Adios from the Crew

We all wish we still looked this good.

GOODBYE AND THANKS TO ALL!!

The Sentimental Reflection

This is tough. Over the past 32 days, I have had probably the greatest time of my life. This trip was something that I wanted to do and for a while, didn't think it was going to happen. I have to say thank you to everyone who helped us out, either by hosting us, giving us advice, and anything else that made this happen as perfectly as it did. I also have to say thanks to family for being completely supportive of this, it made it a lot easier. Finally, biggest thanks goes to my travel associates. I knew Steve was in from the first time I told him about it and asked him to come. He was also the one who got Joe in on the trip. Joe was the one who provided non-stop entertainment and laughs whether it was intentional or not. We definitely had our highs and lows on the trip, but the entire time we didn't have any disputes, arguments, or anything negative. All of us were just loving and enjoying the ride. Steve and Joe, you know what this trip meant to me, and I don't think it could have been any better, thanks guys.

With starting school in about 6 weeks, and my unquenchable thirst for fun and excitement, I knew I needed to take a huge shot of life before beginning. This trip proved to be just that and more. We went through a lot, and thanks to technology I was able to share most of it with friends and family. There are so many things that I did that I wanted to do. That is one of the most satisfactory feelings in the world. I drove across the United States and dove into the Pacific Ocean, are you serious? I went to Las Vegas and won $800, was that for real? Yes, yes and I couldn't have thought of a better way for my "final" summer to go. All those places that I have wanted to go, but never had the opportunity, I made the opportunity and loved every second of it. I know that right now I am fortunate because of not having any true responsibilities, but I will have serious responsibilities for the rest of my life. While I can, why not live it up? I am pretty sure Steve and Joe had the time of their lives, and I'm glad I could help facilitate that. For everyone else, I hope you have the chance to chase down those things that you want to do. And sometimes you have to create that chance out of nothing. This trip was the most eye opening thing I have ever done, and that is with traveling through China for a month. So many people talk about going overseas, but there is so much in our country that people don't even think about. Right now, I am content with life. In about 6 weeks, I am going to be pushed in a completely different way and I am ready for it. I may eat a dehydrated meal once a week, just to give me a little reminder of the road. And there is still the entire northeast to explore. Anyone up for a road trip? Just kidding for right now, I need some down time. I am excited to see my friends again, and tell them the stories. Now I am not going to go all super-patriotic on you, but our country is pretty amazing. I saw as much as I could in the allotted time, and if you look through the pictures, that only goes so far. It was an incredible experience that I hope people get to have. Some of the places I visited gave me a feeling of accomplishment and awe that is difficult to describe in words. With that I bid you all a farewell. I hope everyone enjoyed following along and getting some cheer out of our mishaps and victories. Finally, thanks again to everyone. Steve and Joe, love you guys.

PS - Our decision for best park was Zion NP. If you haven't check, out the pics and you'll see why.

The End

Driving from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia is a drive I probably should have done at some point in my life, but never did. This drive wasn't terribly exciting, but I started seeing places that I knew and recognized. There wasn't much conversation between the three of us on the trip. I think we were all feeling a little awkward because it was all coming to an end. During the trip, we had accumulated our "Hit List" on the iPods. We ended the drive with our hits, and usually we would be belting it out, but this time it was a little quieter. Turning onto my street, I had a billion thoughts flying through my head. Pulling up to my house, it almost felt like everything in the past five weeks was a blur/dream. It was great to see everyone again. Steve and Joe stayed for dinner and then we watched some of the Phillies game for the first time in over a month. I drove Steve and Joe back to Steve's house and we said our goodbyes. Steve's mom had a "Welcome Home" banner in the window, it was pretty funny. I am definitely going to miss the non-stop fun that we had. But at this point, everything was feeling a little anti-climatic. More the fact that in a matter of miles I was on the trip of my life, and then it was over. As I was driving on 95 I started seeing fireworks going off all around. Now if you look at the itinerary you will see that the last day would involve fireworks. I could do nothing but laugh to myself and get a big smile knowing that this was the end that I wanted. This was my curtain call. It was definitely a pick me up and made me feel a little better. Finished my drive home with fireworks still going off. I got home, laid in my own bed without Joe or Steve next to me, and turned on my TV. Mostly I just thought about the trip, and eventually dozed off to sleep.

