Road Trip Pt.2

This post isn't going to amount to much. I didn't really take many pictures the last two days of my "vacation". The pictures I did take are not very interesting. (Mostly because I am not in any of them.) But, here they are anyway.

Here is our hotel in Frankfurt, Kentucky. I am sure I woke up at least half the guests here at one a.m. from my yelling and screaming during the end of the Jazz-Blazers game. I feel bad, but sometimes you just have to let it all out.

Here is a quick snap of the capitol building in Charleston, West Virginia.


This road was not meant to be part of our journey. We stopped in some city to get lunch and a few confusing roads got Marcus turned in this direction, far away from any restaurants. Luckily, we got turned around and arrived safely at another Applebee's.
Some foggy river.
This is pretty much all my eyes saw for THREE DAYS!!!!!!!!
I thought the name of this gas station (Wawa) was funny. Do you? You should.
The lobby of the Richmond airport. This was at nine thirty in the morning. As you can see it is empty. There were literally fifty non-employees at this airport. There were no lines for check-in, security, gift shop, or the bathroom. If heaven is like an airport, then I have seen heaven. (Sidenote: The hell of airports is Denver, Colorado)

Once I made it back to Salt Lake, we celebrated the birthday of my baby sister, Nika. She is now 16th. I had the intentions of giving her a full post on this blog wishing her a great birthday. Sadly, I failed as a blogger and a brother. This is now four days late, but here it goes. Happy Birthday Nika!!!

Road Trip!

I've been on road trips before, but never anything like this.

For those of you who don't know, I am currently in the midst of a cross-country road trip from Utah to Virginia. My buddy Marcus is moving out there to begin working at an army base near Richmond. It has been bananas to the highest degree.

This is Marcus' car with the U-Haul attached to it. I have spent approximately 34 hours in this car over the past two days.

This is Marcus with his cat, Wally. Wally has also been in the car for 34 hours...

...and he pretty much runs the show.

Our first non-Utah state was Wyoming. Cold, snowy, ugly.

This is how my face feels about Wyoming.

Nebraska brought the first bit of light into our day in the form of Runza, the delicious fast-food restaurant.

We were very pleased with out runzas.

This is our hotel in Independence, Missouri. We had a crazy time getting here. We ran into ice and snow from Lincoln, Nebraska to Kansas City. We got into our room around two in the morning. This was especially awful because we left Ogden at four thirty the morning before. Over 1,000 miles of driving. It was a very long day.

Here is a blurred picture of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis as we drove by. Somehow, at the same time we drove over the Mississippi River without seeing it. I don't know how that is possible, but it happened.

In Illinois, we ate at this hip, new restaurant called Applebee's. I enjoyed the glories of the Quesadilla Burger.

There was a guardian angel watching over us while we ate. I'm pretty sure she has been watching over us for the rest of the trip.

We also stopped into the Special K, where strange things are afoot every day.

(I would also like to point out that we drove through Indiana. It was completely dark and we never stopped. So, no pictures.)

Kentucky brought us the joys of White Castle...

...and their delicious sliders.

I ate 12 of them. I guess I didn't learn anything from the McNugget Incident after all.

Soup

Dear Soup,

I owe you an apology.

I am sorry for getting so upset the day I opened my cupboards and realized you were the only food I owned besides cereal and string cheese.

I am sorry for allowing you to sit unused in said cupboard for months while I munched on corn dogs, tuna melts, and Totino's pizza.

Soup, you're better than a tuna melt.

The day I opened you up and let you into my stomach, a whole new world opened up before my eyes.

It was as if we had never before met.

You, me, and Ritz crackers. That is all I need. Your savory flavor satisfies my soul's desires. Each delicious bite brings me closer to my own personal nirvana. When I am with you, every trouble and care evaporates into your bountiful broth.

I'm sorry, soup. I think I'm kinda into you. I will never take you for granted again.

Forever Yours,

Cody

This Song Has Been Stuck In My Head All Day...

...and I like it.

Hawaii Trip Recap: Day Six: Kona

I promise we are getting dangerously close to finishing all this Hawaii stuff.

Day 6 takes place on the Big Island in the city of Kona...

