Day One in San Francisco

Today I left with some classmates to go to the American Chemical Society Meeting in San Francisco. The flight was good - I slept for about 2/3 of it as usual. I felt like such a leader, because I helped to find us transportation. Only $2 to take samTrans from the airport to the hotel! I guess you get what you pay for (it was pretty dirty), but it sure beats the $17 it costs to take a shuttle. I had never taken public transportation before this, so it was quite an experience. I felt so city-like! We settled for a few minutes once we got to our rooms then started walking and found a California Pizza Kitchen to eat lunch at. We walked some more and found the Yerba Buena Gardens. It was really cool to see a community park and see so many people coexisting.

After a much-needed 1.5 hour nap, we went and ate dinner at Mel's Diner. It was a bit pricey for what they offered, but pretty good. After we paid, we stood outside for a few minutes to decide where we wanted to walk. A bum came up to me and asked me to give him some change or to buy him a meal. He looked in pain, but it was obvious he was over-exaggerating. Welcome to San Francisco.

Road Trip Back to TX Day #9

So we didn't get up as early as we wanted, but that's okay because we were in Texas already! We headed down I-35 and decided we would stop by the Czech Stop in West, TX. Great kolaches for those of you who have never had their food! We got into Austin at about 2, then went to Hannah's (Holly's little sister) junior high award ceremony. We unpacked then just relaxed!

It was a great trip, but it was also great to be back in familiar territory. Adventures like this sure broaden the mind though! :)

Stay tuned for more adventures!!!

Road Trip Back to TX Day #8

The hotel in Mobile was great and cheap (Comfort Inn I believe). One of the best I think I've ever stayed in for the price... a whopping $40! We decided to take the northern route and hit I-20 in Jackson, MS since there were some pretty big storms lining the Gulf coast along I-10.

Mississippi was something. It is like we left 2009 and entered 1965... Maybe it was just the route we took, but I'm pretty sure it was indicative of the entire state. We even stopped at a rest-stop/fruitstand and saw these wonderful little figurines:

Yes, they are what you think they are...

Anyways, we stopped by the Jackson Natural History Museum and saw some alligators, weird softback turtles, and some pretty cool fossils. Nice amount of stuff for $6 or whatever it was per vehicle. The weather in Jackson was humid, but a lot better than what we've been experiencing so far. After looking around we ate at Whataburger and decided to see how far we could get without stopping.

Holly was really happy to be back in Texas after four and a half months in Florida. Doesn't she look so cute?


We were hoping Austin would be within the day's voyage, but alas we could not stay awake long enough, so we decided to shack up in a LaQuinta just outside of Mesquite to recuperate. Austin-bound in the morning!

Road Trip Back to TX Day #7

We got up at a decent time today. We started off by buying some food for the road at Publix. They're the Florida brand of grocery store and are actually really pretty good. We got some "everything" bagels. Bad idea for a road trip because they are MESSY. We saw the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing and Antique Car Museum in Ocala and decided to stop by before making significant progress. It was really cool! I'd grown up around antique cars my whole life, so I thought it was interesting. Holly seemed to enjoy it too. Some things were a little repetitive since I could be a little more into the stuff than I am, but it was cool nonetheless. We didn't really stop again until we hit the edge of the Florida panhandle. I have a National Parks Stamp Passport that I like to try and fill up and we saw a sign for the Gulf Islands National Seashore. However, it turned out to be closed by then, so we ended up at Pensacola Beach. It was really nice! We joked about how we should have just gone there instead (we should have). It's definitely on our list of good beaches now. We were going to spend some more time there, but we decided we should probably drive a little farther, so we got some Sonic and trekked the rest of the way to Mobile, AL.

Road Trip Back to TX Day #6

So we got up this morning ready to just leave this place. It was nice to have a bit of vacation for just the two of us, but I think we were both ready to just be home. The Keys would a great place to vacation if you have the time to do everything AND you know where and what you're doing. I suppose the next time we come, it will be a much better experience.