Saving the Best for Last

Last day, yikes. Ok let's do this. The drive was not bad other then the weather was rainy. It would have been the first time I didn't have the windows down since we went through the desert of Nevada (hotter than hell.) I still put the windows down a little bit just to keep the streak alive. I was excited about Pittsburgh because we had a friend/hostess awaiting our arrival. Morgan, who I met through Steve, had just moved out there for a sweet job with Red Bull. We were all very impressed at the fact that she was a "real" person, with her own apartment, a real job; she was pretty awesome. We hung out at her place for a while, where she made a delicious dinner, and we were all doing some wining while dining. Joe never really drank wine, and I guess he felt like he needed to make up for lost time. He and Steve did some damage to the gift bottles they brought for Morgan. After dinner, we watched Rocky IV in it entirety when the original plan was to get depressed by Apollo Creed's death and then head out on a high note. Somehow we stayed for the entire thing and then went out. Morgan took us to the South Side which apparently has one of the highest concentrations of bars in the US (best for last). We started off at Smokin Joes because someone insisted, I don't think I need to say who, but the bar was named after him. After about 15 minutes of trying to get a drink when it wasn't even that busy, the place was renamed by Joe to be Smokin Blows. We finally got a drink, and then went next store to some Tiki place. This was a great stop because well drinks were $1 and Jager bombs were $3. This was trouble. For the most part everything went smoothly, Steve and Joe were dancing again until something went wrong and we had to leave. I'm still not really sure what happened, but we left and went somewhere else. This one bar was playing some pretty good music and Morgan and I lost the other two to the dance floor pretty quickly. When we went upstairs to get them, we walked into something I wasn't prepared for. Two larger white guys were standing in the middle of the floor, and it looked like they were putting on a rap concert? I don't know, but we spotted our boys and they looked a little unsure about their surroundings but they were still having a great time. We then went back, and Morgan made us a pizza from scratch (frozen, but still delicious). Joe tried to claim the couch, but me and Steve carefully placed him on the floor with some pillows. We all called it a night, so ended the last night. It was a very fun night was pretty much the perfect way to end the trip.

In the morning, Morgan made us breakfast that was again awesome. It was funny because whenever she was cooking, she was on the phone and it seemed that the only thing she needed was a kid running around that she had to control and then she would have been true grown up. To keep playing the hostess role, she took us to her office/warehouse. She had a Red Bull Mini, a pile of cases of Red Bull, every type of Red Bull furniture you could think of, and a "meeting room" that had Love Sacs (giant bean bags) instead of a table and chairs. So pretty much, she has an awesome job. She gave us each a case of Red Bull and then we went back said our goodbyes and hit the road for the final time. Next stop home, not too sure how I feel.

Cleveland, Land of Rock

The drive to Cleveland was pretty bad. We didn't know it, but it was a 6 hour drive and cost about $20 just in tolls. We got to the city around 5:30 and headed straight for the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. Now for some reason, it is opened until 9 PM on Wednesday's and closes at 5:00 everyday. I would like to say we knew that ahead of time and planned it, but that would be a lie. And I don't lie. This place was very cool. They had so much memorabilia that you could probably spend an entire day in there. Since we didn't have that kind of time, I checked out all the big things. The outfits that are synonymous with the greatest names in Rock n' Roll; the guitars that I have seen being played in concert. Having an appreciation for music, I thoroughly enjoyed this stop. We spent about an hour and a half there, then went to the warehouse district for dinner. We finally found our pizza place that we had been looking for. We went in and got onion rings and pizza and beer. It was good, but for the first time in a while, we didn't feel overly full. Maybe it's because the pizza wasn't loaded with fat. Maybe we are getting fat. Who knows? We then went to the hotel, and this place was in the running for worst hotel on the trip. It was mostlyore the god awful smelled that was plastered throughout. We all got some showers felt clean and headed back to the warehouse district for some drinks. It was raining. This is the first time on the entire trip that we had actually been in any real rain. We weren't really sure what to do, so we just got wet. When we got there we saw a bar with music playing and people dancing, looked fun. Upon walking in, we realized that the five people we saw dancing in the front window were the only five people dancing and it was a bachelorette party. Last time Steve attempted to dance in on a bachelorette party in New Orleans it didn't go to well, so we kept our distance. From there we just stuck to our gameplan and went to any place that looked kinda fun. With it being a Wednesday we weren't expecting much, but thought the more places we try, the better chance we have. We ended up back at the first bar we went to, where we all made friends with some nice women. Steve and Joe went dancing, I ended talking to some guys within 20 years of our age about Cleveland and what not. We stopped at one little place before we left and we were all singing along with a jukebox. Great times, great pals, great trip. Tomorrow is pretty much the finale.

