Epic Roadtrip…

07/13/2011 – Commence Epic Roadtrip…

After months of conversations, planning and anticipation we (Joe, Capone and I) are heading out on our EPIC cross country adventure!

After a late start, per our norm, we were blazing (in reality stuck in traffic) over the Brooklyn Bridge along the FDR and up to the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey…

…and out to our first stop Buffalo, New York to visit some friends and partake in some good ‘ole upstate NY hospitality! We just wish I was more than a pit stop!

-r. & j. (& c.)

07/14/2011 – New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio…

And we’re off ….

After a slow start AGAIN this morning (hope this isn’t the start of a pattern!) we headed out of Buffalo and have begun our ride to our next stop Detroit, Michigan…

-r. & j. (&c.)

07/14/2011 – …Michigan…

Our adventures have taken us to the wolverine state…

…and into the motor city. Great time (although all to brief) catching up with family, friends and getting to experience a beautiful Michigan summer sunset :)…

We’ve hit the road again … (With this guy)…

He was a classy dude… I appreciate his entire outfit especially his choice of footwear…He also gave me the finger…

And now we are on our way to Indianapolis to visit more friends and experience the views of Indy via bike rather than car :)!

-r. & j. (& c.)

07/17/2011 – …Indiana…

We spent the past 2 nights hanging out with friends at their home in Hoosier country…

…getting to see the sights including the Sun King Brewery (super yeasty batch of Oktoberfest beer!)

And a great bike ride through the trails…

… Not to mention, experiencing some of the outdoor freestanding art of the Indiana Museum of Art gardens!

Such a nice relaxing 2 days …

… But now we have begun our stint of long drives (anywhere from 10-14 hours each day) to get us out west :)!

-r. & j. (&c)

07/17/2011 – …On The Road In Iowa…

…Americccccca…

Gotta love the world’s largest truck stop….

-r. & j. (&c.)

07/18/2011 – … Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota…

Our longest drive day to date took us through 4 states and over 800 miles (and my lovely chauffeur has graciously driven them all :))!

There have been lots of exciting sights along the way…
Lots of farms houses….

A random sculpture garden….

Some seriously cool (and huge!) wind turbines…

But mostly lots of…

We also stopped for dinner in Omaha, Nebraska…

….Um yeaaa… They’re a little behind the times out here….

And Capone for the most part is enjoying the sights..

-r. & j. (&c.)

07/18/2011 – … Insect Suicide…

I’ve heard that the midwest has ALOT of insects and that they are even more prevalent in the summer months. Judging from the status of the car we are obviously helping to control the bug population…

-r. & j. (&c.)

07/18/2011 – …hot…

… Heat wave in the Midwest and we are definitely in the middle of it!
The thermostat on the car at triple digits… The temperature finally topped out 104 degrees!

-r. & j. (&c.)

07/19/2011 – …Wyoming…

Made it to Wyoming and got to experience some of the most unbelievable scenery!

First stop though was in The Badlands…

The sight sprung as if out of nowhere out of the flat green plains…

From there it was on to Mount Rushmore…

Right outside of the black hills we saw an immense amount of smoke… Although we couldn’t see or smell the fire – the smoke was still a picturesque sight…

The evenings drive however culminated in an amazing sunset!

We are trekking into Yellowstone today :)- Capone is loving the sights…

-r. & j. (&c.)

07/20/2011 – … Yellowstone… Part 1…

Yellowstone National Park…

…definitely lives up to it’s name … It was spectacular!

(More photos to come…they’re on the other camera)
With it’s amazing, waterfalls, lakes, wildlife, hot springs – to name a few… We’d love to come back here again!

After heading through the park we made it to Montana…

…aka big sky country…

…from there we got settled at our campsite for the night

Which wouldn’t be complete without a Joe built fire while we roasted marshmallows ….

…yum! :):)
-r. & j. (&c.)

07/21/2011 – …Yellowstone… Part 2…

… as promised more photos (and also a video!)… from Yellowstone National Park…

-r. & j. (&c.)

07/21/2011 – …Idaho…

Yesterday we spent the morning hiking on the Boundary trail – a trail just inside of Yellowstone National Park on the Montana side which was a great local find since Yellowstone is largely not pet-friendly :(.

It was a beautiful day with comfortable weather …

…and then headed back to the car and headed west towards the forever potatoes state, Idaho…

Idaho… was a landscape of mostly (pretty much all…) Potato fields…

… which went on FOREVER (literally hours…)..

