PA Chicks on Route 66

A Trip Recap - Top 5's

2006-07-16T03:35:00.000-04:00

Top 5 Foods:
1) Chicago deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati's
2) Kurt's homemade chicken/rice/avocado/goat cheese meal
3) New Mexican food at Garduno's with Jon and Jess
4) Cozy Drive In's "Cozy Dogs"
5) Ted Drewes concrete shakes

Top 5 Songs of the Trip:
1) "Confidence" - Charlie "Tremendous" Jones
2) "Route 66" - we listened to 3 different versions (thanks, Stubby and Mishi)
3) "I am 16, Going on 17" - Sound of Music
4) "I Have Confidence" - Sound of Music
5) Ashlee Simpson's bitter single girl music

Top 5 Quirky Roadside Attractions:
1) Cadillac Ranch
2) Tinkertown
3) our wigwam
4) Venice Cafe in St. Louis
5) Totem Poles and Blue Hole are tied

Top 5 Moments We Thought We Might Die:
1) Silver Creek Road in the Mojave Desert (11 miles of "Primitive Road")
2) the Navajo at the Conoco
3) checking in at The Wigwam Motel
4) Marcia's spill down Walnut Canyon's steps
5) the drugged up, coked out, drunk pickup truck driver with no lights on that Emmy beeped at when he cut her off and almost collided head-on with the on-coming car (he did, not Emmy)

Top 5 Favorite New People of the Mother Road:
1) Jess Beistline
2) the security guard at Ted Drewes
3) the woman who insisted on taking our picture at the Blue Front Cafe
4) the 2 women at Naiya's Pottery in Paraje
5) Mallory, our waitress at Earl's in Gallup, NM

Top 5 Marcia Moments, According to Emmy and Zoe (Kristina):
1) "Pam, I've gotta go!" as she falls down the canyon steps
2) "Howard, I'm sitting on a rock in the middle of the desert," as she sits atop a huge cliff in El Malpais
3) her panic attack on Silver Creek Road in the Mojave Desert
4) shaking rocks out of her jellies walking around Lincoln's neighborhood
5) her affinity for the song, "You Ain't Nothin' But a Hoochie Mama"

Top 5 Recommendations for Taking a Trip on Route 66:
1) In remote areas, it may be necessary to disregard GPS and stick to paved roads that appear on standard maps.
2) Bring along a recording of "Route 66." Great for singing along to as you pass through each mentioned town.
3) Trendy shoes (i.e. jellies) may be cute but not functional for most roadside attractions.
4) Take time to talk to the locals. While some may be scary, most have great information about sights and sustenance.
5) Do it. And take your friends with you.

Day 7 - Caution... Rough Road Ahead

2006-07-15T23:01:00.000-04:00

We got up early this morning (7:30 am) because we wanted to check out Oatman, AZ before heading out to L.A. Oatman is an old mining-town-turned-ghost-town that is now a tourist attraction.

We pulled out of the River Palms Casino & Hotel's parking lot and Marcia plugged our destination into her GPS navigator, which has been affectionately named 'Beverly'. "Head straight onto Silver Creek Road for 11 miles," Beverly told us. Silver Creek Road ended up being a remote unpaved gravel road through the Mojave Desert and surrounding mountains. 11 miles of unpaved sometimes rocky road until we met up with the main paved road into Oatman. Needless to say, we were a little freaked out at the situation because of the possibility of losing a tire or encountering a group of rogue bandits. Emily kept her eyes on the road while Kristina kept watch on the front and sides of the car and Marcia kept lookout in the back when her head wasn't hidden under her pillow because of panic attacks (probably a side effect of Marcia's newfound obsession with "Lost"). The sword was at arms distance at all times for protection. Thanks, Jim!

Along the road we saw several shot-up road signs, lots of rusted out appliances and cars, and a 6-ft-long suspiciously wrapped bundle secured with a rock. We were too freaked out to stop and see if this confirmed our worst suspicions. But at this point, we were too far to turn back. We made it to Oatman just fine, and the drive was surprisingly beautiful given the situation.

