Where to park?

Ok. I've done some talking to folks and apparently like everywhere else in LA parking for the Rose Bowl is a fiasco. My mom has graciously donated the $40 required for gameday parking in the golf course just to the north of the stadium. Obviously, we'll have to get there early. Thanks Mom.
Click on map to see full size diagram.

Post-Christmas Update!

I had an awesome Christmas. As semi-expected, my parents helped me out a lot as far as funding for the trip. My awesome neighbors even contributed some gas money! I used some of my Christmas money to purchase a 400W power inverter that will allow us to plug things in and keep them charged (such as cell phones, laptops, etc.). Keeping a computer charged is what is going to allow us to write down blog posts even though we won't always have an internet connection, and also get pictures off the cameras and onto the blog!

Now that Christmas is over, all I can think about is the trip. I've done all the research I can think to do, yet I keep catching myself typing random phrases into Google to try and unearth something that I haven't previously read. A couple of days before the trip, I'm going to make sure that the vehicle that Enterprise provides us has been recently serviced because of the length of the trip. Hopefully they'll have a vehicle available that gets over 30 mpg highway. This could substantially reduce the amount of gas we have to buy and give us more to spend on other things.

Most of the road trip tips websites that I have been on suggest avoiding fast food chain restaurants as much as possible. They say that eating at local diners and stuff will provide great experiences and stories from patrons that aren't likely to happen at a place like McDonald's. I think being in the Million Dollar Band has desensitized me to eating fast food for prolonged periods, but I definitely hope to eat at a few "off the beaten path" type places.

So long til the next post!

Weather

Just looked at the weather for the next week and a half and it is gonna be in the mid to upper 60's for the high and low 40's for the low. That is gonna be great football weather considering the game will start at 4pt.

My thoughts

Haha!! That's the weirdest splint ever Zach. I'm ready to drive through the Midwest. Hopefully it won't be boring. I can't wait to see the Rose bowl that has been one of my dreams to see it. Always seeing pictures and replays of teams playing there has always made me jealous that we don't get to play there every week, but now its my turn to see it and watch my team to play in it.

All is quiet on the Western...err...Southeastern Front

Hello Pasadena or Bust fans! I thought I would check in with everyone now, because the days are going to start going fast before the trip. Soon the projected weather forecasts will include the actual days we will be traveling, so obviously those forecasts will be something to keep an eye on. If this week's temperatures in Flagstaff, AZ (what looks to be the coldest place on our trip) are any indication, the temperatures never rose above 36 degrees and the low temperatures were as low as 7 degrees. Brr! I've never felt air that cold! That could be interesting! There has been a dusting of snow every few days in these areas, but according to weather reports there were no problems on the interstates. With weather that cold, we'll have to have pretty good jackets just to get out of the car and eat!

On another note, I played football the other day with Dave Cook and the Langham twins and I busted up my pinkie finger pretty good. It's all purple and stuff with a splint on it. Hopefully this won't affect my driving ability. Haha. I'm still not excited about driving in Los Angeles, because I have a feeling every intersection is going to look like the picture on the left. It'll be fun to check out some of the sites in the area though. I'm looking forward to getting together after New Years with the group to figure out where in LA we are going to go.

I hope everyone reading this blog has a great time with their families over the break and has a Merry Christmas!

Extra, Extra!

This time of year for UA students tends to lend itself to lots of sleeping, laziness, and boredom. So, I've been using my time wisely and doing as much research as possible to make sure we get the absolute most out of our trip. I've discovered that using an online discount code for Enterprise really did give us an almost unbeatable deal on a midsize (Chevy Malibu or similar) car. However, I'm going to keep looking so we save money where we can.

The team starts bowl practices tomorrow for a few days before breaking for the holidays. After rewatching the Texas-Nebraska game, I am confident that we can continue to do what we've been doing all year, and win the game. If Nebraska had an offensive football team, we would be playing Cincinnati on January 7th.

