Epic Roadtrip!

Ok, so I'm a bit fuzzy from getting very little sleep last night (thanks for the early flight, mom!), but I'll do my best to recount the last day and a half of our trip:

• Saturday, we got up and pushed through to our final destination. April and Rob's apartment is beautiful. Or at least it was until we loaded a truckfull of boxes and cluttered it up.
• I wish I lived in Soviet Russia, because everyone knows: In Soviet Russia, heavy boxes go up the stairs carrying YOU!!!
• We went to the pool and got eaten by little gnats.
• We celebrated the move with champagne!
• We ate dinner by the Atlantic Ocean, a nice symbolic touch to our trip.
• We celebrated the move with beer!
• Jess finally won a card game.
• We celebrated the move with Robbie's cream soda & rum drinks!
• April rolled 6 dice, and all of them came up as 5's. The chances of rolling all dice the same was 1/7776.
• April tossed the pigs in Pass the Pigs, and managed to get one of them in her wine glass (Mike called this a "drowner").
• The Hall slept in the hall.
• We got up at 4 AM (no, seriously, thanks mom!).
• Jess wasn't feeling well, but we got home safely and easily.
• Our final in-car time was 40 hours, 48 minutes, 29.6 seconds.
• We traveled through 10 states.
• We acquired all but 8 license plates.
• No-one died of dysentery.

Thanks for everything, April and Rob!

(Just don't move to Oregon anytime soon.)

we don't take to kindly to you folk

Hello from our last day on the road. Today proved to be a boring drive through our southern states. We drove through 6 states today including; Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and boredom. Our highlight for the day was Chick Fil-A for lunch where Adam and Jessica both sat in puddles of water. Here are some highlights from our southern neighbors:

• Not all gas stations have pay at the pump and as a result Jessica was taken hostage at an Alabama gas station. Don't worry negotiations were made and jess was allowed to continue on the trail
• Robbie and Jessica were in the doghouse when they decided to continue at a grueling pace and not stop until Columbia.
• At dinner we had the 'waitress that couldn't wait to turn 21'. She forgot Robbie's dinner and told us all about the toilet bowl birthday cake that her friends are buying for her birthday next week. She was redeemed when she did not ask for id and Adam was allowed a drink of wine.
• Speaking of toilet bowls we met a woman in the elevator that had a drink and a plunger. This would have been acceptable except that she proceeded to tell us about her son who just finished basic and he has been eating a lot of crap. TMI.

Well that is about it for tonight. It was a boring day. Tomorrow includes the final push for Charlestown. Hopefully we won't break an axle or lose any oxen on the way. Our health is good and spirits high. Till tomorrow...

One final note....Atlanta sucks!

Its a Long Road to Memphis

Hello again! Since I (April) had the most emotional breakdowns today, i decided to once again fill out today's blog.
Highlights of Thursday:

• We had such a great time sneaking Bisous in and out of the hotel as well as partying in a dry county, that we decided to sleep in and enjoy the morning in Van Buren, AK.
• We hit the road around 1030. We called the French bulldog breeder (who spoke broken spanglish) but after he agreed to meet us with a puppy because his house was "too busy" we decided it was too shady and didn't want to buy from him. If I do get a second dog, I would like to see the breeding facilities and not have the "Breeder" meet me at the nearest Seven/Eleven. Hence, we did not get a new puppy.
• We were driving the peaceful highways of Arkansas when we noticed many wineries appearing on the bilboards. Well, we had lots of time on our hands since we did not go to the puppy mill, so we decided to have a taste. The first place was very nice! Our wine pour-er was listening to Snoop dogg and talking about his most recent time in the town's drunk tank. We were joined on this adventure by two local rednecks... so cool! We left with two bottles of wine and many stories to tell.
• The second place was an old Swiss farm which looked just like Epcot center's Germany. Too bad the wines tasted like ancient Boons farm. We left with no wine.
• The final place was in the "downtown." (aka, next to the Baptist Church.) Wines were OK, Jessica bought a CASE! (Don't worry Mike, it was only $80 for 12 bottles.... yeah....)
• Onward to Memphis! Three hours later we arrived at the Mississippi and into the Birthplace of Rock and Roll... and TRAFFIC! We had to go outside the town to find a place where we could have Bisous. (The places downtown wanted a $500 fee for a dog!!! NO WAY!)
• We are now in a Memphis suburb with a PF Changs and a couple of 6 packs of Yeungling (Robbie's Choice, Obviously!)
• We might go see Graceland tomorrow. We might see the Coca Cola factory. Who knows... We got word that our movers can meet us Saturday in Charleston, so we are going to go father than originally planned tomorrow.

