Road Trip Part 3, The Finale

The Pacific Northwest was beautiful. It had plenty of huge, lush, green trees and ferns and foggy snow capped mountains. From Yellowstone we drove another twelve hours to Seattle and stayed with a friend. In Seattle, we did a lot of eating and walking around. One of the highlights of our time there was going to an 80s and 90s rock sing along in a movie theater. They handed everyone a blow up plastic guitar and lighter when you walked in the door and the words to the songs were written at the bottom of the screen. Everyone was singing along and having a great time. There was even a “professional” air guitar group that performed live. So many of the songs I thought I knew, only to find that I mainly just knew the chorus. It was fun seeing all of the old music videos as well, I had only ever seen a few of them prior. The videos were hilarious, and I was surprised to find (based on the explicit videos and hidden lyrics illuminated by the karaoke style) that the vast majority of the songs were about sex. Some songs I knew that ahead of time, but some were a complete surprise to me. 

In Seattle we walked around some of the various neighborhoods. We went to the Farmer's Market, took the ferry across to the island, saw the wall of gum, went to the original Starbucks, and visited Microsoft's visitor center (we mainly just played games there). From Seattle we did some brief hiking around Mount Rainer, but, like Yellowstone, many of the roads were closed due to the season.

I thought that the rock sing along in Seattle was one of the most random things that I had done in a movie theater, until the following evening when we were in Portland. We stayed with friends that brought us to an old claymation movie from the '70s presenting a double feature of The Little Prince (based on the popular children's book) and the tale of Rip Van Winkle. But, here's the twist, all of the original voice actors were there to perform the movie live, along with a live orchestra. It was totally cool. First of all, the movie on its own was a complete work of art, but second of all, the actors did such a good job that I would find myself forgetting that they were performing live. Plus, having the live orchestra gave the whole theater a great ambiance and feel to it. It was such a unique experience.

We had a great time in Portland, just took things slow and did a lot of hanging out. We watched our friend play some soccer, ate at some delicious food carts, walked around a bit, and played some pinball. I think that my friends must have rigged the machine to let me win, because I was not excited about the prospect of playing pinball. But, after the first few winning rounds, I was hooked. I was hesitant to play at first because I thought I would be horrible at it, and I don't always lose gracefully. Call it beginner's luck, but I ended up doing a lot better than I thought I would, and had a great time. I also learned that there was more skill involved than I initially thought. Before, I thought pinball was more a game of chance, but there is skill required.

From Portland we ventured down to San Francisco and stayed with a friend. We did a lot of walking there, which was much needed exercise for me. In fact, I was feeling so lethargic and stiff from all of our time in the car, that I did some pilates moves while we were hanging out in one of the parks. All of the eating out and junk food we were consuming was taking its toll on me. We really only had one day in San Francisco, but the weather was warm and perfect that day. Prior to that, it had been freezing everywhere else we had gone, and snowing or raining in many of the areas. We walked and took the trains and buses, and walked across the golden gate bridge. The golden gate bridge park was pretty, but had a lot of seedy characters and homeless people, much like a lot of places in San Francisco I guess. Eating was another way that we explored San Francisco as well. I always enjoy finding cute cafes and restaurants when we travel, and San Francisco offers such a variety.

Arizona was the next stop on our trip. We spent a day and night there with my mom and sister and then needed to head back to the east coast. The next leg of our journey was the most grueling. It was about a 36 hour drive back to Atlanta and Matt and I drove straight through, switching off back and forth. After all of the driving that we had already done, and the sleep deprivation from our travels, it was exhausting.


Literally, as we pulled in to our apartment complex, another check engine light came on.  We decided to deal with it the next morning.  There must have been a slow leak, because when we got to the car the next morning, one of the front tires was flat.  Matt threw a donut on the car and took it to the repair shop close to our house and they were able to repair the tire relatively inexpensively.  Honestly speaking, if there was going to be a "good" time for problems to occur, that was extremely well timed.  We were able to repair the tire and be on the road again that afternoon.

