This couple went on a road trip . . . what they found out will blow your mind!

Hey y'all!

So we've run into a bit of trouble. Our anno 2007 laptop has handed in her resignation. We've hired the good guys at Happy Mac to try and convince her otherwise. Until then however we're going to have to make do with posting from our phones, which is easier said than done. So please bear with us while we try to make that work.

In the meantime, we've decided to continue writing and to put together a completely indisputable list of facts & fiction. If we missed something, let us know so we can add it to the list!

THE LIST

(last updated 6/20/2014 and this is new/updated!)

• [Days the laptop has been in the hospital: dead]
• Longest distance driven = 673 miles (Badlands NP, SD to Dodgeville, WI)
• Highest temperature endured: 93° (San Antonio)
• Southern most point (Key West; 24.544899,-81.810532)
• Western most point (La Push; 47.907366, -124.642331)
• Northern most point (Glacier NP/Many Glacier; 48.843500, -113.417077)

• Eastern most point (Truro, Nova Scotia; 45.365648, -63.285982)

• Days gone swimming: 9
• Days we've seen snow: 8
• Cheapest/most expensive gallon of gas $3.25/$5.16 (South Carolina/Quebec)
• # of states/provinces visited: 35
• # of food trucks enjoyed: 10
• Hours walked in May (according to Google): 25 hours!
• Best BBQ: Le Barbecue (Austin)
• Best dessert: Kermit's ice cream chocolate covered key lime pie
• Best sea food: trick question, because there's so much out there, so how about a list of what we have had instead: Raw oyster, raw scallops, fried oyster, seared scallops, mussels, fried calamari, tuna, salmon, trout, dungeness crab (cakes and in a salad), shrimp, sea bass, arctic char
• Nights slept under the stars (or in a tent): 18
• Longest wait for a meal: 99 minutes!
• National Parks enjoyed: 13
• Most scenic campsite: Chisos Basin campground (@ Big Bend NP)
• Most blog posts in one day: 3
• Number of hikes (only the real ones count): 6.5 — Big Bend (Lost Mine Trail), Grand Canyon (Bright Angel Trail), Zion (The Narrows), Crater Lake (Crater Rim Road), Olympic NP (Hall of Mosses/Spruce Trail), Arches National Park (Devil's Garden)
• Art sessions: 6 (finally a real painting!)
• Exhaustive list of notable wild animals observed: Anole, Rooster, Iguana, Sea Urchin, Deer, Elk, Grackle, Raven, Woodchuck, Bald Eagle (multiple times!), Woodpecker (the red headed kind), Sea lion/Seal, Snake, California Condor (H9), Pronghorn, Roadrunner, Pheasant, Bison, Mule Deer, Desert Cottontail (Rabbit), Hummingbird, Beaver, Moose, Loon, Golden Eagle, Cormorant, Sandhill Crane, Barrow's Goldeneye Duck, Steller's Jay, Sergeant Major (Fish), Porkfish, Prairie Dog

For everyone's entertainment: a real Sam in the wild!

Extra! Extra!

Discover new pictures, like the man you are!

We upload additional pictures that don't fit into our blog posts to our Flickr Photostream. You can always see find them by clicking on the "Pics" button at the top-right of the page.

Further, we regret that we don't keep up with posting about our whereabouts, so we keep a little handy dandy map with our current map here. You can always find that map by clicking on the "Maps" button right above the "Pics" button at the top-right of the blog.

Firsts & Transitions

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Southbound

Our drive into Florida was quick, but in that short time we realized one very hard reality that has plagued us since: Gas in Florida is expensive.

But let's rewind for a second. We got to Florida and it's really the first time either of us have been in the sunshine state (at least in the past ten years). They say a lot of things about judging books by their cover but when you're faced with something the first time you don't think in those terms. You're just jotting down your first impressions.

