Weather: 115 sunny – 90 raining – 35 snowing

The first stop on our trip was Yuma AZ and it just so happened that summer recently struck the area with vengeance. Yuma is in the middle of the desert and in the summer it gets pretty hot and dry, when we were there the sun was blistering and it reached 115. It actually melted the insulation in the bus. By the time we made it across the south to Florida were getting used the humidity but what we didn’t realize is that rainy season in the south is in the summer. The weather was amazing most of the time except for the few days it was raining, monsoon style, all the while maintaining an incredibly high temperature. Then of course as we went on it cooled off. I actually remember one day in particular when shorts were no longer necessary, it was right before we got to Boston. From there it slowly got colder all the way down to the lower 30’s when we went through Montana, there was actually a few inches of snow on the ground and it even snowed while we were in Yellowstone.

Wildlife: Lizards, Star Fish, Jelly Fish, Mosquitoes, Manatees, Crocodiles, Alligators, Turtles, Puffer Fish, Crab, Tarpon, Sponge, Barracuda, Sting Rays, Tropical Fish, Shark, Deer, Bison, Elk, Bear, River Otters, Bald Eagle, Coyote, Moose, and probably more

We saw an incredible amount of wildlife, and I’m not even including the animals we saw in captivity, although if I did I would surely have to include the monkeys in Florida and the big cats in Arizona and the dolphins in Maryland, but they weren’t wild. My favorite wildlife experience was probably swimming with the manatees in Crystal River Florida. Also known as the sea cows, manatees weigh upwards of 1200 lbs and swim with the flip of their tail. Another unique experience was swimming in the world’s 3rd largest reef off the keys; sting rays, sharks and millions of fish made for a pretty awesome sight. Messing with an alligator in the Everglades was pretty crazy too. Oh also when I saw the bear in Yellowstone I was pretty pumped even though it was like 500 yards away.

Foliage: Sonoran Desert (Saguaro and Prickly Pear Cacti), Tropical Forest (Mangroves and Coconuts), Deciduous Forest (leaves), Great Plains (grasses), Rocky Mountain Forest (Pine, Fir, and Aspen), Pacific Forest (Spruce, Pines, Cedar)

As far as plants go, I think we saw nearly everything that America has to offer. We saw cactus in the southwest, tropical forests in Florida, the leaves of the northeast, the grasses of the plains, and everything in between. The everglades were probably the most interesting to me because I’ve never really seen a tropical ecosystem like that, the mangroves and the hammocks were interesting. One time at Crandon park I actually knocked a coconut down from a tree and managed to crack it open and eat some, it was a pretty memorable moment with the native foliage.

Natural Wonders: Sedona, Lake Patagonia, Saguaro National Park, White Sands National Monument, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Balmorhea State Park, Hamilton Pool Preserve, The Mississippi Delta, The Everglades, The Keys, Niagara Falls, Yellowstone, Rocky Mountains

These places all pretty much speak for themselves, or at least the pictures do. It was all interesting and beautiful, but the most fun was probably all the time we spent in the water, especially through the south. At times it became our only goal for the day, get into some water, that was because it was like 100 degrees and 100% humidity, we couldn’t survive without it. The top few off this list that I would definitely suggest making a special trip for are: white sands, Carlsbad, the everglades, the keys, Niagara, and Yellowstone. White sands seems a little off the beating path there, but it was awesome, we got to sled down hills of pure white sand with no one around. We even got slightly lost on our way back to the car, it was crazy. But really all the natural stuff was awesome and I would like to go back to all these places some day. Last but not least, check the pics for the oohs and ahhs of all these places.

Beaches: Galveston, Dauphin Island, Panama City, Fort DeSoto, South Beach, Crandon, West Palm Beach, Smathers, Daytona, Myrtle Beach, Outer Banks, Virginia Beach, Atlantic City, and Coney Island

Beaches became an important part of our trip as the weather was pretty much ridiculously hot for the entire first half. Our first attempt at a beach we pulled over to the side of the road in Galveston, with our towels in hand, we all opened the doors, took a deep breath, laughed, and closed the doors and took off. It stunk so bad, I’m not sure what it was, probably the sea weed melting in the hot sun and smoldering in the humid humid air. We did end up going to another beach that day, but it was a pretty funny incident. Dauphin island beach, we won’t talk about that one, I’ll just warn you to stay away unless you get the all-clear-of-jellyfish signal (if it exists). We drove our car on Daytona Beach, that was fun. I won’t talk about every single beach, but they all were enjoyable in their own unique ways.

