Day 20 (July 23): Home, Sweet Home

Total Driving Distance: 800+ miles

( TRIP TOTAL: 6,709.6 MILES )

States Traveled To: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia

Main Activity: Driving

We woke up early on our last day on the road (for a couple of days at least) because we still had more than 800 miles to drive. The GPS said we would be back in Powder Springs, GA, by around 9:15 PM, but I was skeptical. We still had an hour to gain when we crossed into Eastern Time Zone and after already haven driven over 1,300 miles in the past two days I thought today might be a little slower.

Two cups of coffee at Love's gas station woke us up and we were ready to once again conquer the road. I put on my cowboy hat that I had purchased out west and fastened my American flag bandana around my face (this was my I-40 driving outfit) and put the pedal to the metal.

We still had about 450 miles to go on 40 and as you can imagine we were pretty tired of this road (although there was some spectacular scenery along it - look out the window in the picture above), so we tried to pass the time as best we could. Liz played The Sims 3 on her laptop and attempted to complete her multi-billion dollar house that she had been working on since the beginning of the trip and I listened to some tunes and podcasts that I downloaded free off of iTunes. I highly recommend downloading podcasts for long trips. Liz and I listened to countless episodes of Chicago Public Radio's This American Life, NPR's CarTalk, Planet Money, and Fresh Air, and The Moth Storytelling Podcast. All of these kept us engaged and distracted whenever we were about to go crazy from driving too long.

When we finally, finally, finally got off of I-40 in Memphis, I was drained. It was almost 4 and we still had more than 6 hours of driving ahead of us. After filling up, we got right back on the road only to run into bumper-to-bumper traffic. Getting on Highway 78 involved driving through miles and miles of road work, one-lane roads, and traffic lights. This was the first real traffic we had seen since we left LA and it couldnt have come at a worse time. I was ready to get home. The icing on the cake came when I saw the sign on the side of the highway reading "Welcome to Mississippi" (no offense, Mississippians).

Some more coffee and talking with Liz made the drive through Mississippi quick and painless. I was back in my driving groove and ready for the home stretch.

Somewhere around Jasper, Alabama, the GPS started acting funky. It stopped reading the road we were on and led us down some back roads. After a few minutes, I decided that we were best to stick to the highway we had been on until we reached Birmingham and got on I-20 to Atlanta.

However, before we could leave Jasper, we got to drive through it. And as we drove through the town, we saw signs for one thing and one thing only: BINGO NIGHT! Everywhere we looked, there was a sign for Bingo. At every church, every school, every store, every building, there was a sign for Bingo. It was hilarious. I really wanted to pull over and ask someone if there was anywhere in this entire town that we could find a game of Bingo.

So we drove through Birmingham and got on I-20 and were finally on the real home-stretch. I could now turn off the GPS because I knew which exit to get off at and I knew how to get home from there.

We stopped to get one more cup of coffee (I filled up the travel mug that Liz had bought me earlier that day at a Love's gas station), some Krispy Kreme donuts (I wanted Chick-Fil-A but we couldnt find it!), and were not stopping again until we reached home.

And we didnt. We trucked on and on and on. And it got dark and we kept going.

And, at long last, we turned onto my street, I clicked the garage door opener, pulled inside the garage, and we were home.

If you'll look closely, you can see in the bottom left hand corner that the "MAINTENANCE REQUIRED" light has come on (it had been on all day), gas is almost at empty, and the mileage is 6,709.6 miles higher than when we began our trip.

Day 19 (July 22): Sunrise, Driving, Texas, A Giant Cross, Fire, Hookah, Sunset

Total Driving Distance: 800+ miles (trip total: 5,800 miles)

States Traveled To: Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma

Main Activity: Driving

Over the course of our trip, we had seen some of the most beautiful sunsets you could ever see. On the second-to-last morning of our trip, I decided that we needed to see a desert sunrise.

I woke up at 4:45 and told Liz to climb to the front seat and she could fall back asleep. I drove about 20 miles to Petrified Forest National Park, but the gate was closed and the Park didnt open until 7:00. With only about ten minutes until the sun was going to rise, I drove a few miles down the road and found a good spot on a hill to watch. We threw one of our mattresses on the roof of the van, along with a pillow and some blankets. Then we sat back and enjoyed the sunrise.

