I went back again two weeks later after Thanksgiving for Christmas and New Year’s, only my parents weren’t hope to greet me this time. They were on vacation in sunny Florida for two more days. That meant I was responsible for shoveling the 23-inches of snow that fell the day after I arrived. From California’s 70-degree weather to almost two dozen inches of snow. What timing! The snow and the house sans my parents meant that I got to play with my dogs outside. Here’s a short HD video of Molly playing in the snow.

I rewarded myself by seeing Avatar in 3D and opted for the IMAX Experience version to boot. A week later, I saw Sherlock Holmes. In between these two theater excursions, I celebrated Christmas with my extended family and was thankful to see my neighborhood lit-up with beautiful Christmas lights and luminaries lining all of the curbs. Here’s a quick video what driving through Swan Point looks like on Christmas Eve. I celebrated New Year’s Eve with friends and, the next day, took a trip to New York City. In 2005, friend George and I rang in the New Year by standing in Time Square, so a post-NYE visit to the Big Apple seemed like a smarter idea.

My route back to Los Angeles (really, to Burbank Airport [really Bob Hope Airport, but few people call it that]) went through Phoenix. A layover in Arizona’s capital city meant an hour wait and an extra takeoff and landing, but it also meant a more affordable ticket. Even more cost-permissive is volunteering to take a later flight to a nearby city like Santa Ana and receiving a $300 voucher for the act. That’s exactly what happened when US Air overbooked my original transfer flight from Phoenix to Burbank the day before the 2010 BCS Championship Game in Pasadena. The Phoenix airport was equally flooded with orange and red sweatshirts, as Texas Longhorn and Alabama Crimson Tide fans were on their way to the Rose Bowl.

I was happy to give up my seat for the eager college football fans and receive the $300 voucher. I know that I’ll use the ticket the next time I visit home, probably in the summer. Of course, I was regretting my decision right before landing in Santa Ana – my hands were bracing my knees as the nighttime flight tilted almost 90 degree twice and everyone (not just me) had concerned looks on their faces. Now I know what meteorologists mean by the Santa Ana winds!

With our lease ending at Avalon Media Center, the New Year meant a new apartment for my roommates and me. Two days of apartment hunting led us to Avalon Burbank. Same city and same company, but a much better complex. A large pool, hot tub, newly renovated kitchen, and gym with almost as many TV screens as excessive machines were the highlights in my second LA apartment complex. Such upgrades are naturally more expensive, but we had another roommate join us from Philadelphia, so it worked out to be almost the same price as Avalon Media Center. Having a designated parking space in the underground garage instead of having to resort to street parking and meeting new friends in the centrally located, always-social hot tub were my two favorite aspects of this large complex.

I wasn’t expected to go home for Thanksgiving having returned for the unexpected visit in September and knowing I’d be visiting again in one month’s time during Christmas break. But my mom’s milestone birthday and an ideal roundtrip ticket price made it possible and served as a great way to surprise my mom for her birthday. My dad and sister and her family had arranged a surprise party at my sister’s home the day after I flew into Philadelphia. So, not only would she be surprised about the party in which her extended family and friends were invited, but, seconds after the initial surprise, she’d be shocked again by my presence.

Staying with my sister the night before the surprise party, I was on hand to answer the door the next morning. Three questions dominated the job of “door opener” courtesy of our witty relatives and family friends. They were: “Hey there, Hollywood, 1) Where’s your tan? 2) How many celebrities have you met? 3) Can you surf yet?” Predictable. From predictable to traditional, Thanksgiving occurred as if I had never left except for one tiny change: My sister and her husband welcomed their third child, Brayden. This was the first chance I got to meet my new nephew.

This trip home ended a lot like my last in which my dad and I toured the USS New Jersey. Across the Delaware River on the Philadelphia side lies the USS Olympia and USS Becuna. The Olympia is an oldest steel warship that’s still afloat, having been commissioned in 1895 and, three years later, used as the flagship of Commodore George Dewey at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War. The Becuna couldn’t be any different; it’s a WWII vessel, a submarine and, naturally, much more cramped.

