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 6: The Sunny Northwest

I have been to Portland before and remember liking the vibe but most of my recent impressions of Portland were shaped on a Saturday afternoon browsing Netflix and randomly picking this show:

So, as we began our tour of Portland in search of our first food truck I was super mindful to find evidence of this sentiment:

We started walking toward our breakfast destination, the famous Portland food trucks, but we could not wait or walk anymore so we stopped at Brunch Box, a breakfast and burger place. (For those out there who enjoy the alternative to traditional breakfast in the style of cold pizza or leftover steak this place was unfortunately not a breakfast burger place, just a place that happens to serve both.) The restaurant has won multiple awards as evidenced by the posters on the wall:

We think James actually works in the back and has chosen to bestow this prestigious award on the restaurant because he works there but that’s just our guess. After we finished our breakfast biscuits, we kept walking and discovered we were literally half a block from the food trucks. I’m talking about a full park of food trucks with every type of food imaginable. Unfortunately, I was still unsuccessful in my search for a smoothie but we’ll get back to that.

After perusing the food selection and deciding we actually were too full to eat anymore (I KNOW! We thought it would never happen!) we walked around the Pearl District to find a book lover’s Mecca: Powell’s Books. 

After bolstering my goodreads want-to-read list (I know you all noticed) we were finally able to tear ourselves away and continued our meandering walk through Portland to Waterfront Park. 

Although we were surprised by the number of homeless people enjoying the shade during the hottest part of the day, overall the waterfront seemed like a pleasant park and we even enjoyed some impromptu piano playing. We also experienced the best photo bomb ever as this aspiring ballerina coordinated with the music:

We encountered Portlandia, a classical figure created by the Portland tourism board (who also tried the Keep Portland Weird as a slogan) and then hopped in the car to check out why Portland is called City of Roses (another slogan to bring in the tourists). The International Test Rose Garden is beautiful and well worth the visit:

We still hadn’t seen anything too weird so we hopped in the car to head to North Portland and Mississippi Avenue. And then Portlandia manifested itself. I finally got my smoothie but it was so much more than that. In fact, it was this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3_q7xiwkI0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E62XE_F6GDU

We also stopped for some food for the road and I got the veggiest veggie bowl ever but it sure was delicious:

Finally satisfied that we had seen some of the real Portland we decided to head toward the last city of this road trip: Sunny Seattle.  (No, really – I’m not sure where your rainy foggy weather went but we’ve experienced only beautiful sunshiny days.)

Final impressions of Portland: definitely weird but I would challenge you – be even weirder Portland. There’s still room to grow.

After a grunge-filled car-ride courtesy of the 8 Pearl Jam albums from the Gringo Gaucho’s phone, we rode into the big city, set our stuff down, and headed toward the waterfront. We got another beautiful sunset (gotta love the West Coast) and enjoyed a round of drinks in the most touristy place we could find, under a Ferris wheel.

Then, we met up with the Gringo Gaucho’s friend, Nick, and proceeded to have a pretty weird night. We met some real Europeans and a fake Italian. I think Mario took his inspiration from this guy (👇) because that’s who he sounded like (and kind of looked like now that I think about it).

Oh, and there was skeeball:

The night ended for Nick, the Gringo Gaucho, and I at my first ever speakeasy. While sipping on a Holly Golightly cocktail, I leaned that Northwesterners love Low Country cooking and have a million suggestions for things to do in Seattle. So, we’re off to do them!

Stay tuned,

Techtalkin’ and Walkin’

Day 5: A Double Volcano

Hey Everybody! It’s time for your favorite numbers game…

  
1: Amazing breakfast idea inspired by our creative ways to smuggle free food from the breakfast buffet into the car for later consumption on the hike. Seriously, if anyone knows someone with a business background, especially in starting up new ideas, let us know! We’re sitting on a gold mine. 

15: Dollars it costs to get into the Crater Lake National Park, finally determined after much analysis of the confusing sign. There was a moment we almost turned around when it at first appeared that it would cost $55, or something. Our traveling school is down one Math teacher ever since we left Meredith in Texas three years ago. 

4: Volcanos inside the park. Including a volcano inside a volcano (it’s a double volcano! OMG it’s so beautiful!) Seriously though, stunning. 

   
 
1.5: Miles hiked to the top Watchman’s Peak! We are proud to say that Suavest of the Seas has now completed two hikes in her life, making her a veteran. Observe:

  
8: Achilles’ Tendons that survived the hike, despite one being quite compromised. 

  
7,781: Altitude at the top of Watchman’s Peak! No teachers got alititude sickness we are happy to report. And the view from the top was totally worth it!