Thanks for your comments! We look forward to posting every evening.

Ladies and Gentlement, your guest blogger, APRIL!
I may not be as nimble with the keyboard as Adam in previous posts, but i have experienced the same events over the past 24 hours which are listed in (close to) chronological order below!
I prefer to give the rest of the series of events in bullet form. I'm an engineer, its easier for me than creating catchy segueways... (and i obviously can't spell...)

• Santa Rosa has nothing to offer. We tried. Twice.
• We ate at the silver moon cafe. This may sound like a cute Route 66 diner with a Native American flare, but assuming this would leave you with much dissapointment. It was tasty and the highlight of the meal was our bottles of "Roswell Alien Amber Ale." As touristy as it sounds, it was actually tasty.
• We concluded that Santa Rosa was the inspiration for the town of Radiator Springs in Disney's "Cars." The only difference is the happy, inspirational and transformational ending, as every building in the town was still boarded and abandoned. I'm sure the town was adorable OVER 50 YEARS AGO! (surely not!)
• This morning began early. The highlight of the morning was seeing the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere on the NM/TX boarder. it IS as cool as it sounds!
• Before the cross (and while i was enjoying a wonderful morning nap) the remaning members of our party saw an entire field on fire! The smoke was so thick it blotted out the sun in an apocolyptic manner. The humorous side of this event was the circa WWII fire engines (not even yet trucks) attempting to extiguish the blaze. We laughed at their tragedy due to the sheer futilness of thier efforts.
• We stopped for lunch in Shamrock Texas. They have such a great gimmick, however, not a single shamrock was seen in the town. We did find Shamrock shakes at the McDonalds. The accents and pride run deep in Texas...
• Jokes about Texas are as follows: 1. No one noticed any change in any sizes. 2. We saw lots of steer, but no visibly identifyable queers. 3. Oh yes, we messed with Texas... without consequence.
• Texas gave way to the delightfully dull plains of Oklahoma. Every town is extremely proud of anyone who was once a resident.
• We drove through Oklahoma City with the intent to find a hotel on the east side. This ended 3 hours later in Arkansas. There is nothing on the east side of OK city.
• We finally stopped 900 miles after beginning in Van Buren, Arkansas. We walked to the Chili's with the intent of overindulging on Presidente Margaritas. To our shock and suprise, we were in a DRY COUNTY!! (WTF?!?!) By the way, the chili's menu is much thinner without a drink section, but there was more room on the table for our food.
• We headed to Walmart to buy random crap and mixers for our drinks in our room. Thank goodness we saved some Tequila from previous stops!

Hopefully tomorrow will provide more fun (and margaritas?). Since we went way farther than planned, tomorrow is a slow day that will include puppies and Graceland.

'Till tomorrow! Cheers!

New Mexico is much nicer than the old one...

Tuesday, March 18, 2008: 6:19 pm mountain time

Nothing extraordinarily exciting happened for the rest of the day yesterday, but here's what else we noted:

• We started day one at zero feet above sea level. We slept that night at 7000 feet above sea level.
• We started day one on the beach, moved into a desert (complete with cacti), and ended on a mountain (complete with pine trees).
• We saw some elk.
• There was a town called 'Dry Beaver.' No lies.

That night we checked in to a hotel, ate at an Olive Garden, had a few drinks and played games until we finally hit the sack.

