A Week in the Life…

Brad — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 20:23:00 +0000

…of Newly North Carolinians. This will be the final blog entry for Roadtrip USA: Charlotte or Bust. We still may add some photos we’ve taken in the past week…Ryan seems to have gone missing from our photo gallery We’ve had fun the past 7 days..but the vacation is officially over. Went out on the lake twice, did HomeArama (a local home expo, featuring Nancy’s employer), been exploring the area, and getting some r&r. But, it’s time to buckle down and get back to work. Heidi met with recruiters last Friday, and already had an interview today, that she seemed to think went very well. I have been applying to a few positions, and just heard back from a creative services placement agency and hope to speak with them real soon. I’ve also been in touch with some people to possibly do some freelance work…. busy, busy, busy! Heidi and I would like to thank each and everyone one of you that have been following our journey. You’ve all made the effort that this took worth it. We couldn’t have done it without the constant support (and sometimes guilt! ) you gave us along the way. We had a blast! We’d also like to thank those of you that shared your homes along the way… Grandpa Bert, the Pebble Beach visit was perfect, even though it would have been better had you been there. I’ll admit I got a little emotional leaving knowing that it may be a bit before we get back. It is such a beautiful place, and holds so many dear memories. Tricia, Mark, Martha, and Becca…We had such a good time with you. It couldn’t have been an any better send-off than to spend it with family. Mike & Michelle… Really glad that we were able to get down your way and see you before heading east. We look forward to getting together again soon out this way (as Paul and Melissa like to refer to as NC: New California!) Gavin & Liz…Really nice to see you, Gavin. I think that’s a visiting record, about 18h, right?!? Now you can’t complain (too much) the next time I’m in town for spring training. Liz, it was great to meet you and glad that you’re part of Gavin’s life. We looking forward to getting to know you even better. Jeff Z…You’ve got a really nice place out there in Frisco, and hope your plans to move closer to work come to fruition. Thank you so much for the hospitality, and hope that one of your many business ventures brings you our way. The Wheeler Gang, especially Liz and Gary…Wow, what a great time in Jefferson City we had, even though it was only overnight (it felt like it was three days, we saw so many of you!) Sorry we won’t be able to get up there this weekend to do the camping thing, but keep us in mind the next time..we’d love to be a part of it. Besides, I don’t want to confuse Jenny and Jill any more than they already are. I told Ryan he was safe! Mom & Michael and Anna-Katherine & Geordie…wish we could have stayed longer, but the good news is you’re less than 4h away!! It couldn’t have been a better way to end our journey than to spend it with family! And special thanks to Ryan & Nancy…We promise to do our best not to make the summer unbearable. You’ve opened your home to us not only for a night or two, but for the duration of our build. We will always be grateful! Roomies 4 Ever! haha We love you all! Brad & Heidi

Sweet Caroline

Brad — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 03:53:28 +0000

Today it all ended, and then it begins… We were dreading the last leg of our journey just as much as we were looking forward to it. The joy of arriving at our final destination had been a topic of many discussions during the 4500+ miles and almost 80 hours of time spent behind the wheel of the Jeep (she performed brilliantly, I might add!). We also knew that the vacation was over, which has made us a little sad…it has been a truly amazing experience. It was a four hour trip from my mother’s house outside Atlanta. One fill up and a coffee-induced bathroom break slowed us down a bit. We should have been able to make it in less time, but I wasn’t going to push it since we’d been fortunate enough to avoid johnny law most of the trip (see Carls-good Caverns). Members of my family have done that route enough to keep my right foot light, and as long as we made it in less than 5h we’d be OK. We arrived just after 1:00, which gave us enough time to unload the Jeep into Hotel J (the guest bedroom and Ryan & Nancy’s, and our new digs until the house is complete), and head back over to Mt. Holly for our walk-through, about 10 minutes away…we got there at the stroke of 2:00. Right on time! It was our first time back out there since we bought the house over two months ago, and what a surprise. Ryan & Nancy have been kind enough to go out a few times to take pictures of it, but it’s a different experience to see it first hand. The pictures you see of me are in the garage..they must be sixteen foot ceilings! Now, all I want for Christmas is a car lift! On the way up, Heidi and Nancy had spoke to each other about what to do for our first dinner as roommates. When Heidi said “How about barbeque?”, Nancy said “That sounds good” and everything was set. When she called back a little while later, Nancy said that she’d ordered BBQ, and would pick it up on the way home. I guess we need to learn that back here barbeque is BBQ..as in pulled pork, baked beans, slaw, and hushpuppies, not cheesburgers and hot dogs on the grill in the back yard! We’ve made it, but we’ve got a lot to learn. P.S. - One more entry to come..stay tuned (got to get some pictures of Ryan in there)!