Back in LA for a mere 15 days, I got a chance to report on a videogame called Darksiders in Agoura Hills, visit Malibu Beach and have dinner in Santa Monica. Now I’m on a plane back to Philadelphia where family, friends and Christmas await.

Interviewing Netflix VP of Corporate Communications Steve Swasey, reviewing games like NHL 10 and Wipeout HD and playtesting yet-to-be releases titles for my Just Cause 2 preview and Star Trek D-A-C preview kept me busy.

Reporting on Star Trek D-A-C was especially interesting. First, it involved a trip to the Paramount Pictures. There I was, driving my roadtrip-dirt-covered 1997 Toyota Corolla through the iconic wrought-iron gates of the Paramount lot and visiting the last major film studio to have its headquarters in a Hollywood zip code. Second, I played the game while wearing 3D glasses and experiencing the benefits of the NVIDIA’s 3D Vision Kit.

“All of [the action] appeared as if it were happening two inches off the screen, thus combining two of life’s geekiest things: 3D graphics and Star Trek. Truly a match made in nerd heaven,” I wrote in my article. (more…)

Two weeks into my LA arrival, I was greeted with a family emergency that would require me to fly home a few days later. This would be in addition to all of the difficult adjustments that I had to make over the course of those first 14 days. I didn’t have a bed, I didn’t have a desk and I didn’t have a TV stand. Whatever I owned I brought in my Toyota Corolla and, since I wasn’t sure I’d be staying all of a sudden, I was hesitant to shell out hundreds of dollars on these big-ticket items that couldn’t go back with me. Consequently, my faux-HDTV, which was actually a 23″ widescreen PC monitor, sat on an opaque storage bin that all of contained my clothes. My air mattress doubled as my bed and work station, a highly humorous, but no recommended combination. Every time I worked on my laptop and decided to move a muscle while seated on the air mattress, the air would shift and bubble up to the other side. It was almost as if I was at sea and I always felt like I was one sway away from needing Dramamine.

Worse, my apartment’s air conditioning unit wasn’t reaching my room. If you’re not familiar with “The Valley” during the months of August and September, it’s hot. Without proper air circulation, it’s even hotter. At least sticking to the air mattress while trying to work on my website and advance my writing career meant that I wouldn’t slide off of it with every extreme transition of the air mattress bubble. Outside of the apartment, the trouble continued. I didn’t have a parking space and was forced to seek out street parking. This wasn’t an immediate problem since Burbank has plentiful, suburb-like street parking. However, in worrying about my family at home (everything’s okay now) and having my ear glued to the phone, I was blinded by the fact that Tuesday came and went. I found out about “street-sweeping Tuesdays” the hard way.

Hitting every pothole on the way to Best Buy where I bought a cord to make my cable TV work, I tried to keep a very positive outlook on all of these LA growing pains. Exiting the store, I remarked to my roommate, “You know, as much as these two weeks have been difficult, I’m in a great city where the sun is always shining, there are palms trees in front of us, beautiful mountains in the distance and even clouds on top of those mountains.” I paused for a moment, then realized aloud, “Oh, wait, that’s a forest fire.” We couldn’t help but laugh at my futile attempt to keep everything gleeful.

On September 10, I flew home to Philadelphia 34 days after saying goodbye to my parents and 19 days after ending my one-way roadtrip. I didn’t expect to be back visiting so soon, but it was good to see them for the week I planned on spending at home. That week home turned into a day shy of two weeks, as I delayed my flight in order to be there for my dad’s birthday. My dad and I did two important things that we had always meant to accomplish, the first being to traverse a simple skybridge that spanned the width of a highway near our house. This might not mean anything to anyone else, but we had driven under the skybridge for years and repeatedly mentioned, “One day, we have to walk across there.” This was the perfect opportunity to fulfill this long-sought-after goal.

