Vanpire Weekend

Malibu

2010-08-23T11:37:00.014-04:00

One thing you won't be hearing from us is the lame apology most small-time bloggers give when they haven't been blogging for a while. As if they weren't giving this stuff away for free anyway. We've been home for three weeks now, which puts the blog 6 or 7 weeks behind, and you can eat it grunge-bag. We haven't FELT like blogging. Here's your GD next post. :)

We were finally on our way out of the black hole of over-saturated California-ness that is the LA area, though we wouldn't get too far that day. I wanted to stop in Malibu to, of course, surf. There wasn't much swell when we got there in the late afternoon, so I convinced Michelle that we had to sleep in the area that night so I could try in the early morning.

We stood on a cliff and took these shots. We did a crappy job, though, 'cause it was much nicer being up there than it is to look at these photos. I asked Michelle to pose for one of our "I stand on the right side of the frame, she stands on the left, I hold the camera, she buries her face in my shoulder so as to hide her face, and I try to not make my neck look fat" pictures, but she said she was feeling too ugly and vehemently refused. It had been a rough couple nights.

Duke Kahanamoku is credited with bringing the sport of surfing to the mainstream. It's tough to beat old pictures of him. Whoever's in charge of his licensing agreements, though, could be doing a better job. That night we ate at "Duke's Barefoot Bar" in the 'Bu - annoying nickname which Michelle and I made fun of quite a bit. It's a pretty crummy but not terrible chain of restaurants in California and Hawaii. We ate a giant pile of nachos, drank some Hawaiian beer (Primo, it was watery piss beer, terrible) and got a tip from the bartender (he was from New Hampshire! We got free dessert!) on where to park the van that night to sleep. It was a nice dark side road next to a park. Not a bad night's sleep.

I got up early the next day and drove the van down to the pier to check the surf, with Michelle and Freddie still sprawled out on the bed. It was foggy and a bit yucks out in the water so we parked and went back to sleep, waiting for the sun to get up a little higher. We awoke to a Japanese man puking on our van. Yep. Puking right on our van. The tire, to be fair, and he did actually come back with a bottle of water to wash it off. Asians. Bad things happen when you hide in a car so well that it occurs to no one that there might actually be someone in there.

The picture above is Surfrider Beach. I mean, I guess that's what it's called. I never actually heard anyone use that name. Or maybe I did but forgot 'cause it's a pretty stupid name. You can see how the waves rather famously break at three different points. Super long rides. A little piece of surf history there. Cool. I went out and surfed terribly. It was intimidating being there and all the guys were pretty aggro. Oh well, next time.

Michelle took some pictures of some dying sea life! Apparently she tried to snap a photo of all the surfboards and other surfy looking things accumulating on the beach throughout the morning, but even those dudes were sorta aggro, so no go. Maybe it was just my secret optimism and naiveté, or maybe it was all the beach/surf movies from the 60s and 70s, but I think I imagined Malibu being a little friendlier. Too rich, too cranky. But that's just our passing, one day and a half snap judgment, what do we know?

Up the coast

2010-08-05T06:59:00.007-04:00

Not having driven up the California coast before, I think our expectations were more on the side of scenic and sunny rather slow and trying. There were just too many places to stop, too many surf spots to check, and too little places to park the van for the night. That may sound like a complaint, and maybe it is, but keep in mind we had been on the road for 6 or 7 weeks at this point. We got punched in the face with so much gorgeous landscape and coastline that this turned into the part of the trip where we started going numb. Again, I sound pretty negative but I prefer to paint the whole picture. Really, the coast was incredibly amazing, so pretty, blah blah, good work California you win the prize.

For (my) silly business reasons, we had to hang around the outskirts of LA for another night. Another absurd night. We drove to Santa Monica, took advantage of happy hour, and decided there was nothing in town we wanted to eat. As lots of people have, Michelle and I had heard about the Kogi Korean BBQ to-go truck, on the Food Network or the Travel Channel, which parks itself among the other trucks in Venice. So we drove back over to Venice. There were this many people there. Plus a million more on the street. Too. Much.

Short rib burrito, spicy pork tacos, kimchi quesadilla, 4 Kogi sliders, grape Crush. Too. Much. Everything was so delicious. Juicy, spicy, hand-held. Perfect. Really some of the best food we had.

We drove BACK to Santa Monica that night for sleepy time. After some argument and a much too long trip out to an unwelcoming Home Depot parking lot, we settled on parking in a street spot in front of a church. We figured the church will either be super quiet at night, or crazies will be milling about. I'll let you guess which circumstance we encountered. After parking, of course, Michelle had to pee. Back onto the street for a bathroom search, with brand new results this time: a 24 hour FedEx/Kinkos. Awesome.

This is the photo you're getting of the Santa Monica Pier and you'll like it, suckers.

We had to be BACK in Venice by lunch - I told you our time here was a bit absurd - but we had time in the morning to walk through the farmers' market near the promenade. It's California, so of course it was absolutely lovely. Also, we saw Molly Ringwald. She signed our book. Just kidding we don't have a book. These guys above were slinging raw oysters so oooobviously Michelle and I had to partake, as we are oyster fiends. We were not disappointed as we may have been in Louisiana.

A bit more running around, a discussion as to whether we're making a huge mistake and should we get on a plane and go home... a decision to keep going, then back on Route 1.

Los Angeles Part 2

2010-08-03T10:38:00.007-04:00

The next day we woke up, still stuffed with ramen and followed Christina to the Griffith Observatory for a "hike."

In New England, a hike is involved and means you have boots and walking sticks and energy bars. In California, it's a walk up a hill that you can do in flip flops. Oh California, why are you so awesome.

We got home, quite dusty, and before we knew it, it was time to get on the road again. We thanked Jon & Christina for their hospitality and did some last minute sightseeing.

We first decided to go to the LA MOCA, which turned out to be in the neighborhood of one of Jon's recommendations - Wurstkuche.

We got a rattlesnake & rabbit (with jalapenos) and a duck & bacon. Both sausages came with grilled onions and peppers on the side and your choice of condiments. We also split the delicious fries with special dipping sauces.

After eating wayyy too much we checked out the MOCA. It's a smallish museum with a few different branches but a lot of great work by California artists. You should definitely check it out if you are in the area, but in my opinion, not enough Ruscha.

Now, to make it up the coast!

Los Angeles Part 1

2010-07-30T17:26:00.006-04:00

LA is another one of those towns that people either love or they hate. I've wavered between the two, going from love to hate, and now finally, to the thought that it's great for a visit, but that I'm not a "lifer," as they say.

Our host was the awesome and magnificent Jon Lee, who I've known since college through my attempts to become more culturally aware. The best part about hanging out with Jon in his town is that he knows the delish food spots.

We got in late and Jon whisked us to a great Korean place, of which no pictures exist, because we demolished the food - some short ribs, some delicious fish, which I can't recall the name of right now (mackerel?), and of course the requisite small plates that you get with the meal (if I were a more Asian Asian, perhaps I would know the name to these, regardless, they included kimchi). We stopped for dessert in Chinatown, where we got a tapioca drink, a Mango shaved ice, and through some weird English translation (red bean rice balls), a giant bowl of hot red bean soup with these sweet rice balls in it filled with black sesame. Our first bowl came with a hair in it, but don't worry, the second one was all clean.

The next day, on Christina's tip, we went to Silverlake to get coffee at Intelligentsia. All barbs at hipsters aside, these baristas know how to make some delicious coffee. We then met Jon and Anna (just in from Oakland) for lunch at Porto's in Burbank, which is this insanely gigantic Cuban bakery and eatery. Between the four of us, we split potato balls, a tamale, a Cuban sandwich, a roast pork sandwich, a giant salad with supplemental Tapatio hot sauce as dressing, and even though Jon claimed to have "restrained" himself, like half a dozen cheese rolls and various other baked goods. Needless to say, we were stuffed after that.

Timmy and I then checked out Chuck Jones:An Animator's Life from A to Z-Z-Z-Z at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A lot of amazing backgrounds and original sketches were there and it was really great. Plenty of old cartoons that you would certainly remember if you saw the storyboards. No pictures were allowed, unfortunately.

Then, in true LA fashion, we did some shopping, checking out various furniture and design stores, and the giant Opening Ceremony after being shut down at Huntington Gardens, who had run out of tickets for the day

We headed back to Jon's where hours flew by because we were mesmerized by the Mall Cops show on TLC. Before we knew it, it was late and we were hungryyyyyy. We decided to go to Daikokuya, which Jon said is one of the best ramen joints in LA. It was like 9 pm on a Tuesday and we figured that it wouldn't be crowded... totally wrong. We get there and they tell us it's going to be an hour and a half for a table of four. Bummer. So we instead go to another ramen place in Japantown with decent ramen and delicious fried rice. As we are sitting in this ramen joint, Jon says that we should go back to Daikokuya. Basically, all of us called the idea stupid and then immediately started thinking about going. So we get back to Daiko and our names are at the top of the list. What else would we do? So they called our name and we went inside to get our second batch of ramen in less than an hour.

MMMMMMMMM

Notice the only person to look upset at all that ramen is Tim. Happy and wayyyy too full, we went home, where I got to see my old junior high friend Kiran for a few minutes.

The Road to LA

2010-07-28T18:24:00.005-04:00

One bad thing about having a legit place to stay at night is that we seem to be more slow in the mornings, since we don't have to stealth pack and quickly find a place to pee. That was the case the morning we left San Mateo and started heading to my favorite creeper's (Jon Lee) city of residence (Los Angeles).

We stopped in San Clemente (questionably; we don't remember) for lunch and some internetting at our favorite chain for reliable wifi, Starbucks. If you know us, you know we looooove Mexican food and we picked the place that had no English menu and a line at 11am. I got my usual, lengua, and we think Tim had carne asada. We rounded out our solid lunch selections with giant horchatas and a cheese quesadilla.

Aghhh so delicious. We need a place like this in NH. I mean, I love me some Chipotle but let's be forreal here...

So after lunch we started driving up the Pacific Coast Highway, which meant we hit all the big beach towns - Laguna, Newport, Huntington. Unfortunately for Tim, it was super windy and there was no surfing to be had in these surftowns. Sorry Timmy.

We did take Fred, who often just stays in the van all day while we run about, to the Huntington dog beach. We've mentioned this a million times, but Fred loves the beach. There was no exception to this one, which is an awesome beach, filled with people hanging out with their pups and enjoying the surf. Here's another standard picture of Fred on a beach.

After that, we stopped at a few awesome surf shops, which is one part of Tim's surf love that I wholeheartedly support. We had to visit the classic Katin surf shop, obvi. Katin is the company that basically invented board shorts (as we know them) in the late 50s. They are made of heavy canvas and pretty good looking. We also stopped by Seal Beach to visit Harbour, who made Tim's yellow longboard. If we had a million dollars, Tim would have bought out the whole store.

After speaking to Jon, he let us know that we should stay there to wait out that infamous LA traffic, so we stayed for some drinks and apps at 320 Main, where their cocktail schtick is pre-Prohibition drinks. I had an Old Fashioned and Tim had a Moscow Mule served in an awesome copper mug. They have awesome ice cubes (does that sound weird?) and the biggest collection of bitters I've ever seen. Delicious.

Now, off to our LA adventures!

Camping in San Mateo, surfing at San O'

2010-07-28T09:49:00.007-04:00

Our jaunt through Las Vegas set us off course for San Diego. Not wanting to drive quite that far south just to drive up again, I picked a surf spot I always wanted to paddle out at but never got the chance, San O, and made that our destination.

It doesn't look like much, June gloom is a real thing in California, but I had a pretty fun surf here.

Freddie's leash is secured under one of those rocks. That was enough to keep him in one place. He was welcomed to the California coast, though, by being attacked by a guy's small, recently acquired rescue dog. Freddie was pretty bummed and spent the rest of our stay on this beach in the van.

There are a handful of campgrounds in the area and we found an open slot in San Mateo. While this is not the first time we parked at a campground, it would mark the first time in the trip that we started our own campfire.

As foreign to us as the gambling and sexual debauchery of Las Vegas is the casual camper's lifestyle. We've gotten pretty good at stealthily parking in dark areas of parking lots and confidently walking to the back of restaurants to use their restroom without purchasing a crumb of food, but sleeping in the dirt and sharing a coin operated shower with hundreds of RVing Americans is just not our cup of tea. On this particular night, however, we got the urge to at least mildly participate. So we bought a log bundle from the campground toll booth, picked up the classic hot dog and s'more ingredients and set about lighting some shit on fire.

