New Orleans - Day 6

NEW ORLEANS #1

Day 6 (as well as 7 and 8) was spent in New Orleans, Louisiana. Our hotel was located in the French Quarter, which turned out to be really charming and very pretty. The rooms were a tad on the small side, but the hotel was once used as a convent way back when and I'm pretty sure that we were staying in the remodeled nun's quarters. The size never really bothered us very much, only the Antarctic air conditioning.

A photo especially for Jenna of Nudibranchs and Toast because she knows that when I saw this I yelled "kittay!"

The first day in the city was passed by roaming around the French Quarter. The architecture in this place is truly amazing and we would often stop and just stare at the residences because they were so beautiful. I also nominate New Orleans as one of the nicest cities because we never passed by anyone on the street without receiving a genuine "good morning!"

While exploring, we sampled our very first beignets. Yes, there is a lot of powdered sugar on them, but it just adds to the fun when you take a bite and it goes everywhere.

The French Market - separate from the French Quarter and only a few blocks away, was filled with shopping, food, live entertainment, and bordered the Mississippi River.

Shortly after being attacked by extra large mosquitos at dinner, we took a haunted tour of the French Quarter. The tour consisted of walking around the blocks at night with a tour guide and learning about the history of several of the more famous buildings and residences. Stories included: the man that claimed to be a wine merchant and set up shop in his house and months later the police found that the bottles were mostly full of blood, the couple that did scientific experiments on their slaves in the attic, and the woman who froze to death on her rooftop.

Lastly, we made it a routine to visit Bourbon Street every night for fun. It's crazy all nights of the week and smells heavily of cigars, but entertaining nonetheless.

Temperature: a completely sweltering 104 degrees F

Favorite Part of the Day:

For both of us: Looking at the architecture and learning about the buildings

Favorite Quote:

Mom: From the stripper on the balcony on Bourbon Street throwing beads to the old man - "Show us some man titties!!!"

Annie: Shop owner- "Where are you from?"

Annie - "Washington State"

Shop owner, in all seriousness - "...are you the CIA??"

Day 5

TEXAS

Texas was passed through on the way to New Orleans after finishing up with Oklahoma (and we all know how riveting that was).

We found out that, yes, they really do make everything bigger in Texas

And this will also be listed under the "abundance" category, but statues of horses were everywhere. This particular one was right in front of a WalMart.

Temperature: 83 degrees F

Abnormal Roadside Items:

Armadillo

Opossum

Car battery

Yellow bucket

Grey bucket

White bucket

Orange bucket

Duct tape

Throw pillow

Flowered bed sheet

Maroon car fender

Animal tail (origin unknown)

Jack rabbit

Seat cushion

Plaid shirt

Abundant: Horse statues

LOUISIANA

Day 5 was concluded with a drive through the majority of Louisiana.

This part of the day was made especially interesting. We were playing a trivia game in the car to break the monotony of driving forever and it took a while to finish. At the conclusion, my mom looks over to me and says "your gas light is on we probably need gas". Internally, I'm panicking because we are in the middle of Louisiana swamp land with exits 10 miles apart and no gas stations. I asked her how many miles the car gauge said we had left.......ten. The internal panic worsens when I look over at where we are going to have to pull over and call a tow truck and there are signs all over the trees with pictures of bears on them and DO NOT ENTER. Oh. My. God. By some sort of miracle we went two more exits (a million miles) and found a Chevron. My mom claims that she wasn't paying attention because the trivia game was extremely competitive. Our result when we made it to the Chevron:

We neared New Orleans and crossed a 16 mile long bridge over a swamp and some lakes. This one was Henderson Swamp.

Temperature: 75 degrees F

Abnormal Roadside Items:

Rubber boot

Shoe

White bucket

Grey bucket

Black bucket

Armadillo

Prairie dog

Gas can

Rabbit

Raccoon

Opossum

Abundant: Signs with pictures of bears on them

Favorite part of the day:

Mom: Louisiana landscape looks like Washington

Annie: Going through Shreveport because I'm a True Blood fan

Favorite quote:

Mom: "70 mph really means 80"

Annie: "It looks like we might need gas"

Day 4

The Rest of COLORADO

After spending the day in Denver we continued on to Oklahoma City. The last part of Colorado that we drove through had tons of oil drilling machinery (I'm not quite sure how they work).

