All posts by Chris

Straight from facebook: Sex: Male Age: 25 Hometown: Spartanburg, SC Political Views: Libertarian Religious Views: Objectivist Activities: Extreme Sports Interests: whitewater kayaking traveling motocross music Fast Cars Favorite Music: Counting Crows, OAR, Widespread Panic, Jimi Hendrix, Something Corporate, Hootie, sublime, Keller Wiliams, tool, nin, philip glass, ben harper, bob marley, string cheese incident, pink floyd, kronos quartet, the postal service, Dave Mathews, 311, Blues Traveller, Stevie Ray, BB king, pretty lights, Jane's Addiction Favorite TV Shows: I actually don't watch a lot of TV. We watch lots of movies around these here parts though. Always watching movies makes commercials much less irritating. Favorite Movies: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Boondock Saints, Requiem for a dream, The human stain Favorite Books: The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, The Plague, Being Good, The whale and the reactor, The Death of Industrial civilization, Everybody Poops Favorite Quotations: "Action is the enemy of thought" "To be truly challenged in this life that we live, it should be based on a firm foundation of financial unrest. So What will it be, bankruptcy of pocket or bankruptcy of soul?" "Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself." About Me: In the future batteries will work off of fusion and that'll be like carrying around our own little sun. Education and Work College: * Clemson '07 * Business, Marketing, Executive Leadership & Entrepreneurship High School: * Spartanburg High School '02 Employer: Illstreet Time Period: January 2003 - Present
Cross Country Trip, Travel

Moab, UT

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On Wednesday night we ended up stopping in Green River, Utah, about an hour outside of Moab. We weren’t tired or anything but we actually wanted to see the drive into Moab. Here we are driving one of the most scenic routes in the west…..in pitch black darkness. Green River didn’t really have much to offer; we couldn’t even order pizza once we got there because everything was closed by 11. We watched some Invasion episodes (Chris and I bought most of the series when a Hollywood Video was going out of business by his house. It has basically been what we watch anytime we turn on the tv. Its a sci-fi series that is about aliens taking over human bodies. We only have about 5 episodes left until we are done with it).

In the morning, we pay for our rv park and they give us a coupon for 3 cents off each gallon of gasoline!! (we saved about 50 cents) and a buy on get one free 6 inch Blimpie sub..(woohoo) AND a free bag of pop corn. We figure that had a retail value of about 4.50; which is always nice to save when you have already over drafted one of your debit cards (thanks Amelia for taking care of that for me). We arrive at Moab around 4 o’clock and started scouting out rv parks to stay at. We also went to a bunch of auto parts stores because Chris needed to get the rear wheel bearing replaced before our tire came off and we crashed. They finally found the parts at a store and the guy was super nice. By this point Chris called EVERY body shop in town and no one would fix it for us; Chris decided to just buy the tools he needed and fix it himself. (total cost for that, right around 100 dollars)

After driving through about 6 rv parks, we picked River Oasis Rv Park which is a few miles outside of town on the Colorado River. We pay our fee (30 dollars a night with our Good Sams Discount) and go to the spot the assign us. The guy working went on and on about how this is the best spot is the park and has the most shade there is. We pull in and walk out, there is zero shade and about a million mosquitoes. We go straight back up there to get our money back or get moved to a spot away from mosquito creek. We eventually move to a spot that is better and we get a 50 percent discount on buying 100 percent DEET bug spray.

So we spray up and open up our Yosemite beers (we had bought them before we camped overnight but hadn’t had a chance to drink them yet.) After settling in, we took the dirt bike into town to get some dinner. We went to this pretty nice pizza place that had a buffet but also had a full menu. (Chris has a thing about buffets and will not eat at one unless there is ample protection from germs; this one did not pass his standards) While waiting for our table, we went to the bar to grab a locally brewed beer. The waitress tells us that it is a private club and we needed to buy a 4 dollar membership to drink (with that membership we got 4 dollars off our meal so it evened out) About halfway through our beers, our name is called to eat. We carry our drinks out and we are stopped saying that we had to leave our beers at the exit of the bar area and have a waiter carry them to our table (some super weird Utah law, I have no idea what they gain by doing that).

Moab was awesome and we rented this really cool Rhino (offroading gocart thingy) to see the awesome wilderness there. Best 24 hours and 200 dollars spent ever. After wilderness camping we have a interesting KFC story to tell from our drive. We are now in denver and kayaked and drank beer. Almost over, I promise more updates soon.

Cross Country Trip, Travel

Nightmare in Nevada

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As most of you know from our earlier posts, the gas gauge on the rv does not work. It does move around sometimes but it never reflects how much gas we actually have. There has been a few times on this trip that we have thought we ran out of gas, but so far Grand Canyon was the only place it actually happened….until yesterday.

If any of you have ever been to Nevada, not including Los Vegas, you would know how bad our situation was. After my last post when we hung out in that McDonalds for 4 hours, we bought 38 dollars worth of gas. The gas pump clicked off so we thought we were good to go. We had been filling up intermittently when gas prices looked good.

I am driving while Chris is fixing things all over the inside of the rv. We are going though the desert and mountain ranges of Nevada where every ten miles or so, you might see an unmarked dirt road. We drive for almost an hour and then see a sign that says next gas 71 miles. (We hadn’t seen a gas station in our first hour of driving). We think nothing of it because we thought we had a full tank of gas…opppssiees, we were wrong.

The rv started skipping when I would push on the gas petal and then all of a sudden, the accelerator wouldn’t go anymore. I yell out to Chris and he comes up to the front and gets in the drivers seat. We couldn’t even pull off the road because there was a 4 or 5 foot drop on each side covered with gravel. We coasted until we completely stopped; we were parked in the road in the middle of NO WHERE.