My 13-day visit home ended with fulfilling the second accomplishment: touring the USS New Jersey, docked in the Delaware River across from Philadelphia. Having toured a handful of US Navy destroyers while on vacations through the years, we were determined to visit this ship that was right in our backyard. The cramped quarters and ability to man the controls to this floating museum made for some of the best pictures of my dad and me.

As soon as I got back to warm and safe LA, my two roommates and I went to dinner at Olive Garden, then had a hilarious time seeing the new comedy movie Zombieland and finding the nearest hospital in a very unfamiliar Burbank because my one roommate accidentally slammed the door on my other roommate’s finger. It was a wild and unforgettable night and, I can thankfully report that it ended with all 10 fingers and all 10 toes on each of us. One of my roommates and I also went to the 2009 NLCS, which I previously blogged about (read: I survived being a Phillies fan at Dodger Stadium…twice).

One month ago, we visited Long Beach Island, NJ and swam in the Atlantic Ocean. After two weeks of travel, we’ve arrived Los Angeles and swam in the Pacific Ocean. As we made our way across America, we’ve experienced plenty from end to end; we posed in front of every state sign, we stopped at every roadside attraction, we visited the country’s top museums, monuments and National Parks, and we heard a variety of accents, especially in Tennessee and Texas.

It ended last night in Burbank, where I now live, and this morning in Santa Monica, where we drove 25 minutes to check out the beach. Having lived in the landlocked state of Pennsylvania my entire life, I’m not used to having the ocean so close and I’m definitely not used to palm trees lining the streets. I’ve been to Los Angeles eight times before this, but this is going to be a completely unique experience just like driving here, a total of 3,700 miles, has been unforgettable.

The Nevada Mountains abruptly gave way to America’s city of lights and, although I’ve never been big on gambling, descending on the brightest city in the world made it impossible not to be excited about our four day excursion to electrified Las Vegas. I didn’t have any Frank Sinatra on my iPhone, but did manage to play a little Elvis and Bobby Darin as we rolled down Las Vegas Freeway toward the Stratosphere. We could see the tower from high in the Nevada Mountains since it stands 1,149 feet in the air, larger than the Seattle Space Needle, and could’ve probably found the next-door hotel we were staying in from sight if we didn’t have the reliable GPS.

As soon as we pulled up to the Stratosphere hotel, we anxiously hopped out of the car and sorted through the many bags in the back seat. We figured that the valet and bellhop would be shocked at all of our luggage from the roadtrip, but they were very patient and told us we could take our time despite the busy hotel entrance. Two suitcases, three garment bags, one laptop bag, one camera bag, and sneakers, dress shoes and sandals were among the items that made it onto the luggage cart.

Checking into the Stratosphere’s top floor, we were immediately impressed with the room even though we got it for the rock-bottom price of $33 per weeknight. We also took advantage of the Stratosphere’s dinner buffet, which was open until 10 PM, and made note of the convenient $20 all-day breakfast, lunch and dinner deal. We unpacked the remaining suitcases following dinner and showered in order to walk the Las Vegas strip.

Having arrived on a Tuesday and set out on the strip after midnight, there wasn’t much going on. I had been to the Four Seasons for a two-day business event in March and really enjoyed the small dance club-bar inside the Mandalay Bay casino. But, after we took a cross-town cab to get there, we found even that was closed. As we strolled down Las Vegas Boulevard and back to the Stratosphere, we were approach by two self-described “normal” girls looking to have fun. We passed. I’d like to keep my money / kidney.

Wednesday was more of a success from the beginning. We lunched at the hotel’s indoor McDonalds and lounged by the outdoor pool for more than two hours. Then, we went back to the room to get ready for Coyote Ugly and Studio 54. George read positive yelp! reviews about these clubs and they were located in New York-New York Hotel & Casino and the MGM Grand, which are right across the street from each other. But, while the reviews were positive, I wasn’t thrilled with either. Coyote Ugly features a bunch of random girls bartop dancing and guys being kowtowed into cheering them on, but doing nothing more than that. We stayed for about an hour. MGM Grand was $20 and felt very clickish and full of “VIPs.” We stayed here even less time, 45 minutes.