And then when we stopped for lunch, we went over a large bump and shorted out my rear speakers. This is where we pulled over to fix them:

Talk about the boonies of the mid-west. Just so you know, Oklahoma was worse.

Temperature: 72 degrees F

Abnormal Roadside Items:

Carpeting

Prairie dog

Deer

White bucket

Armadillo

Abundant:

Field windmills

OKLAHOMA

I'm including all of Oklahoma here, even though we only made it to Oklahoma City in Day 4. Really, I'm not leaving anyone in suspense doing it this way. The state is very flat, and flat. We took backroad highways in to avoid tolls (anything to be cheap!) and that was kind of an adventure in itself. Check out this very welcoming sign:

Of course, there are endless wheat fields

And some strange items along these highways, including a giant metal dinosaur and a decorated ceramic (?) cow

We didn't see a whole lot of anything else except what we assume had been abandoned tornado damaged homes. Losing an hour of time was hard on us. We skipped another hour ahead in this state, realized we were on rural roads, and had to settle for McFlurries for dinner - it was a miracle we even found a McDonalds.

Temperature: 81 degrees F

Abnormal Roadside Items:

Black shoe

Skunk

Pheasant

Fireman's helmet

Antelope

Porcupine

Grey bucket

Car door

Mauve seat cushion

Extension ladder

Armadillo

Couch cushion

Coyote

White bucket

Red rope

Toilet lid cover

Abundant:

Yellow butterflies

Abandoned vehicles

Cemeteries

Real cowboys

Favorite part of the day:

For both: Looking at the ghost towns in Oklahoma

Favorite quote:

Mom: "I need an ass pillow"

Annie: "What do you think that was?"

"Do they have anteaters here?"

Day 3

Day 3 was spent in Denver. Lucky for us, it was a record setting day for high temperatures (94 degrees - so hot!). We made a plan to visit the Denver Art Museum only to find out that museums are closed on Mondays...Instead, we explored the 16th Street Mall, passing by the U.S. Mint Tour on the way. The Mall is a mile long stretch of street in downtown Denver with restaurants, shops, a central mall, the convention center, and museums. About an hour in we had to stop for gelato or we were going to dissolve in the heat (guava and passionfruit) and it was one of the best ideas of the day. Next we found the infamous Blue Bear. It looks into the Convention Center and it's enormous.

For scale, this is us at the bear's foot.

After exhausting the mall, the Denver Aquarium seemed like a fun place to visit (and air conditioned). The nice old lady at the tourist information center told us to take the bus to the Denver station and walk toward the aquarium - about 6 blocks according to her. After leaving the 10000000 degree bus, we trekked along a river to the aquarium. A MILE into this trip the heat was so intense we found a place to stick our feet in the river. We did pass by the first original REI here too.

Finally we reached the aquarium and found a friend.

What's also interesting is the Denver Aquarium has land mammals. Heran the Tiger!

There were lots of fish and invertebrates, snakes, turtles, tarantulas, poisonous frogs, a pretty awesome toucan and this guy:

The best thing after a long hot day.

Overall, I like Denver a lot. It has a Seattle feel, but it's a lot quieter. The buildings are a nice mix of new and old and all of our traveling was free. There was a free shuttle from our hotel to wherever we wanted and once we made it to the mall, free hybrid electric buses were running to different stations around the city. Way to go, Denver.

Temperature: 94 degrees F

Favorite part of the day:

Mom: Passing by Bubba Gump's Shrimp Shack about a million times today

Annie: Heran the Tiger

Favorite quote:

For both of us: "The Aquarium is only about 6 blocks from there"

Day 2

IDAHO

On the way out of Twin Falls, ID we drove over a gorge and stopped to take pictures. My mom is incredibly afraid of heights so getting her down to the lookout point was a task and a half, but she did it. She just didn't look. That's what pictures are for.

And this was the first opportunity where I got to use my new gorillapod

Southern Idaho is kind of flat...