Here is where the next problem comes in, that gas tank we are supposed to keep on the back for these situations has only less than a gallon in it; meaning we could only get 10 miles or so on that.

Another problem; we have zero cell phone and internet service. Yes I do have aaa but that doesn’t help if you can’t call them to bring out extra gas to you.

And one last problem; the nearest gas station is 65 miles each way. We used the GPS to try and figure out where we could drive the dirt bike to and fill up the gas tank. Well not only is a 130 mile round trip a long time to be on the dirt bike, but the 5 gallon tank won’t even get us all the way to the gas stations.

How does someone get out of this situation?? Well I don’t know about normal people but Chris and I loaded up our under a gallon in extra gas and started the rv. We were hoping that we could at least get off the road to prevent an accident. It takes a minute or so to start up because we were so empty. Chris starts moving again wheennn……

We see a small factory and a few trucks on the right hand side. They had a parking lot that we could pull over in and maybe get a landline to call for help. This was the first building we had seen since we left the small town so we were sooooo lucky that we ran out of gas right there. You might think that’s the end but there is more…

This happened to be a factory that made gasoline. (Yes I know that is not the official term, refinery for crude oil ect. Just accept it for the point of the story) Who runs out of gas right in front of a gas factory??? We walk in the building and meet a young guy named Bruce who just happened to be filling up one of the company cars to go into town. He said even though they are completely not allowed to give any gas to non employees, he agrees to give us a few gallons after filling up his car. Then another employee pulls in needed gas so Bruce said he would give us a couple gallons from his fill up too.

We were saved. After we got 8 gallons of the freshest gas this old rv has ever had in it. We tried to offer Bruce some money for the gas to pay for it or at least so he can buy a case of beer or something on us. He refuses and said it was the right thing to do to help us out.

Chris and I were so astonished that this actually happened to us. We got back on the road and made it to the gas station with plenty to spare (although it took us almost 200 dollars to fill it back up) In that little town we got some Mexican food and then drove another 80 miles to an rv park for the night where we got to take SHOWERS. (you would be that excited too if you had to sit next to us in a restaurant) We are currently in Utah, about 5 hours from Moab, and plan on spending tonight and tomorrow night there. Hopefully we stay out of trouble for those couple hours and don’t worry, we will pay WAY more attention to the gas level after that scare.

Cross Country Trip, Travel

Yosemite National Park

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(To inspire you to read all of this and forgive me for not keeping up with the blog I will fill you in on some cool facts: yes we did actually see a bear, Chris hit something in the rv, I got pulled over, and we had a near death experience. I know you are excited to read now)

On Sunday afternoon we left Los Angeles (happily because we were done with all the traffic, smog, and basically LA in general. We grabbed some Subway (with guacamole again, all of the Subways down south should add that to their menu). We were staying in the Asian side of town and right across from Subway there was a jewelry store (I had completely ruined all of my Tiffany’s bracelets from being in the hot tub the night before, they were literally like a matte ugly grey color). I went in to see if they would clean them for me and the guy cleaned them and they looked perfect again. I asked him if I owed him anything for cleaning them (I have never gotten jewelry cleaned before so I didn’t know if it cost anything or what) and the guy said it was $20 cash. I thought that was super expensive and I only had 14 dollars on me. So him and I went back and forth for about 5 minutes (he didn’t speak much English) but I got away with only paying the $14 (my daddy would be proud of my bardering skills)

After that Chris and I went to this Asian Appliance company (Chris is trying to tell me now that it was called Happy Feel Good but I don’t believe him). Anyways we were looking for a small portable air conditioner because it is super HOT driving down the road with only the windows open. We look at a bunch of them and then decide to buy one for around $60 dollars. We go outside to the rv in the parking lot and fill this little machine with water (it works with water and ice). We plug it in and suddenly the thing started smoking and dripping water from a bunch of cracks. Let’s just say that we took that thing back so fast, we didn’t even have time to put it in the box. We didn’t want the rv to burn down! After those two excursions we decided it was defiantly time to get out of LA and head to Yosemite.

The drive there wasn’t too bad other than a couple miles of %6 grade through the mountains. A lot of the drive was actually pretty scenic. We even got to stop at a Camping World and Walmart to stock up on supplies. (We had been looking to stop at a Camping World since we left for the trip. Every time we pass them, they are closed or too far out of the way. We actually carried a 40 dollar vent with us, not small either, that we finally got to return and get out of the rv.)

So after about 5ish hours of driving, we pass through Fresno and start heading into Yosemite. We went in the south entrance and as we were going in there was TONS and TONS of traffic on this single land road, all heading away from the park. Chris and I started to get really worried that the park was being evacuated because of all the fires in California right now. Chris went to the Yosemite website on his phone and said that the air quality there is very poor right now from the fires which made us even more nervous; but of course we keep going. Well we realized all the traffic was from this HUGE casino right outside the park and were very happy it wasn’t an evacuation.

Chris had looked up a campsite right outside the park and around 12:30 we drove down into it hoping to plug in and sleep. The place was full and $45 !?!? a night for this crappy parking lot where all the rvs were packed in like sardines. Luckily the weather was cold enough that we decided to keep on driving and not plug in for the night (there were no more rv plug ins on the way to the park). We drive on the curvy road for another 45 minutes wondering how big of a mistake we had made going in this far until we pull up to Fish Camp, a mile from the entrance to the park. We pull down and guess what, ONE spot left (Chris and I can’t even count how many times we have gotten lucky and taken the last spot.) We pull in and go right to sleep.

