Greetings! I wrote this from the road, blogging as Corelyn drove for Truth and Consequences, AZ. We were on Route 25, driving though the desert that is very beautiful and awe-inspiring.

******

On Monday, we didn’t update you as much because we were in Albuquerque, hanging with Meg for an entire day. We got up early to stay on a schedule and to see Mike off to work…with a breakfast burrito. We went to Golden Pride, which apparently is the place to go for burritos of the breakfast variety. Golden Pride is owned by the same people who own and operate Frontier which is known as an Albuquerque food sensation.

Post burritos, we headed a turquoise shop to look at traditional Native American/Native American inspired necklaces, earrings, and the like. After scouring the shop, we hopped in the car and drove to the University of New Mexico, which is where Meg works. She showed us around the campus, pointing out the beautiful sculptures and landscaping, and touring us around the duck pond that was an adorable addition to the campus. We took lots of photos on the campus, making Meg stop frequently to either pose or allow one of us to get the exposure correct. She was patient with us, and even posed with a few statues.

After the campus, we went to Flying Star to get some lunch. Corelyn had a delicious turkey and avocado/cheese sandwich, while I had a Mediterranean plate. Meg’s salad made us both jealous, and was full of spinach, strawberries, and other yummy salad toppings. After we were satisfied, we let loose in a thrift store called “Buffalo Exchange.” Meg scored with a few dresses, Corelyn picked up a lovely orange dress, and I made out with a pair of peace sign dangling earrings. Meg also ended up trying on two dresses I already own (one that MMC gave me, black with white polka dots) and purchased one (the MMC one!!)

Dresses secured, we decided we’d like to see Old Town of Albuquerque. Meg drove us over, and we spent a while walking around, getting ice cream, and taking in the sights. Old Town Albuquerque is a beautiful, Mexican-inspired area that was quaint, historical, and interesting. We walked by many shops, popped into a gorgeous church, and spent some time on the green. (For those of you who don’t know, a green is kind of like the town center/square. Think Gilmore Girls. Think Big Fish. Think Back to the Future. You get the idea.)

We also made Meg pose for photos here, me lying on the ground posing Meg, chin up, chin down, tilt this way, etc. After capturing some of Old Town, Meg walked us to a lovely park that was attached to a few museums. It was full of exercise equipment, so obviously Corelyn, Meg, and I spent the next thirty minutes exercising and goofing off. Then we headed back to the car, and back to the apartment to get ready for the Albuquerque Isotopes baseball game.

The ‘Topes are the farm team of the Dodgers, and they are beloved in Albuquerque. Corelyn had never been to a baseball game, but we assured her the game was mostly about hot dogs and beer, and she was amenable to the idea. Mike even let me borrow his ‘Topes t-shirt, so I was ready for the game. We headed to the ballpark, where we got to park for free due to the four people in our car (free parking! For carpooling! Thanks, Albuquerque!)

Once inside the ball field, we met up with two of Meg and Mike’s friends (Justin and Stacy), and their friend from out of town (Devon.) As it turns out, Devon was also road tripping from Los Angeles, and was following a similar route to the east coast. He also was a Yankee’s fan, so that was a point of contention between us as we sat next to each other.

We had, coincidentally, talked in the car on the way over about how I hate all Yankees fans (except for my family and K and T, who are the exception to my rule.) “This is going to be hard, you picked the wrong person to sit next to,” I said, but continued to have a pleasant conversation all the same. Devon turned out to be a baseball player, so I learned a lot about the game, as well, and he kept an eye for fly balls while Corelyn, Meg, and I chattered away.

We had beer, a hot dog, and churros at the game, interspersed between innings two and seven. When we arrived at the seventh inning stretch, Corelyn said, “Oh, that’s a real thing?” Oh, Corelyn. We belted out “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and Mike and Justin actually stood up to get a good stretch in.

The game ended in and exciting manner: bottom of the ninth, tied score, bases loaded. The ‘Topes hit a high fly ball to left field, bringing the third base runner home and ending in a 7-6 victory. We headed home, full of good food, Coors Light, and giggles, and prepared for the longest car day we have on our road trip: 14 hours to San Antonio. Meg and Mike proved the best hosts we could have asked for, and it was lovely to meet their friends and get a glimpse into their life in the wondrous city of Albuquerque.