Showers: Outside the bus in random parking lots across the US, several public pools, lots of rivers/lakes/ocean, public showers at the beaches, YMCA’s, at the RV campgrounds, and many friends’ houses along the way

It’s funny the number one question I get from people about this whole thing is: where do you go to the bathroom/shower? Well bathrooms were easy, just picture a road trip, plus wal-marts are usually 24 hour. But the showers, well that was a little more interesting. The most comical showers were definitely outside the bus in a parking lot, it was great to see the look on people’s faces. One memorable time was on our 300 mile journey to the Kenny Chesney concert we pulled off the road for gas and we saw a pool, so we decided to try and shower there. Sure enough the kids who were running the place liked our story and let us in for free to shower. Another good one was when we were rejected from the YMCA in Savannah and we went to the nearby beach and showered for like 30 minutes. It was hilarious because it was like 8 AM and not that warm out, plus we were down a random street to the beach with houses all around us. It’s also important to note here that Lieu takes 30 minutes to an hour for each shower he takes.

History: Yuma Prison, Fight at the OK Corral, Battle at The Alamo, Port of Galveston, NASA Mission Control (Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, and Space Shuttle flights), First Transcontinental Telephone Call, First battle of Civil War, First Flight, Lost Colony, First English Settlement, English Colonial Capitol, End of the American Revolution, End of the Civil War, Ford’s Theatre, Writing place of the National Anthem, Declaration of Independence, Location of the official birth of USA, Bill of Rights, First Roller Coaster, Boston Massacre site, Paul Revere’s House, First University if America, First Baseball Stadium, First Ferris Wheel Site, Louis and Clark Trail, First National Park, just to name a few.

I’m sure this list doesn’t even dent what we actually saw, but it’s all I could come up with off the top of my head. But we did see a lot of real historical sites in America, we saw many of the places where events transpired that formed our nation. For example, when we went to Yorktown, we actually went in the house where the colonies won their freedom. It was a little bit like going through our high school history books in real life, I’m not sure if that makes sense, but it was a good review of American history.

Structures: The Alamo, Tower of The Americas, Beer Can House, Oak Alley, Fort Sumter, Arthur Ravenel, Jr. Bridge, Monticello, Mount Vernon, Pentagon, Supreme Court, Capitol, Washington Monument, Lincoln Monument, Jefferson Monument, Fort McHenry, Independence Hall, Liberty Bell, Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, Ground Zero, Rockefeller Plaza, Yankee Stadium, Grand Central Station, Chrysler Building, The Breakers, Fenway Park, The Big Dig, Cloud Gate, Sears Tower, Hancock Tower, Robie House, and the House on the Rock

Some people probably won’t be as impressed with the structures as I was, but it’s hard to deny the grandeur of such buildings as the capitol, or the breakers, or the empire state building. There were also some historical structures in there, like the Alamo, or Fort Sumter, or Fort McHenry. All the buildings and things were impressive to me, but I think if you really want to know what I’m talking about you should check out all our pictures, or even better you should just check out the sites for yourselves.

Transportation: Trolley to Mexico, riverboat in Louisiana, Fan Boat in the everglades, Sailing in the Keys, The metro in DC, Driving the bus through downtown Philadelphia, The Staten Island Ferry, The Subway in NYC, The “T” in Boston, The “L” in Chicago, nearly 8000 miles in the bus and countless more in the car

We had a lot of interesting transportation experiences, from crazy commutes on the public transit to one of a king travels in Florida. The fan boat was awesome, and I am going to buy one someday just for fun, it was that cool. Then sailing in the keys, well sailing is amazing to begin with, but when you’re in tropical waters and islands all around, it was quite memorable. So quickly let me review or commute in NY, we started by driving 30 minutes from New Jersey to the beginning of Staten Island, then we took the train across the whole island to the ferry terminal (30 minute ride), then we took the ferry across the water to Manhattan (30 minute ride), then we took the subway to wherever we were going that day. The whole thing took at the very least 1.5 hours, but usually 2 hours or so, it was crazy. Then there were the fun times with the CTA in Chicago, I won’t get into it, but we had plenty of memories on our transportation.

