Hi loyal readers—this is our last entry from this trip. We’re currently relaxing in our room at the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas and about to call it a night, but we figured we should put up one last entry to talk about the last two days, Denver to Cortez and Cortez to Las Vegas.
Evan: Denver to Cortez was an absolutely beautiful drive; I’d say it was the best of the trip. Most of the drive was a trip through the Rockies, which meant that we saw snow-covered peaks, rivers of runoff, and a lot of beautiful mountain scenery. We also got quite high up, altitude-wise; the road took us over 10,000 feet high, which is far higher than I’ve ever been before. Denver is the mile high city, with an official altitude listed at exactly one mile, 5,280 feet. The peaks of some of the mountains we drove up were probably about 14,000 feet, and we drove up about 10,000 of those feet. So it’s pretty high up, and you can feel it. The car has to work harder in the thinner air and everything about your body is protesting the height. My eyes hurt, the air was a bit harder to take in, and I just didn’t feel quite right. Along the way, we made a stop for lunch—I’m gonna let Sarah take over for that part of the day.
Sarah:
We didn’t want to eat fast food, so we decided to stop in a little town called Saguache, with a population of less than 600. We got off the highway and followed signs for the “Downtown Business District” (aka a two block stretch of buildings). It turned out to be the cutest town I have ever seen. The buildings were all built either in the late 19th or early 20th century, and we stopped at a new looking café/bakery. It was delicious! I had a cream of artichoke soup with and egg salad sandwich on their homemade multigrain bread, and Evan had huevos rancheros. Everything was so good. We also decided to order a slice of their banana cream pie to go because we were so full. Um, best banana cream pie I’ve ever had. After that, we just drove and drove until we got to Cortez, Colorado… I’ll hand it back to Evan for that.
Evan: Cortez is a nice town. By local standards, it’s a huge city, and probably the largest group of people in about 60 miles. But to us, it was a town of about 8000 people. We grabbed food from a well-reviewed Mexican restaurant, and it was pretty good. Afterwards, we just called it a night. We woke up early this morning, since it was our longest driving day. We got to the Four Corners by 9. Both Sarah and I enjoyed spending time in 4 states at once. We then pushed on to the Grand Canyon, which was just as impressive as it looks in pictures. I’m afraid of heights, so I didn’t get too close to the edge, but Sarah is much bolder and got much better pictures as a result. (footnote by Sarah—I wasn’t that bold.. but Evan was scared). It was beautiful regardless of how close to the edge you stood, though. The rest of the drive was pretty—lots of mountains and rock formations through the desert on the way to Vegas. I’ll let Sarah take over and talk about our time here.
Sarah:
We got to Vegas, and it’s just so different from everything we’ve seen on our trip thus far. The lights, the people, the heat. We got to our hotel, and it is beautiful. After playing some penny slots, and losing a few bucks, we went to dinner at Roy’s, which is a fantastic Asian/Hawaiian fusion restaurant. The meal was so good, and the service was fantastic. Evan had a macadamia-crusted mahi mahi in a lobster-cognac-butter sauce. I had lemongrass shrimp in a Thai chili broth with vegetables. It was fantastic. We also had some mixed drinks, and an appetizer. Oh, and dessert, of course. It was a pineapple upside down cake that we had to order ahead of time because it was made individually for us. It came with homemade coconut ice cream. Yum yum. We came back to the casino, me a little tipsy, and Evan ready to spend some more money. He had a pretty good winning streak on the slots (he sextupled his money! From one dollar to more than six) but then he lost it all. Such is Vegas. Okay I’m sleepy! I’ll see if Evan has anything to add.
Evan: I actually walked away up about $4 for the evening, so, hey, I didn’t lose it all. But, that’s all for tonight!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Worthington, MN to Rapid City, SD and Rapid City, SD to Denver, CO
Evan: This is a twofer blog entry, since there’s not a whole lot in South Dakota or Wyoming worth talking about, the two states we spent the most time traveling through over the past two days. South Dakota was overwhelmingly empty up until maybe 30 or 40 miles outside of Rapid City. There were a few hills, sometimes, but mostly it was flat. And empty. It’s really weird to see a part of the country that is just so overwhelmingly empty, or so I thought. The only civilization we saw was off the exits of I-90, and even then it was sometimes a hike to get to a gas station—we had to go 5 miles off the road to find a little town with a gas station. One of the few cheerful things along the way was a series of signs for Wall Drug, a quirky little tourist trap that I think Sarah will enjoy talking about.
