We're here! We made it!!!

Finally!!! We have reached our final destination

And here we are:

Kris and I would like to thank you  you guys for following along on our journey with us! Our trip across America has been so much fun, and we feel so lucky to be able to do this. Right now we don't even want to think about sitting in a car for more than 2 hours at a time!  We've had the pleasure of seeing so many beautiful parts of America, as well as some not so beautiful parts of America as well :P. I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly recognize the Wyoming (not Nyoming!) branch of Little America Hotels and Resorts.  Hands down, they had THE cleanest public restrooms I have ever seen. The award for least appealing restroom would be the rest stop somewhere in the middle of Colorado that we had the misfortune of encountering. This place left both Kris and I running to the car searching for our stash of Purell. Kris tells me that there was a sign in the men's bathroom that said "Do NOT drink the water!" (*shudders*)

I'm happy to say that after 8 days, Kris and I are both much better at naming state capitals, and can now locate Minnesota, Michigan and Utah on a map! We've come a long way, friends! We also filled our heads with some very useful knowledge about the US. For instance, did you know that Washington DC was built on a swamp, and that Wyoming is the least populated state in the country?! Kris can also name all 5 great lakes! Thanks again to Brain Quest. This trivia game was our entertainment of choice as we drove. 

Soo....we're safe and sound on the other side of the country now. Thanks for sticking with us!

-melodee :)

In the Bay

Just dropping in real quick to say hello from beautiful San Francisco! We've had the pleasure to be hosted by Kram & Rachelli at their pad and went out to a nice Thai dinner at Osha last night. Afterwards, they treated us out to Ghirardelli for some scrumptious dessert, followed by an intense game of Phase 10 (yeah, I came in last place). Anyway, we're off to Sacramento to get Melodee's nursing license and then last leg of the trip to LA!! We exciiiite...we'll check in when we make it there!

Greetings from Tahoe!

After an 8hr 30min drive last night from Salt Lake City, we're glad to have our last really long leg of the trip out of the way. We'll be heading to The Bay tonight to hang out with Kram & Rachelli and then at long last, take the 5-6hr drive to LA tomorrow night. 

This is us with the Colorado Rockies behind us just before leaving Salt Lake City. It was a quaint little city and seemed very sporty with a lot of people biking and running on it's hilly streets. We were craving some Asian food for lunch and had some Chinese takeout, but it didn't sit so well in my stomach for the rest of the day. I guess Chinese food isn't the same everywhere (did you know in China, they just call it "food?")

To further touch on Melodee's previous post, I was sleeping in the passenger seat with about 35 minutes left to go on the way to Tahoe. All of a sudden, she wakes me up and says we're getting pulled over. I thought for sure we were both going to get full cavity searched by some honky tonk Reno state trooper.  In her defense, it was probably a speed trap, where the speed limit changes right away after getting off of the highway without any notice.  It was only the second time she ever got pulled over so she was a little shook up, but luckily, the cop was actually really nice (he probably had some sympathy for the innocent little puppy face Mel was giving him).  Nevertheless, I've been calling her "Leadfoot" and "Speed Racer" since then and it's good that we didn't get a ticket and can just joke about it. 

Anyway, we're in South Lake Tahoe right now on the CA side.  We're going to go check out some nice views of the lake and then we'll be having lunch at the Ski Run Marina. We'll check back in when we hit San Francisco!

And of course, we can't sign off without hitting you up with one of these:

Lead foot!?

We've made it to Tahoe! We're in California! Although it's not our final destination, we've made it across the border! Just a quick post before bed. Kris and I are both exhausted! We almost got a ticket on the way here, but luckily the police officer was very nice and let us go. Apparently I was going 47 through town, and the speed limit is 25 (I swear there were no signs posted!). Ahhh.. very thankful to get here safely tonight!

melodee :)

Are we there yet?

Ahhh.. we're starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel! Day 5 of our trip, and we are now in Salt Lake City, Utah. Kris and I are fortunate enough to be able to take our time on this trip to stop and take in some of the sights across the country. I can't imagine doing this trip in 3-4 days,which I know some of you have! We've actually added another stop on our trip and will head to Lake Tahoe tomorrow. We'll probably show you guys all of the pictures we collectively take on this trip when we make it to LA, but right now I'm going to take you guys behind the scenes, and show you how some of the pictures are taken. 

