An Italian Across America

Driving Through The Southern United States...The Drive Back Home!

2008-08-20T21:28:00.000-07:00

Above is a Google Earth Image of the main points covered on the fourth leg of this trip.

And here is a regular "old fashioned" map (probably more helpful to realize how far we've been driving so far!):

An Italian Across America has arrived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Wednesday August 20th, and has therefore finished the this wonderful journey that took the two “explorer” around this amazingly beautiful country.
Here are some facts and numbers about this latest leg of the trip:

This is the distance covered from California to Florida:
4,023 Miles or 6,437 Kilometers.

Days On The Road: 24

States visited: 11
California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

Gasoline tanks used to cover this distance:
10 for a total of $520

And here are some facts and numbers about this whole adventure.

This is the distance covered from Florida to Florida: 16,054 Miles or 25,687 Kilometers.

Days On The Road: 83

States visited: 36+3
Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, plus District Of Columbia, Quebec and Ontario in Canada.

Gasoline Tanks used to cover this distance:
40 for a total of $2,300

Welcome To Fort Lauderdale...!

2008-08-19T21:00:00.001-07:00

Good evening my friends!

Some of you might recognise the familiar skyline of the picture up above...I do, since that is the skyline of the city I've been calling "home" for the past three years.

Hap and I mutually agreed that since we were so close to Fort Lauderdale, it didn't make any sense to stop in other places for another few days when we both knew we were only going to hit clouds and rain.

We're certainly think about resuming the last part of the journey with a side trip to start at a later date, but I absolutely want to get back on the west coast once the weather will get better, and "close the circle", to be able to put the word "END" to this travel journal and this wonderful experience.

The drive from Gainesville to Fort Lauderdale has been safe and uneventful.

I've been paying a lot of attention to the weather warnings and reports on the web, to be informed of TS Fay path.

We came all the way down I-75 through Alligator Alley and only had a light rain for about 30 minutes on our 6 hours plus trip.

The rest has been a mix of clouds and sunshine

The next picture was taken on I-75 (Alligator Alley) eastbound with the camera facing North.

I know it is just my sick mind, more like my imagination than anything else, but don't the clouds looke like part of a bigger ring? LOL

Traffic in Fort Lauderdale was still a little heavy to to the end of rush hour, but not a problem at all. It all went pretty smooth I would say.

It's good to be back home, now I need to write a final post with some other stats about the mileage, gas tanks, etc., and then just wait for the famous side trip.

Stay tuned, it is not over yet! ;-)

It's been a wonderful journey, with a wonderful travel companion, I couldn't have asked for a better person to live this experience with: THANK YOU HAP from the bottom of my heart!

And now once again, time to go to bed, another day is over, another one has just begun...

Good night my friends,

Nico

Waiting For Fay...

2008-08-18T20:28:00.000-07:00

Good evening everybody!

So, here we are, my first time in Tallahassee, our State Capital.

It's been a very nice day right from the start, and trust me, I'm not surprised about it as the weather forecast hardly gets anything right these days! LOL

Our first stop of the day being in Tallahassee has been the Florida State Capitol

Now, how many of you know that Florida has two Capitol Buildings?

Well, now you know, Florida has an old, restored, pretty Old Capitol; and then it has a modern, ugly, new Capitol.

Here's a picture of the historic sign with some facts about the Capitol and Florida history in general:

And here is the Old State Capitol in all its glory, with in the background, the new ugly one!

Another nice postcard picture taken from one side:

And the Old Capitol rotunda:

The new capitol is so ugly and so tall that it didn't fit in a picture!

As you enter the main building (that by the way people compare to a huge phallic symbol), you'll notice the seal of the State of Florida right in the middle, with the Florida Motto, "In God We Trust":

The one good thing that this modern Capitol building has, is that it boasts a 22nd floor panoramic view of Tallahassee on all the four sides.

In the picture down below for example, you can enjoy the view from the windows facing East at the Apalachee Parkway.

It was very interesting because downstairs there's a picture on display showing visitors what the are looked like when they built the first State Capitol.

It is possible for visitors to go on a self guided tour of both buildings, and see where the legislative body of the State of Florida create the law.

This is for instance where the Senate meets:

We also tried to take a picture of the other side at the house of representatives, but the lights were off (saving money on electricity?).

Left the Capitol"s" after roughly two hours, we headed to the Tallahassee Museum:

One thing about the Tallahassee Museum is that it's a privately funded, non-profit corporation, which means basically, no Federal money.

The stated purpose of the Tallahassee Museum is "to educate the residents of Florida and visitors to the Big Bend area about the region's natural and cultural history, from the nineteenth century until the present", and they do that in a wonderful way.

Admission is only $9, or $8.50 for Students and Seniors, and it's absolutely worth every penny.

It's not a museum as we all picture one, and it is not a zoo, again, as we might picture one.

It's a mix of a lot of things, and you'll end up spending at least a good two to three hours inside the Museum premises.

You can get a map at the entrance once you get your tickets, and then you're off for your self guided tour.

As soon as you start, the animal in the picture down below on the right hand side is the first one you'll encounter, be careful, they'll smile and wave at you, but these creatures are wild and can bite if provoked:

Here's another one:

One the nicest encounters at the park, has been the one withe "Bald Eagle". It just stayed there, minding its own business, being the regal bird it is...

And the one in the next picture is one of my favorite animals:

First time I've seen a Bobcat:

And absolutely first time I saw a Florida Panther!

The nicest feature of the Tallahassee Museum in my opinion, was the wooden skywalk that enhances the level of a close encounter with one of these Florida native animal species. It almost felt like flying through the exhibitions:

For instance, take a look at the next picture, I was so close to this sleepy black bear.

The Museum totally reflects what Florida used to be like before "We" came and here's proof of it:

Once we left the park around 4.30PM, we drove down to Gainesville where we're currently spending the night. This is so far the best deal we've found on this trip, a suite at Best Western (I would say one of the top BW in the country looking at this place), for only $58 plus taxes. You see, sometimes it pays to drive through Florida off season! LOL

The restaurant we had dinner at this evening is worth to be mentioned.

It was so good that if I were to live in Gainesville and I had someone to impress with something sophisticated but plain good at the same time, well, I would take them to this restaurant.

The name is "Dragonfly", in downtown Gainesville.

Service was top notch, both the manager and the owner came and stopped to talk with us. Our waiter was also very knowledgeable and helpful, he certainly knew how to deal with customers, how to make them feel at ease, and enjoy this wonderful dining experience.

The food was delicious, prepared in a timely manner, and just about enough to feel "right" about dinner. This has been one the most pleasant dining experiences of the whole trip.

Tomorrow we will decide what to do next, we've had thoughts about driving back to Fort Lauderdale because of the weather, but we want to reflect about the pros and cons before acting.

Now I need my beauty sleep.

Good night folks,

Nico

Long Drive Home...

2008-08-17T20:22:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Floridians, Good Evening rest of this wonderful world!

Well, it's been another of those rainy days.

The bad thing is that we got deceived by the nice puffy clouds and sunshine we had when we left the hotel this morning in Mobile, AL.

This is a a view of downtown Mobile from I-10, I was positively surprised by this city, I didn't even imagined it has a skyline up until last night,

The brewery we visited had excellent beers and nice comfort food. Being it a Saturday night, they even had a live band playing, the whole experience was very enjoyable.

Left Mobile, AL, our first stop of the day has been Orange Beach, on the Alabama Gulf Coast where today they had several Speed Boat races.

As you probably noticed, I like to take pictures of "good looking" buildings, and this one on the shore at Orange Beach was particularly interesting:

From the coastal road in Orange Beach, AL, visitors can easily reach the westernmost point of Florida, Perdido Key, where Condo buildings close to the white sandy beaches of Alabama leave space to Condo buildings close to the white sandy beaches of Florida.

Did you really expect anything else?!?! LOL

The first significant city on our route has been Pensacola Beach, which was supposed to be the start of our Scenic Drive through the coast, up to Panama City Beach some 90 minutes East of where we were.

I started feeling like home when I recognized some of the gracious vehicles circulating on our public road system.

The owner of this pick-up truck ultimately decided to abandon his vehicle on the side of the road, after losing his hopes on gas going down at the pump.

Coincidentally, the truck was parked right across the street from the Visitor Center, maybe he was hoping some generous tourists will take it away as a sign of good will! LOL

Did I mention "Visitor Center"? Yes I did!

I'm sorry to say that since we haven't crossed the border on a major interstate, we haven't got the pleasure of snapping the last picture of a State Border road sign. That was a real bummer, soon forgot after we got close enough to the Florida State Park system in Pensacola to take some pictures of the sand and the water.

After all, who cares about the Florida sign?!?! LOL

Here's what you can find in the armpit of Florida, ehm, I'm sorry, in the Florida Panhandle!

And here are some lucky tourists doing what I'll be doing starting from next week when we get back home in Fort Lauderdale:

Our plan was to keep driving East till Panama City Beach, which is certainly a very long drive, but nonetheless, really worth the 30 mph speed limit.

After about one mile after I took the last picture up above, we ran across a road sign telling us the road was closed up ahead!

Closed?!?!? How could that be? My GPS tells me there's a bridge going to Navarre and Fort Walton! Well, guess what happened? Yes, you're right, I had to make a U-Turn, and drive back another 10 miles (yes, with a 30 mph speed limit!) back to Pensacola and I-10.

At that point we decided to change our plans, as we decided to change our final destination from Panama City Beach, FL to Tallahassee, FL, the State Capital!

The drive on I-10 is not as exciting as the drive out on the coast, but still, it has some advantages, like for instance, being able to travel at a steady 70 mph.

One of the things that amaze the most about the United States are its bridges.

I've been here for a little less than three years now (I start counting from my first trip to the East Coast in 2005), and still, I remain in disbelief at the length of some of the American Bridges.

This is one of those bridges, probably not the longest I've been on today once we crossed from Alabama to Florida, but maybe, because of the slight curve to the left (going East), the prettiest.

Here it is in all its glory:

Funny enough, in 15,500 miles we've spent on the road so far, I've only seen three VW Beetle Convertible, identical to the one I have; one in Los Angeles, one last night parked at the same hotel where we were staying (No I didn't get the chance to park beside it! LOL), and one this afternoon on I-10 E.

Here's the picture I took:

I-10 as I said was probably not as exciting as the coastal highway, but once in a while, you get to wake up, laughing at some of the signs, be it a billboard, bumper stickers, or in this case, a road sign indicating the exit for Bagdad, FL, not to be confused with the other "Baghdad".

Tallahassee is roughly another three hours away by car, four on your watch, if you want to consider that you have to set the time one hour forward once you cross the time line between Central and Eastern standard time.

So, here we are, back to the Eastern time zone, and back in Florida.

Tomorrow we're going to spend some time visiting Tallahassee, the State Capitol (old and new), and some other weird things we had planned in the past just in case.

We're also changing our plans of being in Tampa tomorrow night, as we don't know where Tropical Storm / Hurricane Fay is going to be, nor what kind of damage it will leave after it will be through.

We will spend the evening and the night in Gainesville, FL instead, where we hope to do some sightseeing the day after, and then if it's safe, drive down to Tampa and all of the other destinations on the West Coast.

Good night hurricane hunters!

Nico

Sweet Home Alabama!

2008-08-16T16:16:00.000-07:00

Good evening everybody!

All right, we had another rainy day!

The weatherman assured me that Tropical Storm (soon to be Hurricane) Fay is not the cause of the storms around Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, but guess what, it doesn't really matter at this point, it's raining!

We left the hotel this morning at around 11AM, asked the lady at the reception desk if we could leave our luggage, and then left once again for a sightseeing tour of the French Quarter, this time, with plenty of daylight.

Did I really say daylight? LOL

At one point I looked above at the sky, and it looked like it was almost ready to fall down over us.

We went back to take a walk on Bourbon Street as you can see from the pictures, or at least that was our idea.

We saw many of the place we had seen the day before, only a lot quieter.

The streets seemed to be very clean, not even a cigarette butt on the road, but still, there was a not very pleasant smell, somewhere in between sewage, natural gas, and well, let's not get into details this time!

After walking part of it, we then decided to take a right to get into Royal Street (Calle Real as you can see from the picture), leading to Jackson Square, where Saint Louis Cathedral stands.

Saint Louis Cathedral is also known as the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, and has the distinction of being the oldest continuously operating cathedral in the United States.

First established in 1718, it is one of the few Catholic churches in the United States that fronts a major public square to signify the Catholic roots of New Orleans.

I'm sorry I didn't have the time to take a picture of the outside, as it started raining as soon as we got in front of the Cathedral, and that didn't give me a chance to do so.

For those of you who think I got in the church to seek shelter from the incessant rain, you're right!

No, I really was interested in this NOLA landmark, as it really is one of the most recognizable buildings in the city.

We spent quite some time inside the Cathedral, "praying" for the rain to stop (got that?), and admiring the beautiful paintings and frescos.

Here's the one on the ceiling in the main nave.

Eventually we decided that it wasn't going to stop raining just because we wanted to, so we got two big white bags from the Cathedral gift shop, and armed with scissors, we cut holes for the head and the arms and ventured outside the church.

Our next stop for the day was only 500 feet on the opposite side of Jackson Square.

Yes, a stop in New Orleans wouldn't have been a real one without going to "Cafe Du Monde".

Cafe Du Monde is best known for its cafe au lait, and its French-style doughnuts as they call them (Beignets).

As I later learned, in pure New Orleans style, the coffee (cafe au lait) we had, was blended with chicory.

Did I taste the difference?
Not really, as my taste buds were probably spoiled by the three beignets I had (yes, that's correct, three beignets is one serving, I'll start being food conscious when this trip is over, and the gym is going to be my best friend!).

Look at those beignets, can you see the amount of powdered sugar on top of them?
They were good, I give you my word for that.

One other positive thing about Cafe Du Monde is also that the place is not expensive at all! It is actually quite the opposite, we really found it pretty inexpensive, especially compared to the ridiculously high prices of New Orleans dining scene.

Last night I didn't mention the lines outside some of the places to get in and have dinner, but this morning since I had the camera with me, I managed to take a picture of "Cafe Maspero".

See the people outside? They're all lined up to get in and have food! Not for me thank you!

The only thing in this world that is worth waiting in line for is my Mom's kitchen, and nothing more...

Back to the car, we left New Orleans and Louisiana for a quite short drive (only 185 miles), at least compared to waht we did yesterday!

Our final destination, where we currently are, is Mobile, AL.

It wasn't quite worth it to stop anyplace because of the rain, but we did manage to get off the highway in Mississippi, to drive on US90 through Gulfport and Biloxi.

We saw the casino (enough already!), and then we went back on I-10E for the final stretch to Alabama.

Here's the last State sign we're going to encounter before coming back home next week in our home state of Florida.

I mentioned the rain, but I didn't actually know how bad it's been for Mobile today.

They had 6 inches of rain in one day, a record (as the weatherman said) for this area.

This evening, after the fancy Brazilian Steakhouse of last night, we're going to "Hurricane Brewing Co." a local brewerie that is supposed to have excellent beers, and hopefully good food.

All I need is an old, plain, good American Burger, I'll be happy with that.

Have a nice evening y'all,
Nico

Welcome To “Big Easy”!

2008-08-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Jazz and Blues lovers!

A total of 348 miles on the road today, and it felt like eternity…!

We left Houston this morning around 11.30AM, thanking Mike again for his wonderful hospitality and his warm welcome, we really appreciated it.

It was another of those rainy days (oh well, I guess I again complained too much about the sun and the heat yesterday!), and when the it rains, we all know people start going crazy on the highways.

Houston, TX to New Orleans, LA is about 350 miles, roughly 5 and a half hours drive respecting the speed limit.

We arrived in New Orleans around 6PM, a slight delay due in part because of the incessant rain, but mostly because of a few accident along the way (not on our side, but I don’t know why people always have to stop to look at what happened!), and because we hit rush hour in Baton Rouge, LA some 80 miles away from NOLA.

It’s been a pretty boring drive for the most part. It started getting more interesting once we passed the border with Louisiana (for which I obviously have the always present souvenir picture).

As soon as we crossed the border and we passed the lake, once we got closer to New Orleans, we started driving through huge swamps, and I-10 all of a sudden looked more like the long bridges leading tourists to the Florida keys, than the interstate I got used to for so many miles while driving through Texas.

And here is the Welcome to Louisiana sign:

I also had to take a picture of the last exit sign on I-10E as we approached the border with Louisiana; it was exit 880, confirming what I came to learn in these few days I’ve been driving through the Lone Star State, Texas is huge indeed!

Here is the "NOLA" skyline from outside of the city:

And here is the famous SuperDome:

And a view from the Interstate:

The hotel we got this evening is unbelievable, $76 including taxes and 24 hours parking, for a real Suite on the 11th floor on Canal Street, one block away from the French Quarter. The apartment is big enough to move in, I still can’t believe we got such a great deal.

This is a view from the living room:

As for the French Quarter, that’s where we had dinner this evening, a Brazilian steak house (yes, another one! LOL) located at 725 Iberville Street. The meat was very good, Hap probably had a whole lamb, he said he really liked it! I preferred the Top Sirloin and the Filet Mignon.

After dinner, we decided to take a walk on Bourbon Street, and let me tell you, it was absolutely wild!

I’ve never seen so many people partying like, drinking alcohol everywhere, smoking cigars, flashing other people, throwing beads, etc.. I mean, I certainly saw Mardi Gras on TV, but didn’t realize the city comes pretty close to it every weekend.

We really had a great time and always felt safe thanks to the ever present New Orleans Police Department. We’re now back at the hotel, and I’m planning some sightseeing for tomorrow.

We will probably visit the city in the morning, and then drive through Mississippi, and stopping in Mobile, Alabama for the night. It’s only a 150 miles drive, it shouldn’t take more that 2 and a half hours.

Good night Po-boys!

Nico

An Eclectic Day...

2008-08-14T22:34:00.000-07:00

I guess we really liked Austin, as we didn’t leave the hotel until 11.30AM this morning! But maybe we were just too tired to do anything else!

Our final destination for the day was Houston, TX which only stands about 3 hours / 180 miles away from the “Live Music Capital of the World”.

The drive has been pretty smooth, some local highways through Lockhart, and other places I don’t remember the name, and finally I-10E where opposite to what I thought, the speed limit was only 70 mph, with some points at 65 mph.

As the title might suggest, today it was one of those days where we were longing for weird, crazy things.

We got the answer to our prayers in the person of Mr. Jeff McKissack, who spent his life, and his money on a project called “The Orange Show”.

He obviously had a special relationship with oranges, but he also liked orange as a color.

He spent about 25 years of his life to build this “house”, that he thought was going to be a great success.

He died three months after he opened the house to the public, without seeing his “creature” coming to fame. Someone even said that he died of a broken heart because of the failure of his project.

It’s all a different story now, as Mr. Jeff McKissack continues to live through “The Orange Show” and the foundation that has been created after his death, that takes care of eclectic artists from all over the world.

The Orange Show is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places designated by the United States Department of the Interior.

If you’re really in the mood for something eclectic, pay a visit there, the lady that let us in today was very nice, she gave us two postcards, and a questionnaire with weird questions Mr. McKissack himself formulated. For $1 each, you really have to come see it!

Because of all the colors, the place reminded me of a Gaudi project with a strong Picasso influence, I hope you get the feeling!

The second stop of the day has been the Beer Can House, something that you can find at 222 Malone Street. I can’t look into the future, but I know already what the first words coming out of you mouth are going to be: “Holy S**T, this guy is crazy!”.

I can’t imagine how many hours Mr. John Milkovisch has spent on his project, not too mention the amount of beer he had to drink before the he could finish the house.

I’m not sure how the inside of the house looks like as they only offer tours on Saturdays and Sundays, but I can tell you more about the outside. Everything from the walls, to the Mail Box, to some large flower boxes, are covered, or made out of beer cans.

Once we got there, there were already three people taking pictures of it, and now, keep in mind that this house is in a residential neighborhood with absolutely no signs to indicate where the house is, therefore, it is not easy to find.

Soon after we ended up our eclectic tour of the day, we headed to Mike’s, a dear friend of mine who has a beautiful house in a very nice part of the city that I’ve known for several years.

After a drink and a nice chat, we decided to try a Mexican place (since we both love Mexican), that is only about five minutes away from where he lives.

I knew Mike wouldn’t have taken us to any place that wasn’t at least superb, but this restaurant was out of this world.

I should have known we were up for a good time once we got to the parking lot which was absolutely packed. As soon as we entered the establishment I came to realize all the cars outside in the parking lot certainly had more than one person in them, but nonetheless, the hostess told us that it shouldn’t have taken more than 5 to 10 minutes to get a table, and she was absolutely right, we got our table in 5 minutes.

Hap and I enjoyed these gigantic hand-shaken Margaritas that were absolutely to die for (forget about those pre-mixed drink they serve in most of the Mexican Restaurants, this is the real deal, a bartender serving the customer a drink that comes out of a shaker!).

Our waitress was very knowledgeable and very pleasant, and I ended up getting one of the best prepared Mexican meal of my life. Not to mention their chips and salsa, again, out of this world.

If you really like Mexican food and you find yourself in Houston, the name of the restaurant is Pappasito’s Cantina, I’m sure that by the end of the meal you’ll virtually thank me for the precious suggestion.

Tomorrow we will leave Houston and continue to head East towards Florida.

We’re currently planning on stopping in New Orleans, LA for the night, check out the French Quarter, and overall see how the “Big Easy” is recovering from the devastating hurricane of 2005.

Now it’s time to get some sleep and try to digest the Mexican food (I’m sure the Margaritas will help!).

Good night cowboys,

Nico.

Feeling The Heat!

2008-08-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

Good Evening my friends!

Can somebody tell me why every time I complain about the clouds, and the rain, then the day after we get such a HOT day that it makes me regret what I said the day before? LOL

That's exactly what happened this morning, as when we left San Antonio it was 95F and humid.

Someone calls it Texas heat, now I know what they mean! Is this a prelude to what is waiting for us when we get back to Florida? Because I'm not looking forward to it! LOL

Can I please go back to Wyoming and play with the snow balls?

All right, all right, I know I can't, therefore I'll just leave it like this! After all, I'm somehow looking forward to getting back to Fort Lauderdale and my routine, especially the gym, because after eating out for so long, and not exercising, well, you can see the result in most of the pictures! ;-)

But let's get back to what happened today!

As I mentioned yesterday, we wanted to go back visit some of the five San Antonio Missions, and so we did.

We went back to "Mission Concepcion", the one that really fascinated me so much yesterday, and "Mission Espada", that apparently, Franciscan Friars still inhabit.

I was right about "Mission Concepcion", and allow me to play with words here when I say that this place was “simply beautiful in its simplicity”.

There has been some restoration work in the past, to try to bring the frescos on the walls back to their original splendor. It was certainly not the work of Michelangelo, nor Giotto, but still, I really appreciated the effort that these Franciscan Friars put into this magnificent project.

Inside the small rooms under the “Portico”, visitors are guided through a series of explanatory panels on how the Friars approached the natives, and how they tried to convert them to Catholicism. It was certainly not an easy task.