Events: Kenny Chesney Concert, Mariners @ Yankees, US Open, Red Sox at Fenway Park

I’m not sure what was the coolest out of all these but it was really fun being at Fenway when Ortiz hit a 2 run shot for the win and the crowd went crazy. Then again, seeing Federer play in the US Open was pretty big, or an authentic country concert in the heart of Texas, or watching the Mariners beat the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, I guess they were all pretty good events.

Incidences: Blown Trailer Tire, Broken Fitting on Air Brakes System, Broken Fitting on Air Brakes System, Broken Fitting on Air Brakes System, Fuel Pump Failure, Faulty Fuel Pump

I don’t really want to talk about this category that much, but let’s just say that if NAPA had provided a proper working fuel pump then our total delay due to mechanical failure throughout the trip would have only been a couple days. Also it’s fun to note that the first three incidences were all in one day in Texas. All the fixes were pretty easy actually, I guess we got lucky.

General Nutrition: McDonalds, Burger King, Wendys, Chick-fil-A, home cooked meals by Ashley in various parking lots, Sonic, Texas BBQ, Beignets, Jambalaya, Gumbo, McDonalds, Burger King, Wendys, Key lime pie, Paula Deans Lady and Sons, Pizza everywhere*, Microwaveables everywhere, Ensure, cheese in Wisconsin, RL Grill, McDonalds, Burger King, Wendys, McDonalds, Burger King, Wendys, McDon……

We tried pretty hard to enjoy the foods of the culture in which we traveled, for example, the BBQ in Texas, but it was hard on such a tight budget (hence the McD’s, the BK’s, and the Wendy’s). The food was an important part of the whole cultural experience of the trip. Let me just also quickly say this about American culture as a whole, we had our fast food just like everyone else, and let me tell you what I learned, it’s terrible. I no longer am having any fast food, that’s one of the main things I got from this trip. We ate it on average once a day for 5 months, and that’s probably enough for me for a really long time.

*Pizza: Pizzeria Bianco, Matchbox, Grimaldi’s Coal Oven Pizza, New Town Pizza, Frank Pepe’s Pizza, Pizzeria Regina, Geno’s East, Girodano’s, Space Aliens

I’ve been thinking about this category since before we even left on the trip. I knew it was going to be a great opportunity to compare the best pizzas in the country. So first let me say that all the ones that were hyped up to be the best were all really good. Oprah apparently said Pizzeria Bianco’s was the best pizza in the country, but for me it was so far removed from the normal pepperoni and cheese pizza that I have grown to love over the years that it was definitely not the best in the country. But I will say, in its own right that it was pretty good pizza. Now the showdown, I think I have to choose Giordano’s as my favorite pizza, but every other place listed up there was pretty amazing and I would love to have it all again. It’s also important to note they all had different styles, even just within one town, like the New York styles were all slightly different, the same is true with Chicago and whatnot. In all actuality I would have to do a variety of all of these just to maintain moderation. So in conclusion, I liked them all, that’s all I can say.

People: Lieu, Ashley, Josh, AJ, Lera, Stephen, Annett and Larry, Bob, Alicia, Mechelle, Sean, Ashley, Bregan, Becka, Steve and Hien, Danielle, Steve, Karin, David, Graham, Tom, Shannon, Paul, Ross, Kyle, the Hermans, Anne Marie, the Godfreads, and Carl

The people make the experience much more fulfilling. If I was not able to go on this trip with my friends, sure I would have learned a lot and saw a lot, but I wouldn’t have had as memorable of an experience. I definitely would have had a lot less laughter and distinctive recollections. Plus, being able to see friends and family along the way was pretty awesome too. I haven’t been able to see my cousins or my buddies back in North Dakota for a really long time, but on this trip I saw nearly all of them. Thanks to everyone who came on the trip and everyone who took the time to hang out with us while we were on the road.

All I have left to say is thanks for reading, thanks for looking at the pictures, thanks for commenting, and thanks for being a fan of this project. It’s taken a lot of work and it has been very rewarding, but the best part is sharing all of it with other people, not only the people that were able to be a part of it, but also the people who read the blogs and followed along on the website. Thanks again for checking it out, I hope it was worth it for you, I know it was for me.

