Thursday, February 12, 2009

The cross country road trip

So I flew to Baltimore, MD last Saturday to drive my mother-in-law back from the Washington D.C. area. It was quite the adventure, and quite the drive. We journeyed 2130 miles, most of it on I-70.
The drive started in Takoma, Maryland. The night before we went to Virginia, and right into the downtown D.C. area where we ate at Ben's Chili Bowl. It was really cool. There was great music blaring inside, and a line that snaked around the counter to where we were finally able to order the Chili Half-Smoke. This is apparently the same thing Barak Obama orders when he goes there. Many famous people have eaten there in fact, and there is a sign behind the counter that says, "Allowed to eat free here, Bill Cosby, and the Obama Family." Bill Cosby went to Howard University which is not far from Ben's, and he visits often. There are pictures all over the wall of famous people who have eaten there. This picture was taken outside of Ben's. There is this statue of a bear that is painted all over.

From there we went to see the Capitol Building. I've always wanted to see the Smithsonian, but we didn't have time to even get out of the car. As a matter of fact, we passed all sorts of buildings, and I didn't take any pictures of them, because I was more concerned with Michele's driving. She was freaking me out. I did manage to get this one picture though. This is where it all happens for this country. I was able to see the Washington Monument, and get a quick glimps of the Lincoln Memorial from about 400 yards away, but like I said, I was busy being worried about my life. So We packed up all the boxes from Michele's apartment into the Penske truck and loaded her car on the towing trailer, and hit the road. So far we traveled through Virginia, Washington D.C. and Maryland. We drove out on Sunday afternoon. On the way we passed through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and stopped in Richmond, Indiana. It was a smooth drive, and a new record for me to drive in 5 states in 8 hours.
The next morning we hit the road and drove through the rest of Indiana, Illinois and almost all the way through Missouri. We stopped at a little town called Blue Springs, Mo. while we were shooting to get to Salina, KS. We were way off on how much distance we could cover in a day in that huge yellow beast.
Plus when we reached St. Louis, we stopped to check out the arch. I'd watched an episode of 'Modern Marvels' about the Gateway Arch. It was pretty cool to see it, but it was even cooler to go up inside of it. If you never get the chance, then enjoy what I have here, and maybe one day you'll have an opportunity to post about your national monument experience, and return the favor. Here are just a few of the photos from the excursion. I've got a video from going up inside it. Those carts were tiny. So here are some pictures from the little window looking west towards downtown St. Louis. Wanna go up? Check this out? So I took these from left to right. There is where the St. Louis Cardinals play. Home of the great slugger Albert Pujols. In the middle there is the courthouse. On the right is the Edward Jones dome. Home of the St. Louis Rams. Rumor has it that the Larry H. Miller family is going to try to buy the team and bring them to Salt Lake City. Only time will tell on that one.




Here are some other great shots looking down from the top. Here are a few more images from the arch. Me from the peak of the arch at 630 feet up. Here is a barge pushing three loads down the Mississippi.
It was quite the adventure. I'm glad that we stopped.
So we take off the next day and enter Kansas. This has got to be the flattest piece of earth on the planet. So flat in fact, that you can see the curvature of the earth. I wish I would have taken more pictures, but this will have to do. This is one huge country we live in! What was really cool about the whole trip was that each state had it's own terrain. I mean, if you were to show me a picture of Wyoming, or Kansas, or Indiana, I would be able to tell the difference just from the terrain. Here is the path we took.
After Kansas we drove into Colorado, and then headed north and just into Cheyenne, Wyoming. From there we were going to make it to Salt Lake City the next day around 5PM. The only problem was, while parking that night in Cheyenne, I had to back up the truck to park, and in the process I ended up jack-knifing the trailer and bent the tongue of the trailer. I was so pissed at myself, because we had managed to be incident free throughout the drive. I got some help from another trucker and straightened it out somewhat and then we hit the road again.
The next day we drove through The Cowboy State and finally into Utah. I am so happy to be home with my family again. I am also extremely grateful that we made it alive and nothing really bad happened. Driving through 12 states and one district in 5 days was more than I ever want to do again, but if I had to pick a sponsor for our trip it would have to be "5 Hour Energy" I never would have made it without that tiny little bottle. It truly kept me awake and alert behind the wheel, and I didn't have the sugar crash when it wore off either. That stuff really works. I was so motivated to get home to my wife and boys, I had to use what ever would work. I'm so thankful for technology today. That trip would have been tons worse had it not been for cell phones and hotels that have internet access. And screw ONSTAR and Qualcomm we had an even better navigation system. We had RACHEL. Not only did she have a sexy voice, and I knew she equaled that voice in looks, but she would look for Motels that we were approaching and make sure there was availability and what the parking lot situation was like for our truck and trailer, and then would call back and give complete directions including the exit to take, and how far it was. Then she would plot out our course for the next days travel. It was pretty awesome let me tell you! I love that woman. If you want to hire her, it'll be $1200 a day.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Anthony tells all! Exclusive interview.

So I read my wife's blog and saw a meme, that I commented on and lo and behold, here we are. Five questions that she wants the answers to.

1. What one film do you think everyone should see?
Well that's really a toss up. It boils down to two films:
Shawshank Redemption is probably one of my all time favorites, and it's always been in my top 10 list. I just looked it up on IMDB in the top 250 movies, and it's there at numero uno.
Schindler's List is the second film, and I would have to go with this film as the one that I think everyone should see. Spielberg did an amazing job with this one. This is a moment in history that we should never forget, and it gives a pretty good idea what those times must have been like.

2. Name the best TV series of all time & why?
This is a tough one, but the first series that I was ever hooked on, and that I watched every night and saw every episode of was Moonlighting. I loved David and Maddie's conversations where they would both talk at the same time, and how they seemed to be able to say what they were saying and still hear what the other one was saying. This series had everything though, mystery, comedy, romance, drama. I thought it was very entertaining. Bruce Willis at his best.

3. What would you do if your spouse asked you to unplug their life support machine?
Wow, really? This is a question that comes from my spouse and I'm not sure what I'd do. It really depends on how coherent she was. I'd want to spend as much time with her as possible if she could communicate with me still. But if she told me in advance that she didn't want to be plugged in anymore if she was a vegetable, then I'd pull the plug, but that would be really hard for me to do.

4. What is the hardest thing you've ever done?
Well everything that I've ever done that seemed hard, turned out to be not too difficult when all was said and done. The hardest thing for me to do now, is to get some kind of business off the ground. So the answer to that in a nutshell is, not following the path to what I want to be when I grow up.

5. You have been named personal adviser to Barack Obama. What is your first piece of advice to him?
To throw some kind of mandate at credit card companies that they need to lower their interest rates if they are getting part of that bailout money. They are just as bad as cigarette companies I swear. They are killing people. If they would take the time to do some kind of education on how to use credit wisely, that would be a good start towards correcting their image, but when they charge interest rates that are as high as the Mafia would charge, there is something messed up with that. Then the next thing to follow would be to do something about those Payday Loan centers. They're worse than the Mafia when it comes to rates.

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Here are the meme details:
If you'd like to play along, just follow these instructions:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me." (And realize I might
take a while to get back to you.)
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the
questions. (Eventually!)
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. Be
sure you link back to the original post.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone
else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them
five questions.