I had done laundry at the Ace before we left but I don't like putting my white tees in the dryer. This is what a crazy person's clothesline might look like.

We accidentally and very stupidly left our food out overnight. The forest critters ate all of our chocolate and some Doritos. This giant bird came back for breakfast.

We checked the surf again in the morning. I decided to pass and we started driving north to LA.

Palm Springs (honeymoon)

2010-07-28T09:38:00.004-04:00

There's a certain amount of pressure one puts on oneself to discover new things at every moment during exploratory traveling and this can be an extremely exhausting prospect. We decided to give ourselves a break from the exploration and celebrate our 2 day old marriage in Palm Springs. We stayed at the Ace Hotel. We left the hotel two times for one very specific thing, to get new brakes on the van. The rest of our two night / two day stay there was spent at the hotel restaurant, the hotel bar, the hotel pool, and inside the hotel room with hotel room service. It was absolutely lovely. Below is the lone picture taken poolside in Palm Springs with my cell phone.

We did not buy any Ace sneakers or Ace board shorts or Ace screen prints of the Ace Hotel. Lots of other guests seemed to be in a buying mood, though. You guys are pretty cool.

Also, Michelle took these pretty great photos of the wind farms on the way to Palm Springs.

See you suckers in San Onofre.

The Gun Store, Las Vegas

2010-07-28T09:37:00.001-04:00

We hung out at Sears Auto Center for several hours on June 27 waiting for not just one, but both tie rods in the front of the car to be fixed. As we were finally on our way out, Tim remembered that Damion had told us to go to The Gun Store. I was hard pressed to go since I was very eager to get out of town, but the girls outside told us we could bring Freddie in with us so then I figured, why not.

So The Gun Store is a place in Las Vegas is a store that you can buy guns at but where you can also shoot various kinds of handguns, automatics, and semiautomatics. Of course, the whole place was crawling with British dudes when we were in there, all of whom were peeing their pants and holding several hundred dollars worth of ammo.

Timmy chose an AK 47 to fire 25 rounds with, and I went with the ladies' package, which included 20 rounds with a handgun, 25 with the AK 47 and a free t shirt. Pretty good deal, right?

We waited for a few minutes after picking out ear protection, eye protection, and targets. We got the classic shooting targets, although there were plenty of threatening options (read: non white targets). We could only go in one at a time, so Timmy went in first.

Our gun pro was a vaguely attractive blonde who was made more attractive by her tattoos and penchant for guns. More attractive or more insane, I'm not sure I remember now. She told us how to hold the gun properly and how to aim and not shoot ourselves or anyone else.

Timmy was done quite soon, as 25 rounds ain't nothin in an AK 47. I was next and I gotta tell you, three shots into the handgun, I was wondering when it would all be over.

If you look closely in the second picture, I would like to point out that I in fact got a bullet in the kill zone (kill zone??) of the target. YEA! Also, I wish the picture of me and the AK 47 showed the pink stock of the gun and the picture of Hello Kitty also holding an AK and in protective gear.

So that was the last of our Las Vegas experience. After having all of that bullet adrenaline rushing through our veins, we got back into ol non threatening Vanpers and drove off into the desert and to our "honeymoon" in Palm Springs!

Las Vegas

2010-07-26T11:01:00.004-04:00

If it's not clear, we aren't what you would deem 'Las Vegas People." Some people like the gambling, the drinking, and the legal prostitution, but well, I'm not so sold on it. But we knew that Route 15 led straight to Vegas, and we also knew that could only mean one thing.

We were getting married.

It had started on the way to Zion, when Timmy looked over at me and said, "Will you marry me in Las Vegas?" And I said, "What? No, shut up. That's stupid." Repeat these few lines a couple of times and after I had determined that he was serious, we decided to spend a night and think about it.

The next day we were on the road as usual and I asked Timmy, "well, should I call my sister?" and he said, "yeah, call her up!." So I called Cinders and told her I needed her in Vegas for a very specific reason (not Blue Man Group tickets). After I hung up with her, Kory (my Brother-in-law) immediately rang to double check if I was "bullshitting" my sister. I told him that I was not in fact bullshitting. They told us they would be there, no matter what!

At this point we were quite close to the city and decided to stop at the outlets to get the wedding outfits. Timmy didn't quite find anything, but I picked up a blue and gray dress at Calvin Klein. We checked into a hotel courtesy of Cinders and her insane rewards points and booked the chapel. Unfortunately, even though we had a bowtie for Fred, the chapel said no pups allowed. We checked him into Camp BowWow, where he could play with other dogs all day and we could watch on the live webcam. Mainly he just stood in one place with his tail down :(

We set back out to find rings and potential other outfits, scouring all of the giant indoors fashion malls and even a nice outside one outside of the main strip. This was very tiring and vaguely frustrating, but after dozens of hours and a few Hot Dogs on Sticks we had procured one ladies' ring from Banana Republic (with pyramid studs and worth 10 American Dollars), one men's ring from H&M (5 American Dollars), some wedding sandals for me from Aldo, and a Timmy wedding outfit from Am Appy (American Apparel).

We got to tell our parents via telephone of our plans and although they were surprised, we did receive their blessings. We also made a late afternoon stop to get our marriage license, which took all of 5 minutes, since we had IDs, $60 cash, and were legal residents (cannot be said for the other two couples there with us). A fun activity could probably be stopping by the license place at 11pm on a Saturday night (they close at midnight).

As night fell, our guests started to trickle into the airport. Damion was picked up first, after getting the go ahead from his wife, with the caveat that he needed to be home for Zuri's Handy Manny themed 3rd Birthday party. Cindy and Kory came next, and that was all the guests.

We decided to walk around the Strip and after seeing many giant margarita blenders, stopped into Margaritaville for a 100 oz group blender. Hilarious. While we were there, we enjoyed the house cover band (just kidding, they were embarrassing) ((just kidding again, they didn't even try to hit the high notes in Livin on a Prayer, so that makes them smart)). After Kory got hollered at by a group of ladies (who shouted, BALD GUY! WOOOO) and we were yawning our faces off, Cinders and I went home and the boys stayed out causing trouble til about 5 am.

The next morning, aka wedding day, we had brunch at Hashhouse A Go Go, had delicious Bloody Marys and Fried Chicken and Waffles. Delicious. They had signed pictures from both Martha Stewart and the guy from Man Vs Food. Very important to go to places endorsed by both of those people. This is their signature chicken and waffles arrangement. As you may have noticed, we took very few pictures in LV, just too much excitement. But, being the fatties we are, we did manage to get a shot of the food. Sigh.

I had been shirking on flower duties but talked to the concierge and she helped me out big time. I was able to talk on the phone to the florist, who was at the flower market and was able to snag some hot pink peonies, which my mom had planted all along the deck in the backyard. By the time we got back from brunch, my flowers were already there. Thanks Vegas!

So we all got fancied up and I made sure I had my something old (diamond necklace), something new (outlet dress which I had to fix up a bit the night before), something borrowed (a pearl ring and a brooch), and something blue (toenail polish).

We hopped into a cab to the Little Chapel of the West and did the damn thing. For being a chapel that has many weddings per day, the pastor was emotive and good at his job. We saw many other wedding parties, many with plenty of guests and actual wedding dresses and bridesmaids, but we preferred our off the cuff style. Our wedding was on the website for a little bit, but I think by now it must be off. Seven minutes after we stepped in, we stepped out a married couple!

We got a stretch limo and cruised around the Strip for a little bit while drinking a magnum of Cook's and ended our night at Bellagio. We had a few delicious drinks and gambled a tiny bit of money away before we had a glorious buffet. Man, that buffet was awesome.

Timmy drove Damion back to the airport that very night and to help us celebrate, Vanpy's tie rod broke in the parking lot of the hotel and her right front wheel was all crazy crooked. Cindy and Kory left early that morning and we were left to celebrate our post wedding day by sitting in a Sears Auto Center.

To our friends who sent their love via Twitter, Facebook, text message, emails, and phone calls last month: thank you! To Cindy, Kory, and Damion: we can't ever thank you enough for making the ridiculous trip to see us. Having you all there made the moment so much more special. We love you guys.

Utah and Zion National Park

2010-07-26T10:35:00.007-04:00

We hadn't planned on going to Utah. Like many states it has a reputation for one thing... with many more things to offer. We found this out at Zion National Park. Pictured above: not Michelle's best drive-by welcome sign photo.

This lake was called Lone Rock Lake. We think. It might also be called Rip-off Lake, No Shade At All Lake, or Friendly Europeans Scamming the Parks System Lake. Some euros stopped us before we got to the toll entrance and gave us their parking ticket which they were done using. We stayed for about 20 minutes and bounced. We tried to pass on the ticket, but apparently no one trusts a giant green van.

That rock mound in the middle was called Molly's Nipple. We giggled.

This is Freddie barking viciously at a herd of corralled buffalo. They stampeded away in fright. Just kidding, they kept eating grass.

We were lucky to enter Zion National Park through a somewhat back road - a winding route which starts at the top of the canyon and snakes its way down down to the bottom. It was sooo incredibly gorgeous - easily among the best few miles of drive for the entire trip.

There were a handful of awesome tunnels which went right through the mountains, and they had these windows with views of the canyon.

As is usually the case, we arrived too late to reserve a spot at campground. So we milled around the visitors' center, drank some of the spring water on tap, and looked at bats. I have an obsession with immersing myself in nearby natural bodies of water, so we also found a spot in the shallow river where I could sit on some mossy rocks and wash my sins away. Ok, not sins so much as the last couple days of grease since we hadn't had the chance to shower for a bit. Michelle was scared of the 2 foot deep creek so she did not partake.

Like I said, no campground, so we found a dark area of the parking lot to park ol' Vanpers and settle in...

...for a couple hours until park security kicked us out. Bummer. We slept on the road just outside the park entrance and re-entered the next day to ride the shuttle bus, NOT hike, and take more pictures.

Grand Canyon, AZ

2010-07-23T09:15:00.002-04:00

We got into the Grand Canyon late at night, which I recommend highly, since that means you don't have to pay your entrance fee. I mean, we have a National Parks pass, so it doesn't really matter, but just to let yall know... early morns and late nights = free park entrance.

We spent the night in a parking lot right by the visitors center and woke up the next morning to take a hike to the rim. The elevation is about 7000 feet, enough so it got nice and chilly in the van at night. We took a walk with Fred for about a mile to see some nice views.

The size of the Grand Canyon is almost unfathomable, and definitely worth a trip out to AZ.

On our way out of the park, we saw a giant elk on the side of the road!

We also visited The Watchtower, designed by Mary Colter, the same woman who did La Posada.

The Watchtower at night

It was undergoing a bit of renovation, but still really nice.

But, it was time to move on, as always, and we jetted outta there and onwards to Utah!

Hopi Villages or How We Didn't Go to Phoenix

2010-07-23T05:22:00.000-04:00

Michelle and I visited the Hopi villages on First, Second, and Third Mesa. These are all towns within a Hopi reservation in Arizona and they don't allow any pictures. At all. We have enough Kachina dolls and fox pelts, however, to prove we were there.

Joseph and Janice Day, owners of Tsakurshovi are the sweetest people looking to sell stuff to naive tourists ever - but we didn't learn this until the second time we visited them.

Ahem.

On our first occasion in the shop, we were taken off-guard when Joseph berated us a bit for wanting to go to Phoenix. He's quite passionate about the places he feels are really worth seeing on the Colorado Plateau, but we hadn't planned for the 12 week excursion around this relatively small area that he would expect of us. So we felt a little attacked and left the store feeling pretty bummed. But because I can get a bit obsessive, I wasn't ok leaving this negative interaction with an otherwise charming couple hanging out there in the universe. We went back to the shop a couple hours later to explain there may have been a misunderstanding, that we'd like to support their store, and that we'd love for them to tell us where to go in Northern Arizona/ Southern Utah. We left with a detailed map of the area, heavily hand-highlighted by Joseph, and a few hundred dollars worth of desert swag.

This is how we ended up not going south to Phoenix but rather to the road leading us through Las Vegas. (foreshadowing)

Winslow, AZ (La Posada Hotel)

2010-07-22T09:36:00.009-04:00

Even with a drive through the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, the ride from Holbrook to Winslow was short. Like, really short. We got to the hotel so early, in fact, that we had no choice but to stop for lunch, once again, at Sonic. I don't know why we go to Sonic so much. We don't like it very much at all, and there is plenty of fast food we prefer over it. Maybe it's the carhop service, but probably not. I think this was actually our last time at this trash basket. The limeades are ok.

