Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9
Thursday, September 30, 2010
New Mexico: A Beautiful Place
Upon waking up this morning and emerging from our tipi, we discovered that we picked possibly the most beautiful part of NM to visit! We are surrounded by a breathtaking mountain range and our little village of Arroyo Seco is a quaint little Adobe town nestled into a hillside prairie.
We started the day with a walk, heading to the larger town of Taos, NM, which we passed through on our way here. However, 4 miles into the walk, we stopped at a roadside deli to re-hydrate and have lunch, and discovered, to our dismay, that we were not even halfway there! Tired, hot, and severely dehydrated, we headed back to get the jeep and explore the area a little more comfortably...
First, we visited the Gorge Bridge, which is a huge bridge spanning the vast canyon below. This was our first taste of what the Grand Canyon will be like, and it was stunning! Next, we headed over to the Taos Pueblo, which was closed for the day, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. We had some refreshment at the Adobe bar in the Taos Inn, and the bartender suggested that we check out the Alley Cantina for our evening entertainment. After strolling around the Taos Plaza and witnessing another heart-stopping sunset, we decided to head back to the tipi to shower & then check out the Alley.
Who would have guessed that the entertainment on schedule for tonight was... yep, karaoke! The dj even bought us a round, just for showing up! Of course, we made some friends and one of them is a writer, so we are greatly looking forward to the 'first draft' of whatever he writes next, which he promised to send us!
We made it back to the tipi, extremely tired and feeling the effects of the sun and over-exertion from the day. We plan on sleeping heavily and consuming more water than is logical in order to be in tip-top shape for tomorrow's adventures!
We started the day with a walk, heading to the larger town of Taos, NM, which we passed through on our way here. However, 4 miles into the walk, we stopped at a roadside deli to re-hydrate and have lunch, and discovered, to our dismay, that we were not even halfway there! Tired, hot, and severely dehydrated, we headed back to get the jeep and explore the area a little more comfortably...
First, we visited the Gorge Bridge, which is a huge bridge spanning the vast canyon below. This was our first taste of what the Grand Canyon will be like, and it was stunning! Next, we headed over to the Taos Pueblo, which was closed for the day, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. We had some refreshment at the Adobe bar in the Taos Inn, and the bartender suggested that we check out the Alley Cantina for our evening entertainment. After strolling around the Taos Plaza and witnessing another heart-stopping sunset, we decided to head back to the tipi to shower & then check out the Alley.
Who would have guessed that the entertainment on schedule for tonight was... yep, karaoke! The dj even bought us a round, just for showing up! Of course, we made some friends and one of them is a writer, so we are greatly looking forward to the 'first draft' of whatever he writes next, which he promised to send us!
We made it back to the tipi, extremely tired and feeling the effects of the sun and over-exertion from the day. We plan on sleeping heavily and consuming more water than is logical in order to be in tip-top shape for tomorrow's adventures!
Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
On the Road Again...
8am came wayyy too soon this morning, after spending the last week sleeping until noon or later! But we got up, showered, packed, and were out the door by 9- quite an impressive feat if you know anything about us at all! It wasn't quite as difficult because we spent a lazy day yesterday resting and watching movies (Laura saw Curly Sue for the first time!), and Heather got to bed relatively early, in preparation for driving the first leg today... The only real accomplishment I can brag about from yesterday was helping Matt dis-assemble their Christmas tree from last year so that it would fit in the garbage can... It was amazing that even sitting out in their backyard, in TEXAS, all summer long, it was still green inside & very very sticky!! This should have been a very easy task for Matt alone, except for the fact that the only tools he had for the job were a pair of rather dull hedge-clippers, and a very flimsy hand saw (the kind that has a thin blade w/the handle attached to both ends so it looks like a big letter D...). So I clipped away at the smaller branches to clear a space for Matt to get in with the saw, and we ended up cutting the tree into 3 large pieces, and many, many loose small branches. I know I worked hard because I got a blister.