- Carson

I guess I’ll start by saying that all good things come to an end. Moving down to California and living on the bus for almost a year has been the best time of my life. Now I start a new chapter in my life which means working like the rest of the world. There are so many memories and experiences I have not just from the trip, but all the time we spent in Malibu and San Diego leading up to it. I know I’m very lucky to be able to have the opportunity to do something like this and that most people have responsibilities to take care of or obligations to fulfill. Traveling the country has opened my eyes which are closed in a lot of pictures, but that’s because I’m Asian. We’ve seen and done so much I think I have a pretty good idea of what I like and don’t like about every city we’ve visited. Lastly, this trip would’ve meant nothing without my friends so thanks for putting up with me. They are great people who I look up to and I hope they never change. And thanks to all our fans who followed us, I hope you enjoyed our stories and pictures.

It was nice to have a chance to stop in Bowman and walk around part of the ranch, but for more breathtaking landscapes and scenery, Yellowstone National Park is where we needed to go. So we headed for Bozeman, Montana and left from there in the morning. Yellowstone is the first national park in the U.S. and takes up a big chunk of Wyoming so we didn’t waste anytime and went straight to the visitor’s center. We booked a couple of rooms for the night and off we went. First stop we made of course was Old Faithful, the most popular geyser in the entire park. I was expecting water to shoot up hundreds of feet in the air from the ground, but what I got was probably 50 feet so I was a little bummed. I guess there are some geysers that do shoot up water really high, but very rarely and it’s unpredictable to tell when the high ones are going to be. Hot springs are also common in the park, but you are not allowed to go in them. There was this one called Morning Glory that looked so blue I wanted to do a cannonball in it, but I guess the more blue the water, the hotter it is so I opted for taking pictures instead. There was also this place called mud volcano which was kind of interesting, but I renamed it Graham’s butt because it smelled really bad just like his farts. We saw plenty of elk and buffalo, a bald eagle, a wolf or coyote, otters, but what we really wanted to see was a moose. No luck there, but while we were looking for a moose, we saw a brown bear in the distance walking towards the forest so that was cool. Buffalo are funny looking because their butts are really small compared to the rest of their body and they walk in the middle of the road like they own the place which is very rude to all the cars that have to wait until they slowly get their small butts out of the road. They look kind of scary, but when I tried to get close to one, the buffalo starting walking away from me so I guess I’m a force to be reckoned with. What a way to end our trip, it has truly been an adventure of a lifetime and there’s still so much to see in the world that I just want to continue traveling. I’d just like to say thanks to everyone for following our tour.

I’m not sure how exciting writing about Bowman will be for the fans. The town probably has a population of something like 2000 people, it has just a few restaurants, two grocery stores, and only a couple dozen businesses in town. Most of the residences work on the ranches and farms that surround the town. So why did we stop there? Well, like Bismarck, my brother and I have a lot of history there. Only in Bowman the history is a little deeper, I think it was my great great great grandfather from Norway who settled there a long time ago and acquired some land to work. So the land has been passed down generation after generation and has been divided and divided, but now my brother and I own a few sections of the original Roen land that has been in the family so long. My grandfather and my dad both worked on the ranch for many long and hard years so it has always been very important to our family. A funny story happened when we went to the local western store. We got to chatting with the clerk and eventually she wondered why we were in town, we said to visit our land and our family heritage, she said what family, we said the Roen’s…she said, oh yeah I knew them well, Leland (our grandfather) sang at my wedding. I don’t know if that’s a tribute to how well the Roen’s are known in the Bowman area or to how small Bowman is, but either way it was fun to know that people still remembered our family. So we picked up a couple pairs of Wranglers from the western store and headed out to the ranch to explore a bit. It was nice to be back out there, the land is pretty cool, and surprisingly there is a good diversity of landscape on our piece of land. Check out the pictures if you want to see what I’m talking about. Anyway, Bowman was nice and it was great to be back in town. We also had a nice bite to eat with Carl who had worked with my grandpa for 30 years or so and who knew the land and our family very well. Although we didn’t spend much time in Bowman we did get to see a large chunk of the land as well as nearly the entire city. It was a good time, but we were in a hurry to get back to Seattle, but not before a stop in Yellowstone.

- Carson

On our way from Minneapolis to Bismarck we stopped in Fargo to rest for the night and to catch up with an old family friend, Ross. Our server at Denny’s was one of the best I’ve ever had, he was on top of everything, but that’s beside the point, we had a nice meal and caught up with Ross. After Denny’s he came back to the bus to check it out, and consequently entered an elite group of people who have actually seen inside the vehicle. The next day we woke up and quickly headed to Bismarck, well not that quickly, like 55 mph, but we were trying to get there in time to go cruise the river on Kyle’s pontoon boat.