Sometimes, it’s the free clubs inside a casino that are the most fun. That was the case with EyeCandy Sound Lounge at Mandalay Bay. Not only was there no cover, but the ever-changing, multi-colored dance floor (think: Saturday Night Fever) was open to anyone. I met a couple of break-dancers and had a blast competing with them for the crowd’s attention and showing off the most interesting dance move combinations. Having worn a suit, this turned into a tiring, but exhilarating four-hour marathon.

We pretty much repeated the best parts on Thursday. Only, when we went poolside, Alexandra and Roland, the German couple we met at Zion National Park, joined us. They were in the same hotel and texted us about meeting up. We also met a brother and sister at the pool and teamed up for a game of water volleyball before heading to the buffet and back to the EyeCandy Sound Lounge.

Friday was our fourth and final night in Las Vegas, so we made sure that we checked off everything on our to-do list. First, we ate at Roxy’s Diner, a 50-style restaurant in the Stratosphere casino that offered tall tower-shaped plastic cups. We proceeded to buy passes to all three of rides at the top of the Stratosphere tower. Finally, we got tickets to one of the shows.

The observation deck, which sits 866 feet above the strip, is home to the three rides. The first is called Insanity, which extends riders 64 feet over the edge of the tower and spins from around with sickening 3 Gs of velocity. The second also sends riders over the tower’s edge. It’s X-Scream and looks like a rollercoaster, but travels straight down the side of the tower for 27 feet.

Finally, we went on Big Shot, the signature ride of the Stratosphere, the world’s highest amusement ride and, it shouldn’t surprise you, our favorite. It shot us 160 feet up the spire at 45 mph, reaching 4 Gs. At the ride’s highest point, we were 1,081 feet above the strip, but we quickly dropped back down at negative 1 G.

The night ended at Mandalay Bay’s EyeCandy Sound Lounge again. We tried to go to any of the three clubs at the Palms, but the line didn’t move and I personally enjoy the non-VIP, far-from-exclusive crowds at the cover-free bars. If there’s no rope-line, then count me in. We went back to Mandalay Bay and tried Rum Jungle for a change. We stayed there longer than any of the other bars that weren’t EyeCandy, but we shrugged our shoulders and settled for a third night alongside the break-dancers. At the end of having danced nearly four hours a night over the course of three nights, the rubber of my dress shoes was separating from the shoes itself. It was a testament to the good time we had at the EyeCandy Sound Lounge with its all-inclusive crowd.

We woke up, packed up and took photos in front of the famous “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign on our way out of the city. We also took photos in front of the state signs of Nevada and California when we stopped at a Carl’s Jr. on the border. Surprisingly, there wasn’t a Nevada state sign from Zion to Las Vegas, so we made up for it here. In three hours, we’ll arrive in Los Angeles, my new hometown and we will have completed the driving portion of this epic two-week roadtrip.

Zion National Park is 6 hours and 15 minutes from Monument Valley and, at some point during that time frame, our ice-filled jug broke and leaked water all over the back seat of the car. “Luckily” our pillows and sleeping bags soaked up a lot of the spillage and our camping provisions weren’t spoiled. This wasn’t much of a concern, though. We were too busy taking in the incredible mountains that make Zion a geographic wonderland.

The highway to Zion not only goes to these mountains, but through them. Since the mile long Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel was built in the 1920s, when automobiles weren’t the behemoths they are today, RVs and trailers require a $15 ranger escort. Thankfully, my compact Toyota Corolla did just fine through this narrow, single-lane underground highway.

The second we emerged from the arched tunnel passage on the other end, the park exploded with outstanding scenery. The tan sandstone was a perfect contract to the previous mile of darkness. There wasn’t an abrupt shift in elevation, as was the case when the car climbed the roads that led to Mesa Verde and Arches. But, this National Park did contain constantly snaking roads through rising mountains on both sides and a relentless sense of being dwarfed by nature.

