This is the Enddd

As most of you know, the road trip concluded about a month ago... after looking back on some of the features, I was probably a bit optimistic in my original assumptions. If you remember my original post:
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I've decided to take a big swig out of my AMERICA mug.


Here's the deal:

10,000 miles
25 stops
15 ski destinations


I'm probably a little bit off my rocker assuming I'll actually be able to make it to all these places.
At a rough average of 1,250 miles per week, that's a lotttt of driving, even for me. The benefit is that I know people in almost 95% of the places I'll be staying, which should make the drives more palatable. In some cases, I'll be staying longer than a week - hopefully that will keep my sanity in check.

I could spend those two months looking for a job... but then that just wouldn't be any fun, now would it?

Destinations:

Google Map, Roughly


Oklahoma
Austin
Dallas
Taos, NM
Colorado Springs, CO
Vail
Breck
MARDI GRAS - New Orleans, LA
Beaver Creek
Winter Park
Steamboat
Copper Mtn
Jackson Hole
Big Sky
Sun Valley
Alta
Snowbird
Tahoe
Mt Bachelor
Portland, OR
Seattle, WA
San Francisco, CA
Los Angeles
THE OC
Las Vegas
Phoenix/Scottsdale
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As you can see by the map above... I took more than a swig out of the America mug. I finished it, and called the bartender over a few more times for a refill.

10,000 miles turned into 23,000
25 "stops" turned into more more than 26 major cities. Skipped only Salt Lake City, Hotlanta, and Miami. Based on my America journey, however, the only things I skipped were Mormons, fried chicken, and "sunny weather and shady people". Therefore, I don't feel nearly as bad.

Below is a reprint of a finalized trip email I sent out several weeks ago to almost everyone I knew, detailing the final trip stats:



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325,000 Marriott points
21, 670 miles (87% of the distance around the equator)
8,700 pictures
$2,881 in fuel (est.)
150 rounds of target practice
116 days
36 states
26 major cities - (I pretty much skipped Salt Lake City and Miami)
22 pint glasses collected
4 growlers
18 days on the beach - LA/San Diego/Charleston, SC
15 days of skiing/9 resorts

• Vail
• Taos
• Winter Park
• Steamboat
  
• Beaver Creek
• Breckenridge
• Copper Mountain
• Jackson Hole
• Big Sky
  

9 national parks
16 lbs of bbq
5 oil changes
18 bags of sunflower seeds
10 microbreweries
2 rodeos: Ft Worth, TX and San Antonio, TX
6 deer burgers
3 different sand dunes:

• Coral Pink Sand Dunes, UT - home of the infamous "sandboarding" pics
  
• White Sands Missile Range, NM
• Great Sand Dunes Nat'l Park, CO
  

3 nights spent sleeping in the car - Norman, OK - Missoula, MT - Pocatello, ID
2 brewery tours - Coors & Budweiser
2 unpaid traffic tickets - Beverly Hills, CA and Charleston, SC
1/2 case of Firefly sweet tea vodka - Charleston
1 traffic stop - outside of Zion National Park
1 order of fried alligator - New Orleans
RIDICULOUS meal in Denver:

• 1 Elk steak
• 1 yak steak
• 1 quail
• 1 ostrich steak
• 1 order of "Rocky Mountain Oysters"

1 lost pair of Timberlands
1 cracked windshield - Somewhere in CO

... and 2 trips to New Orleans, neither of which I drove to.


Favorite breakfast: Southwest Eggs Benedict, The Diner - Norman, OK
Favorite Lunch: Hodad's Burgers, San Diego, CA / Nick's Crispy Tacos - San Francisco, CA / Yo Mama's, New Orleans, LA
Favorite Dinner: Buckhorn Exchange, Denver, CO/ ANY bbq
Best dessert: Concrete from Ted Drewe's Custard - St Louis, MO

Favorite ski resort: Jackson Hole, WY
Best ski day: 18' at Big Sky, Montana
Favorite city: San Francisco, CA / Charleston, SC/ Austin/TX
Favorite Drive: Rte 1 from San Francisco to Los Angeles (Big Sur mostly) & Western Montana
Worst drive: (tie) Dallas, TX to Albuquerque, NM and Kansas.
Best tour: Ft Carson tour & Budweiser Brewery (St Louis)
Weirdest night spent: sleeping in my car after 13 hours of driving - the Great Northern Brewing Co in Whitefish, MT
Best Festival: Mardi Gras
Favorite live music: Austin, TX and Nashville, TN
Favorite bar: The Tractor Room, San Diego, CA
Best Hike: Fairyland trail, Bryce Canyon, UT
Best photo opp: Antelope Canyon, UT
Best bumper sticker: "Vegetarian is an old Indian word for 'lousy hunter'" Charleston, SC
Weirdest meal, other than Rocky Mountain Oysters: "Horseshoe Sandwich" - Central Illinois
Best pizza: Lou Malnati's - Chicago
Best college stadium experience: getting trapped in the press box at 10 pm - Beaver Stadium - Corvallis, OR
Worst college football stadium experience: running stadiums at Aggieland - College Station, TX

Best BBQ:
Brisket: Kreuz Market - Lockhart, TX
Best pulled pork: Arthur Bryant's - Kansas City, KC
Best ribs: Rendezvous - Memphis, TN
Best sausage: Kreuz Market - Lockhart, TX / The Old German Restaurant - Choctaw, OK
Best Chicken: The Lady and Sons - Savannah, GA


There are countless more useless cocktail party stats, but again, thank you to everyone who had a couch/bed/floor/air mattress I could stay on. I sincerely appreciate it - 115 days living the dream would clearly have been impossible had I needed to sleep in my car every night. Unfortunately, I ran out of places to drive to...

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