After our trip to Boston and seeing how Harpoon does it, we decided to see what breweries were around NC. We always just go to Pintville which has a ton of local beers on tap. This time we wanted to go to the source.
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Today is the day! The entire reason we went to Maine! Grandpa is turning 85 and everyone is here to celebrate! James rolled in late Friday night/early Saturday morning. Rose got up in the middle of the night to help James and Tyler up into the loft of the cabin. I was so worn out from the exciting day before I didn't even wake up! I just said "hi" in the morning.
Rose and I were lucky enough to nab a week vacation from our jobs at the same time! Where to go where to go...
Boston! We've been here in North Carolina going on seven months now (wow that sounds like a long time...) and we have yet to explore the blue ridge mountains despite the thousands of people that have told us how beautiful they are. Well last weekend Rose and I decided to check them out. Of course we didn't want the popular camping areas with all the people around. We wanted the secluded spots where people rarely ventured. They're more fun anyways.
I had been waiting over two months for this day to come... and be over! I was joking with Rose that April 9th would be the best day of my life because on April 8th my big work project was due; I had to organize the first ever Piedmont Strawberry Festival!
Hey ya'll! (Well of course we picked up a southern twang accent since we moved down to North Carolina.) Our apologies for it being a long while since a post. We have been on the run while attempting to convert our website over to a new domain host. Just like the Soggy Bottom Boys (hence the blog title name) we have been on the road and roaming around trying to find our way. We wanted to catch you up on all the excitement of the last four months now that we officially have settled.
It's been a while! Sorry everyone for the lack of excitement. This fall/ winter has been nothing short of busy. Our days were filled with work, weddings, weekend adventures and more work! The Camera Couple is finally catching up and ready to continue on with some picture and adventure blogs for ya'll. Our most exciting bit of news is the big change coming up. A new home! Cameron and I will be heading south and this time to stay! I recently accepted a job in the Carolinas and will be moving end of December.
After a great adventure in the Windy City it was time to take our trip back down south. Since we were ahead of schedule it seemed like the perfect opportunity to sneak in a few more states and collect more shot glasses. Cameron and I decided to make our way to a small country town in Kentucky where Sundy Best was performing at a fair.
Our last day on Rt 66 had two major cities in its path: St. Louis and Chicago. Everyone knows that I love driving in cities so obviously I was very excited about the day's adventure. St. Louis wasn't far once we got out of Kansas.
Well we landed halfway on 66! Adrian, Texas is the exact middle of the Mother Road. Cameron and I had a fun trek through New Mexico back into Texas. Like everywhere else in the West we hardly saw any cars traveling along 66. When we got to the midway point there was not a soul in sight at first. It was so empty that I was able to play in the road and take pictures of the 66 painted on the pavement!
There is just something about Arizona and New Mexico that I love.... and I know exactly what it is, the beautiful rock structure. Anytime Cameron and I hit Arizona or New Mexico all we could talk about was how beautiful the rock formations were. When you drive out west and have no buildings, service or other cars...how can you not enjoy the scenery!? It's absolutely breathtaking.
Finally leaving the land of the traffic we got into the more remote areas of Rt 66 which is exactly how we liked it. Arizona Rt 66 was the most scenic and fun to drive area of the entire road.
We did stop right over the border for gas but our first official stop was in a little western town called Oatman. The main attraction in Oatman, aside from the fact it's a cute western town with a dirt main street and lots of little shops, is that there are dozens of wild donkeys wandering around the town! They just kind of roam around asking for food from all the tourists. After our two week vacation within a vacation in Hawaii we had to fly back to continue our original vacation on the mainland. We landed in California around midnight which didn't leave much time for anything but sleep. We got back to the hotel and expected to have a car fiasco the next morning based on the numerous phone calls and the experience we had getting the car parked. Luckily everything went relatively smoothly. There was some waiting involved in the crazy hotel we parked it at but the car was still in one piece and they didn't charge me anything extra. I'll call that a win! Then we started on the trip back home.
What do you do on your final day in Hawaii?! One last hike of course! Fourth of July was our final day in Hawaii and we had one last place we wanted to visit before flying back to the mainland. Cameron and I planned to hike to the Golden Ponds at Ke-awa-iki early so that we could get back to spend the rest of the day with the family. Since we intended on swimming in the Golden Ponds neither Cameron or I brought our actual cameras for this adventure so anything you see is from my iPhone. The layout of the hike was simple. Park...hike down some crazy jagged lava...hike the black sand beach....stray off course and find the ponds! In case you have any doubt like I did...the Golden Ponds are in fact quite golden. Hidden among all the lava rock is a gorgeous gold pond of freshwater that you can swim in.
