...right in the middle of a million-dollar neighborhood.  There maybe strict street parking rules and sound ordinances, but there will still be flipcup in our dining room.

First night in, the five of us piled into a cab and went down to Bourbon Street.  First stop: Pat O'Briens for Hurricanes (basically punch and a lot of rum in a big plastic cup that you can walk out with).  Other stops included the Cat's Meow (ridiculous karaoke bar) and a third place that had no electricity except for the arcade games (I found a Photo Hunt place!)

Sunday was all setting up my room.  We went to buy a mattress, but they couldn't deliver it until Thursday.  I was sleeping on a squishy air mattress the night before, so it was kind of imperative that I got the bed sooner.  We ended up borrowing Karen's Ford Explorer to pick it up from a warehouse out by the airport.  We thought the guy at the warehouse had tied it on pretty securely, but as soon as I got on the onramp to I-10, we realized it was slipping and turning and we had NO idea what to do.  I hopped on the highway with my hazard lights on anyway, because I didn't know any other way to get home.  There was some honking and crazy gesturing from other people on the road, and we pulled over a few times to fix it.  At one point, a nice guy in a pick up pulled over to help us with more rope he happened to have in his truck.  People are so friendly in the South.  We went really slow and eventually made it back.  (That's me standing on the side of I-10.)

Monday, my sister and I went down to the French Quarter to walk around, but it was so hot and humid we kept stopping in at bars - the Famous Door, which had a lame band at 4pm and Pat O'Briens again, where we chatted with Josh the bartender who was native to New Orleans but had a Brooklyn accent.  That night we went to Bourbon House for dinner with the rest of the clan.  I tried the alligator soup, which was surprisingly quite tasty.  After dinner, we met up with other MD/MPH students at Bruno's up near the Tulane undergrad campus.

It's been thunderstorming at least once a day since I've arrived, but duration and time of day always varies.  Today was garbage day, and this morning the torrential rain had knocked over our trashcan.  Karen and Dustyn and I watched from our enclosed balcony until we noticed the the water at the curb rising and the lid of our trash can floating away.  While Dustyn went to move the cars onto the driveway, I put on my galoshes and went running out to retrieve the lid of the trashcan.  By the time I got out there, it was gone.  Running along the sidewalk, I found it about 50 feet away - it had floated under the minivans and SUVs down the street and was stuck in front of the bumper of a red Saab.

I've been to Target everyday I've been here.  It's the only place I know how to get to.

distance : negligible

At my new apartment!  Longest drive of the whole trip today - we actually only stopped once and just drove more.

Got to the new place around 5:30, where Dustyn was preparing dinner.  (Seriously, Dustyn cooks?)  Karen and her friend arrived shortly after, so we ate ate, then made a run to Target.

Now we're back and getting ready to go out to Bourbon Street - while Dustyn makes orange salsa.  No joke.

Photos of the new place to come.

448 miles

"Babe Ruth has a great record but he never played black players.  It's like winning the marathon but no Kenyans ran." - Chris Rock

FIrst thing this morning - I dropped my cell phone in the toilet.  Not a great way to start the day.  Then it started beeping like crazy when we got in the car, so I dismantled it and let it dry.  Looks like it's working now, so feel free to call me!  Just don't forget I'm in a different time zone.

I drove first, down I-35 to I-135 - one of the tires on the big rig in front of my exploded.  Now I understand why there are always tire pieces all over the road.

Not a lot of photos for this leg of the trip - will post later.

466.5 miles

For all my doubts about Kansas, the first rest stop out of Colorado had free coffee and free WiFi.  Who needs anything else in life?

Drove through more rainstorms and watched the lightning on the horizon as we drove toward it and out of Colorado.  It was a mostly uneventful trip, just another 450 miles down I-70 East.  At the coffee/WiFi stop, we had lunch at a picnic table outside and I got online to ask Kyle what to do if we saw a tornado.  (He said to go to the basement - I'm not sure where to find one off of I-70.)

This truck in front of us confused me.