11 miles and 45 minutes later, we arrived in Oatman. Oatman is a one-horse town, or more appropriately, a 20-donkey / 20-person town. Burros wandered the main street and men dressed up like miners and cowboys (complete with hats, chaps, and spurs) sat in front of the old buildings. It looked like a place out of an old western movie. Seriously, the whole town was a sixteenth of amile long on one road. It was kind of cool, though we're not sure it was worth risking our lives to get to it.

We left Oatman and stopped for a quick lunch in Needles, CA, and then headed in to L.A. We arrived mid-afternoon and headed straight to the Santa Monica Pier, the official end of the Mother Road.

We dipped our toes in the Pacific and walked around a bit, and then Em & Marcia gave Kristina the grand tour of L.A. We picked up a hot pizza and chilled our 12-pack of Corona and proceeded to eat a celebratory dinner in the new pad in Hollywood Hills. A great end to a fantastic trip!!

Day 6 - Having a "Nice Trip!"

2006-07-14T23:00:00.000-04:00

We woke up at 7:30 am PST this morning to the soft red glow of light through our teepee's very red curtains- which we all agreed was a bit of a twilight zone affect (especially during middle-of-the-night pee breaks). Our teepee, although a little small, was very cozy. The beds were comfortable, the temperature was just right, and the showers were, well, short and slanted following the roofline of the structure.

After grabbing some breakfast at the supermarket across the street, we headed into the south end of the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. This area of northeast Arizona is a mixture of desert areas mixed with lava beds. Apparently this area was once a lush forest much like Colorado... water came in and covered some of the area while volcanic lava covered other parts. The trees in the forest died quickly but were preserved by the pressure of the substances (water and lava) that covered them and the lack of present air. The water seeped into the logs and deposited silica, replacing the space taken up by the tree's natural matter. This turned to stone after thousands of years. The land proceeded to dry up and winds and sun wore away the outer layers of the petrified logs, exposing the gorgeous petrified wood underneath. It was a beautiful beautiful place.

We left the park and drove on to Meteor Crater, the gigantic hole left by the meteor that killed the dinosaurs... we opted out of this one because of outrageous admission charges. We were disappointed, but thought our dollars would be better spent later in the trip.

Next on the list of tourist attractions today was Winslow, Arizona. First we stopped at the legendary Jack Rabbit Trading Post for a little shopping.

Then we navigated to the actual "corner" and got our pictures taken with the Don Henley statue and the sign that says, "Standin' on a Corner." For all you non-Classic Rock listeners, this is a spot mentioned in the Eagles' song, "Take It Easy" (Standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see... etc.). It was a cool stop.

We left Winslow and headed on towards Flagstaff, AZ... next destination being Walnut Canyon National Park. WCNP is a big canyon (not as big as the Grand Canyon, but still very steep and rocky and full of beautiful southwest vegetation and wildlife.) It is most well known for its preserved cliff dwellings that are a thousand years old. We bit the bullet in the 100 degree heat and decided to hike down to see the ruins.

The hike was a series of winding trails and steps and quite strenuous in the heat of the day. Marcia and Kristina opted to change shoes (from jellies and Kinos to actual sneakers), but this didn't help like it should have - Marcia still bit it at one section, falling down two stairs and scraping up her knees and elbows. She was on her cell phone with her mom at this point and shouted, "Pam, I've gotta go!" as she hit the bottom of the path. Luckily she fell at one of the few places where there were guard rails or this threesome would have quickly become a twosome. The cell phone was also spared a certain untimely death because she managed to hold onto it and not drop it over the ravine. That's a first.

We checked out the ruins (very cool) and learned about the environment in the canyon. Because of the way the sun hits the canyon, the south side is lush and green like a forest in Canada (so the trail guides say) and the opposite side of the canyon is like a desert landscape. Pretty remarkable to see all this variation in one small place.

After a butt-kicking hike, we loaded back into Sammy and went into Flagstaff to eat lunch. After lunch (Chick-Fil-A and pizza), we drove northwest to the Grand Canyon. It was breathtaking and powerful and larger than life. Words cannot describe this place.

