I have no photos for you today. Honestly, there wasn't a place to take any. 

We got up this morning, had a breakfast in the casino coffee shop, wasted a few bucks on gambling and hit the road before 10 am PST. My car rolled over 70,000 before we were out of Nevada. As a friend told me, 2700 miles and not even a payment made yet. 

It's only minutes, really, from Reno to the California border. You are instantly thrust into the Sierra Nevada mountains, which are, from my perspective in the car, the prettiest mountains I've seen. In comparison to the Rockies, they are tree-lined and lush. In comparison to the Smokies, they are imposing. I like the Sierra Nevadas. We went right by Lake Tahoe and I can tell you, a weekend in Tahoe is in my future while I'm out west. It's just so beautiful.

We descended rapidly through the Sierra Nevadas and stopped in Sacramento, the state capitol, for lunch at In n Out Burger. In n Out is Kevin's favorite burger joint, so I'm glad we got it in before he flies out on Saturday.

I took the wheel in Sacramento. Wow - what a change. I'd gotten used to driving in places like the Nevada desert, the nothingness of Wyoming, and the Salt Flats of Utah. For the majority of our trip, the speed limit was at least 75 MPH. (My new car likes to go fast.) From Sacramento all the way to San Francisco, we had traffic. And a 65 MPH speed limit or less. Believe me, it was a culture shock, all these other cars on the road. 

I'm staying with my lovely friend Thea, and we got to her place around 2 pm, which was early. Everyone expected us around 3, so I guess traffic wasn't that bad after all. We picked up a box of stuffed animals and designer purses from my other lovely girlfriend, Jen, to whom I've been shipping my stuff. Tomorrow we'll pick up a slew of boxes from the post office and I can find a way to move myself completely in to Thea's spare room. 

It's positively weird to be here and to be staying for more than a couple of days. I freaked out today and decided I needed to sublet an apartment in Palo Alto, where I can drive everywhere and there is a mall. Jen managed to talk me off the ledge, so to speak, but I'm still a little nervous. How on earth do I learn my way around a city so large? Both on foot and in my car? I need a grocery store, a Best Buy, and a hardware store. Supposedly I'm in walking distance of a Best Buy and a Trader Joe's. I guess I'll figure that out soon. Live and learn. 

As I adjust to San Francisco, I'll try to keep posting here. Next week is a bit crazy. I'm teaching a class in Anaheim (Los Angeles) on Monday - Wednesday. I am cheering on a friend in a half-marathon she's running in Orlando Thursday - Monday. So I won't really get to know San Francisco until October gets here. 

The weather, by the way, is perfect. Out in the Valley, it's in the high 80s. Here in the city, it was in the low 80s but then the fog rolled in around 6:30 pm and it got a bit chilly. 

Cheers!

When I was younger, my dad used to pack us up in the car every summer and we'd drive straight through to Florida. 17 hours. We stopped for gas. I'm sure we stopped for food, but I don't remember that. And we stopped at the Florida Welcome Center. 

I never understood the driving straight through thing until today. Today, day 4 in the car, I didn't want to stop. We ate not at a local joint, but quickly at a Wendy's. I just wanted to get to Reno. I wanted to be done and to get where I was going. So Dad, I GET it. I get why we drove straight through. Because every stop keeps us from getting where we're going. 

We started our day in Salt Lake City, where we spent a fair amount of time poking around Temple Square. It's positively gorgeous. We also took a tour of the Mormon Conference Center. It's lovely, and the garden on the roof is so wild you forget it's a building. 

After Temple Square, we got back into the car and headed through the Utah Salt Flats (where the Enola Gay practiced bombing before Hiroshima) and into Nevada. I'll be honest - I thought the Nevada desert would be desolate and awful. Instead, it was lovely, with new and constant rock formations. Yeah, it took a while to get through, but I'd take Nevada over Kansas and, in particular, the hell that is Wyoming, any day of the week. Of course, the gas stations that have complete casinos in them (they do!) added some humor to the trip.

 We ended up in Reno. I know Reno is often called an armpit, but we're staying in the Atlantis, which is brand new and off "the strip." It's lovely, and a sister hotel to the resort in the Bahamas. For some reason or another, perhaps the "upgrade karma" I've had on this trip, we were upgraded to a 2-room suite with a giant jacuzzi tub and a bar. The perfect end to the trip. 

End? Yep, tomorrow is a 3-5 hour drive to San Francisco and Thea's place, where I'm crashing for a while. The trip ends tomorrow!

Well, three days in a car is a lot. One and a half more days and we're there!

Today we started the day in Boulder. I want to go back to Boulder sometime. We saw Mork and Mindy's house, or at least the house that was used for exterior shots. We followed that with a trip to Celestial Seasonings, which is all about tea. We got there too early for the tour, which is another reason I'd like to go back to Boulder. But I did drop a pretty penny in the gift shop and we enjoyed the tea sampling. 