In the morning we wake up and walk over to the entrance to figure out what we want to do for the day. We talk to the very nice campsite manager and he gives us a map and some information. He also tells us that there is a small waterfall just up the road. Chris and I walked up there to see it and Chris said he had kayaked bigger waterfalls than that. Haha but it was a nice start to the day. We get back and there was this creek right behind out campsite. When we were going to the waterfall we saw a bunch of Mexicans trying to fish in it but they left by the time we came back. Chris and I made some lunch and went to eat it by the creek. Our feet were in the water and all of a sudden we started to see crawfish EVERYWHERE. In our little area there were at least 6. Of course Chris decided he needs to start catching some and after feeding one of them some of his quesidilla, he got one. Overall, it was a pretty cool start to our day.

We packed up and drove into the park (saving 20 dollars with our sweet National Park Pass). Right through the entrance was the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. They wouldn’t let the rv down the road so we unloaded the dirt bike and rode off to see the big trees.

chris-and-fallen-tree reese-and-fallen-tree

Now although these trees aren’t as tall as the coastal redwoods (they grow to 628 feet tall and the ones we saw top out around 310 feet) It was about a mile hike out to see the Grizzly Giant (one of the largest trees in Mariposa Gove and is estimated to be about 2700 years old). The branches on top are 7 feet in diameter!

chris-and-the-biggest-tree reese-and-the-biggest-tree

1/4 mile further there is the Clothespin Tree which you can walk through or stretch out in like Chris and I did. We knew that we didn’t have much time to spend (we have less than 2 weeks until we have to be back in Clemson) so we decided to turn around and hike a different trail out.

reese-clothespin-treechris-and-clothespin-tree

We were going to load the dirtbike back on the rv and the parking lot was packed with cars. (Loading the dirt bike usually takes about 10 minutes because you have to unscrew the ramp hook up up roll it on blah blah). Some nice guys from the car next to us offered to help Chris just lift the bike on saving us time. We drive over to the gas station and paig 5.09 a gallon to fill up (in case most of you are wondering, gas in California hasn’t been too bad yet. The only time we have ever had to pay over 5 dollars was in the Grand Canyon and Yosemite.) After that we went to the back country permit office so we could hike off into the wilderness and camp for the night. The permit was free although we had to put a credit card deposit and pay 5 dollars for a bear canister rental. All food and scented things must be locked up in there and let me tell you, it even took Chris and me a couple minutes to break into it.

We had gotten our permit to hike out to a waterfall about 3 miles from the main road. We parked the rv on the side of the road and had to empty all of our open food into the big bear locker in the parking lot. We were the only people parked there and the only people that were going to be camping within miles of there. It took us almost 2 hours to pack up our packs and bear proof the rv.  It was about 5:30 when we finally started hiking in and our big pack had to weigh at least 80 pounds (we had a tent, sleeping bags, the bear canister, gallon of water, lantern, and a lot of extra stuff that we didn’t have to take when we went to the Grand Canyon). I carried the pack for the first, lets say .5 miles and I almost fell to the ground. They failed to tell us that we would be hiking straight up a mountain for 3 miles. It was even steeper than the Grand Canyon. Chris did the guy thing and carried it the rest of the way up and I carried the small pack. The sun sets at 8:20 and we were getting close to both the sunset and the waterfall. Chris tells me to start looking for a place where we can camp when all of a sudden…..

A BEAR!!!! I freak out and stop in my tracks and say omg Chris look there is a bear. He doesn’t believe me at first because he was concentrating on the GPS but when he turns and looks, there is a bear about 30 feet from the trail scratching his back on a tree!! He was really close and we decided to just keep walking because the bear stopped what he was doing and just started staring at us. We walked another 15 feet and then decided to take the camera out and try to take a picture. The picture turned out blurry but we didn’t want to mess with the bear anymore. We kept walking down the trail, turning around ever 10 feet to make sure he wasn’t following us. It was really cool to see the bear but it did make me a lot more scared to be sleeping out in the wilderness that night. We were also scared that our rv might get attacked in the parking lot. (It was impossible for us to empty all the food and smelly things into the bear locker because we didn’t want things to get stolen)

We get to the waterfall right as the sun sets below the mountains. Great, beautiful, wonderful, ummm we still need a place to sleep. So we kept following the trail and the forest turned really lush and green all around the creek that let to the waterfall. (The rest of the forest had big trees and had a lot of fire damage which prevented brush from growing). Chris and I dropped our packs and literally started running to find a spot……and there it was, the perfect camping spot right on the creek (which was not allowed, oops, we had to sleep somewhere). We run back and grab the packs, quickly make a fire ring, put up the tent, get firewood, then relax and make some dinner. We were really tired from our busy day so we went to bed around 11:30 after sitting by the fire and enjoying being back in the wilderness and away from the noise and pollution. Before we could sleep, we had to wash all the dishes and put the bear canister, med kit, bug spray, sunscreen ect. all over 100 feet from our camp to keep us safe. Call me paranoid but we also slept with the lantern on all night outside just in case.

