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 ;-)

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!

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.

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.

Baseball in Oakland

Enjoying the game in sunny Oakland.

At the airport...

Their flight left half an hour late apparently (thanks for that 2am text Rach! ;^) ) but according to the board they'll get in 1 minute early. In fact in theory they've already landed. Hopefully their ground crew knows how to position the plane!

Meanwhile my Nokia E65 works again so now I need to search out an American pre-paid SIM that I can use for the trip. Anyone have any suggestions for this?

On the things going wrong side, my right shoe is going flat and seems to be getting louder - step, *hiss*, step, *hiss*, step, *hiss*... It's worse on solid floors so I'm waiting for airport security to ask about that. My manager suggested a mall (malls have wikipedia pages?) that we'll pass on the way out of SF and recommended Skechers. I'm assuming he never had a pair of those go flat.

Airport blues...

Didn't realise that you cannot, in fact, clear American immigration in Dublin - any time I've flown from Ireland to the States previously, it's been from Shannon. No matter. There's plenty of seating in terminal D and it's the last time my 3G card will work until I return to Ireland.

I remembered to get a bunch of extra visa-waiver forms, as I've always managed to fill them out wrong the first time. Got it right the first time this morning, but someone else didn't, and managed to use all my spares ;-)

The plane is slightly delayed, but hopefully only by fifteen minutes or so. I've brought my 'ghey-pee-ess' as Rach now calls it, so we shouldn't get lost... after all, it can navigate from Dublin to Kilkenny in a mere 7 hours assuming you take the scenic route over the Wicklow mountains :-)

Here's to a peaceful flight and a relaxing holiday in the US. See you soon Kev!

Not a creature was stirring...

It's the night before Gar and Rach get here. I talked to them on the phone as they got on the plane and they were all good to go. This is my last night in lovely downtown Mountain View (my leafy street is pictured to the right) and looking forward to spending the night in San Francisco.

We're planning on going to see an Oakland A's (vs the Cleveland Indians) on Sunday. It's nice to show people new to your country one of your traditional national sports (*cough*).

$ and €

1 EUR = 1.57210 USD

That has changed since I checked at 9am in our favour:)

Gars DS has been found thanks to Ciara:)

Bags aren't packed yet but who needs bags packed with the value of the dollar?;)

It's the last day of work...

...for three whole weeks! Everything must be completed and/or handed over by the end of today. There is no panic here.

In other news, the camera is still missing, the GPS has been located and batteries charged. MP3/Ogg players are at the ready, and I'm packing a CD writer and a few blanks in case the car only has a CD player and we can't plug an MP3/Ogg player into the radio directly.

The car has been hired, the Nightwish gig attended, the suitcases recovered from the attic and the junk tipped out of them, the clothes washed, the kitten fed, the passport renewed, and the tickets lost. With just over 24 hours to find them again, I think we'll all be okay.

Next stop, Dublin's finest airport...

Old favourites...

So my first week back in the States and I've had several old favourites - including Cap'n Crunch for breakfast! Yum! Apparently it has something other that sugar in it. Who knew?

In other news the fabulous Rachael and the fine folks at Car Hire 3000 have found our vehicle (that's VEE-hikle by the way - hopefully folks can help Rach and Gar learn to speak proper English): a Chevrolet Uplander. The review isn't exactly glowing but it looks like it has the room we need and won't be too tank-like to drive.

Hotels!

So we're booked into the Hotel Triton in San Francisco for our first two nights. Still trying to figure out the car. We've been looking on Car Hire 3000 and Kayak.com for cars. For car models the Toyota Sienna seems good for a minivan, the Chrysler Pacifica seems good for a "crossover" (uh, isn't that just a bulky station wagon? OK, apparently not.) and for large sedans the Chrysler 300 and Buick Lucerne seem good.

Anyone have any opinions? This will be for three people, their growing amount of luggage ($1.55 to the euro? shopping fever!) over 4,500 miles so a Dodge Neon is not on the cards. Or a Miata for that matter (*sniff*).

In lovely Mountain View, California

Made it to San Francisco. There was a lengthy argument between the ground crew and the pilot regarding the exit ramp. Sadly my cold seems worse so I'm going to break my normal advice and crash at 5pm. I suspect Mountain View at 2am on a Monday morning is even more boring!

The Dollar

American Dollar

1.5495

Good news for us, generally probably not so good news.

Since I mentioned I was going to the states, I have been told how cheap everything is there and in particular a shop called Target, which I am expecting to be the American equivalent of Heatons or Pennys.

I googled for it today and I think http://www.target.com/ is the Shop!

The other hard decision I may have to face is which one of these tiny laptops is the one I want the most?

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39029450,49295979-1,00.htm

:)

Road tripping the 2008 Democratic primary

Five days before Pennsylvania voters go to the polls, we'll be driving through the Keystone State. At stake will be the largest state left in the Democratic primary process - with 158 pledged delegates up for grabs. Currently most polls have Obama trailing Clinton by around 10%. Hover over PA on the map on electoral-vote.com for current polls.

We'll drive near Pittsburg so we might get a chance to see a rally.

Pun training

I have been unable to confirm rumours that Gar and Rach have been listening to this broadcast on repeat as a method of training for the trip.

Hey, is that hair on his head?

So I was going through some old pictures looking for pictures for the blog header and came across this one from my first road trip (well, not counting ones my parents took me on). It was taken in Colorado at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Since I just turned 25, that must mean it was taken 4 years ago since I was 21 at the time... yes, that's it.