Onwards!

Previously, on a road trip across the country...

We left Ohio at around noon or 1 and drove though some nice, hot, humid, farmlands on our way through Indiana. It was actually very relaxing. We drove on a two lane highway through most of Ohio, and passed alot of cool looking barns and Silo's. I think we were on Route 6, but I could be mistaken. Once we got to the Indiana turnpike, it was only a few hours to Chicago. There wasn't much to say about Indiana other than there are alot of trucks there.

Chicago was definitley one of the coolest places we stopped. We get into the city, and our first stop was Wrigley Field. If you have never been, I definitley recommend taking a trip. Even if you aren't a baseball fan, it's hard not to appreciate the history that has been made in the stadium. The stadium itself is unlike any other because of the close proximity to personal residences. There is a tall brick stadium wall, and across the street about 60 feet, is an apartment building. Once inside the stadium, it isn't like your normal corporate monster; stabbing your eyes and ears with slogans, product images, or theme songs. The whole park is dedicated to the great game of baseball. No jumbo-tron TV's, no banners strewn about the park, not even an electronic digital scoreboard (which is very difficult to see as I found out). With the exception of a Budweiser adverstisement painted on an adjacent apartment complex rooftop, the park is free of corporate propoganda. It is very refreshing. You can focus on the game, and really appreciate it for what it is. Good ol' fashioned American baseball.

Before the game started, Brandon and I filled our stomachs with none other than the finest dining available to an empty pocket... Taco Bell. As I was munching on my grilled stuft burrito, I noticed outside that it was poruing rain. Not like normal pouring rain, but the kind of rain that makes everyone in a public venue, such as Taco Bell, stop what they are doing and turn around to gawk at the downpour. Now of course everyones conversation immediatley turns into "Oh crap, I hope they don't delay the game." Not to worry... the rain stopped in about 20 minutes.

So Brandon and I finish our meal, and wander across the street to Wrigley. We were actually able to grab some great seats about an hour before the game. 20 rows back, behind home plate. The game was great. Lt Dangle and Junior from the TV show Reno 911 threw out the first pitch, and it kept us laughing thorughout the entire game. Not the mention the old senile man that sat next to me. Cursing, and booing, and mumbling when the Cubs didn't do what he wanted. The Cubs played the Dodgers, and boy did the Dodgers get PLAYED! I think the score was 9-1. If I recall correctly, the Dodgers changed pitchers at LEAST 7 times. Despite the 100 degree weather and 100% humidity, it was a great experience. I bought some souveniers for Liz and myself, and I also got a free little statue of one of the Cubs. I don't even know who Derek Lee is, but his head is bobbling in my room as we speak

The Windy City

Another post from the previous road trip...


We awoke in the hotel room at the crack of noon, and re-capped the previous night, making sure our stories were the same... just in case. We got cleaned up, and headed out for another day of adventuring.

Upon checking out of the Worst Western, we drove about a mile down to Navy Pier. Neither of us really knew what Navy Pier was, but everyone was telling us to go there. So we parked on the 14th floor of some gigantic condo complex, and wandered down the the Lakefront area. As we are approaching the general area, we find a kiosk advertising RIVER TOURS OF CHICAGO! Yeah... the same one Dave Matthews Band CRAPPED ON! Ok, probably not the EXACT same one, but just like it. It was a beautiful day outside, and we couldn't have been happier to get on a boat with booze onboard. As soon as the tour began, we both realized it was going to be a very long hour. The tour guide was trying to talk a mile a minute, but wasn't doing it very well, so most of his descriptions were mumbled. And he could have also been one of the worlds worst stand up comedians. Despite the tour guide, the tour itself was pretty cool. The architechture along the riverfront is beautiful, and if you are ever in Chi-town, I recommend it highly.

