And we walked off to look for America

we’ve been on the road since sunday and are spending the night in Tupelo, Mississippi. we have seen some pretty outstanding things and unfortunately the photos from the 1st few days are not accessible so i’ll cover those later. but here’s what I can do now:

we went to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on Tuesday and rogray had never seen it so he was surprised:



we went for 2 “hikes” – one to Bright Angel Point and one down the Kaibab trail where we came upon this:



we figured it was like a jenga for hikers: everyone passing by would add another rock: mine is the teeny-tiny one on the tippy-top.


after the biggest canyon ever we were treated to these as we drove out of Arizona:



they were huge, beautiful and everywhere.

we crashed in Flagstaff after having some amazing Mexican food down the street from our hostel. the next day we made an impulse stop at the Meteor Crater and were amazed at how large it was and then drove through the Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert where it was very windy and very pretty:





from there we headed into the 1st of 2 insane lightning storms to Albuquerque where we discovered that everything closes at 9pm there. yesterday was our big driving day – we drove through New Mexico, Texas where we discovered the front page news in Amarillo is this:



before we left Texas we were able to trash talk Bush and see this:



the biggest cross in the country in Groom, Texas. if you look closely on the right you can see that the crucifixion is also there and the whole 12 stations of the cross is around the thing. Texas people.

we peddled through Oklahoma and slept in Arkansas where our one tourist stop was this:



the building is really pretty -- a metaphor for the "bridge to the 20th century" which is repeated throughout the tour -- and it is in a beautiful spot overlooking the river --i felt like i was on some kind of pilgrimage. during the 12 minute welcome video i actually began to cry -- going through the library looking at the years Clinton was in office was moving because we were reminded that there was this amazing period of time where things weren't so bad and actually kind of great -- barak obama people -- that's all i'm saying -- let's just get to barak. . .

anyway, rogray and i pretended to be Clinton in the replica of the cabinet room – i like his but i think mine is very Clinton-esque – if Clinton had big boobs and wore pink.





after rogray got his fill of the oval office



we went down the street to the flying fish and got catfish baskets which were deelishish as were the hushpuppies.




since we are sleeping in Elvis’ birthplace we ate at one of his favorite drive-ins – Johnnie’s – and ate a bbq sandwich and “doughburger.” both were good but rogray’s bbq was better than my burger mixed with bread.

tomorrow we hit the ATL and spend time with my fam including my two wacky nephews and two wacky godsons -- and hopefully eat some veggies.

oh -- and thank god for jk's mixes -- i honestly don't think we would have made it this far without them -- also, they are amazing.