We ended up in Twin Falls, ID which from the map didn’t look like much, but was the home to a failed motorcycle jump across the Snake River by Evel Knievel in the 1970s. However this little town was breathtaking…

… now on to more familar territory… Lake Tahoe!

-r. & j. (&c.)

07/22/2011 – …Nevada, California…

…we headed out early afternoon from Twin Falls, ID and were on the road towards the Golden State! But first we had to pass the Silver State, Nevada.

Nevada was a whole lotta dessert…

…Sometimes with hills…

…Sometimes through tunnels…

…and Capone did a whole lotta….

Right outside of Fernley, NV we noticed that people had written their names or initials in the sand with rocks…

…we were tempted to stop but we were focused on the goal…

… After a quick overnight stop in Lake Tahoe we are on our way to Santa Cruz to see the nuptials of our friends Jared and Lisa!
-r. & j. (&c.)

07/23/2011 – …Hippy Town, USA…

…or Santa Cruz!!! And Joe is dressed the part…

After we left Lake Tahoe we started our trek down Interstate 80 then 680 towards the Bay…

… With a quick stop for a photo op with Capone and my family dog, Uno.

We were off, old man UNO must have worn Capone out because he slept..

…on and off all the way to…

After following the windy highway 17…

We made it!
Now for a few days of relaxing and wedding festivities until we are back on the road!
– r. & j. (&c.)

07/27/2011 – …Santa Cruz, California…

A nice break in our cross country travels!

Spending a great few days in Santa Cruz and the Bay Area…

Our friends Jared and Lisa got married over looking the beautiful Pacific Ocean…

…and Capone enjoyed the Northern California sunshine, oceans and adventures…

Its been a great few days of relaxation… but now we are back on the road again!
Heading out again…
But its good we were getting too antsy anyways … :):)!
r. & j. (&c.)

07/29/2011 – …We [heart] Yosemite…

… no we really do…

… Anyone who has had a 5 minute conversation with me knows that. But now that place and the areas surrounding it…

holds a very (extra special) place for both Joe and I – as well as Capone (since he was there too)…

This is our self-timer photo FAIL but we both kinda love it.

We love it so much because this is also now where WE GOT ENGAGED! :):)
We both are extremely happy! (obviously!!)

We are definitely out celebrating but we still have alot of photos from our camp out that evening…

the east side of Yosemite…

And Mono lake…

We are so very excited :). Looks like this little roadtrip is the start of many more fun trips together for us in the future.

-r. &j. (&c.)

07/31/2011 – … Los Angeles…

So lots of celebrating has occurred in the past few days… Including a special delivery to our dinner table from our friends Tisha and Rob Nagel from across the country :):)

(sorry about the fuzzy photo… Bad blackberry camera…)

Some of that celebrating has also occurred with some of our friends in Pasadena (and beyond :-D)! Over the weekend we went to Venice Beach…

… And did a little bike riding along the famous Venice Beach bike trail…

So now we are on our way back east… (wow I don’t believe our trip is more than half-way over)!
But what a trip it has been so far 🙂 :)!
-r. & j. (&c.)

08/01/2011 – …Nevada, Arizona, Utah…

And are on interstates heading east…
We saw quite a few interesting sights as we left Southern California… Including this crazy looking motorcycle meets tricycle of sorts…

And this classy trucker…

The views driving through the mountains to the Nevada border were pretty spectacular…

We also saw our first (pretty amazing that it was only our first) high speed major auto wreck unfold in front of us. Thankfully we were able to avoid the collision and as we crept by the passengers appeared to have gotten safely out of the car. Although we didn’t stop to help (other cars were already pulled off the road) we did pick up the phone to call 911.
From there we were off and on our way to Las Vegas!!

Look it’s NewYork, New York…

After having just gotten engaged and seeing that our route took us straight through Vegas we decided to modify our itinerary and turn it into a “quick pit stop”….

… Ok you caught us… We didn’t actually elope… But we did have car problems and had to switch cars and are NOW cruising back out east with California plates :).

As we went continued on the views were beautiful…

And the days sunset just as pretty as the landscape…

When we pulled into our hotel that night we had no idea that this was right outside our window..

-r. & j. (&c.)

