Days 29-33 - Outer Banks, NC

Days 29 – 33 – Outer Banks, NC
Atlanta, GA > Southern Shores, NC

Well fans, this is the beginning of the end. After 28 days of rambling across the United States, the boys have finally reached North Carolina and 5 days of vacation with the Leven family. We rolled into our beach house to roars and cheers and had a great time telling stories of our adventures to John’s parents, grandparents, and siblings. Here's a picture of the beach house.

We spent 5 glorious days recovering from our adventure. We went to the beach, we swam in the pool, we ate until we couldn’t eat anymore, and we drank until the booze was gone. Seeing the Atlantic Ocean a mere two weeks after seeing the Pacific Ocean was quite a trip. And its not like we were in a rush either, we saw 3 national parks, spent a week in Texas, conquered New Orleans, and visited San Antonio and Atlanta during that time. What a blast!

Well folks, thanks for following us on our epic adventure. Making this trip a reality is truly one of the best decisions either of us have ever made. If you ever have the chance to do something like this... our advice to you is...FRICKIN' DO IT!!!

That said, we hope you have enjoyed following our adventures thus far. But fear not loyal fans, our adventure is not 100% complete. We will making a surprise final stop before returning to home. Tune in next time to find out where that oh-so-special spot is.

Days 26-28 - New Orleans and Atlanta

Days 26-28
Austin, TX> New Orleans, LA (2 nights)> Atlanta, GA

    After four nights in the same city, and a full week in Texas, we knew it was time to keep rambling. New Orleans was quite possibly the city with the highest expectations on the trip, and boy, did it live up to them. We arrived in New Orleans early Friday evening and set ourselves up at a hostel. We were just aching to check out Bourbon Street. Well we got out rooms, dropped off our stuff and pre-gamed a bit before hit quite possibly America’s biggest party.

After boozing up to the level required to enter such a holy mecca of alcohol consumption, we took the streetcar down to the glorious land known as the French Quarter. It was like a dream.

Bourbon street is blocked off to cars and had people holding drinks in their hands walking up and down it listening, laughing, and dancing to the live music all around. We had a rather long and fantastic evening, hit sack in our hostel with smiles on our faces.   

The next morning we awoke sometime in the early afternoon. When a hungover John was hit in the face by a rogue ceiling fan, we knew this was going to be a special day. We walked around the French Quarter, which was filled with food, bars, and just people having a great time.

We drove to Mississippi River and took it its mightyness. Next, we visited the famous above-ground cemeteries of New Orleans. These rather large graves were certainly unlike anything we were used to and they were necessary due to the high water table of New Orleans.

Once back at the hostel we set out for night two on Bourbon street, this time grabbing dinner there. We walked around had quite a night again and ended the night with some beers and some good conversation on the edge of an ominous looking Mississippi River.

 After conquering Bourbon Street and New Orleans, which we both agreed, is a must see city for anyone that’s never been, we set out for our long journey to North Carolina. We stopped for a night outside of Atlanta, GA. We were pampered with comfort and welcomes from our host Sandy, John’s Aunt’s roommate, and her family. They were AWESOME! We thank them so much for their hospitality. Then we hit the road to North Carolina.

Days 22-25 Austin and San Antonio

Days 22-25
Dallas(Allen), TX> Austin, TX for 4 days with a day in San Antonio

    So after a relaxing two days at the home of the wonderful Texas Leven House, we set off to Austin. However, before leaving the city we stopped at a Goodyear to see if the air conditioning could be fixed. As explained in the last post we attempted to fix the air conditioning by pumping more Freon into it ourselves… which backfired. So this time we sucked it up and went to a professional. Well long story short they came back with an estimate for 1400 dollars…. So we said thanks anyway and went to Austin a little astonished and still very sweaty.
    We arrived in Austin a few hours later (which happens to be in Travis county). We had contacted a friend, Brandon Greenspan, at the University of Texas, which is is right in the city of Austin. Brandon is a member of AEPi at Texas and let us stay in his room at their fraternity house. Now fraternity life is something John and Travis already know a little bit about from their days spent conquering Penn State, so they felt right at home.
    The second day was spent mostly at a local auto mechanic in Austin. We did a little research and found that this place was good and went in for a second opinion crossing our fingers that they were not going to come back with a 1400 estimate as well. A few hours later we had the estimate for 700 in hand completely understanding what was wrong and agreed to pay the price to fix it. Another couple hours later the car was fixed and the vents were blowing out air as refreshing as well…. Air conditioning in the desert. We went out that night to 6th street, which is the large strip of bars which is primarily filled with people in their young 20s and is the “happening” place in town. That was fun and because of that experience Brandon convinced us to stay a fourth night which was not the original plan.
    Day three in Austin was a great day as well. We began by driving to Salt Lick BBQ just south of Austin which is a jaw-dropping… uncontrollably salivating…. Mindnumbingly good…. ALL YOU CAN EAT… BBQ extravaganza. Well after our tummies were filled to our delight we drove another hour and a half to San Antonio. Well as some you people who have learned some US history may know San Antonio is the city built around the Alamo. So we checked out the Alamo which was a lot cooler than expected. It was pretty much an old fort building but there were many cool exhibits from the many years of the Alamo’s existence. Our loyal readers may be interested to know that famous American heroes including Davey Crocket, Jim Bowie, and William Barrett Travis dies in their efforts at the Battle of the Alamo.

