Days 7 through 10: Boulder/Denver or Times Flies When You're Funemployed

After a full week on the road I was excited to get to Colorado where I knew I’d be hanging out for a few days. Well, a few days turned into an entire week so I’m going to go ahead and condense the start of this week into one big post because to be totatlly honest, I did a lot of lounging and that doesn’t make for very interesting reading.

Denver/Boulder happen to be home to two of my closest friends (Amy and Brandon respectively) so I knew I’d have a cozy place to stay in each city and lots of hang out time. I started out with a few days in Denver with Amy at her big girl loft in the middle of downtown. Her loft happens to have an awesome roof top deck where I spent a good portion of my time lounging in the sun while everyone else was at work.

View from the roof deck

Sometimes roof lounging involved beverages, such as this iced coffee which may have had a touch of Bailey's

When I wasn’t lounging in the glorious mountain sun Amy and I indulged in boba tea (one of our favorite treats) which is basically any kind of tea or sometimes frozen smoothie/milkshake like concoctions with tapioca pearls at the bottom. Tapicoa pearls are basically marble sized chewy balls of deliciousness, they are slightly sweet but don’t really have a strong flavor. I wish I had taken a picture because I think that a lot of people haven’t tried or even seen boba tea before and I want to share it with everyone because it is really one of my favorite things ever.

After, boba tea Amy took my to a really cool little specialty market called Marcyk’s. Which is probably exactly the kind of market I would open if I had the money, time, and desire to open one. It had a great cheese selection and most importantly for our purposes really tasty, made to order sandwiches. We decided on splitting a veggie and a Mediterranean tuna sandwich and took them back to the roof to hang out in the sun before Amy had to go to work.

Proof that sometimes I hang out with other people and not just food and Max

Although, food is usually involved in that hanging out too.

The other food highlight of my time in Denver was Snooze, a great little breakfast lunch place right around the corner from Amy’s house. Not only do they have really good, locally and organic focused food they have a full bar! At a breakfast spot!! Genius! So, along with my breakfast tacos I had a ginger infused vodka and pineapple juice (it was 2pm so don’t be too quick to judge, although I guess 2 is still a little early, but hey I’m funemployed what do you expect?)

Just another block away from Snooze is Great Divide Brewing Co. I’ve had their beers before and they have always been very tasty and I wanted to get some gifts for my lovely hosts so I headed over to the brewery to pick up a couple growlers. If you don’t know what a growler is, basically it’s a big glass jug that they fill at the brewery from the tap so that you can have draught beer at home, because we all know draught is usually (really always but I don’t want to start any fights) better than bottled. So, after tasting a few of their beers I hadn’t had before I settled on 3 growlers and made the 4 block trek home (which was kind of a trek considering I was carrying approximately 15 pounds of glass jugs and beer). I left Amy’s growler in her fridge and loaded my car up to head for Boulder.

Believe it or not Boulder was even more loungey than Denver. But I did get to try Boulder Baked which I have been hearing about for a few years now as the place that has delivery cookies. Seriously, cookies delivered to you fresh from the oven in a pizza box. These people are college town geniuses. Besides cookies they also have cakes, brownies, and ice cream to make a bevy of delicious late night treats. I tried a piece of black and white cake (vanilla and chocolate cake layered with buttercream and chocolate buttercream frosting) while Brandon went for a cookie sundae.

On my second (Ok, maybe it was 3^rd these days are kinda hard to keep track of) Brandon and I ventured out to take a sunset drive through the mountains to take a lazy person’s hike to a little outcropping of rocks overlooking a big dam and reservoir. It was a gorgeous sunset and a great way to work up an appetite for a great Mediterranean meal at Brandon’s favorite place The Med. We both had a couple glasses of wine and I had spanokopita while he had a steak with the claim to fame of being Frank Sinatra’s favorite meal.

Sunset over the mountains

Somewhere in these days I also met up with a good friend from Jacksonville and a few other friends (some old and some new) for a little house party and a concert at the Boulder Theatre.

I definitely had to do some condensing to make this all one post but I think I hit the highlight, if I think of anything else especially interesting I’ll tack on some little addendums but this is pretty much it for my time in Boulder/Denver. I’m working on my next for posts and hopefully they’ll be up in a couple days.