Temperature: 73 degrees F

Abnormal Roadside Items:

Duck

Skunk

Raccoon

One rubber boot

Blue bucket

Rabbit

Yellow bucket

Car fender

Abundant: Tire re-treads

UTAH

This was actually my favorite state of the day. It was super fun to drive through because there are a lot of things to look at and it's so beautiful (who would have thought?). It also had the coolest roadside items to date.

U is for Utah

We passed by a lot of cool old buildings. It kind of reminded us of Big Thunder Mountain.

How does this happen?

Temperature: 74 degrees F

Abnormal Roadside Items:

White bucket

Blue bucket

Antelope! (Living) We thought these were migrating deer at first but they looked kind of funny...

Badger

Pillow + case

Skunk

Porcupine

Prairie dog

Fox

Abundant: Shredded plastic and utility poles

WYOMING

You would think that when driving the entire length of a state cool things would be found. No. Nothing on the side of the road. Overall, Wyoming was pretty boring. We did go through an epic lightning storm and there were those wind-mill things everywhere but there weren't any mountains or ravines or canyons or trees. It was all very flat.

I liked these

Some suggested activities (the unmanned bike is my favorite)

Approaching storm

The red dirt Wyoming is famous for

Temperature: 81 degrees F

Abnormal Roadside Items:

Nothing!

Abundant: goats and fence for no reason

COLORADO

This is just the beginning of Colorado because we are spending all of Day 3 in Denver. It turned into an interesting night when my mom walked into 7-11 to ask for directions to our hotel and the cashier was interrupting a robbery in progress.

Temperature: 67 degrees F

Favorite thing about Day 2:

Mom: The Utah landscape looks like Big Thunder Mountain

Annie: Lightning storm in Wyoming

Favorite quote:

Annie: "What does a badger look like?"

Mom: "I've got bug shit on the window and night blindness"

A note from mom: 5 states in 2 days. The secret to our success? Clearly defined roles-see below:

Scenerio #1 Mom driving.

Annie: Mom, do you need anything?

Mom: No thanks, honey, just enjoy the ride.

Scenerio #2 Annie driving.

Annie: Mom, I need a kleenex, they are behind your seat.

Annie: Mom, I need another kleenex.

Annie: Mom, we need a new CD.

Annie: Mom, do you have any ibuprofen?

Annie: Mom, will you hold my used kleenex?

Annie: Mom, I need a water, they are behind my seat, under the pink bag, behind my purse.

After 2 hours:

Mom (concerned): Annie, why are you leaning forward to drive?

Annie (monotone, staring): Trying to stay awake.

Mom (really concerned, now): Pull over and let me drive.

Annie (no change): No.

Day 1

WASHINGTON

The start of everything. Since I'm from here, I didn't take many photos, but we did get a good one before we left:

Temperature: 61 degrees F

Abnormal Roadside Items: (animals are roadkill)

Raccoon

Coyote

A crow eating an opossum

Red, flesh toned, and white buckets

Upright Hoover vacuum

Nursing pillow

King-Size pillowtop mattress

Pallets

Red Tailed Hawk

Giant beaver (!)

Abundant: hubcaps

OREGON

I've lived here for the past 5 years, but eastern Oregon is prettier than I thought. Hello!

Cool view of the sun through the clouds

Goodbye!

Temperature: 73 degrees F

Abnormal Roadside Items:

Tumbleweeds

Ice chest

Woodpeckers

Orange bucket

Bottles full of pee

Skunk (smelled but not seen)

Squirrel

Snake

Deer

Pair of shoes

Blue dumpster

Abundant: Plastic bottles

We made it into southern Idaho that night, but Idaho will be covered in the Day 2 post to follow.

Favorite part of Day 1:

Mom: The Blue Mountain summit near Pendleton, Oregon - very Ireland-esque

Annie: Beaver roadkill!

Favorite quote:

Simultaneously: "......was that a beaver??"

Apples to Oranges

It makes me ask the inevitable question: get it?? Geeeettt iiiiittt?

Driving diagonally across the country is not an easy task. It is full of 10+ hour days, but it's made better when you have a driving partner...and when that driving partner is MOM! I will do my best to show the better and more interesting parts of the trip. Enjoy!