We left the Canyon (minus scrapes and bruises, thankfully) and headed to Laughlin, NV to our little casino town. This place was a weird rip-off of Las Vegas. We arrived around 10:30 pm PST and sacked out early. L.A. tomorrow!

Love,
Emily, Marcia & Kristina

Day 5 - "They Thought We Were Savages!"

2006-07-13T22:30:00.000-04:00

Today was most definitely the most bizarre day of the trip. We got up around 9:30 am, checked out of the Nativo Lodge, and grabbed breakfast on the go. The first stop of the day was Tinkertown, a funny roadside attraction nestled in the mountains north of Albuquerque. How do we describe this place to anyone who hasn't seen it? It was an open-air log complex of which several walls were constructed with glass bottles and mortar. Inside the maze of the buildings were thousands of hand-carved wooden figurines all set up in elaborate motorized scenes. A bunch of the scenes played music (requiring quarters). One scene in particular made us think of Kristina's dad... the wild west saloon exhibit cycled through Willie Nelson's "Red Headed Stranger" concept album. Much love, Mr. B.!! We laughed a lot at the quirkiness of this place overall... it reminded us a lot of Charles "Tremendous" Jones' estate (Marcia's grandfather and a legendary motivational speaker) and his funny collections.

We left Tinkertown and traveled west into central New Mexico, next stop slated to be the Acoma (AC-o-ma, not a-CO-ma as we Gringos had been pronouncing it) Pueblo Indian Reservation and Ruins. We were denied at the entrance because apparently there was a religious ceremony going on and no one except members of the tribe could enter. Bummer. We thought about turning and trying to play on the fact that Marcia and Kristina are each 1/16 Native American, but that still didn't qualify us as members of the tribe. On the way back to the interstate, Emily and Kristina chatted with Martha, an employee at the gas station (apparently much of New Mexico is technically still considered tribal land, so the gas station and all the employees were Native Americans). When she found out we were from PA, she wondered if we knew where Carlisle was... we said we did, and we lived near it. She proceeded to tell us that people from Carlisle came and took kids from their reservation back in the early 1900s to put them in school and keep them from the reservation because "they thought we were savages" and wanted to teach the kids "a trade." It was a slightly uncomfortable conversation. From this point forward in our trip, 90% of the people we encountered were Native Americans... pretty crazy.

We decided we wanted to buy some local pottery so we drove across the bridge over the highway and stopped in the very small town of Paraje (par-A-hee). We bought some nice hand-made stuff from a mom and pops store and had a conversation with the workers in the shop. The owner pours the ceramic and comes up with the designs and she sponsors a program for reservation high-schoolers to be her apprentices. They fill in and finish her designs and work in the store selling the pottery. Nice nice people with good dinner suggestions (as you will see shortly!).

From Paraje, we drove to the first section of El Malpais National Park, better known as the Badlands. It was GORGEOUS. It's a mixture of red sandstone rocky outcroppings and flat desert land. There are volcanic mountains that surround the area that deposited a huge amount of lava thousands of years ago. The place is truly breathtaking.

After checking out section one, we headed on to section two. On the way, we passed the Continental Divide, 7,882 feet above sea level. We got out of the car to take a quick picture, but upon approaching the car to leave, Emmy noticed some white smoke sneaking out from under the front of the car. She shut the car off, did a fluids survey, and called Denny P to get a second opinion. After a few minutes of conversation and three people stopping to see if we were okay, we got back on the road towards El Morro. We attempted to see El Morro (known as Inscription Rock) which is also pretty famous, but it had just closed when we got there.

We drove on to Gallup, NM for dinner and ate at a legendary restaurant along Route 66 called Earl's Family Restaurant, a recommendation from our friends in Paraje. It was kind of strange... they sell permits to local tribes to come in and sell wares outside of the restaurant and table-to-table inside. But we did buy some great local stuff. People have been trying to hawk merchandise on us all day, including a guy trying to sell us a medicine bag at a gas station...

We arrived in Holbrook, AZ at 9:30 pm PST (changing time zones one final time) and checked into our TEE PEE!!! Said the slightly creepy proprietor upon our arrival, "Oh, good. I don't have to worry. All my little lambs are in for the night."

