Saturday, my drive home from Tempe, Arizona led me via I-40 through Albuquerque, New Mexico, filming location of the hit television show Breaking Bad. My GPS told me that by leaving Tempe at 6 AM, I would arrive home at 11 PM as long as I did not stop for fuel or food. (It’s a fifteen hour drive, plus an additional two hours in time zone changes.) Even though I knew it would be a long day in the car, I decided to spend 30 minutes driving around Albuquerque and visiting a few of the more recognizable locations from Breaking… (read more)

(Note: Those of you who follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook read about some of this in real time. Here is the full adventure!) It started yesterday morning with the following declaration from Susan: “We are not going to spend Labor Day in this house watching television! Get up! We are going on an adventure! We are leaving at 9 AM!” (This was around 8:15 AM.) My thoughts arrived in the following order: “Where are we going?” “Is the iPad fully charged?” “Isn’t everything closed on Labor Day?” (Spoilers: “Northwest, Yes, and Mostly.”) I grabbed my backpack and tossed in… (read more)

Unbeknownst to me, last night Susan made reservations at the Arcadian Inn, a local Bed and Breakfast roughly 15 minutes away from our home. It is always amazing to me how many wonderful things can be found by simply venturing out a few miles away from home. Here are a few pictures I took over the past 24 hours. If you follow me on Facebook you may have already seen a few of these. Sorry. The first few pictures are of the inside of our room. That’s the bed and a bunch of pictures of old dead ladies. I had… (read more)

I spent some time last night updating the list of states I’ve visited. There are 7 left that I haven’t stepped foot in, and a few more that I’ve only driven through. Updates include Missouri, Illinois, Indianapolis, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Toronto (Ontario), and New Hampshire. New entries include Vermont and Maine. All of the updates to the list include pictures. While in Illinois, we got to stop and have Chicago with some of our family. Grandma O is always glad when we stop by!

One of the greatest things we saw last week on vacation was Niagara Falls. My Uncle Kenny (and several other people) recommended that we stay on the Canadian side of the falls, and I’m so glad we did. We stayed in the Hilton on the 49th floor, and the view was literally breathtaking. There are, of course, two different falls. The Horseshoe Falls were to our right. Here was the view of Horseshoe Falls from our hotel room, which had floor-to-ceiling windows. It was actually hard to see the entire falls as there was so much mist in the air.… (read more)

I start this post as I have started many posts by stating that my life is filled with many fun and random adventures. I love that bizarre and unique things happen to me; I treasure the experiences and wouldn’t have it any other way. Monday morning I drove north from Greensboro, North Carolina to our nation’s capitol, Washington D.C. I timed the roughly 300 mile trip so that I would arrive in time to pick up my friend Emily at the airport. After meeting Emily on the airport, we took a shuttle to the metro, and the metro to the… (read more)

After reading my recently posted Guns and Roses Concert Review, my friend Kevin mentioned L.A. Guns. I also met L.A. Guns once, back in the late 90s. Here’s that story. While living in Spokane back in the late 90s, Susan and I began our own music-related magazine. In-Tune Magazine printed around 1,500 copies a month. We gave all the copies away, and paid for our printing costs by selling advertisements to local businesses. The magazine ran for four months, but in retrospect it seems like years. During that time I got to meet dozens of local bands, went to dozens… (read more)

We were a bit disappointed that our visit to the Neon Boneyard didn’t work out, but our spirits were quickly lifted once we arrived at the Ethel M Chocolate Factory. According to Wikipedia, “Ethel M is owned by Mars Incorporated and was named after the mother of Forrest Mars, Sr. Forrest E. Mars, Sr. created Ethel M Chocolates in 1978, which opened in 1980, as a project to cure the boredom he experienced after retiring. According to researcher J.G. Brenner, “Forrest established the venture in Nevada because it is one of the few states that allowed the sale of liqueur-filled… (read more)