Our next and final stop was to a wedding in North Carolina, about six hours away. Relatively speaking, the drive was a piece of cake. It was fun hanging out with friends in North Carolina. We went to the natural history museum in Raleigh, a Christmas parade (even though it was a week before Thanksgiving, maybe they knew we wouldn't be in the states for Christmas, so they wanted to do it early :) and the wedding was held at the kid's discovery center. At the wedding, many of the exhibits were available for us to play in, including: a play submarine, wooden pirate ship, giant legos, sock hockey ring, soccer area, mini surf boards, and a giant chess game. Needless to say, I had a great time running around and playing all of the games. There was plenty of dancing, libations, and I thought the karaoke near the end was a nice touch. The father of the bride rendered an adorable A Capella song that sounded mainly like gibberish to me, but may have been Celtic? One of our friends is prone to take his shirt off when a certain Fergie song comes on, so of course that song needed to be requested, and our group erupted in a chant that elicits such behavior from him. The evening ended with the happy couple being taken away on their awaiting chariot (or bike rickshaw as it is more commonly viewed), and some of our more rowdy friends following their lead and piled in to another bike rickshaw. It was three grown men in tuxes trying to fit into a two person rickshaw, with a female pedal biker at the helm, poor woman, didn't know what she was getting herself in to. One of the passengers ended up getting out and pushing the, ah, vehicle from behind. It was quite a sight.

All in all, we had a fantastic time on our road trip. If I were able to do it again, I would have allotted more time for the trip. It was short and sweet, though, and I'm so glad we were able to see the people we were able to see. The sincerest thank you to all of our wonderful friends that hosted us and showed us such a great time in their respective cities. You are both silver and gold, you are like a conglomerate of all of the most beautiful, expensive, indestructible alloys the universe has ever seen and will ever see, including, but not limited to: platinum, diamonds, bears, gold teeth, uranium and kryptonite. But, seriously, we love you guys!

Road Trip Part 2, Close Encounters

We are back now from our road trip, I'm just now able to write about it. Not including sleeping, we probably spent just as much time driving in the car than actually hanging out in any one place. Two weeks is just not enough time to spend driving cross country and back. So, here is the long and the short of the rest of our trip.

From Minnesota (and a short time in Fargo), we went to Yellowstone National park. Montana was gorgeous, now I know why Ted Turner is such a fan. We hiked a small portion of Yellowstone, but most of the park was closed due to the time of year. The Rockie Mountains were snow capped and surrounded us like stoic giants, with low laying clouds that hugged the slopes. At Yellowstone, we were able to see the hot water steaming up from the ground. It creates pools of hot water that form shelves. It looks like an entirely different planet, something straight out of Star Trek. The steam coming up from the ground, and what looks like flat salt deposits, with a bare tree here or there all create a completely different environment.

On this road trip, I have seen more road kill than I've ever seen on one trip in my entire life. On our drive from Atlanta to MN, and then through Montana, I saw more deer carcasses (or parts) than I'd care to remember. The telltale signs of blood staining the road and animal parts a few feet away off to the side made me flinch every time. It may just be my imagination, but it seems like many of the deer carcasses were missing their necks and heads, probably due to opportunistic passersby. Driving at night made me especially nervous.

We had a close encounter with deer on the drive to Yellowstone. Matt was driving late at night and passing a semi truck, turning a slight corner had us face to face with a deer standing completely in the passing lane we were in. The second I saw the deer my heart jumped and then started beating rapidly. It was a fully grown deer, probably half the size of Matt's car. If it came down to it, Matt's tiny car would not survive a full speed impact with this deer. The semi truck was not far behind us on our right and a slope without a large shoulder was to our left. Matt calmly hit the brake and came to a complete stop with the deer standing at a standstill in front of us. The deer slowly started moving forward into the right lane, and much to my relief, the semi truck also come to a complete stop. It was a tense moment. Though it was probably only a few seconds, it felt like a long moment suspended in time as the deer stood and watched us before it bolted for the woods.  It was a close one, but thankfully it ended well for all involved.