Anyways... back to today: Originally when we looked up our general destination in New Mexico, somewhere around Santa Fe, Google maps suggested the estimated driving time to be about 12 hours... So we planned accordingly: leave with enough time to drive 12 hours, with only the necessary pit-stops, and make it to the hostel before they close at 10. However, the actual location of the hostel is probably a little over an hour north of Santa Fe, and the gps didn't seem to be able to find the same route as Google maps, so when we plugged in the address, we were more than a little shocked when the estimated arrival time was 1:30am! So today, we navigated the old-fashioned way and used a road atlas! We may have had a few helping guidelines from Google maps on my phone (after all, what's the point of advanced technology if you don't use it?), but overall the atlas proved to be very useful and we proved to ourselves that we knew how to use it! :-)
So we left at 9am this morning, stopped for lunch at Schlotsky's Deli, and a few other times for gas, etc. and finally arrived at the hostel at 9:45pm for a total of 13 hours & 45 minutes on the road... Eat that, gps!! And no, we are not mathematically challenged- we actually saw 5:00pm happen twice today, thanks to the different time zones in TX & NM. By the way- Texas must be THE most uneventful state to travel through, consisting only of vast expanses of cotton fields and very flat, very boring landscape! New Mexico, on the other hand, is utterly breathtaking! We witnessed an amazing sunset across miles of beautifully painted desert terrain, and as nightfall approached, we caught glimpses of some of the mesas, plateaus, and other geological phenomena that we can't wait to capture more photographs of!
So now we are cuddled up under heavy blankets in our teepee, listening to the coyotes outside and greatly looking forward to the adventures we will have tomorrow!
Anyways... back to today: Originally when we looked up our general destination in New Mexico, somewhere around Santa Fe, Google maps suggested the estimated driving time to be about 12 hours... So we planned accordingly: leave with enough time to drive 12 hours, with only the necessary pit-stops, and make it to the hostel before they close at 10. However, the actual location of the hostel is probably a little over an hour north of Santa Fe, and the gps didn't seem to be able to find the same route as Google maps, so when we plugged in the address, we were more than a little shocked when the estimated arrival time was 1:30am! So today, we navigated the old-fashioned way and used a road atlas! We may have had a few helping guidelines from Google maps on my phone (after all, what's the point of advanced technology if you don't use it?), but overall the atlas proved to be very useful and we proved to ourselves that we knew how to use it! :-)
So we left at 9am this morning, stopped for lunch at Schlotsky's Deli, and a few other times for gas, etc. and finally arrived at the hostel at 9:45pm for a total of 13 hours & 45 minutes on the road... Eat that, gps!! And no, we are not mathematically challenged- we actually saw 5:00pm happen twice today, thanks to the different time zones in TX & NM. By the way- Texas must be THE most uneventful state to travel through, consisting only of vast expanses of cotton fields and very flat, very boring landscape! New Mexico, on the other hand, is utterly breathtaking! We witnessed an amazing sunset across miles of beautifully painted desert terrain, and as nightfall approached, we caught glimpses of some of the mesas, plateaus, and other geological phenomena that we can't wait to capture more photographs of!
So now we are cuddled up under heavy blankets in our teepee, listening to the coyotes outside and greatly looking forward to the adventures we will have tomorrow!
Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9
Monday, September 27, 2010
San Antonio, part II
Friday we needed a night off, so we stayed in and watched movies... boring but nice after all the excitement.
Saturday we found a sitter and all the big kids got to go out and play! First we went to Johnny Carino's, which was a pretty nice Italian chain restaurant, a half step up from Olive Garden. By "a half step up," I mean their bread wasn't microwaved and they had the option of having your meal served over pasta OR veggies... After that, we hit a few of the local watering holes, and finally decided to go to a place called Graham's.