Our friends Chiyo, Ashley, and Zeke put together an amazing NM/AZ guide for us. Thanks, guys! It was so helpful during our time in the desert, and if they hadn't told us about it we probably never would have stopped to spend a night at La Posada Hotel.

The hotel was the vision of Southwest entrepreneur Fred Harvey and designed by architect Mary Jane Colter. Built in 1929 for the Santa Fe Railway, closed in 1957, and after 40 years it was privately bought and restored to its original beauty. It's an amazing place and we felt lucky to have a chance to spend some time there.

The interior is gorgeous: classic southwestern without being tacky.

There's some pretty ok good art hanging, as well. The contrast between the contemporary and classic was really nice. I like this painting of old ladies. Awkward angle.

There are some great outdoor spaces, too, very peaceful. The Santa Fe Railway still runs through the backyard.

After Sonic, check-in, and some wandering around the hotel, Michelle and I did we do best. Nap until it's time to eat again.

We had an amazing dinner at The Turqoise Room, the hotel restaurant. Sweet corn and spicy black bean soup, fried stuffed squash blossoms, a locally raised lamb sampler platter, and elk medallions. Our biggest food splurge of the trip. The restaurant can also pack a lunch for the next day upon request. So for our Hopi village excursion the next morning, we ordered some normal lunch stuff: prime rib and pasta salad. It was tough to check out, we considered another night many times, but decided to move on.

AZ Sights

2010-07-21T21:30:00.000-04:00

Petrified Forest / Painted Desert

We had to make it work and drive back east to the Petrified Forest from Holbrook so we could waste some time before our check in at La Posada.

If you are looking for a real forest in the Petrified Forest, you will be sorely disappointed.

But if you're looking for beautiful scenery and colorful tree rocks, well have I got a place for you.

Close up of the petrified wood.

Like many of the places we have been, pictures can do this place no justice.

Navajo Nation

We were driving from the Hopi Reservation (more on this location later) to the Grand Canyon, we passed through Navajo Nation. We stopped for McDonalds, because you know, sometimes a bit of McDonalds is comforting. Next door happened to be a park with an awesome skate park. All the kids there were great and fearless and some were too young to be riding around (in my opinion). I tried getting Timmy to go, but he wasn't as eager to get run over by a bunch of BMXs as I was to see it.

We were still in Navajo Nation when I awoke to the van pulling into somewhere and slowing down. Tim had spotted this from the highway and decided to get a closer look.

Wish we knew more of the story behind all of this. How badass are the two elderly people?

However, one of my fave parts of Arizona is the part where no one asked me to show me their papers, even if I was often confused for Native American.

Holbrook, AZ (The Wigwam Motel)

2010-07-20T09:19:00.000-04:00

Some of our readers don't realize that this blog is written in retrospect. We are about 6,000 miles further into our journey than the journal is: a bit further away than we want to be. Although our excuses for this are plentiful and valid, I will spare you and just get on with things. Michelle and I are currently in her hometown of Schaumburg, Illinois, but this blog post is about our brief time spent in Holbrook, Arizona.

Since the very early planning stages of this journey, we were fixated on staying at this kitschy stucco wigwam motel. Holbrook was really too close to our next destination in Winslow, and there was absolutely no other reason to stop, try as we might to find one. We spent the night anyway. Plaster wigwams!

To add to the nostalgia, permanently parked and rotting classic cars sat outside each "room." We got Doc Hudson.

We were surprised to learn that Yelp isn't fully utilized by the locals of this probably once thriving Route 66 town, so we went with the reviews the restaurants themselves lit up in front of their establishments. Best food in town? Ok, can't argue with that. We had a pretty very lousy meal here, but, we really can't say it wasn't the best. We didn't eat anywhere else.

There were many unexplained fiberglass dinosaurs lurking about town...

...and tourist trap gift shops all selling the same trash. This town made us kind of sad so we didn't stick around too long. It will be a short drive to our next stop.

Tinkertown (outside Albuquerque)

2010-07-14T07:30:00.000-04:00

Up to this point, waking up in a Walmart parking lot was a failure of the night before. But after a month on the road, we were (and still are) just happy to find a place to park where we were 99% guaranteed not to get hassled. My good friend Chiyo suggested we have the green chile at Frontier Restaurant.

Michelle's huevos rancheros and my burrito barely showing in the background. So good! And the green chile was, indeed, amazing.

Before getting on I-40 (and Route 66) to Arizona, Michelle's nerdy but helpful "Road Trip, USA" book steered us towards the Tinkertown Museum. Kind of like the Orange Show in Houston, it's difficult to explain what Tinkertown really is. From their website:

"It took Ross Ward over 40 years to carve, collect, and lovingly construct what is now Tinkertown Museum. His miniature wood-carved figures were first part of a traveling exhibit, driven to county fairs and carnivals in the 1960s and '70s. Today over 50,000 glass bottles form rambling walls that surround a 22-room museum. Wagon wheels, old fashioned store fronts, and wacky western memorabilia make Tinkertown's exterior as much as a museum as the wonders within. Inside, the magic of animation takes over. The inhabitants of a raucous little western town animate to hilarious life. Under the big top, diminutive circus performers challenge tigers and defy gravity while the Fat Lady fans herself and a polar bear teeters and totters."

It'll be easier to show you...

There are tons of beautiful hand painted signs. This one greets everyone in the parking lot.

Recycled bottle wall.

Miniatures in their glass case.

Sometimes it took a quarter to get the figures moving, sometimes you just had to hold a button...

So hard to show what this looked like in person, but those guys are about 5 inches high. When you press the button one might move his arm abck and forth like he's moving a checker and the other might just nod.

Crazy circus!

A lot of the hand painted signs were pretty awesome inspirational messages. They're all mostly silly cliches, but I always appreciate stuff like this, especially when people believe it wholeheartedly.

Where we stole our header from... thanks Will Rogers ('s estate).

This shake with Uncle Sam was a test of the strength of our... personalities? I scored an "uncontrollable," Michelle got "cold fish." I dunno what either one of those mean. We wandered Tinkertown for as long as we could take it then got on the road to some plaster wigwams.

Albuquerque, NM

2010-07-13T10:18:00.000-04:00

We left Elephant Butte well rested and in good spirits, so it was a perfect time for the left rear tire to finally blow out.

Thankfully, it happened close to an exit (which can be few and far between in NM), and when we pulled into town, there was an abandoned gas station that we pulled into to use for shade while Timmy changed the tire.

The spare under the van is all rusted out and crazy looking. Rust is just something people don't understand in the desert.

We stopped at a local fast food chain - Blake's Lotsaburger - for lunch and encountered a common NM question - red or green? They are talking about chili, and in NM, we erred on the side of green.

We had great green chili cheeseburgers and before we knew it, we were in Albuquerque.

We hung out in Old Town for a bit and happened to catch a wedding in the little park they have there. But, it was so hot out that we had to seek refuge in a movie theater. I am not joking when I tell you that we had been trying to find a place playing MacGruber since it opened when we were somewhere in the middle of the Eastern seaboard. We found a great two dollar movie theater on the outskirts of Albuquerque proper and snuck Freddie in and all had an AC and popcorn filled late afternoon.

MacGruber, by the way, is hilarious.

We had some great beers and then went to one of the coolest places ever -

The Doghouse! We had awesome chili dogs here (red chili this time), and the food here is definitely more spicy than we are used to in the Northeast.

We spent the night in the Walmart parking lot, because we do that now, when we have to, and watched a bit of the Princess and the Frog we rented from the Redbox.

I love our life :)

Elephant Butte, NM

2010-07-12T09:14:00.000-04:00

We left Marfa on June 19, wow that seems like a million years ago.

Marfa is three hours away from El Paso, which is right on the border with Mexico.

After a failed attempt to find a Smoothie King, we visited El Paso Saddleblanket, which is some sort of giant wholesaler of Southwestern swag.

As we drove outta there, we passed right by the border, where we could see the gigantic fence and straight into Juarez.

Soon, we were in New and not Old Mexico, when the van started shakin something fierce. What was it? The road? The suspension? The tires? I spent a bit driving big circles in a parking lot while Tim tried seeing which wheel was at fault. It was hard to discern, however, so we decided the best thing to do was drive towards Albuquerque and see a mechanic there.

It was getting late and we were near the Hot Springs. Seeing as it was 100 degrees outside, we had no desire to blast into the springs of hotness but instead, we chose to go to Elephant Butte, a giant man made reservoir of freezing mountain water.

I wish we had taken some pictures of the hot redneck mess we wandered into, but I will preface it by telling you that it was only 8 dollars to camp anywhere we wanted overnight. Anyways. It was so hot out and we had no a/c, since Vanpers likes to be finicky with it, so we were basically sand off roading to this giant lake. Everyone had their giant RVs parked and set up for probably a week or however they do it. We changed into our suits and started to blast into the water when we noticed that we were getting stared down like no other. Had we breached redneck etiquette by going into the water by other people's campers? There was literally no other way into the water. Still, we went in to the extremely cold water for about 5 minutes while getting death stares. We soon ran away, since it was obvious that we wouldn't be able to park there without some hatred.

We drove off and tried to explore the area, but soon got stuck when a hard packed road became soft sand without warning. We wandered the trailer park until we found someone with a giant truck to help us. We were barely stuck, so we didn't even need the winch this time. Our new drunk New Mexican friends told us to pay it forward, and we were glad to find kind hearted people in this strange place.

We went exploring in the other direction now, past the marina, and we found our great spot overlooking the lake.

We grabbed a late dinner at the only place open in town, a drive in burger joint and decided to order vegetables, fried of course. Our bodies hate us.

We went back to our extra special campsite and had a great night's sleep.

Freddie didn't want to leave in the morning, and protested by lying down in the sand far away from the van

And now, onwards and northwards

The Chinati Foundation

2010-07-09T08:55:00.000-04:00

The Chinati Foundation is on the grounds of an old fort and was founded by Donald Judd in the 70s to permanently display large installations by his art pals and himself. It's really amazing to see these pieces in this kind of scenery and scale. The tour is in two parts from 10 - 12 and 2 - 4

The buildings remain untouched except for a few changes like cool corrugated roofs and these great quartered doors.

Donald Judd's 100 Untitled Works in Milled Aluminum

Some Judd furniture

James Chamberlain

Carl Andre's poem

A few John Wesleys

This strangely mesmerizing giant copper sculpture called Things That Happen Again: For a This and a That, by Roni Horn.

Our favorite installation were the Dan Flavins. I've only ever seen small Flavins, but these were in three separate buildings with two sides to each building.

Ah, the classic set the self timer and run as far as you can trick.

You can see some of Judd's works in concrete and cottonwoods he planted in the background

We decided we couldn't leave Marfa without acknowledging Donald Judd and how he influenced the town's growth, so we stopped by the local bookstore and picked this up

Now, when we are at a loss, we ask ourselves, what WOULD Donald Judd do? We usually can't come up with an answer.

El Cosmico

2010-07-08T09:12:00.000-04:00

El Cosmico is a "hotel" (I use that term loosely) right outside of "downtown" (another loose term) Marfa.

It's basically an open field dotted with yurts, a giant teepee, a few adorable refurbished trailers, and hammocks.

A field full of yurts and an example of the amazing clouds and blue skies that are found in West Texas

Timmy hauling our stuff out to the teepee

Family picture time! Check out the fire ring in the middle of the tent! We wished we could have lit it, but it was wayyy too hot.

We found an awesome local bar that night to watch the Celtics/Lakers game 7 and although the C's lost, we left full of Lone Stars, Shinerbocks, and delicious hot dogs

Even though we had scary bug guests at night, I would highly recommend staying at El Cosmico if you ever find yourself in the Marfs. Unless you have a problem with outdoor showers and toilets. Then maybe you shouldn't stay...

Marfa, TX

2010-07-07T06:16:00.000-04:00

We really loved Marfa, our strange stop in the West Texas desert.

Our first night there was spent on Main Street in good ol Vanpira. We got into town at about 11, and there wasn't a soul to be seen nor any lights on at all.

We woke up in the morning and loved what we saw

We had to stop and do our laundry, but in Marfa, even the laundromat is cool.

This was our first stop outside of the humidity zone, and it was glorious. We took this chance to take a walk around town

The Food Shark is a giant bus that serves delicious food, like Marfalafels. Unfortunately they were on vacation when we were there :(

We got giant horchatas and delicious tacos at Tacos del Norte on our way outta town to see the art installation Prada Marfa.

The clouds on the way there were amazing.

Prada Marfa is an installation by Elmgreen and Dragset, which is a Prada store in the middle of the desert with handbags and shoes in it. It's supposed to just melt back into the landscape as it ages, but because we have bad luck, it was empty and being cleaned when we were there.