A Peach of a Day…

Sun, 04 Jun 2006 03:32:55 +0000

Ok, I’m a little behind on getting the blog updated, please forgive me. We’ve been a little busy, to say the least! We decided to try and take advantage of being able to sleep in Sunday morning, but the birds weren’t quite on the same page. They began to chirp bright and early which made it a little difficult to sleep through. No worries, we woke up just in time to have some coffee and cinnamon/sugar toast with Brennie and Anna. The only three scheduled items for the day were our spa pedicure and manicure appointments at noon, pool time in the afternoon, and the season finale of the Sopranos. Rough day, huh? The sun was still high in the sky when we finished our spa treatments, so we (Brad, me, AK, Geordie, and Brennie) all headed over to the pool to spend some much needed time in the sun relaxing. The boys left the girls to get settled in while they went out to get us ice (we needed it in order to mix our favorite beverage…). Brad became the official bartendar and Geordie…well, let’s just say that he only attempted to open one bottle of beer at the pool. About 30 seconds after we were discussing the ‘no bottles at the pool’ rule, we heard a bottle smash on the concrete. They got it all cleaned up and decided that it would be better to open all beers on the lawn outside of the pool area (just in case…). After about an hour, we were blessed with the presence of Craig and Jessica. They arrived at the perfect time - just before the clouds decided to completely let loose. That pool cleared out so fast! We didn’t leave immediately, we just moved up to the large gazebo to wait out the rain. The girls had a chance to talk more and the boys were able to work on Geordie’s new toy, his remote control car. We then headed to the house to grab a quick grilled london broil and asparagus dinner before heading over to Craig and Jessica’s with AK and Geordie to watch the season finale for the Sopranos. Their place is very cool - they are quite the designers! Unfortunately, the Sopranos was quite disappointing. They kept making you think something exciting was going to happen, but it didn’t Oh well, we’ll just wait until 2010 (just kidding, it will only seem like 2010 when they finally release them) for the release of the next season.

Georgia On My Mind

Brad — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 22:22:36 +0000

Today was a driving day. Plan was to get to my Mom’s house in Atlanta for dinner, so we left Paducah, KY around 10:45a, figuring we’d be at our destination about 7:00p EDT (we crossed into our last time zone … woohoo!). Mom was making Western Spaghetti, one of my favorites. Heidi and I were looking forward to a home cooked meal…it had been a week! Well, “Lori” kept shaving minutes off our eta, so I started looking at the atlas to see if we could cut across and surprise Casey & Geena Quillin, who run a gas station/mini mart/bbq restaurant (Sanky’s) in a little town called Cumming, GA. Casey and I go back almost 30 years, and considered one of my best friends. Since we are in kind of a rush to Charlotte, we figured this will be the only opportunity on the drive across to see them. We took Route 20 from I75 to Route 400, and I have never in my life seen a stretch of road with so many abandoned houses..let alone surrounded by brand new developments with homes ranging from half a mil, to a mil plus! It was really strange. Anyway, I was anticipating a big surprise, since I know both Casey and Geena probably consider Sanky’s more of a home than their own. As the day got older, we started to get a little worried that they may have headed home for the day, being a weekend an all. When we arrived, I thought I recognized CQs car, so I felt the detour was going to be worth it. We parked, walked in and didn’t see either of them behind the counter, so I started to get a little deflated. We asked the cashier if they happened to be around, and they had left a few hours earlier..Oh well. We will just have to catch up the next time! That put us at Mom’s a half hour earlier than she expected us, and didn’t recognize the car when we pulled in the driveway. It is kind of weird seeing your own car in the driveway at a house you’ve only visited before by air or rental car! It was a beautiful evening in Atlanta, and we ate our dinner outside. My sister and her husband, Anna-Katherine and Geordie, had come over and we visited until about 11:00. We were beat. I crawled into bed with every intention of writing today’s entry. I woke up an hour later with a hot lap, screensaver staring at me, and my hands on the keyboard! I guess I was tired. The end of our adventure is near.

