Web Photo Album!

Just to let everyone know....if you ever want to view our travel pictures without having to watch the slideshow they are posted at : http://picasaweb.google.com/lace6333.

Check them out whenever you like! Thanks to all for following and sorry it has been a while since we last posted. We will try and get better! Feel free to leave comments.

Sedona, AZ!!!! Red Rock Country!

Wednesday, March 24th:

We drove through most of the night into Tuscon and Phoenix, Arizona. We figured since we gained an extra hour (since AZ is in Pacific time, weird..I know.) we might as well take advantage of it. We got up at 6:30 am and headed for the Red Rock country of Sedona, Arizona. We entered this little village that overlooked the gargantuan mountains of red rock and clay. We stopped in to the visitor center and met an interesting receptionist named Kelli…that’s Kelli with an “I”, by the way. She told us where to go for awesome hiking and the most breathtaking sunset you will ever find. Kelli also, while on a six shot espresso drink, convinced us that we should take advantage of a great offer to check out a local timeshare resort and in return we got a cheap stay at the said resort and also $70 towards a local dinner in town. So with like 4 hours to kill till check in at 3pm, we headed out on the scooters for Bell Rock for an amazing scenic ride, followed by an impromptu hike up a huge bell shaped red rock formation. We started to hike up this ridiculous, gorgeous red mountain, not knowing that we would end up climbing to the top. We started out and got a third of the way and had to stop to catch our breath…Not because we were out of shape..no… it was the elevation, I’m sure. After chugging some water, we kept on going and going. Did I mention I am a novice climber? Anyways, we climbed and climbed and climbed and I think I even ate my knees a few times it was so steep…We did it! We had gotten to the top. It was glorious! I mean the kind of view that will put your life into perspective. Up there…on the top of that mountain…nothing mattered. All your troubles, worries, thoughts, just disappear. It is amazing how small, the small stuff in life really is when you are looking out on top of mountain into miles and miles of uncivilized lands. It’s as if you are in the heavens looking down. We will end this day with….I can only imagine what the Grand Canyon is like. Luckily, we will be there soon enough.

So you know the term breathtaking? Well I always thought it was just something you say and never really experienced it but when I see these rocky mountains and plains and scenic view it literally startles the breath out of me and catches me off guard. Its been wild.

Las Cruces y White Sands!

Tuesday, March 23^rd:

We began our day picking up a few essential items from the Walmart, like a toothbrush, since Ryan had dropped his in the public shower at the RV park. But I must say, Las Cruces has one of the nicest, cleanest Walmarts I have ever seen…we thought we were in a Target until you notice the navy blue smocks. It was weird because the groceries were on the left and the Mcdonalds was in the back. HUH!

We headed out of Las Cruces for the day to travel to White Sands, New Mexico. If you have never heard of White Sands, it is simply a natural wonder. An 8 mile stretch of sand dunes of white crystal-like sand, that feels and looks more like pure sugar. We couldn’t believe it….We were driving through what seemed like a scene from the movie “Land of the Lost” or “Planet of the Apes”. I felt like I was on a different planet. We drove through while the crystal sand blew over us, a snow plow (sand plow) trailed on behind us, sweeping the roads clear. Driving through it seemed as if we were in a snow storm. We parked the Yella, took off our shoes and headed out in the white sand dunes to roll down the hills and make sand angels. We sat against one of the dunes and just looked out admiring the miles and miles of white crystal mountains. This by far, was definitely an experience for the story books. And definitely a place you must see before you die. (Pictures don’t do justice!)Also a lot of scenes of Transformers was shot out here we later found out from a border patrol officer.

Speaking of border patrol, as we were traveling out of New Mexico we were unaware of this but there are these checkpoints where the whole highways traffic is routed through what looks like a rest stop where border patrols are checking each car and truck for something probably either drugs or illegal immigrants since we were just on the other side of the México border. So on this day we were the lucky ones. Apparently two young people in an RV waved some red flags and the border patrols asked us to search our RV with a K9. Even though we had nothing to hide this bugged us because its kind of an insult or something at least very awkward. We got out of our RV and the Patrols were very cautious and we had to keep our hands out of our pockets and were drilled with questions like, where are you coming from and where are you headed? Well, apparently we are coming from Florida and we don’t really have a destination, is not a good answer for the border patrol. So after a while of searching and awkwardness, we were freed to go on our way. Luckily they didn’t find the bag of white powder in the kitchen drawer that we had just smuggled from the dunes at White Sands, NM. Lol!!!!

Cruising thru West Texas!

Monday, March 22^nd:

Left Austin and headed out west…West of Texas and then on to Las Cruces, New Mexico. We drove 620 miles and it took about 13 hours but we made it…out of Texas. We were so south in New Mexico we could see the Mexican border all lit up at night. It was late so we stopped in at the Las Cruces Walmart and parked behind another fellow RVer and packed in for a snooze.