As we disembarked from the vessel, our eyes were quickly drawn to a park nearby adorned with a dozen or more renditions of the planet earth. They were all about 6 feet tall, and looked like paper mache. I didn't stop to read all the mumbo jumbo on the plaques beneath them, but from my understanding they were all displaying different ways to conserve the planet. Recycling, hybrid cars, solar energy, etc. As we were walking through the park we noticed a cart selling delicious looking Orange Creme ice cups. Eight dollars, and two very unsatisfied stomachs later, we realized that they were only delicious looking.

Our sights moved along to the wonderous Pier itself. A half mile long pier decorated with various museums, theatres, restaraunts, and rides. I'm sure it would have been a blast if we had time to peruse the many vendors and entertainers, but we were on a tight schedule to meet my family over at my Grandma's house.

We walked back to the car, and made our way out of Chicago and on to Moline, IL. The drive to Moline was boring, and tiresome as patches of pouring rain hindered our travel. The weather, along with VERY slow moving trucks, made it a 4 hour trek. But the day wasn't over yet...

As we finally arrive in Moline, and I am about 1 block away from Grandma's, I go to pull in the back alley and see my cousins car stopped at the alley entrance. So being the funny guy that I am, I decide to roll down the window, honk, and yell at him. Little did I know that he was stopped because some old miserable bitch of a woman was trying to back her car out. So as she pulls out of her driveway she yells to my cousin, "That was totally uncalled for, I'm going to report you to the police!" ... Yeah, whatever lady.

30 minutes later they actually show up. My cousin gets blamed for it, but the cop really doesn't care and just tells us, "Don't do it again".

So we go to the hotel, have some pizza, and relax in Moline, IL. Preparation for the wedding starts on Friday, and we were tired. Off to bed.

The Tale Of Texas

Preface: I wrote this in 2007 after completing a cross country road trip with Brandon. Although it isn't new, I'd like to include it in my blog as something I'm proud of sharing and something I will strive to recreate in all my travel posts... Enjoy.

So it all started in San Antonio. Beautiful 88 degree weather, staying in a fabulous hotel filled with history, and my best friend there with me to enjoy it all.

We had woken up at about 8AM from a relaxing night of exploring the river-walk area, downing a few margaritas, and gazing at the smooth twinkle of Christmas lights adorning every umbrella and awning. We gathered our belongings and proceeded to check out of the beautiful hotel. (We later found out that Theodore Roosevelt stayed in the same hotel!)

Brandon (my friend) had arranged to meet one of his grandfather's friends who lived just outside San Antonio. Brandon's grandfather told us that he just purchased a new Corvette, and since we were driving my Corvette across the country, we had to stop and swap stories. About an hour west of San Antonio, we met his grandfathers friend and we shot the breeze for a few hours. At around 2PM we decided it was time to start making some headway. That is where the real adventure started...

So off we went, en route to Sanderson, TX. Where the heck is Sanderson, you ask? Well, it's a good question, because we really had no idea either. On our previous stint from Chicago to my grandmother's house, she was telling us stories from when she was a kid. She mentioned that she had grown up in a town called Sanderson. That is when the idea popped in my head that I should go there, and being the photography guru that I am, I would send her back a few photos so she could see how it looks today. 

We punched Sanderson, TX into our trusty Garmin GPS unit and hit the road. I was at the helm, having an absolute blast tearing up the backroads of Texas. The sun was sinking into the horizon, casting a mellow orange glow over everything in sight. I had my arm out the window, breathing in the warm, fresh air, and taking in all that was laid before me. As we pass through a small town, I begin to take a slight bend to the right, to follow the road. Doing about 45 MPH, I was gracefully pushing the Corvette's tires to their grip limit, when from the side of the road ran two GIANT wild turkeys! In an instant, my reflexes kicked in, I grabbed the wheel with both hands, slammed my foot on the brake and cranked the wheel to the left, hoping to avoid the large foul. THUD THUD!

...Uh ohhhh.

Brandon jumped in his seat, and whipped his head up from the book he was reading. "What the hell was that?!"

"Uuhhhh.... A turkey."

"..." He sat there for a moment. "BWAHAHAHA!"