The Spirit of St. Louis

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 14:53:40 +0000

After a GREAT nights sleep at the Inn of Gary and Liz Wheeler, we woke up to a big pot of coffee, steaming hot blueberry muffins, and lots of fresh strawberries (compliments of the amazing Lizzie!). It was really nice to be able to enjoy a bit of a leisurely morning with Gary, Liz, and John…yes, I’m pretty sure that John smelled the muffins on his way to work and wasn’t about to miss them Thank you again to the entire Wheeler clan for taking care of us as we passed through Jefferson City - we had a fantastic time! We decided that we needed to get to St. Louis soon so we could learn about this ‘Spirit of St. Louis’ as quickly as possible, so we had to finally say good bye. We made it to the arch around 1:00 and were watching the Lewis and Clark movie 30 minutes later and heading to the top just 15 minutes after the movie. I will admit that I did think about being a chicken and letting Brad go alone, but that didn’t last long. He reminded me that we had just been down a 700 ft elevator when we visited Carlsbad Caverns earlier this week and that the elevator up would be shorter than that (630 ft) - that definitely helped! What an amazing experience (luckily it wasn’t a windy day)! We left the arch and headed over to take the tour through the original Budweiser Brewery just a few blocks away. That place is yet another great place to visit! The details in every building were absolutely beautiful. The home for the Clydesdales was fantastic - it even had big stained glass windows surrounding the middle of the room and a huge chandelier. This is definitely the way to live if you’re a Clydesdale! It all ended where we were able to taste a couple of beers and a new wine cooler type drink that they are calling Peels - we tried the cranberry/peach one…it will definitely be added to the lake drink list this summer! Believe it or not, we did all of this and were able to hit the road before 6:00. We made it down to Paducah tonight - trying to make our journey tomorrow a little easier. Had a quick bite to eat at the Texas Roadhouse Kentucky style - yeah, and we didn’t look out of place. We decided that they probably should have checked our license plate prior to letting us have dinner there! The waitress was very excited to be able to throw a water balloon at her manager over selling Brad’s additional fixin’s. We definitely needed to be more alert for that experience!