Road Trip! ... Car Problems

I love road trips.  The open road, the junk food I would never allow under normal circumstances, the MP3s or books on tape, the musical variety, the changing scenery, the endless possibility...  It feels like coming home, or leaving it, or whatever.  Growing up, family vacations were synonymous with road trips.  My dad at one point drove semi trucks for a living and would sneak us kids on some of his trips out to California (from AZ).  I have fond memories of those road trips.  Even the ones where my dad would pick up hitch hikers smelling of urine and skunk in the close proximity of the truck's cab, or the time we would have to spend by ourselves at gas stations a few miles away from our dad's work (kids weren't technically allowed on his haul, so we'd have to wait while he picked up the truck).

Matt and I left for our road trip a few days ago, I think.  Time is hard to keep track of, it feels like we've been on the road for weeks now.  It's fall, so the leaves are changing color and the scenery is gorgeous.  We drove pretty much straight through from Atlanta to Northern Minnesota where Matt has family.  It's about a 24 hour drive or so.  Matt and I switched off driving and stopped for about three hours (in the wee hours of the morning when neither of us can keep our eyes open a minute longer) at a rest stop to pass out in the car.  Safe, I know, but we're on a limited time budget.

We got to Matt's family's house last night, it was so nice to sleep in a bed.  I fell into a sleep coma fairly early and was hesitant to get out of bed this morning.  We left bright and early, and the first thing we noticed was the check engine light on.  Pulling over, we didn't find anything glaringly wrong with the engine.  Matt looked up the nearest dealership on our way to the next stop on our road trip.

So, here we are at the dealership in Fargo, North Dakota.  Fingers crossed that the problem is not serious, and we don't end up here for our entire trip.  I have definitely spent an entire week broken down on a road trip once, it was a defining moment.  It was my second road trip from Arizona to Atlanta and I was with my older sister.  We were driving a new, for me, used car my dad had just purchased.  It turned out to be a bit of a lemon, needless to say.  I was still in high school, my sister was in college.  We broke down in the middle of nowhere in west Texas.

A minor problem, the engine broke.  This was before either of us had a cell phone, and we spent the night in the car.  We broke down at 2 AM, and got picked up by the border patrol in the morning.  No joke, the border patrol.  Not because we look like illegal aliens or anything like that (though we do look ambiguously "ethnic," I won't deny that).  We were waking up and my sister was wiping the condensation from the windows when she saw a car with lights on top in the rear view mirror and flagged them down.  The car just happened to be the border patrol.  The friendly man took us to the nearest town, with its population somewhere in the hundreds, maybe less.  I opted for fixing my car versus leaving it and taking a bus, which took an entire week to fix.

My sister and I stayed in what we started calling the "Baits" Motel (after the movie Psycho), so deemed by us for the slashed shower curtains, and what looked like blood stains on the carpet.  So much of what happened on that trip did not feel real.  It felt more like some nightmare hidden camera show where all of the characters were in cahoots, but we were the unknowing victims.  The creepy guy that worked at the hotel would knock on our door late at night, sounding intoxicated, and would invite us to play pool with him.  Our entire motel room was covered in cat hair, and we found out from one of the workers that stray cats would stay in the room when it was unoccupied.  We slept fully clothed with our hoods up on our sweatshirts, and pretended to be asleep when we got knocks at the door.  The water that came out of the faucet was brown, so we didn't shower once that week.  When asked what there was to do for fun, the creepy motel worker answered with well, I like to go out in to the desert, listen to music, drink, and shoot stuff.  Drinking seemed to be a popular sport, because we found a huge pile of empty beer containers the size of the trash container itself sitting next to the dumpster in our motel.  I have such found memories of being woken up to shooting in the not so far distance, trying to convince myself all the while that it was a car backfiring, and one morning a police officer came by to check on us.  Apparently, my aunt had called the local police department concerned when she had wired me money to fix my car, and then didn't hear from me for several days.  Looking back on it now, it's not such a far fetched scenario that she was picturing.  For many years after that break down, my birthday present from my aunt was AAA, the gift that keeps on giving.  Seems she has a sense of humor with her practicality.