Graham's is a huge building, housing 7 different dance club/bar rooms, each with their own theme/sound, ranging from 90's to rap to tejano to karaoke. So basically, there's something there for everyone- except, of course, those who are sensitive to loud noises... I think I lost about 10% of my hearing capacity that night! There were definitely some pretty interesting characters present, as we discovered upon entering the 90's room... There was a girl and guy in one of the dance "cages" and all I'm gonna say is they were asked to leave by security and not because they were fighting...! Needless to say, we didn't stick around to see any more of THAT, so we decided to go do a little singing in the karaoke room, and the bartender liked our song so much (we sang "these boots are made for walking"), that he poured us each a shot afterward for free!
Guess it pays to be pretty AND talented! :-)
Today we hung around the house most of the day and then went out to a movie theater that serves dinner right in your seats! We saw M. Night Shamylan's new movie, 'Devil,' and it was awesome! It doesn't have the really freaky twist-ending that most of his movies have- like The Village, but it was very well done and had a very good plot. I highly recommend seeing it!!
After all the boys went to bed, the girls stayed up and gave each other a little spa treatment... manicures, pedicures, facials, and massages. Overall, it was a very relaxing evening.
Saturday we found a sitter and all the big kids got to go out and play! First we went to Johnny Carino's, which was a pretty nice Italian chain restaurant, a half step up from Olive Garden. By "a half step up," I mean their bread wasn't microwaved and they had the option of having your meal served over pasta OR veggies... After that, we hit a few of the local watering holes, and finally decided to go to a place called Graham's.
Graham's is a huge building, housing 7 different dance club/bar rooms, each with their own theme/sound, ranging from 90's to rap to tejano to karaoke. So basically, there's something there for everyone- except, of course, those who are sensitive to loud noises... I think I lost about 10% of my hearing capacity that night! There were definitely some pretty interesting characters present, as we discovered upon entering the 90's room... There was a girl and guy in one of the dance "cages" and all I'm gonna say is they were asked to leave by security and not because they were fighting...! Needless to say, we didn't stick around to see any more of THAT, so we decided to go do a little singing in the karaoke room, and the bartender liked our song so much (we sang "these boots are made for walking"), that he poured us each a shot afterward for free!
Guess it pays to be pretty AND talented! :-)
Today we hung around the house most of the day and then went out to a movie theater that serves dinner right in your seats! We saw M. Night Shamylan's new movie, 'Devil,' and it was awesome! It doesn't have the really freaky twist-ending that most of his movies have- like The Village, but it was very well done and had a very good plot. I highly recommend seeing it!!
After all the boys went to bed, the girls stayed up and gave each other a little spa treatment... manicures, pedicures, facials, and massages. Overall, it was a very relaxing evening.
Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9
Friday, September 24, 2010
1 Night in Austin
Thursday we crawled out of the hostel around noon, only to find that at some point during the concert craziness, the key to the jeep must have fallen out of the purse! So after making a few calls, we were able to get a key cut at a local jeep dealership, but the only problem: we didn't have a way to get it! Thank goodness there are still good people in this world! Heather had made friends with Jesse, the bartender at Numbers, and he was willing to come pick us up and bring us to get the key! So finally, around 4:30, we were back on the road, headed to Austin to check out some more live music.
We arrived in Austin around 8:00 and decided to grab something to eat at the Cedar Door Tavern, which was right up the road from the bar we were going to check out. The Cedar Door was a pretty cool place- one side had 2 large garage doors that would open out onto the deck, and there were a lot of different dining rooms to accommodate any kind of experience (ie large parties, quiet seclusion, lounge atmosphere, etc.). Our waitress was pretty awesome too! She was sporting a plain black tank top with print that read: 'Dip me in honey and feed me to the lesbians!' and she gave me a free beer koozey (sp?) to go on my corona! The food was great and cheap too!
After dinner we walked the 2 blocks to the 121 Bar (spoken 'one-to-one'), to see Karl Morgan perform, with the DanK Trio following afterward. Karl is from Australia, but came to the US to find a more supportive environment to play his Bluesy-rock music. He is a quiet, relaxed kind of guy and I really enjoyed chatting with him after his show. I highly recommend checking out his music- he has a great sound!