Overall, it’s a great feeling to step into the past (the mission was established in 1716 as Nuestra Señora de la Purísima Concepción de los Hainais in East Texas, and then moved to San Antonio in 1731) and see what these courageous men have been able to achieve. Most of the buildings are original, that means, they haven’t been reconstructed, definitely a must of history buffs!

"Mission Espada" also revealed to be a masterpiece.

Originally called “Mission San Francisco de la Espada”, it was again a Roman Catholic mission established by Spain in 1731 to convert local Native Americans to Christianity and solidify Spanish territorial claims in the New World.

It's about 5 miles away from "Concepcion", and well worth the trip.

One interesting feature on the main façade of the Church is the “truncated” arch; some say it was actually a mistake made by the architect who wanted to build a bigger arch, but it’s only a supposition and nothing more.

And here is how the inside looks like:

Left the two Missions after sweating a lot under the Texan sun, we had a relatively easy ride from San Antonio to Austin; some heavy traffic leaving San Antonio on I-35N, but other than that, a pretty smooth ride into the Texas State Capitol.

Austin, TX is a beautiful city, and again, it has a river (which means water), and a lake, which is certainly a big plus for me.

The name of the lake is Lady Bird Lake (in honor of Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady), and it’s a reservoir on the Colorado River formed in 1960 by the construction of the Longhorn Dam.

Our hotel is about 4 miles north of the city center, off I-35; I had done some research on this hotel, and we’ve been very happy with it, as it is relatively easy to commute back and forth to downtown.

Our first stop in Austin, TX for the day has been the Texas State Capitol!

Visitors only need to step into the front door and go to the left, where it says “State Treasury”. Tours start every 15 minutes from here, and lasts approximately 45 minutes.

The Texas State Capitol is the largest State Capitol building, after the National Capitol in D.C..
Our tour guide made a point in reminding us several times that in Texas everything is bigger, which made me think that maybe the male population here have what I would define as a “complex of inferiority” in the middle region of their body (anatomically speaking that is…!).

I’m just kidding, I just wanted to see how many people from Texas will get mad at me for what I wrote (Just to prove my theory, you know…!).

Construction of the Capitol building was funded through an article in the state constitution, which authorized the sale of public lands for the purpose. Considering that in Texas they might have a lack of “size” down there (always according to the “Theory”), but they don’t certainly lack land, they really come out with a fantastic deal!

The builders of the capitol were paid with three million acres (12,000 km²) of land in the Texas panhandle, for a comparable cost of $3.7 million for the original building.

I mentioned already the fact that the State Capitol here in Texas is smaller than the National Capitol in D.C., but I also have to mention that the Capitol here has more floor space than any other state capitol building, and it’s almost 15 feet (5 m) higher than the National Capitol! So, there you go, mission completed for Texas!

The tour guide took us through the two chambers of the Texas State Legislature, the upper house Texas Senate with 31 members, and the lower Texas House of Representatives with 150 members.

Here's another view of the Rotunda:

One thing that really got me curious about Texas is first of all, the size of the two chambers, I thought they had way more senators and representatives (considering they always like to make things bigger and better, right?), but also the fact that the legislature meets in regular session on the second Tuesday in January of each odd-numbered year, and that the Texas Constitution limits the regular session to 140 calendar days.

So, that means that they last met in 2007, and that the new session will be in 2009!

Of course, the Governor can call Senators and Representatives back to Austin, for as many session as he wants, lasting up to thirty days.

The tour guide then went on to tell us a little bit more about how the two chambers work (it was very interesting, but I don’t want to go on and on here with that), and then she took us to the new extension of the Capitol Building, that houses offices, meeting rooms, a gift shop, and a replica of the “Rotunda”, but this time without a ceiling, so that people can go out get some fresh air when they want to.

Overall, we had a great time visiting the State Capitol, and you can’t really beat the price (Zero Dollars!).

Left the Capitol, we went hunting for a Starbucks Coffee where to review the schedule for the rest of the afternoon, and enjoy a good cup of coffee in downtown Austin.

It was too hot to walk long distances, so we did 6th Street and the entertainment district with daylight driving down with the car, and then after that, we decided to give Mount Bonnell a try.

Mount Bonnell is also known as Covert Park, and it’s a prominent point alongside Lake Austin.

It has been a popular picnicking and tourist spot since the mid-1800s, as it provides a vista for admiring the city of Austin, Lake Austin, and the surrounding hills.

If you want to see nice expensive houses, that’s exactly the place where to go. Magnificent Victorian and Neoclassical style houses, are combined in these affluent neighborhoods with ultra modern style condos and big houses, making it for a huge melting pot.

Although it might seem like it would create some confusion, it actually adds in my opinion, a nice touch to it.

Visitors who want to admire the beautiful vista from up the top of the hill, need to climb 100 large steps (so much for not being willing to walk under the sun, right?), that I personally counted going down on the way back to the Parking Lot (I was too busy concentrating on my heart beat on the way up to count them!).

The evening was dedicated to a nice dinner, and again, a stroll down the Entertainment District on 6th Street.

Now we’re back to the Hotel, I’m writing the Journal, and trying to watch the Olympics at the same time, I don’t think it’s going to work!

Good night my friends, tomorrow we move to Houston, TX (that now I know was named after Sam Houston, a 19th century American statesman, politician, soldier, and unfortunately, slave-owner and opponent of abolitionism).

Nico

Remember The Alamo!

2008-08-12T21:52:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Folks!

The news this evening said it is unusual to see rain in San Antonio, TX at this time of the year, and my answer is: "The knew we were coming"!

You know how I like to get shots of the different cities' skylines, right? This time I really got a poor shot, as it was raining outside and I couldn't really put the window down fearing that some car would give me a free shower from the passing lane beside me!

The first thing we did since it was raining, was to go Hotel hunting. We found a very nice Ramada who's only a mile away from downtown and the Alamo. Rooms are clean, and the price is right, couldn't ask for anything better.

I killed some time waiting for the rain to stop, planning the next days with more details for the things to see and the places to visit, until it finally stopped raining, and we had the chance to go out and enjoy the city.

You can imagine already what our first stop had to be; of course, the Alamo!

I don't think I really need to get into much detail about this important piece of American history.

It felt good to be there, and NO, I didn't actually imagine the Alamo to be bigger than what it actually is. I say this because I came across a lot of reviews of people claiming that they thought the Alamo was actually smaller than what they thought it was.

Here's another nice shot where you can judge for yourself:

And yes, I'm sorry, but I also have to post the picture that proves I've been there!

The Alamo itself could be considered small (although in my opinion it isn't), but the surrounding park (Gift Shop, Research Library and another unidentified building) is quite big compared to the size of the Alamo itself.

This is for instance, the entrance to the right of the main entrance (the classic postcard picture), very "Old World" feeling (as the rest of the structure):

For those visitors not familiar with the Battle Of The Alamo, the RiverCenter Mall has an IMAX Theater that offers 45 minutes screening for roughly $8, a short movie explaining the big Ws: What, Why, When, and Who.

Here's the monument erected on the left side of the Alamo to remember the soldiers who have fought this battle, brave till the end.

Our next stop of the day is right next door to the Alamo and the RiverFront Mall, actually right beside a big building that used to be Dillard's and now is in the process of closing down.

The Cathedral is beautiful on the outside as it is on the inside. The colorful stained glass windows are both in English and German, as this Cathedral has been mainly built the the generous help of German worshippers.

We spent some time inside the church admiring the fine architecture and talking with the guy up above, until it was time to go to our next stop on the list, the Riverwalk, or as the Spanish calls it, "El Paseo Del Rio".

RiverWalk is everywhere in downtown San Antonio, I love looking at water in the middle of a big American city, especially when it is as hot and muggy as it was here today. San Antonio certainly did the trick for me.

The next picture has been taken inside the shopping mall, so yes, the shopping mall has been basically built around the river!

This is where the river "visually ends", with a small bridge where tourists can take their picture.

I must admit the whole stretch inside the shopping mall is very nice, with several bridges, and a small river boat that visitors can hop on (after you purchase the ticket that is), to enjoy more of this beautiful attraction.

RiverWalk goes on and on, for instance, this is another bridge some minutes away from where the other picture has been taken.

RiverWalk is even better at night, when visitors have the chance to enjoy one of the many beautiful restaurants facing the riverfront.

We decided to give "Acenar" a try. It's a Mexican Restaurant right on Houston Street that looking at the menu and their dish presentation, obviously has a modern American influence.

We got a "Balcony" table, that certainly enhanced the overall experience.

I had a classic beef fajitas, and Hap had for the first time in his life "Cabrito En Chile Ancho", that basically translates for you as "Baby Goat"! He said it was good...!

Going back to our mid afternoon tour, we decided to give the San Antonio Missions Trail a try, although we knew that being already after 5PM, they would have all been closed.

There are five Missions in San Antonio, with the first and most important one being San Jose:

Here's the entrance to the Mission:

And here is a shot of the San Jose Mission from the back, as it was impossible to stop at the front with the car without the risk of being run over by oncoming traffic.

Considering this was a shot I took from "The Bug", I think I did a pretty good job for an amateur!

The second mission we decided to go visit was "Mission Concepcion" (the Conception).

As soon as I looked at it, it was almost like getting on a plane and being catapulted back home in Sardinia, I loved it!

This was such a neat place, it would be perfect for a wedding!

I can picture the groom and the bride with the photographer taking pictures of the two of them under the "Portico" next to the Church.

I'm only sorry we couldn't explore the inside, as I really wanted to see if the beauty and the simplicity of the outside were also matched on the inside.

I'm looking forward to do that tomorrow, as our journey through the States will also take us 80 miles Northeast of San Antonio to the Live Music Capital of the World, Austin, Tx.

It should be quite an easy ride, and we also have a hotel over there, which will certainly make it easier for us (less to think about while enjoying our sightseeing tours).

One thing I'm also glad I've been able to do lately during this trip is to watch the Olympic Games in Beijing. It almost feel like they knew we were going to be on a Road Trip and they decided to schedule the events to accomodate our schedule (yeah right! LOL).

Well, I'm seriously enjoying watching the Olympics, and rooting for Team USA (when they're not competing against Italy that is...!).

Good night Little "Crocketts",

Nico

White Sands, Aliens, And The Lone Star...

2008-08-11T22:33:00.000-07:00

Good evening Cowboys,

What a long day we had today!

We started off this morning exactly where we left yestarday, in Alamogordo, NM.
White Sands National Monument has been in my radar of places to go visit for a long time, and finally today I had the chance to see it in all its majestic beauty. I almost couldn't wait to check out of the hotel to drive the 16 miles that separate White Sands Boulevard from Hwy 70 where the National Monument is.

Before getting there though, I wanted to call the Ranger Station at the Visitor Information Center to see if there was any military activity planned off Hollman Air Force Base.

This is something you might want to think about to avoid getting stuck, as they do close Hwy 70 with a "twice a week" sort of routine for weapons and aircraft testings.

This National Monument has a magical feeling to it at sunset and at night, when you can see the moon reflecting on its white sand dunes; but even during the day, visitors to White Sands National Monument are up for a great show.

The park (I hate to call it a monument! LOL) wasn't that crowded, which certainly made it for a better experience. Other than a few families with kids trying to "sandboard" from the top of the dunes, we were pretty much the only visitors who were trying to establish a contact with the surrounding rather than disrupting the natural equilibrium that you can sense all around you.

I once again felt the power and originality of Mother Nature; I felt the embracing warmth of the Sun as it kept shining on us, with my eyes protected by RayBan sunglasses from an almost unbearable light reflection on the white sand.

I don't think there are words to describe the experience we had this morning.

I had been in other places on this globe resembling to the stereotypical image all of us have of a "Desert" with a capital "D": Canary Islands off the Coast Of Morocco on the Island of Gran Canaria, the Dunes of Oregon, the beautiful dunes of "Torre Dei Corsari" in the Sardinian Costa Verde, but nothing compares to this place.

The color really stands out and makes the difference, I was impressed with the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, but to actually be able to take the white sand in my hand, play with it, change the shape of my surroundings; that has no price.

We left White Sands National Monument after about 60 minutes of wandering around, experiencing what it means to be free, lifting that heavy weight from our shoulders and just totally relaxing and enjoying the moment.

Our next destination for the day has been Roswell, NM, whose sign says they're famous for being the "Dairy Capital Of The Southwest", but that everybody knows because of what happened in the 40's, with UFOs, Aliens' autopsies, and major crashes.

I was sort of disappointed with this mid-sized city, but I guess part of it goes back to my expectations of what Roswell should have looked and "felt" like from my personal imagination.

The infamous Hangar 84 where they supposedly first collected the pieces of the the wreckage from the UFO is not open to the public anymore (they started opening the Hangar to the public in 2005 for money rasing purposes, but the obviously stopped at some point).

I wanted to go see Hangar 84 at least from the outside, but even with the help of technology I haven't been able to find a precise point where the Hangar is physically located, so we decided to give up on that.

We continued driving South East towards Carlsbad, NM where we were supposed to stay for the night, but then decided to skip and keep driving to Texas.

We eventually got to Texas around 5PM, and all of a sudden it was 6PM since we went from Mountain to Central Time.

Here is a picture of "The Bug" with the welcoming State Sign:

And here is a picture of the Italian traveler:

Can you believe that today we passed the 14,000 miles mark on our journey?

It's hard to believe, but that's exactly what happened, 14,000 miles, equals to 22,400 Kilometers! That's a long way to get to Texas!

One more thing I learned today through this 475 miles day trip, is that Texas is huge! Oh yes, I knew that, but I still quite didn't have an idea of how huge this State is!

Here's a picture of Hwy285, with a 75mph speed limit, it makes it for a nice ride from New Mexico all the way down to I-10.

We initially thought about stopping in Fort Stockton (about 300 miles away from San Antonio, TX), but then, realized that basically all the rooms in the city were booked!

We tried to ask what was going on in town, but without any luck.

We decided to get on I-10 and drive East to see if would have been luckier along the Interstate, and that's when I realized how big Texas is.

I started wondering about it when I saw a sign promoting a Best Western that was "only" 106 miles away, and made a comment about how stupid it was to place a sign to start advertising at such a ridiculous distance...!

Well, little did I know that that was the distance we would have ended up driving to get to our hotel. And so here we are, in Ozona, TX, some 200 miles away from San Antonio, TX (Probably the only positive side of being here! LOL).

We also found out why all the hotels in the area (150 miles radius) are sold out. They're starting new explorations for possible future drilling. There's a truck next to "The Bug" that has something to do with "Wells", go figure!

This is a pretty good business for the Hospitality industry, as they will be solidly booked for a couple of years to say the least.

So, here we are, in Black Gold country (or so they hope), on our way to San Antonio, TX, Austin, and Houston, for our personal tour of Texas and its wonderful steakhouses! ;-)

Tomorrow we hope to be in San Antonio by mid afternoon, so that we can get a chance to check in at a hotel, do some sightseeing, and generally enjoy the city and what it has to offer.

Good night from Ozona "Middle of Nowhere", TX,
Nico

Contact...

2008-08-10T20:08:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Astronomers!

Here we are in Alamogordo, NM, after a day spent driving through part of New Mexico.

We started this morning, as we left Albuquerque, NM around 11.30AM to start driving South towards Socorro, where we originally thought our first stop was.

We wanted to visit the NRAO, that stands for National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

This is the site where the Very Large Array, commonly known as VLA is located, or at least, that's what I thought!

I was wrong, as Socorro probably hosts the administrative buildings, but certainly not the VLA!

I publicly thank the human kind for the scientific progress we made throughout these years that allowed me today to just go on the Internet from my cell phone, search for NRAO online, and find the exact coordinates (34°04′43.497″N, 107°37′03.819″W) to plug in my GPS to finally be able to get there.

The site of the VLA is 60 something miles west of Socorro, and some 20 miles west for Magdalena, which is in fact the closest city.

In total that makes it for a 100 miles side trip out of the way, but trust me, it is worth it.

I don't know, this is one of those places that you know already the way they're going to look like, but still, you need to go see it for yourself, just like the Coliseum, or the Parthenon.

So there we are, at the entrance of the observatory:

NRAO only offers 4 tours a year, but if you want, you can grab one of their brochures, and step out on your own to do the self guided tour.

No need to say we really didn't need any encouragement, as I felt once again like a kid in a candy store! LOL

So here's the first picture:

Through the marked path visitors can read significant information on different aluminum panels, explaining for instance, why NRAO selected that specific site for the antennas, how things work, technical data, etc..

Notice in the next picture the position of the VLA:

As soon as we got to the first one of the several antennas, which is by the way the only one that you can visit, it started moving while we were there!

Apparently they all move at the same time, as the next picture shows you, I thought it was the neatest thing!

The antennas as you can probably see, are arrayed along the three arms of a Y-shape (each of which measures 21 km/13 miles long). Using the railroad tracks that follow each of these arms (look at the next picture) and a specially designed lifting locomotive, the antennas can be physically relocated to a number of prepared positions. They go through all the positions in a 16 months cycle.

Reading the DATA sheet underneath Antenna #6, the visitor can also discover that there are 27 independent antennas, each of which has a dish diameter of 25 meters (82 feet) and weighs 209 tons!

We spent some more time at the NRAO VLA site (including the very interesting Visitor Center), and then left to drive another 150 miles to Alamogordo, NM.

On our way to our final destination we came across the "White Sands Missile Range", does it ring any bell?

Of course, that's where it all started on July 16, 1945, at the Trinity Site.

The site is only open for the public, I believe twice a year. It was such a thrill to be there, although I knew there were another 5 miles separating us from "Ground Zero".

I read extensively about the Trinity Site and the Manhattan Project, so it was really interesting to be there.

And this is the "Been there, Done that, and NOW I prove that to you" picture:

We hoped to get to Alamogordo, NM in time (with day light) to pay a visit to the White Sands National Monument but we didn't make it.

This is a preview of what is going to happen tomorrow, more for fun and curiosity than anything else; we're going through Roswell, NM hoping not to get kidnapped by the aliens!

If they do, please DO NOT pay any ransom, give me the chance to go for another extragalactic journey! LOL

Alamogordo seemed to be pretty "dead" today, but the guy at the reception told us it was pretty normal being a Sunday.

We had dinner at a Chinese place that wasn't as bad as it looked like from the outside (and it was the best choice for the day!), and then we decided to give the White Sands National Monument a try.

Even in the dark, the sand is so white that it almost glow with the moonlight!

I can't wait to get back there tomorrow and take some shots.

We're also ready to leave New Mexico and get to Texas, but we still don't know how far we want to go as it all depends on what we will end up doing tomorrow.

I love it!

Do me a favour this evening: Take a look at the sky. If we can see the same stars, then it means we're not that far apart...

Good night my friends,

Nico

A Taste Of New Mexico...

2008-08-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Everybody!

I couldn't have put a better picture than the one above to describe New Mexico, and the whole meaning of this trip.

Open spaces, a very wild scenery, and that true feeling of "Road Trip" that only images like the one above can transmit.

That Hwy 550 SB, going from Farmington, NM to Albuquerque, NM, some 150 miles further South.

The first highlight of the day has been the crossing of the Continental Divide for the second time on this trip, the first time being in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming on July 6th 2008; so this come exactly 35 days after the first crossing.

Here's a picture of the sign:

If you pull over, you're also going to see the Historic Marker, where the State of New Mexico explain what "Continental Divide" means:

I'm not really sure you can read from the picture, so I'll read it for you:

"Rainfall divides at this point. To the West it drains into the Pacific Ocean, to the East it drains into the Atlantic."

If you think about it, it is a really interesting thing to know, sort of puzzling if you relate this to the vastness of North America.

Just after we pulled out of the parking lot to get back on the Highway, as I was reaching the the 70 mph speed limit, I noticed two motorbikes approaching "The Bug" from behind. As soon as they passed us, I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and since I'm a nice guy, I'll share what I saw with you:

Yes, you got that right, this guy was riding his motorcycle at 75 mph without using his hands! He probably went on for a few miles before a blind spot on a hill brought him back to reality, and he decided to get a grip back on the handle bars!

We arrived in Albuquerque without any problem, traffic wasn't bad at all on I-25 and I-40. At one point, we crossed for the first time the "Rio Grande" that at this point in time wasn't that "Grande" at all; more like a "Tall" drink from Starbucks, that is everything but "tall"!

Here's the shot of the road sign:

After we crossed the Rio Grande, while we were searching for the Tourist Information Center (that by the way we didn't find), we came across another road sign telling us that we were back on Route 66!

I couldn't help but taking a picture of the sign itself, and also "The Bug" which kindly asked me to be in the same shot to prove the other "Buggies" he's been there!

So here it is, the sign itself:

And "The Bug" after another "achievement"!:

Albuquerque looks like a nice city, smaller than what I thought, but still a nice city.

Our first stop of the day has been Old Town, with its many tourist traps, ehm I mean, souvenir shops and restaurants, and the beautiful square in the middle called "First Plaza"

While Mariachi were playing in the Plaza Gazebo for the many tourists strolling up and down the many stores and stalls, we decided to visit the Old Church of San Felipe De Neri whose picture I'm posting down below:

The inside of the church is as beautiful and as simple as the outside is, which tells you a lot about the people that first built the church: they were simple men, with simple beliefs, and I appreciate that.

After we got out of the church we decided to take a walk around the block to see what was there: enough shops to make King of Prussia in Pennsylvania or Mall of America in Minnesota look small. All right, I'm exaggerating, but that was the kind of feeling, as if we were in a strip mall in Florida, where, no matter where you go, everything looks exactly the same! The only difference here is that the little stores and gift shops were inside Adobe Style buildings.

The beautiful picture down below brought me back to reality, allowing me to taste what New Mexico, and the whole true south should feel like.

It reminds me so much of the Mediterranean, Italy, and Spain:

A Travel company down in Old Town also offers SegWay guided tours. Wow, those things really go fast, I was looking at the tour guide for quite some time to see how to operate the SegWay, and at one point he started going real fast in the middle of the road!

Here's a picture of some of the tourists taking the tour:

The next thing we decided to do since it was a beautiful afternoon to spend outdoors, was to go to the Sandia Peak Tramway.

Sandia Peak Tramway is the world's longest passenger aerial tramway.

The Tramway also boasts the third world's longest single span (and trust me, it was long!!!), it is located between the second tower and the top terminal at a length of 7,720 feet or if you prefer, 2,353 meters. You can see it from the picture down below taken from the Station on the Mountain, where you can see down below, the second tower at a distance of approximately 1.4 miles.

Yes, those are three crazy human beings that you see on top of the car! :-) LOL

Once on top, visitors are able to wander free, as they find themselves as you could imagine, in a totally different place from the one they had just left 15 minutes earlier.

Sandia Peak is home of the Ski Area for Albuquerque (I didn't know they had skiing in New Mexico!?!?!), but it is also home as any other wild habitat, such as Black Bears, and other animals that you certainly don't want to meet when you go hiking!

Here's the sign to warn hiker and tourists in general, which again I though it was kind of neat since we don't have any of this wild animals where I grew up!

