We need your help. We've got ideas, but not enough of them. Here's our list of destinations. Does anyone have others we should hit on the way? Food ideas? Sightseeing advice?
1. Atlanta, GA: Stone Mountain laser light show
2. Memphis, TN: Graceland
3. Austin, TX: need ideas
4. San Antonio, TX: Alamo!
5. Lubbock, TX: Buddy Holly Center (any Buddy Holly ideas?)
6. Sedona, AZ: Meteor Crater, Petrified Forest
7. Grand Canyon, AZ
8. Death Valley, CA: Scotty's Castle
9. San Diego, CA: need ideas
10. Los Angeles, CA: Hollywood! BH9er. Rodeo Drive. Britney Spears.
11. San Francisco, CA:
12. Lake Tahoe, NV
13. Yellowstone, WY: Old Faithful
14. Deadwood, SD:
15. Keystone, SD: Mount Rushmore
16. Custer, SD: Crazy Horse Monument
17. Mitchell, SD: CORN PALACE!
18. Minneapolis, MN: Prince?
19. Chicago, IL: Dave's sister
20. Detroit, MI: Kerry's people
21. Pittsburgh, PA: Falling Water
22. Durham, NC: Home!
Am I the first to comment!? yay! Are you guys vegetarians? Most of my food suggestions would involve meat...
ReplyDeleteHave you met us, Marsh? We'd eat you if we thought we wouldn't get in trouble!
ReplyDelete1. Grants, NM - Ice Cave and Bandera Volcano - pretty awesome, nice little hike, but it's private and costs.
ReplyDelete2. Historic Downtown Santa Fe, NM is pretty cool, museums and such
3. That little highway from Elko, NV to Twin Falls kinda sucks, IMO. Don't be fooled by a town called Jackpot. Consider if it's not too far out of the way, driving across the salt flats to Salt Lake City and then heading up the highway. Worth it for the flats.
4. Devil's tower, Wyoming. Native Americans once thought the lines down the side were made by a giant bear. Far more impressive in real life than the mased potato sculpture in Close Encounters.
5. Deadwood, SD - Be careful, even though Saloon #10 is the name of the place Wild Bill Kickock was shot, the location changed. If you want to be at the SPOT where he was shot, go to Lucky Nugget.
6. Western SD in general - Look for a chuckwagon. They're these dinner theater/musical performances, supercheesy, but you know, supercheesy. Bad acting, ok food, interesting people watching. I think I went to one called Circle B. Might be too espensive at around 20 per person.
*** Custer, SD - Check out their website and try to plan your visit around a public blast. Better yet, if you happen to be there on June 26, they're having a night blast which you should not miss.
7. Rapid City, SD - There's a cute little dinosaur park that follows a ridge in Rapid City. If you're there anyway... And beware all the little tourist traps entering and leaving Rapid City. The reptile place is actually pretty cool, but rather Ripleys-esque if you know what I mean.
*** Avoid all narrow gauge railroads! Boooooooring
8. Don't bother going to wounded knee. Nothing to see, really. Middle of nowhere.
***Find grocery stores and pack lunches. National Park Food is NOT good and kinda expensive.
9. Wall Drug, prepare to spend hours there. It's south of the border bu actually better. You need only do a youtube search to see all the wacked out shit they got there.
10. Badlands National Park. OUTSTANDING views, wildlife.
11. Alliance, NE - This is probably out of the way, but...CARHENGE
12. Minneapolis/St. Paul - Nathan McKinney suggested a place called Everest in St. Paul. Two words: Yak Momo
13. Minneapolis - Museum of Questionable Medical Devices.
14. Minneapolis - Spam museum!
15. Pittsburgh, PA - Kerry, I'm gonna include you in a google document that will cover pittsburgh for you Dozens of interesting places to eat or whatever, some untried by me. Key points though:
De Luca's for breakfast
Bloomfield Bridge Tavern for Pierogies
Warhol Museum
The Original (Dirty O) for fries and grease or the other way around
Church Brewworks
YOU MUST GO TO PRIMANTI BROS
I'll try to think of more!
