in_the_car

well, it's been four weeks and we're home now. the last month seems like a whirl-wind of fun and adventure. i know understand why the arizona license plates have purple mountains and why the west is called "big sky country." we also learned how really small we are (as a state/region and as human beings....).

here are some other things we learned along the way:
1. kampgrounds of america (koa)are the best places ever invented. they are cheap, clean, safe and fun.
2. listen to enough radio commercials and not only will you learn they are all incredibly stupid, but you'll kill brain cells off in the meantime.
3. cows, corn and soy... that is the only thing you'll see in eastern wyoming, south dakota and iowa. (if possible, avoid ever driving through these places... trust me, there's nothing there!!)
4. elevation really does matter.
5. utah and idaho are, suprisingly, very pretty.
6. when people talk about the traffic in LA they aren't kidding/lying... there really is horrible traffic there....
7. yellowstone is very very big- we drove an hour just from our campsite inside the park to old faithful. (in all, we drove over 110 miles just in the park and we didn't even see everything!)
8. our country really is very beautiful.
9. the differences between the northeast and the rest of the country is huge!!!
10. the west has it made: no humidity, no bugs and cool nights!! what else do you need??
11. seattle road signs stink.
12. you can drink on the streets in new orleans.
13. homecooked meals (especially made by a mommy) are the best! (we were very lucky- and thankful- that all the people we stayed with made us dinner... it was so much better than going out to eat!)
14. there are a lot of hitchikers out west just sitting on the side of a highway in the middle of nowhere.
15. i don't know my way around ohio as well as people think i do...
16. heading west and gaining time is wonderful... heading east and losing that time is not so wonderful.
17. it is possible to see a majority of the country in 28 days.
18. gas is very expensive out west.
19. there is no ice coffee or skim milk past the mississippi (except for seattle, of course!)
20. after a month of no dunkin donuts you get very excited when you see a sign for a 24 hour store in iowa.
21. indiana is apparently the place to be... (there was horrific traffic on both the west and east borders of people trying to get in the state... there was no traffic for people trying to get out!)
22. we don't know geography.... although we are getting better: nebraska is under south dakota.
23. if you've been on the road for 3.5 weeks and the only state you need in the license plate game is vermont all you have to do is drive around the parking lot of yellowstone national park and you'll find it!

....i'm in the process of uploading pictures and everything, so when i get more up i'll post them here!!!

( lots and lots of pictures, just for you mommy cooper!!!! )

So, we actually made it across the country. Right now we are staying with Rachel's family in Irvine, CA, in the Orange County! This is the first time we've actually stayed some place a few days, so its a nice change of pace. California is gorgeous for the record! Hmmm where did we leave you last? Santa Fe? After Santa Fe we went to stay iwth some of Rachel's family in Kingman Arizona! it was fun to stay in a house with a family, and their grandkids were around, so we had a good time. After that it was Grand Canyon tome!! Woah!! Absolutely amazing. We just kept looking at it trying to believe it was real. The first day we just walked along the rim, but the second day we hiked down into the canyon! Its such an amazing experience, I still can't believe we did it! I'm all ready to hike all the way down and camp in the canyon now! The morning we were there we woke up at 4:15 to see the sun rise over the grand canyon. By sunset of that day we were on the strip in Vegas! What a fun city! We saw a lot of the casinos, ate dinner in the MGM grand and saw a show (Second City, its a comedy company) We gambled a little bit, and each lost $20, but a good time was had by all! We even saw elvis impersonators and drove a hummer!
That brings us to here. California really is all its cracked up to be. We went to the beach, which was absolutely gorgeous. All the beaches here have this great mainstreet shopping and restaurants type place full of surf shops and the like, so much fun! We went into Hollywood and saw the sign and the stars on Hollywood Blvd. and the hand and footprints. Other than that it was a little sad and run down. I guess its trying to get back to its glory days...I hope it does soon! Yesterday was disneyland! As you know I looooooooooove disney, and thats an understatement, so I had a great time, and I've now been to 3 out of the 4 disneys... tokyo here I come! Today we went and had lunch with my great uncles in Laguna beach! They have this gorgeous house up above the water that looks out on the ocean. they made us lunch and it was amazing! Tonmorrow is Beverly Hills for rachel to have some meetings with agents and then on Wednesday we're heading up to San Francisco!

hey y'all! we are currently in santa fe and boy has it been an adventure so far!! since last we posted we've also been to san antonio, the carslbad caverns and roswell.

