Soul Track Mind

Yesterday morning, Doug, Joey, and I set out around 10:00 am in an effort to catch the last bit of the USA/Slovenia World Cup match, but by the time we found an open bar with TVs (a bar called Bikini's. Yeah. It's what you'd think - and cowboy boots) the match had ended with USA being robbed of a win on a bad call.  We had a couple drinks before heading to the Gallery where Celina works to meet her for lunch.  After lunch we went to a pub near the gallery to watch the considerably less exciting England/Algeria game (0-0 tie) before heading home for some rest before heading to the bar for the Soul Track Mind (Doug's band) show.

Celina, Joey, and I went out for a quick bite with merchandise suitcase in tow before heading to Hole In The Wall around 10:00 pm.  Soul Track Mind was the headliner so we enjoyed two openers before they came on around midnight.  They were really good - an 8 piece band singing original soul music. Click here to see their website.

This morning, Celina made us an egg, potato, chorizo, and onion skillet served with warm tortillas.  We've been sitting around the house relaxing since then.  We may venture out a bit later to the Yard Dog gallery (Celina also works there) before coming back to the house to make dinner.  Tomorrow we'll be headed to New Orleans (via Houston) for a full week.

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We've got to make Palo Duro Canyon by Sundown

We've covered a lot of ground in the last few days.  To get it all in, I will present a story in three parts:

• PART1: Taos is tacos without the "c"
• PART2: We've got to make Palo Duro Canyon by Sundown
• PART3: Highway 87

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Part 1: Taos is tacos without the "c".

We said goodbye to Jim and Frona on Tuesday morning and started our three day trip towards Austin.  Our first leg would take us down hwy 285  to Taos where we planned to check out the Pueblo and spend the night before moving on towards Roswell around lunch time.

The drive to Taos was spectacular.  The majority of it was spent on an elevated plane with snow covered peaks on all sides.  We made good time through the mountains - our only stop was in Fairplay, CO (which i learned includes the town that was the inspiration for the tv show South Park) for lunch at the "Beary Beary Tasty" cafe which was as advertised.

We arrived in Taos a little before 5 and found that it was pretty much already closed up for the night so we decided to grab a quick bite to eat and head to Santa Fe instead.  While we were looking for an open eatery Joey observed in frustration that "I keep thinking I see Taco places but they all just say Taos".

We did eventually find a spot to grab some so/so tex-mex before heading on to Santa Fe.  We arrived in Santa Fe around 8 pm, and stopped by the public library (which we randomly parked in front of) to find lodging.  We ended up staying at the Old Santa Fe in which was only a few blocks away (across from the Verterans memorial).  We walked around the old Adobe downtown Santa Fe a bit before calling it an early night.

Part 2: We've got to make Palo Duro Canyon by Sundown

On Wednesday morning we had a delicious complimentary breakfast at the Inn (breakfast burrito bar and waffle batter for do it yourself fresh waffles) and headed out to explore Santa Fe on our 2nd consecutive beautiful day (tying a record for our trip).  Unfortunately we only had a few hours in town as we had to make it to Palo Duro Canyon, our newly conceived next destination before the campground closed to new arrivals at 8:00 pm.  We made the most of our time by exploring the downtown, and checking out the work of the Native American artisans who display their work along the Square.

We left Santa Fe around 12:30 headed for Texas.  We were briefly chased outside of town by a desert storm, which caught us, dumped rain and hail on us, and then went on its way.  Other than that, the weather was perfect for the 6 hour drive along I-40 to Amarillo.  

If time had not been a factor we would have rather taken old route 66 which runs roughly parallel to I-40, but we were in a race against the night.  We did, however, take a brief interlude along the old route as we passed through the town of Tucumcari and stopped at Dell's restaurant for lunch (I had the J special - two enchiladas and a chili Relleno, with both red and Green Chili.  Joey had the Chicken fried steak.  He said it was good, but i'm pretty sure I had a mild heart attack by proximity).  Tucumcari itself was interesting - a good example of what happens when a town is bypassed by the interstate (see pics of the old main drag in the slide show).

After lunch we headed on our way and despite a minor setback when we forgot to factor in the change from mountain to central time, arrived at out campsite with 30 min to spare.  We set up camp, played a few games of chess, ate a light dinner (1/2 cucumber, 1 potato, 1/2 onion between the two of us) and went to bed.  This was our first night camping without rain which was nice except that we could now hear the wildlife around us (i'm pretty sure there was a raccoon jamboree happening right outside our tent).