As I said before, Sandia Peak offers a totally different scenery from the one we had just left down below, or even better, from Old Town with all its shops.

Doesn't it look like I'm somewhere up in the Alps?!?!

The Tramway Company offers "flights" every 15 minutes, , so that people don't really need to worry about how much time they decide to spend on the top of the mountain.

On the way back, we struck a conversation with a very pleasant lady from North Carolina that was in Albuquerque for a Conference. We started wondering about the first reasons that pushed the construction of the Tramway, and we were laughing about the three people on top of the cable car that looked like they were freezing their "buns" off. (Don't forget, we were at 11,000 feet!).

Being the world as "small" as it is, we soon got to the point that her son is a CIA (Culinary Institute of America) graduate; that I go to Johnson & Wales University at the North Miami Campus, and that I'm writing about this wonderful experience while I try to get some sleep in between now and then!

We chatted all the way down, plus some time spent at the base terminal, then we parted with a nice smiles on our faces, glad to have met another interesting human being along the way.

The picture down below is the last one for the day, another weird shot!

As I was pulling out of the parking lot to get back on the road, the tramway was about ready to depart.

Now, how many of you in their lives had to stop their car at a "Tramway Crossing"?

I did, so that now I can say "Been there, done that folks"!

Tomorrow looks like another busy day as we will probably go take a look at the Petroglyph National Monument and Museum, and some other very interesting spots I'll tell you more about later today.

Thank you again for all the words of encouragement I'm getting from those of you who are reading the blog.

Time to call it a day and go to sleep.

Goodnight folks,

Nico

A Day At The Park!

2008-08-08T21:26:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Puebloans!

The weather is still cooperating with us, which seems unreal considering that all around us here in Colorado and New Mexico it seems like the sky is falling down.

Cortez,CO, where we spent the night, was supposed to get several thunderstorms passing through, but thankfully enough, the guys at the weather service were wrong (so what's new?!?! LOL).

We left the hotel in Cortez at around 10.30AM, by the time we had breakfast and filled the tank at a local gas station, it was 11AM.

Our first stop of the day has been Mesa Verde National Park.

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, just think about those cliff dwellings you saw so many times on TV, or better, on one of those National Geographic magazines; well, today we finally went to the beautiful park to experience first hand on what it means to be totally immersed in this beautiful experience, and step back in time eighth centuries.

One word of advice for those of you who wants to visit the park is to get there as early as you can. The reason for that is that you can only access the majority of the ruins on a guided tour with a park ranger, and every tour (they run every half hour) has a limited amount of tickets available.

The park is huge, we almost drove 80 miles one we crossed the park gate, and we spent there the almost totality of the day.

From the park entrance on US160 to the main Visitor Information Center is about 10 miles (think of a zig zagging road rather than the straight highway to Monument Valley), and from there it is another 25 minutes to visit Cliff Palace and Balcony House (the two most popular sites), and 50 minutes to Long House (not so popular but well worth the visit if you want to see something different and experience the magic of being in such an historic site).

As I said, you can only visit the ruins on guided tours led by Park Rangers.

Tickets are fairly inexpensive ($3 per person) if you think of the experience, and the knowledge that taking the tour with a park ranger will bring after you leave the park.

There's a huge line in front of the visitor center all the time, this is how popular this place is. The last time I've seen something similar to this, we were in a big city, waiting to get to a very busy attraction.

Tickets for Cliff Palace (the most popular of the sites, and also the most photographed) were only available for the 4.30PM tour, and so were the ones for Balcony House.

We decided to buy tickets for Long House at 2PM (it was 12PM when we bought them), and use the time available to drive down to Cliff Palace, get to the overlook, take pictures, and then drive another 70 minutes or so to Long House for our guided tour.

On the way out, I had to take a picture of a stuffed Mountain Lion, animal that has a significant presence inside the park. Here is the kitty cat for you to enjoy:

Here's what the Cliff Palace looks like:

And here's another shot:

Getting to Long House visitors will go through hills and passes that were once covered by thick vegetation. Several fires, all documented by road signs, remind the tourist of the damage wildfires can cause to the environment.

We were slightly early for the tour, so we decided to go for a short hike 3/4 mile to Vista House through a viewpoint. Here is what it looks like:

The tour started on time at 2PM when Corey, the Park Ranger in charge of our group made sure we all had tickets, and sent us to take a seat on the trolley.

Corey was very knowledgeable and very pleasant. He knew so much about these people, the park, Colorado (he's not from there), history and archaeology, that it makes me wonder if his academic background might be in one of these disciplines.

To get to Long House visitors have to be moderately fit as there are ladders to climb, and a short but steep trail to walk through.

Here is what Long House looks like:

And here is a picture that proves I've actually been down there!

Corey told us about the people who used to live in that place, he told us about their customs, their food habits, their physical characteristics, and the probable reason why they decided to leave the dwellings in the early 1300's.

Did you know for instance that if you would have lived at that time, you would have been one of the elders at around 30/35 years of age?

Yes, that was their life expectancy at that time, and he guided us through some of the reasons why life was so short at that time. Also, one thing that really got me was their height, as the buildings are impressive, but they do have small openings. The average height was 5/5.4 feet!

If you want more information, just visit the Official Mesa Verde National Park website at this web address: http://www.nps.gov/meve/

By the time we got out of the park it was 4.30PM already, so much for our plans to drive to Taos, NM for the day, and spend the night there.

We ended up driving to Durango, CO (that people compare to Flagstaff, but that in my opinion doesn't even come close), and then since we didn't really like it and hotel prices were more than obscene, we crossed the border into New Mexico on Hwy 550, and stopped in Farmington, NM for the night.

Here's a picture of "The Bug" crossing the border:

Farmington ended up being a great choice since we now have the chance to go straight down to Albuquerque tomorrow where I have prepared several different things we might want to do and/or experience.

The hike of this afternoon is really catching on me, I better get some rest to be ready for another day in the life of "An Italian Across America" tomorrow.

From New Mexico I guess it's all for tonight.

Have a good night and a great weekend,

Nico

A "Monumental" Day...

2008-08-07T20:48:00.000-07:00

What a "Monumental" Day we had...!

We woke up unusually early this morning, to a perfect August sunshine out the window in our Flagstaff hotel room on Route 66.

Too bad we haven't had the same weather yesterday for the Grand Canyon, as it would have made it for the perfect shot out there. Oh well, I guess I don't really have anything to complain about since in the last 71 days of traveling, we hardly hit any rain.

Left Flagstaff around 10AM, our first stop of the day has been Monument Valley, in the Navajo Nation reservation.

Monument Valley is on US163, very close to Kayenta, AZ if you're coming from the south, but far enough to be on Utah's State Territory.

Coming to the sign that tells you you're leaving one state for another, I probably snapped the most interesting "State Sign" picture of them all. There's no price for a road sign with the majestic beauty of the Monument Valley on the side, here it is, all for you:

The perfect postcard picture on the other hand, the one that we would all recognize, is taken on US163 south bound, coming from Mexican Hat in Utah towards Kayenta, Arizona.

Anyway, don't worry about that, because one way or the other, you will get to that specific point on US163 and be able to take your own personal shots of these beautiful, silent giants, unless you're coming and going the same way.

Monument Valley is, as I said, part of the Navajo Nation Reservation, which means, if you want to get in the Tribal Park, you have to pay an entrance fee, no matter what kind of National Parks Pass you have, or who you know at the White House!

The entrance fee is $5 per person, and that gives you a map of the park, including the 17 miles off-road loop complete with information on where to stop to take pictures, etc.

This is sacred land for the natives, and that means you cannot venture on your own while driving on the 17 miles road loop, unless you're with a member of the tribe.

If you want, they offer guided tours on their trucks for $50 per person, which I thought was a little bit too much, considering that you're going to sit with another 6 people, in an open mini-bus/truck, breathing red dust for at least two hours while you're "derriere" is going to get kicked anytime the driver steps on a pot hole with the truck.

But hey, if what I just said sounds exciting to you (especially the non-stop red dust breathing deal), then be my guest and enjoy the tour!

An Italian Across America decided it was time for the two explorers, to take "The Bug" beyond some of these conventional boundaries humans have set for it; how about some plain, old, dirty off road?

And so we did, aiming to do at least part of the 17 miles loop.

There's a posted 10 t0 15 mph speed limit in the park, but even if there wasn't, It would be hard to find someone going faster than that, as the road is not exactly in great shape.

We got as far as John Ford Point, which was anyway the point I was mostly interested in. We're used to see so many movie scenes who have been shot from this fantastically perfect postcard panorama, so that's exactly where we stopped to take some more pictures.

If you're a real Spaghetti Western aficionado, you might want to take a picture with the horse. There was a Native American guy over there who would let you take a picture mounting the horse for just $2, which earns him a lot of cash everyday, considering there were many people waiting in line to get "on board" the quadruped. The picture below is a wonderful shot that I found on the Flickr account of someone that uses "Terdata" as their nickname. Here it is:

John Ford Point is only 4 miles away from the Park's Visitor Center, that means roughly 8 miles round trip. It took us an hour to get there, and then come back, mostly because of the poor road conditions.

After we left the park, we had another 90 miles to drive on backstreets, through small villages, after we got to our second, and last destination of the day: Four Corners.

Don't forget, you leave the Monument Valley Tribal Park, but that doesn't mean you're not going to see any other huge rock formations that are also interesting. This one down below is located about two hours drive away from the Tribal Park. This is a very interesting scenic route, and from Monument Valley to Four Corners, you'll come across the "Valley of the Gods", Lake Powell, Mexican Hat, and some other interesting places.

Or even this one here, very close to Cortez, CO:

Going back to what I was saying, we left Utah to briefly enter Colorado, and then leave Colorado to enter New Mexico where the entrance to the Four Corners is located.

Here are all the pictures certifying all our achievements.

Welcome to Colorful Colorado:

Welcome to New Mexico, Land Of Enchantment:

Having been to "Four Corners USA" means that today we've been in four states: Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado, where we're presently spending the night in a small city called Cortez.

Four Corners is also on Navajo territory, which meant we had to pay another fee, this time $3 per person.

There were some people there, but thankfully, not as many as I would have expected on a nice, sunny August day.

We both took each other's pictures, taking turns while the other was patiently standing in line to get on the famous platform with the cross marking the boundaries.

Hap had to wait less than I did, mainly because when my turn arrived, a happy, "oblivious" family decided to make Four Corners their "home" and take as many family pictures as possible. You'll be able to see them in the following picture that portrays me with hands in Arizona and New Mexico, and feet in Utah and Colorado.

After such a hard task to perform, we both needed a small rewards. And what a better way to reward ourselves than to try for the very first time in our lives, some original, freshly baked, Navajo Fry Bread?

For $3 they give you a whole pie, which consist of four slices. Being where we were, I couldn't help associating the four slices of the Navajo Fry Bread, with the four states on the cadastral survey metal plate at the center of the monument.

Here is the plate:

Here is the fry bread:

As you can see, we ordered ours with powdered sugar, but you can also have it with cinnamon, or better, with honey; and if you're really hungry, you can make it a combo and get all the three toppings on your pie.

We left the park, and consequently New Mexico, and we got back into Colorado, where we're currently spending the night as I said, in Cortez.

The reason why we're here is because tomorrow we're again up for another treat, as we will drive to Mesa Verde National Park (this time we will not pay! LOL), to see the ancient ruins dating as far back as the 1300's.

This evening we had dinner at a Mexican place on Main Street, nothing to tell home about, especially after the two fantastic meals we had in Flagstaff, AZ.

After Mesa Verde National Park, we shall continue to Durango, CO, and then eventually cross into New Mexico, stopping in Taos, for then reaching Santa Fe where we think we're going to end up spending the night.

As you can see, there's never an idle moment in this adventure...

We will keep on trucking for you!

Nico

Welcome To The "Huge" Grand Canyon National Park!

2008-08-06T22:37:00.001-07:00

Another day in the life of these two crazy travelers!

This morning we decided it wasn't worth it to kill ourselves and drive to Kayenta, AZ to spend the night there. Kayenta is the Arizona gateway to Monument Valley, a 3 hours drive from Flagstaff.

Instead, we took our time to explore the territory around Flagstaff, and visited, with no hurry, Meteor Crater in the morning, and the Grand Canyon National Park in the afternoon.

As soon as we stepped out the door we knew it wasn't going to be a nice sunny day as we've been lately used to.

The situation improved as we moved East on I-40 towards Meteor Crater Road, and here's a picture of the long straight road leading to the meteorite impact side that shows patches of blue sky waiting for us at our first stop:

Meteor Crater is on I-40 at exit 233. As you can see from the picture, it doesn't say National Park, nor National Monument (the "purgatory" to become a National Park), and this is due to the fact that the Meteor Crater site is privately owned and operated by the guy that in 1913 first bought the land to look for iron.

The crater left by the impact of the meteorite with the Earth surface, is huge. To give you a better idea, I found on a website (http://www.satimagingcorp.com/galleryimages/quickbird-barringer-arizona-crater-web.jpg) an aerial view of the crater that I couldn't have been able to take myself, but that certainly explains how massive the crater is, as the small black rectangle that you see, is the entire parking lot, and the white little thing that you see attached to it, is the complete infrastructure hosting the visitor center, Museum, Gift Shop, Theater, etc.:

The crater was created about 50,000 years ago, and the object that excavated the crater was a nickel-iron meteorite about 50 meters (54 yards) across, which impacted the plain at a speed of several kilometers per second. The impact produced a massive explosion equivalent to about 150 times the yield of the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Meteor Crater lies at an elevation of about 1740 m (5709 ft) above sea level (according to the tour guide, higher than Denver, CO). It is about 1,200 m (4,000 ft) in diameter, some 170 m deep (570 ft), and is surrounded by a rim that rises 45 m (150 ft) above the surrounding plains.

Here is a shot I took this morning while we were there:

Visitors should be warned that they due to previous accidents and subsequent lawsuits, the Meteor Crater management doesn't allow sandals, flip flops, or any kind of open toe shoes, on the rim of the crater.

They offer guided tours that lasts for about one hour, where they give you all the facts and numbers, plus some other interesting details to make the hike more pleasant. I would definitely recommend the tour, the trail is very easy, and really doesn't present any difficulty.

After spending a good 2 hours at Meteor Crater, we decided to head out and drive to our second and last stop of the day, the Grand Canyon.

I thought I would share the picture down below with you, of an RV that has a place inside the "body" of the RV itself to fit the car, rather than having to tow it just like everybody else. I thought it was neat!

To reach the Grand Canyon from Flagstaff, AZ, there are four ways. The one that I decided to pick up is in my opinion the best one for a series of different reasons.

But before I get into the details of why you should drive on this suggested itinerary, let me tell you what the itinerary actually is.

From Flagstaff, AZ drive north on US89, and from there, once you reach Cameron, turn left on US64/Hwy180. This will allow you to have a view of the Little Colorado Canyon, and here's a picture of "The Bug" with the Canyon in the background:

Some 30 miles after turning left on US84, the visitor gets to the East Entrance of the Park, at Desert View. This is the way you want to drive to the Grand Canyon. You will still have the chance eventually to get to the South Rim, but before that, you'll actually have the chance to drive aside from the Grand Canyon Rim while you make frequent stops at the several view points along the road

Remember that to enter the park, unless you have one of the annual passes, there's a $25 standard administrative fee.

This is a picture of the sign right after the entrance of the Grand Canyon National Park:

As soon as you physically get inside the park, as I already mentioned, the opportunities to take pictures will be several, and unless you happen to be at the park on a cloudy, rainy day just like we did, well, you're going to have fun, with amazing shots.

Here is one that I took at the first viewpoint:

I was certainly very upset about the weather, as the shots really don't do any justice to the mystical beauty of this place.

But nonetheless, just because it's been raining and overcast all day, that doesn't mean that one can't have fun!

We took several different pictures, sometimes daring to get as close to the edge of the Canyon as possible. I know, that's not very responsible, but at least we had fun, and that allowed us to kind of shift our attention away from how cra**y the day really was.

Here's a shot of myself sitting down on the edge of the Grand Canyon at one of the many viewpoints on the East Rim:

And here is the same locations, but this time I dare to stand up and get closer to the edge!

As I previously mentioned, the Grand Canyon has a mystical beauty, enhanced at this time of the year, by the beautiful colors of the foliage on the trees and bushes around the park.

Here's a shot that I really liked of some orange (in color) leaves, and the Grand Canyon in the background.

Another great shot of the Grand Canyon, I think taken at world famous "Mather Point" (too bad there was a light mist making it for a foggy day):

Another viewpoint, this time with a protective hand-railing:

At around 5.30PM, after having spent several hours inside the park, fought with the rain, the mist, and the huge crowds, we decided to head back East towards the East Entrance of the Park.

At some point, the sun made a shy appearance while setting West, and that's when I took this next shot:

I really have nothing else to say other than I would certainly recommend a visit to the Grand Canyon, if you ever happen to be in Northern Arizona. I still have to get over how huge this place is. The Canyons sometimes are so big, that there are other smaller sub-canyons inside the bigger ones.

This evening, as we're spending another night in Flagstaff, AZ we went back to the restaurant I recommended to you yesterday, and I have to admit that the food has been consistently good, as well as the service.

Now it's time to go to bed my fellow hikers! LOL

Tomorrow morning we're heading East towards Kayenta and Monument Valley, where hopefully, weather permitting (I doubt it), we will be able to take some great shots of one of the most recognizable places in the United States if not the whole world.

Good night my friends,

Nico

A Taste Of Americana...

2008-08-05T23:04:00.001-07:00

Good Evening Pioneers!

What an interesting day we had!

First and foremost, my appreciation goes to our friend Matt and his three dogs for the hospitality we received in Las Vegas.

He made us feel like home, but most of all, he played tour guide with us doing things like going to the strip, that I'm sure for someone that lives there all the time, might sound a little too touristy!

Therefore, thank you Matthew for your cooperation and you hospitality, we miss you and the boys already, and yes, I still can't get over the fact that your dog sneezes at command! LOL

Now I also know how to succesfully perform CPR on a Turtle, as the night we came back home late at night, two of his turtles got stuck on the water pump out in the pond.

We left this morning at around 11AM, with a beautiful sunny day keeping us good company.

We didn't come across that much traffic coasting the strip on I-15, and before we knew it, we were at the border with Arizona!

Here's a picture of it:

But although Arizona was our final destination for the day (we're currently in Flagstaff for the night), our first stop required to cross another border, the one with Utah, in order for us to visit Zion National Park.

Here's the welcoming sign along the Interstate at the border of Arizona and Utah:

Right before entering Zion National Park, visitors go through the nice little town of Springdale, where we stopped to take several pictures of these magnificent domestic elks!

Here's the sign delimitating the boundaries of Zion National Park:

There's a $25 administrative fee to enter the park, unless you have one of the many "Passes" that the US Government offers during the whole year, such as "America The Beautiful" for example.

The park is beautiful, and I'm afraid that with these pictures, if you still haven't been there, it'll be difficult for you to realise how amazingly colorful and majestic this place it.

Here's an example for you. I took a picture of a huge rock wall and I put "The Bug" in front of it on the road so that you can have a reference as to what the scale is:

The drive this morning was breezy and pleasent. Apart from the line at the toll booth to pay the entrance fee, we haven't found any traffic at all inside the park, which allowed us to stop and take pictures on the road, and have a clear view in front of us for some of the other pictures.

This is for instance, a picture to show you the color of some of the rock formations inside the park, isn't it beautiful?

This the INfamous Italian stepping on "Geological History" at Zion National Park:

And this is the famous "Bug" having a blast with the top down (Notice the new Licence Plate!):

The drive through the park is about 20 miles long, and it takes roughly an hour to go through, including two tunnels, the longest being 1.1 miles (It's pitch black inside!).

Although the drive through the park ends after such a short drive, the scenery outside the park roughly stays the same for several more miles.

This is a shot I took right after the sign indicating we were leaving the National Park:

And this is a close up of a rock formation whose bottome was as pink as a San Diego Zoo Flamingo. I don't really know if you can see it from this picture, but it was beautiful, such brilliant colors!

Being that our trip includes a visit to the Grand Canyon in Arizona, at some point we started heading south towards the border.

One piece of advice that I feel like I can give you if you find yourselves traveling south from Utah to Arizona to visit the Grand Canyon, is to travel on US89Alt.

It's very easy, once you reach Kanab, UT, instead of turning left towards Page, AZ just like everybody else in the huge line, go south, skip the traffic, and enjoy heaven!

The first town south of the border with Utah is Fredonia, where supposedly, they have a Welcome Center.

There are at least three signs indicating tourists where to turn, and on the way to the little town, there's also what I defined this afternoon, as an appetizer of what we should expect the day after tomorrow once we reach Monument Valley.

Here's a picture of what I'm talking about:

Going back to the Visitor Center for a moment. Although we were running late to get to Flagstaff in time for dinner, we decided to stop at the Fredonia Visitor Center.

This center is also the first one after the border, which obviously mean that every single person crossing the border from Utah will stop at this particular center to ask information about the Grand Canyon State. In a few words, this is Arizona's business card for tourism up there, and that's why I was totally dumbfounded when I came across this sign written on white paper on an A4 sheet:

The guy is what? He's on vacation? Are they trying to tell me that they can't find anybody to replace the ONLY employee at their visitor center? I found this to be totally unacceptable, especially in a state like Arizona, where a big chunk of their tourist flow happens to be in the summer.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the picture as much as I did, although at first I thought it was a bad joke!

From Fredonia, AZ, continue to drive south on US89Alt, following the signs to Lake Powell and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. You will go through a totally different scenario from what you were used to at Zion. Pine trees will take the place of the desert like panorama, this is what the North Rim is all about, giving the Grand Canyon a different look, sort of "Alpine" in some ways.

You will also notice a big shift in the temperature that will drop from the 100s that was at Zion, to a much more pleasent 70F.

At some point, after going through these beatiful forests, you will come to a sign that will tell you about the umpteenth panoramic view point coming up in about 300 yards or so.

This was absolutely the most shocking experience of the whole trip, when, all of a sudden, from the beautiful forests we were getting used to, this indescribable panorama showed up in front of us.

Again, I don't think this picture does it any justice, but just believe what I say, you don' find many places like this one in this world.

Here is another one, with "The Bug" and the magical place in the background:

Once you reach the valley that you first see from the top of the mountains, this is what stands in front of you as you continue driving south on US89Alt:

Soon after you pass the spot visible in the picture above, you find yourself in another area that looks like a reduced scale of Monument Valley. This picture in particular, has been take from the Navajo Bridge that allows cars (and tourists!) to cross the Colorado river:

So, here we are, on top of the Navajo Bridge looking down at the Colorado river:

And here's the omnipresent picture of "An Italian Across America"! LOL

We arrived in Flagstaff this evening around 7.30PM, 30 minutes ahead of schedule!

We're staying at a hotel on Route 66, so there you go, one more thing to add to my collection, I've been driving on Route 66!

We had dinner at a restaurant called "Mountain Oasis" at 11 East Aspen Avenue. Wonderful food (they know how to cook pasta here), and excellent service, combined with affordable prices, I would definitely have dinner there tomorrow if I were still here in Flagstaff, that's how good this place is.