After our intense green sand beach hike Cameron promised me that the black sand beach hike would be a lot more relaxed and whole lot less windy. We set off Saturday morning to hike the black sand beach and hopefully be able to see some sea turtles. The sea turtles hang out in a quiet little lagoon type area where they float happily all day and bask in the sun. Cameron and I didn't quite experience that on the hike to get to them. You start off walking along the black sand beach and make your way past all the trees along the edge of the beach. Cameron had remembered hidden water ponds being in the woods so we tried finding them. When we found them they were the coolest little natural pools I've ever seen. They are smack in the middle of the trees, if it was dark and you were walking you probably would fall right into them. Rocks form in a circle as a border and people climb in and cool off in the shade right alongside the beach. It was really cool...just make sure you don't use it as a bathroom. Neither Cameron or I ventured into them but they were neat to stop and see. Hi again!
Since the goats didn't want to be our friends we decided to try our luck with the sea turtles. The lagoon area was fairly shallow and there was a little island a few feet out that we saw some big turtles hanging out on. Cameron and I perched ourselves on the rocks and watched the big turtles across the way and then we realized all of the ginormous creatures right in the water in front of us. It turned into a game for Cameron and I as we tried to take their picture when they came up to breathe. They are such large animals yet swim so smooth and quick in the water. They hardly ever come up to breathe and when they do its quick and back under they go! We spotted so many and had fun seeing what they were up to. Some were just baking their shells in the sun on the island...others were water bugs and kept swimming around enjoying the blue water. Hawaiians like to use a lot of stops and skips in their words which usually make them fun to say. Today Keith convinced us that we should hike up a Pu'u. For those of you not fluent in Hawaiian like we are, a Pu'u is a volcanic cone. Not really the primary crater of a volcano but a little opening on the side that spews out molten hot rock all over everything. Fun right!?
We have been visiting a lot of major cities around the country in our travels. Today we decided to ditch the big cities and people and head to one of the cutest little towns that I have ever visited: Hawi.
Hawi (pronounced Ha-vee which really messed us up when looking at maps and street signs) has one little main street with a few shops and restaurants and that's about it. Everything around it is just rain-forest with a few little houses sprinkled in. We got an early start on the day (I have no idea why). It maybe had something to do with getting a nice burn on at the beach the day before and going to bed early but that's a different story... Anyways we got to Hawi around 10am. This is where we learned first hand about "Island Time." Back on the east coast everyone is about getting ahead. Businesses have to open up early or else they lose customers and therefore money. In Hawaii that's not important. Everything opens at 11am and closes at 8pm. Sometimes you're lucky to find a place that even has those hours. So naturally when we got there super early in the morning (10) nothing was open so we decided to head past Hawi to the really cool cliff that was just beyond the town. Luckily that was open The landscape here is so wild. It's like nothing you can find back on the mainland. The weather is too but you'll hear all about that in another post coming up. The most entertaining part of the cliff was listening to all the tourists. Okay okay we are tourists too but I mean the annoying tourists. We're the good tourists. There was one little kid throwing a fit about his family wanting to hike down to the bottom of the cliff to the beach. I mean a fit. He was pouting and yelling and eventually walked away as his family went the other direction. Oh, did I say little kid? I meant grown-ass man whose kids and wife wanted to hike. You just wouldn't have known that by watching him. Me watching this all go down and not paying attention to the picture So that was fun. On the way back to Hawi we saw a really cool stream on the side of the road and it was so pretty that we had to stop for pictures. A couple of locals told us there was a cool waterfall just down the stream from there but I didn't think my dad's little CRV would have liked treking through the jungle so we just continued on to Hawi. Of course my Xterra could have handled it no problem! Everything was open this time! Our first stop was for something called Kava Tea. I'm not really sure if it's just a Hawaiian thing or if it's a hippie thing but either way it's gross. I had some last time I was here but Rose didn't know how awful it was yet so naturally we had to get some for her to try. Faces were made just seconds later Kava is this gross root that they mash up and make into a yucky tea. The reason people drink it, aside from tricking people into making funny faces, is because the kava root has anesthetic properties. It makes you, and especially your mouth and tongue, feel all tingly. Our