Day 4: Goin' Back to Cali...

Hey! As most of y'all realize, we are a whole day behind on all our blogs...but when we get somewhere we're so tired we don't have the energy to type.

BUT....we are in Los Angeles!! We made it!! We got to our friend Brady's at about 4:00 (Pac time) yesterday.

The drive through Arizona and into California was awesome. We were hoping that it would be our shortest driving day and I think it was, but we were on the road for 7 hours. I had convinced Matt to stop and get out at the California state sign, but when we crossed the line the sign was on the side of a huge bridge crossing the Colorado River...and wasn't the safest place to stop! We entered California in the Mojave' Desert. It was crazy! I have never seen a real desert and this was it! About 30 minutes in, Matt looked down at the car thermometer and it was 107 degrees outside!! We also had to get gas in the desert for a whopping $3.89 a gallon!! We kept thinking we were closer than we were to LA, but when we hit it, we knew (The temp. had also dropped about 20 degrees). Crazy traffic and we had to get on about 6 different (and scary) highways to get to Brady's.

Brady lives in Hermosa Beach(in between Rodondo beach and Manhattan beach) and it is really beautiful. We went down to the beach and bellied up to a bar to watch the Phillies game (fun, fun...)! We went out later to some cool bars and met up with some of Brady's friends. I was completely entertained by two of them that work on that TV show "medium" starring Patricia Arquette. I've never watched it before but I might now because it was fun hearing about exactly what they did for the show. One was the final editor and the other was a costume assisstant in charge of keeping continuity from scene to scene with the clothes of all the characters...I thought this was cool.

We dropped Matt's car off at the shipping dock this morning and headed into Hollywood and Beverly Hills with Brady for the grand tour. I still have to upload the pics. from that, so one of us will write about it later.

Love You! Miss You!!

Day 3: New Mehico

Day 3: New Mehico

Sorry for posting this last blog a little late but I got lazy. We woke up in Amarillo and got moving. I was still full from the Big Texan the night before but decided to eat at a place called, simply, Donuts. That's Texas for you. Simple, big, and Texas. After eating at Donuts (which reminded me of an old bar in my hometown called Bar) we got on the road. Texas became New Mexico very quickly and Oklahoma seemed a long way away.

What the OK state lacked, those up to date latinos had. The state was rugged, rocky, and just cool. I truly have never seen anything like it. Every other turn had us careening through canyons and crevices on a highway too curvy too take your eyes off of. This made the drive worth it. We took this trip to save money and Jersey from en extra-long plane ride. But we both knew that we wanted to see parts of America we never had in a way we may never again. It was worth it.

We ended this day in Flagstaff, AZ. This place is also a sight, tucked away 6000 ft above sea level in a nook of Arizona. We found out that it is a college town. Northern Arizona University. Don't ask me anything else about the college because we spent the rest of the night drinking margaritas at a cantina on main street. Then we realized that we were 3 hours off our preferred time zone and went home (Motel 6 again and the dirtiest one yet) to bed.

The pictures say it all (I hope). If you ever have a chance to drive through New Mexico do it.

Amarillo by Morning...

Matt and I actually really enjoyed our night in Amarillo, Texas. We were lucky enough to stumble upon the famous "Big Texan Steakhouse" for dinner. It is home of the free 72 oz. steak (if you eat it in an hour) and was voted one of Maxim Magazines' top 10 steakhouses in the country. It was really good...I even ate a filet (6 ozs., mind you).

This was my first ever visit to Texas and I am now a believer...Everything really is bigger in Texas (except for Motel 6 rooms)! Bigger people, bigger hair, bigger hats...etc. Check out the pics. of us in front of the Big Texan cow!! I truely loved everything about the Texas panhandle...and couldn't help being really excited about being in the home state of Jessica and Ashley Simpson (Just Kidding!...kind of).

The rest of the night at the good ole Motel 6 was fine...no unwanted visitors/calls here. We headed out of Amarillo at about 9:30 this morning (central time) after making a necessary stop at The Donut Shop...yum! I hope our nice, new Thinner scale breaks while in route to Hawaii. It would be best if I stayed away from it for awhile after this calorie laden roadtrip!!

We're headed to Flagstaff, Arizona!!

Day 2: Okla@#$%^homa!!