After checking out this historical mecca, we walked around the San Antonio “Riverwalk” which consists of a series of trendy restaurants built along a controlled canal throughout the city. Once finished exploring the main attractions of San Antonio, we drove back to Austin and spent the night at the AEPi house.

Our last full day in Austin was spent checking out the city itself. Brandon showed us the highest point in the city, South Congress Street, and finally the Texas State Capitol.

All which were fairly interesting spots especially the capitol. Of course on our last night in the city we spent out on 6th street again and it was the best drinking night of the trip. The bars were full and we had a fantastic time. Certainly a huge thank you goes out to Brandon and all of his brothers that showed us such a fantastic time in Austin. Don't Mess With Texas!  
Hook 'Em Horns!!!

Days 20 & 21 - Allen, TX - Uncle Brian's House

Day 20 and 2
Abilene, TX> Dallas (Allen), TX

    Before continuing on with our blog we must apologize for the delay in our blog updates. It has been at least a week since our last post and it is due to a combination of technical malfunction and schedule conflicts... but really adventuring is more fun than blogging... sorry loyal fans.

To cheer you up, here is a pic of John serenading on a Hannah Montana guitar. 

    Anyway we woke up from our final night of camping in a sweat from the Texas heat. We packed up the tent and made the rest of the journey to John’s Uncle Brian’s house in Allen Texas outside of Dallas.

We got there and from the very first moment we were showed the best hospitality. John’s aunt and uncle handed us a few beers showed us to the pool and took us out to dinner. We really needed it too because we had been through national parks traveling almost everyday of the past few weeks. We stayed there that night and another one. During that time we talked, drank, and had a fantastic time with the Levens of Texas.

Really the only event besides fantastic relaxation and great conversation was an attempt at fixing the air conditioning. The most basic, probable, and by far the cheapest way to fix this was to add Freon to the car ourselves. Well... that didn’t work. We ended up exploding a can of Freon all over the lawn but hey… no one was hurt and it was kinda cool to watch. So we went back to relaxing and enjoyed the birthday get together for John’s Aunt and rested up before traveling to Austin the next day.

Day 19 - Roswell, NM and Carlsbad Caverns

Day 19
Campsite in New Mexico> Roswell, NM> Carlsbad Caverns, NM> Campsite in Abilene, TX


    We woke up slowly knowing that our driving for the day was not too bad and we really needed a little bit of relaxing the pace. So we packed up the tent had some breakfast and swam at the pool of our campsite. After a couple hours relaxing and doing our best to cool off we headed to the alien capital of the United States… Roswell, New Mexico.

We really had no idea what to expect when we arrived 2 hours later, but we got there and began to explore. Apparently we missed the big annual alien convention by one week, but it didn’t matter to us. We looked around a few stores, had a pretty good burger at a local bar and grill, enjoyed an alien wheat beer and checked out the Roswell Alien museum and research center.

The museum was interesting, a bunch of stories and all of the evidence relating to the incident in Roswell. To sum up the incident as the museum told it: A farmer went to check out a crash far out on his farm and couldn’t identify the material he found, he also found some “bodies” which were not human and not animals. Now at first glance you just think this man is nuts but what gets interesting is that the next day neither the farmer or anyone in town could get to the crash site because there was a huge amount of government agents blocking off the area. A day or two later after claiming that he found an alien spacecraft and alien bodies the government said that it was a crashed weather balloon and there are many testimonials saying that the government agents really threatened anyone who wanted to talk about what they saw. After seeing hundreds of the documents it does start to get a little interesting  but with no pictures and no real proof we both agreed that although something may have happened we don’t believe it was aliens.