We drove back to the KOA to pack the rest of the stuff into the car and brush our teeth. We left Holbrook around 6:30. On the way out of town, we picked up some coffee and were all ready to go.

So we drove. and drove. and drove.

Then we drove more. and more. and more.

We drove through Arizona. We drove through Albuquerque. We drove through New Mexico.

We drove through Texas.

On our way through Amarillo, we really had to use the bathroom so we stopped at a place I'd been seeing signs for since we first entered Texas: The Big Texan Steakhouse.

Now I dont like to judge, but if I had to choose a place that took every stereotype and picture of Texas that I'd had in my mind and brought it to life, it was The Big Texan.

The thing to do at this steakhouse was to take the 72 oz. Steak Challenge (FREE if you win).

Here's how the contest works: If you eat a 72 oz. steak, with a shrimp cocktail, salad, baked potato, and a buttered roll in less than an hour, you do not have to pay for it and you go down in Texas history. Over 40,000 have tried and over 8,000 have succeeded. Needless to say, we did not stop for dinner. But here is a video from a guy who did, the host from The Travel Channel's Man v. Food. (An interesting sidenote: Joey Chestnut (of hot dog eating fame) holds the world record for the 72 oz. steak challenge. He finished in 8 minutes and 52 seconds.)

We didnt stop again in Texas.

On the way out of Texas, we did get to see one more famous site.

In Groom, Texas, the second largest cross in the Western Hemisphere:

A few hours later we were in Oklahoma and I decided that I needed to stop for the night. We located a KOA just outside Oklahoma City and arrived there a few minutes before 9 when the front desk closed.

Since this was our last night, we had to make it a good one. Liz had been wanting to make a fire since the first KOA we stayed in, but most places had fire bans since it was so dry. Luckily for her, Oklahoma City was not one of those places.

So I gathered firewood and Liz made a pile of kindling near our fire pit. It was dark outside so it took a little while to gather all of the wood. While I was working on starting the fire, Liz put the hookah together for us to enjoy by the fire.

After a few unsuccessful attempts, I finally got the fire going.

It began burning very quickly and I knew with the amount of wood we had the fire wasnt going to last more than five minutes. We brought out a bag of marshmallows that we had kept in the hopes that eventually we would have a fire and roasted them.

After about five marshmallows each, we let the fire burn out as we smoked the hookah.

I'm not sure what the green dotted line coming out of my head is:

Then we took some spooky pictures trying to look like ghosts:

After we were finished smoking and had put the fire out, we took showers and got ready for bed, then we laid in the van and watched the final episode of Freaks and Geeks. Here is one of my favorite clips that really sums up the show:

Day 18 (July 21): The Price Is Right...or is it?

Total Driving Distance: 563.3 miles (trip total: 4,981.4 miles)

States Traveled To: California, Arizona

Main Activity: The Price Is Right, Driving

This was the big day. The only day on the trip that we actually had something scheduled to do. The only day of the trip that we actually had to be somewhere at a certain time doing something. We had to be at CBS Studios in Hollywood at 9am to be in the audience for a taping of The Price Is Right.

We woke up at 7:15 to make sure we wouldnt be late. Liz had planned her outfit out the night before. She was wearing a bright green shirt (to attract attention in the audience) with black shorts and a BC sweatshirt (because they often call up college students). I was wearing my Walk for Darfur shirt and my BC sweatshirt as well. One of us had to be called out of the audience.

We drove to Hollywood, not even stopping to get breakfast. We parked at a grocery store and walked to CBS Studios. After about ten minutes of walking, Liz said that she had forgotten her wallet and thought she might need her ID card to get in. I told her to wait at the Studio gates (we were running late) and I would run back to the car to get her wallet.

When I got back to the car, I couldnt find her wallet. It wasnt in her purse or around the front of the car. I started looking through the back of the car when my phone rang. It was Liz.

"I cant find your wallet. It's not in your purse."

"Oh. I dont know where it is. Well I was calling to tell you that you dont have to run."

"Were we too late?"

"No. There is no taping today. The company that issues the tickets messed up. The lady from public relations said that they arent taping all this week. She's going to call the ticket company, find out what happened, then she said that she is going to get us tickets to another show today."