lunch date We also got some fudge as a chaser After getting all nice and tingly we went for lunch across the street at a place that has "the best pina coladas." I feel like every restaurant around here has "the island's best" something or another. This one I might believe though. Yes, it cost $12 but it was really good. Rose, our resident ice cream-ologist believes that they put a scoop of vanilla ice cream in when they blend it. This is not for sure so I'm not officially giving away any island secrets but we are definitely going to try it ourselves later. It sounds good regardless. After Hawi on our way home we saw a State Park (I think that's what it was) that looked fun so we stopped in. The parking lot had some old Hawaiian buildings that were like 600 years old or something like that and a lot of little lava rock walls. It looked like your stereotypical Hawaii The coolest part of the park was how the waves were crashing up on some of the rocks. We stayed here for almost a half our just trying to get the perfect wave crashing picture. We probably could have stayed longer. There's something weird about trying to get wave crashing pictures that makes you always want to stay for the next one. It might be better than the last! We made the our way up the mountain to the house after that to relax for a bit before dinner. Keith was cooking so we didn't want to be late! Rose's new favorite flower When you come to Hawaii you think warm sunny beach time right? Well yes that is primarily what we accomplished on the trip. But what about the enormous mountains all over the islands that you can hike up and experience? Or what about a dormant volcano that looms over the entire island? If you have the chance to take the climb, DO IT. The whole point of the trip for Cameron and I has been to gain new experiences and not have any expectations. After college everyone sets out to start making money and begin a routine with a end view in sight. Sometimes you have to climb and not know what view you are going to end up with. Well the same goes for my trip to Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain in the world. Standing 14,207 m. above sea level the peak is the highest point in Hawaii. Cameron had ventured up Mauna Kea on his last trip to Hawaii. He told me it was one of the most beautiful sites he had seen with an unreal sunset. Naturally I was intrigued.
As a family we trekked up Mauna Kea to enjoy the views together. We had to travel 13,800 feet up. It is one of the only places you can start at sea level and rise that high in two hours. Once you get to the National Park you make your way up the road and stop at the visitor center. When you break at the visitors center they suggest you wait a little bit to get acclimated to the altitude change. You definitely feel the air change the higher you go. After a short pause halfway up the mountain we put on our warm clothing and prepared for the winding climb above the clouds. They aren't kidding about the steep roads.. As you head up the mountain they caution you to have 4WD because lets just say its a tad bit rugged. Basically in addition to ear popping you have to go up a steep graded- gravel road for 12 miles. Just like life there are plenty of twists and turns and the occasional bump in the road. There were points that I was unsure how our car would even go up something that steep. 13,800 feet later and a few ear adjustments we made it to the top. And it was breathtaking....literally. Sitting on top of the mountain an hour out from sunset was probably one of the coolest spots I could ever be. Cameron and I walked around taking some pictures even though it was about 40 degrees. I couldn't grasp being on top of a mountain above the clouds. I felt like I should be flying in a plane looking out, except I wasn't. It was all right there and I was in the midst of it. Twist, turns & clouds We had about an hour to kill before the sun actually set. So we took some pictures and looked at the observatories. The coolest thing about Hawaii that is unique from the rest of the U.S. is that the stars are amazingly clear. When you are on top of Mauna Kea looking out you can see all the observatories that the scientists use to view the solar system. After some pre-sunset pictures we waited in the car for the sun to finally set. Each passing minute the sun, clouds and colors made a prettier and more incredible picture (be sure to view the gallery at the end of this post.) One of the many observatories I always half joke to Cameron that I live for sunsets. I probably told him 100 times throughout the trip that each sunset made me happy. I say half joke because in reality sunsets are at the top of my happiness list right behind dogs. A sunset closes out the day and is free to stop and enjoy but what is even more awesome is that no sunset is ever the same. The cloud arrangement and colors always appear different and what shapes them is the location they are in. I don't think we could have asked for a better location. Being above clouds to watch the sun sink down casting orange, blue and pink hues in the sky will forever be one of the most incredible sunsets I've seen. With satisfied views and pictures we decided to head out and satisfy our stomachs. So we officially made it coast to coast...