I made it!

I made it to California!! I am also currently living in a house in the country that is 2 miles down a dirt road and there isn't any internet or cell phone service. Sorry I have been seriously slacking on this last week of posts, I promise I am working on them but exploring a new place is taking precedence. So just be patient the second half of my trip is coming soon. To hold you over here are a few pictures from the past week.

Days 5 and 6: Austin > Amarillo > Denver or Driving Time is Learning Time

I’m putting these two days together because they are really one leg of the trip, I just couldn’t make the whole drive from Austin to Denver (16 hours) in one day so I stopped for a night in Amarillo and did pretty much nothing but sleep. Oh, well I did get this tasty pizza from a place around the corner from my hotel. I got a little worried that I was going to have to give up my "no chain" rule for the night considering it was almost 10pm on a Sunday when I checked into my hotel but luckily this place was just down the road and open until 10:30.

Why is it that greek places make such awesome pizza? Oh, and just a little tid bit, I couldn’t get a picture but this place had a sign that said “4 out of 5 people prefer our gyro to a McDonald’s Big Mac” which for some reason really cracked me up. They also boasted a 30” pizza called the “Big Texan”; it was definitely my kinda place.

I spent most of these two days listening to my new favorite radio show called Radiolab. It’s on NPR (of course) and I can’t believe I haven’t been listening to it for years. I have heard a few segments from Radiolab on This American Life (another one of my favorite NPR shows) and finally decided to check it out. And I have to say, I was totally blown away. If you haven’t heard this show you really, really, really need to check it out. It’s insightful, funny, and ultimately just very entertaining. I think I listened to four or five episodes in the car today (they’re an hour long) and I could have listened to them all day but that’s all I put on my phone. They have a ton of podcasts that you can download for free, so go on! Get a little knowledge in on your drive to work or around town or you know… across the country.

two lane beauty.

I actually really enjoyed these two days of driving because in addition to my almost constant stream of Radiolab I barely had to drive on any giant highways at all. Really, I think I feel most at home on little two lane roads heading anywhere as long as I’m on some sort of adventure, and really aren’t we always on some sort of adventure? I’m not sure what it is about these roads, maybe it’s the tiny towns that pop up along the way, or the solitude of nothing but the road and fields or trees as far as you can see. But, if I could take these roads to get everywhere I wanted to go I wouldn’t be caught dead on any of those soul sucking, six lane atrocities.

Here are a few pics from the drive because, even with solid radio programming and two-lane scenery, being in your car by yourself for 16 hours can get a little boring.

waiting for the train.

Day 4: Austin or Texas loves football

I should have known I couldn’t escape Texas without watching a little football. Lucky for me I was staying with a fellow FSU fan so at least I could watch a game that I cared about (well more than any other football game at least). So our morning was filled with Bloody Mary’s (maries?), Migas (I didn’t even suggest this but it was delicious again!), and college football.

After all that we took the dogs to Barton Springs, which is a cool park with some springs and lots of locals (and their pups) relaxing in the water. Max and Fee (my friend Robbie’s daschund) had a lot of fun swimming. It was nice to get outside and walk around the park and let Max run wild for a bit, sometimes I feel bad for keeping him cooped up in the car all day while we’re driving (although I guess he is pretty much just sleeps anyways so that’s not much of a change from his home life).

Feeling good about having our active part of the day out of the way we headed to a BBQ joint that also brews it’s own beers and happens to have a big patio so the dogs could join us for a couple pints before heading home to shower up and get ready for the night.

Apparently we left the house a little too late or too early because everywhere we tried to go for dinner had at least an hour wait, finally we ended up at a little tex mex place farther down the road from the busy strip of restaurants we intended on patronizing. But this place (I already forgot the name, oops) and a lot more calm than the other places which suited us just fine. We topped the night off with a few drinks at a cool little bar in what used to be a gas station with a few of Robbie’s friends.

