Day 4: Santa Fe

After enduring an entire night of what sounded like were 400 pound children running across the floor at all hours of the night, we woke up to yet another Holiday Inn Express breakfast. Tech Walkin and Talkin even squeezed in a Crossfit work out! 💪🏼 

Then we hit the road to Santa Fe. Of course Suavest of the Seas and Gringo Gaucho had to play the soundtrack from the 1992 hit Disney musical, The Newsies. They knew all of the words to all of the songs from this cult classic, making Tech Walkin and Talkin and Casually Kissing Cowboys wonder if we too should be part of said cult. (You should join the cult too if you want to see Christian Bale sing and dance pre crazy meltdown down on the set of Batman.) Tripadvisor said that a must do in Santa Fe was Canyon Road, where the art galleries are. We parked the  Jucy Van in the lot and stopped by the Tea House to use their facilities. While Tech Walkin and Talkin bought a delightful Oolong Tea, the Gringo Gaucho helped herself to a fancy water cooler, which we discovered was for the construction workers who were working outside. Oops! As we ran away in shame, we passed by the galleries, which had TripAdvisor reviews such as: “high quality art for a high price” and “spent way too much money here.”

We soon realized that we did not have the money for the artwork displayed and headed downtown. Our first stop was the Saint Francis of Asisi Cathedral, Basilica, which had a beautiful mix of classic church decor and South Western designs. 

Outside of the church was a statue of Kateri Tekakwitha, who was the first Native American to be canonized as a Saint. 

We then walked around the town for a bit, passing various jewelry stores while searching for a copper bracelet for Tech Walkin and Talkin and a vintage postcard for Suavest of the Seas. As we walked around, we realized that Santa Fe is the perfect place to continue a treasured roadtrip tradition: a ghost tour. After all, with the history of displaced Native Americans, Spanish Conquistadors, Pioneers, and Billy the Kid, Santa Fe had to have some great spirits from beyond. (You’ve played Oregon Trail… Dysentery was no joke)

We arranged a private tour (VIP status) with Peter, who looked like he stepped out of the Marlboro Ad from the 70s. He told us stories (with primary source pictures) of a bride who was killed in La Fonda hotel, an evil spirit who smelled like rotting meat, and our favorite ghost, Julia Staab who has an affinity for haunting the women’s bathroom at the Posada Hotel. Gringo Gaucho and Suavest of the Seas braved the bathroom, where they heard strange noises coming from the toilet while taking this selfie. 

Over dinner, we discussed the Newsies again, reminiscing over how cute the characters Jack (Christian Bale) and Brooklyn aka Spot Conlon (Gabriel Damon) were, 

 which lead to a ridiculous yet entertaining conversation of our childhood crushes, which included Rufio from Hook

Atrayu from Never Ending Story 

And Benny the Jet from The Sandlot

This then led to an Internet black hole of Buzzfeed articles and YouTube videos which are featured below for your viewing pleasure. You’re welcome.

Santa Fe Newsies

Buzzfeed prepubescent crushes article
Cheers to the 90s and nostalgia. 

Day 1:JUCY LUCY

We finally made it to Sin City! After waking up before the sun and heading to Dirty Jerz to catch our flight, enduring a turbulent flight that felt like it would never end, (“We’re plane people now” -Insert Tina Fey voice in 30 Rock), and then stopping for a much needed Cinnabon and Jamba Juice break in the airport, we made it to the Jucy van location.

Jucy van, like much of the people of New Zealand, where the company originated, is a laid back, green, outdoors loving place. And this decoration just spoke to our  souls as teachers who have lost all track of time. 

Once we got in the van and stopped at Walmart to stock up on sunscreen and snacks, we headed back to the airport to pick up Suavest of the Seas, who braved her own turbulent flight alone. Then we headed to In and Out for a planned stop, because you know no teacher roadtrip to this side of America is complete without an Animal Style burger. 