We wake up in the morning to the bigs chirping after getting a pretty decent night sleep. The temperature was nice and it was a beautiful sunny day. We start to tear down camp and make pancakes over the fire for breakfast. We needed to hurry up and get back to cell phone service because it was a Monday and Chris is always SUPER busy on Monday’s with work. Chris is the professional camping pancake maker (ever since the pancakes he made on Spring Break 2 years ago when we camped on the Chattoga with Scotty and Cori). It was around noon by the time we started hiking out and we were a little sore from all the hiking we did from the day before (yesss Kevin we are trying to get into better shape 🙂  Luckily our hike today was completely down hill (which is worse for my knee) and we hauled ass out of there. I think we made it out in little over an hour when it took us almost 3 to hike it. We get back to the rv and…….

everything was fine (haha I built some suspense there with the ….. you thought a bear attacked the rv didn’t you!) We unpacked out food and trash out of the locker and no one stole anything (yay!). Chris hops in the driver seat and we had to drive a couple miles back to the back country office to return our bear canister. The roads there are very narrow and not really made for rvs and trucks to pass each other. The road also has big poles sticking out every 30 feet so the snow plow trucks don’t drive off the road in the winter. Well lets see, old rv, small curvy roads, frequent metal poles, and cliffs……..BANG there goes our passenger side mirror. A truck crossed over the line and Chris avoided it by swerving and it took out the mirror and mirror extender we had on it. Unfortunately, my window was open so the mirror shatters and comes in the rv hitting me (I was completely fine, most of it went outside) Chris freaked out when he saw that I might be hurt (I did scream) and he swerved hitting the back corner of the rv loosening the awning. We pull over and none of the damage is bad. We actually even have an extra mirror in the rv in our pile of stuff we were going to return. We walk back to the pole we hit and make sure everything is out of the road before we get back in and drive again, Chris of course made me drive after that.

We return the bear canister and could get a little bit of phone service by the hotel there. Chris checks his 12 voice mails and calls people back because we know there is no way we will have service as we drive the 45 miles out of the park. At first we weren’t that impressed with Yosemite; it was beautiful but it didn’t seem like we had seen anything too special at this point. We went into the village…eh…and then just decided we had seen enough and started heading out. A couple miles outside of the village there was a bunch of really sick rapids that we got out to look at. There were a bunch of class 4 navigable rapids all right in a row; if only we were a little better at kayaking we totally could have run them.

We stop a little while later to take pictures of this other waterfall down the road that was really cool. The drive then started to turn waayyy more senic. We started to see amazing views and even climed up to 10,000 feet! I think the road we were driving on was 120 (we were basically just following the GPS) and it was breathtaking. This drive, although it was long and slow, totally changed out views about Yosemite. We stopped so many times to take pictures and I don’t even think most of the pictures do it justice. We even got to see snow on the ground! This is the first time I’ve ever seen snow in the middle of July. We wish we could have had another night to camp up in the wilderness, even though it was a lot colder up there. There were lakes, rivers and waterfalls everywhere and we even saw a bunch of dear on the side of the road.

Now most of you wouldn’t appreciate this but I am saying this in support of all rv drivers in the United States. They go slow and they are hard to drive no matter how much experience you have. There are places called turnouts every mile or so and we pulled off every time to let cars pass. We probably pulled over at least 30 times and had 2 people that honked and waved. So here is my public service announcement, as long as you don’t tailgate us, we will pull over for your guys; when we do pull over, a wave is greatly appreciated because we do go out of our way and waste time slowing down and stopping.

So after we stop in our shorts and t-shirts to throw snowballs at each other, we jump back in and I am still driving. There wasn’t any turnouts for a while so I could see in the backup camera that there were a couple cars backed up behind us. All of a sudden, red and blue flashing lights behind us and a speaker saying for us to pull over ASAP. Those of you who know me or have been with me when I got pulled over (Brittney, Amelia, Olivia), know that I do NOT deal well with it. I immediately start teering up because I didn’t know what I did wrong. The park ranger comes up and said I went left of center on a turn and wanted to make sure I hadn’t been drinking. Of Course I Haven’t Been Drinking!!! I could obviously barely even drive these roads sober!! (note from chris: haha, she drives like a drunk person) He asks for license, registration and insurance and luckily I had labeled the registration and insurance in an envelope and knew where they were; my drivers license was another story. The rv is a MESS and I mean complete and total MESS. It took me 5 minutes to dig through pounds of dirty clothes and out backpack as I am freaking out the whole time I am looking. He takes everything back to his car and comes back with only a warning, PHEW! I can’t afford a ticket.

After that, I made Chris drive. The ranger also warned us about the steep grade we were only a couple miles from. He said it was the steepest thing he has ever been on and said we have to have good breaks to make it; another reason to make Chris drive. The sun was setting and we were contemplating just staying and the beautiful campsites and saving the difficult drive for the morning. We knew that we just needed to get out because we didn’t have time to stay. We see the first sign that says 8% grade for the next 11 miles. For those of you that don’t know, most of the roads that have run away truck ramps and really steep grade signs are only 6%, 8% is even MORE insane. We start going and in less than 2 miles, we had to pull over because our breaks basically stopped working. There were overheated and if you poured water on them, the water evaporate instantly. This is when we knew we were in trouble.

At this point we couldn’t make it back up the mountain but we also couldn’t go down; we were basically stuck on the side of the road waiting for the breaks to cool. Being stuck isn’t too bad when you are in an rv because we made a nice dinner and watched a movie while we waited. After almost two hours, they were cooler and Chris thought we could try to go another couple miles. Now you have to understand that the rv was backfiring the whole time, there are a few mechanical problems that we haven’t identified yet that could all be very critical for this drive, we are driving a 1973 rv, there is a STEEP cliff on one side and only a few places to pull over. We were basically prepared to crash into the mountain if necessary; it was really scary. We buckled our seat belts, said a quick prayer, a kiss in case we didn’t make it, and slowly started heading down.

Obviously I am writing this right now so we are alive and well. I can’t remember the last time I was that scared though. If I had cell phone service I probably would have called home and woken up my family just to say I love them. We were very lucky. At this point there was one gas station and nothing else for miles. We filled up on gas and kept on driving.