Da Bears, Da Bears, Da Bears

Driving in Chicago sucked. We were thinking the drive would only be about an hour and a half, almost ended up being 3.5 hours. Couldn't find parking, and the one lot we were ready to drop $20 on, didn't do overnight, and the guy running the lot was terrible. So the drive combined with our first interaction in Chicago, put me and Steve in a serious mood, not bad, just serious. Joe doesn't really get too emotional over much. Finally we found the hostel, checked in, found somewhere to park, and hit the city for a little bit. Now I assume this is a Midwest thing, but they were having some huge festival called the Taste of Chicago. Basically, it was some music, drinks, and all the food you could possibly want. Problem was that you need to buy food tickets, and the line was long and is just seemed to complicated. We walked around there, saw Buckingham Fountain, and then had our mind set on one thing. Pizza and beer, together. We were in Chicago, and figured there would be pizza places all over. After walking around and slowing having our stomach's eat themselves, we decided to ask someone if there was a restaurant district, or just a pizza place. First person we asked, said they didn't like pizza, second person, told us about a Chipotle across the street. And that was it. There are some (I would try to be PC, but this is my blog) STUPID people out there. But we were desperate so Chipotle it was. The burritos were good, but it wasn't pizza. Disappointed and overstuffed, we went back to the hostel. There we entered serotonin induced states of unconsciousness. After we woke up from our naps, we found out some of the fun parts of the city. We took the subway there and just did our routine bar crawl of a city that we know nothing about. It was a fun night, expensive, but fun. With only 3 nights left, we weren't really concerned about the budget. Then again for most of the trip, we weren't really concerned about the budget. We all had a good time in Chicago. Joe met up with a girl who's phone number he scored at summerfest. She had no friends so Steve and I decided to dance to funk? Yeah, it was funk night, and we danced. There was a group of 5 girls dancing in a circle with one guy, who wasn't good at dancing and Steve took it upon himself to show them what they were missing. This scene could not have gone any better. As soon as Steve jumped in, singing his heart out, these girls stopped, immediately. All their jaws dropped. I laughed for about ten seconds then pulled him out of there. I told him they couldn't handle what he was putting out there. We then left the bar, Joe caught up shortly, and we took a cab back to the hostel. There, me and Steve, made a friend in the common room, only problem was that she was attempting to right a postcard, but couldn't stay awake. We thought it was funny. Then me and Steve had a serious talk with Rachel, our hostess from Lubbock. And by serious, I mean it was hilarious. Then it was off the bed, Cleveland tomorrow.

Summerfest and Brewery Tours

It just so happened that when we were in Milwaukee, the largest music fest in the world was going on there. Awesome. First night there we went to go see Jack's Mannequin, who I don't really listen to, but once I saw them in concert I decided that I like them. Steve had made a couple friends on the bus ride over and we hung out with them most of the night. There were times that me and Joe went off on our own, just to cause some mischief. Me and Joe made friends with a kid named Matt and we hung out with him for a while, he was pretty cool. Once back at the hotel, me and Joe passed out while Steve was still trying to party. We let you down Steve, I am embarassed, for both of us.

Day two in Milwaukee, I got a late start. I decided to take it easy for most of the morning and into the early afternoon. Finally, we all went to the Miller Brewery for the tour and free beer. The opening video was intense, funny, and probably caused some brain-washing through subliminal messaging. We then saw the most beer any of us will ever see at one time. It was glorious! We then had some Miller Lite, some Leinenkugel Berry Weiss, and some awful pretzels. Then it was off to dinner, which was not very good. Actually, the only good thing were the fried cheese curds, and that was about it. Tonight at Summerfest was Matisyahu. I was pretty excited about this. We got there, had a couple beers, and posted up for the concert. It started off awesome, a lot of energy all over the place, then it kinda went into a downward spiral. All he had to do was play some of his hits that everyone knew and the concert would have been great. Instead, he played new songs which were really pretty mellow and not what I was looking for. We left there early and decided to hit up a couple bars in downtown area. We went to Water St. which was a cool place, and got suckered in to talking to some girls that me and Steve weren't exactly keen on talking to, but Joe was all about it. So me and Steve pretty much sat back and watched Joe be hilarious. Then we left, back to the hotel, and prepared for Chicago the next day.