Two thumbs down!

We saw this border patrol blimp on our way back!

That night, we stayed in Hotel Paisano, where James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson and crew stayed while filming Giant. The best part? We got to catch the True Blood premiere. YEEEAAAHH! More on Marfa to come...

On the Road and Sonora Caverns, TX

2010-07-02T07:32:00.001-04:00

The drive from Austin to Marfa was a silly 8 hours, but there was a lot to look at on the way.

In the Hill Country, the road was rolling and totally open.

We saw oil pumps

Cows that had escaped the fence

And nothing but green fields and blue skies.

Five hours into our drive, we got to the heavily advertised Caverns of Sonora. We decided to take a break and check out some natural beauty. I had never been in a cavern before, and wasn't sure what to expect.

Certainly not bacon, but here it is!

Unfortunately, our terrifying guard dog wasn't allowed in, so we had to lock him up!!

Austin, TX

2010-07-01T22:42:00.008-04:00

I was excited to roll into Austin because as you may or may not know, my white twin Annalise lives there!

Unfortunately, I was so excited to be there, I forgot to take pictures of us together :(

We got there on June 14th, and checked into the great Austin Motel

and Anni soon joined us on South Congress street. We did plenty of shopping and hung out in Uncommon Objects for a while. The store is amazing and we probably could have spent all day in there (in fact, we went back the next day...). Pictures wouldn't do this shop justice... it's a very well curated shop where every nook is crammed with fun old treasures.

Of course, we ate at the famous food trailers (although maybe not as many as we wanted...). We got a delicious Arnold Palmer slushie and since it was so hot out, decided to get Freddie a chicken sno cone. It was horribly disgusting to look at and to smell, and Freddie agreed

We ended up donating the doggie sno cone to a busker's dog, who appreciated it more than our spoiled pup.

We also stopped by the Mighty Cone, where everything comes in a cone and everything is delicious

Our bellies full, we all decided to go to the Anarchy Wrestling Championships. We sat and drank Lone Stars and PBRs while people pummeled each other mere yards from our face. It was absurd.

We saw girls wrestling, a cowboy, a Pope / Big Baby, some loosely woven narrative, and the best part - the hecklers. They were amazing. A + work, hecklers. We actually had to leave because it went from entertaining to disturbing, what with all the staplers in the head and chairs to the back...

But anyways!! The rest of the Austin trip included kayaking in the river, eating so much delicious food, and one of the best things ever : the amazing and gigantic Whole Foods. We wandered the 80,000 square foot store totally agog. Totes wish we had a Whole Foods in Portsmouth, but my bank account is happy there isnt :)

We had one last lunch (and lunch margarita) with Anni before we started on the long road to Marfa.

Houston

2010-06-28T14:09:00.013-04:00

I think I'm beginning to block out the more harrowing parts of this trip. Michelle claims it took us most of the day to drive across Louisiana and apparently we did so without A/C in the van. I have no recollection. I do remember getting into Houston late at night and driving all the way across the city to the beeeeaaauuuutiful Red Roof Inn: another night too hot and humid to suffer in the van. We had an inexplicable craving for pizza, so as all the pizza joints began to close for the evening, we found one about a half hour away willing to wait for us.

Utilizing Houston's INSANE highway system, we managed to make it in time. I don't think I ever tried to imagine what Houston would look like, but I did not anticipate all the concrete and 12 lane super highways. It's actually quite impressive and the first indication to us that everything is indeed, bigger in Texas.

On the agenda the next morning was a meeting with Karen and Alberto of Greener Grass Design. They run a beautiful and well-curated web store from their home/workshop/warehouse in Houston. We had a lovely discussion about art, design, Houston, Texas, dogs, and road-tripping. They suggested I also meet with Steve at Peel Gallery (photo above). Another great talk with a super nice dude, on a cold call this time. It's always nerve-racking to approach a gallery owner, especially knowing how often they must have to deal with people like me wanting to look at their work. Looks like there are Texas opportunities on the horizon, though. Psyched.

Business taken care of, we went downtown looking for art. The Menil museum did not buy Michelle's suggestion that Freddie was a service dog helping her deal with her "extreme anxiety," so he waited in the shade while we browsed their nice but somewhat random collection. This is a photo of Michelle in front of the building and there is a little boy robot on the roof playing a toy drum. OMG, art is weird!!!

Just down the street was the Rothko Chapel which I super loved. Such a peaceful place. Everyone should go. I'd go once a week if I lived in Houston.

For whatever reason, I had my mind set on possibly surfing in Galveston. We took a drive down which lasted longer than the time we actually spent there. What a trash basket, sorry, Galvestonians. Another Tim and Michelle cranky disapproving faces picture.

I like this picture of Michelle's hair.

We blasted out of there back up to Houston because we forgot to stop at The Orange Show. Soooo glad we went back. Our bellies full of delicious Tacos del Julio, we settled into some tractor seats for Thao and Mirah with the Most of All. It would take me a while to explain what The Orange Show is so you should check out the link. And look at these pictures.

Next stop: Austin!

Swamp Tour

2010-06-25T19:04:00.013-04:00

On our second day in New Orleans, we were kind of at a loss. Shopping? Sure, we had done some shopping. Drinking? Sure, we had done some drinking. Flashing? Sure, we had done some flashing. But, what now? Timmy came up with the best idea. SWAMP TOUR! Because when we think of Louisiana we think about toothless Cajuns, alligators, and fan boats!

This is the sight that greeted us as soon as we walked into the building.

Our bellies full of delicious sandwiches from Cochon Butcher (I had their version of a Cuban sandwich and Tim had the pork belly with cucumber...mmm), we were ready to blast around the bayou.

A fan boat is a silly thing, and one that neither of us had been on before. It's incredibly loud and feels completely different than riding in a normal boat. It was one of those 115 on the heat index days, so it felt great to have that breeze.

Soon, we were in the swamp, and spoiler alert, the swamp looks like how you think a swamp looks like.

It's beautiful, but also stifling, and a bit scary.

We were immediately on the look out for gators and didn't see any. BUT! We soon made a turn and stopped the boat. The captain told us he was going to get gator bait, and when he came back, he was holding... marshmallows???

Apparently, gators are attracted to white things, and they just ate them up. As soon as we stopped, we began to see the wakes of a few alligators making a beeline for us.

Then, they were right up next to the boat and jumping out of the water, trying to get to the marshmallows.

Our crazy and awesome captain, who kind of talked like the firefly in The Princess and the Frog (did you guys see that? anyone??) was going to town on these silly gators and grabbing their tails and tapping their snouts. He even passed around a 3 year old baby for us to hold!

Going on an airboat was super fun and touristy and definitely something we had never done before. Even if he had to wear silly protective gear.

NOLA

2010-06-22T11:54:00.009-04:00

We rolled into New Orleans late one cranky night, and when we woke up, we almost forgot where we were.

Since I was obsessed with Vietnamese coffee a while ago, I knew we had to go to Cafe du Monde for some cafe au laits and beignets. It was insane hot and humid out, since we have had the privilege of being in a continuous heat wave ever since we left New Hampshire.

We opted for frozen cafe au laits and it was AMAZING. The pieces of fried dough smothered in powdered sugar weren't too bad either...

We ate a lot here, and all of it was delicious. Some of it was not photographed. None of it was thrown away.

We went to Acme Oyster house and had what we assumed to be the last of the Gulf Oysters, some sort of Creole version of poutine, and a delicious oyster and shrimp po boy. This picture does it no justice. Of course, the food was washed down with some Abita.

We also went to the aquarium, because it was too hot to be wandering about and we didn't want to hang out in the hotel room. We saw lots of fishies and jellies and cute otters! We also got to feed the sting rays! It was amazing.

The best sign we saw. Why is the eel a perv?

The worst sign we saw was one telling us that the Gulf of Mexico exhibit was sponsored by BP. Yikes.

We adopted a new friend from an artist in Jackson Square - Oyster Cat!

Since we were in the Big Easy (is that something people call New Orleans?) we decided to get OUTTA CONTROL!!!!! Okay, not really, although we had a a delicious Pimms Cup and Sazerac at the Napolean House.

As it got dark, and we wandered Bourbon Street, we went into a bar and ordered the silliest drink they had. I wandered out one hand grenade richer and eight dollars poorer.

I'm probably frowning because I got hit with a strand of beads blasted from a balcony.

Okay, so you got us, we didn't get buckwild down in NOLA, but guess what we found when we got back to the hotel room??

FREDDIE GONE WILD!!!!!!!

The Shed - Biloxi, MS

2010-06-22T01:11:00.004-04:00

We're not gonna knock Alabama and Mississippi at all. We only drove through the two little land grab panhandles which extend to the gulf so that everyone can have a bit of coastline. It's very likely these are not representative and we should have driven north to check out some of what these states really had to offer, but we didn't. With New Orleans so close on the horizon, any derivation back to the north seemed like traveling backwards so we kinda blasted through these states that I was pretty interested to check out in the beginning. We did want to stop over in Biloxi, though, on a food tip from our friend Sameen (thanks, Sameen!).

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The (original) Shed is just outside of Biloxi. I think there are 2 or 3 other locations which I'd happily eat at, as well, but this place was the authentic experience. From the outside it looks like a shed, BUT INSIDE it looks like a shed. We got there pretty early and possibly on an off day so there was no live music. Bummer. The stage and outdoor seating seemed to indicate this place gets pretty super fun on the right night.

Michelle and I had eaten not too long ago, but was that going to stop us? Of course not, nerds. We ordered the smaller of two combo plates after being informed that this smaller (not small, smallER, mind you) plate is just under 3 pounds of meat plus two sides.

I am proud to say we GD demolished that meat. There were ribs, pulled pork, sausage, shredded beef of some sort, and surprisingly delicious chicken. (At this point in our trip we were slowly learning that chicken in the south is so much more amazingly delicious than in the north because they know how to keep it juicy, even the white meat.) Ugh, soooo good. As Michelle would soon inform Sameen via text message, I literally ate until I nearly barfed.

We repped NH on the counter and moved on to Biloxi.

We have no photos from Biloxi. Did you know it's all casinos? We didn't. I was trying desperately to find the Celtics game on in a bar somewhere in town with little luck. For some reason the Hard Rock Casino seemed like the right place to look for this. Of course, it's not. Michelle and I gambled away $3.03 trying to make enough money to spend the night in this very silly hotel, again with little luck. We were up that extra $.03 at one point, then we lost it all. We're both enrolled in gambling addiction programs now.

The rest of the night was much too long and involved me cursing at the ESPN Radio iPhone app, Michelle and I fighting about where we were going to sleep, a stop in a depressingly sketchy truck stop, a very brief encounter with a Motel 6 lobby (real live meth addicts!), and a final "screw it, let's just drive all the way to New Orleans and check into a hotel one night earlier than expected."

Alabama

2010-06-20T15:28:00.009-04:00

Mobile, Alabama is "a thing," right? We certainly thought it was. But this was one of those cities where, once again, we found ourselves struggling to find a reason to be there. We sat down at a Starbucks and furiously... touched, rubbed, caressed, molested.... is there a word for the way one interacts with an iPhone? Well either way, we looked to our phones for answers and found nothing. We had seen road signs pointing to a place called Dauphin Island earlier, so we thought we'd partake in the Alabama Gulf coastline's latest tourist attraction: tar-ball season.

We got down to the area and took one of those long beachy drives down a road with sand dunes and houses propped up high on pylons that we've grown so accustomed to. The place was in a weird state of transition with bulldozers moving sand around and very few other cars like ours on the road. We kept driving until the road ended and we found ourselves among a gaggle of CNN news trucks. We were soon approached on the passenger side by a young man asking to see our "badges."

"Oh, we don't have badges, we're just... driving."

"Well, what did you come down here to see?"

"Uhhhhh, we're not sure, why don't you tell us what we came down here to see?"

We were told we couldn't be there and were forced to drive back. Apparently, a police officer was on a break or something, because we missed a check point a few miles ago where we would have been turned around. Everything felt very strange, like we stumbled upon some sort of secret government operation.

We stopped at a section of the beach that was inexplicably open which we'd passed on earlier. The beach was huuuuge, so we made the long oppressingly hot walk from the parking lot to the lapping shoreline where we found...

OIL! I really didn't think we'd ever see anything, we'd missed it by a few days in Pensacola apparently, but there it was just at the water's edge, tiny little blobs of brown oil glistening in the Alabama sun. They could easily go unnoticed, looking like some sort of unfamiliar seaweed, but there were crews of people carefully shoveling each tiny blob out of the sand and dumping it into garbage bags.