For those of you that have never driven through no where, we have multiple times now. Literally a road, (this one have tons of dips in it) and the road has no pull offs, intersections, or any other cars on it. Chris tells me to look at a map because it is almost 11 at this point (it took hours to get only a few miles out of the park) and I say hmmm, the nearest rv park is over 100 miles away. The nearest town is 40 miles away. So we get to the town and see a sign that says population 164. 164?!?!?! If you have a baby or go away to college they actually can update the population. There was one gas station/grocery store/post office combination that was all closed. We bought some gas and decided to keep driving until we had cell phone service. We drive for another mile and by the looks of everything, we are back in the desert, surrounded by mountains. One bar of service, no service, extended network, roaming…..finally 2 bars of service!! We pull over right there and decide to just sleep on the side of the road for the night. We watch a little tv and then go to bed in the middle of no where.

We wake up in the morning around 9:30, burning up because it was so hot. Chris answers some calls and then we keep driving. Oh ya I think I forgot to say this but we are in Nevada now. If you want to know where, just pick a spot away from civilization and thats where we are. We finally came up on a town today and it was unlike anything we have ever seen before. It was almost like and old cowboy town (Chris said he expected to see a Wagon Wheel or something). We are sitting in the McDonald’s right now so I can finally blog some for all you avid readers and so Chris can answer Illstreet e-mails. Unfortunately about 4 bus loads full of smelly, loud, annoying high school kids filled this place for almost 45 minutes. Chris and I almost had to step outside to get some fresh air. From here was are going to get on route 50 and head in to Moab where we will hopefully be able to do some kayaking.

Look for updates to LA and San Diego soon. I am going to try to catch up on all of those as soon as I can and post more pictures.  I really do apologize for not having time to write. We have the whole rest of our trip planned out (not because we are over achievers otr anything, we are basically following one of the routes in a cross country book Chris bought) and have only a week and a half of adventures left to go. From Moab we are going through Colorado, Kansas, and St. Louis (where we have to stop and try to find and apartment for me for law school.) We are about 11 hours still from where we need to be in Utah so we will probably be sleeping on the side of the road again tonight (although at this point we REALLY need showers, it’s been a couple days, and to do laundry; I just washed my face in the McDonald’s bathroom) We miss you all and can’t wait to get back out of the desert again.

(sorry this one was so long, 6 pages in Microsoft Word—I have to type in there so it corrects my horrible spelling for me)

Cross Country Trip, Travel

Los Angeles, California

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We find a really nice resort that is about 3 miles from both VIS and Seibon for a pretty good deal so Chris tells me to book a room for two nights. We pull in and the place has its own huge golf course, driving range, really cool outdoor area and pool. We run upstairs to shower and change and look out at our amazing view over the city. Irving comes to pick us up him and Chris meet for the first time. Chris said that Irving was a lot taller than he expected and Irving said Chris looks like the actor that plays Spiderman.

After the meet and greet, he take us out to one of the most famous Hot Dog Stands in the world, Pink’s. We drive into LA and then wait in line for over 45 minutes to get a bunch of really big hot dogs, cheese fries, hamburgers, onion rings and root beers. Talk about a delicious heart attack on a plate. We were soooooo hungry and it was such a tease to wait in line for so long smelling it. We thought we would be able to eat all the food we ordered but there was no way that was happened. We had about two hot dogs and a burger left over for breakfast the next day. We get back to the hotel around 12:30 and watched some tv and went to bed.

In the morning we both really wanted to go to the pool but Chris was backed up on work. Instead of watching tv while he worked, I went down to the pool for an hour or so while he finished up. We drove over to Seibon to meet Mikey, Chris’s sales rep there and to tour the facility. We learned a lot about the company and it was great to see how the warehouse and staff work. After a few hours at Seibon, we went over to VIS to meet Irving again and tour their warehouse. It is weird that two companies that sell a lot of the same products can run their companies so differently. VIS let us see a lot of their newer hoods and showed us how they made their body kits.

After spending all afternoon at the warehouses, we went back to the resort to rest up for an hour or so and take showers. (We actually stopped by Walmart too because I desperately needed to dye my hair. I did that the next morning).

A few hours later, Irving came and picked us up and took us to a really good Japanese restaurant. There were 5 of us eating dinner and we ordered over 20 plates of food. Irving ordered everything and we had such a good variety of amazing food, Japanese beer, and Sake. We ate, drank, and told them all about South Carolina and Clemson. Haha the one girl didn’t even know where South Carolina was!! We ate until we were stuffed and then went to consume more calories and eat ice cream. He took us to this frozen yogurt place, I am not sure what the name is but they called it Crack Berry because it is so good, it’s addicting. Chris would describe the place as Korean looking and it was delicious. We had kiwi, strawberries, and rice berries?? on it. Let’s just say at this point, I don’t think we could have eaten any more food. We get back to the hotel and we tired from eating so much and from being out all day so we just went straight to bed.

The next day we wake up and started calling all the body shops around where we were staying because the rv needed to get a tune up because something was wrong with the “lifters.” Unfortunately we were staying in a very Asian town and everyone kept saying “Oh so sorry, we no work on American cars.” We also had the problem of no one wanting to work on something so old. We finally found someone that would look at it a couple miles away. We booked an extra night at Pacific Palms resort so we didn’t have to check out of our gangsta rood and drove off to take the rv in. Instead of loading the dirt bike, Chris drove it and blocked traffic so I could change lanes easier while driving the rv. We get to the shop and the guy says that the problem is just with the oil and tells Chris how he can fix it himself.