Anyways, we ate at the Key Largo Conch House and had a delicious breakfast. On our way back up, we stopped by the Everglades to look around. It was kinda cool, but the visitor's center wasn't really a great example of what the park is like. We were gonna go look around, but it started to rain a lot, so we just figured we'd hit the road. On the way, we swore we saw a tornado out in the distance toward the east. It may have just been a stream of heavy rain, but we're pretty sure it was a tornado. We also saw a car chasing another car and the two parties pulling over and getting out to fight (I wish I could have stopped to see how it turned out) and experienced the worst gas station bathroom known to man.

We made it to Kissimmee and decided to spend the night there (kinda depressing considering Kissimmee is right adjacent to Orlando and we basically just made a big loop). However, we also both kinda wanted to see the Jon & Kate Plus 8 Season Premiere. So we ate at a Denny's then checked into a Days Inn ($30 with a coupon from the Florida RoomSaver!!!). However, unlike every other hotel in the nation they did not have the channel on which the show airs! Holly had gotten me hooked on the show, so I was determined to find us a TV that was playing it. So we went to the Bennigan's across the street and I asked the bartender if she could turn the TV to TLC. She said she could only put it on the TV in the way back corner since she was only supposed to be airing sports and news stations on the TVs. We were grateful for this... until we realized it was also the only TV with no sound. The workers also seemed to not even know how to turn on the captions. So after about 30 minutes of lip-reading, we left since we figured it wasn't worth it if we couldn't hear anything. Oh well, we need the sleep anyways...

By the way, if you are taking a road trip anytime soon, I highly recommend getting a RoomSaver for the state you are going to be spending the night in. You can find them at pretty much any fast food restaurant, state visitor's center, or sometimes even in front of the hotel you're thinking of staying at!

Road Trip Back to TX Day #5

We didn't really start on the road as early as we had hoped considering we like to sleep in as much as possible. We left at about 11am and stopped at a restaurant called Marker 88 for brunch. It was pretty delicious. Then we continued the 2 hour drive to Key West and got down there at about 3pm. We visited the Pirate Soul Museum, which was really awesome, and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. The houses there were really cool and vintage. We followed this random rooster down the street, but kinda felt bad since we drove it away from its home. It seemed like a pretty dumb animal. I hope it found its way back.

Holly really wanted to find a nice beach, so we went to Smathers Beach (as a recommendation from the helpful cashier at Wendy's) and laid out for a little bit. A storm was coming in and th wind started to pick up, so we didn't stay for very long at all. I felt bad for the two weddings that were being set up on the beach.

We drove all the way back to Key Largo, where I had booked a room for us at the Hungry Pelican Motel. We were really excited and looking forward to just being able to kick back and relax. Epic fail. This is the worst, smallest, most dingy piece of crap room I've ever stayed in. We both just kind of laughed at how horrible it is. Oh well, at least it's a place to sleep...

Road Trip Back to TX Day #4

Today was our first day in the Keys. We started out at about 9am for the 30 min drive to Key Largo. It was so cool and almost surreal to be on an island. We decided to take a snorkeling expedition at the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. Very cool! It would have been even better if Holly and I weren't so prone to motion sickness. We spent about 2 hours out at sea and about 1 1/2 hours of those feeling like crap.

After we got back to land, we felt almost immediately better and ate at the park's little snack shop. We looked for a decent beach in the park, but didn't really find anything that we liked so we started down the road a little ways. We found this cool little beach that you usually have to pay like $15 to get into, but it was late in the day, so we got in for free. :) It was the perfect time of day to go to the beach too since it was really hot earlier. We enjoyed the 80 degree water and even found a cool little crab.

We were getting hungry, so we started on the way back up and ate at a place we had heard of called Sundowners. The view of the sunset was amazing and the food was delicious! What a perfect way to end the evening.

We decided to head back to Florida City for the night since it was pretty cheap to stay there and I had cancelled our room before since we weren't sure about the weather.