Holy shit. Minneapolis was on the verge of getting nixed from this trip. NO LONGER! Spam museum. Damn!
ReplyDeleteHep, as usual, you really are amazing!
doh! It's me Paul! I forgot my type pad ID is pjmarshnc..
ReplyDeleteI second and third Primanti Brothers it's a *must* and the Warhol Museum, especially the silver pillow room...you'll know what I mean.
I see you that you're going through Little Rock. If you're hungry, I highly recommend stopping at Doe's. It's a hole in the wall place with amazing steaks and tamales where the Clinton's hung out.
I read about this place in Texas and it made me hungry:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/24/081124fa_fact_trillin
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ReplyDeleteAtlanta: For food, there's the Varsity if you need grease in yr life, Mary Mac's Tea Room if you need grits. Too fancy? Head to the Colonnade.
ReplyDeleteYou can drink lots of places. The Yacht Club down on Euclid was good, but it appears to have been noticed by Details magazine, of all things. The Clermont is an Atlanta insitution, but it comes with, well, a show. Manuel's Tavern might be a good bet--on North Highland at North Ave.
The new aquarium is apparently pretty amazing.
Chicago! I love Chicago.
Eating: Kuma's for metal burgers. Hot Doug's for incredible encased meats. Irazu for cheap Costa Rican outdoors and a BYOB policy. Red Rooster for a quiet, awesome, affordable fancy dinner.
I don't know if I've done anything but eat in Chicago. The Art Institute is awesome as advertised. There are tiny neighborhood bars on every street. There are great rock clubs. There is a stunning public transportation system. There are nice people.
This text box seems to disabling things like paste, so sorry for no links.
Also in Rapid City, the Chapel In the Hills:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.chapel-in-the-hills.org/
Also, either the hoover dam or the glen canyon dam are worth seeing. Glen canyon dam has maybe the better reservoir (Lake Powell), superclear to the bottom and you can swim there.
Also, it my be out of the way as well, but I think Bryce Canyon is ten times better than Grand Canyon. And there is a way to vegas (I-15) from there that will take you through some really neat national parks like Zion and Valley of Fire.
Also in Arizona, Montezuma's Castle, a neato place to see ancient cliff dwellings.
Hi Kerry,
ReplyDeleteYou might find some good ideas and/or advice in this roadtrip blog: http://fredandhank.typepad.com/fhma
I hope you guys have a great trip!
Ugh, sorry for so many posts. If you don't mind paying for privately owned history, the Mission at San Juan Capistrano in Cali is pretty amazing. Very tourist-trappy, though, which means the place screams irony as you pay like 8 bucks to get in. But it's the place where the Swallows migrate every spring.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the 1 going along the coast from LA to SF is cool for a while but gets boring and adds lots of time to the trip. I think it was the 101 that I was on and saw just amazing expanses of crops and such. It doesn't look like it looks here. I'll try to verify the roads somehow. But if you can swing both, it's worth it.
You're gonna drive around the whole country and not visit New Orleans? You're really missing out, it's probably the most unique place in the country and has the best food...
ReplyDeleteWe've spent so much of our lives in New Orleans these past ten years that missing it on one trip won't hurt too much. :)
ReplyDeleteDavid Jordan here - I grew up in Lubbock TX! but it's been 20+ years since I've been there. if they're still around (funded, open to public), things to consider doing:
ReplyDeleteLubbock Lake Site (major fossil dig / public museum - found it: http://www.depts.ttu.edu/museumttu/lll/visitus.html),
Prairie Dog Town (big colony of prairie dogs, a state park I think - here ya go: http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/3602)
it's a big college town, so might have an ok funky (hit or miss) downtown/campus scene these days. I'm really curious as to what you'll find there!
