BrickFair is coming up and I currently have this beard. I can either keep growing it or get rid of it. It'll get bigger before the 'Fair but D.C. is freaking hot that time of year and I don't know what kind of slap insulation it'd provide. (Also it's kind of strange how I don't really get any on my cheeks.) This isn't a poll ... unless almost everyone wants me to keep the thing for one reason or another, in which case I'd bow to the collective wish.
I feel like I've fallen off the face of the earth BZP for a while and that's not a fun feeling. I knew I'd be busy when college started but I didn't expect to have so many things going on in the summer before. Anyway. It hit me a little earlier today that in one year, I'll be twenty. That freaks me out more than just turning nineteen. Nineteen really isn't that much different from eighteen, if you look at social privileges. But twenty? Man, that's a whole new first number. 10 was fun because
The thing about being gone from home for long periods of time is that there's always something off-the-wall to deal with upon returning. In my case, it wasn't so much off-the-wall as on-the-ceiling. When my parents left to get groceries, I thought I heard someone typing on my mom's computer, since its keyboard has a very distinctive sound. I go upstairs to find it on, although no one was on it. However, I was prevented from figuring it out because I noticed this centipede on the ceiling. I'm
We awoke in Memphis at 10:00 and began the process of leaving the hotel, which took until an hour later because of the chronically understaffed valet service. Having determined a much better hotel route should we ever go across I-40 that far again, we left Memphis and navigated its traffic through the suburbs and across Tennessee. Our route today is pretty much the exact reverse of our first two days of the first Great American Road Trip, so in many ways our day today—and our overall I-40 rout
Another long day took us out from Amarillo, along one of Texas’s unique but no less navigationally infuriating one-way frontage roads to gas and then onto the Interstate. We made good time to Oklahoma City, where we stopped for a Subway to meet Portalfig. I briefly met Protalgif last BrickFair when he showed up for one of the public days, and I encouraged him to attend this year as well if at all possible. My dad regaled us with non sequiturs that nearly had Tagolrip choking on some lettuce, a
We prepared ourselves for an enormous day on the road. We struck out from Moab and cut across what remained of Utah and into Colorado, where we meandered around the strangest bits of road work down to Cortez. We topped off the tank there and refilled our meager snacking supplies before continuing to roll out. Southbound to Shiprock took us into an area of New Mexico to which we have never before been before we swung in a rough arc across the Continental Divide and to Albuquerque, where we inte
Our early start today took us into Capitol Reef National Park. The park was created primarily to protect a 100-mile long barrier of rock known as the Waterpocket Fold, a unique ridge in the earth's crust. The "capitol" part of the park's name comes from a huge white dome in the park nicknamed the Capitol Dome. With the Waterpocket Fold nicknamed a "reef" by ex-sailor explorers, the two features combined to create the name of Utah's least known National Park—which is good, since they nearly named
We woke up in Springdale and had to decide how we would get to Torrey. Scenic Utah Route 12, considered one of the best drives in the country, was out of consideration after last night's crack research revealed a 14% grade along the route. Half of that is about all we really want to handle; while 14 isn't totally unreasonable given that vehicles apparently traverse it all the time, we'd rather skip it if given the chance. The Interstate system could have taken us most of the way there, but it we
Our alarms went off at our now not-unusual hour of 4:00 in the morning, where we prepared ourselves for the day's hike. We drove up to the visitor's center around 5:30, when there was enough light glinting over the canyon walls to make some of the rock features out but still dark enough along the canyon floor for our brights to do little. We got to the nearly deserted parking lot and wandered around for a bit until finding the visitor center—which wasn't even open due to the early hour. We got t
We left St. George at noon and traveled northeast to Springdale, on the doorstep of Zion National Park. Three years ago, we had entered Zion through the infamous Zion-Mount Carmel Tunnel, a tunnel hewn from rock through the side of a mountain. Thankfully, we did not have to traverse this tunnel, as we entered the town of Springdale and the Zion Canyon from the other direction. The sheer red cliffs of Zion are as beautiful as I remember, and we got to the hotel at 1:00. Too early to check in, w
Our alarms went off at 4:00 in the morning and we dragged ourselves out of bed as fast as our bodies would let us. The temperature when we left at 4:40 was 73º. By 5:15, we could see the sun as it began to rise behind the clouds to the east as the temperature dropped to 60º. We went through the bottommost portion of the Sierra Nevada range. We passed an immense wind farm after 5:30 and the sun had already heated our surroundings to 81º. With the temperatures expected to get to possible record-
We exited the hotel at a little before 11:00 amidst a wandering group of Miss California Teen competitors. It was not long before we found ourselves well outside of Fresno, heading right for the increasingly looming mountains. Much like yesterday, we went into the mountain range—but this time headed for Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. The road in goes straight up one of the biggest mountains in the area. We climbed up to around 6,000 feet and could see, amidst the hairpin turns, the v
We got up at 6:00 and left for Yosemite somewhere around 7:30. With Modesto in the central valley, we had to go east into the mountains in order to access Yosemite Valley. Of the roads in and out, one road—state route 120, I believe—was the worst, and our research revealed that road's penchant for burning engines on the way up and brakes on the way down. We avoided that by going in an alternate route. As we went into Yosemite, the flat ground gave way to the tiniest of flattened hills, which t