We were confused, however, to learn that this was definitely not tipping off the locals to the situation because they still seemed to be completely ok with taking a dip in their jorts. Hmm. As we stared at the tar balls, stunned, exchanging incredulous glances with another amazed woman, said local in jorts approached us to proudly show off the dollar bill he'd just found floating in the water. Ok. Well, I suppose if we let this oil thing get to us then the terrorists win... right?

Our shoes stained by tar balls and our consciences pleading with us to go back and clean some pelicans (shut up conscience, those pelicans will NEVER thank us!), we left the beach, got some shaved ice, saw a trademark-infringing run down shack, took a photo of a big ol' pile of oyster shells and moved on to Mississippi.

Michelle looks cranky because the teenagers working inside this place were super cranks.

A quick note

2010-06-17T19:27:00.002-04:00

Hey yalls, we're currently in Marfa TX, and don't think we forgot about posting, cuz we didn't. But for now, if you want to see a ton of unedited photos with very little commentary, check out my flickr.

Hearts and love and tacos,

Michelle and Tim

Pensacola, FL

2010-06-16T15:29:00.026-04:00

There was really nothing else for us anywhere around Dinosaur World, so rather than force some sort of Tampa experience, we decided to split. We drove up the west coast of Florida foreverrrrrrrr finally stopping in Tallahassee where we would have our first Red Roof Inn experience. Not so bad! This was basically an "off night" for the trip, we got some Jimmy John's sandwiches and watched the Celtics/Lakers in the room. No photographic evidence of any of this is available.

Like I said, it really takes forever to get out of Florida, so we drove another 3 hours the next day to get to Pensacola. We decided kind of last minute that we'd make this a stop, but it was pretty nice as far as beach towns go. We got some pulled pork and brisket sandwiches at The Happy Pig - any restaurant with "pig" in its name is a-ok with us - then we decided to take a drive down to the dog beach. This was more or less a small plot of sand on a little inlet/bay, but it was super duper cute. I like these photos of Fred swimming. There are a number of rodent-like swamp creatures he could be.

Puppy stand-off.

After the dog beach we went to the people beach. Of course we did, it's what we do. But we don't go to people beaches to be around other people, so we drive until we can be relatively alone. Just about where the pin on the map is. We drove pretty far east to get there but after we'd had enough sun we kept driving east to Navarre (also shown on the map). We stumbled on a beautiful beach there with a beautiful fishing pier and some surfable waves. I was amazingly psyched, Michelle knew this meant some alone time with Freddie for her.

The pier.

White sand.

Just west of the pier, some mellow thigh-high rollers. Sweet cutback.

Freddie smuggled onto yet another beach where he is not welcome.

Beach van.

Not anymore, ya jerks!

3,000 miles worth of splattered bugs washed away.

That night, we went to a strange Irish pub/restaurant that has $900,000 worth of dollar bills stapled to the ceiling. We drank some micro-brew, ate some boxtys and giant hamburgers...

...wrote our names on a dollar bill, stapled it to the ceiling and split. Strange place. I convinced Michelle we needed to stay one more night in the area so I could surf again in the morning. We have a "Redicard" for the Red Roof Inn now. Awesome.

Dinosaur World!!!!!!

2010-06-15T08:00:00.000-04:00

The eight year old Michelle would have begged and pleaded to go to Dino World, had she known about it. We thought it would be fun to see this hokey roadside attraction in beautiful (?) Plant City, Florida.

LOOK HOW EXCITED WE ARE!! I'm not sure why there is a random TRex head coming out of the roof and dino feet supports. You don't ask questions like that at Dino World.

Even Freddie was excited! (Just kidding, he hates us). It's been so hot that Freddie will just sit down and refuse to walk with us anymore. What a baby.

Some of the dinosaurs are really well made with nice textures and are impressive because they're quite large

Others... well the artists phoned in a lot of the others.

I don't know about those two dinos in that last picture.

Was it so bad it was good? Not really. It was so bad that it was just still bad, but I am happy to see this little weird roadside attraction survive.

If you feel like visiting, there is one in Kentucky and Texas as well.

Bye from Dino World, says wooly mammoth Fredster! (Have I mentioned how he hates us??)

Vero Beach

2010-06-14T13:40:00.000-04:00

June 4th found us driving down to Vero Beach to see Tim's cousin Steven graduate high school. We spent the next few days hanging out with family, lying on the beach, and soaking up as much air conditioning as possible.

Freddie loves Vero because he gets to spend time with one of his best puppy pals in the world: Zeus! For the first 24 hours, they refused to stop playing and running through the house together. Adorable.

The best part was finding this in the house, drawn by Tim the budding artist in the early 90s

Walt Disney World, where dreams come true

2010-06-14T08:24:00.000-04:00

Magic Kingdom!

We all need a bit of magic in our lives, especially in our mid twenties, when the shine of college has worn off and real life is edging ever closer, if it's not already here.

No worries about Mr Fredster, we put him in doggy daycare at Best Friends Kennel and paid an extra 4 dollars so he could get ice cream time. We're suckers.

We went on Space Mountain, and it's as great as ever. Sooo great that we went twice!

We went on Pirates of the Caribbean, and they updated it by having live Jack Sparrows running around amongst the animatronic pirates

Then we saw a parade that told us to believe in our dreams! Thanks uplifting parade!

Of course, we had to go to Splash Mountain and the Haunted Mansion. I really wanted to get a princess hairdo in Cinderella's castle but it was an hour wait :(

We also went to two of my favorites: the super creepy and wonderful Country Bear Jamboree and the midcentury Alexander Girardtastic It's A Small World

Overall, I think we had more fun there than we would have had we been 12. It's amazing to be somewhere where basically everyone is happy and smiling (besides kids throwing tantrums, of which there are plenty) and everything is nice and wonderful and if you don't like your blind box vinyl toy, they let you trade.

Thanks for a great day, Disney World!

St. Augustine and the Alligator Farm

2010-06-10T18:14:00.018-04:00

We rolled into St Augustine late on June 2 and found our fave kind of place : a public overnight parking lot with outdoor showers next to the beach. As soon as we parked, we blasted outta the van and ran into the ocean. It was glorious hitting that 80 degree water, although Freddie wasn't as interested into going into the ocean and just waited for us on the beach.

The next day, we took a nice early morning walk on the beach and went down the road to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm.

We thought it would be hokey and lame, but turns out this alligator farm was awesommmeeeeee!

Normal alligators

Weird crocodiles

A crocodile that had caught a bird

Silly birds

Giant tortoises trying to get romantical

Nesting Egrets

And the wild amateur photographer in his natural setting

Here's the best picture of the bunch:

This was on a timer and taken right after I smashed Timmy's thumb turned Pez dispenser with my hand. Priceless expressions.

The GA Pig

2010-06-10T13:03:00.000-04:00

Driving down the Georgia coast is B-R-U-T-A-L BRUTALLLLLLLLL, and Tim is the #1 driver for getting us through the endless expanse without going totally insane.

About 30 miles before the Florida border, we saw a sign for the GA Pig - Real Pit Barbecue and we obvi had to check it out. It's basically a house in a field next to the gas station off the interstate.

We were unsure what to order, and although we were basically the only people in there, the woman at the counter tried to brusquely hustle us through. We settled on the rib dinner as a snack for the two of us (and Freddie)

Notice what we thought were pancakes on first glance are actually flattened hamburger buns. Awesome.

I wish we could tell you to drop everything and drive to Middle of Nowhere, GA to partake in these bombass ribs, but we can't. It could have been that it was too hot, or we weren't hungry, or it was an off hour for the restaurant, but they just weren't that great. A ton of sauce, mostly dried out meat, a strange can of Sprite that already tasted watered down, and lackluster coleslaw and potato salad were a let down for us. Boo urns.

You can definitely see that they are used to a lot of business though, and if we ever found ourselves in the area again, we would probably try to stop in on a busy Saturday evening or something. Disappointed by the food, we still loved the handpainted pig decor.

Savannah, GA

2010-06-09T10:38:00.003-04:00

We drove from Charleston to Savannah in the late afternoon. I had a meeting the next day with Mr. George Perez, Associate Director of the furniture program at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design). The person I pay to be my friend and PR agent, Gabbi Anastasio (designmouth.org), has helped to set up meetings for me at various retailers, galleries, museums, and in this case art schools all over the country in order to shake hands with people and show off my new collection of furniture. It's our hope that face-to-face meetings with the people who make it possible for me to have a career will give me a "leg up in the industry," as they say... Anyway, it's because of this meeting that Savannah would mark our first hotel splurge of the trip. I was looking pretty haggard with a scruffy beard and a couple day old layer of sweat still glistening on my forehead.

We stayed at the Thunderbird Inn. A super cute refurbished 60s motor inn. On first glance it might look a bit sketchy, but it was the total opposite. We were psyched to be there. We did not get a chance to try the moon pies, however. :( That night we had a mediocre dinner on the river with all the other tourists. Everything looked cute, but, as is usually the case in these situations, I couldn't shake the feeling we were eating a scam meal for dumbo tourists like us.

The next day we woke up to Gabbi's text telling me the meeting with Mr. Perez would be in a little over an hour. Ok. See ya later beard, stop pouting Freddie we know you wanted to live here forever and never see the van again, bye bye Thunderbird. We jetted across town, I had my meeting, Michelle studied in the heating up in the morning sun van. The SCAD furniture program has amaaaaaaazing facilities and George was super nice to talk to for an hour or so. I didn't get to meet any students, but the work that was out in the lobby was pretty solid. I was overall really impressed with what they had going on, made me want to go to grad school. On George's recommendation we parked at the south end of Forcyth Park and the historic district of Savannah and just started walking. It was silly hot out but the shade of big trees with the spanish moss hanging kept it tolerable.

Freddie chased squirrels off the leash and could not have been happier.

Then! We had lunch at Zunzi's. Gaaahhhhh! Soooo good! My guess is the South African guy slinging hummus that day was the owner. We ordered something called "Oliver's Lunch" and it was GD incredible. It was smoked sausage and chicken on a bed of mashed potatoes covered in the most amazing secret sauce ever. We also got a plate of hummus, so delicious, and some rooibos tea, also spectacular. No, it wasn't fried chicken or biscuits or grits or whatever other soul food we're "supposed" to have eaten at Mrs. Wilkes, but I wouldn't have traded this really simple but amazing meal for anything else in Savannah. I don't think. Bellies full and tea refilled, we loaded into the van once again and decided to drive out to Tybee Island. We didn't manage any photos on Tybee. We were extremely cranky. The A/C in our van is a bit...temperamental. The engine had heated up enough sitting out in the sun so that it just did not want to kick on. We got to the beach, sweating like Georgia pigs already, and decided it was just too damn hot out to not have an umbrella. We were also bummed to find no dogs were allowed on the beach. Before Michelle and I got in a misdirected argument about nothing, I pulled the van down a side street with some parking for the beach. The lifeguards were off to the south, so we suited up, jammed Freddie in a canvas bag and marched North. When we got far enough away I scooped Freddie up, then continued our trek straight into the ocean. Freddie was panting like a maniac so I told him this was for his own good and dragged him to his salty nightmare. He absolutely hated every second. I was trying to help him avoid the small shore break, but he was climbing and clawing up my chest leaving a few good marks on me and Michelle. We laughed and laughed, though Freddie found none of this funny. Saturated, spiteful, and ugly (a wet Freddie is an awful thing to look at, he resembles an underfed swamp rat and we do not claim ownership when he's in this state) we rescued him from the awful situation we put him in in the first place, made our way back to the van, and started our long hot drive to Orlando.

Charleston, SC

2010-06-08T10:09:00.000-04:00

After spending the night at Carolina Beach, it was time to hit the road again.

Our goal was to make Savannah by nighttime, which meant we needed to blast through South Carolina. But no worries, SC is a silly state anyways. (See: hiking the Appalachian Trail)

We got to Myrtle Beach and decided to take a short drive through town. We meandered through yet another beach town and when we got out, realized that we had just been in NORTH Myrtle Beach. Sigh. So we took a swing through Myrtle Beach proper and confirmed our suspicions that we had in fact missed Black Bike Week. Bummer.

No pictures from Myrtle Beach because it's not like we're trying to keep updated or anything, are we!? Oh wait, just this one picture of a car I liked, complete with spinners!

You never see awesome cars like this in New Hampshire.

Now it was back on old crumbums Route 17 to make it down the coast.