The Museum of Death in Los Angeles is not to be missed!
ReplyDeleteThis is all great stuff! Keep it coming!
ReplyDeleteDown around Custer there's this rocking little mammoth dig. Apparently some bigass mammoths fell into a hole and got preserved. Now you can see the progress as archaeologists did it out.
ReplyDeleteI was only in Minneapolis for a couple days once, so I don't know too much about this city, but I liked the Walker Art Museum and Hell's Kitchen (very yummy breakfast/brunch place). Hell's Kitchen is about a 10–15 minute walk from the museum.
ReplyDeleteif you want the names of some of the yummiest taquerias in sf then let me know.
ReplyDeletealso in austin, tx i hear that watching the bridge bats is supposed to be pretty incredible.
i think you should drive hwy 1 all the way from LA to SF if you have the time. yes it's a long drive and yes the road can be scary at night but you will miss out driving by big sur which is pretty freakin' incredible. i recommend pulling over there and taking a little hike to the ocean. everytime i have been there has been amazing.
world's largest six-pack in La Crosse, WI
ReplyDeletealso, try to at least drive through the Grand Tetons park on the way to Yellowstone. magnificent! oh, this is stephen btw.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe you're going to Lubbock. That's awesome. I was born there and I've never been back. I was too young to remember but my folks talked a lot about prairie dog town.
ReplyDeleteI notice you've left out Utah entirely. There's an awful lot of natural beauty in Utah--Arches National Park, etc.... Plus if you've never been to the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City you're missing out on one of the creepiest places in the world.
I see you'll be hitting Memphis, but not Nashville. Reasons to consider paying Nashville a visit: they have a full scale replica of the Parthenon. I have no idea why. Country Music Hall of Fame. Grand Ole Opry. You can't walk down the street without tripping over a great, southern meat and three.
Be careful in Albuquerque--that wrong turn did Bugs in every time.
ReplyDeleteOK, if you're in Texas and headed near Amarillo, you need to hit Dumas, TX and the K-Bob's Steakhouse. At least hit their website: www.kbobs.com. They have a song about their chicken fried steak and the salad wagon. It's also a place that my family had to go to every summer on our road trip from New Orleans to Colorado. My dad was nothing, if not consistent when it came to the stops for food. If I remember correctly, this is the place where you could get a little doll that said "I'm a ding-dong Dolly from Dumas!" (said something different for a boy) They also had a centerpiece of butter on the table--it looked like ice cream to me. Big, mounds of lovely butter. Ah, Texas!
ReplyDeleteThere's also a place we used to stop where they had the 72 ounce steak dinner. If you could eat the steak, a potato, and a salad in the span of 1 hour you got it free. That place was decorated in antlers & horns: chairs, chandeliers, tables and coat racks all made from animals. Not to mention the heads on the wall. I'll check with Dad to get the name of that place. It was terrifying. And of course, don't forget to stop by the visitor center where they hand out "Don't Mess with Texas" bumper stickers.
Also, to continue a Big House tradition started by Zeke, you need to call Biggers when you're driving through Albuquerque and leave a message singing the chorus to Neil Young's song named after the city.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6dqprdu_Ak
Not sure how long you will be in Atlanta, but I heard the new aquarium rocks! If you go through Marietta, you might enjoy seeing its famous landmark "The Big Chicken" on Highway 41 (yes, the same one that the Allmans sing about). It is a KFC, but a quirky landmark that might inspire you! Ha!
ReplyDeleteMy brother came through with the name of that restaurant: http://www.bigtexan.com/ and it's in Amarillo, so it's totally on your way! They even have a motel, a horse hotel, and a video that shows the "Man vs. Food" event: http://www.bigtexan.com/manvsvideo.html
ReplyDeleteOMG. My heart just stopped.