Sarah: Okay, so I’m obviously easily intrigued by roadside signs, because I wanted to stop at almost every attraction, the magic wonder caves, the reptile exhibits, everything. But after seeing almost a hundred (literally) signs for Wall Drug, we had to stop. And what we found was an old west town that was amazing. It was like a full mall inside a drug store. We got a banana milkshake and a free bumper sticker! It was very very successful. Then we drove the rest of the way to Mount Rushmore. When we finally got our first peek of the Mount, I squealed. I guess I never really thought it was real, until I saw it. We paid for parking, took some touristy photos, and then went back to our hotel. We briefly worked out before we went out for some sushi (in South Dakota.. I know). I’ll let Evan tell you about that.
Evan: Mt. Rushmore was, as Sarah said, just a pure tourist experience. But I’m glad we went. Makes me a good American for the trip. The sushi was fantastic, especially for being in the middle of nowhere. The fish was fresh and the rolls were creative and tasty. An added plus was a super-cute baby that Sarah spent the entire dinner obsessing over. He was, in fairness, really cute. We called it a night and started out at 9 the next morning, perked up with a Starbucks breakfast and ready to take on the trip to Denver.
We were off the interstate for about the first half of the trip. I thought I-90 through South Dakota was empty. Taking Route 18 through South Dakota and Wyoming made that look like midtown Manhattan. We passed one city and two gas stations in about 150 miles. It was rainy and, for the most part, the scenery was uninteresting—lots of hills and brush, but no mountains. And lots and lots of cows. After traveling at high speed over lots of open roads, we finally hit I-25 and lunch.
Sarah: So, we stopped in a town called Glendo, Wyoming for lunch. Um… I felt like I was going to get murdered by cowboys, to put it gently. We walked into a dark bar that advertised it had food, but instead the lady bartending told us she didn’t make lunch, but she could heat us up some Tombstone pizzas… which was a little too weird for us so we had her guide us to a real lunch place, Micke’s. It was pretty standard diner food, and then we went on our way. After stopping for gas and bathroom breaks a few times, we finally made it to Denver, and the weather was beautiful! For the first time in our trip, I felt really warm.
Evan: And Denver looks like a really nice city. Unfortunately, all the sights worth seeing, according to the travel advice website TripAdvisor, were brewery tours. And it’s tough to fit those in when we’re driving all over the place. So we settled down, relaxed for a bit in the hotel, and headed out for some Mexican food. It was actually really tasty—tons of food, not expensive, and a fun place to grab a meal. Tomorrow we’re headed to Cortez, which is down by the Four Corners. We’ll keep you posted.
Sarah: Okay, so I’m obviously easily intrigued by roadside signs, because I wanted to stop at almost every attraction, the magic wonder caves, the reptile exhibits, everything. But after seeing almost a hundred (literally) signs for Wall Drug, we had to stop. And what we found was an old west town that was amazing. It was like a full mall inside a drug store. We got a banana milkshake and a free bumper sticker! It was very very successful. Then we drove the rest of the way to Mount Rushmore. When we finally got our first peek of the Mount, I squealed. I guess I never really thought it was real, until I saw it. We paid for parking, took some touristy photos, and then went back to our hotel. We briefly worked out before we went out for some sushi (in South Dakota.. I know). I’ll let Evan tell you about that.
Evan: Mt. Rushmore was, as Sarah said, just a pure tourist experience. But I’m glad we went. Makes me a good American for the trip. The sushi was fantastic, especially for being in the middle of nowhere. The fish was fresh and the rolls were creative and tasty. An added plus was a super-cute baby that Sarah spent the entire dinner obsessing over. He was, in fairness, really cute. We called it a night and started out at 9 the next morning, perked up with a Starbucks breakfast and ready to take on the trip to Denver.
We were off the interstate for about the first half of the trip. I thought I-90 through South Dakota was empty. Taking Route 18 through South Dakota and Wyoming made that look like midtown Manhattan. We passed one city and two gas stations in about 150 miles. It was rainy and, for the most part, the scenery was uninteresting—lots of hills and brush, but no mountains. And lots and lots of cows. After traveling at high speed over lots of open roads, we finally hit I-25 and lunch.
