The Adventures of Cindy Li

Ameriganzapalooza: Review of the trip

May 17 , 2007 6 comments

Once upon a time

Jason Garber (who apparently thinks blondes have more fun in CA, he’s dyed his hair blond prior to going to CA now twice, his mom asked me to shave his hair even. :P) agreed to be trapped in a VW beetle with me for 6 days across the ameriganzapalooza drive from DC/VA to CA. 

Fingers and toes were crossed, gas tank full and the car was packed we left on that faithful Sunday.The trip overall was a success we hit a few bumps along the way (including the random piece of metal that fell onto the road outside Oklahoma City, OK) but we’re:

• 1. still friends
• 2. safe
• 3. took a bunch of photos
• 4. still friends,... oh wait that was #1. ;)

Nashville, Tennessee:

Stayed at the Doerr’s house, they own Through The Green Highland Rim Golf Course. If your in town tell them I sent you. This is the sweetest family ever. They were even cute enough to give us water for the road. So Jason posted a “sponsored by” photo below.




Memphis, TN/ Graceland:

I love Elvis more! Graceland was awesome! I learned that Elvis didn’t forget where he came from and tried to give back to the community by donating large sums of money to charities and cars to people who needed it. He had more than he needed and he made sure to share it.




Driving from Memphis, TN to Oklahoma:

The EVDO card that was from Verizon Wireless on loan from Kevin Lawver works along I-40 pretty darn well. My friend Jeff Harris and he was the one that initiated the video chat.




Oklahoma City, Oklahoma:

AAA: is a good thing to have and the GPS (to tell the AAA people what road we had passed). The flat tire in Oklahoma was at 10pm. I grabbed the tire out of the trunk while Jason was holding the luggage so it wasn’t drenched on the road/mud. I set it aside and tried to decide if I was going to change it but we weren’t in an area that was lit well and there were semis flying at 90mph by us. Oh and did I mention the lightning storm? Jason talked me out of changing the tire in case anyone else was wondering why I didn’t change it myself. I do know how :P The VW’s have a lug nut key so no one steals your tires, you have to have your can’s Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) to get the correct key. It was really hard to find in the dark. The beetle now has flashlights inside it if I ever need it again. AAA showed up in about 30mins. The poor guy they sent in the rain lightning told us he had just gotten out of the hospital, he had a heart attack two days before. I said move over and let me use the jack (his was way more heavy duty then the one in my beetle.) He said noooo.
Jason and I felt so bad we even tried to tip him. The guy wouldn’t take it. He said he was kidding around and that I might need it for gas on the trip. See nice people are around everywhere. :)



The next morning I took the car in to a VW service department in Oklahoma city (right on Historic 66!) to make sure it was just a tire and to get another spare. Found out that Lindsay Volkswagen in Dulles, VA had stripped the drain plug and it wasn’t fitting in properly nor was it tightened because of it being stripped. The mechanic at Cable VW in Ok said that he’d try to fix it but warned because of it being stripped it might mean replacing the oil pan for $450. He was able to tighten it but we’ll see. I did however get to take pics of my car on the lift. :)

Plus a special thank you goes out to my friend Jeff Tubb’s mom, Mrs. Tubb, who called me in the morning offering to meet us for a meal and show us around if I was stuck in Oklahoma due to the car. I was so disoriented I thought it was the AAA customer service representative welcoming me to Oklahoma (keep in mind we rolled in at 2am, drenched jeans and woken up at 6am to go to the VW service department). It’s awesome to have a mom looking out for you.

Route 66 Museum, Clinton, Oklahoma

It was good to stretch out our legs. So we stopped at the Historic Route 66 museum in Clinton, OK (there are many historic 66 museums, we somehow missed the wax statues at the other museums)that showed the progression of the road and the history. We even picked up some things for people back home. :)




The museum played the Nat King Cole version of “Get your kicks on Route 66.” We played it off and on during the trip as part of the mix. Wait a minute do I hear a play list for Ameriganzapalooza that might be distributed? :P Feel free to burst into “Purple mountains majesty… “ lyrics to Jason.