 
2: World’s Classiest Truck Stops seen from the highway. Is there a competition? Sadly, we went to neither one, but instead saw a very thorough truck stop with the nicest bathrooms in Oregon (so new they still smell like Home Depot). We’d like to contest those signs now. We drove around the lot in circles a few times like lunatics because…

37: State license plates seen on this trip so far. We’ve got our fingers crossed that the elusive Vermont will be seen somewhere in Washington. This led us to realize that…

24: The number of states we have driven through together, including New Jersey, the armpit of America, which everyone forgot about.  Don’t worry, we’ve already developed a plan to add Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado next summer from the Jucy, first seen in California, planned to be rented from Vegas in approximately one year. 

  
0: The times Tori had successfully ordered and received carrots on a roadtrip. It’s time to move on to another vegetable. 

Keep Countin Kids!

The Gringo Gaucho

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 3: Sponsored by Wine



The road trip part of our trip officially started with the car pickup from SFO. After a virtual conversation with a Hertz agent and a small moment of panic as we walked down a line of tiny compacts to finally see our car (thank goodness – a Jeep Compass), we hopped on Route 1 toward the Golden Gate Bridge and the lookout just before crossing it. We had our car and Muey’s car so we got separated and didn’t see Suavest of the Seas and Muey at the bridge so we took some quick pics and jumped back on the road so we could unlock the California portion of our amazing road trip app- Roadside America. (Suavest of the Seas apparently did stop at the bridge as evidenced by a magnet and postcard but we must have missed her since we were taking pictures of the bridge and not hanging out at the gift shop ;).







Our first road trip stop was the Marin County Civic Center, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and our alien overlords. 



I would not be surprised if sometime in the future this hillside is left only with some crop circles and this one picture as proof that there was a civic center in Marin.

After careful consideration we decided to check out a tower of bicycle parts, which I thought would just be a pile of bicycle parts so I was pretty impressed with my first obelisk sighting of the trip:



And then we were finally in California Wine Country. 



Throwback to previous road trips:



We were graciously hosted by Muey’s history teacher and his wife, Jonathan and Debbie in Healdsburg. They have inspired my new retirement plan: retire to Sonoma and volunteer at local wineries. They took us to a couple local wineries where we had a delicious spread for lunch while we tasted some delicious wines and enjoyed the beautiful day. The first winery, Raymond Burr Wineries, had been owned by the actor.



Then, we got to take advantage of the Michel-Schlumberger air conditioned tasting room.





After a long relaxing day of wine-tasting we ended up in downtown Healdsburg for cupcakes and dinner at Willi’s (which had some crazy good sourdough bread and garlic butter that the Suavest of the Seas “would not kick out of bed”). We hydrated (a lot) and got ready for our longest drive of the road trip – up to Crater Lake, Oregon.



Till next time,

Techtalkin’ and Walkin’

Day 2: #lovewins

Leave it to us to accidentally end up in San Francisco at the end of pride month, on the day of the pride parade, two days after Obergefell vs Hodges (the Supreme Court ruling for marriage equality). This isn’t the first time us road trippers stumbled upon a celebration, but it was certainly the most emotional. 

We picked up breakfast (the exact same order as yesterday because we are creatures of habit) on the way to the “inbound” train.  We waited for our delayed train while drooling over BBQ smells wafting through the air, despite the fact that we had all just eaten. 

Upon arriving in San Fran we went straight to the parade, which was complete with topless men, sexual innuendos, but most of all, an overwhelming sense of joy. 

  
  
   After stopping at our favorite San Franciscan bathroom (Bloomingdales) we rode the crowded Muni to the Castro district, because it seemed like the place we all wanted to be on this memorable day. 

  
The love continued as we meandered the rainbow streets looking for lunch until we finally settled on Beso, (official road trip endorsement here) which we agreed was significantly better than any Spanish food we had ever actually eaten in Spain. Our waiter entertained us with his Freddie Mercury mustache and Pueteo Rican flair. Since it is a pride celebration, here’s a photo of the original:

  
We then all determined that Freddie Mercury 1) was the man 2) needs a biopic and 3) needs more credit for his phenomenal voice which is sometimes undershadowed by his phenomenal persona. Don’t believe us? Listen to him and Bowie sing Under Pressure without background music. 

Leaving the Castro, we snaked our way through Mission Dolores Park where we were met with the real Californian spirit! People celebrating pride, herbs, and sunshine. The love manifested itself here with a rooftop speaker set up that was providing free music for the whole park, free chips being handed out, and a free showing of many tanned, skin bearing bodies. 