From there we go off and get some lunch. Miss Brittney Kirk texted me and specifically told me to go to In N Out and get and animal burger. Of course and I am going to listen to her J. So we get our burgers and fries and it was defiantly worth the stop. From lunch we go back to the hotel and reeelllaxx. We were staying at this beautiful resort and barely had time to enjoy it yet. Yes it was Friday night but we didn’t even feel like going out. Instead we went to the pool for a couple of hours and then went to get a drink from the bar and sit at the huge outdoor fire pit.

Since we were at the pool, Chris had forgotten to bring down his wallet. Of course we were ided, so we had to go all the way back upstairs to prove he is 24. We though the drinks were going to be really expensive because the place looked really fancy and all the waiters were wearing tuxes but you could get anything on draft in a big glass for $5.00. We order our beers and go to sit outside. A cocktail waitress asks if we wanted any appetizers and we decided to order a few for our dinner. We got teriyaki wings, lobster tacos, and calamari. The food was all really delicious and plated really well. We had a couple more drinks and then decided to hit the hot tub.

We go to jump in the hot tub….and to our surprise it wasn’t hot. We thought that if we turned the dials on, it might heat up, but it didn’t. There were two Mexican couples sitting by the pool and they overheard us complaining about the hot tub. They call down and get the hotel staff to come out some we can tell them about it not working. His name was Jose Louis and they all live right in town. They come up and stay at the resort on weekends to relax and he said the hot tub has been broken for 4 weeks. We start chatting with them and when our beers run out, they start offering us coronas, the best way to start a friendship.

We end up hanging out with them by the pool all night laughing and making jokes. They shared their beer and we shared our moonshine. Then all even called me Marisa (like with the Spanish accent. Most of you probably don’t even know that my name is Marisa because I hate being called Marissa. Well anyways it made me miss my daddy because they said it with an accent like he does).

The two couples were so nice and we even ordered pizza and got it delivered poolside. It was around 11 when 3 hotel staff come out to tell us that the pool is closed. We tell them that we will leave when we are done. Haha (we were still grouchy about the hot tub not working) We finish our food and go to walk over to the fire pit, when Chris and I realized that moonshine had gotten us kind of drunk. We decide to go upstairs and call it a night. We made plans with them to meet in the lobby at 11 to go to this really good Mexican restaurant in the morning but we had to bail out because Chris was getting too many phone calls. We packed up and left the resort slightly more relaxed than we had been in a while.


Cross Country Trip, Travel

Where in the world are Reese and Chris???

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Yes yes most of you must be wondering where we are due to the lack of posting. We stayed in San Diego until Sunday July 6th and then left and started driving up the coast. We only drove about an hour or so because we left pretty late from Kevin’s. We also had nooo food, so before we stopped at the state park where we were going to spend the night on the beach we made a trip to Albertson’s to stock up. Of course this turned into Chris reading the newspaper as I shopped for food, but hey what do you expect, he is a boy. He did pick out a handle of Jack Daniels that was on sale for $30.

We pack up our food and drive over to San Clemente State Beach and realize that there is a “campsites full” sign outside; great, just what we needed. We decided to drive through there anyways because we were still sooo tired and recovering from our crazy week with Kevin. Luckily there was an empty spot so we plugged in and pretty much went straight to bed. The next day we woke up and tried to reserve the campsite we were staying in again for Monday night that way we would wake up at the beach on my birthday, but no it was reserved. We stayed in that spot 2 hours past what we were supposed to (we wanted to get our full $34 out of it) and when the next people were honking to get in the spot, we quickly unplugged and drove over to the beach (we didn’t have to pay the ten dollar fee to park at the beach because we had already paid to camp the night before).

We spent the whole day hanging out at the beach, napping, and watching all the surfers. The waves are pretty crazy there but the water was WAY to cold for us to go in. Right behind the little stretch of beach that we were sitting on was the oceanfront railroad tracks and we saw at least 5 passenger cars go by us that day. The sun was beginning to set, so we hiked back up to the parking lot and made dinner right there (one of the convinces of living in and rv).

It’s around ten o’clock and night and we were still homeless for the night. Chris wanted to just sleep in the parking lot at the beach but I didn’t want to wake up on my birthday to someone towing us or an expensive parking ticket. Instead we drove 2 miles away to another state campground that was also completely full. We drove through and found a nice secluded spot and plugged in. Chris made a fire and we just relaxed until midnight when….I turned 22. (I even got a really cool video of little Kuhsie duck singing happy birthday with a corn muffin and candle. Maybe I can upload it later with Chris’s help.)

We woke up and cleaned up the campsite, and then went to go take showers, which cost 25 cents for 2.5 minutes!! Well we of course have no quarters so we go up to the booth and they don’t have any change at all either. We go back to the rv and dug around for change and came up with 5 quarters to share (i wonder who used more time…).

We left the campground and continued up the coast to Laguna Beach where we were going to have lunch for the day. After the short 45 minute dive we had to figure out where we could park our house. Parking was ten dollars most places so instead of giving money to a parking lot, we decided to pay ten dollars and park at a state campground, which we ended up regretting because they were all assholes to us and kept giving us Such a hard time when we were loading and unloading the dirt bike (they even accused Chris of riding around in the park and he had to continuously tell them that we were only using it to get to town.)

Well we rode into town and drove all around Laguna Beach (to me it didn’t look the same as what the tv shows looked like). Yes the houses were all huge and nice and there were a lot of nice cars everywhere but it’s not one of my favorite stops on this trip. We find this little Mexican place that you can see the water and the beach from their balcony. I ask if they have any weekday or happy hour specials (Chris and I are always looking for a great deal) and the waiter says “um I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before” I guess they aren’t used to cheapos like us. Well we have a nice 50 dollar Mexican food lunch and head back to the rv so we can continue onward to LA.

