Welcome to Weber City - Yes, It Is A Real Place

Today I started off from London, Kentucky and made my way east towards southern Virginia.

• A few miles south of London was Corbin, Kentucky, where Colonel Sanders ran first started selling his fried chicken at Sanders Cafe and Court, which pre-dated KFC. (The museum was free, but of course had a KFC attached to it.)

 Not so subtle hint to buy more KFC

• Drove through Cumberland Gap in Virginia (They are not quite at fall peak yet)
• Arrived about 40 miles west of Bristol, in Weber City, Virginia (Yes, the name is the only reason I went there, but wound up spending more time there than I thought. Its a fully functioning small town with stuff like a police and fire station, two grocery stores, gas stations, Wendy's AND Burger King, Dollar General, a NAPA store, etc.)

This is an actual place you can visit

I even have a fire department

• Had lunch at the Weber City Burger King (Complete with still functioning CRT TV in the dining area)

They were showing live soccer on this ancient thing. Is that even possible?

• Drove to Natural Tunnel State Park (I happened to take the trail down to the tunnel observation area at just right time, because a time went through the tunnel just a few minutes after I arrived)

The opening is humongous 

• Drove back to Weber City, stopping at R&D Games, one of the best retro video game shops I've ever seen (wish I had taken pictures). If you are ever in the Bristol, Kingsport, or Knoxville areas, I highly recommend taking the drive to Weber City to check them out. Their prices are reasonable and they have everything you could think of. (I bought a Nintendo 64 and three game for $70. At the shops in the Baltimore area it would probably be well over $100).
• Drove to Roanoke to find a hotel for the night and found that the hotel prices jump up a lot since I was looking last night, probably because people are coming into town for the race. Wound up at a Quality Inn 5 miles northeast of Roanoke (Still paid more than I wanted to, but it was better than the stuff in town)
• Ate at Angelle's Diner, where I had a Muffuletta (Italian deli meats on a ciabatta roll with an olive spread)

Yum

Tomorrow is the NASCAR race in Martinsville. Likely going to eat a few famous Martinsville hot dogs. No post tomorrow, as I'll be driving home, likely getting back around midnight, or I'll get a hotel along the way (maybe Hagerstown or Winchester) if it gets too late because of traffic around the track. I'll probably have a wrap-up sometime this week, and then let the blog go silent again for another six years. Now excuse me while I look up real estate prices in Weber City, I have a new life goal.

Mammoth Caves

Today, after leaving the horrible hotel in Missouri, I made my way into Kentucky (after briefly passing through Illinois for about 30 seconds). I made a bee line for Mammoth Caves, which was about a four hour drive. I was able to get the 12:45 Historic Cave Tour. I won't go into much detail about it because you can visit it for yourself, its only about 10 hours from Maryland, so you can easily visit it for a long weekend (also, I could be up all night writing about it.) But, I will say that it was awesome, on the same level with the Grand Canyon.

What's in the big cave? You'll have to find out for yourself (or ask me)...

...but its probably ice cream

I'm now in London, where I would have tea and crumpets with the Queen, if she lived in London, Kentucky. I instead had a spinach, feta, and sausage stromboli at Gondolier Italian Restaurant, which is a chain in the southern states. I'm also at a Country Inn, which is much nicer (and not that much more expensive) than the disaster of a hotel last night.

Tomorrow, I'll probably just drive to Roanoke and spend the afternoon doing stuff there. Roanoke is only about a hour from the track in Martinsville, so it makes sense to spend the night there. But not before I head to a certain city (or town, however you look at it) in southwestern Virginia whose existence is simply amazing.

Driving and Not Much Else

So I called a audible today and instead taking US 50 through Kansas City and St Louis, I drove further south in Kansas to Wichita and then cut east. I drove to Joplin, Missouri, and then picked US 60, droving through the southern part of the state. I got as far east as I could before sundown, winding up in Sikeston, about 20 miles from the border with Kentucky. Why did I do this instead? Because I realized that I could make it to Mammoth Caves before lunch tomorrow if I got close enough to Kentucky. That leaves Saturday to do stuff in eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, or the western part of Virginia, and Sunday the race in Martinsville.