This morning, we got started on the road at about 9. These are the highlights of the day:

• We visited a (famous?) meteor crater claimed to be over 50,000 years old. The floor of the crater was big enough for 20 games of football to be played simultaneously, and it was as deep as the Washington Monument. It was very cool to look at. When I say that, I mean that it was both fascinating, and very cold, as we were still in the mountains.
• The group lamented the fact that 'Foamhenge' was too far away.
• We saw multiple trains that were at least 80 to 90 cars long, and some that stretched farther than we could see. The first few were not moving, so we felt bad for the trains we saw later that would have to stop and wait for those.
• We went to the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park, and many jokes were made about how 'hard' the wood was.
• We saw multiple instances of veritable tumbleweed.
• We encountered a lot of plaster dinosaur statues around the road, one of which had two heads, and a toothbrush. Don't be confused; we don't understand either.
• Driving through Native American reservations, we saw many teepees, moccasin stores, and casinos.
• We watched some prairie dogs play amongst the tumbleweed while eating Taco Bell: an interesting combination indeed.

We just checked in to our hotel tonight, and we're now just relaxing for a bit before exploring all that Santa Rosa, New Mexico has to offer.

Until next time!

Onward!

Monday, March 17, 2008: 2:40pm pacific time.

Last night, before going to bed, we played one game of Oregon Trail, assuming that its happenings would predict the future of our trip. First of all, we forgot to buy food. That wasn’t good. Fortunately, we shot multiple buffalo and were able to get by on meager portions. Almost immediately, Robbie became sick with measles. This was followed a few days later by a bout of cholera and a broken arm. Otherwise, the party fared well until the Big Blue River Crossing. While floating across, we lost control and crashed, losing all of our party (including Bisous) except April, who died shortly after. Our epitaph reads, “Here lies April. This does not bode well...”

This morning, Robbie woke up not feeling well. We can only hope it’s not cholera. After packing the cars, we set off for the east coast. These are the day’s highlights so far.
• Border Patrol stopped us for a routine time-wasting. Luckily, we had let our Mexican friends jump out a mile before.
• We made a stop in “El Centro” (which is Spanish for ‘The Centro’). Therein, we had In-n-Out burgers one more time, because they are just too good. This time we’re serious, though. Last time.
• We have made great progress in our license plate search, having found 14 states, and a few Mexican plates.
• Jess writes, “Who knew that the desert was so green? Apparently cheese is not the only thing happy cows produce” after we went through a particularly manure-smelling section of road.
• If we had to assign a song to this section of the trip, it would be “Is there anybody out there?” by Pink Floyd. We think the answer is ‘no’ because we’ve seen no civilized life for 40 miles or so.
• However, we did see the largest cow farm we’ve ever laid eyes on. There must have been about 5,000 cows: a great score for ‘War of the Cows.’
• We made a stop in Dateland, which is exactly what it sounds. It consisted (from what we could see) of a gas station and a small market that sold dates and date shakes.

We’re back on the road, and still in the desert. Hopefully we see some life-forms soon. Till next time!

Weekend Recap/Blog Intro

So. This is the "Move the Tresslers Across the Country" blog. I'll be adding stats, sights, stories, and other random information about our trip to this site! (Yay!)

This weekend was a lot of fun:

Thursday night I got into San Diego at about 11pm local time, so we didn't do much apart from sleep.

Friday we decided we needed to get out of the beach house. We took a little stroll down the sandy shores, and later went mini-golfing (I won, of course). While at the putt-putt course, we noticed a game store on the top of the hill, and decided that we needed something to keep us occupied in the hotels at night (other than reading the titles of the adult movies on the pay-per-view).  We got a few card games that supplied the amusement for the rest of the night (including, of course, the obligatory pirate game).

Saturday we looked at some puppies at a pet store, but had to leave because they were "just too cute." We also said our goodbyes to the wonderful world of In-n-Out burgers.  That night, we had reservations for a nice rooftop restaurant in La Jolla. It was delicious, but we were almost the only ones there because it was 60 degrees with winds that could carry away small children.

Today, we finished up the last of the leftovers in the fridge, and did some laundry (real exciting, I know). We just got back from a hibachi restaurant that was great (although it's slightly distressing when your chef has a recently sewn-up finger wrapped in saran-wrap...).  April and Bisous just left for the airport to go get Jess. Tomorrow, the adventure begins!!!

Well, I better get going to the general store to buy our oxen and replacement axels (first of many Oregon Trail comparisons...).  I'll write again tomorrow, when I actually have something cool to tell you.

See you then!