After that, it really was just fields and corn and cows.  Not too terrible, actually, especially compared to Nevada.  Now we're in Salina which I picked as a stopping point because it's halfway between Denver and Dallas and it had a population of 45,000 which I figured was pretty significant.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize Salina is huge land-wise and there are probably 3 people per square mile.  It's pretty much a small cluster of motels and fast food restaurants in a big sea of corn.  And we're staying next to a trailer park.

Now we're just hanging out watching TV.  There aren't a lot of good channels out here...I wonder what people do for fun.  We watched bad vH1 shows like we've been doing all week - yesterday we watched Rock of Love (hilAAArious) and tonight was My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding.  (The commercial had my favorite quote of the evening - Guy: This is our party, right?  Girl: This is my party with you as a super exclusive VIP guest.)

Now we're watching the Yankees game which we were excited to see, although I realized 20 minutes into it that it's not the Yankees game, it's the Kansas City Royals game.  Because we're in Kansas.  Duh.  I love Kansas.  But only because they're seriously shutting down the Yankees right now.

We're also in Central time now, which throws me off because it's only one hour off from Boston.  And all TV shows are on an hour early (now I understand what it means for a show to be scheduled 9/8 Central) which is kind of weird.

255.6 miles

Short trip today!  But we did get up late and missed the hotel's free breakfast.  I saw my second hitchhiker ever somewhere along the way.

We drove through a few rainstorms, but it's still been the best drive so far - the views through the Rockies have been fantastic - thanks Charlie & Tom, for recommending that route!

Driving through the Rockies is pretty crazy because the temperature will drop from 100º in Grand Junction to 55º up around Vail.

We checked in to our hotel in the afternoon, then got dressed to go out in the city.  We made a couple of stops on the way out, once to get gas ($2.96/gallon!!) and also to get some ice cream at Baskin Robbins.  At the shopping center near Baskin Robbins, there were a bunch of cones all over and I couldn't figure out to where to get in, so I decided to drive over an already-flattened cone.  Unfortunately I also managed to drag it alongside my car across the lot and into my parking spot in front of the ice cream shop.  It was pretty funny because it was just sitting next to the passenger door when we got out.  Or it was really funny until some guy came running at us from NOWHERE yelling about how I was a terrible driver and I shouldn't be on the road because there was this cone there.  I'm not sure he understood what happened and thought I had accidentally dragged it there, but kept ranting, "what if it was a puppy?"

We hauled it out of there (after getting our ice cream) and went to downtown Denver.  We walked down the 16th Street Mall which is just a long street with a lot of shops and a shuttle that stops every block if you're really lazy getting between stores.  We stopped at Earls for drinks and dinner on their upstairs balcony.

516.7 miles

Stopped at the supermarket this morning - after a bad portable toilet experience yesterday, I wanted to stock up on Purell.  I saw my first hitchhiker on the on ramp to 80 East.  Our first rest stop was at the Salt Flats shortly after getting in Utah.  I can't park straight even though there's no one else around.

Public restrooms in Utah are so clean.  The whole place is so clean.  There were at least six of these butts buckets around.

Followed I-80 for awhile more out to Salt Lake City.  We drove through a pretty heavy rainstorm.  It was sunny immediately before and after the storm - and my sister had to swerve out of the way of some tumbleweed where it still a little windy.  (I wasn't fast enough to get a picture.)

The plan was to stop in Salt Lake City for lunch, but we drove around in circles downtown and couldn't find any place that was open.  The streets were pretty empty as well.  When we got out of the car, I finally remembered that it was a state holiday - Founders Day/Pioneer Day, depending on who you ask.  Utah has really confusing street names - they're differentiated by block numbers on East, West, South, North, or Main streets.

From Salt Lake we took I-15 south through Provo to Route 6 through the mountains.  It's only one-way for big parts of Route 6 though, so I had to pass some big trucks.

Wheeeeee!!!  Passing on the left!

We drove through another rainstorm before getting on I-70 into Colorado.  Now we're in Grand Junction, CO.  Everything's an hour later now - we've also moved into Mountain time zone.