We then headed for the KOA near the Grand Canyon. On the way to the campsite, we saw signs for the Hoover Dam, and thought why not? After all, Casually Kissing Cowboys and Suavest of the Seas are history buffs, and the New Deal is so much fun to teach because FDR was a boss! 

After admiring the marvels of engineering and the Art Deco railings and bathroom doors, while simultaneously suffering from heatstroke,  

we headed into the air conditioned gift shop (obvi) to buy water that was dam good. (Corny dam joke, I know, but it goes out to Tech Walkin and Talkin’s husband). At least this company understands that there is a niche market. 

Once we finished rehydrating, we headed over to the KOA, where we headed into the town to get some dinner. There was a large crowd gathered around a Wild West show and we were tempted to stop and watch, but our hunger beat out our curiosity. 

By the time we finished eating, we were soo tired. The day felt longer than that flight from earlier in the day, and we were ready to try out the sleeping quarters of our Jucy Van. Tech Walkin and Talkin and Casually Kissing Cowboys shared the penthouse on the top of the van while Gaucho Gringo and Suavest of the Seas slept in the delux suite inside. Despite it being cold and it being a van, it wasn’t too bad! Cheers to sleeping under the stars on Day 1. 

#teacherroadtrip #jucyworld #southwest #roadtrip #teachers

Back at it again

Well ladies and gents, it is that time of year again when your favorite teachers go out and explore what America has to offer. This time, we are tackling the great states of Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, Kansas, Utah, Texas, and New Mexico. So as we start our engines in our Jucy van, we look forward to kicking off summer with updates on our blog. See ya soon!

❤️ Casually Kissing Cowboys

 

Day 7: S-E-A-T-T-L-E livin’

S: Starbucks:  We encountered the epicenter of the specialized coffee craze: the original Starbucks. To make it even more special, there was live music outside.

 E: Egg sandwiches: For the last day of our road trip, we didn’t have a set plan on what we wanted to do (which might surprise those of you who know how type A we all are), but we knew for sure that we wanted to eat. We went to Biscut Bitch for breakfast after recommendations from some locals from the night before. The restaurant was small, the line long, and the food was delicious. They offered amazing breakfast sandwiches with witty names like “easy bitch”, “nutty bitch” and “hot bitch”. It is definitely worth a visit if you are ever in downtown Seattle.

A: All you can eat meat: the four of us decided to try to finish the bottles of wine that we had gotten in California by Yelping BYOB places in Seattle. We settled upon a Brazilian Restaurant where we ate our body weight in delicious steaks, cinnamon fried bananas, and Grilled pineapple. I can assure you that they had to roll us out there to our next destination.

T: tourist traps: We decided to go to the Pike Place Market to explore the shops and the local produce and flowers.  Suavest of the Seas was in tchotchke heaven as we perused the merchandise.

  Then we decided to get even more touristy and walked over to the famous Seattle Space Needle. When we arrived, were were greeted by a line of Disney World proportions, which prompted us to download the App. Turns out that the Space Needle works like Fast Pass, so we bought tickets for 8pm.

 It gave us a panoramic view of the city, a great view of the mountain backdrop and some interesting people watching.
  
We also came away with this gem since ever picture we tried to take was obstructed by the sun.

T: transportation (the public kind): We took the bus Ya’ll, thanks to the internet and Gringo Gaucho’s navigation skills. The first bus didn’t have AC since Seattle isn’t used to the heat that they were experiencing but it took us into the burbs for another aspect of the city.

  
L: local eats: in a cute neighborhood with a small town feel called the Ballard. We had walked a long way and were sweating like crazy. Suavest of the Seas found us a gelato place where we ate refreshing ice cream and sat for a moment.

E: entertaining commercial: see the video. ‘Nuff said.

Commercial for your viewing pleasure
Happy 4th of July and see you all next year!

-Casually Kissing Cowboys

Day 4: Roadtrippin’ for Realz

So your favorite teachers have finally started the car portion of the road trip.  We started with a quick trip to the Jelly Belly factory. It was a big moment for us since a Bachelor watching, Jelly Belly eating marathon is what inspired this road trip to begin with. 