Chris drove this next stretch because there was no way I was going to drive the rv through LA’s traffic.  People are speeding around us left and right and blinkers, well I don’t think they mean anything to people in LA. Chris had to put on music after awhile to calm his road rage. We get to Culver City (about 8 miles outside of LA) and check into the Radisson there (I had a free stay saved up from a bad experience Chris and I had at a Radisson in Niagara Falls for my birthday last year).

We have a nice bottle of wine in the room and call a Taxi to head off to dinner. We were going to  pay the $45 each way to go into Hollywood but instead we just went and ate at this really nice Cheesecake factory right on the water. The food and drinks were all really good and it was awesome to eat right on the beach. (my mom said that I could charge a dinner under 100 dollars and it just happened that our bill came out to 99.99 with tip:) haha I’m so tricky. After dinner we walked over to this really cool bar where we had some big margaritas and watched some motocross on tv. The bar was two stories, had a fire pit and plasma tvs everywhere. Our waitress was awesome and Chris asked if I could get a free shot since it was my birthday. She said sure as long as I went downstairs and took it with the head bartender because her birthday was in two days. We finish our drinks and go down to get my shot at the big bar. The bartender said it was another guys birthday too! His birthday was the 9th, mines was the 8th and the bartenders was the 10th. She pours us all (even Chris) a free shot a Patron…whoop whoop!!

After the bar we walk down to the beach and sit on the lifeguard stand for a little while. It was nice and cool out and we knew this was going to be the last time we were at the beach for a while. We started to walk back and there was a little convenience store were we bought a couple of really good cheap bottles of wine and Chris bought me the newest Cosmo magazine (since it was my birthday). We go to call a cab and see that there is one right outside of the bar we were just at. We go up to the cab and I guess some foreign girl had called for it and was trying to round up her friends inside. The driver didn’t care one bit, he told us to just hop in and $17 dollars later we were back at the hotel. It was a fun night and nice to come back to a big room.

In the morning we started to pack up (and of course got an extension on our checkout like we do everywhere). Chris does some work and we decide that since we are on this side of LA, we should take the dirt bike out to do all the sightseeing this afternoon before we got to City of Industry to see VIS and Seibon for Chris’s work. We left the rv in the parking lot and drove off to Rodeo Drive and Hollywood.

First we arrived at Rodeo drive and drove down looking at all the expensive stores that I won’t be able to afford until way after my law school debts are paid off. I didn’t even want to go look in the shops because I know I can’t afford anything. We did see about 50 people outside of one store with a bunch of cameras so we guessed someone famous was in there. We drove on trying to find a place to eat lunch and couldn’t find restaurants anywhere; people in LA must not eat. We finally see this place that has a nice patio outside and flowers, I think it was call Chick a Roo??? We order our food and go to sit down outside. I grab a magazine because Chris loves to read things while he waits for food. I opened it and start to realize that it had a lot of like gay news in it. I thought that was just how the issue was. Then Chris looks up and realizes that there are two big rainbow flags in the street; we totally stopped to eat in the gay part of town without knowing it. It worked out because everyone was super nice and the food was pretty reasonable.

From there we drove into Hollywood. We parked the dirt bike and walked the main strip where all the stars are and the Chinese Theatre. We did the touristy thing and put our hands and feet in the molds and walked the street while getting harassed by people trying to sell maps of stars homes. After a little bit of walking, I actually got to shop for the FIRST time this whole trip. I think I went in like 3-4 stores and bought 3 new dresses (all on sale). After I got a few new clothes, Chris decided that he really wanted a new cool “west coast style” t-shirt to wear. For those of you who don’t know, it’s the t shirts that have a lot of designs on them, skulls sometimes, they are the cool things to wear. Well we started looking and most the ones we likes were right around 100 dollars; there is no way Chris was going to pay that for a t-shirt. So we keep walking.

And walking. We kept walking down the road going in tons of stores that sold that style of shirt. Chris didn’t want too extreme of a shirt because he wants to still be able to wear it on the east coast and didn’t want to pay over 40 dollars for a shirt. Finally we find this store that had a shirt we both liked for around 40 dollars. It was a smaller store away from the tourist area so the owner comes up and offers Chris a 15% discount. After we hear that, we find another one that he likes and end up getting both shirts for a good deal….almost an hour and a half after our search began.

We walk back to the dirt bike and head back to the hotel we were are sure the rv is racking up a crazy parking bill. We also had to get out to City of Industry to we could meet Irving for dinner. (Chris’s VIS rep that he has never met and done business with for years) I go inside the hotel to pay out parking bill and somehow talked the guy into validating it for FREE…total score because it saved us almost 30 dollars. We loaded the dirt bike and headed off on the hour drive to the other side of LA, through rush hour traffic, while trying to find a decent hotel to stay at.

Cross Country Trip, Travel

San Diego, CA

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We got to San Diego around 2:30 on Monday night and have been staying and Chris’s Uncle Kevin’s house since then. His house is awesome and really unique. He has a lot of artwork hanging everywhere and not a white wall to be seen. It is nice to have a bed to sleep in and a shower that you don’t have to wear shoes in. He even had a bunch of candles lit for our arrival (I am sure he does the same for you too Susan) We hung out and had a few beers and before we knew it, the sun was rising.

