Everything you need to know from 24 days on the road!

Bests:

Best homemade preserves, bread, everything else: Marilyn in Deer Park, WA

Best pizza: Jupiter in Berkeley, CA

Best donut: Voodoo Donuts in Portland, OR

Best Travel buddy: (can I answer this one without offending a family member?) Leann

Best host: I cannot answer this. I was truly, truly blessed!

Best home-cooked “Midwestern” meal: juiciest hamburgers of my life made by Vic in Seattle

Best lunch: Thai (both in Deer Park…Yum! And in Colorado Springs with Dad and Jim…their first Thai!)

Best car snack: dried mango and berries from Costco in Chicago, IL

Best home-cooked breakfast: Marilyn’s pancakes in Deer Park, WA

Best bought breakfast: blackberry pancakes at Wade’s Café in Colorado Springs, CO

Best Groupon: Crepes Francaise in downtown Colorado Springs, CO (it was much more expensive than I expected. We wouldn't have gone with the Groupon)

Best Yelp suggestion: Bridgeview Inn in Chamberlain, South Dakota

Best Couchsurfing hosts: Eric, Kathy, and Blaze in Colorado Springs, CO

Best chain hotel: Courtyard by Marriott in Las Vegas, NV

Best Gas Price: $2.53/gal in Missouri

Best carrot nickname: “nature’s popsicle” from Deer Park, WA

Best unexpectedly borrowed tool: the Garmin that the Browns loaned us in Madison, WI

Best gas station purchase for the car: the 3 in 1 car charger that fit in the cup holder!

Best car tool: the 3-prong wall charger to car charger converter (I could charge EVERYTHING in my car!)

Best world event I was apart of: the grand opening of the new Hoover Dam Bypass in Hoover Dam, NV (it was featured in last week’s USA Today)

Best news I received on the road: Kylie’s birth (my cousin’s baby)

Best “thank you” present I received: the blackberry tea candle from Jim bought in Old Colorado City, CO

Best new friend I’ve made: Wendy in Deer Park, WA

Best late night conversation: Blaze in Colorado Springs, CO

Worsts:

Worst meal: the fly in mayo at Subway outside of the Redwood Forrest

Worst breakfast: grilled jelly and oatmeal at our campsite at the Grand Canyon

Worst gas station snack: dried papaya from Greybull, WY

Worst item that got left behind: huge Costco sized Dove ultra moisturizing shampoo and conditioner in Seattle, WA

Worst case of taxidermy freak out: a little store in Alsea, OR

Worst set back: hitting an animal on the first day (4 hour delay!)

Worst accident when I was in a hurry: the blow out of the bladder of my camel bag on our way to Pike’s Peak…needless to say, we didn’t make Pike’s Peak til the next day

Worst wifi hotspot: the Hilton in Las Vegas (16.99 a day! No thanks!)

Worst Gas Price: $4.59/gal along the coast of California at a little gas station ran by a sneaky little old man (it was a dollar more a gallon than anywhere else around! ie: Santa Barbara was only $3.09)

Worst traffic jam: 4 miles in 45 minutes at Hoover Dam, NV

Mosts:

Most boring stretch: toss-up between Kansas and the Eastern side of Wyoming

Most exciting stretch of road: Yellowstone, WY

Most beautiful stretch of road: the Californian coastline

Most taxing on my body: all the time changes back to the Midwest. Ugh.

Most taxing on my ability to breathe: Jim’s smoking. Ugh.

Most memorable shower: the pay showers at the Grand Canyon campgrounds (8 quarters = 8 minutes!)

Most expensive tolls: Illinois - $4.20 (the only others were in Kansas - $2.50)

Most pointless National Monument: Four Corners (though we’d do it again!)

Favorites:

Favorite people I met: the people of Christ’s Church of Deer Park in Deer Park, WA

Favorite baby: Olivia…the walking cabbage patch doll...I love her little laugh!

Favorite dog: just kidding…you all had dogs, except Jenny…she had cats, super soft cats… I loved them all: Bennington (and the other two), Gypsy, Jessie, Frida*, Buddy, Elsie, & Bristol!

Favorite bridge: Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, CA

Favorite national landmark: Mt Rushmore, SD

Favorite national park: Redwood Forrest, CA

Favorite mountain to explore: Mt Spokane in Spokane, WA

Favorite volcano: Mt St Helen, WA

Favorite train ride up a mountain: the COG railroad up Pike’s Peak in Colorado Springs, CO

Favorite “dam” joke: “You all know our official photograph policy, right? Take all the dam pictures you want. Hehehe…” – our weird little underground tour guide at the Hoover Dam, NV

Favorite animal sighting: bison in the road in Yellowstone, WY

Favorite Museum: tie: the Getty in LA, CA and the Pioneer Museum in Colorado Springs, CO

