Travels with Tara

Sunday, July 9, 2006

So we did the cross country trip across the US in 6 days and it was really wonderful and worthwhile. We visited 13 states, saw 6 baseball stadiums plus one national monument and presidential library. Take a look at our route (yes, I'm a dork and made this map in Paint Shop Pro):



Day One:

Left New York City's the meat packing district around 2ish and sat on the West Side Highway and in the Holland Tunnel for an hour. Drove through New Jersey past Newark and into Pennsylvania stopping in Pittsburgh for dinner outside the PNC stadium as a game was being played. Then headed on to Cleveland Ohio to rest for the night.

Day Two:

Hit up a farmers market in Cleveland and had breakfast and traveled to Chicago, where we stayed the night at my cousin's awesome high rise with a great view of Lake Michigan and downtown skyline. He kindly cooked us Seafood Fra Diavolo for dinner, which was so good and spicey, my white pants seemed to want to try it even :(

Day Three:

Drove from Chicago, IL to St. Louis, MO and rode up the famous arch in a very tiny capsule. It's America's tallest national monument by the way and in the museum part we caught an interesting documentary film on Lewis and Clark. Here we had our fanciest meal during the trip at Dierdorf & Hart's steakhouse, yum. We then drove to Arkansas for the night.

Day Four:

Briefly went though Memphis, TN in the morning then to Little Rock where we visited President Clinton's Library--wow what an amazing man. Then we drove all the way past Dallas to Odessa, Texas and spotted a rainbow along the way.

Day Five:

Got up very early and headed to El Paso to celebrate 4th of July.

Day Six:

Left El Paso and traveled through New Mexico and Arizona. Stopped in Phoenix for dinner with friends and arrived in Los Angeles around 2 a.m.

Baseball stadiums visited:
Pittsburgh Pirates, PNC
Cleavland Indians, Jacobs Field
Chicago White Sox, U.S. Cellular Field
St. Louis Cardinals, Busch Stadium
Texas Rangers, Ameriquest Field
Chicago Cubs, Wrigley Field


LA high points:
Roller bladed from Santa Monica to Marina Del Rey
Sipped a martini at The Abbey
Relaxed on the beach and got a tan
Meeting new people
Checked out 3rd Street Promenade and much more
Here is the view from only a block away of where I stayed in Venice Beach *sigh*