Sandia Mountains

Mountainbiked up the mountains with David and DJ.  4000 feet. Great view of 46,000 square miles of New Mexico.
OK. We didn't mountain bike. We took a tram - 15 minutes up and 15 minutes down.  My kind of bike ride.

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The Babington Family

Spending the night with my cousin David, his wife Lindsay, and their son DJ. David and I spent most of dinner reminising about when we were kids in Perkasie (where he and my aunt used to spend their summers.) At one point I had to appologize to Lindsay for leaving her out of the conversation.

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Route 66

Drove from Wichita Falls to Albuquerque today.  If you haven't made the drive, that is one long flat drive.  Actually, it wasn't too long, just really flat and straight.  Once you cross the New Mexico state line, you start to see a few hills to your right and left.

Albuquerque is beautiful.  Something I've noticed about the cities in the south is there aren't suburbs the way we think of them in the northeast and even midwest.  Glad to be in the Q.

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The Crosby Clan

At the Rangers game with Shane and his four boys. I've known Shane and his wife Virginia since I was in Orlando in the late 90's.

When I got engaged, Shane said I should have proposed by making Melanie my #1 pick in a fantasy draft.

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Friends in Texas

Had a great time with Mark last night.  We went to the Astros game and then I stayed at his place last night.  Thanks for the hospitality!

Just finished having lunch with Dave.  I told Dave he could pick the place, but I wanted a true taste of Dallas.  So we ate at Pappasito's Cantina here in Fort Worth.  Great Tex Mex.

I got about an hour to kill before seeing Shane and his kids for a Rangers game.  Looking forward to seeing Shane, but it's 106 in Dallas today.  Houston was great last night because the roof was closed and they had the air conditioning on.  Not so lucky this evening.

I'll probably have to take off in the 6th or 7th inning so that I can drive two hours up to Wichita Falls after the game.  In the morning, I am driving to Albuquerque to see my cousin, so I figured I would knock off part of the drive this evening.

The Davenport Show

Went to see the Davenport Show at the Ritz Carlton last night- my last night in New Orleans.  I heard this was one of the top jazz shows in N.O.  Great time.

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100 in Houston

Easy drive from New Orleans to Houston this morning. Had a great Mexican dish with torillas, pork, cabbage, green sauce, rice, beans, and a sunny side up egg for dinner. Tasted like halipke.  Terrific.  Plus, the margarita they gave me was blue.  It was so good, I had two.
I'm at the ballpark about a half hour before I'm suppose to meet Mark.  The temp is in triple digits.

Po-Boy

For lunch, I drove to Mahoney's for an oyster po-boy.  I was watching Diners, Drive-ins, & Dives and Guy was there with Emeril, so I figured it had to be good. (It was)

New Orleans has been interesting, but I'm eager to get to Houston tomorrow.

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Another Round

After lunch I walked down by the river to get Melanie a Hard Rock shirt.  I sat right next to a guitar signed by the Black Crowes.  You could tell that a storm was coming.

On the way back it started pouring!  I happen to be a block away from Acme Oyster House. I really didn't have any choice but to duck in for some shelter, another round of raw oysters, and a few more shooters.

New Orleans oyster count: 40 and counting

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Acme Oyster House

I've been looking forward to raw oysters since I knew I was coming to New Orleans.  The guy shucked them right in front of me.  Add a little lemon juice and a touch of cocktail sauce and you got yourself a meal.  I just downed a dozen.

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Sitting on Bourbon Street

It was a long drive yesterday from Louisville to New Orleans.  Mississippi was probably the worst.  There was a whole lot of green and not much else.  I needed gas for about half an hour, but exits can be few and far between and not all of them have a gas station.  In the northeast, we're used to every exit having five gas stations.  Not the case down here.  Once I crossed the Louisiana state line, there were businesses everywhere.

Entering New Orleans was something special.  I was coming in on Rt 10.  It was sunset and you see in front of you where the road raises to start becoming a bridge.  You go up the hill and suddenly you're on this bridge that is straight as an arrow, has no end in sight, the clouds in front of you are purple with this blue-ish haze, and out your passenger-side mirror, the sun is setting and glistening off of this huge body of water.  I couldn't believe how long the bridge was.  It must have been over five miles.  It just kept going with this perfect scene surrounding you the entire time.