I got out of the car, and inspected the bird. It was indeed deceased. With a little frown, I moped over to the front of my car and inspected the front fascia. Yep. Feathers. The turkey left my side marker light dangling inside it's housing. Luckily, that was the only damage... well vehicular damage anyway.

I jumped back in the drivers seat and said, "Well I guess we can't really do anything about this now. We'll take care of it later" We drove away and I'm sure you could hear Brandon's laugh drown out the cackle from my exhaust pipes.

A little down in the mouth, we kept on truckin' towards Sanderson.

We finally arrive in Sanderson nearing 10PM. I don’t claim to be the sharpest tool in the shed, and this was definitely a dull moment for Reid. I hadn’t thought about how I was going to take pictures of Sanderson... in the dark. So we are lost in the middle of nowhere Texas, in the dark, trying to take pictures. We eventually scrap the idea and just try to find a gas station to fill up. 17 gallons of gasoline, 2 gas station hamburgers, 1 plate of curly fries, and 1 Red Bull later, we got back on the interstate.

Our next planned stop was El Paso. Brandon is in the ARMY, and there happens to be a very large ARMY base in El Paso. The plan was to crash with some of his friends on the base, and take off in the morning. Upon arrival of El Paso (2AM), Brandon proceeds to call all his buddies. Low and behold, they are all in Phoenix. What is in Phoenix? We have no idea, but it didn’t matter because were in El Paso with no place to stay. At the next gas station, we filled up and pondered what to do. Our options were:

A. Stay in a cheap motel
B. Sleep in the car
C. Keep driving

We thought about the motel, but then I realized something. Considering our next destination was 4 Corners and the Grand Canyon, if we stayed overnight in El Paso, we wouldn’t make it to the Grand Canyon before sunset.


So we kept driving.

I’m not an advocate for energy drinks, but this night, they truly saved my life. From El Paso, we headed due North through New Mexico. The drive though the night was uneventful and it passed rather slowly, but eventually dawn broke and gave a change in scenery. Quite possibly the most beautiful change in scenery of the whole trip. Near 6AM, Brandon pulled into a convenience store and we nourished our bodies with nothing but the finest breakfast sandwich $3 could buy. As we ate our food, I noticed my eyes felt like they were on fire. Brandon looked at me, and gave me a strange face. He told me that the whites of my eyes weren’t white. They were red. CREEPY! 

Did I forget to tell you that I can’t sleep in cars? It just doesn’t happen. I have to be aware of my surroundings at all times. It’s just something I do (or don’t do in this case). So I had been awake since 8AM the previous day. Not quite the 24 hour mark, but the day was only beginning.

I hopped back in the captain’s chair and hustled our sports car towards 4 Corners.

The drive there was so unique, so surreal, and so much different than anything I’d ever seen. Miles and miles of a singular, rolling, two lane road stretched off into the distance. Nestled between towering plateaus, the end of the road quietly disappeared over the horizon. I felt a sense of déjà vu. My eyes had been here before. Possibly on the pages of some forgotten travel magazine I glanced through while waiting in a dentist office. Having always lived in a major metropolitan area, or surrounding suburb, I was accustomed to the sights and sounds of everyday life in California. Nothing on this planet could have prepared my senses for the abundance of vast nothingness here. The sky seemed never ending, making itself apparent from every angle of view. The curvature of the earth was readily apparent to the naked eye. The clouds, suspended miles above, consisted of the purest white vapor known to man, accompanied by the enormous pale blue canvas behind it. The dirt on the ground was a fine, sandstone color that engulfed everything on it’s surface. Nothing in this scene seemed remarkable, in and of itself, but combined… Combined it created one of the most beautiful mental images that’s ever been burnt into my mind.

I was surprised at how taken back I was at all this. One couldn’t help but notice how infinitesimally and inexplicably low they stood compared to the vastness of mother earth.