Woke up in Little Rock this morning and it was 94 degrees! 94! At 9 AM! Consider this. I am out of shape and have been eating nothing but greasy burgers and fries for the past week. By the time I loaded the car, I had effectively taken two showers in 20 minutes. The second one tasted a lot saltier.

Today was a long, painful day of driving. One road and mostly one state. Oklahoma may be the OK state but it just about sucks to drive through. Beautiful countryside, but that is about it. Enough to bore you to death. Not much more to say. We stopped at the Texas state sign and took pictures because Elizabeth said so. We ate McDonalds and Arby’s because it was easy and we listened to a bad sports radio station in Oklahoma because there was nothing else to do. The host claimed that Albert Pujols got robbed last year in the NL MVP. That pretty much solidified my opinion of this hack because any self respecting Philadelphian knows that Ryan Howard had better numbers (mostly) and Philly had a better record at seasons end. Nuff said!

Anyway, we are now in Amarillo, Texas (wherever the hell that is). We are about to go get something to eat and god forbid find a wireless connection somewhere to post these blogs. We’ll get the pics up ASAP. Tomorrow we are on to Flagstaff. Hope the drive has some good sights or at least a curve in the road. We miss everyone.

Day 1: ATL. to Little Rock

Day 1 down…3 to go! We made it to the slightly shady Motel 6 in Little Rock, Arkansas at about 7:00pm (central time) on Friday. It really isn’t too bad and we are just thankful for a "pet-friendly" place to stay.

We drove through 5 states today! I wanted to get out and take a picture by each welcome to our state sign, but Matt wasn’t really up for that, so I had to settle for taking the pictures as we were flying by the sign at 75mph. You’ll get the point though. We dropped Alex off in Oxford, Mississippi around 4:00. He was a good sport and allowed Jersey to sleep on him the whole way. We are very fortunate that Jersey is such a great car dog. She just curls up in the back and sleeps. She occasionally wakes up and just sits back there like a human looking out the window. I know she is wondering what the hell we are doing…poor thing!

We built Jersey’s crate at the motel and went out to dinner at a grill and pub in downtown North Little Rock. It was a decent place. Matt actually ordered a Philly cheese steak and said it was "okay". We had a deep conversation about why Arkansas is pronounced Arkan-saw, but Kansas is pronounced Kans-iss…something’s not right about that.

We didn’t stay out long…tired and wanted to play with Jersey some. At about midnight we were scared awake by someone trying to get into our room…always fun on the bottom floor of a motel. Thank God it was just a little girl and her mom who had gone to the wrong room (really?!). We also enjoyed when at 1:00am our Motel 6 room phone rang. I answered and had to tell the caller that "No, Yolanda was not there". The rest of the night was uneventful. We will head to Amarillo, Texas tomorrow!

Driving Cross Country...the remix

So sorry that we haven’t been able to blog in a while. Last week was crazy for us. Monday the Hawaii movers came, Tuesday the Goodwill donation people came (we had a lot for them!) and Wednesday we filled a U- haul full of the things that we are storing and took them to my grandmothers in Lavonia, Georgia to unload. On Thursday we went to Athens for the last time. We said goodbye to Ansley and my family…another sad goodbye. We also left my shiny Trailblazer. Even after the detailing, dumb Carmax didn’t see it’s true value, so my parents will be trying to sell it in Athens.

My brother, Alex, helped us to re-route our cross country trip which also helped him get back to Oxford, MS. So our trip has changed since we last updated. On Day 1 we leave Atlanta (with Alex and Jersey sharing half of the back seat), drop Alex off in Oxford, MS and then head on to Little Rock, AR for the night. On day 2 we’ll leave Little Rock headed through the entire state of Oklahoma and make it to Amarillo, Texas for night 2. Day 3 will see us leaving Texas and just passing through the state of New Mexico destined for Flagstaff, Arizona. On our last traveling day we’ll finish out Arizona, hit the bottom tip of Nevada and head to Los Angeles, CA to stay with our friend Mike Brady for 2 nights before we fly to Honolulu on Aug. 1st.
So that’s the new trip…we’ll keep you posted (or at least try)!

Almost Brand New!