We passed through Charleston late in the afternoon on Memorial Day. There is a very distinct image I have when I think about old southern towns, and Charleston did not disappoint.

We parked in a charming downtown area and looked at all their cute shops and markets. We even bought some awesome wood blocks from Kapla that are basically wooden legos.

After a quick consultation with our buddy Yelp, we decided to check out a French place by the courthouse. I know it's a cliche thing, but I really really love Paris and the whole French food thing so I was pretty excited about it, and Gaulart - Maliclet did not disappoint.

I wish Freddie had someplace to stay so we could have eaten inside and had some Kir, but our take out cheese and pate plate and croque monsieur was still awesome.

After we were done, Tim decided to hit up G - M again for a hot dog. UHHHHHMAZINGGGGGG

Basically, this hot dog had us singing its praises in the streets of Charleston.

Happy and full of cheese, we wandered the back alleys and narrow streets of gorgeous historic Charleston, where they all still have gas lamps on the houses and it's all so charming I could barf. It was definitely a place we would go back to.

Wilmington and Carolina Beach

2010-06-07T17:00:00.000-04:00

To exit the Outer Banks is no small task. The North Carolina coastline is nothing but inlets, peninsulas, and ferries, and our GPS (which we hate by the way) in fact led us to a ferry dock and instructed us to board. We were not the first touristy victims of this, however, as our predicament was immediately diagnosed by the ferry office staff the second Michelle stepped in. We got back on route 17, a road which would be our uninvited best friend all the way down to Florida, and decided we wanted to drive only as far as Wilmington that day. We arrived in the late afternoon, found a shady place to park and took a walk around downtown. Wilmington is super cute, we at first compared it to a southern Portsmouth but decided the homeless people made the place feel more like Portland, ME. I think it's the colonial thing with a southern...twist that Michelle and I liked: something we would like in the next couple cities we visited, as well.

I have an annoyingly persistent aversion to being "scammed." I'm not entirely sure where this came from or when, but it tends to steer Michelle and I away from signs on docks which read "$4 boat ride." I must have been tired or perhaps just in a good mood because we did, in fact, end up on a boat in the Wilmington harbor waiting for a 15 minute, $4 sail in one large-ish circle.

Oh, there's the U.S.S. Carolina, maybe we'll get a better view of that. Nope, time to circle back, this is as close as you're getting. We got what we paid for, lesson learned.

We don't have photos of this, which is surprising because 75% of our pictures so far are of food, but we had a great meal in Wilmington at a place called Circa 1922. We tried some of the charcuterie which was decent, but the shrimp and grits was amaaaaziiing. We're not the best judges of good grits as we're pretty inexperienced, but this bowl of southern slop was better than any I've ever had.

And on the already too long list of things we can't believe we missed, the Serpentarium. Closed. Bummer.

There's a surf/skate shop in town so I asked the young folks working there where they surf. They gave us directions to Carolina Beach and we took a ride down there to see if we could sleep by the ocean that night, assuming the area would be a state park at the end of a quiet road where we could avoid noisy crowds for a bit. No such luck. Carolina Beach is yet another tourist beach town with stores with names like Waves, Sunsations, and Eagles (that one's strange) all selling the same beach town garbage towels and hermit crabs. We felt very lucky to find a small parking lot right on the beach which was free overnight and came equipped with bathrooms and outdoor showers. As we always do we parked in the darkest corner of the lot. Then we put on our swimsuits, tucked away our shame, swallowed our pride and showered under the moonlight... and nearby terraces of vacation goers enjoying a late night beer. We once again had not showered in a few days, so although I was wearing surf trunks and we had to constantly pull on a chain to keep the water flowing, this Carolina Beach parking lot cleanse has easily made it into my top 5 showers of all time.

The Outer Banks, NC

2010-06-07T13:00:00.000-04:00

It's a beautiful place and it doesn't need any help from Old Man Nostalgia, but the Outer Banks get it anyway as my family made vacations there somewhat of a summer tradition when I was growing up. I love this place. Michelle and I arrived on the Friday which would kick off Memorial Day Weekend. The traffic surprisingly did not make me want to put a brick on the gas pedal and blast our beloved home on wheels off a cliff, but the RV parks and campsites were compleeeeetely booked up with weekend patriots so we were just not gonna find a slot. We ended up pulling into the "Salvo Marina and Campgrounds." This name was not as official as we took it to be as the "marina" was one boat ramp and a couple slips and the "campgrounds" turned out to be not much more than a nice man's backyard. We handed him $20 as we pulled in and parked on a nice private peninsula of yard right on the sound. We were very happy. The map shows just how far out into nowhere we were. Our options for dinner were slim so we ended up at Uncle Pauly's drinking local beer and peeling steamed shrimp. Celtics/Magic were on the many tvs. We were happy again.

The next morning our goal was simple enough: go to the beach. The Outer Banks have little more to offer than beach in every direction, so this all seemed reasonable enough. Upon spotting some surfers parked on the opposite side of the road, I made a quick u-turn, overestimated the van's off-road abilities and got us good and stuck in the sand. To get your wheel this far sunk into the ground is not something that happens spontaneously. I refused to accept that Vanpira couldn't dig herself out of this jam so I leaned heavy on the gas until we could literally sink no further. Stupid tourists.

AAA winched us out of this one and we were grateful. We were stuck for a bit more than an hour... at the beach! Oh, boo-hoo! So, while we waited, all this happened:

First surf of the trip! The conditions were not ideal, but I paddled out and caught a few anyway.

Freddie you look insane.

After the big Winch-Out of 2010, we stopped at Brew Thru to pick up some t-shirts for my pops and some Weeping Radish, our new favorite coastal NC craft brew.

We went to Sonic!

And the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kitty Hawk. Actually pretty awesome, even having been here before. I didn't realize until this trip, though, that they were from Ohio not North Carolina. I don't think NC should be taking as much credit as they do. Get on that, Ohio! Take back man's conquest of the sky!

Williamsburg,VA - May 28

2010-06-07T08:25:00.000-04:00

Even though we had been in Virginia Beach the night before, I told Tim we def had to go to Williamburg. I don't know why, maybe it was because of my American Girl doll that I had and all of her awesome doll accessories (Felicity and her four poster bed and cool clothes). So we headed in a northwesterly direction, broke the space time continuum, and soon arrived in ...

COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG!!!!!

It's this silly town that looks just like how it used to, with costumed people walking about and all sorts of colonial swag to buy. Don't get too excited, the costumed people aren't in character or anything :( :( :(

AND HERE'S WHERE I BLOW THE LID OFF OF THE WHOLE THING!!!!!! (sorry Colonial Williamsburg)

If you ever get the chance to go there, and you think the price of admission is a bit high... do yourself a favor and don't buy tickets. The whole town is open to the public, it's just places like the wigmaker and wheelwright that you have to have the ticket to enter. So if all you want to do hang out in a colonial setting, save yourself the 36 dollars.

Timmy is cranks cuz we paid full price!!

The rest of the town is pretty cute (the non colonial part), and they have delicious Virginia Ham biscuits!! Yeaaaaa!

Virginia Beach

2010-06-04T09:57:00.000-04:00

Or: Part Two in a Series of Beach Towns

We stopped at a visitors center as soon as we crossed state lines, and immediately saw three things: a sign welcoming us to the south, a truck with a confederate flag front license plate, and this awesome pay phone.

It also immediately went from nice and temperate to hot and "I wanna kill myself" humid. Look how hot Freddie is

We kept on driving and crossed a gigantic bridge, of which we have been seeing many, and arrived in Virginia Beach.

At this point, we had not showered since the morning we left, making us three day stinky. Grooooosssss!

So we decided to break the bank and stay at a campground

It was adorable and kitschy, and most importantly had showers and a bathroom not attached to a Starbucks.

We had a delicious meal at Big Sam's where we demolished everything, even though we decided we liked New England Oysters better

Afterwards, we had a nice night in the van, complete with gas station wine out of plastic cups and the first episode of season 3 of Skins.

Ocean City, Maryland - May 27

2010-05-31T09:43:00.003-04:00

Or: Part One in a Series of Beach Towns

We spent our second night in the OC, as the locals call it (um, do they call it that?) and as we were fortunate to miss the Memorial Day crowds, we got to park right next to the beach for the night.

We went to breakfast at the Bayside Skillet, and got a crab omelette that was delish.

We also greatly enjoyed the hula skirt umbrellas.

We went to the local surf shop, where this had this awesome car

And then, after seeing the crabbers and the fisherman doing some work, it was time to blast outta there and move on to Virginia!

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Part Two

2010-05-30T16:05:00.007-04:00

Roll your eyes all you want, but I've never had a cheesesteak in Philly and I wanted to. So I did. We parked the van directly between Geno's and Pat's. I chose Pat's because it lacked some of the... shine that Geno's had. I give this experience a definitive: meh (with shoulder shrug). "Wit / wit-out," "whiz," surly service, yeah I get it, but I still say whateverz to you, sir.

Hi it's Michelle! Hi!

Let me just say that I had been let down by Philly Cheesesteaks before and had already moved on to the delight that is DiNic's Roast Pork sandwiches at Reading Terminal, which was what I was planning on getting when we were in town. BUT THEN! I read Yelp, and they told me to go to Paesano's. I figured Cheesesteak Junction was not going to anywhere near Paesano's but I was wrong! Hooray! We walked through the Italian Market (you know, where Charlie from It's Always Sunny ate that entire pear...) and Freddie was scared of the live chickens and ducks.

I got the Arista - whole roast suckling pig, broccoli rabe, Italian long hot peppers, and sharp provolone. It's basically an insane version of a normal roast pork sandwich.

And they had a cherry soda in the fountain... delicious. We contemplated getting a sandwich to eat on the road later, but decided not to be completely obese for once in our lives. Also, we got some Yuengling on the way out of town and it was fantastic.

A Love Letter For You

2010-05-30T15:49:00.004-04:00

About a year ago, I heard about this street art project going on in West Philadelphia headed up by Steve Powers, aka ESPO.

It was called A Love Letter For You, and it was to been seen from the new elevated blue line running through the neighborhood. It is 50 murals about a reformed guy trying to get back with his girl.

As much as I loved the murals and wanted to see them in person, I found scant reason to schlep down to West Philadelphia... Until Vanpire Weekend!!

Parts of the neighborhood are downright terrifying, but parts are lively. If you're ever down there, I definitely think you should check it out

The crack house across the alley from To Have and To Hold

And finally, a reminder that home is where the van and family are

PS: you better believe that as soon as we got into West Philadelphia, we did in fact sing the Fresh Prince theme song

Beach Chillin

2010-05-29T12:01:00.001-04:00

Hey y'alls writing to you from the south. I know we haven't been the best bloggers, but we'll make it up to you, we promise!

We got into the Outer Banks last night, after hanging out in Virginia Beach the night before and seeing Colonial Williamsburg during the day. (more details in later posts!)

We paid a cool old guy 20 bucks to stay in his campground, aka his backyard and had a great dinner at Uncle Paulys.

Currently, we are on the beach, at a surf spot called S sands, where our van is stuck in the S sands.

Sometimes we forget that the van is ginormous. A nice dude in an unfortunately too small Toyota Tacoma tried to pull us out, but this is a job for AAA

No worries is my new motto on this trip, so we have been playing oyster fetch with Freddie on the beach, frolicking in the surf, and waxing the board while waiting.

There are certainly worse places to be stranded.

Lots of love from OBX

Location:N Carolina 12,Kinnakeet,United States

Danny's Drive In

2010-05-27T14:13:00.006-04:00

A big part of the original idea for Vanpire Weekend was road food and the amazing and artery clogging variety of American food.

Reading sites like seriouseats.com and roadfood.com also didn't help. Surprisingly, there is an amazing concentration of delish eats in Connecticut. We originally wanted to visit Louis Lunch in New Haven (possibly the first place to serve hamburgers), but unfortunately, they closed before we could get there. Bummer.

Instead, I checked out seriouseats to get some recs, and found Danny's Drive In in Stratford.

As soon as we pulled up, we knew this would be a great place.

It's no secret of our affinity for encased meats. I'm not sure when it started, but I don't think our visit to Hot Doug's last year helped, nor our introduction to Flo's dogs in Maine.

We had stopped in NH for lunch, and I already had a classic normal New England hot dog in a top split buttered bun. (demolished before photo op) But I was not going to be deterred from a hot dog at Danny's.

I went with the Carolina dog - a long, deep fried dog with their super spicy chili and Cole slaw

Tim got the New York dog - a long, deep fried dog with special sweet yet spicy onion sauce.

We obviously had to get waffle fries too - which we were delicious.