So I spent the entire day driving through the rain and made it to Sikeston, staying at an America's Best Value Inn. Its a large suite room, but the hotel seems like it is half finished. The parking lot is a dirt field, the main lobby is large but empty with no carpet, just padding. My guess is that the hotel was under construction as a better chain, but they decided, for what ever reason, to stop construction, so America's Best swopped in and opened it as is. No wonder they were only charging $60 for this large suite. Also, the power just now went out as I'm writing this. I wonder if they forgot to pay their electric bill?

Nebraska and Kansas: The Land of Mildly Interesting Side Attractions, and Not Much Else (Other Than Corn and Wheat)

Today, I am writing from Salina, Kansas, another town I know next to nothing about Since I again got here after dark, I have no idea what it looks like. My prediction is again going that its going to be surrounded by cornfields. I think I'll actually be right this time.

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• Left Chadron, Nebraska and realized it wasn't surrounded by cornfields, but looked a lot like what I drove through the day before in Wyoming (i.e. Scottish golf course)
• Arrived at Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska. Built in 1987 in under a week, it is a replica of Stonehenge, made out of old cars. (While still cool, this unfortunately, was the most exciting thing I saw today.)

Those are cars, not rocks

• Drove about a hour south to Chimney Rock, a location along the Oregon Trail, that is featured heavily in the game (Sadly, the closest you can get to it is a museum about a mile away. Apparently, they have issues with rattlesnakes near the rock formation. The museum itself was small, and geared slightly to a younger audience.)

I would have loved to get closer to this

• Ate lunch at a KFC in North Platte. Had Georgia Gold Honey Mustard Chicken, which tastes a lot like the Snyder's Honey Mustard and Onion Pretzel Pieces. (Also, North Platte, for such a small town, might have every fast food restaurant in existence.)
• Drove south and east into Kansas, stopping at the geographical center of the continental United States. (Or at least a small monument a half mile from it, since the landowners of the actual center didn't want the monument on their land)

The math behind the determination of the geographical center is actually disputed

• Drove another 30 minutes south to the world's largest ball of twine. (It had a pumpkin face on it for Halloween)

Happy Halloween!

• With it near sunset, I then drove 90 minutes to Salina for the night. Got a club sandwich at the hotel restaurant. Staying at a Quality Inn, which has a room that is similar to last nights room, but has much better internet.

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Tomorrow, I'm going to continue making my way east, picking up US 50 and driving past Kansas City and St. Louis, seeing what along the way in between. I also need to figure out if I'm going to go to the NASCAR race in Martinsville, Virginia on Sunday, as that will impact the route I take on Friday and Saturday. 

Saw Both Mt Rushmore And Crazy Horse, But The Highlight Of The Day Was A Burger

Greetings from Chadron, Nebraska. Not sure what its like here, it was dark out when I got into Nebraska. Probably a bunch of cornfields.

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• Spent the morning driving north through Wyoming (My impression of Wyoming is that it is a giant Scottish golf course that hasn't mowed in a few years. Lots of tall grass, rocky outcroppings, and some sandy pits)
• Cut east into South Dakota, driving through the Black Hills Forest area (Seems they had a forest fire here in the past few years, as a lot of the trees were burnt.)
• Ate lunch in Custer at the Black Hills Burger and Bun Co. Got the Greek Goddess Buffalo Burger, which had feta, spinach, roaster red pepper, and a tasty aioli sauce. It was literally the BEST burger I've ever had. The meat was flavored perfectly and juicy, and while the burger had a lot of ingredients on it, it wasn't messy.

The BEST burger, EVER

• Took the long way to Mt Rushmore, on US 16A, which is a very winding road with a number of small tunnels (Well worth it as I got a great angle of Mt Rushmore coming out of one the tunnels)

What's on the other side of this tunnel?

A bunch of US Presidents!