Dinner was at some local place called the Stadium - yummy bacon cheeseburger - and the tables arranged stadium seating-style on different levels for better views of the game (Padres vs. Rockies - Rockies not doing so well, but I didn't want to say anything out loud.)  Their idea of sports was sort of ESPN2 style - Texas Hold'em tables (didn't know you could gamble in Colorado), billards, etc.

515.7 miles


Finally got out the door at 9:40 am today and I drove for two hours to our first stop 150 miles away.  (Yes, I can do math.)  My sister and I swapped seats, and I slept through most of Reno and the Sierras.  At some point in Nevada, I woke up thinking I was supposed to be driving, and grabbed at the invisible steering wheel in front of me.  I'm not sure I've heard the end of it yet.

Sometime early in the afternoon, we realized that we were ahead of schedule and we were going to make it into Winnemucca around 3pm and decided to aim to go a bit further.  The next biggest city after Winnemucca is 125 miles further, Elko.

The only other Volvo on I-80 flew by at 90 mph.

Remnants of last week's wildfire off of I-80 between Winnemucca and Elko.

We stopped in Winnemucca thinking we could find some ice cream - pretty much there was only fast food and casinos.  Got to Elko at 5pm and went straight to the gas station - gas is expensive in Elko!  Even more than the East Bay - and a lot more than the gas stations along I-80 before we actually reached our destination.

Nevada is really all casinos - our hotel here has slot machines in the lobby and the main building has those crazy flashing neon lights.

Tomorrow should be a nice drive - we're going a bit further tomorrow since we're ahead of schedule.  We're skipping Park City and going through Salt Lake to Grand Junction.

Had lunch downtown with my mom at Basil Leaf Café before a trip to Costco.  (Who doesn't love a Costco run?)

Surveying the lunch crowd was rather interesting.  As anyone who grew up in my town can attest to, there's a weird dynamic where middle-aged women always have time to have lunch with their friends on weekdays and then spend the rest of the day shopping.  In any event, the food was good and it was perfect weather for eating outside, high 70s with no wind.

Stark contrast to this morning - got up early to go to the dentist and my car was wet from last night's rain.  It's pretty much yucky and muggy since.  On the bright side, my teeth are now squeaky clean.

Bunny's been pretty good about his eye drops.  He sits still and doesn't blink when I put them in.  Although, every time I pick him up now, he poops.  Might be trying to tell me something.

We took Bunny out of the house for the first time in quite awhile today.  I'm not sure he likes the car rides, but he seems ok when he gets to wherever we're going.

We went to the Feline Clinic this morning (no I'm not confused; they see bunnies) to get his eyes checked out.  It turns out that he just needed some eye drops to clear up an infection.  I also learned that he weighs all of 2.38 lbs.  We had early lunch outside at the San Franciscan.  Bunny chilled under the table while we ate.  (Yes, that is a carrot, and no, I do not only have four toes.)

Fun at my sister's office - he was moving around a little too fast and went scooting out the door and down the hall before we had noticed.  Not bad for a 9 1/2 year old bunny.

I called my mother at home and offered to stop at Trader Joe's on the way back - before I realized that I would have to leave Bunny in the car.  Not sure if they have pet rules (probably not, given the lap dogs in my neighborhood) but I decided to just take him in with me.  I popped him in the child seat in the front of my shopping cart and he hung out while I shopped.

So Aaron tells me that it's so much easier to check out my website now that the domain name is shorter and he doesn't have to type in seeyuen.weebly.com to get there.  Makes sense...although my page views have dropped about 80% in the week that I've had seeyuen.com.

Yesterday was a less-raucous-than-expected party at Mission Rock for Justin's birthday.  Big venue, in the middle of nowhere (China Basin/Mission Bay area) yet there was a huge line outside when we arrived.  Most of my Bay Area favorites were there + some out-of-towners, so it was a great time.  (The open bar helped.) 

Yesterday I thought I had been officially locked out of voting for Time's 50 Best Websites of 2007 for voting too many times for Weebly.  Might just have been for 24 hours though, because I'm back on now.  :-P

It's going to be a busy week...kicking off tomorrow with a trip to the vet with Bunny.  He hasn't been in a car in years, so it could get ugly.