   
 

With our VERY enthusiastic tour guide Zai, (who should train the blasé employees of the Ben and Jerrys factory that we visited in Vermont) , we got to see the factory floor, scary worker robots who are going to take over the world, try strawberry martini and blueberry flavored jelly beans, and see portraits of Ronald Reagan made from Jelly Belly. (It was his favorite candy. He would start official United States meetings by passing around a jar full of them.)  

 

We then decided to be adventurous and venture off the planned route and go see some famous Northern California Red Wood trees. It was 5 hours of driving through small town America designed after the old west. And you know we had to stop at a California favorite: In-N-Out Burger. Can anybody say Animal Style???  

   

After hours of driving in search of The Avenue of the Giants and Hyperion (a giant Red Wood Tree) we decided to stop at a side of the road, middle of nowhere, tourist information booth since we had no cell phone service and Google Maps was no longer working (straight 1997 style). While we tried to figure out where we were, we spotted this odd sign  

 

What is hickey fest exactly and who gets to participate? Unclear. Too bad we missed it. It would have made a great blog post. 

We finally made it to our destination where we determined that our car, Slow Sally aka Simeon the Whale aka White Moby Dick, was not going to fit through the drive through tree ( she is a big girl and she’s proud of it). We realized that we could drive up on the log. We then parked the car and walked through the tree instead.   

   
  Then we got back on the road after reloading on Starbucks (thanks Ken and Barb). During the ride that felt like it would never end, Mother Nature blessed us with a foggy but beautiful sunset over the Pacific Ocean.  We also realized at the end of this road trip, the four of us will have visited 25 states together. That’s half of the country ya’ll. Hella cool!

  

 Tech Walkin’ and Talkin’ used her amazing night driving skills through the winding and very dark mountain roads to get us safely to Medford Oregon, where we finally we able to go to sleep to prepare for our visit to Crater Lake. 

-stay tuned 

❤ Casually Kissing Cowboys 

Day 1: Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

The day began with an epic quest for a breakfast sandwich. Our stomachs , confused about the time difference, were starving and we needed our caffeine fix. Once we found food, we made our way to the train station and waited patiently for it to arrive. We soon realized that there was a Giants game as well as tons of people in town for the pride parade. As usual, your favorite teacher road trippers somehow managed to end up in a city during a major event. ( If you’ve forgotten about the craziness of Essence Fest, see our posts from New Orleans)

Looking out of the window during the train ride into San Francisco, we noticed a lot of houses, storefronts, and dusty hills ( blame the drought). We also saw Cow Palace, which Suavest of the Seas hoped was a location that housed a cow monarchy, while Casually Kissing Cowboys thought it might be a strip club for cows. The actual use of Cow Palace, according to the board of California tourism, is an arena, which has hosted the republican national convention twice, as well as has housed concerts of musicians such as Prince, the Beatles, Neil Diamond and Nirvana. We liked our theories better. 

 

Day 1 was also the day of attempting to take pictures that didn’t quite come out the way we hoped. Since the Gringo Gaucho had a work related injury that left her with a limp, we tried to artistically express her handicap by drawing inspiration from a familiar story from Greek Mythology: Achilles. You can see her as that small dot in front of the giant bow and arrow.  

 

Later on we tried to take a creative perspective picture, which made people on the street look at us with curiosity. Not to worry people of San Francisco; we couldn’t figure it out either.  

 

Day 1 was also the day of good eating. There were oysters, milkshakes, endless bread products and more. We also spotted some oversized Dungeness Crabs, but we decided to leave them be.  

       

At the end of the day, we decided to take a scenic trolley ride back to the other side of town. (Although truth be told, we didn’t want to brave those famous San Francisco hills). While waiting 45 minutes to board the trolley, Suavest of the Seas made a new friend.  