    Once out of Roswell we set our GPS for Carlsbad Caverns National Park about an hour and a half away. When we got there around 630 we found out that you couldn’t enter the caverns after 4pm. However, there was a bat flight with hundreds of thousands of bats leaving the caves at 7:45. So we stuck around and watched the bat flight. It was truly amazing and made the trip to Carlsbad worth it even though we didn’t see the caverns. The bats came out of this cave at rapid speeds and as the left the cave they created almost this tornado of bats as the flew out into the distance. The flight lasted at least 30mins so you can imagine at hundreds of bats every few seconds what it looked like. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take any pictures so if you want to see it you’re just going to have to go yourself. Well finally with the sun setting we decided it was time to look for campsites.

We realized that unlike the more wooded areas of the country that we had been to before this area seemed to seriously lack in anywhere we could pitch a tent. So we decided to suck it up, get some coffee and drive 4 hours into Texas and arrived in Abilene, Texas. After a very long hot day we crashed hard in the tent. But we slept with smiles on our faces as we knew the next two days would be spent at John’s Uncle Brian’s house outside of Dallas Texas, now only a few hours away.

Day 18 - White Sands National Monument

Day 18

Campsite in Benson, AZ>  White Sands National Monument, NM> Campsite in New Mexico

            So yet another day of driving through the deserts of the United States began.. without A/c I might add. We left the campsite in Arizona setting forth on our drive to White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. The drive was going to be a rather long one so we got our game faces on and headed east through the hottest and driest parts of America. We arrived at White Sands around 5 pm. We had noticed and learned that this area was where they have some much of the major missile testing for the U.S. army…. That doesn’t effect anything we did but it was rather interesting to drive past big army bases in the middle of no where. Anyway, once we arrived at White Sands…. A very special section of desert within a much larger desert we were very excited to get out of the car and into the air-conditioned visitor center. 

We learned that White Sands is made up of Gypsum which has been weathered away into sand and has become an 8 mile long section of pure white sand dunes. This sand is not only very white but it is perpetually cool and thus much easier to walk around on. Well, one of the more popular things to do in White Sands National monument is sledding. Yes… sledding in the desert.

We bought a circle sled and headed for the dunes. We had some fun sliding down the hills for a while, but what was really cool was the sunset and the beginning of night.

The sunset was amazing and the colors were incredible. However, once the moon came up.. and we were fortunate enough to arrive on the night of a full moon…. It was like day time. The light of the moon reflected off of the white sand and light up the ground. We had full shadows at night and it really looked like we were on the surface of the moon. Well the park closed at 10 and they kicked us our, but it was an amazing experience and by far one of the coolest stops on our raodtrip so far. We packed up and found another campsite in New Mexico not to far away. It was a long day of driving and we needed some good rest.

Day 17 - Saguaro National Park

Day 17

Campsite, CA> McDonald’s Tuscon, AZ> Saguaro National Park, AZ> Campsite in Benson, AZ

            So we woke up in the campsite just 6 miles from the Mexican border and continued on our travels for the day. We headed east for the first real significant time in our trip heading back to the coast we both call home. After about an hour of driving we noticed that our route took up right up against the Mexican border and for all of those who are curious… yes there is a fence that runs through the middle of no where. Anyway the real major tragedy of the day was about an hour later when our air conditioning gave out… yes you read me… OUR AIR CONDITIONING BROKE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT IN JULY.

But it’s ok we are two tough (and cheap) young lads. So we continued on to Tuscon, AZ. We hung out at the Mcdonald’s there and avoided the heat whilst indulging in a 20 piece mcnugget… a piece. Around 6 when the sun started heading down we picked up a few beers and drove 20mins to the cactus capitol of the world. The cacti in Saguaro National Park are huge some reaching 40 feet tall.

We climbed a small mountain with no one around and the possible threat of whatever animals were around to casually drink our beers and watch the sun go down as the moon came up. Once the sun was finally down we were almost done with our beers and out of the forest of cacti casually walks past a coyote… yes a COYOTE… and not the Mexican smuggling kind… the wild animal kind.  John saw it first staring it right in the eyes and alerted Travis of its presence. We both watched as the animal continued on its way as if to say.. “good day gentlemen”. It was quite the experience. We packed up our chairs and continued down the mountain to our car. We drove a bit more and called it a night at the Benson, AZ KOA.  

