Memorial Weekend in St. Charles

Friday my Aunt Theresa and Uncle Richard took Kyle and I out to dinner in downtown St. Charles. There was an Irish Festival going on downtown so we went to have a few beers and listen to the live Irish music after dinner.

Me, Aunt Theresa & Uncle Richard at the Irish Festival

After that Kyle and I went to the Ameristar, the river boat casino in St. Charles. The van was too tall to fit in the parking garage, so we had to park with the semi's and RV's off site & a security guard had to drive us back to the casino. As we were in the car with the security, we started to make conversation and he told us that he used to be a pitcher for the Giants back in 1958 & 1959! His name is Joe Shipley. We could hardly believe it! When we got into the casino, Kyle put $20 in a slot machine and on his first pull he won $108! His luck didn't end there, he won twice more... once was on a penny slot that we couldn't pass up - it was a "Road Trip" slot machine that had pictures of California, the Grand Canyon, Memphis and NY - he put $1 in and on his first pull he won $8 (big money)! All in all, we drank and played slots for free that evening.

Yesterday we went for a bike ride around St. Charles and realized that it's not the most bike friendly city... but made it home in one piece (barely).

The weather went from high 50s on Friday to mid 80s today. We had a photo op with my Grandma this morning.

Kyle, my Grandma & me

The van parked on the side of my Grandma's house

St. Charles Bound

Yesterday we left Memphis and headed for my Grandma's house in St. Charles Missouri. As we left Tennessee and passed back through Arkansas and into southern Missouri the evidence of the weather was present. We saw a trailer completely overturned, billboards blown off or broken and lots more flooding! Once we crossed into Missouri the landscape started to have more hills, and less flooding. We were so happy to make it to my Grandma's house - and she was ready with lunch and dinner! Love that!!!

As we were leaving Tennessee it was a beautiful sunny day

An then there were storm clouds over head... yikes!

In Cape Girardeau, Missouri there is lots of flooding

(this is right off I-55)

Cape Girardeau

Cape Girardeau

Finally... some dry ground....

...and high ground

The Storm in Memphis

We waited out the bad day (Thursday) in Memphis in a hotel. We were lucky that we stayed safe, but the storm was a sight to be seen. It actually passed over as the sun was setting, and the sky was lit up like a fire in the sky!

We also went the the famous Beale Street while we were in Memphis. They have music notes on the ground with famous musician's names on them, similar to the stars in Hollywood. We came across Al Green's name who is not only one of our favorites, he sang the song to our last dance when we got married, "Let's Stay Together," so I had to get a photo:

Beale Street

Beale Street

Arkansas

Here are a few photos from when we drove through Arkansas. It was so lush, jungly (if that's a word) and wet! There were many parts of the state that were flooded.

A crop field flooded

Trees under water

The Mississippi River overflow cutting off a road

Our first time crossing the Mississippi River on this trip

heading into Memphis, Tennessee

The Great Mississippi

Memphis BBQ

Today we ended up in Memphis, TN after leaving Ft. Smith, OK in our continuous fight to dodge tornadoes. The weather seemed stable there and a good place to go stay a night. We have had to switch from camping to staying in hotel due to all the thunderstorms, strong winds and heavy rain.  The silver lining to the trip to Memphis was Tom's BBQ. Jen had looked it up on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-ins and Dives website. This place was awesome. I had the jumbo pulled pork sandwich combo with seasoned fries. The pulled pork was cooked perfectly and the meat was lean and not filled with a lot of fat. They topped it with their house BBQ sauce and coleslaw. I ate the meal in about 2 minutes. Jen had the regular sized pulled pork sando also with seasoned fries. As we were leaving the owner, Adam came in. We could tell it was the owner since there were pictures up in the restaurant of when he was on the show. He came up to us and asked us if that was our van out in the parking lot. We said hell yes it was and he loved it. We talked for about 5-10 minutes. He was so excited people from California had come all this way to try his food he ended up giving us a sampler rack of 6 ribs to go along with 2 strawberry shortcakes. It was awesome!!!!!!