 

Once on the trolley, the steepness of the hills became apparent and we were just waiting to lose momentum and slide all the way back down like a roller coaster in Six Flags. Instead, we had a small comical ticket collector hopping on and off the trolley and yelling something about a horn and a rope. And then suddenly they kicked us off with no explanation or apology.  

 We thought about renting one of the little sidecars we saw, but realized it would be best to walk off all the food we had consumed.  

 So instead, we walked the rest of the way back and had sushi for dinner in San Mateo. 

See everyone tomorrow for Day 2!

-Casually Kissing Cowboys 

Day 8: We are the crazy people

The title of this post is due to this odd song playing in the music tent while I’m writing this blog post outside in hot and sunny Maine. Yesterday was the 4th of July (America F* yeah!) After five hours of driving and getting stuck behind a Christmas in July parade for an hour in a tiny town that offered a bacon and egg sandwich on a glazed donut (really New Hampshire? Do you want to kill your clientele? Yet another bad business model. You are supposed to entice the customer to come back.)

We rediscovered big red gum, which is now $.35! Back in my day, gum only cost a quarter. This gas station also has magazines with Channing Tatum and Alcide from True Blood to provide us with eye candy and a discussion of how Suavest of the Seas used to hang Usher’s picture on her bunk and say “usher, usher” while doing a shoulder shrug like he used to do in his videos. As you can imagine, this is went over well at her summer camp. There was also this interesting sign above the bathroom which made us unsure if we had to clean the bathroom in order to use it.

After picking up groceries, we headed to the campsite and were greeted by a ton of cars and a ginormous dog named Tito.

Our second fireworks show of the trip commenced with a rocky start, but the boys soon found their groove and put on a show worthy of Burlington. Towards the end, we became concerned when they started going off near the ground and we began biting our nails with anxiety as “Bombs over Bagdad” played in our head (everybody is fine).

The night ended with a bonfire, singing Counting Crows with acoustic guitar, and enjoying the thousands of stars and the Milky Way that we could see at midnight (unfortunately, despite the amazing iPhone, no camera can quite capture it but you can use your imagination.)

All in all a great fourth of July despite the Mosquitos. Sleeping under the stars in a tent with Tito’s snoring as white noise, a cool breeze and bottles of water from our best friend Dunkin Donuts. It’s all a girl could ask for. Happy birthday America!

❤ casually kissing cowboys

Day 4: Quebec, the home of the crepe Nazi

On the morning of day four, we were relieved to find the sun shining and that it was no longer 48 degrees. As we made our way to the old city, we realized that French and English do not share an equal playing field so Tech Walkin’ and Talkin’ and Casually kissing cowboys were at a disadvantage, not that we were complaining. We are fast learners anyway.
The old City was quaint and cute, with plenty of historical statues such as the one of Gandhi.
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And fun signs that showed us that Canada does have a sense of humor!



We then walked around in a giant circle, reflecting on what a European-like city it was. (so European in fact that Gringo Gaucho accidentally called the money Euros the next day). The old City is filled with amazing architecture, a chill vibe and a woman who sings only 3 songs in rotation using her opera singer voice. (we know because we passed her at least 5 times and she was singing Broken Hallelujah every time.)

We had three missions for the day.
1) eat a crepe
2) go to the beating of the retreat (more on that later)
3)go on a ghost tour to educate ourselves about the city.
Along the way, we encountered an enormous great Dane, an $8 smoothie which was so small it for into a coffee cup that you’d get in a bodega, and creepy mannequins.
First, we found a crepe spot that had lemon and sugar crepes, as well as banana and chocolate crêpes. It was also the home of an amazing lemonade and the crepe Nazi, who was bossy, corrected our French, and seemed to not like us.



It was also discovered that there are plenty of photo ops around the city four tourists who are writing blogs and posting pics about their road trip to Canada.




At half past five, we ran (literally) up 5 flights of stairs and up some serious hills in order to make it to the beating of the retreat. What is that, you ask. Well, it is the changing of the guard outside of the citadel. We finally made it with 10 mins to spare when we received some bad news. It didn’t start until July 1st. We were defeated for a moment but then decided to take a picture with the guard, which was slightly awkward. Then they surprised us by actually changing guards. It was clear that somebody had lied to us. (Fist of fury). It also became painfully clear to Suavest of the Seas that the gift shop was lackluster at best.