After Karl, the DanK Trio set up to play. Their music has a deep, Southern rock feel to it, and between the slide-guitar and Peruvian cahona (sp?) drum, their sound wasn't quite like anything we've heard before. They all seemed to be having so much fun just playing and hanging out with friends, and the vibe was contagious throughout the whole bar. We met so many people while we were hanging out listening to the great tunes!
Nextdoor to the bar is a small pizza shop, called The Onion. According to Doug, the owner/manager, the place would normally have been packed, except the road was all torn up and blocked off for construction, so normal foot traffic was significantly reduced. So we decided to give the guy a little business and try out a slice, and it was A+! If you ever go to Austin you have to find The Onion, because even though you don't always find good pizza at every pizza place you try, you can always find good pizza in every town you go, and this was it!
After the show we headed back to San Antonio and walked in the door at 4am! So we don't feel so bad for sleeping in past noon... hehe
We arrived in Austin around 8:00 and decided to grab something to eat at the Cedar Door Tavern, which was right up the road from the bar we were going to check out. The Cedar Door was a pretty cool place- one side had 2 large garage doors that would open out onto the deck, and there were a lot of different dining rooms to accommodate any kind of experience (ie large parties, quiet seclusion, lounge atmosphere, etc.). Our waitress was pretty awesome too! She was sporting a plain black tank top with print that read: 'Dip me in honey and feed me to the lesbians!' and she gave me a free beer koozey (sp?) to go on my corona! The food was great and cheap too!
After dinner we walked the 2 blocks to the 121 Bar (spoken 'one-to-one'), to see Karl Morgan perform, with the DanK Trio following afterward. Karl is from Australia, but came to the US to find a more supportive environment to play his Bluesy-rock music. He is a quiet, relaxed kind of guy and I really enjoyed chatting with him after his show. I highly recommend checking out his music- he has a great sound!
After Karl, the DanK Trio set up to play. Their music has a deep, Southern rock feel to it, and between the slide-guitar and Peruvian cahona (sp?) drum, their sound wasn't quite like anything we've heard before. They all seemed to be having so much fun just playing and hanging out with friends, and the vibe was contagious throughout the whole bar. We met so many people while we were hanging out listening to the great tunes!
Nextdoor to the bar is a small pizza shop, called The Onion. According to Doug, the owner/manager, the place would normally have been packed, except the road was all torn up and blocked off for construction, so normal foot traffic was significantly reduced. So we decided to give the guy a little business and try out a slice, and it was A+! If you ever go to Austin you have to find The Onion, because even though you don't always find good pizza at every pizza place you try, you can always find good pizza in every town you go, and this was it!
After the show we headed back to San Antonio and walked in the door at 4am! So we don't feel so bad for sleeping in past noon... hehe
Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9
Semi Precious Weapons
Wednesday we hit the road, heading for Houston, which happens to be a 3-hour drive back the way we came from LA! We dropped our things off at the Friends Hostel and quickly changed clothes, then rode in a cab to the Numbers Nightclub to go see one of Laura's favorite bands, Semi Precious Weapons!! We got to the club a little after 7:00, which is when the doors were supposed to open, only to find out that the show had been moved back to 8:00! So there we were, standing on the streets of Houston (which is definitely not one of the nicer parts of TX...), dressed to kill, along with approximately 20 other fans with a variety of looks. There were a few goths, some punk-looking girls, we saw a pair of sequin-studded converse, some neon-green tights, and a dude with a mohawk + plastic chunks glued to his face + a thong... Diversity at its best!
At some point, Laura had to use the restroom, and conveniently, there was a nice, high-end steakhouse across the road... On the way in I knew I had to move quickly to avoid the eye of any floor managers who may realize that I was not a paying customer, and deny me the opportunity to pee... On the way out, however, I was getting a few looks from the diners, so I figured I might as well give them something to look at besides my rockin outfit, so I stuck my tongue out at one guy who was enjoying a quiet dinner with his girlfriend/wife? Even funnier: he waved to me! Apparently the men in Houston must not have much of a survival instinct...