Awesome trip & ideas! Rob & I will need to check some of these stops out next tour (admittedly our/my focus was vegan cake). If you'd like a break from steaks/unsuspecting friends, I've heard the Chicago Diner is amazing: www.veggiediner.com (more veg-friendly options by city here - www.happycow.net).
ReplyDeleteMOst stuff I know about is already covered, but here are a few things:
There are great hot spring waterfalls in NM, near Albuquerque as well, though better in winter time. Los Alamos is a pretty weird place... a lot of security and some sort of atomic museum as I recall. Of course there are also the Aztec ruins.
The drive from LA to San Fran is the impetus for Rob & I going vegan...you'll pass miles & miles of cows left out on a stinky muddy feedlot on a strech of highway anticipated by the stench. Warning re: Bakersfield...nice folks there but it's pretty nose-pinchingly smelly.
OH...for nightlife, the Stud Bar in San Fran was great, we played there. Complete with thin mirrors in the men's room over the urinals!
Can't wait to see your pics...
Eleni
This outpouring of delicious fun and food is making me want to cry a little bit. I hope we have enough time for all of this awesomeness!
ReplyDeleteMy Fallingwater comment didn't seem to post, so I'll try again. Fallingwater is great, but you do need to make reservations in advance. The tours are really well done. However, it is completely in the middle of nowhere. (I know of what I speak, my mom grew up 15 miles from there.) I recommend not trying to stay too nearby. There is a cafe at the visitors center, but there isn't much in the way of restaurants or even fast food nearby.
ReplyDeleteI'm cleaning out the attic and just read through my journal about my Austin trip in 1999. Most of my entries were about drinking beer, but here's what I remember liking:
ReplyDeleteKerbey Lane Cafe for breakfast/lunch (http://www.kerbeylanecafe.com)
Alamo Drafthouse at the Ritz theater - movies, beer, yummy fried foods, and pizza - (http://www.originalalamo.com)
Now, The Oasis did not look like a place I wanted to go, but my friend insisted that we go. Once I got there it was great to sit on the deck sipping a margarita and watching the sun set (http://oasis-austin.com).
Unfortunately, a few of the places I saw music are now closed, but I do remember liking this bar, Casino El Camino, although I was in my early twenties at the time so who knows what it would be like today (http://www.casinoelcamino.net)
And as Kristie said, the bat bridge is supposed to be a site to check out.
Also, forgot to send links to Minneapolis stuff: Walker Art Center (http://www.walkerart.org) and Hell's Kitchen (http://www.hellskitcheninc.com).
Happy travels and look forward to reading about your trip!
Joshua Tree - between Vegas and San Diego. The Jumbo Rocks are super surreally cool. And La Jolla is cool, just north of San Diego. It's where Dr. Suess lived and he modeled a lot of his vegetation on real plants around there. Right along the shore is beautiful, and grossly expensive. I guess you know about the bat bridge in Austin - just check out the signs that say "beware of grounded bats." Make sure you gas up before you start into Death Valley. There is only one gas station that we saw, and it was what you'd expect to pay at the only gas station in Death Valley. I will think of you often when I'm getting up at 5:19 am with my teething child. Be safe!
ReplyDeleteBetsy
The Grand Canyon is just that - I hiked down and spent the night at ghost ranch then hiked up the next day - it's booked up years in advance but if you get there at 0'dark early & people cancel you can catch a mule ride down & back - sunsets & rise make your remember your religion. Gotta check out the bats at dusk on the Anne Richards Memorial bridge in Austin - awesome natural phenom also dine on the Barbeque Trail btw San Antonio & Austin www.texasbbqtrail.com I liked City Market In Lulling - eat your beef barby on waxed paper - enter thru soot covered corridor - it's the real effin deal. If you have time to detour thru the hill country - do it! finally go to the natural spring fed public pool in Austin - you'll need a dip cause it will be hotter than 40 hells - we'll miss ya The Susan
ReplyDeleteDJ again:
ReplyDeleteBuddy Holly in Lubbock:
there's THE iconic statue of him in BH Park, and elsewhere BH's gravesite, neither of which are at the BH Center, btw, but not too far.