"Oh. Damn."

Needless to say, I did not run back to the Studio. I did find Liz's wallet (in a Universal Studios bag) and met up with her in front of CBS Studios. There were about eight other people there who also had phony tickets to the showing. Apparently one family had driven from Indiana solely for The Price Is Right.

"Hey, at least we arent wearing shirts that say 'HI DREW' or 'EXCITED TO BE ON THE PRICE IS RIGHT'," I told Liz. We had decided to wait for the PR lady to come back out and see what she said. "Maybe we'll get something free, like a CBS hat or something." "Yeah, a CBS hat would be awesome," Liz said with some not-so-subtle sarcasm.

When the PR lady eventually came out, I told Liz to start crying or get up and scream "This is the worst birthday ever" to get us something free, but she wouldnt. The PR lady told us that she was really sorry and that the ticket company apologized as well. She then said that the only taping that she could get tickets for that day was a Hannah Montana show. Shockingly, no one asked her for those tickets. We felt bad for the Indiana people, but the PR lady sat down with them and told them about all the stuff there was to do in Hollywood.

Depressed and disappointed, we walked across the street to a small Jewish cafe advertising the World's Best Bagel. Hopefully that would cheer us up.

It was a pretty good bagel. The world's best? Possibly. But it did cheer us up and gave us a chance to plan out what we wanted to do. It came down to two choices: spend a few more hours in LA and maybe hit the beach again or getting a head start on our 2,200-mile trip back to Atlanta. In the end, we decided that we were satisfied with what we had seen in LA and didnt feel the need to stay any longer. So we hit the road.

Before we went to sleep the night before, we had sat down at the kitchen table with Nhi and laid out a map. There were several ways we could get home. We could take I-10 down to Phoenix and then take either I-17 up through Sedona to Flagstaff and get on I-40 or continue taking 10 to Tuscon, where we could stay the night with Liz's uncle, and then take I-20 through Dallas/Ft. Worth all the way to Atlanta. Our other option (and the one I had originally planned) was to drive up to Barstow and get on I-40 which would take us all the way to Memphis. We were having trouble deciding when Nhi said that we would probably regret going through Phoenix. If we werent planning on doing much sightseeing on the way home, 40 was the fastest way to go. That is how we found ourselves driving two hours up to Barstow on that extremely hot Tuesday afternoon.

Since South Dakota, every time I talked to my dad, his first question was always, "Did you get the oil changed yet?" I kept telling him that we could wait until we had driven 4,000 miles. When we pulled into Barstow, we were looking at about 4,600 miles that we had driven in two and a half weeks, with 2,100 miles to go. So at long last, we decided to stop and get the oil changed.

After Mike at Mike's Auto Shop told us that he was too busy to change our oil (we didnt see anyone else around), we drove over to Walmart where they said they could have it done in an hour. This was great for us because it gave us a chance to buy a few groceries and stop for a bite to eat at the McDonald's inside the Walmart. I also had a chance to buy something I'd been looking for since Arizona, a cowboy hat. I put it on and we ate Chicken Nuggets, laughing at the Kids Meal panda that reminded us of our friend Meng.

Once the oil was changed, we ran to the car (it was 105 outside), loaded up the groceries, plugged in the GPS, and hit the road. Two minutes later I unplugged the GPS because we were now on I-40 and would be on that road for another 1,700 miles.

So we drove. and drove. and drove.

A cool thing about I-40 is that it the same route as Route 66 used to be. Almost every time we pulled over at a gas station or bathroom (from LA to Oklahoma City), there was Route 66-related stuff.

We saw broken-down buildings that used to be thriving businesses:

And we saw cheesy new businesses that always had a Route 66 gift shop (and they always had the same crap):

The road itself was not that exciting:

I was pretty tired by the time we reached Seligman, "the birthplace of Route 66," so we found a KOA in our handy KOA guide to stay for the night. The nearest one was two and a half hours away, in Holbrook, AZ, right outside Petrified Forest National Park.

We made it to Holbrook around 8 or 9 at night. We made dinner on the picnic table outside the van, then ate it in the back of the car while watching the second-to-last episode of Freaks and Geeks. Then we showered and went to sleep.