When the doors finally opened, we were able to grab a spot on stage right up front and just a little off to one side. The opening band was called Electric Attitude, and they had a pretty good sound! Somewhere in the spectrum of alt rock with a small similarity to My Chemical Romance... and a kickin saxist too!
After the opening band finished, we were all surprised when a very awkward individual came onstage... His long, stringy pedo-hair in combo with thick, large-framed glasses were only minorly awkward compared to the skin-tight boxers he wore, accented by an ill-fitting sweatshirt that had been bejeweled with giant heart-shaped gems... And to top it all off, he was singing showtune-style songs in a nasal diva-wannabe voice! We never did find out who this guy was or if his display was a joke or if he was seriously an aspiring singer... either way, it was entertaining, to say the least!
FINALLY the Weapons came on stage! Justin (lead vox) was wearing his trademark tights (which had "F*ck me Texas" written on them, hah), gold-sequined stiletto short boots and a scrappy shirt, with a hott jacket over the top, and he looked A.MA.ZING! Even though the show was fairly simple, they made it a memorable experience- especially when they used squirt-guns to spray the crowd with champagne, or when Justin changed outfits- tights & all! right on stage! Even more awesome was when a girl was being escorted out by security, and when Justin spotted this, he jumped off stage and rescued her, saying, "Nobody gets kicked out of my show unless I say so!" He brought her on stage and gave her a big hug!
Probably the best part of the show was at the end, the whole band came out and greeted all the fans for pictures, autographs, and just to hang out! This was quite possibly one of the best shows I have been to and the taste of the rough'n'roll lifestyle was dangerously sweet... ;-)
At some point, Laura had to use the restroom, and conveniently, there was a nice, high-end steakhouse across the road... On the way in I knew I had to move quickly to avoid the eye of any floor managers who may realize that I was not a paying customer, and deny me the opportunity to pee... On the way out, however, I was getting a few looks from the diners, so I figured I might as well give them something to look at besides my rockin outfit, so I stuck my tongue out at one guy who was enjoying a quiet dinner with his girlfriend/wife? Even funnier: he waved to me! Apparently the men in Houston must not have much of a survival instinct...
When the doors finally opened, we were able to grab a spot on stage right up front and just a little off to one side. The opening band was called Electric Attitude, and they had a pretty good sound! Somewhere in the spectrum of alt rock with a small similarity to My Chemical Romance... and a kickin saxist too!
After the opening band finished, we were all surprised when a very awkward individual came onstage... His long, stringy pedo-hair in combo with thick, large-framed glasses were only minorly awkward compared to the skin-tight boxers he wore, accented by an ill-fitting sweatshirt that had been bejeweled with giant heart-shaped gems... And to top it all off, he was singing showtune-style songs in a nasal diva-wannabe voice! We never did find out who this guy was or if his display was a joke or if he was seriously an aspiring singer... either way, it was entertaining, to say the least!
FINALLY the Weapons came on stage! Justin (lead vox) was wearing his trademark tights (which had "F*ck me Texas" written on them, hah), gold-sequined stiletto short boots and a scrappy shirt, with a hott jacket over the top, and he looked A.MA.ZING! Even though the show was fairly simple, they made it a memorable experience- especially when they used squirt-guns to spray the crowd with champagne, or when Justin changed outfits- tights & all! right on stage! Even more awesome was when a girl was being escorted out by security, and when Justin spotted this, he jumped off stage and rescued her, saying, "Nobody gets kicked out of my show unless I say so!" He brought her on stage and gave her a big hug!
Probably the best part of the show was at the end, the whole band came out and greeted all the fans for pictures, autographs, and just to hang out! This was quite possibly one of the best shows I have been to and the taste of the rough'n'roll lifestyle was dangerously sweet... ;-)
Published with Blogger-droid v1.5.9
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)