Day 16 - San Diego

Day 16

ZBT Long Beach Apartment, CA> Much needed Laundromat, LA> San Diego, CA> Campsite 6 miles from Mexican Border

            So after a couple days showing the west coast and ZBT Long Beach how the boys from the East Side do it, we left in the morning to solidify our plans for the rest of our journey. We decided that the rest of our trip would go as follows: San Diego, CA> Saguaro National Park, AZ> White Sands National Park, NM> Roswell and Carlsbad Caverns, NM> Dallas, TX> Austin, TX> San Antonio, TX> New Orleans, LA> Altanta, GA> Outer Banks, NC…… a wonderful journey exploring the South of the United States.

            But anyway back to Day 16. At this point you can only imagine how dirty and smelly our car is and we are so we stopped at a much needed Laundromat. We cleaned out clothes while cooking some lunch on the sidewalk. Once we smelled nice again and our clothes were folded we set off for San Diego.

Pacific Coast Highway

We arrived fairly quickly looking for the main street to have some fun on. After a missed guess ending up in a far too cultured area for men of our taste we set out toward the beach and found some fun on Garnet St. We got a couple beers and started walking toward the water. We drank our beers watching the sun set over the pacific as tons of surfers rode the waves in front of us.

San Diego

Once the sun set we found local beach side bar with 25 cent wings and chowed down. A few hours and a few beers later we set out for a campsite. The closest ones were way too expensive so we set out into the night using our cunning instincts and our trusty GPS to find ourselves a campsite for the evening. We decided to set camp in a state park about 45min outside of San Diego and about 6 miles from the Mexican Border. And no mom were not crazy thanks for your concern though.

 *********************************THE BORDER***************************

Days 14 & 15 - Long Beach,CA and Venice Beach, CA

Days 14 and 15

Hostel in Las Vegas> In-N-Out Burger LA> ZBT Long Beach Apartment, LA> Coffee Bean, LA> Venice Beach, LA> ZBT Long Beach Apartment

            After a rousing night in Las Vegas John and Travis set out for their last long push west. While driving we had to figure out where we were going to stay while in LA. Travis had a few contacts from the ZBT in Long Beach, CA, after having visited them during a ZBT national convention last summer. We contacted the ZBT brothers and they said of course we could hang out and crash at their place. After a few hours travel through the surprisingly traffic filled desert we reached our destination and as expected…..The In-N-Out burger was delicious (for those not fortunate to have tasted food from this glorious restaurant make sure you do if you’re ever on the west coast.) Anyway after In-N-Out Burger we grabbed some beer and hung out with the Brothers of ZBT Long Beach all night. They were cool guys with a very laid back California attitude. 

        The next day we woke up much earlier than the Long Beach guys (we had been getting up with the sun for the past couple weeks) so we went to the California classic Coffee Bean. We hung out got coffee and ate our lunch after coffee in the parking lot in the middle of LA. We returned to the ZBT apartment and moved out as a large group to one of the coolest, craziest, and certainly most unique spots in the country… Venice Beach, LA.

The beach was cool we swam in the huge waves for a bit and enjoyed some fried pizza on the boardwalk. It was a fun day and we repeated another long night of hanging out with the ZBT guys at their place that night. LA was quite a bit of fun as we both expected since it was the only place on the itinerary we had both been before. Twas a fun place with a great attitude but gotta keep ramblin.

Day 13 - Las Vegas

Day 13

Camp near Grand Canyon, AZ> Oil Change and Lunch in Hurricane, UT> Sin City Hostel in Las Vegas, NV> ?????


    After a great night at the Grand Canyon and almost a week and a half straight of National Parks we began the days journey to Vegas. It was about that time in our trip for an oil change, so we stopped in Hurricane, Utah at a respectable looking mechanic.  He got us in and out in 15min. As usual we had no idea where exactly we were staying that night so we found a McDonalds yet again and began planning our evening. We found a hostel called Sin City Hostel in Vegas, which caters to only international travellers and students. Since we really haven’t given up on being Penn State students we both happened to have our student ID’s with us. We showed up at the hostel and got our room with four European women, showered up, and hit the town. Now there are no pictures of Vegas….we’ll let you ponder about why… but we will tell you a few "G-rated" things. It was really hot… like really really hot…. Casinos are awesome and expensive (except for the Alcohol)…. Travis gambled for an extensive period of time and ended up even on the night…… And nobody died or was seriously injured during the making of our night in Vegas.