After eating an Italian dinner, we hustled back to the ghost tour location (which is in front of a catholic religion store strangely enough) only to find out that their credit card machine was out of order. We ran down more steps to the main head quarters of the company, only to discover that they were gone for the day (who has a ghost tour at 8 and closes down the main store at 8? Poor business plan in my opinion!) Then we ran back up the steps to an ATM, which there seems to be a very bad shortage of here in Quebec City, with no luck. At this point, we were in a panic but were informed that there was still hope because we could by something in the store and get cash back. After a very tedious process of buying water and postcards, we were finally able to join the tour.
On the tour, we learned about a hanging, an executioner forced to punish his wife, an American wrongly accused of espionage (they’re on to us!) and a sinking cruise ship in the Saint Lawrence river. Although the stories were not as disturbing as the ones we heard about in New Orleans, nor did it include a shadow of creepy Jesus outside of a church, we did get to experience creepiness inside of a church.
Setting the scene: it is dark out and we are standing outside of this church.


The tour guide unlocks the church door and ushers us inside. It is pitch black and smells like incense. The only light in the room is a single candle in a lantern that he is holding. We are instructed to sit in the pews. There is a long, unsettling silence. Then our host begins to tell us a story of a woman who walks the upper balcony. She was even spotted by Queen Elizabeth. There are two theories about this woman. The first is that she was a nun who had an illegitimate child, which she killed. The second was of a woman who suffered from narcolepsy during a cholera outbreak, and was buried alive. Both stories put us on edge. The host then tells us to take pictures of the church with the flash on and see what we could get on film. As Randi whispers “please don’t do that” the candle is blown out and we are immersed in total darkness. When it was time to go, we practically ran out of there, all agreeing that we don’t need proof of ghosts after all. Especially if they look like this mannequin that we found in a shop window.



Hasta mañana
Casually Kissing Cowboys.

Day 1: Shipping Off to Boston

The road trip commenced at le Château Utting. We checked out the dock, ate delicious Buffalo chicken dip, and homemade root beer. When Suavest of the Seas finally arrived (because 1:00 and 3:00 are clearly the same thing.) we
got on the road to stop at our first road side attraction (wait for it) The Pez Factory in orange CT! (We were psyched about it too)There was a timeline with the history of Pez, starting in Austria. There was also an interactive quiz game that proved that Tech Walkin’ and Talkin’ is a Pez genius with an impressive score of 19/20, while Casually Kissing cowboys had a measly score of 8 (although in her defense, she played on expert). After collectively buying enough Pez to host 10 children’s birthday parties, we hopped back in the car to continue our journey north.
When we finally made it to Bean Town, after listening to every song Britney Spears has ever made and the depressing yet nostalgic 90’s summer hits, such as Jumper and Mr. Jones. We found out that we were going to crash a going away party for a French girl we had never met. (rude New Yorkers). We were okay with the idea as long as there was food involved. We became antisocial while we chomped down some food and kept ordering drinks so we could stay at the booth.
At midnight, we headed home after lengthy conversations about hard limits, human eating snakes, and Cuban pride. Our last thought was that we were going to be homeless in Quebec and then decided that we would deal with it in the morning.
See you on the flip side.
casually kissing cowboys
Ps. Don’t worry Ken, we are working on it.

Guess who’s back!

I know that it is 3:00 in the morning but I am suffering from my usual bout of insomnia and decided to try out the WordPress app on my new phone. Tomorrow, (technically today) your favorite roadtrippin’ ladies will be embarking on le road trip part deux to the northeast and parts of Canada. Stay tuned for all of the excitement, scenic pictures, and ridiculous adventures.
-Casually Kissing Cowboys (or Canadians).
*cheers to another successful road trip.