Luckily we made it while it was still warm and managed an hour or so on the river. If you don’t already know this about me, Bismarck is my second home to Redmond; I spent every summer there growing up. I still remember all those summers we spent cruising on the river on Kyle’s pontoon boat, or on his jet skis or with Brian and his boat. Needless to say as we played on the sandbar in the river all the memories came flooding back, it was awesome. Just driving around town was a lot of fun for me too; I got to see all the old places we used to ride bike to and whatnot. The city has grown a lot, many things were new or have changed. The Mini Mart on the corner at the bottom of our hill is now a Loaf and Jug but I can still remember riding bike down there nearly every day. The city has grown like crazy too, which I’m sure Lieu and Ann Marie laugh at, but Graham and I still remember when there was nothing north of Century or on the West side of town. Bismarck has always been a fun place for me because we always knew so many people and they were all so friendly and fun. During the summers there were constantly people over at our house, watching TV or playing video games, and if it wasn’t that then we were off on some quest or just cruising around town. So this time around there weren’t as many people in town as before, but we still had a blast with our old friends that were there. Kyle is working in Bismarck now, so we got to hang out with him and his fiancée Kristin a bunch, he grew up across the street from us so we’ve known him for a really long time. We were also able to see the Godfread’s which was nice, I haven’t seen them in years. Tom happened to be in town too so we went to his dad’s house and played a bunch of video games like old times (the same Tom from Minneapolis a few days prior). I could go on and on about the good old days with Kyle, or Tom, or Brian, or all the other buddies in town but it was a lot of fun to be back in Bismarck reminiscing. Next time I’ll have to come back when it’s warmer and the summer stuff is still open, like the wave pool or the amusement park. Anyway I had a blast, we ate at all the places we used to eat at, we drove to all the places we used to go and we got to cruise the river on Kyle’s pontoon boat. Great times in a small mid-western town.

- Carson

Minneapolis was a nice relaxing stop for us. Our good friend Tom allowed us to stay at his house so we had full amenities which we haven’t had for a long time now. Needless to say we watched a lot of TV in our free time instead of reading books or what have you. The first night we went out a bit downtown with Tom. One of the places we went to was called Brit’s, it was probably the coolest bar I’ve been to, but more on that later. The next day Tom left to go to a friend’s wedding so we had to cruise around the city by ourselves for a while. We went to the sculpture garden and museum. The sculpture garden was awesome, my brother and I climbed around it like monkeys, it was like a play ground for adults….as we were leaving we saw a small sign posted near the grass that read “Please do not climb on the sculptures.” I felt a little bad about it, but it was so much fun and I’m pretty sure we did not damage anything. The sculptures were made out of like 2 inch thick steel, basically invincible stuff. Anyway, after that we played a nice round of bocce ball in the park and waited for some of our other friends in town to call us back. Then all of sudden the stars aligned, our cousin Shannon called me back at the same time Paul, a family friend, called Graham back. So we decided to make a nice little group get together at some pizza joint near downtown. The pizza place was on Hennepin and 3rd, so we used our map and made it to the intersection and parked. Upon further investigation we determined it was Hennepin EAST and 3rd so we had to cross the river. We decided to drive because it was like 8 blocks or so, but as we were driving Paul called and asked if we made the same mistake as he did. Graham said “yes, now were driving across the river to the other 3rd street.” He said, “Did you just stop at a red light on Washington?” Graham said “yes.” It turns out Paul was right next to us walking so we just opened our door and he hopped in as the light turn green. It was pretty crazy how that all worked out. Then we finally met Shannon at the pizza place. The pizza was pretty good but nothing like Chicago style, although it was a good time and we got the chance to catch up with two old friends. After dinner we took Paul back to his car and then we went out with Shannon back to Brit’s downtown. This time around at Brit’s we did things right, we got to play lawn bowling outside on the roof, we also played a little pool, and watched a bit of the Australian Football League championship. For those of you who are not familiar with lawn bowling, it’s basically curling on grass, and if you’re not familiar with curling you should be, because it’s awesome. Shannon and I won, but mainly because Shannon dominated. We all think she must go there all the time and practice, but she says that’s not the case. The next couple days we spent watching football at Tom’s house, like I said we haven’t had TV for a while. Saturday there was a pretty good match between UW and USC, but it did not end very favorably. Then Sunday right before we left Minneapolis we watched the infamous Vikings-Packers game. We couldn’t afford tickets to the stadium which would have been fun, but the TV worked for us. That one didn’t end to favorably either, the Packers won, but I’m happy for Favre who got the all time TD record for QBs. Minneapolis was pretty cool, but the most fun was catching up with our old friends and our cousin. Maybe next time I visit the town I’ll be a little more active and not watch as much TV, but it was a nice break for us.