Sarah: So, we stopped in a town called Glendo, Wyoming for lunch. Um… I felt like I was going to get murdered by cowboys, to put it gently. We walked into a dark bar that advertised it had food, but instead the lady bartending told us she didn’t make lunch, but she could heat us up some Tombstone pizzas… which was a little too weird for us so we had her guide us to a real lunch place, Micke’s. It was pretty standard diner food, and then we went on our way. After stopping for gas and bathroom breaks a few times, we finally made it to Denver, and the weather was beautiful! For the first time in our trip, I felt really warm.
Evan: And Denver looks like a really nice city. Unfortunately, all the sights worth seeing, according to the travel advice website TripAdvisor, were brewery tours. And it’s tough to fit those in when we’re driving all over the place. So we settled down, relaxed for a bit in the hotel, and headed out for some Mexican food. It was actually really tasty—tons of food, not expensive, and a fun place to grab a meal. Tomorrow we’re headed to Cortez, which is down by the Four Corners. We’ll keep you posted.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Day 3: Chicago to Worthington
Evan: So we headed out from my cousin's house and grabbed breakfast at a local deli. It was really good, and from there we hit the road. We didn't expect to see a lot between Chicago and Worthington, and didn't expect a whole lot from Worthington. And for the most part our suspicions were confirmed. Illinois and Wisconsin are pretty boring, at least along I-90; a few rolling hills and lots of farms, but not a whole lot in the way of sights to see. To avoid fast food and Subway, we stopped in a town about 4 hours outside Chicago called Tomah. We didn't expect most, but we'd hoped we could at least find a diner or something. We found the Tee Pee Supper Club, but avoided it in favor of Greenwood Cafe (we think--we're going back to Google to find out the place, we can't remember the name.) It was the kind of place where everyone knew everyone's name--except nobody knew ours. But the food was good; I had a tuna melt, Sarah grabbed a turkey sandwich. We shared potato cheese soup, which was disappointingly not great for being in Wisconsin. With fuller bellies, we headed on to Minnesota.
Sarah:
I couldn't remember what we did after that, so Evan reminded me that after Tomah we "drove. and drove and drove and drove." Which is true. We drove for hours past fields of nothing, flooded fields, fields dotted with cows, and fields with wind power. So mostly fields. After about another four or so hours, we passed by some pretty interesting town names, including Welcome and Blue Earth. I asked Evan to find out what was in Blue Earth, and we learned that it was home to the Jolly Green Giant. After learning that it was a sixty foot tall statue, we took a detour and found the Giant. We took plenty of pictures, one of which I'll include for your entertainment:
I was absolutely giddy. Blue Earth's pride and joy was a giant statue of a giant, on a field that was awkwardly situated in a parking lot shared by a Wendy's or Dairy Queen.
Then, we finally made it to Worthington, whose motto is "You'll come to love us," which is great. We made it to the hotel, which is also fine enough and newer than our last Days Inn. Then we had to eat dinner.. which is thus far, my favorite part of the trip. I'll let Evan tell you about it...
Evan:
So we were pretty skeptical of Worthington and its motto. We looked up "Restaurants in Worthington" and found this place called Queen Sheba. After lots of Googling, we found out that it was Ethiopian. One review existed on Google, and it said that it was pretty good. So we figured we'd give it a shot, because if it was awful and we got food poisoning we'd only lose a night--and it definitely beat burgers or pizza if it was even half-decent. So we drove over after dropping our bags, and it was a hole in the wall. I mean, literally. The entrance was recessed from the road so we couldn't see it on our first pass up the street, and had a lot of trouble finding it on the second pass. But we made it in.
And it was basically empty. There were three groups of people in there. Some Ethiopians who probably owned the place or knew the owners, a pair of locals drinking Corona, and us. We ordered off a two-page menu that was in broken English and waited for a half hour. The restaurant itself was in a converted hotel, so the building was beautiful--or used to be. The ceiling was incredibly intricate, it had a beautiful chandelier--the place was probably the pride of Worthington in, like, 1920. But it's 2011, and it's fallen pretty far. Anyway, the food came out after a while. I got mutton, Sarah got a dish that can be best described as tabouleh, but with cheese instead of tomatoes. And both dishes were mind-blowingly good. Ethiopian food is served with sponge bread, and both our dishes were served with a LOT of sponge bread. And the food itself was incredible. Both dishes were unbelievably flavorful. Sarah's, especially, was totally different from anything either of us had ever tasted before; mint and cheese and tons of other flavors layered together in subtle, complex ways. The mutton I had was incredibly fresh and the sauce it came with was outstanding. I'll pass it to Sarah to tell a final, cute anecdote to end the evening:
So the time came to pay and I went up to the front to ask for the bill. Which they clearly didn't really do, so she just sort of estimated and added in her head and said "Twenty dollars?" I happily handed her a twenty dollar bill, and a tip. She was extremely nice and even asked where we were from (obviously we stood out as non-Worthingtonians). I told her that we were roadtripping. She asked if I had family here, and I told her that we were just stopping for the night because we were tired of driving. Then she said she had just made some chicken and rice and it would be good for twenty four hours, if we wanted her to wrap us up some so we would have food on our trip. It was so thoughtful and cute, and we thanked her but politely declined because we were so full from the delicious meal. And that was it. We left Queen Sheba amazed by the experience and waistbands tighter, and headed back to the hotel where we are right now.. I guess that's all I have to say for tonight...