So...some of our jumping pics wouldn't be possible without:

Kris, his tripod, and the remote for the camera. We found that this is a much better way to take our jumping pictures. This works well, so we don't have to ask random strangers to take the jumping picture for us. When we were in the Philippines, we entrusted our tour guide to take a jumping picture for us, and it kept coming out like this:

So after this experience (and this was the 3rd attempt!), we learned that if you want a good jumping pic,  you should do it yourself!

Another weapon that Kris has is:

In this case, yes, size DOES matter! We've probably generated more raised eyebrows when people see this lens, than when people see us taking our jumping pictures!

We've had to pull the car over to the side of the road in order for Kris to get in a shot or two of mountains, windmills, and passing cargo freights. Even though I roll my eyes when he's taking too long, the end product has definitely been worth it! He takes good pictures when he's not doing this:

Hope you guys enjoyed the exclusive behind the scenes look!

-melodee :)

Mt. Rushmore National Park

We had a slightly earlier start to our day today compared to the usual daily travel schedule. Not by choice, of course, but mainly because we set our alarms the night before and forgot that we're now 2 hours behind EST time zone. We actually didn't realize it until it was about noon, but it was a blessing in disguise since we got to see Mt. Rushmore before a whole lot of people started showing up. I was like a giddy little school girl with all of the photo ops and of course, we had to take our usual jumping pictures as well. 

Anyway, the national park itself was filled with all sorts of commemorative presidential stuff. Usually, when we go on these kind of things, Melodee is all about soaking in the culture and the historic facts, and then she'll get mad that I'll go wander off and just take pictures. So I guess you can say, between the two of us, we get a pretty complete impression of the place.  

Usually, when we go on vacation together, we'll always have this photo scavenger hunt where we each have to find three things and take a picture of them.  Sometimes they are pretty straightforward, other times they are just silly. For instance, in the Philippines Melodee had to find a guy with a mohawk and in Prague, I had to find a tranny (which I actually did, and took a picture right in his/her face.) For this trip, my challenge is to take a picture of 1) a red porsche, 2) twins, and 3) a black person in South Dakota. Melodee's challenge is 1) a female state trooper/cop, 2) a "population sign" (for the record, Keystone, SD has a population of 311....I think I have more Facebook friends than that whole city has inhabitants) and 3) an Asian person in South Dakota (Melodee used to live in North Dakota and somehow thought that finding an Asian & black person in S.D. would be hard. I told her it's 2009 and Barrack is president and that anything is possible). Well, below is a picture of a black person in South Dakota, and a picture of Melodee pretending to take a picture of Mt. Rushmore, but really taking a picture of some random Pinoy tourists we stumbled along. We are now tied 1-1.

Anyway, in more serious news, after a 7 hour drive, we're in Denver now and tomorrow we'll head to Salt Lake City, Utah. Stay tuned for more broadcasts from the open road!

-Kris

There's a lot of "middle of nowheres" in this country...

After leaving Chicago yesterday, we touched down in St. Paul, Minnesota. We spent a few hours at The Mall of America today.  There's something about Minnesotan accents that make me wish I played ice hockey.

Here are some pics from The Mall of America (hyperlinking is something Kris tells me people use in "the blogging world," so i'm trying it out.)

Apparently The Mall of America is the Nation's largest retail and entertainment complex. 

Unfortunately we didn't have time to ride the roller coasters :(

So, before I end this post, I'd like to touch on one of Kris' previous entries in which he posted the picture of me sleeping. I was slightly offended, as I pride myself on being an excellent passenger on this road trip. I admit that I do sleep (but never longer than 45 min to 1 hour!).  Seriously though, I always keep the car a comfortable temperature, I switch the songs on the ipod when necessary (and change from fast songs to slow songs, depending on our moods), check that there are no cars on the right side when Kris needs to switch lanes, and I keep us entertained (we bought brain quest today!).

During my leg of the drive today, Kris fell asleep as well, with the pink neck pillow and blue snuggle blanket. I have too much respect for him to post the pic, though (I really just forgot the cord to my camera in the car). It's harder than you may think to take a good picture of someone sleeping in the passenger seat, while you are driving. For one, I had to reach across to the glove compartment with one hand, turn the camera on, put it on the right setting, then angle myself against the driver's side door in order to get the right shot. All of this with one hand on the steering wheel and two eyes on the road. Can you do THAT, Chris Brown?!

Anyways, time for bed over here. Tomorrow we're off to see Mount Rushmore!

-melodee :)