I got to my hotel (a block off Boubon Street), took a quick shower, and started to walk the greatest party I've ever been to.  It's not like this was a special occation.  Bourbon Street comes alive every night of the year!  It's like this living thing.  Every bar has a live band playing.  People stand on Bourbon Street encouraging you to enter their bar instead of the 1000 other options you have.  You can get a drink in the bars, or most places have "drive through windows" where you can get a cheap beer and continue along your merry way.

I hadn't eaten since lunch, but all I had was a bowl of Seafood Gumbo at one of the quieter estabilshments I could find.  I sat at the bar with a couple from New Jersey.  The husband was a middle school principal and the wife was an elementary school teacher.  She gave me two of her baked oysters.  Yum!

After sleeping in until 10:00 this morning, I stumbled down to the restaurant in the lobby of my hotel for my first ever plate of shrimp and grits.  Perfect way to start out the day.  I'm off to explore the French Quarter-daylight version.

Jack's BBQ

I'm at Jack's BBQ-one of the greatest BBQ joints in the South.  You walk in and your nose tells you you're someplace special. It's good (especially the ribs) but I prefer Pappy's Smokehouse in St. Louis.

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Wagner's Pharmacy

First stop: The famous Wagner's Pharmacy Restaurant. It is right across the street from Churchhill Downs and everyone tries to eat here before placing a bet at the Kentucky Derby.

Bobby Flay challenged them to an omlette throwdown and lost. Pam is making me the dish she beat Bobby with: "Pam and Jack's Omlette."

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Made it to Louisville

Being that I'm doing so much driving on this trip, I want to take advantage of the time in the car and listen to a few books I've been wanting to read.  Audible.com is great!

The first book on my list was "Outliers: The Story of Success" by Malcolm Gladwell.  It's the book that presents the 10,000 hour rule: In order to truely master a skill, you have to put in 10,000 hours of practice.

Listened to the whole thing (7.5 hours) on the way to Louisville.  Outstanding book.

It dispells the idea that some people are just born great and hard work is the true path to success, coupled with support and being in the right place at the right time.  Bill Gates got his hands on a computer in 8th grade and spent every spare moment programming and was at the perfect age when IBM needed an operating system.  The Beatles weren't that great of a band when they first got together, but for months at a time would play 6-8 hour sets seven nights a week in Hamburg, Germany.  When they were ready, so was the world.

I would highly recommend the book for anyone who . . . well . . . just about anyone.

It Begins!

I'm sitting in my last class at Lehigh for the summer.  The car is packed.  The trip meter is reset to zero.  I just booked my hotel room for tonight in Louisville, KY. 

I'm leaving in 15 minutes.  

Chrysler 200

Picked up the rental car. Disappointed and not disappointed. Disappointed because I wanted a 40 mpg Hyundai Accent.  It's a subcompact, but it doesn't look too tiny.

Instead, I got a fully loaded 30 mpg Chrysler 200.  It is sweet.  Retractable sunroof, satellite radio, and more buttons that I know what to do with.  But I was hoping, with 8,000 miles to travel, to get the super-mpg car.

There are greater tragedies in the world.

One Week To Go

The rental car has been booked.  Dates have been set.  Hotel reservations have been made.  Plane tickets have been purchased (for Melanie).  Friends and family around the nation have been contacted.  Dinners have been scheduled.

Two of my three summer classes are completed and the last one starts tomorrow morning and ends a week from tomorrow around lunchtime.  The rental car will be packed the night before and I will leave from that final class for Louisville, KY with an eye on being in New Orleans the following evening.

What am I looking forward to the most?  All the ballparks I'm going to see?  Reconnecting with old friends?  Seeing wonders I've never seen before like the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore?  Eating at restaurants I've only seen on the Food Network?  Driving along the Pacific Coast Highway with my wife?  Or kissing her on the Golden Gate Bridge? 

It's all that.  The whole package.  The experience.  It's doing something I've wanted to do since high school: drive across the country.  It's 8,000 miles of the best America has to offer.  It's the hope that I'll be a deeper person when I get back because of the cumulative richness of the experience.  It's having the stars align to have life present you with a dream opportunity and taking full advantage of it.