After entirely too much gazing into the distance that is healthy for one man, who happened to still be driving, I pulled into yet another gas station. Our frequent fueling stops gave Brandon and I just enough time to figure out the next step in our plans of attack. This stop gave us time to re fuel, grab some snacks, water, check our tire pressure, and put on some much needed deodorant.

It was only another 2 hours to 4 Corners. There we would determine accommodations for the evening, and rest our sleep deprived eyes. Brandon took the controls and off we went, following the freshly paved undulating road.

At around 9AM, we pulled into the parking lot of 4 Corners. HALLELUJAH! We stepped out of the vehicle and sluggishly meandered about the lot. At this point our bodies were so discombobulated that a nap was in order. Without one, we would surely collapse, pass out, keel over, or go into convulsions. We grabbed the camera, snapped a few photos of us standing in 4 states at once, spent way too much money on Native American souvenirs, and found a portable restroom to use.

We looked around for a moment to find a suitable place to lie. There were a series of wooden booths set up for selling merchandise, half of which were vacant. I climbed up on a plywood table, put my backpack underneath my head and shut my eyes.
Shortly after Brandon and I shut our eyes, it became apparent to us that there were a bunch of voices mumbling in close proximity to our position. I lifted my eyelids and turned my head to find a group of 10-15 people huddled around my car. I got up and approached them, wondering what they were looking at. Well, after a second or two of trying to find out what they were saying, I realized that were speaking French. There was one person in the group who spoke English and she asked me “Is this yours?” I nodded and smiled “Yes.” “We have never seen a Corvette in person before. We do not have them in France.” Hearing this, I decided I’d open the doors for them and let them sit inside. I popped the hood, and answered short questions like “How much horsepower?” and “How fast?” and “Good car for getting women, yes?”

While the crowd was gathered around, I got inside and fired up the engine. She roared to life with her usual fanfare. A quick, ascending, cackle, followed by a harmonious series of back-pops, finished off with Ludwig van Chevrolet’s maniacal gurgle in V8 major. As I revved the engine for the crowd, my passenger door flies open and in hops a total stranger. The door shuts, he puts on the seatbelt, and with an upward sweeping hand motion he says in a thick accent “Let’s go”.

I laughed, smiled, and shook my head to go along with the joke, but it quickly became apparent he was not joking. “Let’s go”, he said again. The grin dropped slightly from my face, and I pondered for moment. “Ok, sure!” I said.

We backed out of the gravel parking space, and made sure the coast was clear. I brought the revs up, staged, and dumped the clutch! My rear tires squealing in disagreement, unwilling to cooperate, spun in place momentarily before the car lurched forward, sending my foreign guest grasping for something to hold on to as his head was thrown to the seat. The melody of my engine finishing off first gear fueled his giddiness as he let out a noise that could only be replicated by an eleven year old girl. I whipped the ass end of the car around in the gravel and the strange noises kept coming from the awkward Frenchman.

Almost positive that my new friend had soiled himself, I pulled back into my parking space, and let him out. He jumped out with the largest shit-eating grin anyone has ever seen. I made his vacation.

He thanked me profusely, and the tour group headed back to the bus. I propped myself against the fender of my car and watched the group retreat to the guide. 1 French person that doesn’t hate America… 65,056,872 to go.

As I walked back over to Brandon, he just looked at me with a smirk on his face and said “I hope you didn’t burn up your clutch doing that because we still have to drive to California.”

We gave up on the nap idea because firstly, it was 85 degrees outside at 10AM, and secondly, we reeeeeally wanted to see the Grand Canyon. So again, we were on our merry way.
5 hours later we pull into the main entrance to the southern portion of the Grand Canyon. By now, we had started looking up hotels with Dorothy (we named our GPS ‘Dorothy’ when we bought her in Boston), and we were calling around trying to get reservations. The first few we called either didn’t exist anymore, or were booked for the night. It was 3PM, so we were too worried about finding a place to stay at this point. We had heard earlier that there were hotels at the bottom of the canyon somewhere. We walked over the watchtower looking building and that is where one of the defining moments in my life happened.