- Carson

We couldn’t stay in brew city too long because I’m allergic to alcohol and my face turned red just from being around all the beer in the Miller Brewery. Anyways, Madison was our next stop and the first thing we did when we got there was go to a cheese factory. The factory was in a small town outside of Madison called Plain which I thought was kind of funny because it looked exactly like its name, but who knows, there’s probably a lot going on there that I don’t even know about. So when we got to the cheese factory, we found out they stopped giving tours after Labor Day so all we could do is look through the windows and see how cheese is made. Next time we’ll be sure to call ahead of time to make certain we get the full experience. A saying we have come to know and love is; you win some, you lose some and we definitely lost this one. But life goes on and our next stop was an attraction called The House on the Rock which is a house that this guy named Alex Jordan lived in and turned into what I would call Willy Wonka’s house on drugs. The only thing we kept on saying the whole time we were walking through the house was, “This guy is a wackjob”. I guess he has the largest indoor carousel in the world, doll houses, and instruments that play by themselves and a lot of other random stuff from all over the world that I don’t even know about. It was definitely one of the weirdest things I have ever seen and we didn’t even tour his entire house. After that we cruised on down to downtown Madison where we visited the state capitol building and another Frank Lloyd Wright designed building and called it a day.

After seeing Chicago our expectations for cities were high, Milwaukee is much smaller than Chicago so we weren’t as moved by the sites. Although, if you’re big into beer then Milwaukee is the place for you, it was like the Mecca in the 50’s and 60’s. It is also known as Brew City, the four major brewers in the country at the time were all based out of Milwaukee. Baseball fans might put it together now, the Milwaukee Brewers. The only remaining giant still there is Miller. Seeing as how beer is the city’s heritage we had to take a tour of the Miller brewery. The tour was actually pretty cool, we walked through the whole process from producing, to bottling, to shipping. We even saw a room with 500,000 cases of beer in it, probably more than you’ve ever seen in your life, and it’s not like they store it there either, turnover is one day, that means the facility produces 500,000 cases a day. More fun facts: the Milwaukee plant’s production is distributed to only 10 Midwest states, 40% of it going to one city in particular…Chicago. Anyway, we took the tour, tasted some beers and took some pictures. From there we cruised downtown to check out the Art Museum which we didn’t actually go in, but the building was pretty awesome. Last stop, can’t forget cheese, it still is Wisconsin after all. We went to the Cheese Mart and purchases some stuff. That was about it for our stay in Milwaukee.

- Carson

We finally made it to the city on our own terms and we were exciting to see some sites other than the bus. Finally after figuring out the L, we made our way to “the bean” otherwise known as Cloud Gate in Millennium Park and preceded to have fun snapping photos. You know the drill; check them out in the photo section. Adjacent to the bean is the Jay Pritzker Pavilion designed by Frank Gehry, although no one was performing; the structure was impressive to say the least. Remember Frank Gehry from the building at MIT, he’s also known for the EMP and the Disney Concert Hall. We made our way to Crown Fountain, for those of you who haven’t been to it; it is two 50 foot glass towers with pictures of faces projected on it, all the while water cascades down the sides and periodically shoots out of the faces mouths. We continued our stroll through the park making our way to another lovely water feature called Buckingham Fountain, just as classy as the palace, but with no lines or fees. As we debated current politics, we meandered down the waterfront towards the Navy Pier. Upon arriving at the Navy Pier, we went to the McDonald’s Ferris wheel which was disappointing for a number of reasons; one being it was 100 feet smaller than the original, two being it was six dollars a person for one rotation, and three being it didn’t stop. On a more positive note other than the great views from the top, the best part of the experience was being one of two dudes on Lieu’s first Ferris wheel ride ever. Also from our unique vantage point we spotted a couple Lamborghini’s in the nearby Crystal Gardens, naturally we went over to check it out. As it turned out the function was some sort of showcase of Italy featuring Lambos, Ferraris, Mazeratis, Vespas, cheese, wine, and fashion. The fashion show provided much needed rest for our feet as we had just walked a few miles around the city, and I’m pretty sure we gave one of the models the giggles which is definitely frowned upon while on the runway. We were laughing the whole show because the models were supposed to be super serious about their walking. It was like watching a little kid walk, they’re concentrating really hard almost surprised they are doing it without falling, but they have the presence of mind that they’re supposed to look cool. After leaving the show we walked part of the Magnificent Mile, ate at one of the nicest and most efficient McDonald’s ever, and made our way back to the campsite to call it a night.