san antonio was such a pretty and fun city. before we left we made a "vow" to eat only local food when we could, so in san antonio we ate authentic tex mex and enjoyed margaritas- they were sooo good (and cheap)! i can now say i remember the alamo because i've been there... and yes, it's very tiny!! if you're going to texas, you must stop in this city!

we stayed in carslbad, new mexico as a stopping point from san antonio to santa fe- and i think i speak for brittany when i say we're glad we did! there was a wedding going on at the KOA we were staying at the night we got there so we enjoyed watching it from afar. the next day we packed up and on the way to santa fe stopped to see the amazing, wonderful, breath taking carslbad caverns... i took pictures, but they don't do it justice.... only an hour away from this wonderful natural beauty is roswell- and the internatianl ufo museam and research institute!! now, how could you not stop to see such an important part of our country? i have to say, once i ignored the posterboard and grammer/spelling mistakes i came to believe that aliens really do exist!!! :-)

and now for the exciting part (drumroll please....) about an hour out of santa fe our tire blew out!! with the help of a nice woman who pulled over we were able to inflat brittany's donut while i loosend the tire (all by my little self!). after the kind lady left brittany began to jack the car when a state trooper pulled over and finished the job for us- the whole thing took us about an hour! (and of course, just when we were done AAA called to say they'd be 20 mins.!) then this morning we went to pepboys and got a new tire- so now the car has a souviner from santa fe!

and speaking of santa fe.... what a place to shop!!! while we were shocked by the prices (a lot more expensive than san antonio had been...) we each found some really cool things and had a fun time.

i know you all want pictures- especially you, mom!- but you'll have to wait for us to get a better (and faster!) internet connection!!!!

next up: arizona (we're camping in the grand canyon!!!), las vegas (i just want a picture with an elvis impersonator!) and than l.a.!!


Time for Brittany's two cents worth!

Carlsbad Caverns: absolutely phenominal!! We can't say it enough! GO!! If you ever have the chance

A side note about Roswell: (this is especially for you miss jess delprete) As a part of the Roswell Museum there were X file posters, and X File action figures, the very same ones dear rachel used to own.... For those of you who didn't know rachel til after her x files phase was over she was OBSESSED!!! We took a picture of Rachel with the posters!!

I'm very proud of the way we handled the tire thing! Who says girls can't take care of themselves!! Jac, the tire looked just like it did that time it blew out on us on the way to the Cape.

In Santa Fe I got a beautiful turqouis bracelet which was made by a man who has made jewlery for Brooke Shields and Billy Bob Thorton! He has pictures to prove it! What a nice guy! I also got a sunburn due to deficient sunscreen application by Rachel Cooper. Half my back is red now!

Thats it! Hope you're having fun wherever you are!

Hey Kids, Brittany here! Well, I write this from a hotel in New Orleans, not the hostel we origionally were going to stay at.. but more on that later... Where did we leave you? Baltimore? Well, we left Baltimore en route to Nashville, which was a 12 hour drive, but didn't seem that long. We did learn however, that Virginia is a very long state... most of our drive was spent in the rolling hills of virginia, which continued into tennessee. Tennessee is fantastic by the way. Our campsite was right on Music dive in Nashville, which is the street Opryland hotel is on (home of the Grand Ole Opry.) The campsite was gorgeous, you should have seen the bathrooms!

OK.. Well, something happened last night to that draft... but today it popped back up... Rachel's computer hates me... anyway, now we're actually at a campsite just east of Houston, TX. Can we just take a minute to think about the fact that four days ago we were in RI, and now we are in Houston, TX!...... ok, good minute... so on to the New Orleans Debackle (Is that how you spell that?)

so we arrived to New Orleans, exactly when we planned to around 9:30 pm, with a AAA triptix directions to the hostel we were supposed to stay at (Joe and Flo's Candlelight hostel). Well, the directions didn't work, and got us into a very sketchy area of town, so we called the place, got their answering machine and wrote down the directions they gave. Those also got us lost in a more sketchy part of town. So, all of the sudden we saw a Days Inn and said no more hostel! we value our lives! So although it was more than we planned to spend we checked into the hotel (on Canal Street) and changed our plans so we would only spend one night in New Orleans, and booked this campsite en route to San Antonio!

We did not let this ruin our time however. We felt very safe in the area our hotel was in, in the french quarter, so we walked down to Bourbon street, which is so cool, and had a hurricane in a jazz club and sat for a while, then walked down to Cafe du Monde which serves Beignets (French Donuts) 24 hours a day! They were delicous. Then today we woke up, discovered how strange our hotel was: read Twilight zone, and explored the French Quarter. We went to the aquarium, did some shopping, ate some jombalaya: it was a good time had by all... Then it was back on the road over the swamps of Louisiana to the campsite. We got here just in time to jump in the pool for about 10 minutes and be very happy girls! I'll turn it over to Rachel now...

