http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/gimli-guts/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from gimli guts en-us Sat, 26 Dec 2009 09:54:21 +0000 Sat, 26 Dec 2009 09:54:21 +0000 So Brandi I have spent over a month in Alaska. We got here on time for the longest day of the year it was a dusky kind of light out until a little after midnight and we were told it was light again around 330 or 4 the next morning but neither of us could verify that. The weather has been sometimes sunny and beautiful but mostly gray and often rainy. It never gets really cold or really hot http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Alaska/Ketchikan/blog-298849.html So we just drove up to Prince Rupert in British Columbia from Muir Beach in California. It took about five days. We hung out at our friend Tori's cabin went on a beer hunt like an easter egg hunt but with beer played with a seesaw on the beach and got in a sea weed fight. The next night we stayed in Eugene Oregon which was uneventful just a place to stop. The next day we had lunch with ou http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/British-Columbia/Prince-Rupert/blog-284556.html The road trip came to an end Brandi and I were running out of cash and looking for a place to stop. It just so happened that our awesome friend Tori who was originally from Morgantown West Virginia but who we knew from SF was visiting DC. We met her there and went to Morgantown. It was super cheap and everybody was friendly. It was summer time so half the population the students were out http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/West-Virginia/blog-282762.html Hello everyone out there in blog land... So sorry we haven't been keeping this site up to date but it's often hard to find internet on the road and to spend time on the computer when there's so much else to see and do. For everyone who hasn't heard yet we've actually stopped traveling. We made it to Morgantown West Virginia and decided we didn't want to leave. So we rented a house with our f http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/West-Virginia/blog-166772.html So we left Athens having done little in the way of sight seeing and much in the way of stressing out over car troubles and sickness. The next stop was Atlanta Georgia. We knew the bus needed work but there wasn't a mechanic in Athens who could do it so we lined up a shop in Atlanta and that was our first stop. The Mechanics were so nice it was a little creepy. They took us to get food and http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Georgia/Atlanta/blog-160181.html On our way to Athens we ran out of the little amount of veg oil we had left and we were lucky enough to find a place along the way where we could get oil after much searching of course. So it took us quite a while longer than it should have to get to Athens but we made it by evening. We had everything lined up to stay with Anthony from couchsurfing and he was a pretty cool host. He even had http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Georgia/Athens/blog-160178.html After leaving Orlando we headed to Savannah GA because we had heard it was a neat historic place to check out. We only had a couple days there because we had a hard time finding people on couchsurfing.com to stay with. Wes caught a cold of some sort in Orlando and was really starting to feel sick on our first full day in Savannah so we rode our bikes into town and walked around a bit. Savannah http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Georgia/Savannah/blog-160177.html Orlando was surprisingly great. We had next to no interest in amusment parks thus we were far from the regular Orlando tourists. Our main reason for going there in the first place was because it is an ideal location for day trips around Florida but we didn't really want anything to do with Orlando itself. Then we met our couchsurfing hosts Jeff and Jason. These guys lived in an amazing littl http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Florida/Orlando/blog-153262.html While we were living in San Francisco we hosted people on couchsurfing. One of the people we hosted was a great guy named Louis who was travelling from Florida to see the Pogues a fantastic irish band in California. Every day he was at our house he said he'd leave the next day to go explore more of California and every time he decided to stay and we were happy to have him. Jump ahead five mo http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Florida/Gainesville/blog-148947.html Wes and I left Gainesville to make it to my Aunt Emilyrsquos house in Sarasota for Easter dinner. She lives there with her husband Michael and daughter Michelle in a house not far from the gulf coast and Siesta Key. Michaelrsquos family was in town for a family reunion so we got to meet some of his siblings and had a great Easter dinner with everyone. I hadnrsquot seen my aunt since our f http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Florida/Sarasota/blog-160173.html We drove to Orange Park Florida after leaving New Orleans. Due to bad weather and the length of the drive over 500 miles we stopped outside of Tallahassee for the night on the way there rather than doing the whole drive in a day. We also lost our dashboard lights a while back so driving at night requires a flashlight and isnrsquot too fun... So we made it to Orange Park where my Brandir http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Florida/blog-148935.html Wes writing We drove into town on March 18th and found our way to our couchsurfing host Ben who almost immediately took us out to ldquothe Alamordquo a friends house which looks strikingly like the Alamo for homemade corned beef and cabbage it was the day after Saint Patrickrsquos Day. Ben lives with Walker in a rebuilt shotgun style house on the second floor. The first was still http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Louisiana/New-Orleans/blog-148931.html Where do I even start about Austin Be prepared this might be a long entry. The night we arrived it was raining buckets bolt lightning would illuminate the sky every minute or so and the thunder would clap so crisp and hard car alarms would go off. And in the middle of all of that you could still walk around at night in a tshirt and shorts I was enthralled. Our first couch surfing host Val http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Texas/Austin/blog-140972.html We just figured out how to publish a map of our travel route. It's listed in our profile the first part of the website you read that has all the about us info. You can copy the link to the map and open it up on a new page. We'll update it every once in a while so when you get a new blog entry link to the map again to see how it's grown http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Texas/Austin/blog-138612.html After we finally got out of Santa Rosa we drove down south. Thought we'd check out Roswell try to find some aliens or something... But the town seemed well pretty lame. So we just kept driving. We made it down to Carlsbad and found this really interesting RV park campground called surprise Carlsbad RV Park. I definitely recommend staying there if you're in the area. At the RV park ther http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/New-Mexico/blog-137618.html We spent one full day at the grand canyon. We would have spent more but we're trying to get to New Orleans by the 8th. My experience in the canyon made me want to go back when we have more time. I'd love to get all the way to the bottom then up the other side. I'd never seen it before Brandi had only been there once it was amazing. The canyon just goes on and on for days with all these distin http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Arizona/Grand-Canyon-National-Park/blog-135349.html We forogt to add some info on Santa Rosa New Mexico. One important thing if you go there please go to Mateo's Restaurant. The owner is Dodie she is so sweet. By the time we left there we would order the regular for breakfast and she knew what we wanted The other thing I cut all my hair off The dreads got left in Albuquerque and then in Santa Rosa I had Wes shave it all off except f http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/New-Mexico/blog-137629.html We spent a good while in Phoenix taking full advantage of the couchsurfing network. And I gotta say the Phoenix couchsurfers are the cream of the crop. They have a tight knit community of hosts who party with each other and know how to host a guest. We got free maps meals and at least one night of debauchery. If I'm not mistaken every single person we hit up got back to us though not all c http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Arizona/Phoenix/blog-135357.html On our way out of the L.A. area we stopped for a few days at my friend Sunshine's house. She lives in El Cajon it rained a bit which helped us find and repair a few leaks in Gimli. One night we went to the Gas Lamp district downtown and went to a bar called Shout. There are two pianos on stage and several pianistsingers who would rotate in and out playing requests. It was all very slapstic http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/blog-135352.html It is really lucky for the park service that there happens to be SSSOOOO many Joshua Trees in the park. The place is just full of em. One of the things we REALLY liked about that particular national park is it costs 5 dollars to camp there. FIVE DOLLARS that's our kind of camping. Grand Canyon is almost thirty a night. Anyways there was many things we loved about Joshua Tree. We went on a day h http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/California/Joshua-Tree-National-Park/blog-135355.html