Last Day in Austin! :(

Sunday, March 21^st:

Hung out on SoCo (South Congress Ave. south of Downtown Austin) with my high school pal and trip host, Andrew Dominguez. We all had an awesome iced turbo at Joe’s coffee (which is part coffee, part espresso, with hazelnut, chocolate and cream) checked out the cool lil jewelry and vintage goods market, along with this awesome old fashioned candy store that carried everything from clark bars to chocolate covered bacon ($3.47 each Ouch!) . Sadly, left empty-handed. Lots of cool Mexican folk-art shops as well that I just fell in love with. We also met up with another one of my ol’ high school friends, Christina Hart now Christina Bronstein and her husband, Brett. Ryan and I were having so much fun in Austin it felt like we were leaving home again. So sadly, we said our goodbyes to Karen, Christina and Andrew and went back to the RV to get it raring and ready for the road ahead.

SXSW Saturday Night-Finale!!!!

Saturday, March 20^th: Minus the Bear, the Drums, Circa Survive, Treasure Fingers, DJ Craze, Jack Beats

Another day of South by that starts at about 2pm when we set out to find a new and interesting restaurant of the hundreds in Austin’s city limits to eat our first meal of the day. Once we are full we head back to base station 1 (either Andrews BMW or his apartment) and figure out our schedule for the evening of bands and madness. After the awesome show, the night before we thought how cool it is that minus the bear is playing again. When do you go to an awesome show and go home and get to wake up and do it all over again? Crazy! This time they were playing at stubb’s which is a great venue with killer bar b que tacos. This night was colder than cold and we had to bear it outside at stubbs through a band called “The drums”. They were cool, music was good and the singer had some crazy dance moves. After all that, Circa survice blew the place up and melted our faces with loud noises. And after that, we carried our melted faces down to beauty bar to get our dance on with world famous dj craze also treasure fingers and wobble bass kings Jack beats. It was great except all the drugged out idiots who pop a pill to anything with a beat.

SXSW Friday Night-Doing it Right!

Friday, March 19^th: Steel Train, Good Old War, Redman, Minus the Bear, evol intent

Drinks drinks drinks music music music great great great

Good old war did a great show and included a feature of Anthony the lead singer of circa survive for a song and finished of all acoustic off the stage and in the middle of the crowd. Evol intent is really hard drum and bass music and they were tearing up this basement club that had a killer PA aka sound system. It was pretty rad. The night flew by and we walked by a club and noticed that Minus the bear was playing so we got in line. It was nearing closing time and it didn’t look like we were getting in or even that MTB was gonna play. A little while later the lined moved and we were in and MTB just started their set. I don’t know if its because they got rid of the bear but the set and the whole vibe in the place was dope, literally was cloudy as hell.

SXSW Thursday-Cool Kids & More

Thursday, March 18^th: The Cool Kids, Crystal Method, Steve Aoki, Band of Horses

This began the series of days that began at 4 pm in the afternoon after a long party of band watching from club to club and ending with breakfast at 4am to waking up for breakfast at 4pm. Nonethless, so worth our body clock’s to be off after all the cool music we saw. This was the first full day and night of music. We got downtown early and roamed around all the venues trying to catch some good shows and find out where all the venues were. We wanted to see “the Cool Kids” perform at this day stage and we could not find it to save our lives. We honestly walked all over Austin looking for this park and eventually we did right in time to see their last few songs. Excited to get to the show we decided to partake in a foot long motorcycle shaped vegas style margarita. After a few brain freezes and sourpusses we realized we weren’t even buzzed. After paying for these so called margaritas we were pretty pissed so we went to complain at the booth. We were not given a refund but the lady running the stand offered to smoke weed with us, which was funny but we passed. Fast forward to the evening where we went to Stubb’s bar b que a famous SXSW venue where a lot of the larger “SOUTH BY” as the Austin natives call it play. Tonight Band of horses was playing so we watched and it was cool. After the horses wrapped it up we rolled a couple of doors down to this club I cant remember the name but Steve Aoki was doing a set. We got there a little early and The crystal method was playing. I was into them back in like 1998 or so and it was cool to see them but I was so bored during their set and couldn’t wait for it to be over. Finally it was over and as expected Aoki came up to the decks and rocked the foundation of this hole in the wall. It was like a digital punk rock mosh pit the whole time and as his records were playing he was surfing over the crowd with the microphone until last call and the cops and horses came to shut the streets down. AWWWWESOME!

