Back Home

Just a quick note to say that we did make it back into Columbus, OH. Its a little sad to be done, and to be back in a somewhat achingly familiar place again, but we are tired and need a few days to readjust. More summary notes to come. Oh, and a new album is up too in the Picasa web albums area showing our last day blast in Champaign, IL and the route home.

New Album

So here are a more complete set of pictures from the more recent leg of our trip, LA to Santa Fe:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sarah.r.anthony/SantaBarbaraLASanDiegoVegasGrandCanyonSantaFe#

Road home (from Santa Fe to Champaign so far) (Oct. 26 -28)

Tomorrow we return to Ohio. Sounds crazy, but its true. Just a little more driving after a few long driving days across some large open areas (pictures to come, but there aren't too many of Oklahoma, and the usual Midwest gang)

Santa Fe onwards was mostly trying to get through long and flat states. Theres some beautiful lands outside of Santa Fe, but it quickly flattened in Oklahoma. So we crossed Oklahoma and the top handle of Texas, and into the beginnings of Missouri in an epic bout of driving on the 26th. It was pretty easy, if not really windy across Oklahoma. We also did a little stint on Route 66 in Oklahoma between Oklahoma City and Tulsa to enjoy the scenery and cut out the toll road. It wasn't terribly exciting, but was a nice break. After dinner we decided to press on a bit further and car-camped in a small Missouri town just past Springfield. This morning we crossed through gentle hills in Missouri, took a small tour stop around my old home town in Springfield, IL and will be spending tonight with a high school friend near U of Illinois in Champaign. Tomorrow we will make the relatively short 5 hour drive across Indiana to get back to Columbus. It will be good to be home, but neither of us really are ready to confront the mess the car has become, let alone moving everything back around to being livable again inside, but it will be nice to not have to drive so much for a while.

Santa Fe (Oct. 25)

So we got up early at our car-camp sight in Arizona and took off early for Santa Fe. Unfortunately we hit quite a snag that started with a 10 mile traffic jam where the highway was shut down by a truck accident ahead. We detoured and ended up on quite a fiasco, which we will detail in another post do to the length it takes to explain (maybe we will each make our own go at explaining it, which could provide some interesting commentary). Anyways, we ended up getting to Santa Fe a little later, but still in decent time, although a little later than any of the galleries and museums were open. So we kind of toured around a little and enjoyed the unique adobe/pueblo type buildings and looked in windows one of the gallery districts. We stopped for some tasty New Mexican cuisine and drinks, and pondered our last few stops before getting home.

Pics: New Mexican architecture and cuisine, gallery

Grand Canyon (Oct. 24)

We made our way out of the recovering Las Vegas early in the morning and made our way across more desert to the Grand Canyon, which was uneventful save for a controlled fire in the distance. The canyon was beautiful, as expected and we decided to take a drive along the rim and exit out of the East after entering in the South. We then pushed on a bit outside the park to edge closer to Santa Fe, our destination for the next day.

Pics: Hoover Dam and the Canyon

Las Vegas (Oct. 23)

After a quick bite (delicious pumpkin pancakes) across from the self-realization compound in Encinitas, we continued on to get out to LA. It quickly became desert land and little bits of unbridled commercialism started popping up as beacons to draw people into the desolation. Eventually we made it to our giant spired hotel and were quickly overwhelmed with flashing lights and people who conveniently knew no information related to the world outside the casino/resort of their own. So we eventually made it out and got to enjoy some faux culture. Behind all of the facades and pomposity, there lurks pockets of real art, but not very often. Anyways, it was pretty fun to wander the halls, enjoy some drink and food and a few free "shows". Probably not the best place to be without wanting to spend money, as you do have to pay for most of the worthwhile cultural things in vegas (food/shows/drinks/art/museums/zoos?). But a good midway point to the Grand Canyon.

Pics: Our hotel, the Stratosphere, crazy theme shops (although the theme of the area had nothing to do with the shops ever it seemed), Paris, and fountain light show

San Diego (Oct. 22)

We continued on down the coast and stopped in Laguna beach on our way out of LA to enjoy the beach and crazy houses. We met up with my cousin Ashley in La Jolla to tour around San Diego a bit, seeing the sights around UCSD campus and Balboa park that afternoon. Afterwards we hung around in La Jolla, enjoying the beach and galleries while waiting to meet up with a school friend whom we were staying with in Encinitas. We went to dinner and talked design (boring Sarah) and called it quits relatively early to get on the road again in the morning.