We made a quick exit from Redding and steadily picked up traffic down I-5, although it was not yet the terror it was to become and thus we made steady progress. The most interesting thing about northern California is the fact that it has big cities that simply stop. Cow pastures are located right next to huge shopping centers, unlike other states where there's a more gradual change. We entered Sacramento from the north amidst an increasing amount of traffic. With four lanes, each going a dif
We walked from our hotel to the REI in the Bend just a short time after they opened at 10:00. Our quest for hiking boots ended successfully an hour later after much trying-on and consideration. Thus armed with three proper pairs of footwear and socks, we felt fully prepared to break them in at Crater Lake. We checked out of the hotel at 11:30, got gas, and headed down the road to Crater Lake. US-97 from Bend to Crater Lake was a miserable experience. Stuck behind drivers going well under the s
Today was a day in which we steeled ourselves for a whole lot of nothing, although there was a bit of fun with dirty clothes. Specifically, someone had dropped two absolutely grungy socks onto the hallway on our floor. When we checked out, someone had picked them up ... only to stick them halfway behind a flower pot on a table in the mini-lobby area where the elevators are. This made the whole ordeal much worse. The greater Boise area, still full of confusing road work, was slightly more negot
I forgot to mention that yesterday, as we entered Yellowstone, we saw a number of people pulled off the road with their binoculars and short-range telescopes out. A nice lady let us use hers, and through it we saw a mountain goat making its way across the sheer rock face. Breakfast, not a usual meal for us on this particular trip, was necessary given the desolation we were to traverse. I had a delightful dish known as breakfast pasta, which consisted of cheese ravioli in a jalapeño sauce (with
Our alarms went off at the unholy hour of 4:00 in the morning. Since we'd prepared everything the night before, it was a slightly faster process in getting out the door than usual. We hit the road at 4:40, when the sun had not yet risen, but its light was reflecting off of the cloud cover of the west. Our first destination: the Beartooth Highway, which crosses the Beartooth Pass in the Beartooth Mountains near Beartooth Peak. (A lot of different names to take in, I know.) The road climbs up to
After a good night's sleep, we prepared for a short driving day to Billings. The road towards Sheridan was slowly dominated by the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies in the distance. After the town of Buffalo, however, we turned northwards, paralleling the range. We got to Sheridan not too long after, where we stopped to eat at a Jimmy John's where the employees far outnumbered the customers. (Many on the Jimmy John's payroll just sort of stood around in the back, likely feeling as awkward as th
We set our alarms for an alarming 7:00 AM. My mom had already woken up and was busy packing things. We left just a little after 8:00 and went south to Wind Cave National Park. Upon our arrival at Wind Cave, we encountered a herd of buffalo making their way across the road. The great beasts were shedding their winter coats, and two of them did so partially by rubbing their bellies along the stones which hold up information signs along the pullouts. One, to which we were able to get fairly close
Today was what we considered a driving day, and so we left Mitchell with the idea of getting to Rapid City and getting work done there before seeing the new sights further west. Clouds hovered over Mitchell and Rapid City, but the roads drained well—but I wasn't about to go the speed limit of 80 until we got to a dry spot. Most of the road across South Dakota was indeed dry. There was little to report until crossing the mighty Missouri River, and we got a sense of how the car handled at high s
Our first stop of the day was in Vermillion, South Dakota, the home of the National Music Museum. Started with a collection of a few thousand musical instruments, the museum now has over 15,000 pieces. Those on display that are not one-of-a-kind are, at the least, often extraordinarily rare. We walked around and marveled at the exhibits for nearly four hours. My parents learned more than I did, and my dad would often point at something, look up at me, and ask if I'd heard of whatever he was po
First, two additions to yesterday's report: While at the Lincoln library, one of the volunteers told us that he would take a picture of us around wax statues of the Lincoln family. My mom, in her inimitable fashion, decided to lean up to Lincoln's face and act like she was giving it a kiss. After snapping the photo, the man got a horrified look on his face, handing the camera back to us and exclaiming "The man's dead! Show a little respect!" Also, my mom called the closet at the hotel room a
We started the day much too early for my liking and ate breakfast at Charlie Parker's Diner, a local institution located in an old Quonset hut. The hut had been significantly refurbished with only about half of it devoted to eating space. We had seen it on TV a few years ago, and those inside seemed to only be locals considering its semi-hidden location. They stayed busy. The curved interior of the hut was adorned with all sorts of old road signs, famous pictures, and records. We took the boot
We awoke this morning to the promise of a Hot Brown from the Brown Hotel. It was a little past 8:00 when we began getting ready, and we ended up getting there well before ten. The opulent hotel, which dates from the 1920s, remains the capital of swank in the downtown Louisville area despite the miserable decline of the surrounding neighborhood. The Hot Brown: juicy slices of turkey breast covered in succulent mornay sauce and topped with bacon and tomato slices, all held up by an absorbent bre