Given a list of outside-the-park camgrounds at the visitor’s center, we chose the first campsite on the list, Zion Canyon Campground. Although located in the neighboring town of Springdale, it was just a minute from the park entrance and still contained sensational mountain views. On top of that, we were given the last spot adjacent to a babbling river, had a worn but useable grill and got a chance to set up our tent in the daylight for the first time.

On the suggestion of the kind woman at the desk of this RV and campsite, we bought two $7 innertubes for our riverside tent and extra campfire provisions at Sol Foods. Doing our best to avoid starting a wildfire, we took extra caution with the purchased lighter fluid and charcoal and then marveled at the first campfire we started like Neanderthals who had just discovered fire. We took a lot of unnecessary photos.

Cooking hot dogs over an open flame in the middle of a massive canyon could only be topped by one thing, assembling the dessert. We roasted marshmallows and Hershey’s chocolate bars, then sandwiched them between a pair of graham crackers. The guy in a neighboring tent, who humorously camped without his misbehaving teens, had our hotdogs topped by grilling a New York strip steak. But, nothing can top creating the traditional campfire treat known as s’mores.

Our steak-grilling neighbor suggested we check out the Emerald Springs when we explored Zion the next day, but first we had to tube down the river next to our tent. Two problems: The “river” was shallower than we had expected and the tubes were weaker than we had anticipated. Basically, we got sold innertubes meant for kids, so our butts touched the bottom of the river (more like a creek) intermittently. I could bear the colder than ideal water, but when I hit a rapid and flipped backwards onto some rocks, I was ready to give up. A moment later, we saw a young German woman floating behind us and thought if she could continue on, so could we.

The three of us helped each other continue down the river, but we gave up in about two minutes. That’s when we officially met Alexandra and her husband Roland, who wasn’t adventurous enough/was smart enough to avoid tubing down a shallow creek. They’re from Germany, specifically the Lake Constance area, which lies in southwest Germany and the northern corners of Austria and Switzerland. They were camping a few tents down and headed to Las Vegas, too. So, we dropped off our leftover wood and campfire supplies since we didn’t have a need for them. We also hooked them up with our hotel deal as they didn’t have a Vegas reservation yet and my cell phone number in case they wanted to meet up. We scurried off to the coin-operated showers and drove the half-mile to finally hike Zion.

Emerald Pools contains three trails: one, two and three mile roundtrip loops, the last of which has rocky terrain. Naturally, we wanted to hike all three. So, after a 20-minute shuttle ride from where we parked at the visitor’s center, we arrived at the Zion Lodge Castle Dome Café and loaded up on pizza to gain energy to complete the hike. As soon as we set out on the Emerald Pools first loop, located right next to the Zion Lodge, we noticed a lot of warning signs. Each loop contains cliff edges where hikers could easily lose their footing, especially when it’s wet. We headed the text and dangerous-looking silhouette pictures of a man falling off a cliff’s edge.

All of the waterfalls were reduced to scant trickles or were dried up completely due to the summer weather. Therefore, it’s better to visit Emerald Pools during the off-season, when cooler weather allows for gushing waterfalls. Still, we made the best of posing underneath of and next to the drips of water and thoroughly enjoyed the six-mile hike. I’m also grateful that I bought and wore hiking boots for this roadtrip. I opted to buy a pair of Merrell Moab Mid hiking boots that I originally thought were too expensive for what they’d be worth. However, now that I’m comfortable and still walking upright in these gortex-laced high-tops, I realize that my sneakers would’ve been torn up on the many jagged rocks.

The views of the intimidating mountains and steep cliffs were the real sight to behold here and, while taking photos from a scenic bridge, we spotted two deer frolicking through a riverbed. It ended up being a gorgeous place to hike for a couple hours and the complete opposite of our next destination. After posing in front of the Zion National Park sign on the way out, we were headed to a hotel with four walls, a bed with a real mattress and a shower that wasn’t coin-operated. Vegas, here we come.