08/03/2011 – …Adventures in Utah…

We arrived in Utah and headed across the spectacular Utah landscape…


…going fast…

…with a quick stop at a vista point somewhere along the way…

…with our eyes set on Moab and Arches National Park…

We decided to camp right outside of Arches rather than stay at a hotel …

which sounded like a great idea… the view from our campsite was awesome…
… however it ended being one of the more difficult camping experiences we’ve ever encountered… between the threat of rain (and lighting), the millions of mosquitoes (we were unhappy and Capone was miserable) and the attack bats… we were happy to make it through the night dry and with only a few mosquito bites :). Now off to CVS to get calamine lotion :)!

-r. & j. (&c.)

08/04/2011 – …Arches National Park and Colorado…

After a night of mosquito camping… We were off! Hiking :)… Right outside Arches National Park (cause once again National Parks aren’t pet friendly:( )

But the hike we went on was as good as any hike we could have found in Arches!

After the very HOT hike we took a quick dip in the Colorado River and the were on our way to…

The sights were beautiful…

From there we headed out on the road…

…and finally we made it to Colorado!!!…

-r. & j. (&c.)

08/04/2011 – …Fort Collins, CO and the NEW BELGIUM brewery :)…

Finally we made it to, our much anticipated stop, at the New Belgium Brewery aka home of Fat Tire beer!

The tour of the brewery was awesome…

By far one of the BEST brewery tours we have ever been on.. Here are some highlights…
…personalized fat tire bikes…

…funny beer mirror…

…beer…

…the chance to pour draft beer – 1554 – which is New Belgium’s unique Belgium-style dark beer. Which we learned was resurrected from a 450 year old Belgium beer recipe…

… AND a chance to go down the spiral slide in the brew house…

Obviously after the brew tour we went on the second part of our Fort Collins adventure which meant we bought as much Fat Tire as we could to transport back to New York (because they don’t distribute in the Northeast)…

After watching Joe pack the car I began to wonder if the car swap in Las Vegas was really a well orchestrated plan to get a car with a larger trunk.
-r. & j. (&c.)

08/05/2011 – …Colorado, Kansas, Missouri…

The last of our long haul drives – From Fort Collins to Columbia, Missouri… Total distance 774 miles!
We covered the entire state of Kansas…

Which was REALLY flat…

We found ways to stay busy since the scenery didn’t change much… Like watching a movie…

*disclaimer: I watched the movie Joe drove but we did have the movie in surround sound in the car.
After much driving….

…we made it to Kansas City…

…Missouri…

On our way to Louisville, Kentucky today with a quick stop in St. Louis!
-r. & j. (&c.)

08/06/2011 – …Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky…

Well we made it back to the eastern time zone …. Don’t believe our roadtrip is drawing to an end.
We made a quick lunchtime break in St. Louis…

… Where we had lunch with my high school friend Bree 🙂 – it was great seeing her and now I wished her and her husband, Curt, lived in NYC rather than St. Louis… Guess we’ll just have to come back for a visit!
During our lunch in St. Louis a storm passed through that blew us, Capone and everyone sitting outside away from their tables. We caught up with it later…

…. During our drive through…

We were happy to be past the storm…

…And Capone is getting so comfortable in the car – this is his version of fast food…

When we made it to…

And we made it in time to catch authentic Kentucky style meal…

(at the blind pig restaurant 🙂 )
As well as take in a few of the Louisville sights…

(largest bug we have EVER seen this photo does not do it justice – it looks like a branch but flew around and must have been 6″ long!)

-r. & j. (&c.)

08/07/2011 – …Kentucky, Ohio…

Since we stayed in Louisville, Kentucky for the night it was only fitting that we swing (yes pun intended) by the Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum in downtown Louisville…
SF Giants World Series bats…

Josh Hamilton bat for my Rangers (and Hamilton) loving sister…

Posing in front of the gigantic bat in front of the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory…

After that we decided to take a walk and check out architecture in Old Louisiville but we actually found…
The Google street views car!

So cool! And Capone was obviously happy about it as well!
From there we were back on the road and heading towards Ohio…

We arrived in Columbus…

… But continued on to a little town called Gambier, Ohio.
(This is a pretty tree in nice light after a rainstorm)….

… To meet up with Joe’s Cousin Rebecca! (stay tuned…fun doggie photos 🙂 )
-r.&j. (&c.)

08/08/2011 – …Gambier, Ohio (Kenyon College)…

Our visit with Rebecca (her pup Hailey) and a walk to the quarry…

– r. & j. (&c.)