Alright, while Brittany wrote the "mature" and "official" entry, here's a couple of my own personal thoughts on the trip so far..... (be warned, I'm crazy...)
1. i could never live down south- too hot and too many huge (and by huge i mean enourmous, large, gigantic) bugs. even though i'm currently doused in bug spray i am still being eaten alive... and by the bathrooms we saw a cute little toad and a few small lizards... i have this creepy feeling we're going to wake up and these "cute" lizards are going to be on the outside of our tent... ewwww....
2. i love the fact our current tent site has electricity and wifi...
3. i personally hate (or dislike emensly) the state of virginia. almost as much as i hate pensilvania. states shouldn't take that long to drive through.
4. i do, however, love tennessee- the people are so nice there... even if they do listen to that silly country music (oh! brittany forgot to mention that nashville was setting up for the cma awards and that was very cool!)
5. in louisiana we hit our first bit of traffic and learned a very interesting thing about the drivers there: if they don't want to wait in traffic they pull over to the shoulder and (in reverse) head back to the last exit... it was very odd... oh, and louisiana doesn't like to advertise rest stops or when there is gas/food at exits..
6. the devestation in new orleans was... a reality check. the french quarter didn't seem to see much damage, but canal street and it's surroundings did... we didn't feel we were in a city.
7. all throughout the south we keep seeing the following billboard: vasectamy reversal: 100% guarantee or your money back. for some reason this cracks me up.
8. it's the end of day four and i've still yet to be kicked out of the car. i consider this an accomplishment.
9. my neck/arm problem is healing... slowly..
10. have i mentioned i hate bugs?
11. if you are ever camping- use a koa: they are the most wonderful things ever invented in life...
i feel there is more i wanted to say, but i can't seem to remember... so i guess i'll end it here...

next major stops: san antonio, santa fe, arizona...
pictures will be posted later...

oh, and ps: daddy cooper: when the windows are down and the music is on i can't really here my phone, so don't think i'm dead when i don't pick up... brittany promises to let you know asap if i die.

well, we've left rhode island and after six states we are now in

baltimore, maryland.  we made it here in good time- and only got

lost once.... for those of you who are in on the bet: no, i've not been

kicked out of the car yet. didn't even get close, either!!





here are pictures from our first night/day on the road!





this picture is more for those of you in NY- look, another james joyce

bar!! this one, however, is much more, how do you say- upper class?







we went to a baltimore orioles baseball game. they played toronto

and won, 4-0. we sat right in center field under the scorebored and it

was great- especially the loud and drunk guys in the section we sat in.

they heckled vernon wells (toronto's center fielder) so much that by

the last inning he "jestered" back... it was great!







this is byron- my cousin- who we are staying with tonight. he's awesome.







this is the view from byron's 16th story apartment.







we decided to take pictures of all the "welcome to" signs... brittany took this one of the maryland sign....







an over turned truck on the other side of I-95... everyone seemed okay, which is why we took a picture....







we also decided to take pictures of funny license plates.... this one says "intnet"






welcome to delaware....













welcome to new jersey....







it says ice cream... but in license plate writings...







welcome to new york (i took this one!)










i almost missed this sign....







brittany and i before we left... we even look like we like eachother!!




the trunk is a little, um, packed....




good thing there is only two of us... and we tried to pack only the essenctials...




brittany and the car- getting ready to leave






...tomorrow: nashville!!!!!


-rachel

Our ETD is a little more than 12 hours from now and while the car is packed, my clothing is not.... the majority is washed, however, and I see that as a good thing.

Hopefully by tomorrow my pinched nerve will be better and my arm/neck will stop hurting- or at least I wont need the major drugs...

Our first stop is Baltimore, where my cousin Byron lives. We're going to try to catch a ball game while in town, but other than that, I'm not sure what's in store for us.

I can't wait to get on the road!!

~Rachel

So, I'm sitting here on my laptop, listening to retro lunch, and guess what song came on? Get your kicks on Rt. 66! And then I decided to take a look at this here livejournal rachel set up for us, and then well, I figured might as well make a post! Isn't that a great story?

Well, I'm new to livejournal, but it looks like I might be able to do my own post

Testing

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2

3

Once we hit the road our posts will be much more interesting! I promise!

~Brittany