• Said hi to George, Tom, Teddy, and Abe at Mt Rushmore (If I was planning on staying closer to the park, I would have stuck around for the light show after sunset)

You know, regardless of what angle you look at Mt Rushmore,
it seems that George is always staring directly at you

• Went over to the Crazy Horse Memorial (Still under construction, slowly progressing since it was started in the 1940s)

This monument will be done, at some point

• Realizing that 1700 miles separate me from being able to enjoy on a regular basis the best burger ever, I break one of my unwritten rules of not eating at the same place twice on this trip and return to the Black Hills Burger and Bun Co. for another Greek Goddess burger, this time with a strawberry milkshake too (I later found out the TripAdvisor named it the best burger joint in the country a few years ago, so I'm not exaggerating when I say that its that good.)

The BEST burger, EVER, take two

• Drove down into Nebraska and arrived in Chadron, which I literally know nothing about. (Except that the Best Western that I'm at has nice large rooms, but lousy internet connection. Also its very windy)

Very spacious room, too bad that its seems that the
wireless router is too far away for good connection

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Tomorrow, I'm going to see some roadside attractions throughout Nebraska and Kansas.

Driving through the Rockies

Greetings from Fort Collins, Colorado. Was going to attempt to get to Cheyenne, Wyoming, but the hotel prices up there were double what they were in Fort Collins, which is only a 30 minute difference.

• Starting my morning by going to cafe down the street which offered a complementary breakfast for the hotel stayed at. (Got some tasty biscuits with sausage gravy and has browns)
• Walked Main Street Ouray (Really liked the town being surrounded by tall mountain cliffs)

Mountains everywhere

• Went to Box Canyon Falls in Town (A tall waterfall that runs behind a cliff)

Also went to a bridge at the top

• Drove up into the Rockies on US 550, US 50, and US 285 (Some really cool vantage points of the mountains, with one side of the Rockies being more lush than the other. Also, they are in the fall colors right now over here)

This is over two miles above sea level

• Got lunch at Taco Bell (The chalupa agreed with my stomach better than the Navajo taco from yesterday)
• Stopped at the Continental Divide (Also had a few snow flurries there)

Continental Divide

• Almost went to St Elmo ghost town, but decided not to because it was 45 minutes off the main road and would have put finishing my drive through the Rockies after sunset (Definitely will plan to go there if I am ever in the area again)
• Tried to stop in South Park (the real one being a remodeled 1880's town), but they closed for the year last week.

Clearly not a crudely animated, vulgar town

• Bypassed Denver (Everything that looked interesting to do there closed at 5, which is when I was going to get there)
• Drove up to Fort Collins. Stopped at Charco Broiler Steakhouse at the edge of town. Got onion soup and ground sirloin smothered in green chili sauce. Didn't feel like going into the town itself and dealing with the crowds, being that Fort Collins is the home to Colorado State University. (Yes, I know I technically live in a college town in Arbutus, but UMBC and Colorado State are two very different kinds of colleges)

Yummy soup. Probably not good for me with all that cheese

This is definitely not good for me, but oh so tasty

• Staying at a La Quinta tonight. Room is nice, but around 10pm tonight, it started to like smell burning rubber by the window. (Maintenance person who stopped by said that it was some roof work that was being done, but I wouldn't discount that the noisy neighbors are possibly smoking something, given that it is Colorado and that it was all of a sudden.)

Tomorrow I should be able to get up to Mt. Rushmore around lunch time. After that, I'm going to start slowly making my way back east.

Into the Rockies

I'm getting tired of spending 1.5-2 hours each night writing commentary on what I did each day, so moving forwards, I'm just going to do bullet points and photos

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• Drove north from Flagstaff towards Four Corners. (Very cool part of the country, the scenery changes considerably seeming every 15-20 miles or so)
• Stopped at Four Corners, which is where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah meet. (Lot's of tourist despite being far from everything)

I'm in four states at once

• Ate a Navajo Taco for lunch (This will come back to bit me later on)

Tasty, but painful to my stomach

• Walked through Utah for about a minute, only time I'll visit Utah on this trip
• Made my way into Colorado. (Started having stomach issues)
• Ran into bathroom at Colorado Welcome Center in Cortez (Later got information on where I should go in Colorado)
• Drove into Rockies from Durango towards Ouray (The area around Ouray is likened to the Swiss Alps)

Lots of snowcapped mountains

• Ate at the Outlaw Restuarant in Ouray (Old West Style bar in town)

Chicken Pasta, as well as Cranberry Juice with 7-Up

Yes, the guy at the piano was playing Piano Man at one point

• Staying at the Matterhorn Inn (Small, but nice room)

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Tomorrow, I plan on continue driving in the Rockies towards Denver

The Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is awesome. My commentary won't do it justice, so here is simply one of the many photos I took.