Favorite geek out moment: walking around the soundstages of Chuck on the WB lot in Los Angeles, CA

Favorite Hollywood star: Charlie Chaplin’s on Hollywood Blvd in LA, CA

Favorite city that we drove through too fast: San Francisco

Favorite movie to reference during this adventure: So I Married An Axe Murderer

Favorite Vegas show: Mac King Comedy Magic Show

Favorite slots in Vegas: Mermaids on the Fremont Street Experience

Favorite random sighting: a cowboy herding sheep in Big Horn Mountains

Favorite random sound: seals calling each other from the rocks in Crescent City, CA

Favorite state: Idaho

Favorite picture:

Favorite Souvenir: Geode necklace from the Western Mining Museum in Colorado Springs

Favorite roadside saying: “Raising a teenager is like trying to nail jelly to a tree” a storage unit saying in Washington State

Favorite random Indiana question: “You know that hamburger place that Indiana’s known for? C’mon, you know it… no, no, no…the other one…c’mon…” a guy in a coffee shop in Portland, OR (I ended up realizing he meant Steak N Shake) He also asked me repeatedly if I lived on a farm. I do not.

Favorite place to tell people I was from: “the Midwest” (sorry, I have no specific town or even state anymore. it’s been a weird decade)

Favorite state highway symbol: Washington State (it’s a bust of George Washington, not just a state shape…Kansas is a sun…weird…)

Favorite color of the road: pink

Favorite quiet place: The Writing Lab in Santa Monica, CA

Favorite cd: Megan's random mix

Favorite activity with Mom: driving through the mountains of WY, MT and Idaho

Favorite activity with Catie & Kelly: traipsing about in the Redwood Forrest

Favorite activity with Leann: camping in Grand Canyon

Favorite activity with Dad & Jim: the Pike’s Peak train

Numbers:

Number of water bottles left: 2

Number of boxes of cereal left: 1 ½

Number of pounds of prunes left: 3 (I got on the road and realized they would not actually be a good snack)

Number of travel buddies that didn’t leave something in my car: 0

Number of pictures: 6,955**

Number of state license plates I saw: 37 out of 50 (plus I saw 2 Canadian plates and a couple government plates)

Number of wild animals: 11 (deer, sheep, big horn sheep, cows, horses, buffalo, bison, turkey, elk, pronghorn, seal/sea lions) ... I'm not counting all the unique birds I saw; the number would be much higher... seriously a blue pigeon!

Number different “beware of ______” signs: 7 (deer, big horn sheep, mountain lion, horse, elk, cow, some kind of bird)

Number of wild animal I wanted to see but didn’t: 1 (bear!)

Number of celebrities I saw in LA: 7

Number of sleeping bags I carried with me: 2

Number of tents I carried with me: 1

Number of people who could have fit in the tent: 6

Number of times the tent was used: 1

Number of people in the tent when it was used: 2

Number of days I was on the road: 24 days and 3 hours

Number of states I traveled through: 18

Number of gas station stops: 25

Number of pages in my $ tracking ledger: 6

Everything Else:

Total hours of driving completely by myself: 29 (5 Deer Park to Seattle, 4.5 LA to Vegas, 19.5 Colorado Springs, CO to Kokomo, IN) – this doesn’t count all the alone driving in LA

Longest solo drive: Topeka, KS to Kokomo, IN (10 straight hours!)

Shortest solo drive: my cousin’s house to Hollywood Museum (3 blocks)

Amount left in my checking account: $19.79

Lowest Elevation: sea level

Highest Elevation: 14,110 feet

Average speed: 68mph

Average mpg: 31.5

Starting mileage: 141,955

End mileage: 148,324

Total mileage: 6,369

Well, my dear friends, I think that about sums it up. If there is anything else you would like to know about the past month, please feel free to ask***.

Thank you so much for following this. On the road, I’d think of you all often. I referred to this blog as my “job” though honestly it’s become a job that I’ve loved. Sorry for the blank spaces. I know some of you (mom) were disappointed when I didn’t update. I got the angry texts (mom!) and emails (MOM!). Haha… Sadly, not everywhere is as wifi compatible as they should be in 2010 (I’m looking at you, Vegas!). I hope you’ve been as entertained reading about it, as I have been living it. Honestly, if anyone knows where I can get a job traveling and writing it up, just let me know.

Thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart…

--the nomad

*I’m ashamed to admit I had to ask for the name of Brent and Martha’s dog. I forgot her name. darn it!

**And the winner is…. Aunt Becky with the guess of 6,839! Hooray! I’ll deliver your prize in person next week. How’s that? J

***I will not be closing this blog. I intend on continually writing in here. After all, what really makes this adventure over? Nothing. I’m saying at my mom’s until the weekend and then I’m off again to Cincinnati for a few days. After that, God only knows…I still wish He’d let me in on at least a bit of it. But, ah…adventure! J