Hopefully we have some more great experiences tomorrow!
-Evan and Sarah
Sarah:
I couldn't remember what we did after that, so Evan reminded me that after Tomah we "drove. and drove and drove and drove." Which is true. We drove for hours past fields of nothing, flooded fields, fields dotted with cows, and fields with wind power. So mostly fields. After about another four or so hours, we passed by some pretty interesting town names, including Welcome and Blue Earth. I asked Evan to find out what was in Blue Earth, and we learned that it was home to the Jolly Green Giant. After learning that it was a sixty foot tall statue, we took a detour and found the Giant. We took plenty of pictures, one of which I'll include for your entertainment:
I was absolutely giddy. Blue Earth's pride and joy was a giant statue of a giant, on a field that was awkwardly situated in a parking lot shared by a Wendy's or Dairy Queen.
Then, we finally made it to Worthington, whose motto is "You'll come to love us," which is great. We made it to the hotel, which is also fine enough and newer than our last Days Inn. Then we had to eat dinner.. which is thus far, my favorite part of the trip. I'll let Evan tell you about it...
Evan:
So we were pretty skeptical of Worthington and its motto. We looked up "Restaurants in Worthington" and found this place called Queen Sheba. After lots of Googling, we found out that it was Ethiopian. One review existed on Google, and it said that it was pretty good. So we figured we'd give it a shot, because if it was awful and we got food poisoning we'd only lose a night--and it definitely beat burgers or pizza if it was even half-decent. So we drove over after dropping our bags, and it was a hole in the wall. I mean, literally. The entrance was recessed from the road so we couldn't see it on our first pass up the street, and had a lot of trouble finding it on the second pass. But we made it in.
And it was basically empty. There were three groups of people in there. Some Ethiopians who probably owned the place or knew the owners, a pair of locals drinking Corona, and us. We ordered off a two-page menu that was in broken English and waited for a half hour. The restaurant itself was in a converted hotel, so the building was beautiful--or used to be. The ceiling was incredibly intricate, it had a beautiful chandelier--the place was probably the pride of Worthington in, like, 1920. But it's 2011, and it's fallen pretty far. Anyway, the food came out after a while. I got mutton, Sarah got a dish that can be best described as tabouleh, but with cheese instead of tomatoes. And both dishes were mind-blowingly good. Ethiopian food is served with sponge bread, and both our dishes were served with a LOT of sponge bread. And the food itself was incredible. Both dishes were unbelievably flavorful. Sarah's, especially, was totally different from anything either of us had ever tasted before; mint and cheese and tons of other flavors layered together in subtle, complex ways. The mutton I had was incredibly fresh and the sauce it came with was outstanding. I'll pass it to Sarah to tell a final, cute anecdote to end the evening:
So the time came to pay and I went up to the front to ask for the bill. Which they clearly didn't really do, so she just sort of estimated and added in her head and said "Twenty dollars?" I happily handed her a twenty dollar bill, and a tip. She was extremely nice and even asked where we were from (obviously we stood out as non-Worthingtonians). I told her that we were roadtripping. She asked if I had family here, and I told her that we were just stopping for the night because we were tired of driving. Then she said she had just made some chicken and rice and it would be good for twenty four hours, if we wanted her to wrap us up some so we would have food on our trip. It was so thoughtful and cute, and we thanked her but politely declined because we were so full from the delicious meal. And that was it. We left Queen Sheba amazed by the experience and waistbands tighter, and headed back to the hotel where we are right now.. I guess that's all I have to say for tonight...
Hopefully we have some more great experiences tomorrow!