All right, time to call it a day again! Tomorrow we have another full day ahead of us, as we will hopefully be able to cover some distance and get as close as we can to Monument Valley, and who knows, maybe even be able to enjoy the ride at sunset.

Good night folks,

Nico

Who Said It Doesn’t Rain In Vegas?

2008-08-04T23:01:00.000-07:00

Evening everybody!

Well, as the title of this post would suggest, today it rained!

I’m not sure it rained on the strip (probably not), but it did rain around the city, and in particular at the Red Rock Canyon where we went late this morning for a very interesting side trip to admire this incredibly colorful rock formation outside the concrete jungle of Las Vegas Boulevard.

There’s an administrative fee to get in the park, I believe it’s $5. Red Rock Canyon is a loop road with some very interesting stop along the way. The loop measures roughly 14 miles, and with a speed limit of 20mph or less, it takes about an hour to go through the park and get back to the entrance.

The first stop after the fee station is Calico I and Calico II, where you will see, in my opinion, the most interesting formations inside the park (So, this is not a “Save the best for last” kind of thing!).

Here are some pictures of the red rock formations:

And another one:

And another one!

Being as cloudy as it was, you can’t really see the redness of the rocks, but hopefully even with these pictures you will be able to catch the beauty of this place.

We then proceeded to the High Point Overlook, at an elevation of 4,771 feet, is the highest point in the park.

Unfortunately, it was raining pretty hard at that point and I haven’t been able to get out of the car to take some photographs.

After another 10 minutes in the car, the visitor reaches the other side of the loop, the second part of the scenic drive. This is the area where several different canyons are, I took some pictures, but I must admit I was sort of scared to be there, because during the whole drive you can see several different road signs warning visitors about flash floods all over the Red Rock Canyon area.

This is a picture of Pine Creek Canyon in all of his majesty:

We then came back home, and found a nice surprised waiting for us, our new license plate!

Matt has been so nice that he actually went outside and screwed it on my rear bumper with some washers. Tomorrow we will put two other screws on the bottom of the plate as we’re planning on going off road in the next few days and I want to make sure the plate will stay with us till we get back to Florida (if you know what I mean!).

We just got back from another nice evening out and about. Matt, Hap, and I went to a very good and authentic Italian place called Tuscany Grill, where the owner and the staff made us feel welcome and at home from the very first moment. I would suggest you try their Martinis before you sit down for your meal, as they’re excellent.

I had Chicken Piccata this evening, tender and moist, exactly the way I like it.

Matt had a dish with Italian sausage and peppers, Hap had Veal Marsala, and trust me, both looked very good.

I still can’t get over the fact that no matter where you go here in Vegas, you’ll always find ways to gamble. I was totally amazed looking at the young lady sitting next to me while we were having a drink at the bar who totally burned $200 at a video poker machine in less than 10 minutes! And trust me, she didn’t look like she could afford that either!

Now we’re back home, I’m doing some planning and some reviewing for these next days coming, studying the route, looking for interesting places to see, and things to do.

Tomorrow we plan on driving to Zion National Park, and then hopefully get to Flagstaff, AZ in the afternoon, therefore it’ll be a busy day for us, going over three states, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona.

Now it’s time to do laundry, another day has gone, but there are still many more to come.

Have a goodnight, I know I will,
Nico

Welcome To "Neon City"!

2008-08-03T23:33:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Gamblers,

Yes, another day in Las Vegas!

This morning, according to our plans, we had brunch at the Stratosphere, another free standing tower with a revolving restaurant on top (and not only that), that revolves on its axis.

Sunday brunch at the Stratosphere is not your usual brunch, as we were all expecting a fixed menu price for a buffet style kind of experience.

Instead, we ordered as usual from “A la carte” menu, and in the specific, I had a very juicy and tender Kobe Beef Burger with parmesan French fries for $21. Matt had a pasta dish with chicken and vegetables (also for $21), and Hap had smoked salmon over potato pancakes ($19).

We also had dessert, I don’t recall the fancy name, but it was basically three slices of brownies, with vanilla ice cream, and a very nice decoration. Here is a picture:

The view is great, it gave me the chance to take several pictures of the strip, and the surrounding area with all the new casino popping up like crazy.

This is the Trump Tower from up there:

And this is my foot on the floor of the restaurant:

One reprimand I have for the Stratosphere management is that when you make a reservation on the phone, they tell you they have a dress code that you have to respect, and then once you actually get to the tower, you see people dressed with shorts, tank tops, and flip flops! I think that probably is the Vegas resort attire, and I have nothing against that; what drives me crazy is to have the folks at Stratosphere putting up these silly rules that they don’t care to enforce! Oh well, live and learn, right?

After lunch, we went on top of the observatory, where they have three separate thrill rides: Insanity, XScream, and the Big Shot. I didn’t try any of them as I was afraid the precious Kobe Beef Burger would show up again, but the rides really looked like fun.

Insanity has seats tethered to an arm that swings out beyond the tower leaving riders dangling 1000 feet in the air. As the ride begins its circular motion, the seats rise and tilt downward to the Strip; XScream resembles a giant seesaw that sends riders teetering over the edge of the tower; and the “Big Shot” is a hydraulic freefall drop tower, similar to many found at theme parks, except this one is on top of the tower.

We then went for a ride on the strip to take some pictures, all the way down to the famous “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign where everybody stops to take pictures, here is mine:

Nevada must be one of those states where they really like guns; just like at the advertisement on this cab riding down the strip:

At night we went back to the strips to see the lights, and to go to the sumptuous Bellagio to see the Fountains show synchronized with beautiful music.

We also went to Fremont Street to see the light show. Fremont Street is where Las Vegas and all its glory originated from. It lies about a mile away from the strip and a safer option for visiting it would be to take a cab there; as Matt said, the area surrounding Fremont Street is really not a nice area, and it is something that I have been able to feel first hand this evening. The light show is called the “Fremont Street Experience”, a magnificent lit up ceiling that puts on a laser show every hour; we saw USAF aircrafts (probably F16s! LOL) and the Space Shuttle. It was really amazing, and here are some shots for you:

The Space Shuttle:

If you come to Las Vegas, you have to see this.

We’re now back home, and it’s around 1.30AM, Matthew has been such a wonderful tour guide for us the whole day!

Time to call it a slot machine, I mean, a day!

Goodnight Elvis,
Nico

Viva Las Vegas!

2008-08-02T23:14:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Ladies & Gentlemen!

We made it, we’re finally in Sin City!

Unfortunately I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to tell you about this place, because, we all know the rule, don’t we? Right, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!

We left Pahrump, NV not too late in the morning and since our wonderful host Matthew in Vegas wasn;t going to be home until late in the afternoon, we decided to take a side trip south to Hoover Dam before even setting foot in the city.

Before getting to Las Vegas I should also mention that visitors coming from the north also experience a wonderful drive through the Red Rock Canyon, here's a picture that really doesn't do justice to the beauty of this place but that is certainly better than nothing:

Reaching the Dam is very easy, just follow the signs for Boulder City, and passed the little town, you will only have another 5 miles to go.

We had to wait in line with the car to go through security checks (although they didn’t stop us, maybe because of my pretty face!), therefore everybody was going at a slow speed, but other than that, it’s been a pleasant drive.

You can see Lake Mead from a distance, so that certainly keeps the visitors good company while they wait to finally get to the Hoover Dam Visitor Center.

They’re also building a new Interstate and a new bridge, and you’ll have the chance to drive alongside and see the massive structure from down below. Unfortunately yesterday being Saturday there weren’t any workers, but I would say the structure itself would probably be worth the driving!

Tower on the Nevada side:

Before actually getting to the Visitor Center, we wanted to experience crossing to Arizona on the Dam, and see if we could actually get some good shots from the Arizona side.

And so, that’s what we did! We slowly crossed the border with Arizona, went up a hill and took some pictures of the majestic Hoover Dam.

The drive back to the Visitor Center and the Parking Garage was also very pleasant, as most of the people were driving on the opposite direction and we had a pretty smooth ride.

They charge $7 for parking, but I guess that’s the price one has to pay to contribute to the maintenance and functioning of this gigantic masterpiece.

It was very hot outside, we had to walk from the Parking Garage, roughly 300 yards to the underground Ticket Center, and all of a sudden, we were soaking wet!

The Bureau Of Reclamation offers three different type of tours, with the first one at a set price of $8 that only includes a very basic self guided tour of the Visitor Centre (with various displays explaining how the Dam works), and the possibility to access the Observation Deck.

The second one at $11 offers what I previously described, plus a guided tour inside the Dam to see the Turbines (Nevada side), and also one of the pipes bringing the water to the turbines which is 30 feet in diameter. You actually stand on the pipe, thanks to a platform, and through thick glasses, you are also able to take pictures of the pipe.

Something that was really interesting to experience down there was to feel how the platform vibrates due to the massive amount of water that goes through the pipe underneath; sort of scary if you think the amount of power that water can have.

The third tour includes everything I mentioned before, plus an extra two visits to the thick wall of the Dam for a set price of $30 (which includes one of those yellow helmets workers use in construction sites).

We went for number two, as we know that the truth always lies somewhere in the in the middle…

It was a very nice tour, very informative, and very interesting. The tour guide was also very pleasant and fun to be with.

The observation deck on top of the Visitor Center gives you a different point of view and perspective as to what they real size of the Hoover Dam really is, and that is why I strongly advice anybody to take a tour and not just drive through from Arizona to Nevada or vice versa.

In total we probably spent a good four hours at the Dam, and allow me to say this: “We had a damn good day!”.

We then drove back to Las Vegas, to finally experience firsthand what the strip has to offer. We drove all the way from Boulder City, NV to the beginning of the strip on Las Vegas Boulevard. It was amazing, for a series of different reasons. First because this is one of those places I’ve always seen on television, and never in my life I would have thought about actually being here! Also because of what the strip has to offer to its visitors: Las Vegas is one of those cities that never sleeps, entertainment here is continuous, 24 hours, 7 days/week, 365 days/year (you see, now you know I can also count and use numbers, how clever!).

In order for Mr. Andretti here to take pictures, we had to put the top down. Now, it was 116 outside, not exactly the kind of weather that invites you to drive in a convertible with the top down, but hey, something needed to be sacrificed, and that something is US!

To go through the strip probably took us 25 to 30 minutes, but we saw everything there was to see (at least from the outside), and took a ridiculous amount of pictures that once again I had to skim through this evening.

We saw the Stratosphere (where we’re having brunch tomorrow):

The “golden” Trump Tower (do you think he’s trying to tell us something here?):

The “Encore”, shaped like a boomerang:

Paris-Las Vegas with its half-sized replica of the Eiffel Tower:

And another great shot:

The MGM Grand with its huge golden lion guarding the corner of the block:

The Bellagio, with its incredible fountain show (more later for a night shot of the fountains):

The pyramid shaped “Luxor” with its Sphinx overlooking the strip (Don’t you love Las Vegas?!?!):

New York New York-Las Vegas:

The Mandalay Bay:

And many others I didn’t take a good shot of, like the humongous Caesar’s Palace, the Flamingo’s, etc..

We’re now staying with our good friend Matthew who has been living here for quite some time now and has a beautiful home in a gated community with a golf course.

Tomorrow the three of us are going to the Stratosphere for brunch, another tall tower to add to our collection.

From Sin City I guess it’s all for the night,
Nico

Solitary Beauty...

2008-08-01T23:52:00.000-07:00

Good Evening World!

Well, we can’t say it hasn’t been another of those days, yes, those full of things to see, with a 400 miles drive that, enjoyable as it was, felt more like a one hour trip!

Let’s proceed with order though, we first started this morning in Los Angeles.

We left the hotel quite early, around 9.30AM, which is quite unusual for these two travelers who are known for using all the time they’re allowed to by hotels policies to upgrade blog and internet, write about the experience, and see if there’s anything for the next day we can’t absolutely miss!

Our first stop of the day has been West Hollywood; I can’t believe the place was almost deserted when we arrived, and therefore I had the chance to park for a $1/hour some 400 yards from the Kodak Theater.

From downtown Los Angeles I took US101, and then Santa Monica Boulevard where I took a right on Vine Street to make sure I could stop at Hollywood and Vine and take a picture of this famous corner where these two roads meet.

Hollywood Boulevard started getting busy around Kodak Theater, where several different tourists just like us were managing to get their picture taken with their favorite hero. Cat woman was there, and so was Spiderman, Hulk, Superman, you name it! It was so kitsch! LOL

We then continued walking, as I kept looking down on the sidewalk to read some of the names that have made the history of entertainment, such as Walt Disney, who was there with Snow White (yes, they both had their private spot), and for fellow Italians like me, people like Bernardo Bertolucci (a famous movie director), and Arturo Toscanini (music composer).

Snow White:

Arturo Toscanini:

We then stopped at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater, where replicas of the same movie characters we had just seen a while ago, were making sure other tourists didn’t leave without having their picture taken with their favorite hero!

I took some pictures of the Theater, which is beautiful on the outside (how come I’m not surprised?!!?), trying to avoid framing cars or buses with my photographic souvenir. After several attempts, I finally got what I wanted:

Across the street from Grauman’s Chinese Theater there was a “Coffee Bean” place. For those of you who don’t know (I didn’t!), it is similar to a Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, etc., only better! I’m only speaking for their Ice Blended drinks, as their Ice Mocha with real chocolate covered coffee beans (which made the drink sort of crunchy as if they added crumbled Graham Cracker Crust) transformed the drink from average (same as anybody else on the market) to “out of this world”!

On the way back to the car, walking on the opposite side of Hollywood Boulevard, we saw more stars, and “The Egyptian”, the other theater Mr. Grauman built before building the Chinese Theater.

Today was also one of those days where we had some errands to run. I told you the car needed two new tires in the front. Well, we had the tires mounted on the car in Indio, CA, but they didn’t have the equipment to align them, and we figured that after driving from there to San Diego, the border to Mexico, and then back to Los Angeles, with two brand new expensive tires in the front, we really needed to do that.

So we did, we looked for a Volkswagen dealer, and we found one in Palmdale, Ca, which was exactly on our way up to Ridgecrest, CA!

On the way to the dealer we also spotted the California Aqueduct, that we recently saw featured in an episode of National Geographic, so I thought it was kind of cool to be there on the highway and actually know that what we were seeing on the side of the road was not the Great Wall Of China, but the California Aqueduct!

Here’s a picture of it:

It took them 90 minutes and $69, but now the car should be good, use less gas, but mostly, be problem free!

Will it really be that way? I don’t know, all we can do is keep our fingers crossed!

After Palmdale we put gas at $4.29 (Regular), and drove another 80 miles to Ridgecrest. The road was spectacular as we driving along the Mojave Desert with its funny looking Saguaro Cactus (Cacti).

Thanks to the new tires, and let’s admit it, even the driver’s driving skills (did I hear anybody clapping their hands or what?), we arrived at the junction between the road we were on (possibly Hwy 14) and Ridgecrest, too soon to stop for the day, at around 4PM.

We brainstormed in the car and decided to go for our plan B (and let me tell you, sometimes even that is not enough!). Our plan B was to drive to Lonepine, CA and spend the night there.

Lonepine is the northern gateway to the Death Valley in California, and guess what, that’s what we originally planned on doing!

Before being able to reach Lonepine, Hap asked me to stop so that he could walk around a little bit, roam free through the “REALLY good Beef Jerky” (as all of their road signs say), and eventually use the restroom. The only detail he forgot to add to this picture was that outside the car, an unwelcoming temperature of 114F was waiting for him, to give him, in the most literal sense of the word, a very “warm” hug!

He decided to be brave and go out, leaving the comforting cool breeze inside the bug to go out and battle just like all of the other tourists with the giant blow-dryer that someone up above obviously forgot to turn off this morning! ;-)

Him going out for a walk gave me the time to think about what we wanted to do for the day: did we really wanted to stop in Lonepine, Ca? Not really, considering that it was 5PM and the sun still doesn’t set before at least 8 in the evening.

We talked about it in the car, and decided to give our Plan C a try.

We basically left the road to Lonepine some 24 miles before reaching our final destination, and hooked a right to Death Valley!

Now, for those of you who don’t know, Death Valley is both the name of the National Park and a city in the valley. The city (or should I say village), as the sign says, was 101 miles away from the junction where we currently were, not a problem here for the Italian counterpart of “Mr. Andretti”.

Soon after we ventured in one of those long straight roads that don’t seem to have an end, we took a right and came across a very colorful sign, welcoming us to the Death Valley National Park; that was the beginning of the Scenic Route.

Now, who had the courage to say there’s nothing in the Death Valley?

People almost made me feel like we should have skipped this part of the trip and drive straight to “Fabulous Las Vegas”; I’m so happy I’m one of those people that most of the times don’t pay attention to sound advice his friends have to give them, as I would have missed something beautiful this afternoon.

It took us almost three and a half hours to drive through the Death Valley and its beautiful and vibrant canyons, with temperatures ranging from 110F to 121F, around 50 degrees Celsius (which is NO joke!).

I must admit this, Death Valley is truly a very inhospitable place, but that doesn’t mean it is not worth the driving. I’m not trying to tell you, you should go and live there; but as far as crossing through, I couldn’t stop being amazed by the unusual beauty of this place.

We went through several passes, climbed up the mountains, and eventually drove down the same mountains, reaching 4,000 feet in elevation, and then back to a 1,000 or even Sea Level in a matter of minutes, with a constant change of scenery around us.

We drove to “Badwater” which is the lowest point in the western hemisphere, with its 282 feet / 85.5 meters under the sea level.

Something I thought was really amazing is that they put a sign up in the mountains to actually tell you where the sea level is supposed to be compared to where you stand. Otherwise people just don’t think about it, you just stand there, take a picture as fast as you can, and get back in the fridge, I mean, the car, as outside the temperature can reach easily 125F and more.

It’s been a truly amazing drive, and of course, the beautiful sun setting back west with its colors, made it even for a better show.

I managed to take several hundred pictures, that I promptly skimmed through this evening to edit some, and delete some others.

Before I forget this, I have one sound advice which might be obvious,it’s always better to remind people, as they say, better safe than sorry!

Bring plenty of water and food with you in the car (some of these roads can get pretty isolated at some point), and absolutely do not forget to fill up the tank before entering the park (you’ll need it!).

Pay attention, this is not to tell you that they don’t absolutely have any facility inside the park, because they do, it just to warn you that the rules of economics really make a statement of truth here in the park where the offer is smaller than the demand.

You don’t know what that means?
It’s very simple, you’ll see prices going up inside the park like there’s no tomorrow!

Here is a picture I took as proof of what I’m saying:

Have you ever seen gas ranging from $6.11 to 6.52? Now you did! J

Death Valley is one of the most unique places on earth I’ve ever visited, its exceptional and inimitable beauty makes it for a wonderful trip; through its canyons and deserted roads, Death Valley speaks out to the visitors through an imaginary voice that is not there but that still you can hear (and no, I’m not on drugs!), it’s the wild desert landscape calling you for an exciting trip that won’t take you more than 4 hours of your precious time.

If you’re ever in the area, take the Death Valley National Park Scenic By-Way, you won’t be disappointed, I give you my word.

We’re currently spending the night in Pahrump, NV, at a Casino with lights and neon that reminds me more of a Strip Club than anything else. The rooms are nice and spacious, but most important, they’re clean, which lately is all I’m asking for since we don’t really have the time to go online and search for “THE” place where to stay.

Tomorrow we plan on driving to Sin City, and also weather allowing, take a side trip to Hoover Dam, to see firsthand what the human kind has been able to build in the 1930’s; I’m sure it’s going to be another interesting day.

And from the HOT desert of Nevada I guess it’s all…

Good night folks,
Nico

The West Coast

2008-08-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

An Italian Across America just completed the third part of this journey, from Seattle, WA to Border Field Park (and back up to Los Angeles for an extra stint), and is now ready to venture on the drive back home in Fort Lauderdale.

This doesn’t mean An Italian Across America is “done”, because this journey through the “lower 48” is far from being over yet, and we all know “yet” is a future word!

Above is a Google Earth Image of the main points covered on the third leg of this trip.

These are some facts and numbers about this trip so far.

This is the distance covered from Washington State to California:
2,600 Miles or 4,160 Kilometers.

Days On The Road: 19.

States visited: 3.
Washington, Oregon, and California

Gasoline Tanks used to cover this distance:

8 for a total of $400

And here is the regular "old fashioned" map I’ve used before:

Some facts and numbers about this trip so far:

This is the distance covered from Florida to California: 11,171 Miles or 17,873 Kilometers.

Days On The Road: 64

States visited: 30+3
Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, California, plus District Of Columbia, Quebec and Ontario in Canada.

Gasoline Tanks used to cover this distance:
30 for a total of $1,700

Up In The “Hills”…!

2008-07-31T23:40:00.000-07:00

It should be the title of a new Hollywood production, a movie, or even better, a reality TV show like those that are so “en vogue” at the present time.

But it is not, “Up In The Hills” is a one word summary of what An Italian Across America has been up to today.

We started this morning by checking out at the hotel, and loading the car in the same religious order we’ve been following for these past 64 days, making sure that nothing would show up from under the deep blue blanket (one of those that you “borrow” on any intercontinental flights”) that has been such a trusted companion for all of these days.

We initially planned on visiting the USS Midway, and many other things, but then we gave up and decided to drive south on I-5 towards the Border with Mexico.

I told you yesterday about the reading I’ve done, and those pictures that fascinated me (the Bull Fighting Arena in particular) from the very first time I saw them; we had to go!

The place we were looking for is called “Border Field Park” (very original name…), but guess what, it is only open on Saturdays and Sundays, plus holidays. The GPS told me that the water, and consequently the commemorative monument erected between these two countries was only another mile away from where we were presently standing, and so we decided to give it a try.

The weather has been always very pleasant, and today was no exception.

We were initially confused as to where to go, as there is really no marked path to follow to get to the Monument, but then eventually we got on the right track, and started walking; I would say, roughly we did about 1.5 miles each way if not more, but again, thanks to the nice Pacific Breeze, we made it!

I could see the Arena in Tijuana from the Parking Lot where we left the car, that was a big incentive to us, and after all, we went on top of a mountain to see the Medicine Wheel, we can also walk three miles on the sand (mixed with asphalt) to see the Monument, the “Fence”, and the Arena!

And so we did!

Here’s a picture of the Arena:

Here’s a picture of the Monument:

Here’s a picture of the impressive fence (I wonder why we didn’t find the same thing up north at the border with Canada! LOL):

And this is a picture to show how the fence goes straight in the Pacific Ocean:

We also chatted for a while with a Border Patrol Officer. She was there with her binoculars, and we asked her what would have been the best way to get back to the car (since we were tired and didn’t want to go back the same way!), she told us exactly what we didn’t want to hear, the way back was exactly the same way we got there! LOL

Hap wanted a picture with her, and so, here it is, for all of you to see:

We left the parking lot at around 1.30PM and headed towards Los Angeles, CA where we arrived around 4PM. Traffic wasn’t so bad until we started hitting the L.A. Metropolitan area 30 something miles away from downtown, that’s when things started to get a little nasty.