We woke up this morning, did a quick hike on the trail behind our campsite and got on the road toward Austin.

Part 3: Highway 87

We got on highway 87 around 8:30 this morning and headed southeast towards Austin for the next 9 hours.   We stopped for "breakfast" (i had a BBQ beef sandwhich) at the nu-griddle diner in Plainview which sported a special non-smoking section tucked away in the corner of the restaurant.  We opted for smoking so as not to be sequestered from the general population.

Highway 87 pretty much passes through a whole lot of nothing, but we did get to drive through Happy, TX (the town without a frown) and sample our first taste of TX BBQ in Brady.  The BBQ setup was pretty neat: 1 - walk up to the pit outside and select what you want and how much (everything was by the pound).  2 - the guy working the pit tosses your meat on a cafeteria tray with a paper liner (no plate). 3- pick up additional sides (everything comes with beans) inside, grab a beer (domestic only) and pay. 4 - sit down at the communal tables stocked with paper towels, supersized bottles of BBQ sauce, and loaves of wonder bread. 5 - watch dear hunting program on TV and enjoy.

We arrived at Doug and Celina's house around 7, got cleaned up and headed to 6th street to take in the Thursday night scene.  Doug and his friend went to see a pre-planned show, while joey and I took in the sites.  It was a lot of fun, literally every bar had good or at worst passable music and every girl was wearing cowboy boots - what more could you ask for?

This is our first of three nights in Austin. Tomorrow, we'll be headed into town to see Doug's band fulfilling their weekly residence at a local bar. 

Family Ties

We are so lucky! Moab Utah only gets ''9 of precipitation per year. Very few travelers get to experience archways natl park shrouded in fog and rain.  But we were one of the lucky ones. The rain cloud that met us in Moab followed us through the foothills and across the continental divide, and hung out with us through Steamboat Springs (where we watched the USA tie England and I bought my first pair of cowboy boots) into Ft Collins for two days before (kind of) clearing up today.

Fortunately this was not a nature oriented leg of our trip.  We got to meet for the first time, my great Aunt Gloria and Uncle Bill, our second cousins Jim and Betsy and their families (their kids are our 2nd cousins once removed). We arrived in Ft Collins on Sat evening and met Aunt Glor and Uncle Bill at Mulligans - the pub they visit each week in hopes of winning the trip to Ireland that is raffled off each year.  On Sunday Jim, his wife Frona and their family stopped by.  Jim and Frona took us into town for lunch and beers and Cooper Smith and a quick tour of Ft Collins.  When we arrived back home, Betsy, her husband Steve and her kids we at the house.  We made introductions over the penne, meatballs, and sauce that Aunt Glor had been working on since early in the AM.

On Monday we emptied out the car, cleaned it, Febreezed it, and repacked it so that we'll start out the 2nd half of our trip like the first: everything in its place. We spent the day playing chess (more losses for me) and watching TV with Glor and Torie (Jim and Frona's 17 yr old daughter).  Frona arrived at Aunt Glor's house around 5 and Joe, Joe (her son), and I tossed frisbee while we waited for Aunt Glor and Torie to return from a trip to her cousin Maddy's and the Store.

When Torie arrived back at Aunt Glor's, we got int he car and  followed Frona back to Boulder where we're spending the ngiht tonight. There, we made BBQ chicken pizza (Frona's is a fun kitchen to cook in) and chatted over three bottles of wine before everyone retired for the night.

And that pretty much brings us up to the present.  We'll be taking the next 2-3days to get to Austin via Taos

Here are the pics from our trip from Moab to Ft Collins, and our visit with the family here (click just below the image to bring up the nav bar to view the slide show.

When I pulled into Moab... it was full

I'm pretty sure the only reason we were able to tear ourselves away from Ocean Beach on Thursday morning after lunch with Josh and John and their neighbors Lori and Christina was the light rain that was falling. It wouldn't have taken much to keep us around.  But as it was, we set off for one night in vegas.