Pictures: Balboa park, arts and spanish village in the park, Seals and beaches of La Jolla

Los Angeles (Oct. 20th + 21st)

So from Santa Cruz we took 2 days to get down to LA, staying at Montana de Oro state park near San Luis Obispo in between. In LA we stayed with family friends in Orange, which was good to visit with them, if not a little far from downtown LA. We also visited Zoe Melo near Santa Monica, with whom I had talked with originally about the project I did in Brazil for my thesis http://mattinbrazil.tumblr.com/
From there we walked down to a nice Commercial street, checked out some shops and the oddness at Venice Beach before settling on a slice of pizza and a frozen yogurt to wait for traffic to die down a little before getting out to Orange. It didnt't help much, but I guess I can say I had a taste of the crazy driving and traffic on the LA area freeways. We did a little architecture walk downtown the next day (intending to see some museums...which were apparently all closed on the days we were visiting) but got to see some interesting things in downtown and Little Tokyo.

Pictures below: Venice Beach, the Disney Concert Hall, a giant split Korean lunch, and the sunset from the house we stayed in.

Quick Update

So I was hoping to upload pictures from the days getting us from LA to Santa Fe last night, but the computer did not comply. We spent a few days going from LA to San Diego, to Vegas, to Grand Canyon, to Santa Fe. This morning we leave for somewhere in Oklahoma to camp, then hopefully the next day we can make it to central Illinois, then finally back into Ohio on the third day. Hopefully we can upload some of the final days before the end of the trip, but we may not have internet long enough until back in Ohio. In any case, lots of driving ahead on the long and flattening route home.

Backlog: Hearst Castle (Oct. 20th)

Here are some pictures to tide everyone over a few days from our tour of Hearst Castle on the way down to LA. We successfully navigated through LA traffic for 2 days, then spent a day in San Diego before continuing on to Las Vegas. We are leaving LV this morning for the Grand Canyon, then Santa Fe the next day. We will try to update a little more once we reach NM.

Backlog: Santa Cruz (Oct. 17th to 19th)

We continued on down the SF bay down to the coast at Santa Cruz. Its a lovely little beach town full of fun things and a counter culture/ artist haven vibe. We stayed with family friends there and got a nice insider tour, seeing some beautiful parks and touring around local food and art markets.

(We are now on our way to LA, publishing this from near San Luis Obispo and will hopefully update our 2 day journey from Santa Cruz down soon)

(In order: The wharf in Santa Cruz, Sea Lions shuffling for position under the wharf and making a lot of noise, the Santa Cruz boardwalk, and one of the artist spaces where they were selling their work in town)

Backlog: San Francisco (Oct. 10th-17th)

We got to spend a number of fun days bumming around San Francisco. I tried to talk to some design groups there during the week while Sarah played around town and slept in. We did get some major relaxing in and got to enjoy the numerous gustatory delights (from nice restaurants to taco trucks) and arts (speakers from indie art fairs, to art speakers, to art museum). All in all a good visit.

We wanted to see the new California Academy of Sciences building, but entrance was steep, so we saw the also new and innovative De Young art museum across the way. It was a beautiful couple days to be walking around San Fransisco.

Backlog: Wine country to San Francisco

The next day we went on a hike up Sugarloaf ridge after breakfast. It was a good little hike with beautiful views of Sonoma valley. We drove over the ridge to Napa valley and toured around a little before getting into SF to spend a few days with my brother.

(the pictures in order: An overlook on our hike, turkey's in our camp area, the Wine Spectator/ Culinary Institute restaurant where we had lunch and toured around in Napa valley, and crossing the Bay Bridge into San Francisco)

Backlog: Redwoods to Wine Country (Oct. 9th)

The next day we drove down Hwy 101 into Wine country and enjoyed a little time in Sonoma before driving up into a regional state park (Sugar Loaf Ridge)