Naively thinking we had the L all figured out we hopped on the blue train at the end of the line and quickly got off at the Oak Park stop. We walked around pretty much the entire town and indirectly found our way to our desired destination, the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio. Tickets that day were hard to come by, but we got the last three for the 3 o’clock tour of the complex. With time to spare we strolled down Forest Ave. and looked at several other F. Lloyd creations. For the second time on this tour we had a tour guide named Chuck, I don’t know where I was going with that, I just thought it was funny. Chuck was a very knowledgeable guy, we learned all about compression and release as well as a whole bunch of other fun terms to use at a dinner party. The house was very innovative when you consider the fact that he created it over 100 years ago when he was only 22 years old. Oak Park was a nice neighborhood and it had tons of Frankie’s work in it so it was fun to walk around, but we needed to see the city so we got back on the L and headed for the skyscrapers. I guess I shouldn’t say hopped on, it got a little more complicated than that. See the first day we spent about an hour getting these 1 day “fun passes” which turned out to be not all that much fun because they only lasted one day and we needed 3 day passes. Interestingly enough three day passes are only available to visitors, which was perfect because we were doing just that, but unfortunately the CTA believes that visitors must first go to one of only three locations in the entire Chicagoland area to purchase said passes. I don’t know if absurd is the right word, maybe ridiculous, but either way this makes no sense. Passless, we paid the fair to ride downtown from Oak Park on what latter became known as the first leg of our wild goose chase. We quickly realized that the CTA headquarters in the loop was one of our stops, if any place was to have the passes surely it would be the transit headquarters, but no, it was closed at 4. Next attempt was the official tourist information center a few blocks away. We ran inside and asked the lady for some passes, she said we only sell those in the gift center (Who gives visitor passes as gifts anyway). We checked it out and returned to the lady’s desk with no passes, she replied, “Yeah, everyone tries to get out of here at 4:45 on the weekends; everything in the loop closes early.” Time 4:32. She makes a few calls and locates a few passes in the Mag Mile at some grocery store of all places. At that point Chicago and eBUS live were not getting along to well, but to make things worse on the way out of the visitor’s center, Graham was denied access to the bathroom by some security guard. Spirits were down and Lieu was chanting O’fer, but we forged ahead and made our way to the Jewel Osco (For those of you that don’t know O’fer, it means zero for x attempts which in our case was something like 4 at that point, we were zero for four). We finally were allowed the right to purchase visitor’s passes at the Osco, but at that point it was like 6 at night, the Visitor pass debacle was now behind us. We grabbed a bite to eat at our favorite MacD’s and proceeded to walk around the Mag Mile doing a little bit of shopping to try and salvage the evening.

Armed with our visitor’s CTA passes and dressed in business casual we arrived at the Ralph Lauren Grill and Bar for a nice Sunday brunch. It was probably the nicest place we’ve been to eat on the tour, but going there for brunch was a smart move because we managed to all eat for less than $50. From the RL G&B we shot down to Hyde Park and the University of Chicago. Another lovely neighborhood, though slightly surrounded by ghettos, we again walked around to check out the sites. Our main destination was the Robie House, another F.L.Wright design. It is known as his quintessential Prairie style house and is recognized the world over as one of the most influential buildings of the century. The only downside of the tour was that the house was still being renovated. We got some pics of the outside so you can get a feel for it, remember he built it 80 years ago when all homes were a Victorian style (Google that for more reading). After Hyde Park we went back to the Loop to take some fun pics of the Sears Tower, it’s really tall. From there we went to the second tallest building in town, the Hancock Tower for a better view of the whole city. The observation deck was closed so all the tourists decided to join us in the Signature Lounge, it was a zoo. Somehow we managed a table next to the windows. If you ever make it to Chicago, drinks in the signature lounge is a must do, if you can try and get a table on the south side windows, spectacular views. We saw a beautiful sunset, the Navy Pier, fireworks at Soldier Field during the Bears game, and a great view of the Chicago skyline. Can anyone guess the last stop during our stay in Chicago? That’s right, PIZZA, did you expect anything less from Carson, and not just any pizza, Giordano’s Chicago style pizza, we polished off the whole pie, it was a phenomenal ending to our stay in Chicago.