Traffic in Los Angeles really stinks, there’s no other way to put it.

Just to give you an idea, this is how bad traffic was this afternoon before rush hour!

This time I also managed to get a nice shot of the Los Angeles City Limit road sign:

And I also got a very nice picture of the Los Angeles skyline:

Our first stop had to be Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive.

I swear I’ve never seen such a high concentration of exotic cars, like this one (a yellow taxi Rolls Royce) parked on Rodeo Drive:

And also, I would like to remind the guys reading the blog that a diamond is forever, buy one at this local shop and tell them I sent you! ;-)

We also went around Beverly Hills to try to see if we could find some of the VIPs’ houses, and we did, thanks to the map that our friends Frank and Bob gave us a few days ago in Palm Springs.

We saw the houses of Bill Cosby, Barbra Streisand, and Tom Cruise, just to name a few, drove around the “Hills” to admire such a high concentration of expensive “everything”, and then went on to our next stop, Melrose Place!

I don’t about you, but when I was a teenager, I was crazy about the TV Show (Melrose Place), and so was my brother, so I had to physically get there and snap a picture of street sign to remember the old days:

We then went to Beachwood Drive, which is the best way to have a nice view of the Hollywood Sign.

Here are some shots of the sign:

And another one:

On the way to Beachwood Drive we also managed to drive on Historical Route 66 for a short time, and here’s the proof of this achievement:

After that, we decided it was time to get to the Hotel (very close to downtown), and we did that by going through “Koreatown” with its many signs in Korean that I truly love (I don’t know why, but I think that Korean letters are very stylish).

Here's another one:

This evening we settled for a nice hamburger after the three wonderful dinners we had with our friends Steve and JR in San Diego. Not exactly the quality of food we’ve been used to for this past three days, but not even that bad either.

After dinner we decided to take a stroll down Santa Monica Boulevard, then hopped in the car, and went to Hollywood Boulevard, to see the Kodak Theater, the Grauman’s Chinese Theater (Spectacular to say the least), and the most famous Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Tomorrow is going to be a relatively easy day for us; as soon as we check out, we will try to go back on Hollywood Boulevard and take some pictures over there of the Theaters, and the Walk of Fame. After that, we will start our journey East, the last of four legs on this trip!

This is not the end, but it is definitely getting closer and closer, and I still can’t believe how time has gone by so fast!

Tomorrow we will probably stop in Ridgecrest, CA for the night, as we get ready to drive through the Death Valley to reach Las Vegas, NV and its zillion lights and casinos, on the evening of the 3rd.

Sounds like we’re up for some fun!

And now I’m ready to go to bed, we had quite an interesting day!

Good night my friends,
Nico

Welcome To The Jungle!

2008-07-30T23:42:00.000-07:00

It did feel like we were catapulted from San Diego, CA to the wildest part of Africa today while we visited the San Diego Zoo.

We woke up early this morning, the sun was out, and the temperature was around 78F, just about perfect for me to put the top down while driving through the streets of San Diego.

Today we had planned to visit Balboa Park and the world renowned San Diego Zoo, and that’s exactly what we did.

We started off at “El Prado”, off Laurel Street, where you basically have to go through an old bridge to get inside the park. Defining Balboa Park as immense is an understatement, that’s how big the park is. You could spend a few days touring the park, and still there would be something missing in your sightseeing, and as we only had a day to visit, we decided to slowly drive the car through its streets, and try to make the most out of the experience.

Many of the buildings around the park are in Spanish Revival Style (they have that sort of Mexican look), starting with the Museum Of Man and the California Tower on the western entrance of the park.

On our way to the Zoo we also saw the “Spreckels Organ Pavilion”, which is the world’s largest outdoor pipe organ; the “House of Hospitality”; and the “Casa Del Prado Theater”.

The Zoo had a very valuable option for its tickets: $34 including taxes, and unlimited rides for their Aerial Tramway, Bus Tours, and Express Buses.

You have to understand this is a considerably big Zoo, and it took us around 4 hours to visit.

We started with the Skyfari Aerial Tramway who took us from the East side to the West Side of the Zoo. The ride was comfortable, and very panoramic, although I didn’t really see anything other than birds nets, cages, and A/C units on top of the buildings’ roofs!

The first attraction we managed to visit were the Polar Bears. I was able to get a great shot of one of the two polar bears, half in the water, half outside of the water, I think it’s hilarious, and I wanted to share it with you.

Here is the first one:

And here is the second one, classic “Polar Bear” pose:

After that, we saw several different inhabitants of the African Savanas.

We saw Zebras:

We saw Gazelles:

Giraffes:

And Camels:

Then we went to the Birds of Prey cages, and I saw a Condor for the first time (not many Condors in Sardinia!).

We also visited the “Cats” cages, but most of them, as any real cat, were sleeping in their caves. The only one who was sleeping close to the glass window was this beautiful exemplar of Malaysian Tiger. I managed to get some shots, but the glass window was as dirty as it could be, thanks to all the kids putting their sticky, sweaty, and dirty hands all over the place. Oh well, I don’t blame the kids in this case, they have all the rights to have fun and enjoy the Zoo, who I really blame are those parents who don’t pay attention to their children.

Here is the tiger:

And here are its big paws:

We also spent some time looking at the monkeys, as we both couldn’t get over the fact that they’re so agile, moving from one tree to another, through branches, ropes, and other things that men put for them to enjoy.

I wonder if they ever lose their balance and fall down the trees, and if they do, if they get injured, or they’re just like cats who sometimes fall down from the 4th or 5th floor of a high rise condominium and survive!

We then stood in line to get on the 35 minutes Bus Tour. The buses are those double-deckers that have no roof. We stood in line a little bit more but managed to get a great sit on the top of the bus where I could take more pictures.

I was right, from up there we were both able to look at the Giant Pandas without having to stand in line another 30 minutes to just walk by them for a few second. The tour was very nice, it did last for 35 minutes, and other than giving the visitor a lot of information and insight about the park, it provides people with plenty of advice on what to see next, while visiting the San Diego Zoo. Hap and I went to the Sea Lion show!

We really enjoyed the show, who not only featured a very clever (and very hungry) Sea Lion, it also had a Grey Wolf, and some big yellow and blue parrots.

After four hours inside the Zoo we decided it was time to head out and go visit one of the other highlights of our trip to San Diego, the first California Mission created by Fr. Junipero Serra on July 16th 1769.

This time we didn’t have to pay to get in (the lady let us in without paying the price for the ticket because she said the Evening Mass was about to get starting), and so we had all the time to enjoy the Mission, its quietness, and the surrounding buildings who have all be restored to their original splendor.

Other than the church, we’ve been able to visit Fr. Junipero Serra’s house besides the church, the Choir Rehearsal Room, and a small but very interesting museum about the history of all the mission on the California Missions Trail.

Fr. Junipero Serra was a very small person, only 5’3”, with a weight of 110 pounds! I took a picture of Hap next to his life-size statue in the Mission’s courtyard:

We then came back to the Hotel where I planned some more for the trip, waiting to join our two friends Steve and JR for cocktails and dinner at a local favorite Thai Restaurant here in San Diego.

Dinner was out of this world, try their mild curry Chicken, or “Drunken” noodles (a little spicy), or the always good Chicken Panang. The restaurant is called “Taste Of Thai” at 527 University Avenue, San Diego. Reasonably prices for a great dining experience.

Tomorrow we have the USS Midway on our plans, but I would also like to drive 20 miles south to get as close as I can to the border with Mexico. A few months ago I saw some pictures on a tourist guide of the Fighting Bulls Arena of Tijuana, I want to see if I can get the same picture myself, as when I saw the picture in the book I was sort of daydreaming about reaching this (to me) “exotic” destination!

Now I need to get some sleep, it’s been a long day!

Goodnight my friends,
Nico

There Is Always A First Time…

2008-07-29T23:54:00.000-07:00

Good Evening!

I didn’t finish telling you yesterday about how this trip has been so far full of unexpected, pleasant and unpleasant surprises, that this morning we had a new one!

It won’t probably be the last since we still have a long way to go before coming back home to Fort Lauderdale, FL.

For those of you concerned about the “License Plate” situation (Oh yes, I know you are! LOL), we went to the “San Diego Police Department – West Division” this morning at around 11.30AM, after calling them earlier in the morning to ask what the procedure was to have a police report issued on the matter.

Well, apparently the SDPD is very busy, so they just give you an incident number that you can mention to any Police Officer if you get pulled over on the road, but nothing more than that. Then someone eventually calls you, and you have to go to the nearest station to get an official document.

We don’t have that kind of time, and that’s why we decided to push it and see if we could get it issued today.

The Police Officer helping us couldn’t have been more helpful, she prepared the Police Report for us, so that we could fax it to the other nice lady we’ve been dealing with back in Florida.

It is at that point, while the officer was writing the report, that I felt something strange that I had never felt before in my life. The lady was behind a wooden desk that started shaking, and at that point I thought it was because of me leaning towards the desk with all my bodyweight!

I don’t know how to explain it, but at that point I raised my elbows from the desk and I looked at the lady with a blank expression, not knowing what was going on. She looked back at me saying: “It might be an earthquake!”. I thought she was just pulling my leg, as we’ve been kind of kidding around all the time while she was writing the report.

This is a picture I downloaded from the Internet:

At that point, the desk had almost stopped shacking, and that’s when I glanced outside, still not believing what my senses were trying to tell me, and I saw one of the big vases blocking the entrance (there were three vases positioned like a triangle who have been put there for security reasons so that people can’t get into the Police Department with a car), and I when I say big, I want to emphasize the word “BIG”, that was sort of oscillating as if there was a strong wind outside.

You might think at that point I finally realized what was going on, but I didn’t, and neither did Hap, who by the way, had never been in an earthquake before either!

It is not after we arrived at the hotel, and I checked the news on my PDA, that I found out Los Angeles had been hit by an earthquake who could also be felt in San Diego and Las Vegas! I ran inside the lobby like a kid would run inside a candy store after not eating for a few days, and I told him: “It was an earthquake!”. The lady at the front desk confirmed, and for a moment I thought that was the coolest thing!

You have to excuse me, but I’m really thrilled…! Now I can save the money and avoid going to Universal Studios Los Angeles to experience their “Earthquake simulation”!

After checking in at the Sheraton here in San Diego, we went for lunch with our two friends from Palm Beach, Steve and JR at a very nice Mexican restaurant in Old Town San Diego, with pictures of Bill Clinton on the walls.

The restaurant was pretty good, we had a few beers (they had Pyramid Hefeweizen), a lot of chips, salsa, and guacamole, and then I ordered a Beef Taco/Cheese Enchilada combination, while Hap got a giant soup with homemade (right there in front of you from scratch) flour tortillas.

That was around 1.30PM, it is now almost midnight, and we still feel like we had it 20 minutes ago, that’s why we decided to skip dinner for tonight.

We went back to the hotel around 5PM, I spent some time reorganizing our sightseeing and schedule for the trip, and then took an Italian nap (two and a half ours).

We went out for a ride around 9PM to downtown San Diego, where the PetCo Ball Park was all lit up for a ball game (I wonder who won!), and then got on the Coronado Bridge to get to Coronado Island, and snap some pictures of the San Diego nocturnal skyline.

Coronado looked like a nice place, we’re certainly thinking about going back tomorrow or the day after for some more sightseeing and for visiting the famous Hotel Coronado.

We then went back to San Diego Downtown, to look for the pier where the USS Midway is located. It doesn’t take that much to find it as the Aircraft Carrier is all lit up like a Christmas Tree on Christmas Eve.

A picture of USS Midway from Coronado Island:

The weather has been very pleasant so far, a little overcast this morning, but certainly nothing to complain about, as long as it doesn’t rain.

On our “things to do and see list”, other than the above mentioned places, we also have the San Diego Zoo, who should be one of the best in the USA if not the world, one the Franciscan missions, up on top of a hill close to Hillcrest, Balboa Park, and the Museum of Photographic Arts.

All right, time to call it a day, to be exact, our 62nd day on the road fellows!

Goodnight,
Nico

We Got New Tires!

2008-07-28T23:10:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Gentlemen!

Here we are again, after another day of traveling, that just like any other day we spent on the road, had some unexpected surprises waiting for us.

We took it really easy this morning as we woke up late, had breakfast, and hung around at the house with Frank and Bob for the last time before leaving.

America’s Tire Company called around 1PM to tell us the tires we ordered on Friday for the car had just arrived, which was certainly a good news.

We decided to spend some more time with our hosts (who have been wonderful from day one, but then again, that didn’t come as a surprise for us), and so we headed to the Indian Spa and Casino in downtown Palm Springs to have lunch together.

After sharing some more stories, and some good, healthy laughs, we thanked them for the wonderful hospitality, and headed back on the road to go to Indio and get this new tires mounted before it was too late to get to San Diego by dinner time.

We left the store at around 4.45PM and arrived in San Diego, CA around 7PM.

And here comes the surprise, which is at the same time hilarious and upsetting, at least for me it is!

We’re staying with our two friends Steve and JR for the night, until we get our room package tomorrow at the Sheraton, and so, to make a long story short, being the good hosts they are, they came out of the house to greet us!

Well, Steve really liked the car and started getting around it to look at all the features, and the head space on the inside, and then all of a sudden he asked us: “What happened to your plate?!?!”. Since I thought he remembered the fact that I did have a vanity plate at one point, Hap started telling him the story about how we had the plate stolen somewhere between Wisconsin and Minnesota, and he kept going on and on, and that’s when I glanced down and I saw what I had seen already roughly 20 something days ago: we had NO plate!

I was probably the only one who wasn’t laughing; maybe because I knew already what we went through to get this one, and what we will go through to get another one?

So, here we are, back to square one, once again without a license plate (and yes, it is a big deal!), and with more than 5,000 miles before we get back to Florida.

So tomorrow morning instead of enjoying the city and the beautiful weather, we will be going to the San Diego Police Department, wait in line to have someone write the report, talk to the lady back in Florida to see what she can do to issue a new plate, try to figure out where we’re going to be and when, and then maybe if I’m not too upset, or even too tired, actually see some of what the city has to offer.

Goodnight folks, it sure isn’t boring out here! LOL
Nico

Just Chillin'...

2008-07-26T23:13:00.000-07:00

Good evening everybody!

We had quite a relaxing day today, and you know what, I really needed it!

For a day, I didn't have to think about anything to do, places to visit, or roads to drive on. You know, it takes a lot of work to be a tourist, and who thinks it is quite the opposite, well, he's a fool!

Bob and Frank took us to the Casino this morning for breakfast. You can't beat that deal, $5.99 for a high class buffet that wouldn't leave anybody hungry! :-)

Unfortunately, you know how Italians are, we're not used to all those sausages, bacon, eggs, etc. for breakfast, and therefore, I just had some Belgian waffles with some strawberries syrup, and some chocolate and vanilla ice cream on the side. It was more than enough for me!

We plan on going back on Monday and have lunch there, I'm sure it is going to be another great deal. As we were walking out, I glanced at the food ready to be served, and wow, I wouldn't have got any problem to eat the whole thing! :-)

After we finished breakfast, Frank and Bob have been so nice (Thank YOU guys), to take us out on a "VIP Real Estate" sightseeing tour. It was quite interesting, although most of the names were totally new for me; I guess that's the price I have to be for being a foreigner in this country!

However, some of the names did ring a bell, like for instance, Elizabeth Taylor, Cary Grant, Madonna, Valentino (Rudolph), etc.

It's been real hot today, and so, after we finished with the tour, we just went back home, and I took advantage of the situation to get some exercise (mostly crunches for my deflated tummy! LOL), write some Emails to friends, and yes, take a nap (a luxury I haven't been able to afford in the past 59 days!).

Tomorrow is going to be another lazy day here in the desert, because here right now is more about the nightlife rather than anything else...

It's kind of late as usual, I should better go to bed and get my beauty sleep as usual.

Good night my friends,
Nico

It'saaa Hottttaaaa!

2008-07-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

It’s HOT!

Good afternoon guys!

Now, who said the temperature in the California desert is not so hot “because here we don’t have the humidity you guys have down there in the swamps in Florida”?!?!

That’s plain b***s*it!

It’s hot here, 105F and rising!

We left El Monte, CA on the outskirt of Los Angeles this morning at around 10AM. Before we left, we made sure we could schedule an appointment on the phone with the Volkswagen dealer closest to Palm Springs, CA which is only 20 miles East in Indio, CA.

Initially the lady told us they had nothing available for the day, and how could I blame her, since we called this morning to schedule an appointment for the same day! But then we spoke with one of the service guys who didn’t promise us anything, but instead told us to bring the car in before 3.30PM and he would have seen what he could do for us.

The drive from L.A. to Indio, CA took about 2 hours, on I-10E towards San Bernardino, CA. It’s been a pleasant drive, with little or no traffic, and a speed limit that could fit any experienced race car driver like I am! ;-)

Both Hap and I were pretty amused to see the extension of the wind farms on both side of the interstate, they went on and on for miles, as silent white giants, making it for a more interesting drive across the California Desert and its mountains.

E.T.A. (Estimated Time of Arrival) in Indio, Ca: 12PM; actual time of arrival: 11.45AM.

Our efforts to get here around noon basically did us nothing good, as the whole crew at Paradise Volkswagen was out for lunch. The good thing is that Craig, one of the guys at the service reception, assured us that the car would get serviced this afternoon, which is great for us, as this way we won’t have to think about it till we get back home in Fort Lauderdale.

We went to a nice Bakery/Restaurant called Coco’s, just about a mile west of the Car Dealer, that gave us the chance to kill some time, and also get some good food (I had a Asian Chicken Salad with Won-Ton strips, etc), after the disappointment we had last night with the Malaysian Restaurant that got such wonderful reviews over the internet!

We’re now back at the Volkswagen Dealer, we turned the car in, and I’m taking the chance to write the daily post from here. Apparently, unforeseen events are always around the corner, as Craig, the guy who is taking care of us just told us that we need two new tires for the front of the car that apparently are badly damaged. He said the thread is beginning to split up on the driver’s side, and on the passenger’s side, we have a problem with the shoulder of the tire. These are all problems the tires probably had even before we bought the car, and for that reason, on Monday, when we go to the American Tires store, we will see what we can get from them.

We arrived at our friends house around 4.30PM as planned, and after a quick shower and a drink, we were out again, to join some other friends for drinks first, and then eventually for dinner.

Our two hosts’ friends, Neil and Ken, turned out to be really friendly and pleasant to talk with, not to mention that they are both crazy about Italy! Now, how could I have possibly resisted that?

The six of us had a really nice talk, about Palm Springs and the desert, about Italy, about food (I’m trying to see if I can convince Neil to give me the recipe for his “To Die For” Gazpacho), and last but not least, this wonderful experience that Hap and I have been living now for 58 days, going through many places, and living many different situations, like the one today who brought us to realize how lucky we were today to have the car serviced at the Volkswagen dealer, where they noticed the problems with the tires! As someone once said: Better safe than sorry!!!

The restaurant Frank and Bob picked up was also very nice; food was excellent, and if that was not enough, we also had a very beautiful lady, with a charming voice, singing a mix of old and not so old tunes for all of us.

We’re now back home, and it’s kind of late for me to be on the computer to write the blog (12.40AM at the present time), but we did have a nice day, and I wanted to be able to seize the moment right now that the experience is still “fresh” in my mind.

Thank you Frank, thank you Bob for giving us the chance to experience the desert and its nightlife, and for enlarging our circle of friends introducing us to Neil and Ken this afternoon, and then afterwards at dinner.

I don’t know what we’re going to be up to tomorrow, probably go sightseeing around Palm Springs, Desert Hot Springs, Cathedral City, Indian Wells, etc., it depends on the temperature (110F this afternoon was enough for me!)

From Palm Springs I guess it’s all.

Have a peaceful night my friends,
Nico

Yo! Welcome To L.A.!

2008-07-24T23:17:00.001-07:00

Good Evening my fellow blog patrons!

We made it to the City Of Angels late this afternoon, and I’m glad we did, as I already love L.A.!

As I mentioned yesterday, we made it to the Hearst Castle this morning. We arrived at the visitor center parking lot at around 10AM, roughly 10 minutes after we left the hotel at San Simeon, 4 miles south of the castle .

Hearst Castle is administered by the State of California, as it is part of the State Parks system.

They offer five different kinds of tours, as thoroughly explained on the castle’s website, each costs $24. We took Tour #1, designed for first timers, a tour that gives visitors the chance to know more about Mr. Hearst, his guests at the property, and some of the features in and around the property.

One reprimand I have to make concerns the fact that visitors are not given the chance to purchase a combination including all of the tours for a more convenient price than what you would pay if you take each tour separately. $24 times five is a lot of money, but maybe with a combination, people would probably be willing to spend some extra dollars, and see more about the place, because trust me, there’s a lot to see.

The castle is beautiful, but in my opinion the inside doesn’t even come close to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. But since this is not a post on the Biltmore Estate, let’s talk a little bit about what I did like about the Hearts Castle.

First of all, I liked the extensive use of Italian marble they made everywhere; the outside swimming pool is surrounded by beautiful Roman and Greek (I’m not an expert, just guessing) statues, there are marble benches everywhere, and even in the inside, the use of marble have been widespread.

I also liked the architectural style of the outside, Mediterranean on most of the property, with a Mediterranean flora as well.

Mr. Hearst adopted different styles for different building, and different rooms, most of what I saw today recalled the 17th and 18th century styles.

The façade of the main building was what really impressed me the most, as it almost look like one of the churches you would probably see in my native island of Sardinia.

The indoor swimming pool at the end of the tour was simply breathtaking; it was so inviting that I almost thought about doing something crazy, like jumping with all my clothes on for example!

And here is another one:

And another one:

We left the Hearst Castle at around 12PM, and drove to the town of Morro Bay, CA, where we met Cari, in this case, MY savior! Yes, I finally got a hair cut this morning, and we have been lucky enough to be sent to her Salon in Morro Bay from my loyal GPS.

I had a nice talk with Cari while she was cutting my hair, and that’s when I found out about her Italian roots, in the city of Bari, Puglia (Apulia).

She gave me a nice hair cut, I asked for something short, and that’s exactly what she did, eventually I regretted asking her to cut it that short, but hey, let’s put it this way, at least I will not have to ask my GPS to find me another good soul to cut my hair again before I get back home safe and sound in Fort Lauderdale!

We left Cari at around 1.30PM after we both got a nice hair cut, and went back on the road, on California 1/101 South, towards the beautiful coastal town of Santa Barbara.

That’s basically where we started hitting traffic (first for an accident) and then for the usual rush hour. Traffic is probably one of the few things that really drive me crazy, today it was absolutely ridiculous; and I thought Miami was bad, I’m so naive!

We arrived in Los Angeles (Hollywood) around 7PM, went Hotel hunting (something that could fit our “100 days on the road” budget) but didn’t find anything that we liked.

We’re now 20 mile east of downtown L.A., in El Monte, CA, and as the word might suggest, it is certainly not a French community! LOL

We had dinner at a Malaysian Restaurant, and although it had raving reviews over the internet, mostly from locals, I don’t feel like I would recommend it to any of my family…

Tomorrow we have several different things to do.