The last movie that my dad and I watched before the roadtrip was The Searches, a John Ford-directed western from 1956 starring John Wayne. It prominently features Monument Valley with such inspiring cinematography that these unique sandstone buttes and red-rock monoliths are now a staple of the American West. Ford used Monument Valley as his set almost exclusively, filming nine movies here, even when a script wasn’t set along the Utah-Arizona border where the park is located. Case in point, The Searchers is supposed to be set in Texas. It has that strong of a presence. It’s the openness of the arid desert and then how the Earth violently shifts to steep rock formations that rise out of the ground like nowhere else in the world.

Monument Valley was the real star of John Ford’s pictures. The lasting effects are seen in today’s movies, TV shows, album covers, cartoons, videogames and commercials. Almost everything that’s supposed to represent the American west uses Monument Valley. From now on, every time I flip through a magazine or up and down the TV channels and stumble upon something random that uses Monument Valley, whether it’s John Wayne’s breakout role in 1939’s “Stagecoach,” Back to the Future III or even a Road Runner cartoon, I can say I camped there.

The openness of this authentic American frontier meant that Monument Valley and its surroundings are very desolate compared to Moab, the college-like town where we stayed last night. We first noticed this when trying to take a detour around the nearby Mexican Hat rock. This sombrero-shaped formation has a 60-foot wide rock resting on top of a smaller rock, giving it the distinct look of a Mexican Hat. While it’s been featured in several movies, including Disney and Pixar’s computer animated film Cars, and a lot of people talked it up at Arches, the road around it was unpaved and no place for my 1997 Corolla. Having almost gotten stuck on the very hilly dirt terrain, we took some quick photos, made an immediate U-Turn on the narrowest of ditch-like roads and continued on the paved US-163 to Monument Valley.

Like Four Corners, the Najavo run Monument Valley, so it’s not a National Park but a Native American reservation. This means that the fee free weekend being offered by the DOI for economic stimulus isn’t in effect here. Still, the $10 camping rate and $5 a person entrance fee would’ve been worth it even if we were allowed to only drive on US-163 and take in the miles-long spectacular views.

We quickly discovered that we’d get a whole lot closer than we had ever imaged. Upon passing through the gate and proceeding on the park’s unpaved road, we were lead to the campground, which was almost empty. We weren’t even sure if this was really the campground. There weren’t many signs, there was literally two tents on this flat stretch of land and it was a stone’s throw away from Mitten View, the most recognizable formation in Monument Valley. We were hesitant to setup because we thought that it was so close that we shouldn’t be allowed to camp here. It was that unbelievable. When we spotted a small “Primitive Campground” sign (which is the understatement of the year), we realized that we could camp wherever we wanted. Naturally, we staked out the tent as close to Mitten View as possible and promptly set up. It was a much faster and smoother experience than the previous camping night.

In the midst of pitching the tent, we noticed two white vans of young French tourists who were temporally using the campground to party. About a dozen girls were listening to loud foreign music on the roof while a dozen more guys were playing soccer (or football, as they would say). This was right near our car. On one of the trips back to the car from where we were setting up the tent, a Michael Jackson song came on and, somehow, I got roped into dancing to it. These French tourists loved it, asked us where we were from and seemed very polite. Sadly, this lively bunch wasn’t camping and the sun was going down. They left in their white party vans and, as the dust from their exit rose up, we ran back downhill to finish setting up. I don’t know what was more of an adrenaline rush: having to do the MJ dance in front of a bunch of randomly cheering French tourists in the middle of Monument Valley or having to rush to finish pitching the tent before dark set in.