We arrived in town around dinner time, checked into our room at New York New York and treated ourselves to a steak dinner at Gallagher's.  After  dinner we walked down to the other end of the strip for a brief stop at the Imperial Palace casino before spending the majority of the evening playing blackjack at the Bellagio.   After our self imposed allowances ran out around 2:30, we called it night (joe walking into the hotel at left).

Reading that makes it sound like the most boring vegas boys weekend ever - and that's probably true, but we did have a good time.

After a pizza breakfast we headed out of the hotel. I laid my single leftover black chip on the baccarat table and lost it in a cool 10 seconds on our way out.

We got on the road to Moab around 11:00 am and arrived at the Archways national park around 8 (with the time change).  We took the 30 minute long, breathtaking drive through park's famous red rock formations to the campground only to find out on arrival that it was full. By the time we got back down to the bottom it was after 9 and dark.  We elected to throw in the towel and check into a motel rather  than go another 20 miles out of our  way to then open campgrounds.  It turns out that most of the rooms in town were full too.  We checked 5 or 6 placed before finally getting a room at the Archway inn.

After checking in we grabbed a quick bite at the Moab diner before heading back to our room to catch some sleep in preparation for our 6:00 am departure for Ft Collins, CO.   The diner claims to have the best green chilies in Utah.  I'm not really sure how Utah's chilies hold up on the national green chili scene but I can say they were the best Utah green chili's I've ever had.

Pictures taken on the road from vegas to Moab are below. Click on the bottom of the image to display the nav bar and start the show.

Like being in my 20's again

We left SLO on tuesday morning and after a smooth drive (except for the three hours we were stuck in LA traffic), we arrived in San Diego on Tuesday evening for the first "Couch Surfing" leg of our trip.  We're staying with Josh, a friend/former co-worker of Joey's (picture of our digs at right) in Ocean Beach.  It's been a fun couple of days.  Josh and most his friends (most of them Cincinnati transplants) work in the service industry which leaves time for "weekends" in the middle of the week.  Late nights, and days spent enjoying the weather.

Once we arrived and got settled we hung out at Josh's place until about 12:30 and then walked around the corner to Cat Lounge for a few games of pool before last call.  On wednesday morning, josh took us to an awesome diner on Newport st, where I had Machaca - kind of a do it yourself breakfast burrito.  A scramble of shredded beef, peppers, onion and jalapeño served with beans and a warm tortilla.  After that we walked out on onto the pier at ocean beach and watched the surfers before heading to point Loma  lighthouse for a 360 view of the city.

Joey and I spent the afternoon hanging out at the house with Josh's roommate John and Rufus - Ryan's very  Huckleberry (my dog) like rot/lab mix playing chess and drinking Pacificos.  We walked down to Newport street around 6 to check out the farmers market and have some fish tacos (by far the best i've had) from South Beach Bar and grill.

Last night we went to Tiny's and then Lucy's - both just a few blocks from Josh's house and then hung out at his place until the sun came up. Today Josh, Ryan, and Lori (the neighbor) are going to take us around town and out to lunch before we head on to Vegas where we'll be checking into the New York, New York hotel tonight. See below for all of our SLO/San Diego Pictures.





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Globetrotters

SAN LUIS OBISPO - We've done a lot since our last post. Rather than write you a book, I'll let the pictures do most of the talking.

I will take a moment to talk about Sunday night: We originally planned to go back to Thermidor for some after dinner cocktails, but they were closed.  Instead, we bought a bottle of wine and took the Chess set to the common room at the hostel.  We eventually struck up a conversation with Pikou [i can't spell his first name] from France who re-established my honor by beating Joey in chess and Carmen and Maike who were in the middle of a three month visit from Germany. Things started off quiet at first but by the time we burned through 2 bottles of wine and a 6-pack of Bud, the conversation was flowing.  Carmen and Maike are also keeping a blog - here's a link -> click here [it's in German but you can click the translate button to get it in English].

Meeting people at the Hostel has been one of the highlights of our trip.  We tried to get into the Hostel in San Luis Obispo, but it was full.  They did, however, recommend a great little motel that is a steal at $60 per night for the both of us [pictures of that tomorrow].

Enjoy the pictures [again, click at the bottom of the image to bring up the nav bar to play the show]

"I will re-establish your honor"

Joey and I are playing chess in the common area.  After three consecutive losses, a French guy at the table asked if he could play a game.  When i ceded my spot he told me that he would try to "how do you say... Re-establish your honor".