Playing in the Pacific We have gone as far West as my poor little car could take us. In California we stayed with my cousin Heather and her family who were nice enough to let us take up their space. Especially Jayden who's room we stole... Sorry and thanks! The night we got to California it actually couldn't be better. We got to my cousin's house around 4 or 5 and went to a pool party at my cousin's husbands coworker's house (that's a mouthful) where we just hung out for the majority of the night. It was a nice change from all the running we had been doing and it was cool to meet everyone. The next day we went to San Diego to get our coast to coast shots. Of course we had to go play in the water since we had been in the Atlantic a little under two weeks before! This is really the only place in California we took pictures so hopefully you like them, it's all you're getting! We parked in this fancy area with nothing but yacht sales. I didn't bring enough cash to buy a souvenir unfortunately. Yachts can be quite pricey and they wouldn't let us test drive one... Luckily there was plenty of shoreline to play on and lots of boats to look at. It turned out to be a fun adventure. We just walked around the waterfront for a while taking in the sights. Downtown San Diego The next day was definitely an adventure to say the least... We said goodbye to my cousin the next morning and headed into the city most dreaded by stick shift drivers... Los Angeles. I'll give you a short timetable of our trip into LA. All we had to do was check into our hotel for the night and park the car in the long term parking lot that was already reserved. That's it. We left Heather's house around 10:30am and finished parking the car at 6:30pm. It was quite the mess. Now for the long version... Traffic sucked (go figure). It took us probably two and a half hours to get to the hotel that was only an hour or so from Heather's house. Once we finally got to the hotel there were three hotels all together that shared a gated parking garage with no outside parking at all. I had to park on the street (maybe illegally) so we could check in and get our bags in. Luckily there was still tons of parking in the garage so I didn't have to fight for that. Once we got situated and consolidated our bags for our trip within a trip we took the extra stuff back to the car and headed out to find the long term parking spot. This is where the fun begins... It was a mile and a half from the hotel in the not-so-good-looking part of the town. The entry area was a narrow one lane road in front of this hotel with a lane of parking spots on one side and a big wall right next to that so there was no going around if you had to. Well we had to... All the parking spots were filled and there was a car with its flashers on right in front of the door blocking the exit. I figured he wouldn't be long so I got behind the car and waited. About 10 minutes pass and Rose and I are starting to get frustrated. I'm thinking of backing out and thinking of a plan B for the car. That's when a bus comes in behind us. Now we are stuck in this stupid entry area. Here's a picture of some pelicans to break up the frustration So now we are stuck and still waiting. Finally after another 10 minutes the guy comes out of the hotel and gets back in his car. He pulls forward about 10 feet and takes the last empty spot on the side of this little entry way next to the big wall. I need to check my car in but don't have anywhere to park the car in the meantime. Already frustrated by this whole ordeal I pull forward and put my flashers on too so I could run in and check the car in. At least I pulled forward enough to open up the middle exit so the bus and the line of cars that had accumulated in this time to get out around me. I ran into the hotel to try and make this as quick as possible so we could get back to relaxing at the hotel before our early flight the next morning but that, apparently, was just not in the cards. There was a whole line of people in the lobby trying to check in as well and only one person behind the counter answering phones and checking people in. It took me 25 more minutes just to get to the counter. Rose was in the car waiting. Later I found out she was looking up other parking lots we could use because this one sucked. At the counter I filled out a sheet with the usual stuff about my car. I wrote down my reservation number and the date I was returning. Then, between several phone calls, the lady behind the counter asked me for the keys and said they would park it in their lot. I told her that there were no spots outside and I was sitting in the middle of the road with flashers. She said to just leave it there and she would get to it. With the amount of stuff she was doing by herself I didn't entirely believe her but I was so frustrated by this point that I followed her instructions. Here's another pretty picture for you I walked outside, turned the car off right where it sat, and went back inside to give her the keys. She didn't check anything in her database, she didn't talk to anyone, she didn't do anything to check if the reservation was there or if I was expected. She just took the keys and that was it. I wasn't feeling too confident that I'd see my car again in the same condition I gave it but figured that if something was messed up they'd be buying me a new car so we left. The mile and a half walk back to the hotel was awful. It was hot and it was a semi-sketchy neighborhood. It was still daylight though so I wasn't really worried about our own well being, just about my car... By the time we got back to the hotel it was 6:30pm and we had no interest in doing anything for the rest of the night. We were done with LA and anything that it had to offer. We just ordered a pizza and watched Netflix until bedtime. Things would be better once we got to Hawaii! Update: it's been a week since the car parking fiasco. I got a call this morning from the mess of a hotel and they wanted to know if I was going to pick the car up. On the sheet and the reservation I gave them it said I would be back on July 6th to pick it up. They said that I was only paid up to the 25th of June and that they were going to charge me the standard hotel rates if I left it there any longer. After talking to 5 different people I told them my reservation number again and reminded them of the dates they seemed to have it all worked out. Seemed to.... I guess we'll see if I still have a car when I get back. Anyways here's more pretty pictures from San Diego! |
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