08/08/2011 – …Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania…

The last drive before we hit NYC :(… took us out of the midwest…
and into the northeast…
And straight into… Amish Country….

… this is why they have this sign…

*note.. the boy behind the Amish wagon lost his hat and was not being left behind

The rest of the ride through Pennsylvania was pretty uneventful… but a really pretty sunset…
Until we got to our hotel.. where we experienced our first false alarm fire emergency… so out to the street we went as they checked to see if there was a fire…

After the whole “false alarm” episode Capone and I were both pretty tired… thankfully Joe took my camera and captured us fast asleep…

-r. & j. (&c.)

08/09/2011 – …Hershey, PA…

Our final overnight stop brought us to Hershey, PA…


…we decided the best way to celebrate the end of our Epic Road Trip would be a trip to an amusement park :)…

Our favorite roller coaster was Storm Runner…

…check out the 90 degree drop – It was so much fun!! We rode it twice :):)

From their it was on to the Hershey Factory…

…to make our own chocolate bars…

It was a hair free environment so we had to wear hair nets AND (if need be) beard nets…



The process of making our chocolate bars was cool to watch…


…and the final product was personalized (and yummy too!)…

-r. &j. (&c.)

08/10/2011 – … New Jersey, New York… HOME!

…After a fun day at Hershey Park we made our way out in cloudy, rainy weather back towards New York City…

But before we headed out we visited our friends the Whiddens and met their little guy, Ryan…

… who took to Joe …

Despite all the cuteness that Ryan gave us we did have get on the road…



…Brooklyn in our sight!

… and on to Smith Street…

It was a great cross country drive… we (Capone included) had alot of fun!

Now to relax a few days (in reality a day and a half – and really we our just doing our laundry and repacking) before our journey back to California for another friend’s wedding (although this time it won’t take 10 days ;))!

-r. & j. (&c.)

08/11/2011 – … The NUMBERS…

Our Epic Roadtrip by the numbers….

• 7387 miles driven
• 22 states traveled through
• 47 license plates seen (did not see Mississppi, Rhode Island or Washington DC)
• 4 international plates seen (3 from Canada, 1 from Mexico)
• 10 the number of hotels we slept in
• 4 national parks visited out of 58 (not including 1 national memorial)
• 3 nights camped  (2 in a tent)
• 110 the fastest mph reached
• 3 nights was our longest stay in one place (Santa Cruz, CA)
• 27 days on the “epic road trip”
• 2 number of rental cars we drove
• 5 different sets of friends and family that put us up in their homes
• 13 friend stops made
• 3 the number of times we did laundry
• 4 breweries visited
• 7 number of doggie friends Capone got to play with along the way
• 5 places Capone got to swim across the country
• 3 the number of new time zones Capone got to experience
• 11,158 ft highest elevation reached (the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70 in Colorado)
• 21 the number of times the car was unpacked/repacked
• 7 campfires (3 with s’mores…yum!)

Thanks for following our TRIP 🙂

-r. & j. (&c.)

08/16/2011 – …Addendum… Road Trip…

…California 2.0…

We went from New York out to California and back to New York. On the last leg of our trip we hopped back on a plane and made (what took us 10 days each way to drive) it back to California for a wedding on the beautiful Northern California coast…

Our first stop however was to see a preseason Raiders game at the Coliseum…

… it wasn’t a great game.. but Elvis was there so it made it all worthwhile…

Our drive up to Gualala, CA (partially along Highway 1) was breathtaking…

… we also were lucky enough to have a beautiful full moon during our visit.. which looked surreal over the ocean…

… on a side note it was also the August meteor shower and because of the full moon.. we didn’t see as many shooting stars as we would have liked… although we did get to see plenty 🙂

Our drive back did involve a bit of…

… we decided to detour from there to the Marin Headlands and Fort Cronkite for a walk along the cliffs…

… check out this fisherman fishing from the side of the cliff all the way to the ocean below… although he didn’t catch anything it was still quite the sight…

As our summer comes to a close.. we both are so thankful to have had the opportunity to travel together and see so many great sights this country has to offer. Although we are both ready to sleep in our bed without having to unpack :)… it was an amazing experience that neither one of us will ever forget…!

We hope that you enjoyed all the photos (and following our adventures) as much as we enjoyed being in the places that they were taken in.

-r. & j.