wagon Train (1940), Billy The Kid (1941), Tall in the Saddle (1944), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Best of The Badmen (1951), El Dorado (1967), Planet of the Apes (1967 and 2001), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (1979), Point Break (1991), One Little Indian (1973), F-Troop, How the West was Won, Have Gun will Travel, Grizzly Adams, Lassie, Wagon Train, The Lone Ranger, and many many more.
“This is the place.”
I get it! After trekking diagonally across the nothingness of Wyoming, as the Mormans did, I understand why they arrived in Utah and said, “This is the place.”
Sturgis vs Comic-Con! Bikers vs. Geeks!
Sturgis Bound Tourist!
The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is happening now. We drove right through the center of it. As a result, since Pennsylvania we have been on the road with tens of thousands of bikers. At first it was great! Apryl and I thought it was the most hysterical thing. Here we are in our eco-friendly car amongst choppers, crotch rockets, three wheelers, sidecars, etc.
On route 80 in Pennsylvania and Ohio there were sporadic bikers. In Iowa there were probably twice as many as in Illinois or Indiana. Once we hit South Dakota, it was like someone spilled water on a biker Gremlin, because they totally freaking multiplied.
Each morning at each hotel I’ve felt completely at ease being the one ‘non-biker’ at the complimentary continental breakfast ( I bring Apryl coffee). Why is this? I had no idea until yesterday. I had an Epiphany. The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and Comic-Con (California or NYC) share many similarities! Bikers and geeks are very similar animals. I’m sure biker and geek alike would disagree, but hear me out.
1. Attendees of both view themselves as outsiders. They are more comfortable with the enjoyment of what they love, rather than attempting to conform to boring social norms. A biker enjoys the camaraderie of the club or gang he or she affiliates him or herself with. A geek enjoys the camaraderie found when he or she finds the right comic book store, or online guild, or circle of friends.
2. Both gatherings encourage playing dress-up! the more unique the better as long as you express your love of the rally/ con and your individuality within the group. For the rally, it can be expressed through tattoos or custom bikes. At the con, it would be cosplay which is dressing like a comic or sci-fi character to attend the show.
3. You have the “bump into” aspect of it all. At both events, if you are a regular, you develop friends that you only see at that event. Year after year you see that person and give them a high-five, buy them a beer, catch up. You might even feign making plans. There is always the “What’s your number again? We should totally get a beer sometime.” conversation. At Sturgis you do— well, exactly the same thing.
4. The competitive nerd knowledge. At both events you are seeing the MOST obsessed fans. At both I’ve heard very similar arguments. In a Diner in the Town of Midland, I overheard a biker’s tirade about how kids today know nothing about how to fix, build, or even drive a real American Car. 
The same discussion can just as easily be overheard at Comic-Con. You just need to replace the subject with Star Trek, and listen to them go on about how kids today don’t know what good sci-fi is.
5. The girls. How do you get a huge number of introverted men together in a central location to celebrate anything? Girls. Through Rapid City, Deadwood, Sturgis, etc, There were free bikini bike wash stations. Of course they were set up at “Official Sturgis Merchandise Tents!” Comic-Con uses a similar tool. They use Booth Babes to push products.
She could have been at either event, and probably was.
Free Doesn’t Mean it Has to Work
Blogging on the road is difficult. I knew it would be. And I knew it would be an excercise in discipline. But it is nearly impossible when the free wifi doesn’t work. It is hard to blog by phone as I am doing right now on my dying Droid. I have so much to say about Iowa and Corn Palace and the Badlands, but it must wait till we have an Internet connection as promised! For now, pictures
Sweet Ride
Before I can even begin to recount our daily travels, I need to first explain our sweet ride.
The day before we left I had to go down to the only Alamo rental place in New Jersey. We had reserved a “Standard,” and had no idea what kind of car that meant. The photo on the reservation page showed a Pontiac, which I thought was great, a sturdy, American car to drive through the sturdy, middle of America. My first car was a Pontiac, it would be fitting. I’d also happily take a Ford or a Chevy, or something with good, American sweat baked into the steel of the chassis.
It was over ninety degrees. The sky was colorless, searing. The North East humidity draped over me like a hot, wet towel. The air was thick and acrid. (Typical Jersey summer on the mainland.) I was super-excited to leave New Jersey in whatever kind of car they handed me the keys to, even a Hyundai or a Kia. When I got there the guy, Anthony, behind the counter said, you have two choices, “A Kia Sol or a Prius.”