NM:
Carlsbad Caverns - way cool, recommended.
haven't been but always wanted to:
White Sands
Roswell for alien kitsch
note - these are all in southern NM, close enough to Lubbock but getting out of range if you're going to explore closer to amarillo
Albuquerque:
http://www.gruetwinery.com/
I haven't been here but know folks who have, & I do like their stuff: great, affordable bubbly
in L.A.:
Museum of Jurassic Technolgy - serious WTF conceptual art project in Culver City
http://www.mjt.org/
Will Rogers state park if you're missing nature in the big city:
http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=25104
Rte 1 between LA and SF: I've driven it; it's gorgeous, takes all day and by the time I got to Monterey the sun was setting so I stopped at the pier for dinner, then cut over to the interstate to finish the trip in the dark. if you have time (I didn't) you could stop along the way at:
http://www.hearstcastle.org/
ROSEBUD!
Wyoming:
I second the Grand Tetons recommendation. It might be tough to do justice to Yellowstone & the Tetons in the same day, tho. It will be cold up there, at least at night.
Don't say "shit" in print.
ReplyDeleteLove you forever, Your Mother
there is also a rock in joshua tree that looks like a skull. me and g went there. the teddy bear cacti are also a site to see.
ReplyDeleteHAVE A GREAT TIME!
Wowza. so fun. Okay.
ReplyDeleteNew Mexico. Period. I'm going to push hard for Taos-- Yes, it's north of Albequerque and Santa Fe in the mountains (SF is more touristy, still awesome) but it's really small and you're likely to see the most amazing stars ever. I went by myself years ago, then took Andy back as soon as we met.
Taos is cool in that you may easily meet rainbow children at the local pizza place and be invited to their fire-twirling,live music parties outside their tin-can-DIY houses in the desert where a dj plays inside and drummers drum outside. Or maybe that just happened to me.
There's a bed and breakfast in town I stayed at called the laughing horse, it's a prototype for an earthships-- half greenhouse half underground and adobe- totally sustainable. organic breakfast. hot tub and free mountain bikes to ride around town in. awesome owner-- $96ish a night.
Taos also is awesome (and eye-opening) since you can visit the Taos Pueblo-one of the only living Native American communities.
Lots of amazing easy hikes, up to incredible views.
You can drive the Enchanted Circle (incredible- 10 miles north of Taos--National Forest Scenic Byway circles Wheeler Peak, the highest in New Mexico at 13,161 feet. Throughout the drive, you'll see some of the oldest rocks in the southwest - quartz and feldspar that date back two billion years, and you may see Elk-- there's also the D.H. Lawrence memorial and a really weird/cool Vietnam Vets Memorial on it-- it's only a three hour loop in the car).
Go west of Taos to the Gorge Bridge (The bridge is the second-highest expansion bridge in the country-it's appeared in Natural Born Killers, Twins, She's Having a Baby, Wild Hogs and "Terminator: Salvation".) Totally scary and awesome. Planes sometimes race each other under it, hot air balloons dip down into it.
Also, the Rancho de Taos Church is one of the most photographed churches in the world (it's in town). There's also another church a drive outside of town called El Santuario de Chimayo (it's in Chimayo) that was built around a hole where the dirt is holy and has healing powers. I brought home a film-canister of it. Good stuff.
Taos is for lovers and weirdos. Certainly you can make this connection.
P.S. I drove from NM to Las Vegas on one of the trips with Caroline (pre)Blomquist (Waumiss). The Hoover Dam is really pretty freaking cool, too. Get your damn dam jokes ready. (and in LA, I second the Museum of Jurassic Technology. wtf, indeed.)
Taos. Worth it. You guys are awesome. Best best best to ya both! Live it for us all!