Next we moseyed up to Fort Collins, CO, where we went to the only open brewery out of many. O'Dell Brewery had a great selection, and I think Kevin was glad we found them. I'm sure he'll write about it for the wine blog 

Then we entered Wyoming. You see, we headed north through Wyoming because we're basically driving around the Rocky Mountains. We saw the Front Range in Denver and Boulder. I'm not sure what part of them we saw in Wyoming. I can tell you that Wyoming started out positively beautiful in the stretch of I-80 between Cheyenne and Laramie. Then civilization disappeared. Completely.

We went for over 100 miles with no real exits, no signs of life, nothing. For most of that period, we didn't have cell reception either. While it was beautiful at times, it was also frightening in the sheer desolation. I did not like that part of Wyoming. It competed with Kansas for endless, but at least Kansas had small towns. 

I cheered when we entered Utah. Utah - and Salt Lake City  - are beautiful. The mountains are closer and as you descend into the valley that is Salt Lake, you start to feel very small. In the morning, we're going to wander over to Temple Square to see the famous Temple. Then we head west again, this time through Utah and the Nevada desert. 

We started the day in Topeka and quickly progressed through Kansas when we started seeing signs for the Oz Museum. 

Why had I not thought of this? The Wizard of Oz and Kansas ... of course! So we detoured 10 miles off the highway to Wamego, KS. Someone with too much money has collected all sorts of Oz (book and movie) memorabilia and created an Oz Museum of sorts. The tiny little townn said, Hmm ... let's capitalize on this.

And it works. I went to the Oz Winery where I bought several bottles of Oz wine. It's not bad, as far as French-American hybrids go, and I admit I was in it for the labels too.

Even better, Wamego has a yellow brick road that leads to a park. Yep, they built a yellow brick road. 

About mid-way through Kansas, in Hays, we stopped at a restaurant called Al's Chickenette. It was recommended in a Roadside Diners book I have. Al's has been around since 1949 and makes the best fried chicken. You put honey on it ... it's SO good. And a real diner. 

That was about it for Kansas. After Hays, it was several hundred miles of boring. I was so excited to cross into Colorado. Although it's worth mentioning that right by the state line is a tiny town called Kanarado, which I thought was hilarious. 

In Colorado, we rather quickly made it to Boulder, so we're right on schedule. On Tuesday we're heading to Celestial Seasonings (tea!) for a tour and breakfast. Then we're swinging by Mork and Mindy's house. (Yes!) Once we're done with Boulder, we're heading up thorugh Colorado, around the Rockies, and into Cheyenne, Wyoming. We'll head back down the other side of the mountain range into Utah and end our evening in Salt Lake City. 

Movin' right along!

 

I'm at a Holiday Inn in Topeka, KS. Welcome to middle America - almost literally I suppose. (The true center of the 48 contiguous states is northwest of here, still in Kansas - I looked.) 

Today we drove through 4 states and changed time zones - Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. It rained ... constantly, throughout all 4 states. 

The highlight of today was St Louis. Even in the rain, we stopped to see the Gateway Arch, which is really quite lovely. 

From there we went to the Schlafly Taproom for lunch. Schlafly is a favorite brewery of ours, so it was nice to stop by. But I really wanted to pick up some goodies from Schlafly, so afterwards we went to their second location, the Schlafly Bottleworks. The second location just so happens to be on Route 66, so I guess I've now seen the beginning, the end, and somewhere in between. 

That was the excitement. I appreciated the hills and valleys throughout Missouri, knowing that tomorrow I'm spending 6-8 hours in Kansas. Kevin and I have been discussing the merits of either taking backroads through Kansas and visiting the World's Largest Ball of Twine or sticking to I-70 and enjoying some awesome roadside diners. My vote is for food and the highway. The idea of veering from the highway in Kansas makes me, um, nervous. Too many cornfields, not enough towns. 

So that was today's trip. I forgot to check the mileage when we got out of the car, but we're making good progress.  

 

Taken at The Schlafly Tap Room

As many of you know, some work-related things are taking me to San Francisco for a few months. I actually will need a car when I'm out there, especially if I'm heading to the Silicon Valley, so I bought a new one and we're going to put it through its paces. 

Tomorrow, Kevin and I are getting in the new car and heading to California. It's a ~36 hour drive non-stop. We are, of course, stopping along the way. I hope we can somehow find some random American attractions and classic roadside diners. We may also end up eating in a lot of Applebee's. I'm not sure there's much else in the flyover states. We plan on driving Sunday through Thursday.

Our route takes us through Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri (St Louis and the Arch and Kansas City), a lot of Kansas (including the World's Largest Ball of Twine, if we can find it), Colorado (Boulder, where we'll stop at Celestial Seasonings), into Wyoming, down through Utah (Salt Lake City), across Nevada to the tackiness that is Reno, and on into California. Egads. It's a little over 2400 miles.  

Check back here often. I'm hoping to blog this trip, every night when we get to a hotel or motel, updating everyone on our status.

Wish us luck and I hope it's fun!

I was published in local online magazine Cincy Chic this week. If you have any interest in organic wines, check out the article. 

 

Redefining the word "friend" ...