After we demolished the hot dogs, we wondered if we should get another hot dog. Normally, our physically skinny but mentally fat selves would have gone with it, but we decided to restrain ourselves just a little bit and forgo the hot dog. No worries though, we still got a peanut butter chocolate shake for the road.

Danny's was great, and a great example of the kinds of places that we want to see all over the country.

Danny's Drive In, we love you!

Post-launch van photos

2010-05-26T19:40:00.009-04:00

Howdy kids! I've been in a deep hole of van calamity for the past couple weeks. Sliced thumbs and back spasms notwithstanding, I've clawed my way back out on sheer will, sweat, blood and an extreme amount of patience from my saintly girlfriend. And as you know by now, we've hit the road, which means the van build was a success...right...? There are definitely improvements to be made, and I've already come up with a few new ideas for getting things to function more smoothly, but all in all, I'm proud of the outcome. At the Richard Stockton service plaza in Jersey I did my best to photograph the interior, but it's a much trickier thing to do than it seems. I think to do this beast justice would require some professional lenses and a guy with hose (pretty sure there's a hose guy on most car commercial sets 'cause wet asphalt looks way better than dry). Blah blah blah, here are the photos.

This is the view from the side doors. Freddie has mostly passed on the bed Michelle made for him and instead claimed the fold-out as his own.

An action shot showing how the doors on the cabinets open. Michelle is looking for Velcro, I believe. You can also see out little one burner stove, our herb garden, and one of our solar lamps.

Panning up a bit to show the surfboards strapped in.

This is the view from the driver seat. A view I see more often than I should while I'm driving because I'm curious to see what Fred's doing. This is usually what he's doing. You can see the wood paneling on the side door.

Sitting on the fold-out looking out the side door. The secretly talented Michelle Kiang made all the pillows and curtains. And a quilt!

The opposite view from the fold-out. I'm still super excited about this water jug. The sink is a stainless steel bowl from Target. I drilled a hole, installed a drain, and ran a hose to an empty gas can for the gray water. It was pretty exciting to brush our teeth here last night and this morning. Twice a day, ya jerks!

Aaaaaand back over my left shoulder showing the rack holding up the surfboard.

Back to the front seat to show the bed folded out. There's still lots of room between the end of the bed and the back doors.

This is the view from outside of the van looking through the back doors. That's the backside of the fold-out which becomes the foot of the bed. A closet to the left, Michelle's quilt to the right.

Open closet!

Wood door panel with rope pull!

Soooo, I hope that gives an idea of how things are looking. Ask questions if you wanna know what something is made out of or how it's attached or what possessed me to do such a horrible thing to myself by starting this project.

Day One

2010-05-26T09:34:00.001-04:00

So we may have missed our original start date by about a week, but as countless people say, and as Bill told us today, shit happens.

But here we are! We plan on being in Florida for Tim's cousin's high school graduation on June 4, so unfortunately, we have to blast down the eastern seaboard with some speed.

As I type this, we are in a service plaza in Hamilton, New Jersey. Sleeping in the van was excellent. It was nice and cool during the night, and the hum of a dozen semi trucks lulls you to sleep.

Sleeping in the van is comfy, even though Freddie likes peeking under the curtains and growling at people in the parking lot.

We were in five states yesterday - NH, MA, CT, NY, and NJ.

Today is going to be a great day!

Sorry no pictures yet, I'm trying to find a camera connector for the iPad. Sold out everywhere, OF COURSE.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Trip cancelled :(

2010-05-25T12:39:00.000-04:00

Staying in New Hampshire forever.

You knew this was coming. Things just weren't working out and we couldn't get it together in time.

:'(

PSYCH!!!!

Tim and I are leaving the Jiffy Lube, where we passed our van inspection and we are OFF!!

Pictures of the beautiful van to come :)

I'm glad you stuck with us, even if you didn't think we were going to make it.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

WELL !

2010-05-24T20:34:00.001-04:00

I'm not gonna say nothin about nothin in order not to jinx us but I will let you know that tonight, Tim and I are going out to dinner and enjoying it, instead of getting Chipotle for the third time this week and eating it in 20 minutes while sitting on the couch. Not that there's anything wrong with that, especially since without Chipotle, we would probably be dead. Or you know, a few pounds skinnier.

Tick tick tick tick tick

2010-05-23T15:48:00.001-04:00

Ok ok it's Sunday and we originally thought we could leave today BUT we thought it would be best to take it easy today, have some time to clean and pack and eat a delicious dinner. And watch LOST!!!

That's right. The end is within sight. By the end, um, I of course mean the beginning of our road trip...

We've had an insane amount of bad luck, a ton of weird things happening all at once, but it's all clearing up now, thanks to that ointment we picked up, and we are feeling good today!

Tim's been MIA on the blog because he's been working 18 hours a day on Ms Vanpira, and I promise he'll be back soon. Timmy, we love you! You're the number one champion of van building!!!

UPDATE: no more than three hours after I posted this, Tim almost cut this thumb tip off. Sigh. Universe, why do you hate our trip???

Location:Portsmouth,United States

ICFF Weekend

2010-05-18T12:13:00.004-04:00

Interesting Confusing Fun Filled Weekend?

Insipid Cranky Fat Free Weekend?

Inspiring Craft Fair Fantastic Weekend?

International Contemporary Furniture Fair Weekend!!!

Tim and I (sans chich) spent the weekend in New York for the opening of CITE Goes America and the debut of Tim's New New England collection

We saw old friends, met new friends, and saw tons of wonderful things.

Then we went to MUJI, where I wished I could buy the entire store. Sigh.

We stopped by the Javits Center on Monday to see the exhibitions at ICFF, and got to see Emily Pilloton's Design Revolution Road Show Airstream packed with amazing new useful inventions

And now we're back in New Hampshire, Tim's working on the van and I'm starting to study for the Patent Bar.

We tentatively and hopefully want to leave here by next Sunday, and I would like to close by quoting the great Optimus Prime and my close friend Tony: "All we need is a little bit of energon, and a lot of luck."

A Dream Deferred

2010-05-13T16:13:00.002-04:00

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Well Langston Hughes, I don't know. But I will tell you that OUR dream deferred will just take another week. For realsies.

Good Luck

2010-05-11T10:27:00.008-04:00

Well, the last 48 hours are upon us.

Hopefully, we will be on our way to New York this time Thursday.

Tim has been awake for almost 30 hours at this point... can he pull another all nighter??

I don't know, but we'll definitely need a lot of luck - and here's what's going to give it to us

This is a lucky eye we picked up in Athens, Greece - to help us ward off the evil eye.

Here's a wishbone from our friend Scott's last show at Corduroy in Portland, Maine.

And this is a Buddhist amulet I received from my parents when I left for college - it was hand carved out of Sandalwood and blessed at a Buddhist temple - and meant to bring luck and protection.

We can do it with the help of these lucky charms, right? Right!

See you on the road!

Photo heavy

2010-05-08T08:12:00.008-04:00

Actually writing words on the internet is still novel to me. In this post, I'm going back to my blogging roots (I don't have blogging roots): lots of photos, few words. We have about 5 full days left to get things together. Here's what we had as of yesterday.

Holy Crumb!

2010-05-04T08:02:00.013-04:00

We leave in a mere 9 days! On the 13th, we're blasting through most of Southern New England to get to New York City. I'm showing a collection of new furniture during ICFF/Design Week, so we're going to be spending a few days down there networking, schmoozing, and testing the stealthiness of our van on the streets of the outer boroughs. Just after the shows/parties/hand-shaking, we're heading out on the road for realzies.

Since saying "f*ck it, let's drive around for 8 weeks," Michelle has made one very rough Google map, outlining our trip, which is basically as much of an informed itinerary as blindfolded noodle-throwing. So, we recently got a bit more responsible. How much will we stick to this? I dunno. My personality dictates, however, that I'd rather know we're deviating from a plan than have no plan at all. Timeliiiiiiinnnnnnne:

NYC 5/15

DC 5/20

N. Carolina 5/24

Savannah 5/29

Vero Beach FL 6/3 - 6/7

NOLA 6/10

Houston/Galveston 6/12

Austin 6/15

Marfa 6/17

Albuquerque 6/18

G. Canyon 6/20

Phoenix 6/22

S. Diego / Tijuana 6/23

LA 6/26

SF 6/29

PDX 7/2

Yellowstone 7/5

Mt. Rushmore 7/9

Minneapolis 7/11

Chicago 7/13 - 7/17

Grand Rapids, MI 7/17

Toronto 7/19

Montreal 7/21

Burlington, VT 7/23

Portsmouth 7/25

I won't lie, I'm beginning to worry about the May 13th deadline in terms of getting this van together. Bits and pieces of it are all over the place and at various stages of finish (or not finish, mostly). I keep telling myself that as long as I'm plugging away everyday, which I am, things will all of a sudden come together. There is no "all of a sudden" though, when you're working 10-12 hours a day on one thing. Really wish I could montage through this motherf*cker.

And now, the not pay-off. The best new van photo update I have is a shot of the ceiling about halfway done.

You can see one section of the gray industrial felt which will cover the entire ceiling already up there, the naked green fiberglass just after a generous spray gluing getting ready for the next section of felt, and then the very handy plastic dropcloth protecting everything else. (Though, it did not protect my hair which currently lies in gluey, disgusting clumps in our shower drain - photo unavailable). So the ceiling's pretty much done now and I'm relieved. It was a horrible process. I don't like spray glue.

Also, we're official now. Registered the old gal yesterday. So when you see the very distinctive NH 295 9861 rolling down the road, lay on that horn and say hi. We'll probably hold Freddie up to the window and make him wave. Then we'll giggle with glee at his humiliation.

CAMPING SWAG

2010-04-26T17:29:00.005-04:00

Well kids, good news, I finished my quilt and delivered it to the machine quilter Sunday morning. And boy, are you going to be surprised when I show you what it looks like all finished. And YES, Mr M William Panek, it was super fun when I turned 55 and starting thinking of quilting puns :) I've decided to embrace oldie sour status.

But enough of that chit chat, here's what I wanted to show you: camping swag.

We all know that buying stuff is fun (yea capitalism!) but what you may not know is how fun it is to buy stuff in a whole new weird genre. All of a sudden, there is stuff that you NEED that you've never seen or heard about before.

Tim's been scouring the internet for deals and we visited our FAVORITE store Kittery Trading Post for the rest of the gear.

So starting with the soap and going clockwise....

1. Dr Bronner's Magic Soap in Peppermint. If you don't know about Dr Bronner's, it's basically THE most politically correct (is this the right phrase??) soap in existence. Straight from the website: completely biodegradable and vegetable-based, certified fair trade, organic, no syntethic foaming agents, thickeners, or preservatives, 18 -in-1 uses!!! Plus, if we get bored, we can read the label.

2. GSI cooking kit. This thing is amazing.

That tiny tiny expands into a pot, a pan, removable handle, dishwashing cloth bucket, lid, two mugs with lids and fits all our plastic flatware and telescoping spatula. This is way better than opening the cabinet and having a tangle of pots fall on your head.

3. Collapsable water jug. You'll have to ask Tim about this, he's super into it. "The spigot is on the top!" he says.

4. Shower in a bag. This is pretty much a sack that you fill with water, let warm in the sun, and then stand under, pull a string, and get warmed up water dumped all over you. So. Just like a shower. Tim assures me we won't be using much of this, just for "when we're in Yellowstone next to the bears!"

BUT HERE! IS MY FAVORITE! (and most unneccessary)

CAMPING CHOPSTICKS! YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! Because everyone knows that normal chopsticks are FAR too unwieldy to pack in their normal form.

How to alienate your readers with love

2010-04-23T07:48:00.008-04:00

For those of you who have never made a piece of furniture, one of the most satisfying feelings that comes along with such a thing is filling a space where once there was nothing, with a surface to put your sh*t on.

So that's the framing for the cabinets/countertop. The taller studs closer to the camera will be a closet and the shorter studs will be lower storage with a counter on top for our stove and sink. I like to "draw" in full scale with blue painter's tape, so you can see some of those sketches still lingering on the floor, outlining the space the seat/bed will occupy.

Not long after this picture was taken, there was a felt ceiling mishap. A simple and classy solution to the issue of making a headliner (one of the toughest/most annoying/rarely finished properly jobs there is in automotive interiors) was something Michelle actually came up with. Nice work, sweetie, you did it. We're gluing industrial felt to our fiberglass roof. Easy. The quality of industrial felt we ordered, however, proved to be too...economical, and I was worried about shedding so new felt is on the way. A lot of other things depend on that ceiling getting done, so until then: a lesson in painting the doors of your car.