We drove a little over 550 miles that day. The only thing I could think about as we fell asleep was that we still had 1,600 miles between us and Atlanta.

Day 17 (July 20): Universal and Pasadena

Total Driving Time: 26.6 miles (trip total: 4,418.1 miles)

States Traveled To: California

Main Activity: Universal Studios, dinner and a night in Pasadena with Nhi

Waking up is always so much nicer when you're not in the back of your van. It's even nicer when you're in southern California. And it is even nicer when you're about to spend the day at Universal Studios.

We arrived at Universal shortly after it opened at nine. We tried using coupons that we had picked up at a local Burger King for $15 off, but the woman at the ticket counter told us that the coupons were only for southern California residents so we had to pay full price. Lame.

We went over the map of Universal to plan out our day. There are only about five rides at Universal but there are several 3-D shows that are fun to see. And at the Universal in Hollywood, the studio tour is a must.

The map told us to go to the back section of the park first and ride them early when less people were there. It was right. The wait time for all the rides there was five minutes or less. The first ride we went on was The Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride.

The indoor rollercoaster was way faster than I thought it would be which I loved. The next ride we went on was Jurassic Park THE RIDE, a log flume ride that brings you "face-to-face with "living" dinosaurs, a 50-ft. T-Rex, hungry raptors, and the only exit, a treacherous plunge straight down an 84-ft. vertical drop waterfall" (from the studio map).

This ride was also a lot more exciting than I thought it would be and the big splash at the end completely drenched us. Im not sure why I thought the rides would be tamer than they were. I guess I thought it was more aimed at kids than it was. In fact, it was so adult-oriented that there was even an area where you could trade your kids in for better kids!

The next ride on our list was the new and crazy-popular The Simpsons Ride, where we had to face our longest wait time all day: fifteen minutes. If this had been Six Flags Over Georgia, everyone would have been racing to this ride because it had the shortest wait time.

The great thing about the Simpsons Ride is that they have about fifty TVs playing different clips from the show the whole time you are in line. Many of the clips were from an episode where the Simpsons go to a theme park, such as this one:

Several of the characters came out and took pictures with people:

As you can see behind Marge, the gift shop for the ride was inside a replica of the Kwik-E-Mart, which for huge Simpsons fans like myself was totally awesome (the other side of the building was Moe's Bar). The ride was also very fun and entertaining. When we reached the front of line and were waiting to board, there were screens on both sides of us where characters would stand there and occasionally say something to you. Apu stood next to us and didnt say much, although he did scratch his neck a few times and sneeze.

After the Simpsons ride, we tried to race over to The Terminator 2: 3D to catch a showing, but we were a minute late and they wouldnt let us in. So we went to the House of Horrors and would return for the next showing.

The House of Horrors was a haunted house where you walked through all of the famous Universal horror movie sets, including Frankenstein, Dracula, Psycho, Chucky, The Mummy, Dawn of the Dead, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The live actors actually made it pretty scary. As you walk through each set, characters from the movie jump out from dark corners and scare the bejesus out of you. One guy behind us kept trying to scare the girls he was with and

every time they screamed he would get a good laugh. But when we were walking through the Texas Chainsaw set, Leatherface leapt out at him and he got so freaked out he almost fell to the ground.

The sets were almost too realistic. We walked through a "morgue" scene that had body bags hanging from the ceiling. There were so many that you had to push them aside to get past. The bags were heavy to make it seem like there were actual bodies in there (it seemed real). And the weirdest part was, they made the room smell horrible to recreate a "dead" smell.

After the House of Horrors, we went to see the Terminator 2: 3D show. I think this is one of the oldest Universal attractions, because I seem to remember the floating metallic head of the terminator being in a commercial at least fourteen years ago. You know, this one:

We decided to take a break and walk back to the van for lunch. We had bought food the day before at Walmart and kept it in the cooler. The meal was surprisingly decent. Liz even made a salad from some vegetables that she had bought at Walmart to go along with our sandwiches and chips. We both were so full by the end that we began to feel sleepy and almost fell asleep on the mattress pads in the back of the van.