The nearby Farview Hotel had sandwiches we could eat, but because we weren’t staying at the hotel we couldn’t sit down and order dinner from the menu inside. Buying a la carte was fine with us. Plus, there was a black-and-white western playing outside on a projector. We thought it’d be a better idea to sit outdoors at the café table and chairs, anyway. It took about 3 minutes for us to realize our mistake. A wild dog approached us from the darkness that blankets Monument Valley’s only inside-the-park hotel. Though initially startled when this animal appeared from the shadows, we were unconvinced that a lone dog was a threat. We slowly continued to eat our sandwiches while our eyes were glued on the dog. Suddenly, a second dog emerged from the hotel’s pitch-black perimeter and I saw a third’s ears perk up in the shadows. We didn’t wait for the third dog to approach us because we figured that there’d be more hungry wild animals if we stuck around. So, without delay, we scrambled back inside and finished our dinner in the confines of the hotel.

Driving back a couple of yards from the hotel to the campground wouldn’t have been a problem in the daytime, but there were no lights with the exception of my car’s dim headlights. So, we drove back very slowly, which is starting to become a trend on the camping portion of our roadtrip. But, there’s a benefit to the park’s pitch-blackness. It gave me an excellent opportunity to check out the countless stars in the sky using my binoculars. It was incredible how many more stars are visible from a dark location like Monument Valley than the suburbs of Philadelphia.

When we woke up this morning, we inquired about jeep or horseback riding tours through Monument Valley, but the Najavo guides wanted far too much money for what it was worth. We had already spent the night on the location where numerous westerns were filmed and we decided to pass considering the cheapest tour was $65 per person for a measly half hour of horseback riding. We had a similar hour-long experience in Palo Duro Canyon for $35, almost half the price for twice as long. So, we opted to save our money, bought lunch and campfire provisions (like S’mores) at Goulding’s Grocery Store and took a photo underneath the Arizona state sign, where the road to Zion National Park dips into Utah’s neighboring state to the south.

Utah is home to some of America’s most magnificent national parks, a discovery that I made while planning our trip to this underrated state. So, in an unprecedented roadtrip move, we decided to take three nights to camp across the home of the Ute, the Native American tribe from which this mountainous state’s name is derived. Previously, Tennessee was the only state where we stayed more than a single night, partly because it’s so a wide and partly because there’s a lot to do in Memphis. Whereas Knoxville was more of a forced stopover, we wanted to visit every one of the stops in Utah, beginning with Arches National Park.

The road from Four Corners to Arches National Park made us backtrack through southwest Colorado for a couple of minutes by heading the opposite way on US-160. The first time we were traveling along 160, on the way to Four Corners, I noticed a small two-lane road that was perpendicular ours, which is significant only because there are very few roads that intersect with the highway. The land is flat and barren, so we could see all sorts of nothing down this right turn, as far as the Earth would let us view until it curved. I remarked “Wow, that seems like to road to nowhere.” No surprise, that road turned out to be Colorado-40, our path to Arches.

At the end of CO-40, we reached the Utah state border and took pictures in front of the “Welcome to” sign. It’s more colorful than previous state signs, featuring snow-capped mountains, the iconic Delicate Arch and a skier from the 2002 Winter Olympic Games held in Salt Lake City. We’ll be seeing plenty of mountains at Zion National Park in two days and the Arches in a few hours. But, we won’t get to check out any of Salt Lake since it’s to the northwest, the opposite of where we are right now. One day, though, I hope to explore what lies in the north of this vast state.

Friedman: There’s no such thing as a free lunch
The Good News: We arrived at Arches National Park at 6 PM to find out that this is a fee free weekend thanks to an economic stimulus plan by the DOI. The Bad News: The plan worked. Everyone decided to come to Arches, which means that although we saved $10 because there’s no car entrance fee, we had to book a hotel because all of the campsites were taken.

Devil’s Garden, the campground where we had intended to sleep, would’ve cost $20. We ended up staying in the neighboring town of Moab at a Super 8, which cost $80. That’s a 400% increase! Thankfully, it was 3 minutes from the park entrance and offered hot showers, free WiFi and limitless electricity so we could recharge our electronics. You have to be very disciplined with a cigarette lighter when you have a constantly-powered GPS, two digital cameras batteries, a video camera battery and two always-draining iPhones, one of which is playing music through the car’s stereo at all times. We were smart enough to bring a splitter for the cigarette lighter, but that piece of crap broke within the first hour of the trip.