Day 12 - Zion and the Grand Canyon

Day 12

Camped near Zion National Park, UT> Explored Zion National Park>  Boozed at Grand Canyon> Camped near Grand Canyon

            We woke up bright an early fairly used to the national parks and camping ready for our last day of national parks for a few days. The plan was Zion national park… the most popular park in Utah, then on to the Grand Canyon. We showered up and drove 5 mins to Zion. Immediately we were greeted by Big Horn Sheep and smooth cliffs of sandstone.

The park was pretty cool at the beginning but the coolest part came after driving through a mile long tunnel through a mountain. We emerged on the other side to find Zion canyon. The colors, the trees, and the river running through the bottom were amazing. Zion is popular enough that the park has created a system of free shuttle busses to go up and down the canyon all day long. We saw amazing things and a few amazing spots where on every side of you were huge bright red canyon walls with a beautiful blue river flowing through it. The park was unbelievable.

           

Once done with yet another scenic overload we started heading over to the Grand Canyon.  This time however we decided to visit this National treasure as John and Travis should. We stopped for a 6 pack of craft beer made by the….. Grand Canyon Brewing Company…. and continued on our way. We arrived around 6 and found a great spot overlooking the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We watched the sunset while sitting on our chairs on top of a big boulder inches from the edge. We cracked our beers had a few conversations with a few jealous tourists and truly appreciated the awesome moment.

After a few hours we packed back up… said goodbye to a very big hole in the ground… and hit the sack in a nearby campground ready to hit VEGASSSSS the next day.

Day 11 - Arches NP and Bryce Canyon NP

Day 11

Camp in Moab, UT> Hike in Arches National Park> Lunch in Moab, UT> Bryce Canyon National Park, UT> Camp near Zion National Park, UT

            So setting out on yet another day of national parks, the unstoppable duo, John and Travis set out to do something they hadn’t really done yet…… hike.

Now Arches National Park is pretty much a desert so we set out very early while it was still relatively cool to hike to the Delicate Arch… a major symbol of Utah. The hike was about 3 miles total and very worth it. The Delicate Arch is huge standing 52-feet high and on the side of a mountain it was one of the most amazing things we have seen so far.

After returning from the hike we showered up at the campgrounds and grabbed lunch at yet aonther McDonalds in order to use their internet. After a long morning we set out in the early afternoon toward Bryce Canyon National Park, UT. 

With some spectacular views it was certainly unlike anything we had seen before. From on top of the canyon ridge there at Bryce Point we could see the whole canyon and stood in awe of its size and unusual rock formations.

With some great pictures taken and one more national park to get to we hit the road yet again and set camp right outside Zion National Park, UT. It was a long day driving all across Utah but we managed with smiles on our faces ready to hit Zion and THE GRAND CANYON the next day.

Day 10 - The Great Salt Lake and Arches National Park.

Day 10

Salt Lake City, UT> Great Salt Lake, UT> Arches National Park, UT> Camp in Moab, UT

            We woke up slowly and stretched our arms from a good night sleep preparing for another set of long drives and National Parks. We showered up, had a little breakfast and hit the road. We decided to take an hour from our day and go to the Great Salt Lake and back. The lake was certainly different… it kinda smelled and there were bugs and dead birds but it was an experience none the less.

We quickly hoped back in the car after a few pictures and headed toward Arches National Park Utah, home of red rocks and some of the most interesting landscapes in the country. On the way to the park came possibly the first bad thing of the trip…. Travis was pulled over for speeding. We were driving, talking, and listening to music and what seemed like the middle of nowhere. Along the road came a small town where the speed limit dropped from 65 to 40 and since Travis didn’t see the sign he ended up going to fast. A friendly cop…. With an awesome mustache…. Came and gave Travis the ticket. But after that little obstacle we rambled on to Arches.

            Arches National Park is ridiculous. It was very hot and relatively desert like. The natural rock formations were all red and all oddly shaped. It felt very much like mars.

We walked around, drank a lot of water and decided to hike the rugged and steep 3 mile trail to the famous “Delicate Arch” the next morning. We finished the park and set camp at the Moab, UT KOA. IT was a good day… except for the ticket… so we grilled some food and went to bed, preparing for a big hike the next morning.