It was from this trip that I learned that being polite is not more important than your life.  At one point, my sister and I made the mistake of agreeing to a driving tour of the town with the creepy motel worker.  We were trying to be polite after turning down many other "friendly" gestures from him.  The moment we got in to the two door car, he informed us that the car forced him to be a gentleman, because the passenger seat door didn't open from the inside.   I later learned that was one method a serial killer used to trap his victims.  I can't say with certainty that this man was dangerous, but he sure did have me worried.  He went on to tell us a quaint story about the time he got locked out of his car.  He apparently had taken a giant, heavy frying pan and tried to break the glass.  Pointing out a tiny scratch on his window of where he had tried to break the window only heightened my fear.  My sister and I sighed with relief as the tour came to an apparent close and we headed back to the motel, only to find him passing the motel and heading out in to the desert.  We wondered aloud where he was headed, and he responded, I thought we could listen to some music in the desert and stuff.  Yes, that was exactly what we wanted to hear.  Take us to the middle of nowhere, with your guns that you like to shoot things with, and hang out where our screams can't be heard.  We panicked.  We objected, and finally my sister blurted, I have to pee, can we please go back to the motel?  At first he wasn't listening to our pleads to go back, but seemed to accept that one, because thankfully he took us back and let us out of the car.

When my car was finally fixed, we got the hell out of that town.  We drove so fast, my sister ended up getting a speeding ticket before we managed to leave the state.  Despite having poured a lot of money at the time into the car, it was a lemon and did not last for more than a few months after the breakdown.  But, the memories of our breakdown will last a lifetime.

Thankfully, the news on Matt's car was good.  Turns out the computer in his car needed a software update and the friendly folks at the Fargo dealership installed it for free.  It put us back a little in our timing, but that was a best case scenario, all things considered.  Thank goodness history is not repeating itself.  Back on the road again!

Why Now? And the Plan.

I love to travel and have been very lucky to have done the traveling domestically and abroad that I have been able to do up to this point.  In the past it's been a few weeks here, a few months there.  The type of travel Matt and I are about to embark upon allows for longer, less structured, freer travel.

A lot of people have asked, why now?  What one moment set you off?  Well, for us, we didn't have one distinct moment, no layoff or point of frustration (in the current moment anyways).  We both love our jobs, and live comfortably.  I guess it did start with one of my first jobs out of college, there was a point when I was really upset and I suggested to Matt that we move to South America for a year and teach English.  He didn't let me forget that moment (even when I found a much more fulfilling job), and it has still been something in the backs of our minds.  We both have the strong desire to travel.  I used to believe in the concept of retirement, but no longer for myself.  There are absolutely no guarantees in life, there's no guarantee you'll even make it to retirement age.  My new motto is to do today what I've been putting off for tomorrow (easier said than done most times, but it's a nice catchy thing to aspire to).

There is never going to be a perfect moment in time to do this sort of thing (never the perfect amount of money, there will always be other things going on, etc.), but we decided to make it a priority to do it now.  As it is, we are at a point where it's as good as it gets timing wise.  We are young and adaptable, healthy, without debts, without a mortgage, and without kids.  I do at some point (far, far into the future) would like to have a family and "settle down."  When we made the decision, we were at a point where our lease was coming due.  We have been renting for a good amount of time and it just doesn't make sense to keep renting.  We talked about it, and came to the options of settling down and buying a house, or being nomads for a time and live like gypsies.  We went with the latter.

So, slowly we started downsizing.  Giving away or selling what we could, and putting money away for our trip.  Once we made the decision, everything just felt right.  We didn't know how people would react, so we waited until a few months before we were to leave before breaking the news to our friends and family.  In life, there will always be those people who want to rain on your parade (because they are jealous, or are generally negative, or your actions fall outside of their perceived bubble of "normal," or they are projecting their own personal limitations and insecurities, etc.).  Our waiting to break the news was in part to lower our exposure to such criticism, or unintended negativity.  We've been very lucky in the fact that most people have been really supportive of our decision to travel.

Ok, so here's the plan.  We leave from Atlanta, GA for a 2 week road trip out to the west coast tomorrow.  I would think 2 weeks is a decent amount of time (that's most people's vacation time for an entire year), but apparently our country is huge.  There will be lots and lots of driving for the weeks to come.  We will be spending just as much time in the car as out of it on our 2 week road trip.