YEA! My car looks brand new thanks to my sweet husband! Matt jammed the car radio and completly detailed the whole thing. I really did try and help, but he was on a mission and I think I just got in his way. My car looks great and we're goning to Carmax tomorrow to see what they'll give us for it (unless anyone out there is interested in a 2004 Chevy Trailblazer, Any takers?). Please note the car cleaning pics. The first step was emptying out the car...yes, all of that was in it! You can also see that Jersey Girl wasn't much of a help either...but she enjoyed laying around in the sunshine.

We had to say good-bye to more of our friends last night. TK and Greg and Dave and Amanda hosted a little Bar-B-Que for us. We had a great time, but saying good-bye wasn't easy. On the drive back to our place Matt and I were pretty bummed. We just have to keep reminding ourselves that it's not for forever and that we will have an awesome time. Also we know our friends will come visit us in Hawaii, right?!! But it is scary driving away from such wonderful friends and not really having any at your next stop.

The Hawaii movers come tomorrow morning at 9:00. So tonight is our last night with a decent bed and any TV! Yea! Maybe tomorrow tonight Matt will be so bored that he'll take me to go see the movie Hairspray...and I will love it!

Okay, it's 11:30pm but I don't want to go to sleep because I'm dreading tomorrow. Why? Is tomorrow the day we leave all of our family and friends? NO,...tomorrow is the day that Matt has designated as the day we clean out and detail my car!! AHHHHHHHHH!! Those who know me well or those who barely know me at all, but have had the pleasure of riding in my car , will realize that tomorrow will be a very, very long day. It will be a nightmare...I'm not even sure that Matt knows the depths and hallows of my car, although we could possibly find buried treasure...or something less appealing.


This whole week has been really hard. We are both so excited about the move, but the sorting of things (take to Hawaii, leave in storage, donate to Goodwill, throw away) is killing me! I have barely opened all of my beautiful wedding gifts and now I have to choose to leave many of them behind. That's been tough. Also very hard is the clothes issue. I'm obviously not taking my coats and sweaters, but I do clearly rememeber that girl from the MTV reality show "Maui Fever" (you know you watched it too) wearing hoodie sweatshirts fairly often. So...what's a girl to do? Apparently it is slightly chilly there sometimes so I might need to take all my clothes.

We've also spent this week spending time with friends and family that we won't see again for a long time. We were lucky enough to get to hang out one last time with our good friends Meg and David Arning in Knoxville, TN on Sunday. We traveled to Knoxville with our friend Shelby to see a SevenDust show(concert). We had an awesome time with Meg and David, the concert...well it wasn't half bad if you don't mind losing pretty much all of your hearing range. Matt is still claiming that his ears are ringing. We also didn't get back to Atlanta until about 4:45am. At least niether of us are working now, so it was all worth it to get to spend some quality time with Meg, David and Shelby. My Aunt Penley and Uncle Doug (and cousins Fielding and Jack) took us to dinner tonight as a send off. It was lovely.

Well, I'm going to try and sleep now. I'm sure I will have nightmares about little creatures coming out from between the back seats of my car...and then tomorrow I can meet them in person:)

This is the first time I have ever written a blog, which I always thought was for Michael Moore types, because I always thought it was a bit conceded to think anyone wanted to here what I had to say. But since this isn't about W's IQ or Bond's syringe collection I'll go with it.

The wedding and honeymoon are over and it is time to go to the next level. The honeymoon in Punta Cana was great. Beautiful beaches, clear water, lots of beach drinks, entertainment, and topless women (which Elizabeth seemed more fascinated with than me). The only bad part was the food, which after about 3 days gave you dysentery just looking at it. Anyway, Elizabeth and I decided to start this blog to help friends and family keep up with our move to and our life in Hawaii. At this point we are knee deep in boxes, bubble wrap, and closet junk. It is a bit of a nightmare going through years of collected waste and Elizabeths' closet. We have a good amount packed and ready to go, but we still have a mountain to climb.

Our plan right now is to ship our stuff to Hawaii on Monday June 23, take the rest to store on June 25, and head out on our drive to LA on June 27. We plan on stopping in such hot spots as Shreveport, LA, Odessa, TX, and Tuscon, AZ before reaching LA to spend 2 glorious nights with our friend Mike Brady. We fly to Hawaii on August 1. I am starting to get a bit upset, because I know I will miss everyone so much. But I also know that we are on a two year plan, we will be back, and this will be a great time not only to hang out in Paradise, but also to solidify our marriage. And I will keep up with this blog as long as you read it.