The quote is from when we discovered that Saturday and Sunday were free days for the National Parks, so we got into the Grand Canyon for free instead of the usual $25. First hilarious quote of the road trip, so thank you Corelyn.

**********

Hello readers! Sorry it’s been a few days since we’ve updated. We’re currently in Albuquerque with Corelyn’s friend Meg and her boyfriend Mike! We arrived here from The Grand Canyon last night (Sunday) and spent the day with Meg.

But enough about today. You want to know about yesterday, right? I know you do. Since it’s late where we are (we’re losing hours as we cross the borders and the time zones!) I am going to give you a quicker run down of what our day was like. Tomorrow we’ll be on the road for lots of hours, so I’ll have more time to spend updating the blog with photos.

Anyways. Enough of that. Yesterday we got up and did some blogging, then we organized our stuff and hit the road to the Grand Canyon (which I have taken to saying, “Grande Can-youn” with a Mexican-Spanish accent, if you can imagine that). The Canyon was beautiful in the mid-morning as well, and we spent some time getting more photos, doing a little yoga, and generally saying, “Wow! Amazing!” We pulled off the road at some point to see some elk that were very close to the side of the road, snapping shots like all the other tourists around.

We then headed out of the Grand Canyon to Cameron, AZ. Corelyn’s dad is named Cameron, and we had heard good things about the outpost, so we stopped, looked around for a while, gift-shopped, and snapped some photos.

At this point, our phones had finally changed to Mountain Time. It seems that Arizona does not observe daylight savings, so for the better part of Sunday we were constantly unsure of what time it was because we knew that Arizona was in Mountain Time yet our phones had not changed. This caused confusion, however, when I changed the clock in the car…we got back on the road, we thought for good, due to the Albuquerque. Or, so we thought. An hour or so in, we saw a sign for Meteor Crater. Corelyn said, “It’s open until 5. It is five.” To which I said, “No, Arizona doesn’t observed daylight savings. It’s 5 in Mountain Time zone.” You could see how that might be confusing. To which Corelyn said, “Right, so it’s five.” To which I yelled, “No, it’s four, it’s four!!”

Meteor Crater was exactly what it sounded like, and was perfectly delightful, albeit very windy. After spending some time oohing and ahhing the deep, 1 mile across 520 feet deep crater, we headed back to the car, put on some tunes, and cruised to Albuquerque. We arrived around 10 to Meg and Mike, and after unloading the car we ate some dinner, chattered with Meg for a bit, and headed to bed.

The day was fun, fast, and full of sites to see and friends to snuggle. I will post about today tomorrow when today is yesterday and tomorrow is today. Bet that was confusing, huh? Pictures to come…

How was everyone’s Monday?

Well folks, reporting from the road on day 1. Our first day went pretty swimmingly. We got up and out on time, snapped a few shots with our friends, hugged everyone goodbye, and hopped in the car. Coffee cups full, bladders (mostly) empty, we made it from LA to Barstow to the Arizona border without a problem. We stopped a few times to use the restroom (obviously) but we were relatively quick.We gabbed and gabbed and chattered away. We listened to mixes from MMC, and Megan, and Barbra, and Traci. We have so many more mixes to go. We listened to Corelyn’s “Califonia” mix and “Arizona mix.”

We slowed down on the empty highway to take a photograph of the Arizona border. After the border we stopped for gas (nearly running out, but it’s fine, we didn’t) and some lunch. In rogue fashion, I got a BLT, and Corelyn got breakfast. At 2:30 pm. Then we climbed back into the car, switching drivers, and followed a small road up to the Grand Canyon.

Corelyn couldn’t stop saying, “It’s so pretty! Look at the sky, it’s so pretty!” on the way to the Grand Canyon, and I couldn’t stop saying, “Look at the animals. So help me God if there’s an elk.” There were “Elk Crossing” signs all the way to the Grand Canyon. Which we made it to around 6:15 pm, in time to see the sunset. As we drove around looking for a suitable place to stop, use the restroom, I commented, “These people are indicating to me that it’s colder out than what I am dressed for.” I was in a t-shirt and capris.

I was right. We opened the doors and it was windy, and cold. So we changed into warmer clothes, grabbed the camera bag and headed to the Canyon, hiking a trail through the woods. Which, by the way, I was not expecting there to be so many woods in Arizona.

