Pittsburgh to Vegas and back, two weeks.

The Cog Railway is something I've always wanted to do.
Wasn't there a story when they switched over from steam, the 1000 hp Diesels hadn't enough power like a 1000 HP steam engine?

My dad rolled his VOLVO coming down Pike peak once.
No injuries. Just a junked Volvo.

Family is still sore at me because I thought it was so funny of the thought of dad streaming down the road at 60 mph upside down sliding on the roof of his car, Scottish power stickers all over the bumpers.
Can't help it,, it cracks me up.

You're a bad man..! :) But the thought is mildly amusing... he gave the Volvo a good send off at least!

July 9th. We left San Antonio about 10:00am and did nothing but drive 9 hours to get to New Orleans at 7:00pm. There wasn't much to see along the way. We checked into the hotel. It was half a block from Bourbon Street. There is no parking here so we had to drop the truck off at a garage about four blocks away and it will stay there until we leave. They charge $20 a day for the hotel parking there. We walked around Bourbon St. for the first time. They block it off every night and everyone pours into the streets. It was pretty crowded. There are a lot of bars and adult clubs on both sided of the street. There are a lot of people here now, we can't imagine what it looks like for Mardi Gras. We walked around for a while then went to bed.

July 10th. This morning we walked to Harrah's Casino and played a little bit. Then we took a Gray Line bus tour of the city and saw the Hurricane Katrina destruction. It has been almost two years since the hurricane hit and there are still a lot of places that haven't been touched. It was very sad to see. They are starting to build back up some things but it is going to take years to get back to normal. The rest of the day was spent walking around town and doing some shopping. We went back to the casino for a little then back to Bourbon St. and walked around for a while one more time. We went back to the room and packed. We only have about a five hour drive tomorrow.

We left New Orleans this morning and headed toward Florida. We decided to make a stop at Biloxi Mississippi. We drove along the Gulf Coast and they are still wiped out from the hurricane too. What a sight to see. The Hard Rock Casino just opened a couple weeks ago so we decided to stop in there for a little bit. Then we drove the rest of the way to Panama City Beach. We have a hotel right on the beach. It has a nice private balcony and we have a great view. We are here until Friday when we start heading home. It will be nice to ralax a little bit for a day or so.

Hello,
It sure looks like you are both having a Great time with traveling. Also, I finally got to view the 18 photos that was posted. I was having some difficulty in viewing but finally figured it out. Can't wait to see the other photo's you both took while on your Journey. Have a Great time and a Safe trip home. Hope to see some photos' via my email when you both arrive home safely.
Love your sis,
Julie

Hey there yenz toursits,
I finally got my computer up and running AGAIN! Glad to hear yenz are finally relaxing after all that driving across country. Can't wait to see all the pics, and get my shirt...LOL Well c-ya in a few days.
Enjoy and happy traveling.

char

Yeserday in Panama City Beach we drove to St Andrews State Park and spent the morning dong some snorkeling. They had some jeddies there and they worked very good to keep the water pretty calm. We got to see some smaller fish and a crab. We had lunch there then went back to our hotel and swam outside our room in the afternoon. We got cleaned up and drove around the area and had supper. We played some mini golf and Kim won then we went back to our hotel for the evening.

Today we left Florida at 8:20am. We hit some traffic around Atlanta then some more traffic when we got into South Carolina. We took a break for an hour to have supper then drove the rest of the way to Statesville North Carolina. We checked into a hotel about 8:00pm. It was a 12 hour day on the road. This will be our last night on the road. We are about 7 hours from home so we will be there tomorrow afternoon. I will put some stats from the trip here when we get home and I will post more pictures on our Google Map.

Sorry to hear your trip's nearly over, I've enjoyed your musings. That dawning reality as you near the end of the trip is horrible, isn't it? I usually start sulking about three days before I'm due to fly home -- can't help it, I tell myself not to be so stupid but it doesn't seem to help! The only way I have found is to have another trip planned that I can look forward to as the end of the current trip nears...

Look forward to your end of trip report and maybe some photos too?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mindcrime

Day one: We finally got to Davenport Iowa.

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One cold, February morning we crawled into Davenport in the middle of a huge ice storm -- very scenic and very scary -- I-80 at 15 mph for 10+ hours!

Quote:

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The trip up to Pikes Peak takes about one hour and fifteen minutes. There are a lot of very nice sights to see on the way up. The seats face each other and we were in the seats with our backs facing up the hill. It was a little tough taking pictures facing that way so if you go, make sure you tell them you want to sit facing up the hill.

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Great tips about Pikes Peak Cogway!

Mark

I am writing this on the 15th because we didn't have time yesterday to write after we got home. Yesterday we left North Carolina and drove straight home. It took us about 6 1/2 hours to get back. Like Craig said, getting to the end of the trip is no fun at all. We are tired but if we had more money and a couple more weeks off we could have went on. Driving all those hours on the road wasn't very bad at all. Kim and I had no problem spending all that time together. Long roadtrips are a lot of fun. Everyone should make time to do it at least once in their lives. Now it is back to work to make more money for another trip. We have New Years in Vegas to look forward to now. In fact, we left some money out there this time in some machines so we will pick in up with interest when we go back out. We kept a spreadsheet on the trip so here are a few of the stats for you.

Miles - 6,055
Miles Kim drove - 0
Gallons of gas used - 309
Price paid for all the gas - $955.00
Miles per gallon - 19.56
Most expensive gas - Vail Colorado - $3.37 per gallon
Cheapest gas - Tucson Arizona - $2.75
Speeding tickets - 0
States drove through - 20
Spending 24 hours a day for 16 days together - Priceless!

Today we watched two of the six video tapes we recorded. We bought a HD video camera before we left and was the best thing we could have bought for this trip. Watching the video in HD on the big screen makes you feel like you are there all over again. I want to thank everyone for reading about our trip. We had fun writing it while we were gone. We will be posting more pictures in a couple days on our Google Map page. You can find the link in the first thread. If I think of anything else in the coming days I will post it here.

Take care everyone.
Mark and Kim