Amarillo, Texas

William Morris suggested to Jason and I via twitter to stop at the Big Texan. If you like steak, and I mean a 72oz steak this is the place to go. You can even get the steak mailed to you.




NOTE:If you can finish it you can get it for free. Plus you get to be on the internet (they record it) and a stage for the 60mins you have to eat it.






This place even has limos that will pick you up from your hotel to take you there. I opted for the 8oz steak. It was really yummy. :) Jason also said he wouldn’t help me eat the steak if I had gotten the 72oz steak. I bailed on the idea since we had a long drive but I know Norm would have helped me. :P

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Our next stop was to crash at the Holiday Inn. We met up with Mark Bixby, Method Arts for breakfast and ate at a restaurant that normally has lines and time markers around the restaurant (yes its normally that packed) plus filled with John Wayne paintings. We had to go there. I had a breakfast burrito! It was awesome!




Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon was awesome we drove up right around sunset.




Then we went back the next morning to take more photos. The town was setup just for the Grand Canyon. The pass you purchase is good fro 7 days. The gates never close so you can go in/out as you want to.







Why didn’t we do the Skywalk? It was over $75 and you can’t even take a photo on the walk. You have to pay for your picture to be taken on it. Total scam from the blogs we had seen. Apparently the story is you must pay $50 to go through the reservation (you get other things too, food a show) then its another $25 to get onto the skywalk, then pay more to get a picture taken on it.






So here’s a bit of background on this shot below. I’m afraid of cliffs. Ask any of my good friends. I promised myself this year if something scared me I’d do it anyway, including moving to SF and changing my entire life. Jason was walking down to take photos and I felt my hands getting sweaty and I was totally chickening out. I was getting really angry at myself. I kept saying, “I can do this. This is not the way I’ll die.” A bit on the dark side but when your panicking who cares. Somehow saying that worked in my frightened state. I went down the windy path and took this photo below.






Yabba Dabba Doo

Just outside of the Grand Canyon I pulled over to check out the massive Fred Flintsone sign and obviously tourist trap. I tried to go into the diner but Jason didn’t want to and in this case it was a correct assessment. The place needs an overhaul badly, like really badly. The outside Flinstones vehicles and the statues were too cute not to take a pic though.




Hoover Dam

Jason had never been here and there is a ton of construction going on right now. They are building new roads and bridges. It’s still gorgeous.




Boulder City

Molly(who had been following my twitters) totally gave me some crap for me even hinting at not stopping by to see her so I did. I would never want to make her upset. We had a great time chatting and catching up and seeing the beautiful house her parents owned and had been working on for the past 10years (He’s a DYI person). I got offered jackhammer duty the next time I came to vist. Awesome! :)




Las Vegas, NV

Stayed at New York, NY. The hotels are crazy big. The NY NY roller coaster wasn’t working. I spent $1 on the nickel slots and won $3. I made Jason spend the $1 he had in his wallet the entire trip and he lost it. I even gave him another dollar but he lost that too.




I played the same machine and won $1. The hotel was really nice but one thing I never understand is why places like Holiday Inn, Hampton Inn come with free wi-fi and places that are more pricey charge you even more for the wifi per computer?

San Francisco, CA

So we finally made it that Friday night as planned. The next day I had promised Jason, who only had one full day before heading back on the plane to DC in SF, a trip to Amoeba and we saw the Golden Gate Bridge (in both directions).

I called Tantek to have lunch with Jason and I. Tantek started our drive with “did you caffeinated today yet Cindy?” That marked the end of my stomach lining for the day. Not only did we get coffee we also got Jamba juice. That was a deadly combination for my tummy.




We ended up at the Super Happy Dev House (hacker day at someone’s house) without computers but met some really nice people. Plus I ran into a couple of people I had met previously like Larry Halff and Chris Messina.



I know there are more stories to share from the trip but I’ve run out of time and I still have to find out what’s in box number #44. :)