Love,
The Girls

Day 4 - Authentic Diners, Painted Cadillacs, Blue Water & Jon Beistline

2006-07-12T22:46:00.000-04:00

After a grueling day of driving yesterday (15 hours of traveling) we decided to sleep in. It was some much-needed rest. Today was a lot easier on the team (only 4 hours of driving). We got up around 10 am and took a quick morning dip in the Texas-shaped swimming pool (note that we're "standing" in Amarillo in the photos) and then went in search of food.

We ended up eating at the Blue Front Cafe, an original Rt. 66 diner. Food was decent and cheap, and we had a nice photo op with their neon Rt. 66 sign. It seems all the people we talk to along the road are really excited about our trip and the fact that we came all the way from Pennsylvania. They are more than eager to take our photo for us and give us some interesting little tid-bit about the Mother Road.

After breakfast, we left Amarillo and headed west in search of Cadillac Ranch. It is a giant piece of modern art that features 10 half-buried Cadillacs representing the car's phases from the mid 1940s through the mid 1960s. There are lots of explanations as to what the purpose of it is, but we're not quite sure here. We had read about this one beforehand and came fully prepared to participate in the ritual of spraypainting messages on the cars (it is encouraged by the owner). Lots of fun! Check out our work...

Our next stop was 100 miles west in Tucumcari, the land of 2,000 rooms and lots of rt. 66 folklore. We checked out perhaps the most famous motel on the Mother Road, the Blue Swallow Motel, and bought some souvenirs across the street at the Tee Pee Curio Shop (another notable stop along the road). Emily again expressed her love of the VW minibus when we saw this throwback retro scene...

Another 100 miles down the road is Santa Rosa. We stopped to check out an attraction called the "Blue Hole." It's an out-of-place small swimming hole in the middle of this arid land. It was caused by a sinkhole that was apparently over top of an underground spring - so the water is always perfectly blue, clear, and 60 degrees. Emily and I swam for a few minutes and froze our butts off, although it was a great counter-maneuver to the 107 degree heat and sunshine we were experiencing all day.

Our final destination of the day was Albuquerque, NM. It was a lovely drive from Santa Rosa into Albuquerque.... lots of southwest mountains and rich colors. We are staying at a place called the Nativo Lodge which is Native American themed and very nice.

A highlight of our evening was meeting up with our old high school friend, Jon, and his wife, Jess, for dinner. We got the grand tour of their house and then they took us to a local New Mexican restaurant that served delicious food (very similar to Mexican food). This was the first time any of us had met Jess and we thought she was just delightful! Way to go, Jon!

We turned in around 10, very tired from our busy day.... but very excited that tomorrow we'll be sleeping in TEE PEES!!!!

Love,
Us

Day 3 - The Long and Winding Road

2006-07-11T03:01:00.000-04:00

After a restful night of sleep in St. Louis, we awoke to rain showers. We packed up and left Tracey's house around 8:30 am. It seems as though much of the Mother Road is littered with stoplights and stop and go traffic... so we opted for plan number 2 - take the highways and get off to tour certain sections of original road and its classic attractions.

The rain cleared the further we drove and it turned out to be a beautiful day. Our first stop was Meramac Caverns in Stanton, Missouri. It's about an hour west of St. Louis. It's the largest cave system in Missouri and one of the largest in the USA. It was amazing... definitely the best cave we've all toured (but we will always have special love in our hearts for "seeing it by boat" at Penns Cave in Centre Hall, PA). The tour was an hour and a half long and featured a lot of much-needed walking and gorgeous formations. It concluded with a fantastic "concert" in the stage curtain/theatre room of the cave. We sat on stadium-seat bleachers while our tour guide played an old version of God Bless America and flashed lights on all the 70-foot tall flowstone curtain. I know it sounds kind of corny, but it was really quite fun.

We drove for a while afterward and stopped for a quick lunch and fuel fill-up. Our next stop was Ed Galloway's Totem Poll Park in Foyil, OK. Ed spent 20 years of his retired life building a gigantic concrete totem poll... and then he just kept going and built lots of concrete sculpture-things on the property. It's billed as the tallest concrete totem poll in the world (not to be confused with the large concrete tee pees in which we will be staying in two days).