  
We made our way to the Mission, which we deemed was a bit like Alphabet City in the ’80’s as we walked through some sketchy drug transactions, but made it through alive to catch an Uber to Golden Gate State Park. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived, we realized it was after 5 on a Sunday and everything was closing, so we began our trek home. CalTrain on the weekend of pride parade/Giants games/a Dead festival gave Metro North at 5 pm on a Friday a run for its money. However, we all agreed that these Californians were significantly more pleasant when letting us squish through to exit the train. Upon arriving at our home for the night we were greeting by Muey, our host, who had just returned from her sister’s wedding in Sacramento. Hooray! After some sushi (the same as last night because we REALLY are creatures of habit) and a weird episode of Gypsy Sisters, we decided to call it a night. We have a big day ahead of us with finally hitting the road, wine country, and an encounter with “the Old Man,” but more on that tomorrow!

To Freddie with love,

The Gringo Gaucho 

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 0 – California, I’m Coming Home

We were so ready to get back on the road that we didn’t even wait for the last day of school to be over before we headed on our next adventure. One minute it’s graduation and the next (well, 15 hours later) we’re across the country in San Francisco. That’s right, folks; this time Teacherroadtrip took to the air. Normally we would do the cross-country drive but due to previous summer commitments we have limited time and lots to do. So, we all left our schools to meet up at JFK to hop on our flight.
The Gringo Gaucho arrived first to make sure she and her Achilles heel had plenty of time to make it to the gate. She had a long time to wait but was able to entertain herself in what I hope will be the norm on this trip:

We all finally showed up – Casually Kissing Cowboys and Techtalkin’ and Walkin’ grabbed a ride from Mr. Techtalkin’, and Suavest of the Seas arriving just in the nick of time. Not that it mattered as the flight was an hour late. Come on, Delta!

Luckily, Delta made up for it with an amazing safety video:

They also had the best flight attendants working. As I’m catching up the final season of Parks and Rec, I look up to find the the Gringo Gaucho looking for a place to throw out her water cup while she and the Suavest of the Seas wait on the bathroom line. When the Gringo Gaucho asked the flight attendant he told her to just throw it on the floor. As she looked at him incredulously, he took the cup from her hand and threw it down. Then he picked it back up and handed it to her. As the Gringo Gaucho, and then the Suavest of the Seas, practiced throwing cups and earphones at his behest, I laughed hysterically and was promptly invited to get up and try it. Although I declined, the flight attendant continued to encourage me throughout the flight, and even gave some ice cream to Suavest of the Seas for being a good sport. 

Six hours of flying (and an entire season of Parks and Rec) later, we touched down in San Francisco and made our way to Randi’s friend Muey’s apartment in San Mateo. It was midnight California-time, 3 am New York-time and we settled down for our first night on the left coast.

Next up is our trip into the city of San Francisco and our foray into the California life. And because I’m finally back, I have to post my favorite song about California that shows just how much I miss it:

Glad to be back,
Techtalkin’ and Walkin’

Here we go again…

Another summer, another road trip!  I realize many were concerned about our absence last summer. You see, Tech Talkin and Walkin married that guy who does the fantastic Robyn impersonation and we had to put a hiatus on the trip to attend the nuptials.  Some of us road tripped to the event, but we weren’t all together, so it just didn’t seem right to blog. The wedding was fantastic complete with pralines, sparklers, and catching up with old friends from the original trip. 

 

Luckily, despite my mother’s belief that all women desert their friends upon marriage, Tech Talkin is hopping in the car and taking on the North West with the rest of the crew. We’re excited and we hear they’ve got great coffee and wine, which are two of teachers’ favorite things!

So join us again as we add a few more states to the list and see ‘Merica’s PacWest.

Talk to you soon,

The Gringo Gaucho

Day 9: Family Tradition

So readers, it’s time for our favorite numbers game. Now, if you use these numbers and win the lottery try to remember your favorite road trippers when you’re doling out the dough.

13 – hours of restful reading, chatting, and hanging out in various parts of central Maine

2 – number of entertainment magazines that were read (all road trippers were happy to catch up on the celebrity gossip they had missed while traveling out of the country)

180 – pounds of friendly puppy Tito. This is only an estimate and really Casually Kissing Cowboys would know better as Tito loved standing, sitting, and laying at and on her feet

22 – number of states the road trippers have traveled together.

10 – Olympic score I would give our master kayakers, Suavest of the Seas (at her Suaviest in any camp counselor situation) and the Gringo Gaucho (who can paddle backwards and turn around without getting dumped underwater – family members take note 🙂

25-24 final score of the volleyball where the Gringo Gaucho and I were on the comeback team that finally succumbed to the other team… As we have no pictures or videos I have provided a video that has players comparable to our skills

Okay, we were somewhere between that an this:

90 – number of mosquito bites sustained by the road trippers up in vacationland (seriously itchy right now)

Only one more day on this road trip as we travel back to the mid-Atlantic. Thanks to the Gringo Gaucho’s family for including us in their family tradition.

Till next time,
Techtalkin’ and walkin’