-Evan and Sarah
Days 2: Toledo to Chicago
Thursday started out with breakfast at our hotel, and drove on the Ohio turnpike until we reached the Indiana toll road, where we encountered what is now funny. Our first toll both was broken, and the first person in line at the automated machine clearly had no idea how to get help for it. We must have waited almost ten minutes, and by this time I was cursing out Indiana, the people in line, and the toll booth worker who was slow as molasses. We got out of the car to find help but obviously the moment we exited the vehicle, someone came to help. We finally got through, and then drove to Michigan City, Indiana, where we shopped at some outlets for a few hours. Surprisingly, Evan bought more than I did. I was a reserved shopper, mostly because I doubt that my car could fit any more purchases. At the Movado watch store, we asked for advice about eating, and were directed to this really cute restaurant called Swing Belly's. We had a great lunch looking on the water, and then we were off. Frankly, I can't remember what happened after that... So I'll let Evan take over.
-Sarah
After Michigan City, we swung over to Gary, Indiana, which is an exceptionally weird place. We had quite an experience when we stopped for gas and basically tore the car apart when we realized we couldn't find Sarah's camera. We didn't find it until later in the afternoon, but I think the search got us some curious stares from the citizens of Gary. Gary itself is your standard run-down industrial town--pretty much classic Rust Belt. Very friendly, though. We saw probably half a dozen signs welcoming us to Gary. We also saw this fire risk sign while it was raining all day, which was pretty ironic--the fire risk wasn't low, it was totally nonexistent. If we had a flamethrower and took it to a can of gasoline, I don't think we'd get a spark; it was that wet.
We continued on to Chicago while blasting some Kanye West, to get in the spirit of the town. And it's a nice city. We drove up Lake Shore Drive, right along the lake, and it was beautiful even though it was extremely grey; the waves looked like they would overtop the seawall (they didn't,) but it was still a great view. I can only imagine how awesome it is when it's sunny and nice. Sunny and nice are two words I would not use to describe Chicago when we drove through. The city itself is pretty--lots of interesting architecture and all that--but the weather was miserable, in the 40s, cloudy and windy. I'll pass it off to Sarah, who's going to talk about where we spent our afternoon:
We had some time to kill because we were going to pick up Evan's cousin Seth at the airport around 8, because he was graciously letting us stay at his home. So we drove to Oak Park, a suburb of the city. It was the birthplace of Ernest Hemingway, and also home to the Unity Temple designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright also had a museum and house in the neighborhood. The main avenue was exceptionally charming. We stopped for a coffee at Starbucks, and explored the town a bit. Evan and I agreed it would be a great place to live. After driving by the important landmarks of Oak Park (which is also Betty White's birthplace.. I can't omit that.. I love Betty White), we picked up Seth from the airport and drove to an Italian restaurant called Agío near Seth's home. It was quite good, especially the hazelnut gelato we had for dessert. We then went to Seth's apartment, played with his new dog Comet, and crashed. It was a great day.
-Sarah
After Michigan City, we swung over to Gary, Indiana, which is an exceptionally weird place. We had quite an experience when we stopped for gas and basically tore the car apart when we realized we couldn't find Sarah's camera. We didn't find it until later in the afternoon, but I think the search got us some curious stares from the citizens of Gary. Gary itself is your standard run-down industrial town--pretty much classic Rust Belt. Very friendly, though. We saw probably half a dozen signs welcoming us to Gary. We also saw this fire risk sign while it was raining all day, which was pretty ironic--the fire risk wasn't low, it was totally nonexistent. If we had a flamethrower and took it to a can of gasoline, I don't think we'd get a spark; it was that wet.
We continued on to Chicago while blasting some Kanye West, to get in the spirit of the town. And it's a nice city. We drove up Lake Shore Drive, right along the lake, and it was beautiful even though it was extremely grey; the waves looked like they would overtop the seawall (they didn't,) but it was still a great view. I can only imagine how awesome it is when it's sunny and nice. Sunny and nice are two words I would not use to describe Chicago when we drove through. The city itself is pretty--lots of interesting architecture and all that--but the weather was miserable, in the 40s, cloudy and windy. I'll pass it off to Sarah, who's going to talk about where we spent our afternoon:
We had some time to kill because we were going to pick up Evan's cousin Seth at the airport around 8, because he was graciously letting us stay at his home. So we drove to Oak Park, a suburb of the city. It was the birthplace of Ernest Hemingway, and also home to the Unity Temple designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright also had a museum and house in the neighborhood. The main avenue was exceptionally charming. We stopped for a coffee at Starbucks, and explored the town a bit. Evan and I agreed it would be a great place to live. After driving by the important landmarks of Oak Park (which is also Betty White's birthplace.. I can't omit that.. I love Betty White), we picked up Seth from the airport and drove to an Italian restaurant called Agío near Seth's home. It was quite good, especially the hazelnut gelato we had for dessert. We then went to Seth's apartment, played with his new dog Comet, and crashed. It was a great day.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Day 1: Plymouth Meeting to Toledo
Evan:
We got a bit of a late start, but we finally hit the road around 9 a.m. Eastern Pennsylvania is pretty boring, but once we got past Harrisburg there's lots of rolling hills and farmland that turns into mountains after a while. It's a really nice drive. Too bad Sarah slept through most of it. We hit the Ohio border pretty quickly, or so it felt. But after we crossed the Ohio border is where things got interesting. The terrain is back to the flatter farmland we saw in Pennsylvania, but the weather got crazy.