We have to deal with the car, who has to get serviced again (Can you believe we’ve been on the road for 11,000 miles already?), we have to call Windham Resorts to deal with a reservation we made for a hotel package, and at the same time, we have to drive to Palm Springs to visit with our two friends, Frank and Bob, before they leave for Vancouver, BC!

There will be time to visit Los Angeles and do all the touristy things (like the Chinese Theater, Hollywood Walk Of Fame, Beverly Hills, etc.) on our way back from Palm Springs, and then we’re off for a new adventure, down south to San Diego, where we will join Steve and JR, our dear friends from Florida.

From the City Of Angels I guess is all.

Good night guys,
Nico

Back on the Pacific Coast Highway!

2008-07-23T21:15:00.000-07:00

Good Evening my precious Disciples!

Another beautiful day in the life of “An Italian Across America”.

We left Martinez, CA and the San Francisco Bay this morning around noon, after having a nice breakfast with our friend Doug in a very good spot where the locals go. I had a Club Sandwich that was quite good!

After driving for quite some time on I-680 and then I-880, we then arrived to the city of Santa Cruz, where people are apparently ALWAYS surfing! I don’t blame them, as they really do get some good surf up there.

After a little drive through downtown Santa Cruz, where we decided to put the top down and enjoy the warm California sun (not the air, that on the other hand was chilly!), we went back on California 1.

We headed south to the city of Monterey, CA, where we stopped at the local visitor information center.

You all know I sometimes go crazy for weird road signs, and if you paid enough attention, you might have noticed that from all the pictures you see on the Flickr website. In Monterey I found one of the nicest ones:

After we left the Visitor Center we drove down to famous Cannery Row, the waterfront Street in Monterey that was (a long time ago) the site of several different Sardines Canning Companies.

There’s nothing left of it, other than the buildings. The area is incredibly well preserved, and very touristy.

We then drove to the city of Carmel, and Carmel-By-The-Sea, where we visited the one of the many Franciscan Missions along the Mission Trail.

I fell in love with Carmel, it would be such a neat place where to live, but also so expensive! It reminds me of the Emerald Coast in Sardinia, and it honestly doesn't surprise me as many Hollywood actors also live here.

We left Carmel and went back on California One where, after a few miles on the road, we encoutered the beginning (or the end, depending on where you started) of the "Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park".

The wildfires of these previous days certainly damaged the area, but still, the place had something magical to it that I can't explain, so wild, and so beautiful.

This is how some of the areas along the Pacific Coast Highway looked like this afternoon while we were passing through:

We then stopped for some pictures at Nepenthe and Phoenix Cafe:

I also had to take a picture of one of the numerous signs indicating the distance from here to our next stop, Los Angeles (and Hearst Castle tomorrow morning):

This evening I don't have a very good Internet connection, so I better stop here, otherwise it's going to take me the whole night to upload pictures and keep writing!

Have a good night folks, I'm looking right now at the Pacific Ocean over the San Simeon Coast Line, smells like home...

Nico

Touring San Francisco...

2008-07-22T21:46:00.000-07:00

Good morning my friends!

We left Doug's house in Martinez this morning around 11AM to go back to San Francisco. We put the top down, because it was sunny, and warm, and we figured it was going to be a nice day to have the top down. What we didn't know though, is that once you get through a tunnel that from the valley takes you to the Bay Bridge of San Francisco, the temperature dramatically drops!

We went for a very welcoming 85F to 61F! Now, that is a big change!

It's amazing to witness all the micro climates here in the San Francisco Bay, changes in temperatures, weather conditions, etc. It might be sunny in the valley, but still foggy 20 miles away in the bay!

We parked the car at one of those private parking garages at the Embarcadero ($29 for roughly 4 hours, thank you very much!) with the idea of jumping on a Grey Line sightseeing tour on a motorized cable car through the streets of San Francisco, and so we did!

I must admit the parking garage had a beautiful view of the Bay Bridge, would that be the reason why it was so expensive? LOL

I usually try to avoid any kind of tour as most of the times they don't really reflect the real soul of the place you're visiting, but this morning I had some pain on the back of my left foot, and we therefore needed a "Plan B"!

We also wanted to do a cruise out on the bay, but changed our mind when the temperature continued to drop to somewhere in 50s once we got close to the Golden Gate Bridge, which today was partially surrounded by thick fog.

The tour also gave us the chance to see the Golden Gate Bridge from some new and different angles, and I particularly liked the one in the picture up above which has been taken from the South-East side of the bay.

Here's another shot of the starting point of the bridge, right after the Toll plaza:

The tour also gave us some useful information on San Francisco as a city and as a community that we really appreciated, I must admit our tour guide, other than being very pleasant (as they always are) was also very knowledgeable.

We also got some great new shots of the city, like this one down below with Alcatraz in the background, and met some interesting people:

When the tour was over, after about two and a half hours, we went back to the car, paid the $29, put the top down, the heat on, and decided to stay in San Francisco for the evening!

We visited some more places, like this Russian Orthodox Cathedral on the West Side:

And we also went by some REALLY authentic places, like this one in the picture down below (Yeah, RIGHT! LOL):

We had dinner at a very nice and tiny Italian Restaurant called "Aperto". It had raving reviews on the Internet, and so we decided to give it a try.

Ity was exactly what we wanted, we were probably the only tourist in the whole place, all of the other people were locals from the neighborhood! I loved it! :-)

Tomorrow we get back on the road and drive south to San Luis Obispo, through Monterey, Carmel, Big Sur, Hearst Castle, and hopefully many other things.

Now it's time to call it a day once again, hope you're having as much fun as I'm having.

Cheers,

Nico

Crazy California Weather...!

2008-07-21T22:04:00.000-07:00

Ah, this California weather! These last few days is really driving me crazy. You have a great sunshine inland, you even put the top down, and then all of a sudden, once you get close to the coast, there you go, that thick northern California comes back to haunt you!
That's exactly what happened today.

We woke up late, and went for a tour of the wineries; we visited two, Blackstone and Kenwood, but to my greatest disappointment, none of them offered any guided tour of the property.

I decided today NOT to drink, and be the designated driver, so I let the co-pilot have some fun with the grapes, and I just browsed around waiting for him to finish his sampling.

In a little more than 90 minutes we were done with wine tasting and Napa Valley, and I know exactly what some of you are already thinking: "Oh my God, they are in Napa Valley and they only visit two wineries?!?! Well, if we would spend anyplace the amount of time we would really like to spend, well, it would probably take a few years instead of a 100 days for completing this trip!

I then plugged all the necessary information on the GPS to drive us to the north entrance of San Francisco, through the Golden Gate Bridge.

As I said before, we haven't been that lucky with the weather, it's been particularly windy and cold (but then I realize out there is almost always that kind of weather); but hey, at least we could see the bridge, fact that is absolutely something people cannot take for granted!

We took pictures of the Golden Gate from any possible angle, the first one being the picture I put up on top of this post which has been taken from down below.

From up the top of a hill:

From up the top another hill (closer, when we finally found a parking spot!):

We then made up our mind, and decided it was time to get back in the car and finally, after 27 years I've been waiting for this moment, drive through another beautiful American landmark and icon.

As soon as we got close to downtown, our next planned stop of the day was Steiner Street, where some outdoor shooting of the movie "Mrs. Doubtfire" with Robin Williams have taken place several years ago.

From there we went back to Lombard Street, to drive on the "Crookedest Street" in the whole Universe!!!

This is how the GPS show it on the mapl I thought it was cool, and I had to take a picture! LOL

We both drove down through Lombard St. inside the car the first time, then I dropped Hap at the base of the hill, and went back up for another ride, so that he could also take some pictures of the car descending the crooked road!

Here's the result (he's improving his photographic skills as you can see):

We then headed to Chinatown, and North Beach (San Francisco's Little Italy), where we stopped at "Victoria's Pastry Co". Sorry to disappoint friends in the West Coast, but some average pastry shops in Boston are way better than this! Next time you get to New England I'll take you to my favourite spot in Quincy, MA! ;-)

Chinatown on the other hand was a fun experience. Again as it happened in New York City more than a month ago, at times it felt like being in Asia, and not the United States Of America.

There was hardly any sign in English, and certainly not that many Caucasian walking up and down the streets of Chinatown here in San Francisco. I absolutely loved it, and wished this to be a good sign for any future trip to Asia in the years to come!

I also had the time to take a picture of one of the famous San Francisco Cable Cars:

Then, while we were walking around North Beach, guess what I've found?

Well, to the majority of you, this next picture won't mean anything, it would just be a table with a table cloth that instead of being of a uniform color, it has a map on it.

That map is part of Italy, and that part of Italy is where I come from! Yes, it's a map of Sardinia, and if you look on the left (the West Coast), you'll see the name of the city where I was born: Oristano.

It is a quite weird feeling to see the name of the town where I was born here in San Francisco, not quite exactly around the corner!

Something that I also had to really capture with my camera is the "Transamerica Pyramid" who is in my opinion together with the Golden Gate Bridge, a symbol of the city of San Francisco.

Here is one of the many shots I have taken, I think this is the best one:

This is a closer shot taken from the car while driving right beside the building:

We then went to Pier 33 to check on the Alcatraz Cruises.

I read online that the cruises in the summer sell very quickly, and when I tried to book tickets for two on the official website, the next available day was July 29th! Well, we went to the Pier to see if maybe walk-ins were welcome, and if they reserved some tickets for people who show up at the Embarcadero, but no need to say we were out of luck!

As a consolation, I took some shot of the island from the pier, to me it only means that there's another excuse to come back to San Francisco!

We're now spending the night in Martinez, CA, with Doug a friend of ours I met in Massachusetts two years ago.

We had dinner at a very good and tasty Thai restaurant. I had my usual Chicken Panaang, out of this world.

I'm now ready to call it a day, tomorrow we have many other things to do, among them, try to get a hair cut, I almost look like Tom Hanks in Cast Away!

Good night folks,

Nico

...and the Wine is Bottled Poetry...

2008-07-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

As Robert Louis Stevenson would put it: "...and the wine is bottled poetry".

Good morning fellows!!!

Another foggy morning in the life of "An Italian Across America".

What I like about California though, is that instead of staying cloudy and foggy all day, around 10/11AM, the morning mist goes away, to leave some space for a warm California summer sunshine!

We left Guerneville, CA at around 11.30AM after having breakfast downtown with Danny and his brother Jimmy, with our first stop of the day being only 30 miles away in Bodega, CA.

We wanted to see the "Potter Schoolhouse" of the famous Alfred Hitchcock's movie "The Birds", and we did. It is now a private residence (and from what I understand, it's been this way for a long time already), but there's a small gift shop of the first floor where you can buy the usual things, T-Shirts, hats, wine glasses, beer glasses, cups, postcards, you name it.

We then decided NOT to take the drive down California 1 to the Golden Gate, because of the clouds of the Pacific Ocean (inland was absolutely gorgeous though), and instead drove back east to the town of Petaluma and Santa Rosa right after.

We then proceeded driving from Calistoga to Napa and Sonoma on Route 29 (and also the Silverado Trail at some points), what a beautiful day to have the top down and drive along the several vineyards and wineries.

As my brother would say, I can always snap a picture of "The Bug" in the most unusual places, and it almost feel like the car gives me a VIP pass to the most weird spots. Well, guess what, I put the car under the "Welcome To Napa Valley" road sign this time, and here's the picture!

Those who know me well enough, also know that I usually keep promises, and that is exactly what I did this afternoon when I called my friend Jerry on the phone (and he was reading the blog...) to ask me where he thought I was. He made no mistake, he knew I was at the Culinary Institute Of America at Greystone, in Saint Helena, CA, that he proudly turned into the masterpiece it is today.

All right, all right, let's not tell anybody at Johnson & Wales I've been here, I'm not sure they would like to know I've been spending time with the "competition"! I'm obviously joking, it was a pleasure to visit CIA here in California, for all of the above mentioned reasons and for the surprisingly wonderful location.

I promised Jerry I would have gone through the restaurant at the "Institute", and since he doesn't really trust me (I don't blame him!) he asked me to tell him what was on the big windows on the sides of the building. Not only I have an answer, I also have pictures: ROOSTERS is the answer!

We decided to stay and get something to eat (just a light appetizer) at the bar. The bartenders and waiting staff were very knowledgeable, and of course, being in the Wine Capital of the United States, I had no other choice that having, guess what? Of course, a wheat beer!

I know, I know, that was a mortal sin, but hey, I guess I have some German blood running through my veins!

Don't worry, we will have time to have some wine tomorrow once we're going to be touring some of the wineries in the valley, it's going to be fun!

Tomorrow is also the day that I'm going to see for the first time in my life, the Golden Gate Bridge!

Frank (a friend of mine from Palm Springs) and Denny gave us some tips on where to go to get some good shots of the bridge, and therefore I just hope the weather tomorrow will collaborate with us.

As they say in the song, "que sera, sera...whatever will be, will be", I'll keep my fingers crossed, and you do the same.

Good night wine lovers,

Nico

Avenue Of The Giants + California Coast Line

2008-07-19T22:02:00.000-07:00

Another day in California...Hey, I'm getting used to that!

We woke up surrounded by low clouds, something that made me think about changing our driving plans for the day.

Initially we thought about driving through the "Lost Coast Scenic By-Way", on the water for roughly 90 miles before hitting a mid spot in the "Avenue Of The Giants" Scenic Route, but then because of the poor visibility, and therefore, our security on California 1, I opted for a safer shift of directions towards the northern entrance of the Humboldt Redwoods State Park, on Route 254, running parallel to Hwy 101.

It is definitely something anybody should plan visiting, absolutely the most scenic route I've ever taken so far during this trip.

The Sequoias in the park are absolutely amazing, I really have no other words to describe them.

Make sure to pick up a pamphlet before at the State Park entrance, as it will guide you through a total of 8 stations, with interpretative signs, to enjoy the journey through this beautiful park on your own.

For those of you who really have no idea of the size of this giants, here's a comparison with my car:

Our first stop has been"The Immortal Tree" which is supposed to be the biggest/tallest sequoia in the park. It's been estimated the tree is 1,000 years old (therefore, not the oldest of the park) and is currently around 250ft tall, though originally, as the sign at the bottom says, it was much taller. It has survived not only the test of time but also the 1964 flood of the area (marked with a fish at the height the water reached in the flood, pretty impressive), and a direct lightning strike which removed the top 45 feet of the tree (making its original height close to 300ft). The tree also survived numerous attempts from being cut, and it is therefore from its age and the perceived hardiness to the fates that the tree derives its name.

Here's a picture of the base of the "Immortal Tree":

Here's a picture of the section of another tree's trunk in the parking lot of the Immortal Tree:

One more shot:

A few miles later, we went through a nice detour, a road sign indicating a "driving through" Sequoia. I had to do it, this is one of those trashy touristy things that I have no shame in doing!

Here's the proof "The Bug" went through a Giant Sequoia:

And here is another one:

At the same location, you can drive the car literally ON a giant log. How could I miss such opportunity. So here they come, some more pictures!

The sign says that the log is 3,200 years old (according to the rings):

And here's the car ON the log (the sign says that it was hand cut in 1900:

Here is another random pics taken at a random spot on the "Avenue Of the Giants", just to show you how enjoyable it is to go through the whole route, from North to South or viceversa. Look at how small the car is compared to the log:

After we left Scenic Route 254, we got back on Hwy 101, which is, to be totally honest with you, a very nice and pleasant drive. What is even more interesting is that they're doing their best to improve the road infrastructure, which is certainly something very positive for people involved like me in the tourism industry.

Here's a picture of some of the major road work that is going on around visitors on Hwy 101:

And this is the strangest bike I've ever seen, who belonged to a guy that stopped to take some pictures of the same bridge you've just seen in the picture above:

We then drove another 70 miles to get to the starting point of our next Scenic drive, Mendocino (and its cape) to Jenner, 15 miles away from Russian River, where we're currently spending the night.

It's been a long long drive, I must admit that. We basically drove 140 miles on California 1, with not less than 135 miles of sharp curves overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

At some points I even got so much carried away with the driving that I earned a new nickname this afternoon: Mr Andretti II!

I couldn't help it, as the road was so inspiring with all its curves and the beauty of the ocean. And I didn't break any laws, as I always drove below the speed limit. What a beautiful ride.

Here's "The Bug" enjoying a technical stop on our way to Jenner on California 1:

And here is a picture of the same spot without the car:

The ride was really worth the 3.5 hours on the road just for that stretch from Mendocino to Jenner, as this other pictures down below might show you.

Slow down, steep grade!

"Pacific" Beauty:

"Pacific" Danger:

A few miles before getting into Jenner, we hit a sign telling us we were about to enter the Sonoma Coast State Beach (and in particular the Vista Trail), which led me to think we're actually already in "good California wine country"!

The last sign of the day gave us another important indication as to where exactly we are on the map, respectively, 10 miles away from Bodega Bay, and 72 from San Francisco where we're planning on being on Monday.

As I said, we're spending the night here in Guerneville, CA with our friend Danny who cooked a nice pot roast for us this evening and introduced me to the joy of Moose Tracks Ice Cream, and how to reach Karma through our tasting buds, in particular when we come across those miniature peanut butter cups mixed with delicious chocolate ice cream.

And with this culinary thoughts, I wish you good night for the 55th time, which means that we've been on the road, traveling through this beautiful country, for 55 adventurous days.

We keep on trucking, that's for sure!

Nico

California Dreamin'...!

2008-07-18T23:45:00.000-07:00

We made it!

We drove our last stint on the Southern Oregon Pacific Coast Highway, and now we're here in California.

We started not so early this morning in Coos Bay, OR after a standard breakfast at a huge Fred Meyer's All-In-One Stop (and there's a reason for that) near the water.

The Scenic By-Way started in Bandon, OR, where, just outside of town, at "Coquille Point - Oregon Islands Beach" we saw another beach that looked more like a masterpiece.

I'm not the only one who had the same thought, as this beach has been apparently used in 1982 (finally something younger than myself, that I could have actually witnessed! ) to shot a Budweiser commercial that featured Baron, the Budweiser Clydesdale running along the beach. I've heard that Chevrolet, Canon Copiers, and Jeep have also filmed commercials here, and as I said, I'm really not surprised, as this place is really amazing in its wild beauty.

After Bandon Beach, we visited a series of other spots that were indicated in a bigger map I've seen on top of the cliffs in the car parking area.

First stop was Face Rock, and I'll just put a picture for you to comprehend what I'm actually talking about:

Second stop was Port Orford, where "Ocean View" written in huge capital letters on the asphalt invited us (and every other tourist in town) to take a detour to admire the view from up the cliffs.

We took their advice, and this is the result:

We then stopped at another very important landmark on the Oregon Coast, Cape Sebastian, where the Pacific Coast Highway 101 almost meets the ocean. There's a very scenice view point (or Vista Point as they like to call it here in California), and here are some of the pictures I have taken.

Road Sign:

Panoramic View from up the hill:

Side of Hwy 101 at Cape Sebastian:

After we left Cape Sebastian, we stopped at another wayside that "advertised" Arch Rock, that by the way, we haven't seen, mainly because it was too windy out and we didn't feel like walking downhill on a gravel path. This is a picture of the Panorama at the parking lot, we thought it was beautiful enough, and felt immediately satisfied with it!

We then stopped at another parking lot, but this time, due to the more satisfying weather conditions (the place was somehow sheltered from the strong wind), we went all the way to the view station for "Natural Bridges Cove" at Samuel H Boardman State Park.

Now, that was something everybody should see, and here's a picture I've taken, hope you enjoy it as much as I did:

That was our last stop in Oregon as we finally approached the border with California!

Obviously, I couldn't help but snapping a picture of this historical event:

After a few mile, we hit the beginning of the Redwood National and State Parks System, in the town of Crescent City, where we stopped at the Park's Main Office, and grabbed a map, to have a much clearer understanding of the best route to follow.

I'm glad we did that, as we found a nice detour on the "Newton B Drury Scenic Parkway", where we had the chance to take several different pictures.

I'm still amazed at how big the Redwoods are, but hey, here are some pictures for you with smaller objects so that you can make a comparison.

Here's "The Bud" and an average Redwood on the side of the road:

Here's An Italian Across America inside a Redwood:

And in this one I have the section of the trunk of a fallen Redwood at my back:

We also had the chance to see on the same Scenic By-Way, another big Redwood, called "Big Tree" for its size, who is believed to be the oldest of the park:

The picture I have taken doesn't really do any justice to what the real "Big Tree" looks like, The tree is 304 feet tall and 21 feet in diameter.

We're now in Eureka, where we're going to spend the night, and where our journey will take us tomorrow through the "Avenue Of The Giants", which means, more big trees to come!!!

Have a very good night my friends,

Nico

Cheese, Ice Cream, and Carnivorous Cobra Lilies!

2008-07-17T22:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, I spoke too soon my friends, this morning “An Italian Across America” woke up surrounded by “cumulonimbus” on what I thought was going to be a very cloudy day.

We left the hotel around 10AM, with our first stop being only less than a mile away, the Tillamook Cheese Factory and County Creamery Association.

There’s a self guided tours visitors can enjoy, who takes you upstairs where through a glass window on a corridor, you can “supervise” the employees downstairs on the main operation area, dividing, and packing the different kinds of cheese.

All around are big posters describing the various steps in the production line, and a courteous lady voice who also explain with spoken words what the posters on the wall are all about.

On the way back downstairs, visitors can enjoy a gift shop (how come I’m not surprised?!?!) and a cheese shop with included an area where you can stand in line to try all of their different cheeses. We didn’t do that, but we did buy some cheese, and tried their “gelato” as I had previously heard raving reviews about their local, artisanal production. People were right, their ice cream is really good, and will make you long for more (unless you get the three giant scoops like I did who basically lasted until dinner this evening).

Our visit to the Tillamook Cheese Factory lasted for about 90 minutes, after which we were ready to hit the road, starting from Tillamook downtown area on 3rd St. following the signs for Cape Meares and Cape Lookout State Parks on the “Three Capes Scenic By-Way”.

This scenic route is 39 miles long, and it takes roughly another 90 minutes to drive and possibly stop at some of the “off the road” attractions that the Oregon Coast has to offer.

Our first stop was Cape Meares with its magnificent stacks coming out of the water, and its curious, to say the least, Octopus Tree, an old Sitka Spruce that thanks to its singular location, has developed in a very different (I would say unique) way, from the other trees of the same species surrounding it.

Here’s a picture that best describes what I’m really talking about:

After some pictures of the two explorers with the stacks of Cape Mears in the background, we hopped back on our horses to Oceanside, OR, another cozy, little town on the Northern Oregon Coast that deserved to be visited and explored.

Oceanside Beach has everything someone could ask for, except the sun, well, that was this morning, I’m sure tomorrow is going to be better (or at least that is what the weatherman said!).

And hey, they also have a planned Tsunami Evacuation Route:

We left Oceanside, and apparently the clouds, to head south to Cape Lookout, where we found our first rays of sunshine, and what is even more spectacular, the first sand dunes of the day, which at that point sounded like a prelude to what we were going to be up to in the last part of our trip, that took us through the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area.