Day 3: New Orleans to Austin or Always Trust the Fat Ladies

Nothing too exciting about today, got up when my lovely hosts left for work this morning and hit the road for my next stop: Austin, TX. I felt a little disappointed with myself that I had been in Louisiana for 2 days and still not had a po’ boy so while I was headed down I-10 I kept looking for a place to stop and get one before I crossed over into Texas. I used my handy GPS to find somewhere along the way that sounded like it might be good and found Fausto’s. It definitely wasn’t the fanciest place ever but it was lunch time, I was hungry, and the packed parking lot seemed like a good indication that I was in for a good Cajun lunch. And what I got was a delicious Cajun feast.

I went in set on getting a po’ boy (which they had and I’m sure would have been tasty) but a little dry erase board on the counter caught my eye. Their “Plate Lunch” special for the day was: fried fish filet, fish something I couldn’t read over rice (turned out to be some kind of tomato based fish stew), lima beans, corn on the cob, and a roll all for $5.99. What kind of thrifty roadtripper would I be if I passed up a deal like that? So, obviously I went for it, the fact that the three ladies in front of me who looked rather… ahem, well fed, all ordered the plate lunch only pushed me over the edge. I can’t believe I almost got a po’ boy. This was definitely the right choice for a “leaving Louisiana” meal. Here are some before and after pics, I was seriously hungry and could barely make a dent in this mountain of food. Mmmmm, leftovers.

What was left after I could not eat another bite.

Day 2: New Orleans or Speakeasies Need Better Lighting

My day in New Orleans started out pretty slowly, my hosts all had to work so I was on my own until the afternoon when I had plans to meet up with a friend who promised to give me his tour of Nola. Lucky for me Thom and Chris live in the beautiful Garden District and there were a bunch of breakfast places within walking distance. I took Chris’s advice and walked down the street to Surrey’s Juice bar. It was a cool little place with lots of fresh, tasty juices and breakfast/lunch foods. It was still a little early for lunch so I went for the Migas, which was eggs scrambled with cheddar cheese, onions, peppers, crunched up tortilla chips, and pico on top. I also got a biscuit and cheese grits and their juice special of the day which was orange, mango, pineapple. Everything was super tasty and I am definitely putting Migas in my breakfast repertoire.

Mmmm, cheesy goodness.

After a slow stroll back to the house I hung out and did some blog stuff until Whit came to scoop me up for a personal New Orleans tour. Whit is studying environmental law and urban planning and just got back from an internship with the EPA in DC. He is definitely up on his NoLa history and loves to share his love and knowledge of the city with visiting friends such as myself. We took a drive through the city and down to the Lower Ninth Ward and Bayou Bienvenue. This was my first visit to New Orleans since Katrina and I wasn’t totally sure what to expect. It was tragic and beautiful all at once.

Seeing Brad Pitt’s new beautiful pet project homes (Make It Right http://www.makeitrightnola.org/) alongside dozens of driveways leading to vacant lots was heartbreaking but also held a small hint of hope. Only five years ago this neighborhood was nearly totally devastated, only a few heavy concrete block structures survived the storm, every other home in this area succumbed to the powerful storm waters. I tried to imagine what it might have been like to see your home and all those around you literally torn from its foundation and swept away by flood waters but I have no basis on which to imagine that scale of destruction. Now, amidst the empty driveways of a ruined neighborhood are the beginnings of something new and (hopefully) better. The "Make it Right" homes are built to withstand storms and work with nature rather than against it, the country's first amphibious home is now located only blocks from those levees we have heard so much about. It is certainly a project that is full of hope, but what kind of difference does or will it make? I really can't say, but even a tiny bit of hope in itself is something.

Our tour continued with a walk around the French Quarter, a couple to go beers, and an obligatory beignet at Café du Monde. But just wait, Whit’s best activity was still to come. Somehow I forgot that my friends from Tallahassee love food just as much as I do, and Whit is also familiar with my (sometimes over the top) passion for cheese. It seems like I really lucked out because Thursday happens to, be wait for it….. WINE AND CHEESE SCHOOL!!!

Every Wednesday and Thursday night the St. James Cheese Company hosts “Cheese School” where for a bargain $20 you get a 2 hour cheese tasting/lesson (and each cheese is paired with wine!). So, obviously when Whit proposed this plan I couldn’t say yes fast enough. And lucky lucky me, this week’s class was being co-sponsored by a local wine shop so we got some fancy pants wines and an expert description for each! The cheeses this week were all Italian and all very, very tasty. We definitely didn’t have any leftovers (of wine or cheese). I also left with a distinct feeling that cheese should be a main factor in my next career choice.