Santa Fe is cool and a bunch of cool landscapes in the middle of nowhere

First I want to apologize to the residents of Albuquerque, NM and Winslow, AZ for blasting songs about your towns ("Albuquerque" by Weird Al, and "Take It Easy" by "The Eagles") loudly out my windows while driving on the highway past your towns. I couldn't resist the temptation to do so. I guess I'm "too white and nerdy." Crickets.

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No pictures today, the hotels Wifi is bad and the I can't get the photos off my phone when using it as a hotspot.

I went over to downtown Santa Fe around 8:30am. Unfortunately, most things in the town didn't open until 10am. So I stopped in a cafe and got breakfast, oatmeal and a Mexican mocha. Afterwards, I spent about an hour walking around the town taking in the adobe architecture that Santa Fe is known for. Once 10am hit, I walked over to the New Mexico History Museum, which went over the history of the state from when it solely belonged to the Native Americans, to modern times, with an additional exhibit on the Manhattan Project. I would highly recommend going to Santa Fe if you are ever in the area, it is a very walkable, tourist friendly city with a bunch of outdoor activities in the mountains surrounding the city. I would, however recommend staying in Albuquerque instead. Its only about 45 minutes away, and the hotels are half the price.

After leaving Santa Fe, I made may way down to Albuquerque for lunch at Chick-Fil-A and then made my west towards Flagstaff. While driving down I-40, the landscape changed from mountains with the small shrubs that dominated the day before to mesas with the small shrubs, and then eventually bare red mesas. At one point, I attempted to get on Route 66, but got lost and returned to I-40 after about five minutes. It turns out that, for the most part, Route 66 parallels I-40 anyway, so I would see the same landscapes regardless.

After crossing into Arizona, the mesas disappeared and were replaced with some rolling hills and the occasional small canyon. Still about 95 miles from Flagstaff, a snowcapped mountain appeared the the distance. This turned out to be Humphrey's peak, which is over 12,000 ft tall and a only few miles north and west of Flagstaff. It's amazing that its so clear out here that you can see something almost 100 miles away. I never found a place to get a good picture of it, maybe on the way back from the Grand Canyon tomorrow

I briefly stopped Flagstaff for gas, and then continued west for another 45 minutes to Williams, Arizona, which is about 30 minutes closer to the Grand Canyon than Flagstaff. Remember earlier how I mentioned I couldn't Route 66 earlier, well I found it, and not only that, but one of the premier "Route 66 Towns" as well. The streets were lined with Route 66 shops, classic diners and restaurants. I spent about an hour doing laundry at the local laundromat and then got dinner at the Pine Country Restaurant, having fried cod and chips, as well as some tasty coleslaw that had a hint of horseraddish in it. I am staying at Super 8 tonight, which is about as generic of a hotel as you can get. That fine as the hotels in Williams are a bit pricy since it is the closest I-40 gets to the Grand Canyon, in addition to being a classic Route 66 town.

Tomorrow is the Grand Canyon. It's unlikely I'll make it there before sunrise at 6:40, but I would at least like to be on my way there by then.