- eBUS live crew

Upon my arrival in Chicago at O’ Hare airport, I was informed we had a 45 minute drive to Gary Indiana (the birth place of Michel Jackson and The Jackson 5). I was a little confused, apparently the bus had a few problems. Cruising to Gary in the 89 Camary with Carson and Lieu was not quite as uncomfortable as being smooshed in to my little airplane seat next to a large black fellow, covered in tattoos, iced out, trigger finger missing, and bumping his headphones WAY to loud (he turned out to be a really nice guy). We got to the bus, the internet was down, we were completely lost without Google, and we all knew nothing of this town that was our current residence by default. With three of us and two maps, we still couldn’t decide on a route to our next destination. Using our phone a friend life line, we got some directions from a few folks with internet access. We were all ready to go and…the bus didn’t start, the first time on the whole trip. Parked in a gravel clearing close to a truck stop, dejected we went to bed and decided we’ll fix all our problems the next day.

The next day I woke up drenched in my own sweat, it’s been awhile since I slept on the bus and I forgot how hot it gets. We then had two clear missions, one was to get the bus running, and two was to replace the wireless internet card that had miraculously broken the day before. The bus had recently received a new fuel pump that moves the fuel at a greater rate but the same pressure as the original pump. The problem was that this new pump was making the fuel blow right by the carburetor. Fuel spewing everywhere, bus not starting, both very bad things. There was an auto part store about a block down just right in the middle of what was otherwise a residential neighborhood. It had no parts for our Holly carb, which we assumed was the problem. The guy sent us to Von Senus, where we found Lee who seemed to be extremely knowledgeable guy. Removing the whole carburetor and taking it into Lee at the shop, he decides if it’s not the brand new pump functioning improperly, it might be a float or a squirter. After we purchase a few things for the carb, clean it out, replace it, same thing still happening. We were all baffled, including Lee; our only option left was to put the old pump back in, (only two days old, but less fuel per hour). Though the new pump would have been better because of the higher flow rate, the old pump worked without flooding the engine, which meant the brand new Carter electric fuel pump was defective, right out of the box. All of this was absolutely ridiculous and amazingly frustrating. Mission one, done; kind of… Mission two, we head to a nearby mall which had three Sprint stores in it, at the third one a helpful guy tells us the internet card we needed is not available anywhere in his whole district, ouch. Mission two, incomplete. This was not a great day.

The next morning we head to Napa auto parts where the faulty pump had been purchased. We were met with hostility right off the bat. “We have this fuel pump,” (rude store guy interjects) “You own it! You bought it, you own it.” Carson proceeded to finish his sentence, “The pump was defective”. Another Napa employee helps by exchanging the part, but acts extremely put out by us asking her to do her job. Frustrated with our poor customer service we head downtown. We hit our fourth Sprint store in two days; a very nice lady tells us we need to go to the store five blocks away because they have a service center. Sprint store number five, by this time we know the drill. They check the card, it’s broken, we were told they would replace it, except they didn’t have any more cards. Carson and I team up on this guy who says he might be able to get us one by Tuesday. Like haggling with street vendors, the only play was to walk away, so we did. Returning a half an hour later, the employee feeling bad from the guilt trip we gave him makes an offer. Someone ordered one of our discontinued cards to some suburb northwest of Chicago, he say’s they’ll let us have it if we pick it up. Finally, at Sprint store six, we have a new card! Mission two, complete; (assuming the card worked, it did)! Ecstatic from beating the system we head to Gino’s East. It was really good Chicago style pizza, and you can write on any surface in the restaurant except the bathroom, ironic, don’t you think.

The next morning, the new fuel pump goes on, we take the bus for a test drive. Victory, the old girl is running like a champ, better than ever. No longer being stifled by not enough fuel; Mission one complete! Mission two, the internet, complete! Back running at 100 percent, in time to go have some fun and see some stuff. Between the bad pump right out of the box, and the Sprint card crapping out it ended up essentially costing us two and a half days. Hopefully the rest of my eBus live tour will go a little smoother.

- Graham