The last, but not least stop on the 39 miles “Three Capes Scenic Route” was Pacific City, OR with its splendid and colorful red and yellow sandstone cliffs of “Cape Kiwanda”.

We then continued driving through other minor coastal towns, and some very picturesque spots like this one for example:

After about 70 miles we started at Yachats, OR, the last part of our daily adventure, another 70 miles, 2 hours drive on the Central Oregon Coast, with Coos Bay as our final destination.

A few miles after you enter the city of Yachats, you will enter the Cape Perpetua Scenic Area, and right after that you will find on your right (west side) a large lookout point that you can use as a stop to take some pictures at Devils Churn, a hole in the rocks that when hit by water resembles to a whale squirting the water to its blow hole.

Unfortunately, we haven’t been lucky at our passage, because, as you could probably imagine, one of the necessary conditions for this phenomena to happen, is the presence of water, and I’m sorry to say we hit Devils Churn at low tide!

Oh well, next time, right? I should toss a quarter (oh well, maybe with gas prices nowadays, a dime, or even a penny might be better).

One thing that I shouldn’t forget to mention is the temperature that today, throughout the scenic drive has always maintained itself around 58 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, ruling out from the start, the chance for us to put the top down to admire the beautiful Oregon Coast around us.

The next stop has been another famous one, the “Heceta Head Lighthouse” and its scenic view points.

There’s an administration fee to visit the lighthouse, and we figured the temperature was too low for two Floridians to venture out there in the “blistering cold”, so we just admire the beauty of the scenery itself, and then being a good Italian, found a nice spot on the road to take some extra good pictures of the lighthouse from a different perspective.

Here is one of the pictures I took:

Next on the road, about 1 mile away from the Lighthouse, visitors who are willing to pay $10, can enjoy the world’s largest sea caves, natural habitat of a large colony of Sea Lions. I don’t know about you, but I really thought I could pass on this one (and in fact I did), but if it is your cup of tea, then you should definitely stop; beware of the cold, and the strong winds while going down the stairs on the cliffs, that is no joke.

The next stop is instead another one for whom I was really waiting for, the “Darlingtonia Wayside” and Botanical Garden.

Are you asking yourself why I was so anxious to see this place? It’s simple, because it is the natural habitat of something I have never seen before in my entire life. A carnivorous plant, called “Cobra Lily” because of its natural resemblance with the world famous snake.

The trail is basically a loop that takes you back, through an elevated wooden path, to the parking lot. In between, right at your feet, off the wooden path, an oasis of Cobra Lilies, with two different big wooden boards explaining to ignorant people like me, how carnivorous plants lure insects into their openings for then digest and absorb them through their enzymes as food.

Here is a pictures of the Cobra Lilies I thought you might enjoy:

The last stop of the day before getting to Coos Bay has been as I said already before, the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area. The park is really interesting, and runs for miles and miles off the Pacific Coast Highway, but most of the dunes are covered by thick vegetation, that often confuses the visitors, making the dunes appear as they’re regular hills.

To really enjoy the area, one should probably be able to take some time and stop at one of the many Off-Roads vehicles rent places that are on the side of the road or in several other different locations.

I really wished we had the time to do that, but again, one other big issue today was certainly the not so clement chilly wind blowing from the Pacific Ocean.

Tomorrow we have another 200 miles drive to Eureka, CA.

Yes, tomorrow is going to be the day I’ll finally set foot in California for the first time, and once again, I’m going to feel like a kid in a candy store for many different reasons.

Ahead of us there are still many things to do, many places to see, and many people to meet on our way back to South Florida, it’s going to be awesome.

With these thoughts now I leave you, it’s 11.30PM here in the West Coast, 2.30AM at home in Florida, and 8.30AM in Sardinia, where my roots are, and where I still have some of the most important persons in my life.

To all of you, I wish you a goodnight,
Nico

Big Silver Birds and Enchanted Coast Line…

2008-07-16T22:44:00.000-07:00

I think we’re establishing a new record for numbers of straight days in a row with a beautiful sunshine accompanying us in our road adventures!

We left Seattle early this morning with Everett, WA as our first stop of the day.

Everett is a small town 30 minutes north of Seattle, famous for one thing, they know how to make aircrafts. It is in fact the world headquarter for Boeing, where they have their main lines of production for the 747, 767, 777, and now, the new 787 “DreamLiner” (for which we saw the first one ever built that they’re still using for several different tests).

They strongly advise visitors to call ahead and make a reservation for their public tour of the plant, but unless it’s a holiday or a weekend, I would certainly avoid calling them for ticket reservation, as you will be charged an extra $2.50 advanced reservation fee on top of the nominal price for the ticket.

With that being said, this has been one of the greatest tours I’ve ever taken, for several different reasons.

The tour starts with an introductory video where they show you (at a superfast speed) how a 747 is assembled in their plant, plus other facts about their premises. After that, the group is subdivided into two smaller groups that the tour guides load on two separate buses to go visit the assembly line.

For those of you who like numbers like I do, the Everett Boeing plant is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records the largest building in the world by volume, and trust me, it is really impressive. The building is huge, but because of the misperception visitors might have inside caused by the height at which they are (the tour is mainly conducted from balconies at the third or fourth floor), the tour guide had to give us other ways to compare the building to other things we might be more accustomed with, in our daily lives.

Well, for those of you who know math, the plant sits on 98 acres/40 hectares of land under one roof, for a total of 4.3 million square feet/400,000 square meters, big enough to fit (and here we all started “Wowing”) something like 900 basketball fields, or 300 football fields, all together under the same roof. Just think about 300 NFL games played at the same time under the same roof, wouldn’t that be amazing? Well, of course if the Patriots lose again after an almost perfect season against the Giants, well, that wouldn’t be nice at all!

Out tour guide also told us that the building is so large that it once created in the past its own weather, with clouds forming over the ceiling because of the warm air and moisture accumulated in the inside. The solved that problem installing an air circulation system that forces the air back down to the ground keeping the temperature inside the plant at a steady 68F.

The building also have a system of tunnels running underneath the plants floor, with wires, cables and pipes running through the length of each tunnel. We’ve been explained that the main function of these tunnels is to be able to fix any problem underground without needing to stop the production above ground; now, that’s another smart move!

The plant is also so big that they have their own Fire Department (the biggest in the State of Washington), their own Medical Clinic, four telephone prefixes, and a 24 hours children daycare.

The employees at Boeing also believe that giving back to the community is a huge part of the deal, and that’s why they all volunteer for community service, without stopping there; they in fact have been giving away so far, something like 500 million dollars in donations, now, that’s goodwill and support for the community!

The tour proven to be as good as I expected, seeing the main production lines for the 747, 777, and 787, with an expert guide telling us how the whole process works, revealed to be very educational and entertaining at the same time, and I would definitely recommend it to anybody visiting the State of Washington.

We then left the plant and the permanent exhibition that they have in a separate building, to start what I’ve longed for ages, drive to and through US Highway 101, the Pacific Coast Highway.

After roughly 100 miles on I-5S, we found ourselves at the beginning of the road of my dreams. The temperature dropped considerably from up north in Seattle and Everett, but nonetheless, stubborn as I am, I continued to drive through the hills of Washington State first, and the Oregon, with the top down and the heat on! After all, this has been one of those beautiful clear days, full of sunshine, with sparkling fresh air tingling our bodies, what could I ask for; it would have been blasphemy not to put the top down!

I felt like a kid in a candy store again when we arrived at Cannon Beach, OR, where possibly one of the most iconic natural landmark of the states are located a 50 feet away from the Oregon Seashore in the Pacific Ocean. I’m talking about the Haystack Rock, a must see if you’re traveling in the area.

But to be totally honest with you, how could you miss such a wonderful giant?!?!

At Haystack Rock we made sure we stopped, get off the car and walked on the beach (although it was really starting to get chilly out (high 50s with a strong wind), to snap some pictures of us in front of the rock. One thing I really noticed was the sand, golden fine powder, that perfectly matched the surrounding, as if mother nature was trying to send us a message through that same send of how precious that place is, and how every human being should try to respect the environment so that other people in the future could be surprised by the same beauty we witnessed this evening.

Other rock formations kept us company rolling south through miles of panoramic views of the cliffs and the Pacific Ocean down below, alternated by marvelous mountainous vegetations and hills just about half a mile inland.

It is really amazing to see how different it could be just a short distance away from the ocean, for someone like me who lived closed to the water all his life and that was used to basically the same uniform pattern of seaside flora and fauna next to the Mediterranean Sea.

The next thing that struck my attention after Haystack Rock, was a small and cozy fishing village by the name of Garibaldi. I was so intrigued by the name, and how far the popularity of this prominent Italian historical public figure has traveled, that I had to stop and take a picture, as if only to pay a tribute to such a hero that died in Caprera, a small island in the Sardinian Archipelago, not too far from where I grew up.

We decided to stop for the night in Tillamook, OR, and I’m sure you’re all too familiar with what they’re famous for, aren’t you? Sure, it’s cheese, famous, good, Tillamook cheese!

Tomorrow is going to be another interesting day as I planned a visit to the main cheese factory, where you can visit the plant, see how they make their famous cheese, and sample some of their products (including “To Die for” ice cream!).

After that we get back in the car, top down (weather permitting) to continue our driving on US101, through the “Three Capes Scenic Byway” (1 hour driving), and then another scenic byway through the Central Oregon Coast, where the highlights of our visit will be Cape Perpetua, Heceta Head Lighthouse, the Sea Lion Caves, and last but not least, the Oregon Dunes National Park at “Umpqua Dunes”, near Coos Bay, OR, featuring the tallest dunes in the National Park system, with their 400 feet above ground.

I know, I wrote another book this evening, but what can I do, there are so many things to say about this adventure, and so little time to tell you about it.

Welcome again to the journey of a lifetime.

Goodnight my fellow readers,
Nico

Driving Through The North American States

2008-07-15T23:49:00.000-07:00

Above is a Google Earth Image of the main points covered on the second leg of this trip.

And here is a regular "old fashioned" map (probably more helpful to realise how far we've been driving so far!):

An Italian Across America has arrived in Seattle, Washington, on Sunday July 13th, and has therefore finished the second leg of the trip that brought the two “explorer” from Provincetown, MA on the Northeast Coast of the United States, to Seattle, WA on the Northwestern Coast.

Here are some facts and numbers about this latest leg of the trip:

This is the distance covered from Massachusetts to Washington State:

5,088 Miles or 8,140 Kilometers.

Days On The Road: 30

States visited: 16+2
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, plus Quebec and Ontario in Canada.

Gasoline tanks used to cover this distance:

14 for a total of $840

And here are some facts and numbers about this trip so far.

This is the distance covered from Florida to Washington State: 8,363 Miles or 13,381 Kilometers.

Days On The Road: 47

States visited: 28+3

Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, plus District Of Columbia, Quebec and Ontario in Canada.

Gasoline Tanks used to cover this distance:

22 for a total of $1,240

A Different Island...

2008-07-15T22:54:00.000-07:00

When someone ask me to describe what I picture when they say "Island", all I can think of is white sandy beaches, crystal clear water, and a lot of palm trees while I sip fresh coconut milk listening to the wonderful sound of the ocean.

Well, today we went to Bainbridge Island here in Washington State, about a 40 minutes ferry ride from the "main land" (Seattle, WA!), and although I haven't quite found what I was looking for (not that I was looking for anything special other than those plam trees...! LOL), I think I found another little section of paradise.

The ferry ride was very nice, a little bit windy out on the deck (it was getting chilly), but definitely worth staying outside to take some pictures of the beautiful Seattle skyline with the Space Needle on the northwestern side.

Our friend Don have one of his favorite restaurants on the island, and he wanted us to try it; too bad that when we got there, the restaurant was actually closed! What a bummer...

But that didn't discourage us, we went across the street and had lunch at this beautiful restaurant, with a nice decor, reasonable prices, and great food, what more could you ask for?!?!

After lunch we went for a ride around the island, until we reached what we though is the northernmost point at Port Madison, where Chris and Don have been brave enough to touch the water with their fingers while some "natives" were happily bathing nearby.

We got back to the pier just in time to catch the mid afternoon ferry that took us back to Seattle in another 40 minutes.

We then decided to go to Pike Place Market, because when you visit Seattle, you HAVE TO go there to see the "Pike Place Fish Market" where fish instead of being passed hand by hand is literally thrown to the guy who will prepare it for its sale.

Another market's attraction is "Rachel", the piggy bank located just some feet away from the fish market, that collects on average, something like $9,000 a year in all sorts of different currencies.

But what I was really looking for was the first "Starbucks" ever opened in the history of Starbucks so that I can say once again "Been there, done that!!!".

They sell exactly the same things I believe, but the difference is in the sign outside the door, the same very first sign that they have when they opened in 1971 with the bare-breasted siren.

I left the market happy and satisfied for how the day has gone/

Tomorrow we leave for our trip down the west coast who should take us to San Diego by the beginning of August. We're planning on driving as much as we can on the Pacific Coast Highway 101 with the top down, looking at the Pacific Ocean, I'm sure it's going to be a fantastic experience.

Good night from Microsoft land,

Nico

I've been On A Concorde!

2008-07-14T22:28:00.000-07:00

Another beautiful day in the life of "An Italian Across America"...

Our first stop of the day has been the "Hiram M. Chittenden Locks", known as "Ballard Locks" because of the neighborhood where they are, on the north-west side of the city,

We enjoyed another sunny day, with the only difference that today the temperature seemed to be cooperating a little bit more with us, and we didn't therefore have the hot sweaty days we had gotten accustomed to this past week in Utah and Oregon.

The Ballard Locks ended up being a good starting point for the day, as I learned more about why locks are put up in place, and how humans can at the same time do something good for the environment when they artificially block a stream of water.

Mr. Chittenden for example built the fish ladder that visitors can see on one side of the lock where salmon constantly try to climb and swim on the opposite direction of the water stream.

To be honest with you, we haven't seen that many fish on the ladder, but they do have an underground facility where one can see the fish swimming on a section of the ladder, and there we saw plenty of fish.

After that we moved on to our next (and last, because of the time it takes to see it) attraction of the day, the Seattle Museum Of Flight at Boeing Field, south of the city on I-5.

Highlights of the visit are certainly:

City of Everett, the first flight-worthy Boeing 747 airliner. Its registration number is N7470, and it was named after the city of Everett, Washington. Its first flight was on February 9, 1969:

The first presidential jet, VC-137B SAM 970, which served in the presidential fleet from 1959 to 1996, in a few words, the first Air Force One:

British Airways Concorde number 214, registration G-BOAG, the only Concorde west of the Appalachians, and I also heard only one of the four who are not in Europe:

And this is me before getting "on board" the Concord #214:

On Board view of the Concorde #214:

The Gossamer Albatross II human-powered aircraft (I wonder what happens if you get tired! LOL):

One of five Aerocars, automobiles with detachable wings and propeller (That looked kind of weird, I would be curious to see it fly!):

One other section of the Museum is the the Personal Courage Wing with World War I and World War II aircraft from several countries including Germany, Russia, and Japan, and what is even MORE important for visitors to see is "The Red Barn", a registered historic site. In the early 1900s it was Boeing's original manufacturing plant.

Through photographs, film, oral histories, and restoration of work stations the exhibits in the Red Barn illustrate how wooden aircraft structure with fabric overlays were manufactured in the early years of aviation and provides a history of aviation development through 1958. This is really one of those places that, if you're into aircraft and aviation history, you can't really miss.

A picture of the founder, William Boeing:

Again, it was quite an experience for me to be there, I'm glad we did it, but then, I would have probably paid the $14 admission charge, only to get on board the British Airways Concorde, what a thrill to see the inside, the cockpit, and how tiny the aircraft really is in the inside, only two rows consisting of two seats on each side.

Dinner was again magnificent. Chris took us to one of his favourite Thai Restaurant here in Redmond, "The Silver Spoon" and I probably had the best Chicken Panang experience of my life.

If on top of that you add the fact that virtually anywhere here in the state no matter what kind of food you decide to eat, you're always able to sip on a "Hefeweizen", well, that really makes it a win/win situation.

Have a good night fellows, I know I will!

Nico

Double Espresso Latte Caramel Frappuccino

2008-07-13T23:36:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Coffee Lovers!

You know where we are at the present time, don't you?

Who said that? Yes, right, we're in Seattle, WA, land of ten thousand coffee places!

We left Portland, OR this morning after some unsuccessful tentatives to upload pictures into the three posts I still had to work on from our previous stops along the way.

At 11AM after getting frustrated we just left the hotel (it was also "check-out now or you pay another day" time, and so we just left).

Our hotel was right on the Interstate, we stopped at a coffee shop where I got my Caramel Macchiato Latte, and then off we went, heading north towards Washington State.

It didn't take that much to cross the border who's only "a bridge" away. That's how close Portland is to the border with Washington, so close that I wasn't even ready to snap a picture of the road sign welcoming us into this new state, and I therefore got a not so nice shot.

The 190 miles, three hour drive to Seattle has been pleasant and uneventful.

On our right we had a magnificent view of Mount St. Helens first (the one that erupted in 1980) and Mt Rainier after, both snow capped, and both beautiful in their majestically impressiveness.

We stopped for lunch at a Asian joint half way through, and then went back in the car to drive the last 80 miles to Seattle.

My first impression of Seattle, is one of a clean city. It resembles a little bit like San Francisco (not that I've been there.....YET!), only because it sits on hills, and the downtown area is a continuous up and down. It's hard to imagine how the city can cope with the cold weather in the winter, when for example it snows.

We're spending the next few days here in Seattle at our friend Don's place.

He's a friend from Florida who is actually out of town at the present time, but that agreed on letting us use his place even when he's gone, now, that's TRUE hospitality.

This afternoon we met with Chris, another friend we know from Florida.

He lives here all year round and work for Microsoft.

He gave us a tour of the main campus, showed us his office, and the buildings around where he works, in a few words, he played tour guide with us, and I must admit I really enjoyed it!

The three of us then went out to dinner at a very upscaled (read worth a 100 miles drive) restaurant in downtown Bellevue called "Maggiano's", where I had two pints of my favorite Hefeweizen (Wheat beer), and a huge Italian Style salad.

Overall we had a very nice day, and superb evening, considering we've been able to catch up with Chris after probably a million years since we last saw each other.

From CoffeeColatta city is all,

Nico

Beer And Roses!

2008-07-12T23:52:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Brewmasters!

Portland is such a beautiful city, I have to say that.

We started our day with a visit to the downtown visitor center in Pioneer Square, a place that would be worth visiting independently from the presence of the Tourist Information Center.

A young lady helped us with a city map, circling for us all the places that she thought would have been interesting for us to see. We already had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do, but didn’t know exactly how to find these places.

She’s was very knowledgeable, except for the fact that she told us the Widmer Brothers Brewing Company had a tour at 2PM this afternoon, and they didn’t, which basically means, we missed the tour of one of my favorite brewing companies in the US, creators of the Widmer Hefeweizen!

Our first stop of the day after Pioneer Square has been the “International Rose Test Garden”. It took us about 30 minutes to get there, but only because there are two ways to get to the gardens, and I obviously picked up the one that today seemed to be the wrong one (it goes through the Zoo, and today the Zoo was a real “jungle” with screaming kids, etc., in a few words, they blocked the road and I couldn’t go through).

Therefore I had to manually convince my GPS to find a different way to take us there to admire the garden, and I did! We arrived there some 15 minutes later, and luckily enough, I found a parking space right in front of the mail entrance!

We spent roughly 90 minutes over there, the smell of the roses was overwhelming, brought back some nice memories of when I used to be a kid and stuck my nose into some rose buds at home only to have my nose stung by some nasty bees (or maybe it was my fault?!?! LOL).

There are over 7,000 rose plants of approximately 550 varieties. The roses bloom from April through October with the peak coming in June, depending on the weather, and this year the lady at the Visitor Center told us we were certainly going to be up for a nice surprise as the Rose Garden was in full bloom.

The interesting thing about the International Rose Test Garden is that new rose cultivars are continually sent to the garden from many parts of the world and are tested for color, fragrance, disease resistance and other attributes. I can easily say without any doubt that virtually any variety of rose existing in this world was there this morning, and we’ve seen them all!

The International Rose Test Garden is the oldest continuously operating public rose test garden in the United States and exemplifies Portland's nickname of the “City of Roses”. An elderly gentleman was conducting a tour of the premises with a group of Asian people, and I listened to what he was saying about the rose garden, and how this tradition with Portland and its roses all started back in the 1900s.

I took over 150 pictures (I’m sure nobody is surprised about that, are you?), and you can see all of them at my Flickr account.

After we left the International Rose Test Garden, the plan was to make a reservation for the Widmer Bros. Brewing Co. Tour of their brewery, but the guy on the phone kindly told us that we were a little too late for that. That left me with a craving for beer that brought us back to downtown Portland, in the Pearl District, which is also where several different brewpubs are.

We opted for the Deschutes Brewery where we sat outside on a bench in typical English pub style. It was hot and sunny, and I eventually ended up burning the tip of my nose as usual!

We ordered to Belgian Style Wheat “Wit” beers, and a large soft pretzel that came together with a steamy hot cream cheese dipping sauce. Stupid as I can be at times, I couldn’t wait for it to cool down, and also ended up burning the roof of my mouth. Oh well, I can’t even say “lesson learned” as I know I will do it again, and again, and again, real soon…Thank God I had my wheat beer with me, that always have some miraculous healing effects on me.

After that we decided to take a walk, and not too far away, maybe a block or two, we found “Powell’s City Of Books” which claims to be the largest independent new and used bookstore in the world.

The store takes up a whole city block, and it shelves all books, used and new side by side. This is one of those funny places I’m always looking for, with the exception that this one actually has a cultural value because of the books.

Powell’s City Of Books is so big that it has several different information points in the inside, and you can get a store map so that you don’t get lost, and to be able to better find books you might be interested in. Every section is identified by a different color; Travel (yes, I spent the whole day in the Travel section dreaming about future travels!) for example is in red.

We had dinner at P.F. Chang this evening, consistently good as always, both food and service.

Tomorrow we should be visiting some more of the city of Portland, and then head north to Seattle, which should be (unless we make it to Vancouver) our northernmost stop in the continental United States.

Good night from the City Of Roses (and Brewpubs I should add),
Nico

Portland, Maine? No, Oregon!

2008-07-11T23:38:00.001-07:00

Sir Yes Sir, we made it to Portland, OR, after having another great day, but then we already knew that as we always keep a close eye on the weather on TV, and the forecast for the weekend, and all of next week is supposed to be great.

This morning we browsed around the Pendleton Wool Mills factory store, but didn’t get the chance to visit the factory itself as we were worried we were going to miss our scheduled guided tour (11.30AM) of “Underground Pendleton”.

We had a blast down there, and I guess part of the reason why the tour is so successful is that they make it very interesting for the visitor. It was amazing to see how people lived underground, in different eras, because we have to realize that the tunnels were first inhabited by Chinese people who helped build the railroad first, and then worked in the mills.