Mexico...The New One

Today, I have spent most of the day in New Mexico. I started the day by driving south from Amarillo, through the Palo Duro Canyon. I had concerns that it wouldn't be worth it as I was driving there, as the landscape leading up to it was the typical flat Texas land that I drove through all yesterday. Suddenly, however, the road went down a hill into the canyon, showing landscapes and rock

Even in the cold and rainy conditions, this was impressive

formations that I have never seen in person before. If I can be impressed by a supposedly small canyon, I can't wait to see the Grand Canyon in a few days. There was also a second canyon about 15

First cacti sighting of the trip

minutes later that has been partially filled to create a reservoir. I thought the rock formations at this second canyon were more unique (some were column shaped, but I don't have pictures due to not have a place to park for these) 

There is another canyon below all that water

After leaving the canyon, I entered New Mexico and made my way down to Roswell. The landscape changed from the lush green grass ranches of Texas, to a dry landscape with small shrubs littering the flat ground as far as the eye can see. Well, not necessarily dry today, as the rain had followed me into this desolate area. Before I got to the outskirts of Roswell, I had probably gone about 50 miles since I had seen a structure other than the power lines along side the road. And this was on a "major road" (US Highway 70)

In Roswell, they really like to play up the whole "alien" thing, with over a dozen store fronts devoted

Alien drinking a smoothie

solely to aliens. After I had a cobb salad at a small diner in the middle of town, of course, I went to

Here's that required salad I talked about yesterday

the International UFO Museum, which naturally is housed in an old movie theater. It started decently enough, talking about 1947 Roswell UFO incident and giving "non-alien" explanations to what it could have been, ie the government had a lot of different scientific and aircraft testing in the area at that time. But then it quickly devolved into "aliens are real, here is a bunch of illogical proof." At one

Yup, aliens are real. They are made of plastic and animatronic

display, they even tried to pass off a picture from a 1930s-ish comic book as a real life alien encounter. It was good for good laugh and not much more.

After getting tired of the alien stuff, I went to two art museums, also in Roswell, that were highly recommended by the visitors center. One was traditional and also went into some detail about the history of Roswell (other than aliens), and the other was more modern. I enjoyed both, in particular the modern one.

This piece of art is made completely of unfinished puzzles

After leaving Roswell, I made my three hour journey north towards Santa Fe. I stopped for gas about halfway there and realized that one of my headlights had gone out, so I would have to replace them when I got up to Santa Fe. Along the way, the landscape kept the same small shrubs, but gradually got hillier. When I crossed I-40, about 45 minutes outside of Santa Fe, a dense fog set in. Being able to see for miles was reduced to maybe 100 feet. When the fog lifted about 10 minutes later, the landscape changed once again, with the hills now legit mountains leading into Santa Fe.

In Santa Fe, I stopped at AutoZone to purchase new headlights. After some struggling, and having to go back in the store to purchase a small pair of pillars, I had successfully installed the new headlights and also booked my hotel for the night, the Lodge at Santa Fe. On the app that I was using, it was the first thing that came up and seemed reasonably priced at $90 for a more upscale, southwest themed hotel. What I didn't realize, is that there was an additional nightly "amenity" $15 fee, I was more

Take away the southwest-y stuff and you have a generic hotel room

concerned about fix my car when I was booking it. Oh well, I'm only staying the one night anyway. The room is nice looking, but probably needs some updating and is not much different than a standard hotel room. You are really just paying extra for the southwest theme. Dinner at the hotel restaurant was nice, where I had Shrimp Ranchero and Fried Ice Cream for dessert.

Shrimp Ranchero. It sort of looks like a salad

Fried Ice Cream, ie, not salad

Tomorrow, I'll spend the morning in downtown Santa Fe and then make my way to Flagstaff, hopefully earlier enough to do laundry. Flagstaff will also set me up for the Grand Canyon this weekend.

Food and Weird Al

Today, I started out by making my way over to Dallas. While it rained most of the day, it was mostly just a drizzle, so that didn't stop me from going to the State Fair, nor did it stop a lot of other people. The fair had a surprisingly large crowd for a cold and rainy Wednesday morning. I wandered around
the fair for about two and a half hours, checking out the different exhibitions, vendors, and food.

Big Tex - He also talks, but half the time just tells you to buy Dickies Blue Jeans.
What If I don't like jeans?

