Saturday 12 April 2008

From the road...

Best food quote so far:

"Gar, the eggs are white and they come from chickens."

We've also learned that Twinkies contain beef fat, pink lemonade tastes like happy and we've heard rumours of giant mutant chickens being transported on the interstate. We're keeping an eye out for those. Maybe Skynet will be cyborg mutant chickens?

DAY #7 - we're not not in Kansas any more...


So far, we've driven upwards of 2750km through sun, snow, rain, hail and wind. We've been blinded by the bright neon lights of Reno, and amused by the tumbleweed blowing across our path in Kansas. We've dodged hurricanes, found bargains in Target and Wal-mart, met cowboys, but no indians so far.

We've played shuffleboard, seen a pool table with rather more sides and pockets than is the norm, seen a dog do tricks, and eaten altogether far too much food.

We've been sunburned, frozen and blown about. We've seen high rise buildings and cityscapes, mountains and great flat plains.

Tomorrow we head towards Chicago, though I'm not sure the 'windy city' can live up to its name after the winds we drive through today. Another 1138km to drive tomorrow, according the the crazy Australian Lady living in Kev's GPS. Let's hope our supplies of Pretzels and Twinkies hold out ;-)

Thursday 10 April 2008

Day 6

When I went to sleep last night it was lashing rain and then this morning when I got up the place was covered in a thcik blanket of snow.It is all very pretty.
Coleen made us lovely american pancakes complete with warm maple syrup which were yummmy:)
Today we head to Kansas in search of a yellow brick road and some ruby slippers and maybe if I am lucky a Target.
We went to Walmart on Tuesday,I was all impressed mostly because levis were $19.99 and were nice and cool t-shirts were about $6,didn't really buy anything though except a big box of lemonheads,they are the best candy that I have tried here:)

Ciara - congrats on the driving test,you rock:) *hugs*

Snow!

The snow promised yesterday has arrived. But it doesn't look too heavy and the roads look clear and the drive today is a fair bit shorter - Just 300 miles.

Last night we had bison burgers and today Ben's making up some homemade pancakes. Speaking of which, time for breakfast!

Wednesday 9 April 2008

Good morning Utah!

We stopped last night at a Best Western in lovely Coalville, Utah. The weather isn't exactly cooperating, but hey, at least we're not in the south Plains - they're looking forward to a tornado outbreak. When I said I moved to Ireland for the weather I wasn't completely kidding. I should point out that we won't be in the south Plains at any point in case anyone's worried.

Yesterday we got to IHOP and Walmart - Rach is very excited about $20 jeans. Gar got the night/snow driving yesterday so we're going to switch at lunch today so he can get some non-exciting driving.

Please excuse the video - I'm just learning how to use the camera.

Nevada snow


Snow on the mountains overlooking a rest stop along the I-80. Got gas, got sweets, got GPS, got internets- look out West coast.

Tuesday 8 April 2008

Reno!

Just for the record, this wasn't us.

We made it to Reno last night and Gar drove the bulk of the way. I think he finds automatics + cruise control amusing the same way I do, "why are you changing gears that way?" You could almost get into a conversation with the transmission. Not that I've ever done that during long drives, nope. There were a lot of chances to ask it though as we crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The last (only?) time I did serious mountain driving (no, not the Wicklow Mountains) was in a Ford Escort. The Toyota Sienna seems much easier.

Rach has now been to Wendy's and has learned that most Americans don't understand that chips are french fries. I haven't told her yet that cheese and onion flavor crisps are pretty much non-existent (and there's no Tayto). In other shopping news we've seen Target (didn't go in) and went to a Fry's. That last one explains why we now have a GPS - apparently Australian accents work best with text-to-speech systems.

Sunday 6 April 2008