We have friends out on the west coast we've been meaning to visit for awhile now, and thought driving would be a fun way of seeing a lot of states in between that I've never been to.  We drive for a day, sleep in MN, then head to Seattle.  A good friend of mine is out in Seattle, we spend a few days with her, then head to Portland, maybe stopping to camp overnight in one of the National parks out there.  Spend a few days in Portland with friends, then head to San Francisco.  We spend a day in SF, then head to Arizona where I have family.  Spend a day in AZ before heading to SC for a wedding.  Of the places we'll be staying in, I've never been to Seattle or Portland, so we'll be spending the most time there.

Then we come back to Atlanta for a few days, and pack the last of our belongings.  We are selling or giving away all of our furniture and large items, putting some things in storage (at the home of one of Matt's generous family members), and taking what will fit in a backpack on our journey.  We're storing Matt's car with family in MN, so from Atlanta we drive to MN and fly out to Sydney, Australia from there.  We have work visas that are good for a year in Australia (the process was not difficult, esp if you fill it out online).  FYI - I didn't learn this until later, but the phone number to the Australian consulate was a 905 number (or something like that), which I guess is in Canada.  I got charged international rates when I called with questions, apparently you don't have to dial a country code when dialing from the US to Canada.  I thought it was just a long distance number in the states, so be aware if you call with questions.

For our travels abroad, we are trying to plan as little as possible (I say trying, because I sometimes have a problem with not planning things).  I'm sure that as we go, we will learn about various opportunities or neat places to visit, and we don't want to get so set in one plan of action that we are blind to those opportunities.  Generally speaking, I would love to go to (in no particular order) New Zealand, China, Thailand, Nepal, and all over South America.  But, who knows?  We might end up staying in Australia for a long while, or end up on an island in the South Pacific.  I am open to the uncertainty of life.

What's a Name?

So, as you can see, I decided to start a blog.  The intent is to record some of my boyfriend, Matt, and I's upcoming travel adventures.  Me starting a blog may come as a surprise to some, coming from a person who just a few short years ago referred to, in all seriousness, a blog as a "blob."  I still have not lived that down, and so have come to embrace it.  Hence the name of my blog or blob.  Travel Blob was already taken, so I had to settle for Traveling Blob.  On the plus side, I do like the fact that the name of my blog ends up sounding like some kind of cheesy horror film, or overweight tourist, or dense pollution cloud (which might not be so far fetched in our first overseas destination - the thin ozone layered Australia).  So, feel free to apply whatever definition is most entertaining for you.

I am very excited about our upcoming travels.  Since I can remember, I've always had the travel bug.  I didn't have cable growing up, so the travel channel was out of the question.  The closest thing I got to seeing travel was Rick Steve's Europe on PBS.  I'm not sure why they ever specified that it was Rick Steve's Europe, because he never went anywhere outside of Europe (excluding the northern part of Africa and Iran as part of other European trips), but that's besides the point.  I would get so excited when the show would come on, watching every new place with awe, the locations changing but good old Rick's '80s style staying a constant.

My first trip outside of the country was in high school.  It was a 2 week exchange program to Switzerland that I had slowly saved up for with babysitting money (my rail pass in Europe having been paid for by generous contributions from friends' parents).  I was not disappointed by this trip, Rick Steves had not lead me astray.  It was one of the best times of my life.

Since then, I have been very lucky to have been able to do the traveling that I have done.  I studied abroad in Spain for 2 months while in college, traveled around Europe for a month backpacking, been to Morocco, went to Tunisia a year ago, been to various parts of Mexico and all over the USA.  This upcoming trip is a little different in that we have very little planned and don't have a specific end date.  We're trying to plan as little as possible, as I'm sure different opportunities will come up as we go and we don't want to get too set in a specific plan or idea.

Our journey begins with a small road trip out to the west coast before we fly out of the country.  We leave in a few days and spend two weeks driving out to Grand Rapids (MN), Seattle, Portland, San Fransisco, and Scottsdale.  

As a final note to my first entry, try to have low expectations while reading my blog (hard to do, I know).  For me, traveling is all about the experience and living in the present moment (or trying to as much as I can).  I don't want writing in my blog to overshadow the experience, making the reflection of the experience more important than the actual experience, or change the way I would act normally because it might be a cool thing to write about later.  Therefore, if I don't write for awhile, don't feel slighted.  Besides, movies are always better when you have low expectations, I'm sure blobs work in the same way.