We woke up on Tuesday around noon because people kept calling for Illstreet. (unfortunately now since we are actually in California, Chris opens at 8 am and closes at 5.) Chris was pretty backed up on his work since we had only a little cell phone and internet connection for the past few days and he was closed for hiking the grand canyon. So Chris worked for the next five hours straight and I watched some tv and playing with Spike (Kevin’s American Bulldog, super relaxed and laid back dog). I watched the news to see the 1000 fires that are in California right now and that might affect our drive north. Everyone has told us to go to Big Sur and right now, we are not sure if we are going to be able to go there or Napa. 🙁

spikekevins-place

We also found out that San Diego has a new “no drinking alcohol on the beach” law here. (which is total crap) They even have this flashlight wand that they can wave over your drink and it sucks in the vapors to tell if there is liquor or beer in it(in case you try to sneak booze in a cup.) The fine is 100 dollars for your first offense. Uncle Kevin said the beaches have been empty since this law began; it will also have a big affect on the fireworks this year.

So after work and the news, Chris and I rode bikes around trying to get to the beach. One left turn instead of a right turn and no water was to be seen. So we headed back to the house and got on the dirt bike to head off to dinner. Before we got to Old Town Mexican Cafe (the bar/restaurant Kevin manages) we stopped at Pacific Beach and walked the boardwalk for a little while. The waves were so much bigger than anywhere we had seen before and we were shocked at how cool the weather was. Chris and I both had jeans on and we were still chilly.

oldtownmexicancafelogo

 

We hopped back on the dirt bike and went off to get some dinner. The food at the Mexican Cafe was ammmazzingg. They make all their tortillas by hand where you can watch and of course the margaritas rocked since we had an experienced bar tender hooking us up. We literally had about 5 plates of food in front of us and I think we finished almost all of it. Chris and I were still really tired at this point from not sleeping much so we just headed home and ended up falling asleep on the couch shortly after. (not exciting I know, but the rest of our weekend is going to be crazy, we have to save up for it)

We woke up early again today because we definitely wanted to spend the day at the beach. Tomorrow, Uncle Kevin’s girlfriend Susan is coming to town for the fourth of July and we are going to spend all day Friday outside and going to a bunch of Kevin’s friends places to watch the fireworks. Chris and Kevin are off picking up one of his nine cars right now (which means I am back to my blogging duties since Chris nnneeevverr writes anything.)

Overall, San Diego has kicked ass so far and we can’t wait to see more of it. Oh yes, and I forgot to say the most important thing….less than a week until my biirtthhdayy 🙂 We don’t know where we will be spending my big 2-2 yet but hopefully it will be somewhere fabulous. Kevin has some crazy things planned for the weekend so I hope Chris and I can keep up.

Stuff to write about still:

Went down to the boardwalk

Met Kevin at Nicks at the Beach and had a very drinks

Drove the bikes up the cross but it was too foggy so we went back in the morning

Seal Beach

Lambo/Ferrari shopping

Mexican food for lunch at this cool burrito place

Nude Beach

Susan got in and we went to eat at Olde Town Cafe

Trying to get a very prickly cactus into Susan’s Sebring convertible

Chris and Kevin went mountain biking (the wheel fell off of Chris’ mountain bike)

Went to a bar and met up with Kevin’s friends at the beach (20 dollar shots from Billy)

Went and bought Susan her watermelon; and we got burgers beers and liquor

Took showers and got ready in less than an hour (all 4 people with one bathroom)

Went to a really nice house and picked up some of Kevin’s friends; we went right up the street to Dave’s (gorgeous 5-6 million dollar home with amazing views of downtown San Diego.

Walked in with about 10 people and watched a fireworks show over the whole city with 7 coinciding fireworks shows

Then went to a loft downtown to hang out some more; After that Chris and I walked Spike and Roxy for a couple of hours

Susan and I went to get mani/pedi and Chris was a little hungover

Went and watched Ultimate Fighting (super cool)

Sunday- we went and saw Kevin’s condos and a bunch of different beaches. We went and ate at a steakhouse for dinner and then went back to Kevin’s for a little bit before we left San Diego around 9 pm.

san-diego-007_800x600

 

 

Cross Country Trip, Travel

Border Patrol

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It is around 11 o’clock Pacific time….yes yes we made it to CALIFORNIA!! Well we are driving west on I-8 and realized that we are literally driving next to the Mexican border; we even have to go through border patrol checks. They make you stop and ask if you are a USA citizen and if we are the only two people in the car. We were scared we were going to have to get out and get searched. Luckily, that was not the case; Chris and I must look American enough.

Soooo this lead to us thinking about how many Mexicans we could smuggle in the rv without being seen. Here is how it works out: 4 above the driver cab; 3 in the bathroom; 1 under the couch; 1 under the table; 1 under the dirtbike cover on the back of the rv; 2 (one in each of the kayaks on the roof while putting the skirts over them so no one could see in.) So overall that means we could smuggle at least 12 Mexicans into the country safely!

boarder

 

Haha hopefully everyone found that amusing and not offensive. Chris also figured out that if he was to actually smuggle Mexicans, he would get a beat up Ford F150 and dress like a redneck. He would add stickers that would say “Voluntary Boarder Control” “Terrorist Hunter” and other redneck things. He said this would be the best way to sneak them around.

In case you are wondering….YES we have seen people get caught so far. There are bright lights, fences, and hills everywhere. Cars and border patrol are hiding everywhere. We have seen at least a few people get caught just a few feet from the highway we are driving on. Literally California is on our right and Mexico on our left. Hopefully we don’t have to stop at anymore checkpoints now since they know our smugling plan. Well we will be in San Diego in about 2 hours; I will make sure and update if we see any funny signs or any more really cool busts.