New Year's Road Trip!


1000 miles of old friends and new sights on the way to L.A.

When Marc convinced me to buy our Chevy Tahoe, he said it was the perfect road-trip vehicle. And we instantly used it for our "final test" drive up to Philly for our wedding. But two years later, we'd taken nothing more than a couple of in-state journeys and I was getting antsy. It was time.

So somehow I convinced about a dozen of our friends to "meet up" in Los Angeles for New Years! The plan was to make stops along the way from Austin, picking up various friends from their parents' houses in places like El Paso and Phoenix, where they'd traveled for Christmas. Shockingly, the idea took off and people actually agreed to make the trip!

The Davises were cutting it close -- flying back from Christmas in Ithaca on the 26th and planning to drive to El Paso early on the 27th. Elliot was actually planning to make the drive with us, and also had a flight to Austin on the 26th. Through classic Continental Airlines ridiculousness, Marc and I got stuck in Cleveland on the night of the 26th, and even worse, there was only 1 more seat out to Austin the entire next day! So Elliot spent the night alone in Austin on the 26th and greeted Marc on the afternoon of the 27th, and the 3 of them (counting Ella -- 4 if you count the antenna ball) packed up and set out.


I spent hours working with various Continental representatives and eventually figured out a way to meet the boys in El Paso. The Roystons picked me up at around 10PM and we had a lovely evening at Dani's mom's house in El Paso as the Tahoe continued it's trip, stopping for a little sleep and meeting us in the morning (in the end, I think I got the better end of the road-trip deal!). Here Dani is with Ella, showing us the view into Mexico from El Paso.

Dani's mom fed us an unbelievable breakfast feast including traditional Mexican chorizo and eggs, and we all headed to Juarez, Mexico for a great day of exploring, bartering in the markets, and relaxing with cold drinks.


By evening, it was time to head west. The Roystons had decided to fly out to L.A. and meet us for New Year's, so we were back down to 4 + dog. Our goal was Phoenix, where we'd pick up Pat. First, we consulted our fabulous "Road Food" book (an awesome gift from Charlie) and drove 15 miles out of our way to La Mesa, New Mexico for the best Chile Rellenos we'd ever had at a local place called Chopes Bar. Here we are cooling our spicy salsa tongues with margaritas:


By about 1AM we made it to Pat's place and promptly fell asleep. In the morning, we woke to her mom cooking us a wonderful Korean breakfast of fried rice, soup, fruit and more. As we said goodbye to Pat's mom (and her brother Dan), she handed us a bunch of extra fruit and sushi she had made from our breakfast leftovers -- definitely the healthiest road snacks in the car. The company (and the food?) made this leg of the trip go quick.



By evening, we'd made it to Rob's house in Los Angeles! My extremely generous brother was in Philly for the week, but lent us his giant house for our stay. Don't worry Rob, we didn't let Ella on the white carpet.



Check out the view from Rob's place... it was the perfect reward for making the 1000 mile trip out to L.A.




Posted: Wed - December 29, 2004 at 02:41 PM        

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