What I thought about walking towards the Florida Welcome Center off I-95 was: there are a lot of overweight people, kids behaving poorly and big trucks here. I realized that's very judgmental of me of course, so every time I've felt that way in the past I thought: You're missing something here. Look more closely and you'll find that there's more to what you think you're seeing here. 

In the case of Florida, and I think I'm speaking for both Whitney and myself here, that moment didn't come until Miami; I'm getting ahead of myself though.

We got our complimentary orange and grapefruit juice and sat back down in the Omimobile to finish our day's trip to St. Augustine.

It's interesting in retrospect that I didn't even think about the historical aspect of St. Augustine on the way there. I mean I know that it's the oldest Spanish settlement in North America, but to us it didn't amount to more than a waypoint on our travels south. That's in no way meant as a slight towards Florida or St. Augustine. It's just the way things worked out.

The really cool thing about our campground in Anastasia State Park was that it was near the beach. For the first time we had the opportunity to go out and swim in the ocean. The whole idea of going swimming in the Atlantic was a sort of gateway into the "summer" part of our road trip.

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We didn't much exceed sticking our toes in the water that night, but to me it was the beginning of water, sunscreen, sunglasses and pavement that's too hot to walk on barefoot.

Cook meister-in-chief

To feed ourselves in the evening we sought out a local supermarket by the roadside, just outside the Anastasia. We got fresh vegetables, a piece of fresh tuna, coals and a bag of ice. Back at the campsite we split the tasks: Whitney prepared (chopped, peeled, seasoned) the vegetables and fish while I built the fire.

Seared Tuna! Fingerling potatoes! Roasted veggies!

Now, everyone has a different idea of what "camping" is. In our mind, it involves a tent and making your own food, I guess. We're not roughing it by any means and it's certainly not about digging a scat hole and making fire with a flint. We wanted to make it manageable for us considering we would be driving for several hours on many of our camping nights. We wanted to get a great night’s sleep so we got a pretty big tent and cots instead of foam sleep pads. We have a mini kitchen in the back of our car.

Anyway, by now we had the essentials down pat: As you can see we got the tent set up and the cots put together. The whole "let's get a fire going" is something I'm still getting used to, though. 

Views: St Augustine, FL by Samuel Herbig

In the end, dinner was delicious and we went to sleep under the stars (we left the rainfly off), to a live soundtrack of Dierks Bentley playing my new favorite (no joke) “How Am I Doin’”. We tweeted at him but no response :-(.

Sun/moon roof

We broke camp early next morning. Our next stop was the Pelican Inn on Key Largo, so we didn't want to waste time getting there. The drive down I-95 was awfully boring though. I'm serious, it's the most dreary part of the interstate we'd encountered.

Only official picture from Miami

PLOT TWIST!: Julia's in Miami and she's reading our tweets. That meant a spontaneous re-routing through unchartered territory. Did we plan on going through Miami? No. Was I-95 jammed up and did we have any idea that the there are Florida State toll roads? Also, no. So we set off on a happy-go-lucky chase through Miami to meet up with Julia.

Now, remember how I said that the part I'd been missing didn't come until Miami? Well, here it is: driving through town we found ourselves so excited at seeing the colors of the buildings. We saw pink houses and blue houses. Bright green cars with outrageous rims. I swear, Miami has the corner market on custom green paint jobs. Suddenly we were in this weird land of palm trees, bright colors and bad-ass cars!

Back to the story: Julia was in town to work on a commercial and we rolled in, just as they were finishing their day to say "hello".

#nofilter #iosdistortion

Aside form an enthusiastic greeting we got so much more though. You see, the woman who ran craft services on this job, Nina, was a culinary goddess. Craft Services, or Crafty, are the stay-at-home mom’s of the film industry. That sounds derogatory, but hear me out! Every stay-at-home mom I ever knew made sure there was tasty food at a moments notice so kids would be able to do homework with full brain power as well as hang out with friends after school without getting hangry (or HALT as we call it — Hungry Angry Lonely Tired).