Oh, what fun! Some places we've enjoyed, in rough order of your itinerary:
ReplyDeleteRhyolite, NV - our favorite ghost town so far, between Las Vegas and Death Valley
Manzanar - if you have time to drive north from Death Valley. The site of a former Japanese internment camp that's being restored by the National Park Service. It's also an amazingly stark and beautiful setting for reflection on a sad time in American history. You can stop in Lone Pine for lunch and over grilled cheese sandwiches gaze at all the pictures of John Wayne.
Third the Museum of Jurassic Technology, and go next door to the Center for Land Use Interpretation.
Also in LA - if you need lunch, go downtown to Cliftons Cafeteria on Broadway, an old style cafeteria with an indoor forest/waterfall and resident stuffed deer. Down the street is the Farmacia Y Botanica Million Dollar for all your curse lifting and religious ecstacy needs. Museum of Neon Art is nearby too - the old signs are cool, the art perhaps a little less so (Ian interrupts to say that he thinks the art *is* cool).
Solvang, CA - on the road between LA and Santa Barbara or a little north. It's a wholly Danish themed town, with actually good danish pastries.
Madonna Inn - a crazy hotel with crazy rooms, many which feature in-room rock waterfalls (apparently a popular item in California). It's gotten pricey over the years, but if you can splurge...
Olallieberry picking - if you want a California agricultural experience, Coastways farm just north of Santa Cruz has excellent U-pick. Olallieberries are a cross between a blackberry and bosenberry and really tasty. You could probably pick enough to sustain yourselves for the rest of the trip.
Somewhere in here is a town called Pescadero, which is nothing too special other than there's a good restaurant there called Duartes, known for their artichoke soup and berry pies. The kind of place grandparents go. And drink.
Ano Nuevo State Park - you can walk out to the beach and see elephant seals in various stages of mating/molting/migrating. Elephant seals, yeah, makes you wonder about evolution.
San Francisco - almost too many things to list, but some good places/activities are:
- hiking out to Lands End and/or Cliff House and Sutro Baths on the far west side of the peninsula
- Marin Headlands north of the Golden Gate Bridge (there's a nice hostel there w/ private rooms) you can walk among nike missle silos and other crazy abandoned military stuff
- new Academy of Sciences Museum (pricey!) in Golden Gate park, but the building is pretty interesting
- if you're staying overnight and the weather's crappy (which it often is in the summer), you can catch a movie at the Castro theater
- afterwards you can go to the Mission neighborhood for burritos and gourmet ice cream and donuts, which are all the rage now (Bi-Rite Creamery, Humphrey Slocombe, Dynamo Donuts)
In-and-out burger - they're throughout California and definitely over-hyped, but good road food if you see one. For some reason every time we drive between SF and Sacramento we stop at the In-and-Out in Vacaville.
When in Memphis, I would recommend Neely's. My grandfather's cousin, a native of Memphis always takes us there. She knows her bbq.
ReplyDeleteWe always to the west location. I think it is near the hospital.
http://www.neelysbbq.com/locations.htm
I'm so very envious of your trip and can't wait to read all about it! Safe travels.
Um, can I come? All these suggestions are incredible.
ReplyDelete2 more cents: skip Hotlanta for now. You can always go there on a weekend...you should drive through NC & TN to get to Memphis. Much prettier to go through the mountains of eastern TN. Gatlingburg is a beautiful little town.
ReplyDeleteThe internet is so awesome. Shout out to the internet!
ReplyDeleteThere's not much I can add to this, but I think you got plenty. Looking forward to the first post from the road!
jenn h
Did you intentionally plan your trip so that its mapped route would look like the bat symbol?! Because that is awesome.
ReplyDeleteJenks
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ReplyDeleteDon't forget the Stax museum in Memphis. It's fairly new and on or next to the site of the original studio. McLemore Ave.
ReplyDelete