Also, I've sent some emails out to the editors of the major newspapers in Alabama asking if they would be interested in covering our trip in their papers. I've already received positive news from one, and hope to get more tomorrow. Other than the game, our plans once we arrive in the LA area on Wednesday are pretty fluid, so hopefully we'll get some ideas on how to best spend that time in the coming days. I forgot how hot Reese Witherspoon is in the movie Sweet Home Alabama, so my attention will turn to watching the rest of this movie on USA. Take care!

The Excitement is Building

Ok. So my family is finally on board (minus the frequent updates on the costs of flights out of Birmingham). This trip is going to be long and tiring, but the things we will see along the way will far outweigh the sleep deprivation and fast food. I've been doing my "research" on Roadside America. We still need to work out the details to figure out where we will be in daylight and what sites we'll have to catch on the way back. The Cadillac Ranch is on the top of my list (just because we can leave our mark), and we will be bringing along Crimson and White spray paint.
There's a few other things that will be interesting to see:

• 2nd largest cross in the western hemisphere in Groom, TX
• Leaning water tower in Groom, TX
• Huge pair of legs in Amarillo, TX
• Atomic cannon in Albuquerque, NM
• Wigwam Hotel in AZ
• Petrified Trees in AZ
• Twin Arrows in AZ

Basically all of the cool things along I-40. Ok, fine. There's the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, Las Vegas, all that "cultured" stuff. It seems like there's too much to do. We'll be getting together closer to departure time to finalize our stops and routes.

In other news, I'll be receiving a new pair of pants from the Locker Room for Christmas so I can look snazzy at the game!

Message from Dave

Well I would like to say I am beyond excited. The night I found out this was gonna work I didn't get to sleep until about 5am. After talking my folks into letting me go if I would give up Christmas they said yes. They debated it for about 2 weeks but when I showed them it wouldn't be more than they would spend for my normal Christmas they went along with it.

I would like to thank Andy Cherolis for getting me my ticket I should probably get him something for it.

That's all for now I'll get back with more stuff in a few days.

Be easy!

How are we going to get there?

There are 2 main routes that look to be good ways to get there. The I-40 route looks to be the most scenic, and also passes through more civilization than the I-20/I-10 route which goes across the middle of Texas and hugs the U.S./Mexico border in New Mexico and Arizona. I would really like to take the I-40 route because it looks like there would be a better chance to see snow and cool mountains. Also, I-40 would take us near the Hoover Dam and Las Vegas which could be a good stop on Tuesday morning to see Las Vegas and then get a good night's rest in Vegas Tuesday night then drive into LA early Wednesday morning. I can't stop thinking about the trip. Most of my friends think I'm crazy, but I honestly think I'm almost as excited about the journey as I am about the reason for the journey (watching Bama win #13).

We got the rental car!

With gas included $170 per person. This was substantially less than some of the things I was looking at earlier. Great news.

Pasadena or Bust!

I am very glad this trip is finally going to work out! After trying to find affordable plane tickets with no real success, I finally decided to go in with Dave Cook's road trip idea. At first, it didn't look like it was going to work out, because 2 of our 4 people were not selected to be "eligible" to purchase BCS National Championship Game tickets. Yesterday, we did some calling around and found out that Corey Funderburg and Jonathan Spann were interested in roadtripping it with us. This was great news as I was starting to worry that I might not get to go cheer the Tide on to #13.

Once everyone committed to the trip Wednesday evening, we all went to Coleman Coliseum today to purchase our $200 (yikes!) tickets for the BCSNCG.

Currently we have some leads on getting good rates on a rental car that gets good gas mileage. This is important for our 4000+ mile trip! I hope to make some more progress on that tomorrow.

I was previously thinking we would leave from Mobile to make the trip, however I think we will probably leave from Tuscaloosa. I think it would be a little too much to drive 4,000 miles from CA to get back to Mobile, then have to drive 200 miles to Tuscaloosa all the day before class starts. So that's that.

One of the things that I am most excited for about this trip is the opportunity to write this blog chronicling the happenings of this cross-country adventure. We are going to bring a power inverter for the cigarette lighter outlet so each of my tripmates can write entries on the laptop and then we'll upload them to the blog when we stop for food at a restaurant (which hopefully has WIFI!).

Stay tuned for updates in the coming days and weeks as we nail down some of the details of the trip.