Prep work: remove the window, lightly sand the area to be painted, cover up for the overspray.

Prime and paint a sickening message to later be covered up foreverz to your loved one. This message reads T (heart) M. Ignore my misshapen heart. Also ignore our sappiness. There's more of that coming on this trip, so if you don't like it, you can lump it, pal.

Paint glossy black! The middle area will be covered up by recycled denim insulation and a custom-fit wooden door panel. Back to work!

P.S. All I see in my dreams is a never-ending color field of late '90s hunter green. (Occasionally broken up by some khaki pin-striping, of course.)

This title was going to be a quilting pun, but forget it.

2010-04-20T17:12:00.000-04:00

Honestly, I even googled "quilting puns" but midway through reading them, I remember that the pun would be lost on um.. everyone.

I've always been really interested in quilting (since I am old at heart), and I took a quilting class this February at my local fabric store (Portsmouth Fabric Co). I had a lot of fun picking out fabrics and learning how to use a sewing machine with my awesome teacher Kerin and my four classmates. We made a really simple rail fence 5x5 quilt with a border.

So after I finished with this tiiiiiiny quilt - I think the finished dimensions are 40x40 - I decided to get more ambitious with a throw for the couch.

I wanted to stick with simple blocks and I wanted something less busy than the quilt I just finished. After a lot of googling, I decided to do a zig zag quilt. Basically, there are two ways to make a zig zag quilt - one involves piecing triangles (which I have NO idea how to do) and the other is um well, the other way is the easy way out. I think you know which one I chose.

I looked at the general directions and hijacked Tim's computer to use Illustrator to give myself a guide. I'm not sure how it happened, but as I was casually buying fabric and slowly sewing things together, we decided that this quilt would go in the van.

OH WAIT, WHAT?! QUILT IN THE VAN!? VAN LEAVING MID MAY!?

Believe it, Michelle, it's all true. So I decided to go with Robert Kaufman Carolina Chambray for the gray and Kaffe Fassett Shot Cottons for the colors. Basically, the fabrics are similar in the fact that the warp is one color and the weft another, giving the material a nice look.

So that's what I've been doing with a lot of trial and error and swearing and cursing at the sewing machine

I ran into a few snafus.. one of which was getting the wrong color fabric and then throwing a fit (this was yesterday) and another being that there was no way I could machine quilt this by myself, but everything is going well. I found another fabric supplier and I found someone who has a longarm quilting machine to do the actual quilting (I'm technically only piecing right now)

I took over the office / Tim's closet with all the supplies and it is kind of a tight fit..

I'm halfway through the quilt right now and am waiting for the gray chambray to come in the mail. The quilt is going to be dropped off on Sunday.. hope I can make it!

Timmy's van update

2010-04-17T19:04:00.001-04:00

I'm really not sure at which point in the process of planning this trip that I committed to such a lofty undertaking as a complete customization of a full size van. Even up to the moment of getting the thing into the driveway, I was as lax about our on-the-road living situation as a sheet on the fold-down back seat. But after several weeks of having the green giant sleeping soundly in front of our house, I found myself neck deep in low-grade conversion van interior trash and on my way to a full-on camper. The deadline I've given myself is May 10th. This will surely kill me.

With that, I give you a progress report.

This is just the start of the pile o' crap I've removed. Our backyard is an absolute eyesore. Sorry, neighbors! Just kidding, eat it, neighbors!

The metal shell I was left with after stripping everything out needed to be insulated. Not so much for hot/cold air but for highway noise. The wood furring strips holding the foam in place will also give me something to screw into later when the walls and furniture go in. The thing about using a passenger van versus a panel van is that the windows present silly challenges. This was a pain to do properly, but it'll be worth it later. Right?

Opposite wall.

Everything I read on the internet about sleeping in a van suggested that some sort of ventilation fan in the roof is absolutely necessary. Ok, internet. So I cut a hole in the fiberglass roof...

...and jammed a fan in. Now we have some extra sunlight blasting in there. Awesome.

It looks like I bungee'd a cardboard box to the roof. But really I installed a solar panel. The wiring has been threaded through to the inside but nothing's been bolted down or connected to a battery. (Any electrical experts out there, I have a few questions and could use help, comment!)

In this picture you can also see the sections of window that I blocked out with silver foil coated board - a material I ripped out of the headliner. Recycling!

I skinned the walls with some thin plywood. 95% of this wall will become the inside of cabinets. This whole side of the van will be our storage, stove, sink, etc.

The opposite wall and wheel well will be exposed, so it's gonna take some finish work to make it look nice. Felt maybe?

The flooring consists of cheap carpet padding and OSB (oriented strand board, aka 4 x 8 sheets of trash). This will be covered up by some kind of laminate.

In photo-less mechanical news, the brakes are dope, the oil is brand new, and the tires, save maybe one of them, will get us all the way home. The only bummer is the driver side power window motor is on the fritz, which means no drive-thru food on the trip. Just kidding! More drive-thru food!

Yes, lots of camping

2010-03-30T07:40:00.001-04:00

I like this comic for many reasons: it's from Married to the Sea and has a conversion van that looks eerily like Ms Vanpira herself. But, I have a feeling Tim and I are going to be sleeping in a lot more parking lots than woods...

Solar Panels

2010-03-15T14:24:00.000-04:00

Tim's going to install a solar panel on the roof to power our various gadgets. We got it in the mail the other day!

Gigantic box that was hard to open

Yes, that's right. It's from BP (like the gas stations). What does BP stand for?

The panel must be four feet tall or so

Thumbs up for solar power!

OOOOOOOO it's also pretty

Barfles

2010-03-14T22:57:00.000-04:00

Things Tim found in the van (Tim would like to clarify that these items were found in the WALLS of the van)

Half-filled Milk Chug container
HALF-FILLED MILK CHUG CONTAINER
IT WAS HALF FILLED WITH CURDLED MILK
MILK!
MILK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Half-eaten Handi-Snacks melted into the fiberglass insulation
Box of Dots (worst candy ever)
One Chicken Bone
Mysteriously empty BUT unopened can of Minute Maid Pink Lemonade
Various soft drink cans (empty and opened)
An alarming amount of Diego merchandise (the Diego of Dora the Explorer fame)
Gummi items
Raisins
Plenty of crumpled and used Kleenexes
Crumb-city

My hero Timmy cleared all of this out of the van, hooray! The seats are gone, the walls are ripped out, the insulation is in garbage bags, the seat belts are unbolted and/or cut off... The back of the van is all sheet metal and glue remnants...

Let the rebuild begin!

Sorry, no pictures, there's been a gigantic rain storm all day :( :( :(

Dr Tim at work

2010-03-12T14:17:00.001-05:00

Do work, Tim, originally uploaded by mckiang.

Time is rapidly tick tick ticking away.

While the stuff I'm in charge of can be taken care of mostly on the road with very little prep work besides internet research, the stuff Tim is in charge of takes a lot of time and hard work. This is why I can sit on the couch and watch The Princess Bride while blogging and Tim has spent probably 10 or 12 hours over the past few days under / inside / swearing at the van.

He's taking out the seats, but the bolts were rusted, so more drastic measures had to be taken.

Our departure date is hovering around late May right now, and we're going to be in Greece for ten days, so Tim is quite motivated to rip apart Vanpira.

We still haven't come up with a better name for the old gal, sorry.

Fast Food USA (and Canada)

2010-03-03T14:57:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that Tim and I are secret fatties. By that I mean, we aren't actually physically fat, but both of us have each eaten an entire 5 Buck Box from Taco Bell at one sitting. Let me have Sir Charles tell you more about it:

To clarify: I ate a Volcano Taco, Volcano Double Beef Burrito, Crunchy Taco, Cinnamon Twists and had a medium drink. Tim ate a Cheesy Gordita Crunch, Burrito Supreme, Crunchy Taco, Cinnamon Twists and a medium drink. WE BOTH FINISHED OUR BOXES (and spent only 10 dollars). We are not fast food amateurs. And we love Charles Barkley a lot. And we don't want to get dunked on by guys in dreadlocks. AND WE MEAN BUSINESS!

Our propensity for bad for you food is going to be taken to new, dizzying, barfy heights on this road trip.

A few things we want to cram into our gaping maws:

Various regional hot dogs: this requires its own post, because I love hot dogs
In-N-Out: Tim's never been there!
Delicious BBQ from roadside stands
Ten million slurpees and smoothies
A million tacos: hopefully including the ones from Kogi
A few thousand burritos
A drive thru daquiri from Mississippi's Gulf Coast: as recommended by my old roommate
Luna oysters from Santa Monica
Hot Dog on a Stick: corndogs are the best
Roast suckling pig: aka Lechón
Bacon coffee: Anthony Bourdain told me this existed in SF and I must have it
Poutine in Montreal
A variety of delicious foods from fast food places we don't have here, even if they're not that great: Jack in the Box, Hardees/Carl Jrs, Whataburger, Sonic, White Castle, Jollibee, Steak N Shake...

That's all I can think of right now. My arteries have clogged up another 15% from just writing this entry. Do you have any suggestions for us so we can get as fat as possible on this trip?

Oh and to White Michelle re: my last post, our engine will NOT be doing any cock blocking. We don't hate, we facilitate.

Engine Block Cooking

2010-02-22T13:32:00.000-05:00

Tim and I have talked about getting a little portable stove for Vanpira and that's all normal and cool, but today I was thinking.. what if we did some engine block cooking as well??

Some internetting directed me to wikihow: How to cook food on your car engine

It's another version of braising food - slower than an oven but faster than a slow cooker.

I predict lots of engine block hotdogs on this trip...

Yurts. Fun to say, fun to stay

2010-02-18T15:03:00.000-05:00

We don't plan on van dwelling on our entire trip, no siree. I'm sure as comfy cozy our van is going to be, there will be times we will want things like an actual bed, running water, and solid ground.

One place that we are planning to stay in is El Cosmico in Marfa, Texas - which is on the way to New Mexico from Austin.

They have refurbished vintage trailers you can stay in, as well as yurts:

and teepees:

Of course, both these things in reality are giant tents, which I am a-ok with. Can't wait to get out there in that beautiful Texas desert

As an added bonus! They have Dutchtubs to rent. Dutchtubs are awesome portable hot tubs which are heated by burning wood in a metal pipe coil.

Look how happy that Dutch lady is!

The Rough Plan

2010-02-16T15:37:00.001-05:00

Seems like people had a lot of questions when they read the first post of Vanpire Weekend, questions which I didn't think to provide the answers to originally.

So here it is:

We are probably planning to leave in early May and take about 2 months on the road (???)

Here is a tentative map of where we want to go

Can you see that? I gotta tell you, Google Maps is not the greatest road trip making tool there is out there. I was using Rand McNally also, but it was too ugly to be posting.

So the rough idea is down the Atlantic Coast, through New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC area, Richmond, Virginia Beach, the Outer Banks, Wilmington, Myrtle Beach (not marked on the map), Charleston, Savannah, and then down the east coast of Florida to Vero Beach, FL, where Tim has family. Then it's back up through Tallahassee, Panama City, Mobile, Biloxi, New Orleans, Galveston / Houston, Austin, Las Cruces, Albuquerque and then to the Grand Canyon. After the Grand Canyon, back through AZ to Phoenix and straight to San Diego (and possibly Tijuana??). Once we get to California, it's straight up the coast to LA, SF, and all the way up to Portland, OR. I think Portland is going to be the most Northwest that we go. Our return trip is going to see us through Yellowstone in Wyoming, Mount Rushmore, the Twin Cities, and to Chicago! Hooray! After a short stay with family in Chi, we'll head up to Grand Rapids and then it's off to Canada. We'll see Toronto and Montreal before we head down through Burlington and HOME HOME HOME to Portsmouth!

Of course, this is a rough preliminary sketch. Who knows what could go wrong or right or what detours lie in our future....

The first Vanpire Weekend

2010-02-15T20:11:00.000-05:00

Shortly before I was felled by an unknown barfy illness on Friday night, we purchased our van for our roadtrip.

There she is. What a green beauty. (?)

She's a gigantic 1998 Chevy Express 1500, 4.3L V6, auto tranny (hehehe), Gladiator conversion van with 122K miles. And she is going to take us across the country and back.

...

But not before Tim rips up everything from the inside and customizes her.

Her name is Vanpira. Maybe. That's a working title only.

Post Script: I don't think we like Vampire Weekend that much.. it was just the first van related pun name we liked. This was the first and last time we will mention the band. Unless we get some frosty horchatas on our trip.

--M