Tornado Watch

We left Foss Lake in Oklahoma yesterday about 8:30. We were planning to head east on I-40 to Oklahoma City, then head northeast on I-44 through Tulsa and into Missouri through Joplin. We were told by the park ranger before we left that Joplin, Missouri had been hit by a tornado the night before! This was crazy to us because we had contemplated leaving a day early and stayed at Foss Lake an extra day just by chance... our good luck. The town was a disaster zone and the weather was still risky. So we re-routed and headed East towards Arkansas. About 5 hours later we were in Fort Smith, AR and decided to get a hotel rooom and stay the night. As we were watching the news we realized how severe the tornado was in Joplin - "the largest tornado in our country in 60 years." Even the hotel receptionist who helped us said she has several family members in Joplin who she hadn't heard from yet. The risk, as with earthquakes, is a second occurance. We stayed glued to the weather channel and the internet - and it turned out that Fort Smith had a severe thunderstorm warning, a tornado warning and a flash flood warning, but we were just happy to have shelter. Up until about 9:00pm the weather was muggy and windy, but no rain. Between 9:15 and until well after 11:00 there was a massive storm. Rain, wind, thunder, lightening & the darkest clouds I have ever seen in the distance. The water level right out side our room came close to coming in, people were stopping their cars on the road to take cover, and the rain fell like it was be thrown from buckets in every direction - it was pure insainity! We tried to take photos, but it was hard to capture the adrenaline of it. Now we sit in the room wondering what to do, as the weather station shows tornado warning for all of Missouri (where we are headed), Arkansas (where we are), Oklahoma (where we were) and Kanasas (we don't plan on going there anyway).

Rain falling in sheets

The sky is lightened from the lightening

The ground outside our room, water level quickly rising

3 States & 3,000 Miles

Yesterday morning we woke up in New Mexico and headed for Amarillo, Texas. We got there about 2:30, just about when our odometer got to 84,462 miles (which was 3000 miles that we have traveled already), and tried to find a BLM (Bureau of Land Management) office for directions on where to find free camping only to realize it was closed because it’s Saturday! We wanted to get some Texas BBQ while in Amarillo, and decided to try a place out that Kyle had seen on Man vs. Food called The Big Texan Steak Ranch. On the show the host takes the 72oz steak challenge (that’s 4 lbs of steak)! If you finish the dinner, which includes salad, baked potato, beans, deep friend shrimp & 2 rolls, in an hour you get the meal for free. We did not take the challenge, but a guy did while we were there. He was asked to sit at a special table elevated for our viewing pleasure, was introduced by his waiter before he started and a huge timer clock illuminated behind him as a friendly reminder of the minutes he has left to finish his dinner. I think the stage fright alone would intimidate me much less the huge portion of meat!! It was a real taste of Texas, the food was good, relatively inexpensive and the service was great. Kyle had his Giants hat on and got several comments about it (like, “Oh, You had to put that hat on today, did ya?”) since the Giants beat Texas in the world series last year… we didn’t even think about it, but probably not the best hat to wear in this area!! After dinner? or lunch? (I’m not sure what meal it was since it was about 4:00)… we decided to keep heading East to look for camping. We made it all the way to Oklahoma and found Foss Lake State Park (about 150 miles West of Oklahoma City). Oklahoma is far more green and had a much more interesting landscape than the flat dry plains of Texas. We arrived at Foss Lake about 7:30 and it was still 85 degrees out. We sat outside until well after 10:00 in our shorts and tank tops… this was the weather we have been dying for! We decided we would stay put another day and possibly head for Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri tomorrow (however they are predicting rain, so anything could happen…), but for today, we are going to enjoy Foss Lake in the heat.

Our campsite in the Santa Fe National Forest on the Pecos River

There is nothing in the Texas landscape...

not even a cloud in the sky

The Big Texasn Steak Ranch: Home of the 72oz Steak Challenge

I don't think you can see it in this photo, but the oval to the left of "The BIG TEXAN"

says "Everything IS Bigger in Texas" - In case there was any doubt.

Did I mention this place is a motel too?

In case you are too comatosed to drive out of the parking lot.