Missouri Loves Company

Brad — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 14:04:50 +0000

Thanks for the title Nancy, it is definitely appropriate for one of our final stops of the trip. Besides, it’s your family that we’re visiting. I’ll make it quick because we are pressing on today. If all works out, we may get to Nashville tonight..make the day to Atlanta a bit easier. We made some good time from Frisco. “Lori” tried to take us down yet another dirt road. This time we hadn’t gone off a main route for too long, so we doubled back. We left Frisco about 8:00, and started to realize that we’d hit Jefferson City right about 5:00. My sister-in-law’s family lives there, and it’ll be a short hike to St. Louis tomorrow morning, so that will help. Liz and Gary were kind enough to offer their home to us, and we enjoyed visiting with them. Nancy’s Dad, Bud, took a liking to Heidi last year when she visited for Nancy’s Bridal Shower, so we wanted to get over and see him while we were here. It started as a lunch visit tomorrow, then to breakfast, but ultimately decided on getting pizza and hanging out tonight. Actually makes the most sense, since it gives us the time we need to do St. Louis tomorrow. We had a great time! We took over pizzas, grabbed a few beers, and just hung out. John, his wife Janine, and their girls stopped by. Kathy Jo, Jenny, Jill, and even Brandon made an appearance. They all seemed to bring friends with them, so it seemed like their were a TON of people hanging out. Very cool..but we didn’t expect anything less from the Wheeler clan. We thank your entire family for their hospitality! Next stop..The Gateway Arch and the Anheuser Busch Brewery Tour!

Deep in the Heart of Texas

Wed, 31 May 2006 05:56:22 +0000

I changed the title..When we woke up to leave, Jeff (our host) threw that out there, and we liked it..Texas, in general, certainly has it’s own personality. I love seeing the road signs “Don’t Mess with Texas” and “Drive Friendly”. They’re everywhere! After what we thought was a great dinner last night on the Riverwalk, I woke up this morning not feeling very well. We’ve decided that shrimp will no longer be in my diet - I’ve just gotten sick too many times following shrimp dinners. Luckily, I’m traveling with the greatest guy out there and got us out of San Antonio and took care of me all day. I slept and Brad drove. Had some weather coming up, but luckily only lasted about half the trip. By the time we hit Waco, it had let up. We arrived in Frisco about 5:30 and had some extra time to get the oil changed in the Jeep, since we’ve put 3000 miles on it since we had it serviced last month…about 2600 on this trip alone! Had a fantastic meal at this little italian place called Nicola’s in a little area between Frisco and downtown Dallas that reminded us of Broadway Plaza and the surrounding area in Walnut Creek. Nice restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc. We also had the pleasure of meeting Danielle…the person responsible for bringing Jeff to Dallas a few years back. Danielle, it was nice to finally put a face to the name and Jeff, thank you again for the hospitality, we enjoyed visiting with you and glad that it was able to work for the both of us. On a side note, we’ve altered our itinerary slightly for the next few days. Evidently, the house outside Charlotte is being built in record time, and we need to meet with the low voltage contractor (alarm, data, phone, etc.) on Monday afternoon for our walk-through. Hard to believe it was four weeks ago that we were on a conference call for our pre-construction meeting!! Anyway, we’ll be blowing out of Frisco early tomorrow, and stretch the day to Jefferson City..600 miles. We’ll try and have breakfast with Bud on Friday, head to St. Louis and do the Arch, and possibly the brewery tour at Budweiser. Spend the night on the east side of St. Louis, then get up and head for Atlanta. So, Tulsa and Nashville are out…I don’t think they’ll miss us! You may miss us the next few days, since we’ll be spending a lot of the time in the car! Sorry about the crappy pictures..we forgot to drag the camera along to dinner, so we had to use our cell phones, and it was dark out!

Remembering The Alamo

Brad — Tue, 30 May 2006 00:44:01 +0000

We slept in this morning. We’re on vacation, right? I have to say that San Antonio is a really nice city. The Riverwalk is such a cool attraction…great restaurants, nice people, and a lot of history. After a leisurely morning/early afternoon stroll to get our iced coffee down on the Riverwalk, we did a little window shopping, and grabbed a late lunch at Rita’s..yet another little restaurant serving mexican faire! I think by the time we hit Charlotte, we’ll have had our fill! The afternoon seemed to slip by and we needed to get back to the hotel to refresh the camera battery before heading out to our tourist stop. Besides, it was getting a little steamy..I know, I know..we have no idea! The Alamo was very cool, but after a brief History Channel documentary, and a walk around the area, we understood much better the impact that this site has on American history. Back to the hotel for a brief rest. We needed to take advantage of the free interent access we have here, and the wireless connectins we’ve encountered on the trip have left a lot to be desired. Got a call from the auto shipper I used for the Audi, and it has made record time. They told us an estimated 6/5 delivery..it hit the Pineville, NC terminal last friday! So, I’ll be on the phone tomorrow trying to get it set up so Ryan can get down there in the next few days to pick it up….sorry, Ryan We’ll head out tomorrow for Frisco, and may have some time to stop in Dallas to see the Book Repository, where JFK was asassinated from. Jeff said it’s a solemn experience, but worth seeing if we have the time. We’ll see, since we’re looking at a 5+ hour drive, and would like to sleep in again.