Our ride. 2010 Toyota Prius.
“Oh, the Prius!” I said, not thinking about my pledge to be “of America,” as once again, my conversationalist nature took over. (Now, I have seen the “Penn and Teller: Bullshit” episode that discounts the economical and ecological benefits of the hybrid vehicle. However, how can you argue with saving money on gas and using less of it?)
The man sitting next to Anthony laughed. “You should see your face,” he said, in between bites of a KFC drumstick. “It’s like you just won something.”
“Well, what kind of choice is that?” I asked. “Do you know how much money we’re going to save on gas?” I explained that we, my husband and I were driving cross-country, to which the man eating the chicken disagreed stating his wife would kill him before they ever made it out of Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania. Yes, I brought my organic balsamic vinaigrette with me from home.
As I left the Alamo place and sat in the parking lot learning how to turn the Prius on and then put it in park, (thankfully, Rob’s mother drove me down there in her Prius), I had a bad feeling. I imagined Rob and myself silently pulling into Deadwood, South Dakota road-weary, dusty, possibly wearing cowboy hats with horse-tail bands, in Eco mode, parking our energy-efficient hybrid vehicle next to a flatbed Ford and feeling like, well, like the jerks in the Prius. Then, I thought, will I be able to find my Chobani yogurt? My soy milk? My organic, seven-grain bread and cage-free brown eggs? What of my jojoba oil, my Nature’s Gate lotion, my Burt’s Bees everything. I don’t eat meat, and the rest of the country sure does!
But then, remembering many scenes in Westerns where all they do at night is sit around a fire and eat beans from a tin cup, I calmed down quickly. (But, were the beans be organic?) And I felt like an even bigger jerk, a New Yorker, not real, and just assuming that the rest of the country is so backwards and uninformed. And that is not, in the least bit, the way I wanted this trip to go or the feeling I wanted to carry across the country.
I wasn’t really thinking so much in this way when we started planning this trip in May. I wasn’t thinking about the cost of gas, or “the cost of gas.” I wasn’t stressing over food, (I assumed I could eat a vegetable anywhere), or products, or anything really.
We first thought we’d take the train there and back. Then, and I think both of us we maybe a little hesitant to suggest such a crazy thing, we decided, “Let’s drive out.” (Really? Yeah. We can’t do that. Why not? Okay.) We always planned on taking the train home since all the colleges I work at start at the end of August and K&C’s wedding is the 21st. So, to get out, we thought we’d rent an RV, the total opposite of eco-friendly vehicle. An RV seemed the classic, diving-cross-country mode of transportation, King of the Road and all that, and that was just what we were going for.
Well, and here are some travel tips for you, not many RV places are interested in renting one-way. No, they apparently want their vehicle’s back. Those that would do a one-way change a huge one-way fee. So, add to that normal daily/weekly charge and we were looking at in excess of $6,000 bucks, and we’d have to ditch the RV somewhere in Southern California and rent a car. So, given the cost of gassing that puppy up, emptying the toilet (eww), the fact that it probably wouldn’t haul-ass like we needed it to, and that neither one of us had driven a vehicle that size since our days of freelancing on films, we eventually scrapped the idea of the RV and decided on renting an SUV. We’d need the room, the tinted windows. Somehow, we scaled back further to a “Standard.”Alamo has the best prices out there for long-term rentals. Not even the AAA discount with Hertz came close to the price we got. Alamo also has free mileage! And that is how we ended up driving cross-country in a Toyota Prius, let’s face it, the be-all of yuppie environmentalism. I wanted to be King of the Road, see America.
Iowa.
I looked out the window yesterday as we drove through Iowa, further West than I have ever been. Vibrant, rolling, patterned fields, like vacuumed green carpets, corn, black cows dotting the landscape. Iowa produces a tenth of the nation’s food, and forgetting all the horrors about food and the farming industry and soy beans and corns that I hear and read and watch, I was driving through the town where my food comes from. The sun was setting. We had just realized that, having crossed time zones hundreds of miles back, we got a hour of time back. The car was running in Eco Mode, silently hauling-ass, not disturbing anything. King of the Road.
In over a thousand miles, we have filled the gas tank four times. Today, I ate a white egg and drank orange juice from a Minute Maid machine. I washed my face and body with hotel soap. I had water from the tap. I didn’t die, and nothing died in my wake.
Actual trip stuff like Rob has done… coming soon! I promise, no more essays about my hang-ups. (Well, for a few days.)
Apryl Lee
Robert Lee
Big Adventure 