Moab had the feel of a college town with people walking around the suburb-like city. It reminded me of Penn State during perfect late spring or early fall days. We ate at a restaurant called Eddie McStiff’s after debating whether to try something original or something that we knew was going to be good like Wendy’s. We’ve done a decent job of avoiding fast-food chains and continued with that policy in Moab. Plus, Eddie McStiff’s had a funny name to it, so how could we pass it up? I ordered their menu’s corned beef Reuben, which was good, but nothing beats the Frasier Street Deli versions of the sandwich. We ate and called it a night. Even though Arches National Park is conveniently open 24 hours, we decided that it would be better to see the arches in the daylight before moving on to Monument Valley.

When we woke up the next day, we found out that the Super 8 was clutch for yet another reason: It offered a free continental breakfast in the morning. So, while the last of our electronics recharged, we helped ourselves to eggs, bagels and apple juice. Since this wasn’t a planned hotel, I didn’t write down the check out time on my itinerary, so George called up to ask, “Is the check out time 11 AM or 12 PM?” The clerk replied, “Yes, it is!” We found out it was 11 AM, so we quickly packed up our gear and headed to Arches National Park.

If you ever plan on visiting Arches National Park, read this…Water! Brings water! You have some water? Good. Bring more. The sun beats down on this arid desert and you’re hiking seemingly endless trails that provide no shade until you get to the distant arches. That’s how we felt with water. We almost went without because we had driven passed the visitor’s center near the entrance and didn’t want to waste time turning around. Tacking on 10 minutes to buy bottled water ended up being the decision that allowed us to see Delicate Arch. Otherwise, we would’ve given up or passed out.

Delicate Arch is the most iconic out of the park’s more than 2,000 naturally formed rock arches. It can be seen on everything from license plates to stamps, so if there’s one arch to see in person, this is it. The 1.5-mile hike from where you park is rated moderately strenuous. Just make sure you have enough water, a pair of hiking boots and enough physical energy to make it there and back for a roundtrip of 3 miles in the hot sun. We went at noon in mid-August, so other times of the day or months of the year may prove easier if you’re not used to hiking.

As we took breathtaking pictures in front of and underneath the Delicate Arch in the heat, we could see snow-capped mountains in the distance. With a little Google Maps research, I found out that they are the La Sal Range, part of the southern Rockies and a 50-mile drive from where we’re standing. We saw the rest of the arch formations from Arches Entrance Road, stopped to eat at that the Wendy’s we passed up in Moab yesterday and are now headed to Monument Valley before it gets dark.

We woke up, packed up and gassed up in Mesa Verde National Park, then ate lunch at the Burger Boy Drive-In (400 E Main St Cortez, CO 81321) in neighboring Cortez. There was nothing exceptional about this drive in, except maybe the 3-D Burger that George ordered. I wisely stuck with the single patty. This fast food restaurant just happened to be on the way to Four Corners Monument, the only point in the United States where four state borders intersect.

Four Corners Monument is about an hour from Cortez and absolutely nothing is in between the two except a stretch of desert. Since the land is on a Navajo reservation, the members of the U.S.’s second largest tribe (the first being Cherokee) encircle the raised plague and platform with tiny shops. We took a number of photographs while touching all four states at once. Then, we treated ourselves to a snow cone and I bought a shot glass. It said “Four Corners” and depicted the boundaries of the states.

We both had trouble receiving cell phone service out in the middle of nowhere, but wanted to see if this was truly the middle of the four states. To do that, we loaded up the Twitterfone application for iPhone, which allows Twitter users to add their GPS coordinates to a tweet via Google Maps. Our intention was to take a half hour at Four Corners and move on. But, because we attempted and failed to send the tweet from this data-desolate area so many times, it ended up taking twice as long. Just as I was about to give up, my tweet finally posted (George managed to post his, too) along with this twitpic of me in four states at once.

We are now able to proceed to Utah and Arches National Park.