Carls-good Caverns

Mon, 29 May 2006 17:05:20 +0000

Luckily, I woke up this morning thinking that I needed to get reservations for the Kings Palace tour at Carlsbad Caverns. The reservation line opened at 8am and I had tickets reserved by about 8:10 By the time that we got to the caverns, both the 10am and 11am tours were sold out…yet another time on this whirlwind trip that all has worked out for us Were we in for a surprise at the caverns!?!? We’d both been in caverns before, so thought that this would be close to the same thing…not even close! The plan was to take the 1.5 hour tour, visit the gift shop quickly, and then hit the road…we just didn’t realize how much there is to see outside of the tour! The caverns were absolutely amazing! If you haven’t been there, you’ve got to go. We’d definitely recommend the tour (despite the very interesting/dorky tour guide). We could have spent all day there, but we did have to hit the road. The only bad part about the caverns is the area around them…it’s not the most exciting landscape to say the least. Brad was in a bit of a hurry to get back to the town of Carlsbad to fill up with gas, grab lunch, and give the Jeep a much needed wash down. Unfortunately, a state patrol was there to greet us as we entered the city. Luckily, Brad received a verbal warning! We were on high alert after that The trip through Texas was completely different than what I expected. It changed from dry, flat, and boring to green, hilly, and very pretty. San Antonio is great! We had dinner on the Riverwalk and had a chance to check out a bit of the city. We’ve decided to stay for two nights so we can meet up with Jeff Z in Frisco on Wednesday night. We checked into the La Quinta right near the Riverwalk and a block and a half from The Alamo. We’ve decided to sleep in tomorrow (I think we both need it at this point!). We’re looking forward to an extra day here!

A little taste of Texas

Brad — Sun, 28 May 2006 06:13:14 +0000

Following a wonderful afternoon and evening with Gavin and Liz, and a nights rest, the longest distance to do in a day awaited us. According to the GPS, the route would take us south through Tuscon then east toward New Mexico, with a dip down through El Paso, and then back up into NM, and into Carlsbad…560 miles.We left Mesa (outside Phoenix) about 9:45 after a great breakfast at the Valley Eatery Diner Restaurant (honestly, that was the name of the place..look at the picture!) with Gav and Liz. We decided on the southern route into Carlsbad (through El Paso) because something caught my eye in the atlas we’ve been referring to. Evidently, Guadalupe National Park is home to the highest peak in Texas. There are some photos in the gallery. Actually a very pretty sight to see, especially as the sun was setting and the shadows cast across the face. We figured that since we be seeing a lot of flat over the next few days, this little taste of Texas may as well have a purpose. Outside El Paso, we crossed the Rio Grande..more like the Rio Pequeño. It must have been where we crossed it, but I swear I could have thrown a rock across it. To think that only a few miles down river Mexico lies on the opposite side.. Anyway, east of El Paso is where the drive got interesting, or should I say the exact opposite! 135 miles of nothing in every direction. The only thing that kept our attention was Gaudalupe Peak off in the distance, knowing that when we reached it the end of the day was near. Settled in at the Continental Inn, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and hope to get a good night’s rest. Tomorrow is our second longest day, about 450 miles to get to San Antonio, and we’re doing the Carlsbad Caverns before we leave!