We continued on to Tulsa, OK and stopped for dinner at Pancho's Mexican Buffet. It was a cafeteria-style restaurant... The funniest part of this scenario was that for refills, we were required to run a small table-top Mexican flag up a poll. Dinner was ok but not El Rodeo.

Lots more driving after Tulsa. We think we saw the start of a tornado during a freak thunderstorm we passed ... we called Sean to confirm where Tornado Alley exactly was and he told us we were right in the heart of it (kind of scary).

We arrived in Amarillo at the Big Texan at 1:30 am and called it a night. What a crazy place... check out the wild decor inside. Yes, this is a velvet cowhide comforter you're seeing. And the entrance to the bathroom area looks like saloon doors.

Lots of fun planned for tomorrow!

Love,
E, M & K

Day 2 - You Are What You Eat

2006-07-10T00:08:00.000-04:00

Day 2 on our Rt. 66 road trip has been fantastic. We left Kokomo at 7:30 am EST and headed north to Chicago. Our plan was to fuel up with some deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati's for lunch and then head south on the Mother Road. This proved more difficult than we thought because we arrived at Chicago promptly at 11 am EST, exactly one hour before the 11 am CST opening time. We vowed to account for the time change when crossing the next time zone.

On our way to the pizza shop, we passed a legendary roadside attraction we didn't realize was even there. It's the home of the Christian syndicated radio program, "Unshackled." We took this picture for Pam, Marcia's mother who was a frequent listener (and who was celebrating her birthday today- Happy Birthday, Pam!!).

We ate lunch mid day - a delicious large deep dish pizza - and then navigated to the start of the road. With "Get Your Kicks on Rt. 66" cranked, we headed down the road!

The first real stop was Springfield, IL. We had to stop for a few reasons, most importantly, because it is the fictional home of Guiding Light, the soap opera we've all been following for ten years (refer to first post to see a pic of us at the 2001 GL Fan Club Convention in NYC). We had a lot of laughs over all the Springfield stuff. We also toured the Lincoln home (National Historic Park) and saw where Abe and Mary Todd spent their non-DC days. Out of all the Park Rangers, this one was definitely the cutest....

On our way out of town we stopped at the legendary Cozy Drive In, the home of the Cozy Dog. This place was where the corn dog was invented.

Then we headed south to St. Louis. We had a lovely evening with Marcia's Aunt Tracey, her fiance Kurt, and his daughter Emelia. Kurt cooked us a fantastic dinner (have you noticed the common theme of our day yet?!) and Tracey took us on a local neighborhood bar tour. The most interesting stop of the night was an eclectic bar called the Venice Cafe. The pictures say it all... Here is one of our favorites of us posing in one of the seating areas surrounded by a bunch of naked baby dolls. The whole place was pretty random.

The last item on our agenda was a stop at Ted Drewes Custard Shop (which Emily kept mistakenly calling "Thomas Druce's") for concrete (thickkkk) milk shakes. We almost didn't make it there due to a run-in with a DUD (doped up driver) who passed us illegially almost causing a head-on collision with the car on the other side of the street. Emily beeped her horn in anger at the doper much to Marcia & Kristina's chagrin due to the fact that we were rendered defenseless since the sword had already been unloaded in Tracey's house. While attempting to eat our shakes, we had a nice chat with a uniformed security guard permanently stationed outside the ice cream stand.

Daily Recap:
We ate an entire deep dish pizza.
We snacked on potato chips, caramels, laffy taffy, and other junk.
We ate 2 corn dogs.
We ate a huge dinner with Tracey and Kurt.
We ate 3 concrete shakes.
We ate WAY too much!

Day 1 - The Amazing Race

2006-07-09T23:26:00.000-04:00

Checkin' in after a long first day, sitting in Cassie's dining room in Kokomo, IN. We're pretty tired, but happy to be here. Cassie is Kristina's cousin and a current Penn State student, who is interning out here for the summer.