Before we had left for lunch, the wait time for the studio tour was down to 15 minutes after hovering around 30 minutes all day. We thought about doing the studio tour, which takes about 45 minutes, and then going to lunch but we decided we were too hungry to wait. And I am glad we didnt, because when we came back to the park, the wait time said less than five minutes. Hooray!

The cool thing about the studio tour at the Universal in Hollywood is that the sets we saw were the actual sets used for filming the shows and movies. Some of the sets were created solely for the entertainment of the tour, such as the Jaws scene and The Mummy tomb, but everything else was "real."

A list of some of some of the sets we saw:

• The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park
• Skull Island from King Kong
• Whoville from The Grinch
• the plane crash scene from The War of the Worlds
• Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives
• the Bates Motel from Psycho

There were also many sets that had been used in countless films, such as the Old Western Town, Old Mexico, The Courthouse, Little Europe, and Rome. They showed us some cool special effects, too, such as how they create floods and earthquakes and blow up cars. One funny thing they did on the tour was show video clips of a studio tour that Conan O'Brien had recently led.

Jurassic Park:

The War of the Worlds:

Desperate Housewives:

When we passed the Bates Motel, Norman Bates was carrying the body of a woman out to his car ("Why would he do this in broad daylight?" Conan had said).

When he saw us, he began chasing us with a knife. During the Conan-led tour, Conan shouted to him, "Why are you wearing corduroy? It's 98 degrees out here!"

The last thing we wanted to do after the studio tour was see the Shrek: 4D show. After the show, we went to buy souvenirs at the Simpsons gift shop (in the Kwik-E-Mart!). On our way back to the van, we stopped at a Jamba Juice and bought a couple smoothies for the ride home.

When we got back to Nhi's house, she called me from her office and asked if we had plans for dinner. We didnt, so she offered to take us out for Phở, a Vietnamese beef and noodle soup. I had actually had Phở before (my mom and aunt love it) but Liz never had. When Nhi got back from work at around 6, she picked us up and drove us to one of her favorite Phở places. "To get good Phở, you have to go to Chinatown," she told us. "For some reason they do not have good Phở at the Vietnamese places near my place."

The Phở was amazing. If you have never had it before, go out and try it. The soup on its own is delicious, but after mixing in basil, bean sprouts, peppers, hoisin sauce (sweet), hot sauce, and lime juice, it is, as Flanders would say, scrum-diddly-umptious. The sugary lime drink we had with it was superb as well.

After dinner, Nhi wanted to show us around her beautiful city of Pasadena. For those who dont watch college football, Pasadena is home to the annual Rose Bowl and the Tournament of Roses Parade. The California Institute of Technology is also located in Pasadena.

The first place we drove was over the beautifully-lit Colorado Street Bridge. Since I forgot to bring my camera along with us, I am going to have to put pictures on here that I found on the Internet.

The next place we visited was the Rose Bowl stadium. Apparently it is a great place to exercise, because even at 9 at night there were hundreds of people biking, running, and walking. It was definitely a happening place.

The last place we went to was Pasadena City Hall, an incredible building to see at night. "It's one of the last places in Pasadena that actually belongs to the people," Nhi said, "We dont really have parks or public places like that, so a lot of people come here." This is not your average city building, whose only purpose is to house the city government. Pasadena City Hall is more like something you would see in Rome or Paris. It has a courtyard with a fountain, it is almost all outdoors with open hallways and few doors, and the architecture is the kind that makes people who couldnt care less about architecture actually appreciate it.

Here are some of the best pictures I could find of it:

After exploring the courtyard and hallways, Nhi led us upstairs to a walkway where you could see almost all of Pasadena.

After our tour was complete, Nhi asked if she could take us out for desert. Although we were still full of Phở, we couldnt say no. She took us to Noodle World where we had shaved ice loaded with fruit, ice cream, and condensed milk. We had to wait a while for the desert to come, but it gave us a great chance to talk and really get to know Nhi. We told her all about our trip and she told us about some of the exciting trips she'd been on. We talked about CouchSurfing and about how crazy and amazing it is. She is a firm believer in the philosophy of "pay it forward". She would not let me pay for anything the entire night and believe me, I tried. Her generosity and kindness made our night in Pasadena one of the most unforgettable of the entire trip.