We also learned about the “Sunset Law” (or something called like that), that used to say that Chinese people had no protection after the sun would set west, another reason why they would live underground. The tour guide also said that they were very good at what they did (and it is not hard to believe, considering how well preserved was what we saw this morning).

On our tour we also visited some clubs and bars belonging to the prohibitionist era, and a very interesting and educational “brothel”, who’s been brought back to life (oh well, to a certain extent) to let visitors enjoy it (again, to a certain extent), so that they can see for themselves how things used to work.

The tour ended up back where it started, 90 minutes later, and everybody in the group was very satisfied with the way our tour guide conducted the tour.

We then went back to the car, and drove another 200 miles to where we are right now, Portland, OR.

We drove mostly on I-84WB except for a 20 miles stretch, a scenic drive through Oregon’s most scenic falls, among them Multnomah Falls, worldly renowned for their pristine beauty.

And here I am on the bridge!

I-84 is such a scenic drive once you get to roughly 100 miles away from Portland, as the visitor drives next to the Columbia river, and at some point has a terrific view of Mount Hood at the horizon, just like we did today.

And another terrific view:

Tomorrow we plan on visiting what is only normal to visit here in Portland, for the most part, breweries, and Chinese/Japanese gardens.

Good night from the West Coast,
Nico

Oregon, Here We Come!

2008-07-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Fellows!

We finally made it to Oregon this afternoon, 210 miles from our last stop in Boise, Idaho.
I must admit last night I didn't really think much of the city; it looked sort of empty, which gave the downtown area a strange appearance, but this morning it was a whole different story!

We stayed at a Doubletree Hotel, very close to downtown. The hotel was probably one of the best so far considering the price we paid and the quality of the service. $55 for a room at a Doubletree is really a bargain, and I'm conscious of that, especially when you think that the regular price was around $100 for last night.

This morning I had planned a visit to the "Old Idaho Penitentiary", and I'm glad we did it, because it was very interesting and at the same time very "educational".

The whole complex is now part of the Idaho State Historical Society.

We were greeted by a nice lady who asked us to pay a total of $8.50 for two, and gave us the option of taking a self guided tour, or for the same price, wait 10 minutes and actually have an expert guiding us through the buildings.

Our guide was a former guest of the penitentiary who served 15 years for manslaughter, a very nice and kind person! LOL I'm sure you almost believed that, didn't you?

No, the man is a retired prison officer, who never worked there at the Old Idaho Penitentiary, but that indeed worked at the new facility who is still operational on the outskirts of Boise.

He took us on a tour of the complex, somewhere in between 10 and 15 different buildings, some open to the public eyes, some other closed. I should mention that there is also a place where you can see solitary confinement. It gave me goose flesh to be there and see how tiny the solitary confinement rooms were at that time (OK, I don't know about the new ones since I've never been in one, thank God!). That particular building was so quiet that the silence was almost deafening. Scratched on a wall the word "Siberia" which is the way the inmates used to call the solitary confinement building.

This is one of the solitary confinement cells:

The tour guide also told us some nice and interesting stories about the penitentiary population, but that would make this post to long for you to digest, and therefore I prefer to cut it short.

I should also mention the fact that all of the buildings we visited today were built by prisoners, and that in particular, two of the prisoners were smart enough to also create projects for different structures inside the complex.

Here is a picture of some of the buildings we visited today:

And now some facts about the prison:
It had over 13,000 inmates in 100 years, with a total of 215 women, 613 was the maximum number of prisoners at one time;

The youngest inmate was 10 years old, and served less than one year for killing a man (he was later adopted by a Boise family according to what the tour guide said);

Another young man (11 years old), served 9 years for shooting and killing his mother (apparently because she wouldn’t let him out!), he eventually served his sentence, and lived as a hermit all his life up in the mountains until he died;

The oldest was an 81 years old man who served 3 years for cattle rusting;

The prison has been used from 1872 to 1973, and the longest sentence ever served over there was the one inflicted to Harry Orchard, 46 years for assassinating former governor Steunenburg. He died in prison in 1954;

Over 500 people tried to escape from this penitentiary, but only 90 actually got away with it;

Ten men were hanged, the last one in 1957; On the other hand, no women have ever been executed in Idaho;

There have been 5 major riots, the last two in 1971 and 1973 that actually pushed the authorities governing the prison to move the inmates in a new structure;

The most common crime for women was “forgery”, and for men was “theft! I’ve read this facts on a poster on the wall, and I thought it would have been interesting to share them with you.

They also have an extremely interesting collection of weapons donated by a very prominent Idahoan, but at the present moment I can't remember the name.

The display includes several different kind of weapons, ranging from Spanish era swords of the 1600's to WWII weapons. If you have an interest in weapons, this is a must see museum, and also don't forget that it is included with the price of the ticket you paid at the beginning anyway!

Once we left the Old Idaho Penitentiary, I plugged in our new destination on the GPS, and there we went, 75 mph on I-84W.

It’s been a pleasant drive, and almost close to Nampa, ID, I had one of those TeleAtlas (Google Earth Street View mode maybe helps) cars with all the cameras on the top, I counted nine! It was amazing to finally see one for real, I know, it might not be a big deal for you, but for someone like me who nowadays basically check everything on the net, well it was a big deal! Have you ever tried to look for a restaurant, or a hotel, or a house address, and have the curiosity to know how the place looks like without having to be there? With Google Earth Street View you can do that, maybe you want to try it, I think it’s fun!

We crossed the border between Idaho and Oregon, and consequently the Pacific Time Zone. Another interest fact (ok, for you it might be boring!) is that we crossed the 45th Parallel, and at that point we were at an “equal” distance between the Equator and the North Pole. I wanted to stop to take a picture, but I had cars behind and could make it. I’ll make sure I check on the map when we’re heading back south the exact location where we’re going to cross it back, and I’ll take a picture!

We're currently in Pendleton, OR, nice little town, and in my opinion one of the best Mexican restaurants I’ve ever experienced. The name, for those of you who are interested is “Mazatlan”, on SW Court Road.

Tomorrow we're going to visit a Popcorn factory (sounds like fun…maybe!) and go on an "Undeground Pendleton" tour with an additional visit to one of the most famous former brothels in Oregon.

From Oregon I guess it's all for this evening.

Good night,
Nico

May I Have Some Idaho Potatoes?

2008-07-09T22:39:00.000-07:00

Good Evening Folks!

This evening I'm writing you from Boise, ID, in a very hot summer night.

Today has been a driving day, no regrets about that as it was in our plan, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

We left the hotel in Salt Lake City, UT, around 11AM, put the top down, loaded the car, and headed west on I-80 towards Reno (as the pictures would show), but really towards Wells, NV where we hooked a right onto US93 to Twin Falls.

This has been another beautiful day weather wise, we couldn't have asked for a better day, very few clouds in the sky, and a nice breeze that helped make the air more "breathable".

After roughly 110 miles from our starting point, we hit the most important spot of the day, the "Bonneville Salt Flats", at the edge of the state boundary between Utah and Nevada.

The Salt Flats are irresistibly attractive, so much so, that I had to pull over, stop the car and take some pictures even before I actually realised that further away on I-80 there would have been a rest area where people can easily stop and walk on the salty surface.

This is one of the "illegal" pictures (just because there's a road sign telling people to only stop in case of emergency):

Once we arrived at the rest area, I've been able to take some more shots of the "flats", and another picture of myself, to be able to say: "YES, I made it, I've been here, where all the speed records are challenged, I've seen one more thing with my own eyes". It is such a privilege to be on this trip, seriously, I recognize that, and try to enjoy every minute to the fullest; every yard, every mile that I drive, is something new, something I had never seen before, and I'm living this adventure with this very same attitude.

Here's another good shot:

Soon after we passed Andover, UT, we crossed the border with Nevada, and there I was, receiving another "Baptism of Confederate States", another stick pin to put on my imaginary map of the United States.

Here's the road sign welcoming us to Nevada:

But we all know that to see Nevada there is still plenty of time, right now we're heading north, on US93, that's the plan! One funny thing I should mention is that we crossed, if only for an hour or so, the imaginary line between Mountain and Pacific time, and therefore, for an hour we've been in a sort of limbo floating between 2 and 3PM. The reason for that is due to the fact that Nevada uses Pacific Time while Idaho does not, and therefore, when we crossed back into Idaho, our phones automatically went back to Mountain time.

As I mention, we crossed the border between Nevada and Idaho after roughly another 100 miles. I remember clearly the last small town in Nevada was "Jackpot" which really impressed me because of the amount of Casino for such a small strip of land! Oh well, it's Nevada after all!

Here's the road sign marking the border between Nevada and Idaho, going north on US93:

We're here in Boise, ID for the night, we went out to dinner, and the impression I got is that the downtown area gets totally emptied out after the businesses close down for the evening.

Tomorrow we're planning on visiting the "Old Idaho Penitentiary". It should be fun, especially for me, because I've never set foot in any prison or jail.

I'll tell you more about it tomorrow evening, now I go to bed.

Good night from "the valley",

Nico

Salt Lake Friendliness!

2008-07-08T22:33:00.000-07:00

Good evening followers!

Yes, today I feel like I'm in a very prophetic mood!

And after all, why shouldn't I been after spending the whole day visiting Salt Lake City's most famous square, Temple Square!

We left the hotel this morning around 10AM after deciding that we wanted to spend another extra night here in Salt Lake City, UT at the Ramada hotel, very nice and cozy rooms, coupled with an extremely professional and helpful staff. The Sales Manager for this Salt Lake City location, Mrs. Susan Green, has been so helpful and nice with us when we asked about winter packages, I wanted to publicly thank her for her help. She is also “family” to me, as we share the same passion for traveling, developing new products, and therefore simply try to make customers as happy as possible in their travel experience.

So, there we went, out and about to tour the city's most important downtown area, which I’ve been told is basically what “The Vatican” is for Catholics.

They have volunteers (missionaries) that take the visitors on different tours in and around Temple Square every 15 minutes, it’s amazing the amount of people that they decided to devote to this service to the public, and I was also pleasantly surprised by the amount of young people who are members of LDS.

In our first tour we visited the Beehive House, which was Brigham Young’s family residence, and then after a nice guided tour of the house (with some preaching), we joined other people at the South Gate for a visit of the Tabernacle.

This is a front view of the Beehive House:

And this is a flower I took a picture of in the garden in front of the house (they certainly have a green thumb!):

And this is the Lion House, next door to the Beehive house:

Luckily enough, at noon, by the time we got there, they had a Organ rehearsal that we really enjoyed (but maybe our friend Bob Bury would have enjoyed it more, considering he’s part of the club!). The Organ is magnificent, but what impressed me the most was its size, because, even from a distance, it looks huge!

The organ has more than 11,000 pipes, and the Tabernacle has been built in such a way that the acoustic is simply unbelievable.

Here’s a view of the Tabernacle’s Organ:

After that we visited the LDS Main Office Building where visitors can take another free tour and go up to the 26th floor to enjoy a magnificent view of the Salt Lake City area. I took some nice pictures of the Square down below, the Utah State Capital, and our next building on the free tour, the LDS Convention Center, another quite impressive brand new structure that holds an arena like theater that holds up to 21,000 people!

Here's what the buliding looks like from the outside:

Here’s a picture of the square from the 26th Floor:

A picture of the State Capital:

A picture of the Convention Center:

Speaking of the Convention Center, we did have another free tour in there, when a very friendly guy approached us and took us straight on a tour (with other three people) of the facility.

And this is the organ of the main auditorium in the Convention Center:

What I really felt here in Salt Lake City among LDS members is the sense of family and community that they have between them, but that they also project on the outside to people that come to visit from other parts of the world. They are so friendly that at times I must admit it they cross the imaginary border into creepiness! But they are very nice indeed, I’m only kidding about them being creepy, I should just probably say that I’m certainly not used to such treatment from people I have never met, that’s for sure.

The highlight for An Italian Across America today has probably been the two hours spent at the Genealogical Society Of Utah, that helps people from all over the world to find their ancestors.

I haven’t been able to trace my family roots as I wanted to, but it was my fault, I don’t know anything about my great-grandparents, and I needed something from before 1910 to start a research.

I’ve been very helpful to Hap’s research, as together we traced his family back to the 1850s in England first, and then the USA. Two hours went away just like two seconds, and again, the LDS members inside the center couldn’t have been more helpful.

We had dinner at another Brazilian Steakhouse this evening, not as nice as the other one we visited yesterday, but still very good, with an extremely friendly staff serving us. It was a much more relaxed atmosphere, and certainly the price was more than right.

On our way back to the Hotel we took a drive with the top down throughout the city, and Capitol Hill, where I’ve been able to take some nice pictures of the State House; here’s one for you to enjoy:

The plan for tomorrow looks really nice and very exciting, at least for me.
Our final destination will still be Twin Falls, ID, we will be going west on I-80 from Salt Lake City, UT so that we will hit the Bonneville Salt Flats, and hopefully we will be able to take some cool pictures on the Salt Flats.

And for those of you who like to know interesting facts about the places we’re visiting, think about the fact that the Bonneville Salt Flats are so “flat” that you can see the curvature of the planet!

For more information I strongly encourage you to visit the following website:
http://www.utah.com/playgrounds/bonneville_salt.htm

Have a good night everybody,
Nico

I Love Scenic By-Ways!

2008-07-07T21:28:00.000-07:00

Good Evening from HOT as hell Salt Lake City!

We made it this afternoon after a 270 miles scenic route that includes Federal recognized "Logan Canyon Scenic By-Way".

We started in Jackson, WY this morning after a "to go breakfast" eaten in the car (because I couldn't wait to get on the road! LOL); the scenery is always the same incredible one that has taken us company since once we crossed into Wyoming from South Dakota.

Here is what I'm talking about:

I decided to drive down south on US89 that first crosses into Idaho, and goes through Montpellier, Paris, and other small villages in the "Potato State" (and we have a shot to testify of that), and then we crossed the border with Utah at Garden City, which is also the start of the Logan Canyon Scenic By-Way.

Here's the Idaho road sign (not exactly the fanciest I've ever seen!):

And here is the one for Utah, which on the other side was very fancy indeed!

The scenic by-way of the the day proved to be once again a good choice on our itinerary, for the canyon itself and the Logan river, but also for the amazingly beautiful and colorful Bear Lake which at some point reminded me of the clear turquoise water of Cancun and Playa del Carmen in Mexico.

Here is a view of one of the "beaches" in Garden City, UT (Hey, maybe I could live here!):

This other shot on the other hand, is from a panoramic off-road parking area right after the beginning of the Logan Canyon Scenic By-Way:

And since I mentioned the Canyon so many times, this is a view of the canyon itself (that by the way, doesn't do it any justice):

We arrived in Salt Lake City through I-15 (who has major roadwork going on) at around 3.30PM, we drove around for a little bit, and then decided to park the car and take a walk to the Visitor Center, which is by the way, next to the LDS Convention Center.

We got maps and brochures from them, and one of those precious books with the coupons that we really like. We've been lucky this evening, excellent room for an excellent price, couldn't be better than that.

A view of State Street from the Capitol all the way down south (notice the people dressed with their "uniform" on the crosswalk?):

We went to another Brazilian Steakhouse this evening, "Rodizio Brazilian Grill". Good food, good service (a little bit slow), but nothing compared to Chima and/or Fogo De Chao. I should also say that instead of being $48 and $39, this one was "only" $24.50.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, as we plan on visiting the city, and then hopefully leave towards our next destination, Twin Falls, ID.

Good night dear friends,

Nico

Where Are Yogi And Boo Boo?!?!?

2008-07-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

All right guys,

We made it to Yellowstone National Park today!

I'm sure you probably know already, but I have to tell you anyway, the park is HUGE!

We entered through the eastern gate, about 50 miles away from Cody, WY, after a beautiful drive and some other spots on the way not to be missed, like the Buffalo Bill Dam just to name one.

To visit Yellowstone you definitely need a plan, and yes, you do need a map of the park as well, something that you receive, together with a newsletter, once you enter the park (and you pay the $25 fee, unless you have a Golden Age Pass).

I laid out a plan to try to see as many things as possible in a day, and it worked, exception made for a few spots that were just too crowded at the wrong time, and therefore got skipped.

We decided to leave Old Faithfull and the whole main geysers area for last, comparing it to a meal, Old Faithful would certainly be dessert, and so, unless you're a little strange, dessert goes at the end of your meal.

The first spot we decided to visit was Artist Point, which has in my opinion, the most breathtaking views of the park.

These are two views of the Lower Falls, that you can find, together with Upper Falls, at the Artist Point Area:

The second one with "The Italian Across America" getting his souvenir picture:

One thing that really surprised me about the park today was the lack of visitors. I mean, don't get me wrong, the park was crowded, but not as much as I thought it was going to be on Sunday July 6th. This was something I read on one of my travel guides, so I was certainly, pleasantly surprised about the lack of bumper to bumper action inside the park.

After visitin Artist Point, we went back in the car and drove another 20 miles to the Norris Geyser Basin, where, if you're lucky enough (almost like winning the lottery) you might be able to witness the "Steamboat Geyser" erupting boiling water at 300 to 400 feet up in the air.

This is a view of Cistern Spring, right next door to Steamboat, that usually empties out when the geyser is ready to "erupt". The last time it did happen was May 23rd 2005!

One other thing I should mention for those of you who have never been here, is that visitors, especially in the geysers areas, can only walk in designated paths (for obvious reasons) that have been made out of wood. There are signs everywhere reminding the visitors to the park about the danger of walking off path, like this one for example:

Our next stop was the White Dome Geyser, that I really enjoyed because of the resemblance to the way a geyser should have to look like in my mind (I know, sometimes I can be weird!):

Yellowstone is also famous for its thriving wildlife, bisons, grizzly bears, elks, moose, deers, etc. and there are signs everywhere that capture the visitors' attention on the risks of approaching these wild animals.

We haven't been very lucky today, as the only animal we saw inside the boundaries of Yellowstone was the bison. Yes, right, NO bears, nothing! We saw a deer once we got out of the park, but that's another story.

As I said, we left the best for last, Old Faithful.

Like as I always am, we arrived at the spot, exactly five minutes after the show was over, which means we had to wait another 62 minutes for the next "show". We decided to take a walk and visit the inside of the "Old Faithful Inn" which is famous for its huge fireplace inside the lobby. The place was really beautiful, we grabbed something to eat inside (first line of the day, not too bad), and went outside where we waited on some benches for the next show to begin.

This is a shot of me with Old Faithful in the background waiting for it to show us what it's really capable of doing:

And here's the Old Faithful in action, not too bad for an old geyser! :-)

Before leaving Yellowstone, we had an unexpected, but very pleasant surprise, we crosse the Continental Divide, and here's a picture to confirm it:

After we left the park, the fun and the beautiful scenery certainly do not end, as you enter the Rockefeller Memorial Highway first, and then the beautiful and scenic Grand Teton National Park.

The mountains are really hard to describe here on paper, one has to be there where I was this evening to fully understand what I'm talking about.

Here is another breathtaking views of the Tetons, and Jackson Lake:

We're now in Jackson, WY, another touristy place that was very convenient for us as a place in between what we wanted to do today, and what we're planning on doing tomorrow.

Time to call it a day, and what a beautiful day.

Good night everybody,

Nico

Snow In July!

2008-07-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

Good Evening avid readers (yeah right, maybe one or two! LOL),

This is one of those crazy days...

I saw the snow up in the mountains yesterday evening as we approached Sheridan, WY on I-90, but never in my life I would have imagined to actually reach the top of those mountains and feel the iciness of that same snow in my hands.

We left the hotel in Sheridan this morning at about 10AM with the intention to find a nice bakery where to have something to eat and a coffee to drink. We didn't find one (also because Main Street was blocked for an antique car show), but we did manage to find a local supermarket where we purchased some pastries to have on the road. They were very good, although not as good as the ones we had yesterday!

The plan for the dat was to drive through the "Bighorn Mountains National Forest, and Scenic By-Way", and we did!

The road started to climb up the mountains as soon as we left Dayton, WY, a 25 something miles from the place where we spent the night.

The scenery was absolutely gorgeous, with beautiful pine trees on the mountains in front of us, as if I were looking at a giant birthday cake with thousands of huge pine tree shaped candles.

The GPS tells me the altitude, a feature that I've used many times during this trip to have a much clearer understanding of where we were. Today's maximum altitude as we climbed up the mountains to stop at one of our "planned sights to see today" was 9,639 feet, which to me sounds pretty impressive, coming from Florida where the maximum height is the HOV lane on I-95 between Broward and Miami-Dade!

The scenic by-way we decided to drive today goes along "Route 14", that splits into 14 and 14A at Burgess Junction, and the rejoin at the base of the Big Horn National Forest some 5,000 feet down.

Route 14A is only recommended for cars because of its steepness and sharp curves, and that is basically the reason why we decided to go for it!

The road is really a gem, well maintained, with a beautiful scenery 360 degrees all around you.

One other reason why we decided for Route 14A is because of our first stop of the day.

I wanted to go visit the Medicine Wheel, a sacred place for the Indians, which is roughly 2 miles off route from 14A.

As far as I know, there are several different Medicine Weels throughout the country, but this one is supposed to be the most important, and it better be, considering the hike to get up there.

Visitors are warned about it, they have to leave the car at the Ranger outpost and walk on a 3 miles roundtrip trail that takes you up to the top of the mountain where the Medicine Wheel is located.

I was impressed at the quantity of snow that is still up there, and that is why I took so many pictures of it. To me, coming from an island where the last time it snowed was 1986 and I was six years old, well, it was pretty impressive to see it in July.

Don't get me wrong, we do get snow every winter, but I used to live very close to the Mediterranean, and therefore, seldom got the chance to see the snow in my early years.

The hike was a blessing, we breathed pure and fresh mountain air, and we also got the chance to do some exercise, which is always welcome!

We left the Medicine Wheel and the Bighorn National Forest to drive to our next destination which is also our overnight stop, Cody, WY!

Cody, WY is the city named after William Frederick Cody (primarily known as Buffalo Bill), for his participation in the creation of the original town. I wonder what is left of Cody, WY the way Buffalo Bill would have seen it with his eyes.

The city is now the main stop for those who are traveling to Yellowstone National Park, and you can actually realize that because of the ridiculously high prices of any Motel/Hotel around here.

We managed to find a nice one at a decent price that I feel I could certainly recommend to anybody; it's the Skyline Motel, that offers two queen beds, and a very clean room for $89 plus tax when all of the others were above the $140 mark.

Cody is also home of the "Irma Hotel" that Buffalo Bill himself opened naming it after his daughter Irma. The hotel is still open, and they also have a restaurant. It's located on Sheridan St., which is also Cody's Main Street.

We're definitely going out for dinner, and although we're not dining at the Irma Hotel (because it looks and sound more like an overpriced tourist trap, although I don't have any evidence whatsoever to say that), I'm sure we will be able to find a nice place where to have something decent to eat. I did my research on the Internet already and I found two nice places with raving reviews from locals and visitors, which is certainly a sign that we can't go wrong!

Happy post 4th of July greetings from the "Wild Wild West",

Nico