Now keep in mind that the standard day on a film set is twelve hours with one meal break in the middle and you see why Crafty is so important. Film work is manual labor! Nina was there for her crew all day that Sunday and as they finished their day she offered up her culinary wonders to us, the weary travelers, just because we were Julia’s friends. Now there are two phenomena we could pin this on: Julia’s ability to befriend any person she has ever met; or Nina’s charisma, kindness, and culinary skill. We were so grateful we want to credit both.

Nina with Proud owner of Nina iced coffee

Here’s to the best iced coffee we have ever had—hands down, the fantastic flan Nina sent with us for our dessert in Key Largo, and her tasty cookies that got us through a few hangry moments as we drove through Florida. 

Strengthened and encouraged, we set out on the road again. At this point the Keys were within our grasp and we didn't want to waste any more time on the road. That however, we'll cover in the next post!

Ab in den Süden!

Justin, Danny and Sarah

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We're going to Columbia!

We rode into town early Thursday afternoon to one of the tunes Whitney and I had heard at the Bluebird Cafe just days earlier. Chris Cagle's version of the song was decidedly too "American Idol" sounding when compared to the raw-yet-humerous version songwriter Dave Berg had performed. The sky was blue and it was warm out. After some cooler days, this was a very welcome change of pace. Those leaves were almost making it look like spring!

Introducing our Columbia hosts:

• Justin; budding gun-smith, philosopher-at-large.
• Sarah; professional animal whisperer (not just Beasly!), fiery as her hair.
• Danny; the bouncer, the playboy, the writer.

That's them

We arrived at Justin and Danny's place and after a going to the loo, we headed right back out the door down to the bank of the Saluda river, right behind the Riverbank Zoo. We kicked back with some buds, while Danny's corgi pitbull mix (Pam) Beasly entertained us by most inappropriately barking at people.

Saluda River

When we'd had enough of that we dropped the Beasly off and met with Sarah over at The Kraken Gastropub (FB link!) for a wonderful dinner. Whitney and I have gotten in the habit of sharing an appetizer and one or two entree's which works out great: more variety and we're rarely left hungry.

Justin had to head out for work, but after convening for an hour or two Danny, Whitney, and I drove out to meet up with Sarah for drinks. This was always supposed to be a crawl of sorts, I guess I just didn't realize the scope. In order to reconstruct the night, I am literally going through my foursquare checkins: Delaney's (FB link!), Speakeasy and finally Bar None. Danny really had a longer program in mind for us, but we're no spring chickens. 

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Now, this sounds like Justin was missing out. Far from it. This guy hears we come to town and what does he do? Well Justin is the kinda guy who'll be damned if he doesn't show up for people. After work, but barely before we had a buzz going.

It was free!

Anyway, back at Justin & Danny's we had a big old slumber party and opened a 1.5 liter bottle of champagne that I still had left over from the wrap of a certain Brooklyn Taxi show I had worked on for a few months in 2013. Apparently, I fell asleep with a cup of it in my hand, while the adults were talking grown up stuff. 

As everyone will be positively shocked to hear, I woke up to a splitting headache. I mean it was killer. It was one of those "don't jerk your head too quickly or you might throw up" kind of a Kater (that's German). Drank water, went out to brunch at Cafe Strudel (not German or Austrian, weird, right?) and it's still there. Yikes!

As if all the welcome and hospitality hadn't been enough Danny handed us an awesome road trip mix CD on our way out the door. Danny, if you're reading this: we listened to that mix three times in a row (that's almost all the way to Charleston!).

Wanna squeeze this one in, before we finish the post.

Random statistics (and facts) of the day:

• Favorite SC fact provided by Danny: The wooly mammoth is not South Carolina's state fossil, because dinosaurs apparently weren't created on The Sixth Day (it's a fascinating read, I promise).
• Pickled eggs are pink. And we ate them. While drunk. Thanks Sarah.
• The Canada vs. France rivalry is alive and well. France trounced Canada in shuffle board, after Canada's initial strong showing.