Similar to my previous experience in New Mexico, gazing upon the stretching road and randomly scattered plateaus, I was again dumbfounded by mother nature.

As far as the eye could see were vast canyons, rock formations, rivers, trees, cliffs, and fatal drops. I was surrounded by magnificence and I was trying so hard to get my tiny mind to grasp everything. The distant haze brought on either by dust, or the slightest humidity made everything farther than 1 mile away, look like a 2 dimensional painting. The exact emotions that I was feeling are quite indescribable and not worth trying to explain.

We stood there. Dazed. Tired. Hungry. Neither one of us said a word for what seemed like hours. The growling of our stomachs, and my bloodshot eyes spoke for us. Naturally, we picked up a few things at the gift store and found a payphone to start calling more hotels. Going through the phone book and GPS we called every place within a 60 mile radius of the Grand Canyon. No luck. Before we took any further action, we needed sustenance. We drove for a good 30-45 minutes through the winding roads leading to town and came across a row of hotels and restaurants. Without any thought at all, we pulled into the first place with a parking spot. The ribs, cornbread, and baked beans I ordered were not only the worst of my entire trip, but possibly one of the worst dining experiences I’ve ever had. Somehow, our bill was $80. Food: horrible. Service: abhorrent. Price: are you kidding me? We half considered walking right out of the joint without paying a dime, but the large greeter at the front door would have hindered the operation. Grudgingly we paid our bill and left. Brandon told me to walk across the street and go into all the hotels to see if they had rooms. He did the same on his side of the street. After seeing long lines of people waiting to check in at the front desk, we gathered from numerous patrons and hotel employees that we didn’t stand a chance getting a last minute room. Apparently we need to book 6 months in advance near the Grand Canyon. Who knew?

Downtrodden and stoic, we trudged back to the car. As I sat on top of the rear deck staring off into the distance, I said to Brandon, “What the hell do we do now?”
Brandon, not needing more than 10 seconds to figure out an answer, simply said, 
“Fuck it. Let’s go to Vegas.”

“Fuck it. Let’s go”


We left the Canyon somewhere around 6PM on our way to Sin City. The dark, poorly lit highway was monotonous and dreary. As Brandon was riding shotgun (as there are no other seats in the car besides shotgun and driver), he brought out the video camera and was fooling around with night vision. I noticed on my dashboard that my odometer was reading 99,970. “Hey, Brandon! I’m going to hit 100,000 miles in my car tonight!”
He got the camera ready, and just before we crossed the Hoover Dam, she rolled into the 6th digit column. If you are ever at my house watching home movies, be sure to tell me to bring out the video of us singing “Happy 100,000 miles to you”. Classic.

We crossed the damn, and struggled to keep our eyes open as we rolled into the city. Not knowing where to stop, we found our way to the strip. The first thing we saw was Motel 6. DONE! We pulled in at 10PM, no questions asked, got a room, and unloaded our stuff.

Recap:

8AM – Wake up in San Antonio
2PM – Leave San Antonio
5PM – Kill Turkey
10PM – Realize I’m an idiot trying to take pictures in the dark
2AM – Fill up in El Paso, decide to keep driving
5AM – Eat worlds most delicious breakfast sandwich in New Mexico
9AM – Make weird French guy shit his pants, pass 24 hour mark
3PM – Gaze in wide wonder at mother earth
5:30PM – World’s crappiest meal
9PM – Happy 100,000 Miles to youuuuuu!
10PM – Crash. Hard!


We hit those beds like a ton of bricks. That was the best nights sleep I’ve ever had.

And So It Begins...

This is the first post to my blog. I initially started the blog as an assignment for my business class, but plan on developing it further into a tool I can add to my photographic repertoire. Now and then I plan on updating with interesting photo shoots and projects or random excursions, but the meat and potatoes of this will be my travels and adventures all over the U.S. and hopefully someday the globe.

Outskirts of the Grand Canyon. 09/2007