Kyle totally fit in (except for the hat)

Our campsite at Foss Lake in Oklahoma

Hot Summer Nights

New Mexico - The Land of Enchantment

The road to New Mexico was long because it was windy, but it did give us an opportunity to view some wildlife. We saw a family of deer right at the boarder of Colorado and New Mexico and we were very excited to see several families of Antelope all through the dry grassy plains outside of Santa Fe. The terrain from Colorado to Santa Fe is actually very beautiful and interesting. We took the opportunity while in a bigger city to go to a restaurant for lunch that I found on one of our Food Network iphone aps; Diners, Drive Ins & Dives. The place is called Tune Up Cafe and it was fantastic! I would highly recommend it if you ever go to Santa Fe. I ordered the enchilada special which was filled with veggies & tofu and had a tomatillo sauce, served with rice & beans. Kyle had a soft shell crab sandwich that was also very good. They had homemade lemonade and watermelon lemonade that was delicious and several home baked desserts that looked amazing, but we didn’t try. We found free camping again last night, in the Santa Fe National Forest… and the weather was very pleasant (thank goodness!!). And for the first time yet, I am blogging while in route (on our way to Amarillo, Texas)!

The Fearless Captain of the Van

Rained Out & Re-Routed

Yet again our plans changed spur of the moment. We thought we would spend Wednesday in Boulder, Thursday tour the Coors factory and Friday head east on I-70 through Kansas in route for St. Charles (just east of St. Louis) to visit some of my family. Mother Nature had other plans in mind… rain and snow. We ended up spending a very wet rainy day driving through Boulder only seeing the city from our van. Kyle offered to brave the rain with me to explore the town and I kindly rejected the offer, mostly because it was not only wet (and I mean crazy down pours), but cold! So after seeing as much as possible of Boulder by car we went looking for a camping spot. We headed towards a campground outside only 13 miles outside of Boulder, but up towards Rocky Mountain National Park. When we were still about 9 miles away (and headed steadily up in elevation) the rain turned to snow. The forecast did not show a stop in the rain for days. I was not worried we would get to the campground, but getting down off the mountain in the morning after it had snowed all night could be a problem for the van. Not the kind of situation I was trying to get ourselves into. So we turned around and headed back through Boulder towards another campground we had researched called Barr Lake. We hoped by going to lower elevation we would avoid the snow. We got past Boulder and on the outskirts of town we passed the county fairgrounds and their campground. We decided to take it as we had been driving around for hours and the rain was non-stop. The campground was like a swamp from the rain, and it didn’t stop raining all night. From the research we did there was rain forecast all through Colorado, Kansas & Missouri for the next week…. What to do? This rain is too much! Head South! Viva New Mexico!! We woke up early Thursday morning, were on the road by 6:30 and we made it to Trinidad (“We Saved the Best for Last”… ‘cause it’s the last town in Colorado) and camped at Trinidad Lake State Park. It was super windy, but no rain, and no snow (are we ever going to catch a break with the weather?)! We even got to fish for the second time this trip and the first time out of California! No fish bites, but we did see mountain lion tracks, a feeding frenzy swarm of sparrows, coyote calls in the night and little cotton tail bunnies. We’re dying to see some wild life!

This is how bad the wind was blowing!

Trinidad Lake at Sunset

Denver

Tuesday morning we headed for Denver through the rest of the Rocky Mountains. The highest pass was at 11,115 ft and the van made it (barely)! We passed through some very cute towns and LOTS of snow. Our favorite was a town called Frisco where we stopped for coffee. It is the gateway town to Breckenridge Mountain and reminded us a lot of Truckee. The Giants played the Rockies at 1:10 in the afternoon and we got to the stadium with plenty of time to purchase tickets… good ones at that: 18^th row up from 3^rd base. The Giants didn’t come out with a win, but it was a great game non the less and we totally enjoyed seeing a game at Coors Field. After the game we met up with a friend and customer of Kyle’s, Brad Jester, at his house and met his wife, Christa and his daughter, Ella. Kyle talked to Brad every day while working at Earthbound, but they had never met in person before, yet Brad and Christa were not only totally cool, but fed us, gave us booz, and offered to let us stay in their guest room (luxury!). We totally hit it off with them and by the end of the night we felt like old friends. We were so appreciative of the hospitality.

A town on the mountain side in Colorado

The mountainous terraine

A view from the van front window

The snow! Lots of it!

The resorts were not open, but it looked like they could have been

Frisco, Colorado

The semi in front of us with flashers on too

More snow!

A small mining town in the Rockies

Our route so far

Kyle & the van in the parking lot at the Giant's game

Kyle at Coors Field

We stood at the field level while the players warmed up