Being Texas, it was times over the top, and also had a lot of livestock. They even have a car show on par with the one they do at the Baltimore Convention Center right in the middle of the fair. I also took in a pig race, which again was over the top for what it was. While I didn't want really to eat anything

Pig Racing, is, um, pig racing, but they seem to make a big deal about it

much there because of my next stop, I couldn't go to the Texas State Fair and not get something that was deep fried, so I got a deep fried Reese's and a scope of ice cream. Yum.

Hello, tasty deep fried, artery clogging food

After leaving the state fair, I made my way north of Dallas to Denton for In-N-Out Burger, a California chain known for their secret menu that recently entered the Texas market (the furthest east

Please come Baltimore, you'll make a lot of money there

they are currently have gone). I ordered a Double-Double (on the menu), which is a double cheese burger, and Animal-style Fries (not on the menu), which are fries covered in cheese, grilled onions
and thousand island dressing. This was probably one of the best fast food burgers I've ever had. I would say they surpass Five Guys and live up to the hype.

Hurray secret menu

After finishing that delicious meal, I had to decide what I was to do next. It was about 2PM and both Lubbock and Amarillo were about 5 hours out with really nothing in between. When I originally mapped out the trip, I figured I would stay in the Dallas-Fort Worth area tonight, so I could have tried to find more to do in the area, but it was still cold and rainy around there. So I decided to make my way to Amarillo, which means I'm about a day ahead in my trip, which will allow me to more stuff on the way back home. Amarillo also allows me to check out a scenic road through Palo Duro Canyon.

When I mentioned that there was nothing on the way to Amarillo, I meant there was nothing. Just mostly flat farmland and ranches, and very few trees. Unlike the Natchez Trace on Monday, I was ok with this desolate road, as I had never experienced landscapes like this before. Also, it became the fun Weird Al sing-along portion of the trip. I forgot to mention that a some point before I reached Dallas, I started to ask Siri to play an album, but then realized that I wanted to hear a playlist instead. When I said, "Hey Siri, play the album, er, um...nevermind", Siri took that to mean Nevermind by Nirvana, so "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came on. After listening to the Nirvana version, obviously I decided to listen to the Weird Al version, which is clearly the superior version. From there, I just listened to Weird Al for the rest of day. I could go on and on about Weird Al, but I'll just say that to appease the Star Wars fans that hate episode one (which I actually kind of like), they should keep the story canon, but replace the movie with just the Weird Al song about it. I think that would be a win-win for everyone. Also, Weird Al day may have come a day too early on this trip, given where I will likely wind up tomorrow. Weird Al fans will know what I'm referencing.

I eventually wound up in Amarillo around sunset. It was still cloudy and a bit damp out, but there was clear sky to the north and east. I decided to go to what has become the highlight of the trip so far for dinner, the Big Texan Steak Ranch. I started seeing signs for it shortly after I left Denton, so if they

This is Texas

were advertising it that far out, it must be good. Remember how I said that the state fair was over the top. This was that on steroids and more. Flashy signage and a giant cow statue out front. Large saloon

The cow goes "moo"
The Weber goes "yum"

style eating area lined with deer heads. Cowboy hats everywhere and people playing country tunes on guitar. A 72 oz steak challenge, that if you finish it and the sides, you get your meal for free. It is stereotypical Texas and it is great.

This is the best setting to eat a juicy steak. With dozens of dead deer staring at you.

I didn't do the challenge, partly because I had In-N-Out only a few hours earlier, and also because I know I couldn't finish even half that and didn't want to pay $72. So I got the 18 oz "Dallas cut" Ribeye with a side of fries and chili, which was only of the best steaks I've ever had. If you are ever anywhere near Amarillo, you must go here. You will not be disappointed.

Bowl of chili not pictured. After today, I might need to eat salads
for the rest of the trip, but hey, this is totally worth it

Tomorrow, I plan to check out the scenic road through the nearby canyon mentioned earlier. Hopefully the scenic road book that I bought will be able to redeem itself after the disaster that was the Natchez Trace Parkway. Afterwards, I'm going to head into New Mexico and check out all the aliens in Roswell! From there, I'll probably make my way back north to the I-40 area for the night.