After a tearful open mic night last night, full of friends and music, and a fairly emotional send-off this morning, we hit the road at 8:20am. The first oddity we passed was this interesting biker dude towing a keg. Is this what the open road is all about?

Our first stop was in Oakland, a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, to have lunch with Moha, a friend of Marcia's from Carnegie Mellon. We had the signature Primanti Bros. sandwiches, which include fries and pepper slaw IN the sandwich.

It's already been decided that we will avoid most chain establishments and enjoy indigenous foods. Although, we could probably live on the food given to us by our families. On our way out of town, we grabbed some Dave and Andy's ice cream and drove through CMU to get back out to the highway. Marcia happened to point out a particular... sculpture... that adorns the lawn of the University Center. It's called "Walking to the Sky." Of course, we stopped for a few poses before heading out of town.

After leaving Pittsburgh, we realized we made a somewhat fatal error and took the highway north instead of south. This detour would add a bit of time to our travels, but would give us the opportunity to stop and visit Tiffany in Akron! Emily insisted that she knew exactly where Tiff lived since she visited last Fall, but we didn't have her address - this was ok, though, because we decided it would be just like the Amazing Race, except we were looking for Tiffany.

We called Andrew and had him look up their address, but were unable to mapquest it. Em said that the Delutises lived right by a memorable "landmark", the "Superior Erection Company." We found the landmark, but still no house..

We drove around for an hour and finally stopped at a pizza shop to get directions. The Delutises were surprised, to say the least, but very happy to see us all.

We left Tiff's house and grabbed food on the road and then it was straight across Ohio and into Indiana. Arrived around 10:30 p.m.

As a recap, on our first day we:

-Ate in a legendary sandwich shop
-Saw 2 friends and 1 relative
-Listened to a week worth of Guiding Light podcasts & some Charlie Tremendous singalongs
-Got lost in Akron
-Almost hit a bird and a cat

Starting our journey on the Mother Road tomorrow!!

Love-
K, E, & M

Life's a Journey, Not a Destination

2006-06-29T10:36:00.000-04:00

The final stop on the trip: Marcia and Em's new
apartment

No furniture until the 17th, but it's still a place to call our own.

A Little Background on the Team

2006-06-20T11:27:00.000-04:00

Well, since we already know that several of our friends and family will be reading this blog and keeping up with our cross-country progression, we thought it would be appropriate to provide a little background on the Team and its history. Hopefully, this won't scare away our readers, but rather let you all glimpse into the wonderful ridiculousness that we embody.

It all started on Halloween night in 1999...

From L - R: Marcia, as Tinky Winky Purple
Kristina, as Potty-Mouth Blue
Emmy, as Anal Retentive Green

Not pictured: Tiffany, as Sunshiny Yellow
Apryle, as Wild Red

Also not pictured are our honorary colors:
Doug, INdispensable Orange
Buddy (Nick), Blacka Than Black

Have you ever tried to walk around inside of a box with your 4 closest friends? Talk about an exercise in teamwork. But we were the hottest box of crayons this town has ever seen. One simple night of brightly colored creativity has given birth to new definitions of friendship, love, and unity. Summed up in two words...

Team Rainbow

In some ways, this trip will be no different than all Team adventures:
- Decisions will be made in a democratic way.
- The Team wallet is back in action, covering tax, tip, tolls, gas, and bail.
- "Whatever you do, we support you."

The only thing we know for sure is this:

Even though we three cool colors will be missing our warmer compliments, we will make our journey with much laughter, a few tears, dozens of new quotes, tons of awesome pictures, and the reassurance that no matter where life takes us, the Team will always bring us back together. We embark on this adventure with craziness in our future and happiness in our wake.

Route 66 - 3 weeks and counting!

2006-06-16T12:17:00.000-04:00

In just over 3 weeks, Marcia, Emily and I will begin our journey from Harrisburg, PA to Los Angeles, CA (Em and Marcia are moving there). We are excited to traverse the Mother Road, Rt. 66, together! Check back for more updates as we approach our start date. Keep track of our progress as we will be blogging from the road!