Arriving at the Canyon and the “Trail of Time” we were awed, and couldn’t stop “ahhing” and smiling. We took hundreds of photographs, and then hiked along the rim until we found a suitable place to sit down, pull out the blanket we brought, and watch the sunset over the Canyon.

After the sunset, we headed back to the car, chilled to the bone, and found some bathrooms. Then we were back on the road. And this is where, my friends, the fun started.

First of all I drove like a grandmother the entire way back, 60 miles in a 65 because I’ve hit enough deer to know it’s no fun at all. We passed some creature that looked like a GIANT raccoon, but was too big to be so, but I was beeping my horn so it ran away before we could figure out what it was. Not a coyote, not a hare. Hmm…then at some point Corelyn said, “Deer. We just passed a deer.” This obviously caused me to slow down even more.

Then we rolled into Flagstaff around 9:30, not impressed but the seemingly non-city city. We were a half-mile from the hotel when I saw a yellow light. “I’m going” I said to Corelyn. “If I get pulled over, I’ll pay the ticket.”

Seconds later, blue and red were flashing behind me. Incredible. The officer was very nice to me, let me get my wallet and license out of the bag in the back, and realized I was from out of town. But, I’m from LA! Land of yellow lights! Land of running them! My citation? Failure to stop at a red light. Crazy! Insane! Unbelievable! It was yellow!

Needless to say, we took it in stride, headed to the hotel, and dropped our stuff. We then tried to get dinner at a place recommended to us by the woman at the front desk, but the place’s kitchen was closed. “The bars open, though,” the nice man said. Oh, no. We headed to “Downtown” where everything looked closed, one-way streets were rampant, and every counting down “don’t cross” hand made me unnecessarily brake for fear of running another yellow. No food. 10:30.

Corelyn did some iPhone research and found us a grocery store. Closed at 10. Another? Midnight! But it’s the night before Easter…was it open? We raced over there (to a place much closer to our hotel than the downtown) and found it! Open! We meandered around for a while, figuring out what to eat. By the time we got back to the hotel it was 11:00. We made hummus, green pepper, turkey sandwiches on pita. And passed out. First day? Crazy already.

Well folks, today marks the departure of Garlic, My Soul to the eastern seaboard (Well…Tennessee, but close enough, you get the idea.) In a few minutes we’re headed to the East, by way of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, dipping into Tennessee, then Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and back into Tennessee. Eight states I’ve never been through (Jennie) and a sweeping tour of the southern half of our country. LA has been good to us, if I do say so myself, and although I’ll be back in 10 days, Corelyn’s off to bigger adventures smattered across just east of the Mississippi.

We’ve got our Trader Joe’s snacks packed, Corelyn is getting ready now, and I’m gathering my final items (and blogging, obviously.) First Stop: Flagstaff, AZ. We’ll post to our Twitter along the way, and Facebook if you’re luckily, so check in all around the Internet to see what we’ve been up to.

If you’re somewhere along the way, give us a shout out, otherwise if you have advice/restaurants to try/etc., give us some love.

Meanwhile, I’m going to go put the coffee on…

Because Jeff came with us on our photo shoot, you have the opportunity to see the behind the scenes photos from the photo shoot!! The morning of the shoot, we got up at 3:30 am to drive to Rebecca’s and be there by 4:15. Then we loaded cars, got the makeup we needed, and headed to the beach. We arrived just shy of 6:00 am, and started setting up, doing makeup, and finally shooting. The light was beautiful, and miraculously as we wrapped up the light became cloudy and the mist rolled in. We had a perfect, beautiful morning, however, and here is your sneak peek.

Note the fact that the sun isn’t up quite yet. Also note the runner…

Mary probably directing us, or yelling at me to stop starring at all the babies, or showing us a photo…

Yes, that is an oven we dragged onto the beach.

Please note the spot of sun. We arbitrarily picked a spot on the beach, and we were surprised to see the sun hit just that spot. Amazing!

I believe in this photo I just had spilled coffee all over myself. To which Mary said, “I don’t care that you spilled your coffee. The light! Smile!”

At some point, we put the music on Corelyn’s phone and stuck it in her apron pocket. I believe Paul Simon was playing at this point.

The sun was really  up here, so we had Mary and Becca jump in!

The photographer herself!!

Some more music playing, maybe Hanson? But I think really it was Paul Simon, again…

Check out Mary’s blog, too, because they’re some shots here, too.