Have you ever wondered what it would be like if Boston and New Orleans had a baby? 

While I have. And I think I found the answer: Savannah, GA. A place where you can walk around and drink a beer (like New Orleans) but not see a truck out bleaching the streets in the morning (like Boston).

When I travel I like to check out all the local coffee shops. Just kidding, I follow the advice from Strangers with Candy: Go with what you know.


Bonnie took me down these saying it was the only way to get to the river. I thought for sure I would fall. But I didn’t. Had I seen the sign about using them at my own risk I definitely would not have risked it, but it was at the bottom. Thanks for the heads up.

Every time I wanted to take a picture of something scenic in Savannah another object I was also included, like a crane or a cable truck.

Oops…I forgot to close out Road Trip 2016! Here’s a wrap up.

Camping is not for us. National Parks are amazing. The Pacific Northwest has a lot of Jeeps, but not many of the wave. So in summary, we gave out way more Jeep Waves that we received (63), drove 8,791.2 miles and packed all this beer in a two door Jeep Wrangler with two adults, two dogs and 24 days worth of stuff  (we mailed all the camping stuff back in CA because that shit sucked).

 

Time to turn this ship around and head back to east.


Driving from Sacremento to Santa Monica was intense, the temperature got up to 112 and all sorts of cars were broken down on the side of the road.

We had a nice dinner in Santa Monica with a friend and it was 72 there which was amazing. It’s crazy how much the temperature changes when you get to the coast of CA. Chauncy begged for dinner with his buddy Elroy and Kisses tried to fight Elroy for his toys. 

Mainers are not supposed to ever grow up and drive on the freeway in Los Angeles. If I had to do that everyday I would have to at least triple my anxiety medication. 

West Coast adventurers and that time California kicked my ass. 

Portland was cool. It rained everyday except the morning we left. Each day we were able to meet up with friends and enjoy awesome food and beer. However, Portland confirmed my love for the uptight East Coast way of living. 

The drive to California was gorgeous and terrifying. We drove down 101 and it had fields, hills, trees and the coast. It was definitely the most diverse landscape of the trip (Bonnie will post about that at a later time). Below was the sunset on the coast as we drove to our campsite it the redwoods. 

We could not find our campsite and we were convinced someone was mistakenly in it. Nope turns out we had to hike in the woods to get to it. So on the fly we ate Pizza Hut take out, cracked open a beer and had what Bonnie called a picnic. 


We then drove back in to Crescent City where there was cell reception and found an “inn” that was actually a motel that accepted dogs. Camping officially sucks. 

The next day we made our way down 101 and got a good look at the redwoods. 

I have a 40 minute plus video from the GoPro I mounted on the hood of the Jeep from when we drove through the Avenue of the Giants should anyone want to make that time commitment. 

Look at this sweet Jeep. 

Our second stop as we made our way to Sacramento was at Russian River because I wanted to get some Pliney the Eleder for our beer party. But the bottles were sold out so we just got two growlers. (I was able to track some bottles down, I know a beer guy named Tigh). And I got a new purse. 

 So then we get back on the road to head to Tigh and Kelly’s house. But surprise! There was a NASCAR race in Napa that day so traffic was a nightmare. Cars were overheating, people were walking, we were going nowhere. 


And now for that time California kicked my ass. It was hot in Sacremento. 

 And the day went like this. We went to lunch at a Mexican place. It was amazing. I also had a beer. 

We then went to the Delta King and I had another beer. 

Then we stopped at Track 7 Brewery and drank a beer outside. As is customary we took this selfie to send to Roger. 

And then we went back home. I was in bed for over 24 hours and could not eat anything. For me, California is not a place to party. But now I am back and drinking lots of water and heading to LA. Oh and we are mailing all our camping gear home. Screw that. 

Yellowstone/Wyoming/Idaho:Beautiful with limited wireless service and a hotbed of Jeeps. 

So far, so good. As I post this the trip is on mile 3,367 and we are on Route 84 (not great for Jeep Waves but top notch for rest areas) in Oregon headed for our first multiple night stop in the other Portland.

Turns out camping is not as adorable as I thought, this may be heavily influenced by the tent directions in Spanish, the 7+ plus hours of driving that came before the tent setup and the fact that all that work was for one night.

For me the most interesting thing that happened was at a construction site on the way to Yellowstone. We came to a stop where the flagger told us to and he looked at our license plate and made some sort of gesture about how far we had travelled. So I rolled the window down to talk to him. Turns out he owns a Jeep too and wanted to talk about tire types, gas mileage and the like. Then he says, “I don’t mean to pry, (I’m thinking oh great here we go), but are you two married?” I respond that we are and he puts his hand to both of us and says, “I think that’s great!” He then went on to tell us he has lots of gay friends where he is from in Florida. Then the topic of gun control comes up and to my surprise once again we were in agreement. Then we moved to healthcare and he mentions  how he does not have it, he says the republicans in Wyoming voted for a single source healthcare system and it was $1500 a month and that was too much. I agreed. He continued to say that he tried signing up for Obamacare but they wanted access to his bank account and there was no way he was doing that. Next up was the election. He expressed his support for Trump. I told him that at lot of the things Trump says terrify me. He agrees. At this point I get a little anxious (you know because I’m with her). I could see it was almost out turn to go, I told him I respected his opinion and for a lot of people this election was about change. Anyway, my point is this, in a very real way and in unexpected place it hit me that political opinions that are different from my own are not wrong, they just come from a different place.

Now here are some photos.

Old Faithful. It was neat. That is about all I can say about water shooting out of the ground.

As Bonnie was coming out of the shower station in the park (the dogs and I were waiting in the car) she said, “do you see that?” and I looked to the left and these two were coming up from the left and walked right in front of the Jeep. It was beautiful until Kisses lost her shit and scared them away with her barks. 

Grand Teton maybe?

A woman came up as i was taking this photo , read the sign and said she was going in her camper then.

Minneapolis and hours and hours of corn fields, and one poor bird.

It’s day five and we have driven almost 2,000 miles, killed at least a million bugs and one poor bird. I think we can both agree that driving this much is exhausting. 

A real surprise for me was how much I liked Minneapolis. It was industrial, modern and historic. See photos. We stayed in an area that I think was called Mill City. I suspect my review might be like it I went to Boston and thought it all looked like Back Bay. 

One final note, we drove by Prince’s house. There were a lot of people there. We didn’t get out and gawk, we just drove by and saw where he lived. He lived across the street from a General Mills facility. As a huge fan the whole thing just made me sad. ​