Kona has the prettiest, bluest water of anywhere we visited. But, the beaches are all made up of this volcanic rock. Great for pictures. Not so much for sunbathing. We checked out the grounds of the Kona Hawaii temple. You gotta love any temple with palm trees surrounding it.

The highlight of the day came from our visit to the Seahorse Farm. (Sidebar: My own family didn't go to the Seahorse Farm. I went with my adoptive parents and siblings. As you can tell, my own family is a bunch of fun-sucking trip wasters. Haha. I'm just kidding. But really, how can you pass up the chance to see a flippin' seahorse farm! It's a farm of SEAHORSES!!!)
My family definitely didn't get to see this awesome blob fish...
...or all these camo-seahorses.
Seriously, we saw about a kajillion seahorses.
At one point on the tour, we got to try edible seaweed. It tasted like salty grass.
Seahorse kiss!!!
At the end of the tour, we were able to hold a seahorse.
The cute little guy just wrapped itself right around my finger. Way cool!

For some reason, Old Man River in the background was not too pleased about the pasty redhead and his new seahorse friend.

This is me at the restaurant we stopped at for lunch, with our cruise ship in the background. There was no place for the ship to port so we had to take these small yellow boats to get on to the island. That really isn't important information. I just thought I would share it anyway.

Amanda and Bria at the restaurant. You gotta love being able to sip your lemon water at a place with an ocean view and sand beneath your flip-flops. Incredible.
Just another picture of a view you see every second of the day in Hawaii.
There are a million different direction I could go describing these two pictures. But, I will just keep it clean and move on.
Shay ordered an ice cream, but instead received this chocolate and vanilla elephant tranquilizer.
Here I am with Sage, Chalis, and Chyanne, part of my new, wonderful, seahorse-loving family. I'm not sure why they look so great and I ended out the day looking like a sweaty, sun burnt mess. Must be a girl thing.

Hawaii Trip Recap: Day Five- Hilo

I know what you're thinking.

When will this guy shut up about his Hawaii trip?

I understand where you are coming from. But I must press on for my posterity's sake.

We started off the day by visiting the famous volcanoes. Everything was a bit different than I imagined, but once I got past that, I loved it.

See! This is me. Loving. It.

The family took a cute little group shoot in front of all the smoke.

My sister Nika (sometimes known as Ne-Ne amongst about 45 nicknames) took special offense to this sign. It would be tough for anybody to go without food. Even NeNe.

One of the best things about looking at volcanoes is when you get to practice your modeling poses. There was a lot of smoke popping out of random locations.
This tunnel was made from hot lava running through it several (thousand?) years ago. Now it is a pretty sweet cave. Also in this picture, NeNe the butt scratcher!
Inside of the cave, I got my drunk face on.One rule about family vacations: There is always time for one more group photo. Always. Even if it is in some place that you won't remember when you are blogging about it three weeks later. Even if it is just in front of some trees. There is always time.
My favorite part of the volcano experience was hiking down to the bottom of this crater. Mostly because there were only four of us who did it.
Next up, we went to a Hawaiian pizza joint where we played Connect Four and I built this awesome tower from building blocks. It's pretty cool, right? Right?
That is one proud architect right there.
Then came the pizza. As you can clearly see, Nika tried to swoop in for a bite of my delicious veggie pizza. I quickly reminded her about the "Don't Feed The NeNe" sign and how it was my job as her big brother to teach her about following signs and not eating when we are not supposed to eat. So she didn't get any pizza.
Afterwards, we visited the magestic Akaka Falls. There was an old lady in the parking lot blabbering about how the falls is named after her family and that you can find two naked ladies near the falls if you look close enough. Sure, crazy lady, whatever you say.
Here I am next to the good ol' Akaka.This is a picture of me with the improv group Second City, who performed on the cruise ship. They are (L-R) Mike, Deanna, me (duh), Piero, Jen, and Rance. I was lucky enough to be called on stage and have them perform a five minute musical about everything I did that day. (Rance played the part of Cody) It was probably the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. Not only were these guys hilarious, but they were also really cool people. Big ups to Second City!!!

Here is a pic of Bria and Amanda doing the stanky legg on the dance floor. The three of us hit up the dance floor nearly every night we were on the ship. Usually, there weren't too many other people dancing with us. But we had a blast every night. I really miss being able to shake my money maker on a nightly basis.