St. Louis

Tim eating Buffalo jerky in front of a stuffed Buffalo.

Creepy bionic buffalo solider still alive some 150 years after most real humans die.

Pullin' into St. Louis.

Seven guys, one pod, no problem.

The Gateway Arch

St. Louis from the top of the Arch.

Gabe can't believe how far up he is.

Head Wooper: Surround someone while they are humming really low then buz noises right next to their ears and face. The person in the middle will experience an outer body experience, just ask Nick.

St. Louis has this big arch in it that towers over the city. You can go inside and take elevator pods to the top. The person in charge of assigning pods told us we could either split into two or three small groups or stay together and break the record for the number of people they've ever had in one pod. We took the latter option and successfully crammed seven, un-showered, sweaty guys into a pod made to sit four. When we got to the top we all tried to get out at once which resulted in a huge pile of guys falling into the walkway in front of a large crowd of tourists. On the way back down we closed our eyes and laid on each other with our mouths open to pretend like we had suffocated. People walked by with looks of horror until we, on cue, started beat boxing and singing, bump'n' our pod with grooves.

BIG THANKS TO: Jenny and the workers at Sun Decker's. They let us park our bus right outside their bar, use their kitchen for water and washing dishes, and even gave us a little back ground on St. Louis. There was a riverside casino floating on the Mississippi right behind our parking spot. Jenny told us we could go fish right next to it if we wanted to catch a tree or a dead body, but finding any three feet catfish would take a trip out halfway across the river.

Memphis

Tim rockn' out behind the wheel.

The warm glow of Memphis.

The morning after Memphis, cozzzzy.

Gabe on pee-pot patrol.

Mikey goin' monkey.

Bubby doesn't know where Nick went wrong.

The pictures for Memphis got erased by accident, but as you can see by the face paint we put on in preparation our night was best described as a fierce tribal battle. We wandered down Beale St. until we found a blues hall that rocked us with a band named Delta Saturn. Delta Saturn was more than meets the eye with a saucy saxophone, a cowboy lead guitarist, an old leathery base player that looked like a fossilized cave women, a huge drummer, and a 7o+ yr. keyboardist who played like he was still 15. There were a lot of people asking for spare change but we told them we spent every penny on diesel but would gladly sing them a song. They were sorry to find out we had horrible singing voices. We also saw the famous Gibson guitar factory, got a peek at the Coyote Ugly bar which was empty, and drove by the hotel room where Martin Luther King was assassinated. The picture on the front page of the news paper Bubby picked up on the way out of town was of a black man who had clenched a nomination for the presidency of the United States, Barrack Obama. We went to Graceland, but the memory of the once crowned king of rock 'n roll, Elvis Presley, now would have cost nearly $50 a person. Thats enough for a full tank of blue bird go juice...sorry Graceland we have places to be.

New Orleans

New Orleans

Nick contemplates the reasons why catchup and mustard work together on hamburgers and separately on French fries.

Matty D loves a good daiquiri.

Mikey and Matty D make new friends in the french quarter.

Gabe, Tim, and Mikey are broad casted all over the bar.

Some swanky brass from the New Orleans French quarter.

Nick, Mikey, Jo-Jo, and Matt D jam late into the night.

Bubby and Gracie

Bourbon Street

Mikey riding the street car to the French Quarter to get down to some music.

New Orleans had the simple southern swagger that keeps the mind cool while the body sweats in the humidity. We stayed two nights in the birth place of jazz as Gracie showed us true southern hospitality. The first night the group got split in two. Nick, Matt, Tim, Bubby, Gracie and some of her friends went to Bourbon St. to see the neon lights and high stilted decks of New Orleans. Jo-Jo and Mikey staid in uptown and cooked a little pasta on the bus. The next day we all went downtown via the street car. We walked from Canal St. to the Mississippi river on the edge of town where we saw the steam boats pulling in and out of the docks. A train was passing by on our way back to Bourbon street and Nick decided to hop on for a short ride. (video right) Later, Tim found a mechanical bull and had to take a ride. (video left) We went to the french quarter that night to listen to the musicians who can't help but jam out in the legendary birthplace of Jazz. New Orleans blew us, and our wallets, away, so it was time to hit the road again although I don't think Bubby ever wanted to leave. (see picture of him and Gracie above)

Okay - back to update after day of work at the track. Minnesnowta has been treating us well, Timmy and his family have put up with our antics just as well as the rest of the country. We last left off with us in Texas. The Lone Star State was a bit of a blur as we drove through without staying the night. From there we entered into Louisiana and got off the interstate to check out the Bayou. We pulled into a swampy area to try our hand at some fishing and had a pretty sweet encounter with an alligator. He tried to take one of our lures, but we ended up getting it back. After that we stayed off the main road and traveled around the backroads of the state. We came up upon a crawfish stand that had a special - "10 for $24.99!" We had no idea what this meant so we obviously wanted it. Turns out they gave us 10 pounds of crawfish. We went to a field by the stand and had a great dinner. From there we headed into New Orleans for showers and shelter.

Arizona, New Mexico, Texas

I'm not lumping these states together because they weren't of interest, but they definitely had a different feel than other parts of the country. We left the Grand Canyon and headed south to Sedona to check out Cathedral Rock. The scenery looked like Mars, it was a pretty neat. Then we were off to Phoenix to drop off two of our bustripboys to whittle our number down to the original seven guys who got the bus in Minnesnowta. It was sad seeing Kyle and Jon off, but we had to get over it and make our way east towards New Mexico. About halfway through this leg we found Salt Creek Canyon which had the perfect creek for us to both swim and quasi-shower in. There were some rocks that made a waterslide type deal that probably wasn't too safe, but turned out to be a lot of fun. We then made our way to Roswell, New Mexico to check out the aliens. I'll update more on this soon, but we're working at a race track tonight painting kids faces and we have to go to an art supply store. Wish us luck!

The Good, Great, GRAND CANYON

I made sure to warn everyone that the Hoover Dam was not much to see, but the Grand Canyon was a pretty big scene. This proved to be true as the Hoover Dam was nice, but the GC was beautiful. We took a couple of wrong turns so our plan of arriving at sundown was a little off, but it still looked nice in the twilight. We hid all the boys except Bubby and Tim in our storage so we didn't have to pay a higher fee for entering the park. Then we headed out and found a place to camp. Joseph and Mikey made us some pasta and everyone grubbed at our impromptu home. There was a store about 100 yards away that had a bunch of firewood stacked behind it, so we naturally assumed it was free. This made our campfire all the better. The next morning we woke up early (10ish) and headed out for our hike. The signs said we weren't supposed to do the whole hike in one day, so we just went off the trail and made our own path. The hike ended up being around 6 or 7 miles and by the end everyone, except Nick who loved the whole day, was ready to get out of the Grand Canyon. It was nice, but we were ready to head to our next stop.

Mikey giggles with excitement right before our descent into the Grand Canyon.

Tim in pajama pants, hawaiin shirt, and a zebra print cowboy hat follows the path at Yaki Point, Grand Canyon.

Gabe contemplates that age old question:
"Would you rather never be able to see moving vehicles or not be able to tell the difference between English muffins and babies?"

Matty D lets the grand canyon tour mules go by.

Gabe and Tim found there way to a cliff overlooking the trail. How they got their no one knows, but there is a photo ID hidden under a rock on that very ridge. There is a $100,000 reward for anyone who can find it..........

Awe inspiring.