Before

After

Cheese paradise

So, as if I hadn’t had a big enough food filled day, Thom had one more unique food experience in store for me, a pizza speakeasy. Yep, that’s right, an honest to goodness speakeasy. One of his friends had built a full-scale, restaurant quality hearth pizza oven in his back yard and once a week runs a totally awesome (also totally illegal) pizza restaurant in his very own back yard. I’d been looking forward to this all day and it did not disappoint. If I lived in New Orleans this would definitely be my regular Thursday night dinner spot. As Thom and I walked through the hidden gate (seriously I would not have been able to find it on my own), we were greeted by the pizza man himself, Thom got a big hug and I got a friendly handshake before he had to run back to the oven. We went up to the counter, put together our order (traditional crust, smoked tomato marinara, goat cheese stuffed smoked jalapenos(!!!!!!!!!), zucchini, and mixed greens), got a few beverages (Thom went for a Dark and Stormy while I got a rum and homemade pineapple soda), and we took a seat at a slightly unstable table in the corner of the yard. It was getting pretty late but there were still a ton of people there and it took a while for us to get our pizza but we chatted with the other undercover diners and with the help of some strong libations time flew by. It was better than I ever hoped, cheese stuffed jalapenos are definitely going to be a part of my next pizza night. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really get any good pictures (speakeasies are definitely not lit for photo ops) but this one will have to do.

So, all in all New Orleans has set the bar very, very high for the rest of my road trip stops.

Day 1: ATL to New Orleans or Dogs Make Bad Co-Pilots

We made it! Well, to our first stop at least. Nothing too eventful today, some last minute stuff around Atlanta an oil change, last minute supplies, etc. Then lunch with Rachel (my closest friend in Atlanta and up until approximately 24 hours ago my roommate) at the Midway for one last EAV outing then Max and I got on the road.

The drive wasn't bad at all, about 7 and a half hours including a couple stops for gas and to let Max and I could get out and run around for a minute. I have only been living in Atlanta for a year but during that time I totally forgot that there were places that didn't have heavy traffic all the time, everyday, everywhere. So, really it was the easiest drive I've had in a while since I didn't even once feel the desire to roll down my window and yell at (or even quietly judge from the safety of my car) any of the drivers around me.

So, now here I am in Nola with some lovely friends from college who are letting me and Max stay with them in their awesome apartment in an old Victorian house in the Garden District. Everyone has to work tomorrow so I'll be showing myself around the area for part of the day but the activities we have planned for their after work hours sound pretty great, but you'll just have to wait til tomorrow to hear about them.

Here's a few pics from our first day of driving:

here we go again.

Well, I'm on the road again. This time I'm headed all the way across the country to Northern California to check out what life is like in the woods for a little while. It's been a good year in Atlanta but the time has come for this Southern girl to get out of the Southeast and see what the rest of the country has to offer. The tentative route for this trip is ATL > New Orleans > Austin > some random town along the way > Denver/Boulder > some other random town along the way > San Francisco > Mendocino (my new home!).

So, my car is all packed up with literally everything I own, Max (my partner in crime who happens to be a 9 year old English Cocker Spaniel) is in the front seat, and I'm ready to get going!

The only rules I have so far for this trip (although I might come up with a few more along the way) are:

1. NO CHAINS

-I hate chain restaurants, maybe this makes me a snob but I don't care. I would much rather take the risk of a not so great meal and support local businesses than be guaranteed a mediocre meal made by some faceless corporate machine. Ok, rant over, you get the point.

2. No turning back

-I instituted this policy in my life a few years ago as a sort of New Years Resolution and while I don't always adhere to it very strictly I try to keep it in mind. It means basically if I pass a turn I meant to take or I left something at the house (as long as it's not absolutely essential and no cell phones don't count) that's just too bad, maybe it happened for a reason gotta keep on going and see what happens.

So, here we go, wish me luck it's time to hit the road!