We drove through two of the craziest thunderstorms we've ever seen. The first came and went quickly, dumping a lot of rain but not much lightning. The second was a lot crazier. It became impossible to see the road and some hail was coming down, and we had to take cover under a bridge for a few minutes while the worst of the storm passed.
Sarah:
I was sure we were going to die. Our voyage was not lacking melodrama on my part. I shrieked through the storm until we finally had to get out from under the bridge because the water level was rising. We finally made it to our hotel around 5:30 and checked in. It's clean and exactly what one would expect for 50 bucks a night. Evan was hungry and VERY keen on eating something "not American" so after some debate we ventured out to a restaurant called Masala, about 15 minutes away. Situated in a strip mall, the restaurant was anything but flashy. But inside it was quiet, clean, and modestly decorated. The service was attentive and the food was great. We got drinks, appetizers, naan, raita, and two entrees for 34 bucks including tip! Okay, I'm tired of writing, so I'll let Evan finish up.
Evan:
Of course I'm not keen on eating American. Once we get past Chicago it's cheeseburgers and fries until we hit Vegas. So I figured we could get our fill of ethnic food while it's available. And the food was superb at Masala. We couldn't finish our entrees since we wanted to save room for dessert, which is always a good sign. And we got the vegetarian meal, which is nice since we haven't had too much in the way of veggies lately. (Sarah adds here: the dessert was rice pudding!!)
The hotel is nice--certainly nice enough. We're finishing up the night by watching some Mythbusters. Tomorrow we'll be on the road to Chicago and visiting a cousin of mine.
That's all for tonight!
We got a bit of a late start, but we finally hit the road around 9 a.m. Eastern Pennsylvania is pretty boring, but once we got past Harrisburg there's lots of rolling hills and farmland that turns into mountains after a while. It's a really nice drive. Too bad Sarah slept through most of it. We hit the Ohio border pretty quickly, or so it felt. But after we crossed the Ohio border is where things got interesting. The terrain is back to the flatter farmland we saw in Pennsylvania, but the weather got crazy.
We drove through two of the craziest thunderstorms we've ever seen. The first came and went quickly, dumping a lot of rain but not much lightning. The second was a lot crazier. It became impossible to see the road and some hail was coming down, and we had to take cover under a bridge for a few minutes while the worst of the storm passed.
Sarah:
I was sure we were going to die. Our voyage was not lacking melodrama on my part. I shrieked through the storm until we finally had to get out from under the bridge because the water level was rising. We finally made it to our hotel around 5:30 and checked in. It's clean and exactly what one would expect for 50 bucks a night. Evan was hungry and VERY keen on eating something "not American" so after some debate we ventured out to a restaurant called Masala, about 15 minutes away. Situated in a strip mall, the restaurant was anything but flashy. But inside it was quiet, clean, and modestly decorated. The service was attentive and the food was great. We got drinks, appetizers, naan, raita, and two entrees for 34 bucks including tip! Okay, I'm tired of writing, so I'll let Evan finish up.
Evan:
Of course I'm not keen on eating American. Once we get past Chicago it's cheeseburgers and fries until we hit Vegas. So I figured we could get our fill of ethnic food while it's available. And the food was superb at Masala. We couldn't finish our entrees since we wanted to save room for dessert, which is always a good sign. And we got the vegetarian meal, which is nice since we haven't had too much in the way of veggies lately. (Sarah adds here: the dessert was rice pudding!!)
The hotel is nice--certainly nice enough. We're finishing up the night by watching some Mythbusters. Tomorrow we'll be on the road to Chicago and visiting a cousin of mine.
That's all for tonight!
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