St.Paddy's Day in Austin

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010:
First Day of Music at SXSW and it just so happened to be St. Paddy’s Day too. Hung out in Downtown Austin with my old time high school pal, Andrew Dominguez, who just so happened to be the best host of a city we could ask for. Went to the Speak Easy Kabaret to pick up some free Jameson Whiskey gear and to check out the Stone Throw’s record label lineup (J-rocc, Madlib) then met up with our host’s boss at this lil beer bar called the Ginger Man.
Tonight we needed a place to stay, we had exhausted our welcome at Walmart and there were no campsites available so Thankfully, to Ryan’s quick thinking we posted an ad on craigslist asking anyone if they had a spot for us to park our RV and stay for a couple days. To our surprise, several people called us and had an open spot that they would let us stay in, but one lady in particular caught our attention. She was a cool woman from Choco Canyon, New Mexico and grew up on an Indian reservation. Her name was Karen Lee and she is probably the coolest person we have met on our trip thus far. She drives a cool old Honda scooter like us and has the most adorable boston terrier named CK. She let us keep our scooters in her garage and we parked our rig out in front of her house, for get this….FREE..absolutely nothing. She told us that she usally let’s bands stay with her but she didn’t get any this year, so it was perfect for us. Couldn’t have worked out better.

Rainy Day in Austin!

It's Tuesday, March 16th and it is a rainy day here in Austin. We were confined to the RV all morning watching movies, then decided to take a leisurely wet stroll to get some fresh air. We walked down to this really cool bike shop, that had tons of different kinds of bikes, all styles too. I like the beach cruiser/mountain bikes and it seems as though they actually have that put together. They even have these really cool mountain/bmx bikes also. Once we checked out the price tags on these bad boys and caught our breath, we walked over to Austin Music Makers. Typical, music store with guitars, keyboards, sound equipment, the works. Played around on a couple old Casio keyboards from the 80's and then it was back out in the rain for us.

The rainy weather had got us down a bit, but alas, the golden arches were right next door. We said we were just going to go in to McDonalds and grab a coffee, that's all. So we walked in, stood in line for a second, looked at one another in a deep stare and then...it happened...we walked out! That's right, Lacey and Ryan walked out of McDonald's with nothing! Not even stolen condiments. We were so proud! After that victory, we decided to just head home out of the rain. We are now planning our attack on this SXSW Music Festival and resting up so we can hit it hard for the next 5 days! Woo-hoo!!!!

Austin, TX - Days of FUN!!!!

Day 5: Monday, March 15th... Scooter Weather!!! Checked out South Congress Ave. (SoCo, they call it!)...Wowza! I am in Vintage/Thrift store heaven. Tons upon tons of vintage stores, cool lil restaurants, had an iced turbo at Joe's(amazing coffee drink with a culmination of things in it) and even cooler Mexican Folk Art stores and galleries, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Once again, sadly, left empty handed...I mean were on a budget! But if I had an AMEX black card, I could've maxed it out down there!

For now, just hanging in the RV trying to play catch up on this blog! Then, possibly go check out the film "MacGruber" with Val Kilmer and Ryan Phillippe. It is based on the SNL skit! Gonna be fun!

Austin, TX - Continued...

Day 3 continued Saturday, March 13th....After all we did on Saturday, March 13th, we even managed to hit up the nightlife again....We went to Beauty Bar and this awesome, video-dance bar, Barbarella! My new fave! We danced the night away and drank Shiner Bock, which is Texas brewed beer and did it up, Austin-style! Then, after a wild dance party, we couldn't resist though we tried and stopped at Taco Cabana, which is Mexican fast-food, but not like Taco Bell, it is more authentic, think Chipotle and Tijuana Flatts and did I mention super-cheap!

Day 4: Sunday, March 14th...the Day of beautiful Parks....We hit Mount Brunell which is an awesome mountain/park that shows breath-taking views of the Colorado River and all these fancy-schmancy homes on the river. Then hit-up McKinney Falls State Park, hiked and climbed some rocks, crossed some freezing creeks and checked out the waterfalls.

Austin, TX - Freaking Cool!

We made it! We stayed a few nights at this cool RV park (Pecan Grove) right near the mix of things and hit the town on our scoots cruising away.

Day 1: Thursday, March 11th...We checked out the Drag, which is this cool, college strip across from UT (University of Texas, not Tampa). We walked around, checked out some eclectic lil shops and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Day 2: Friday, March 12th....Woke up early and did an awesome workout at the riverside park which offered an awesome view of the Austin skyline. We walked/jogged through this leash-free dog park and ran the stairs up to the bridge over downtown. Later that night, we went to the premiere screening of "Cyrus", this dark comedy starring John C. Reily, Jonah Hill and Marisa Tomei. We couldn't believe that we actually got in, since there was a red carpet and all, with the leading stars. We stood on the sidewalk waiting in line, gawking at them and trying to take pictures without getting caught. 92 minutes later, after cracking our butts off, we hit 6th St. for the nightlife and well..the rest os just a haze of drunken fun.

Day 3: Saturday, March 13th.....Woke up super early, felt crappy and went to Waterloo Records to stand in line for the SXSW Festival tickets. After that, hit up this fantastic city-wide garage sale at the Palmer Events Center, where we found awesome antiques, sweet vintage gear and plenty of cool housewares. Sadly, we left empty-handed. We decided we needed some rest, so we took a lil cat nap. We arose and hit the Barton Springs Pool up on our scoots. The pool, is this awesome natural spring that they kind-of made into a public pool. There were tons of people there, kids, tweens, young adults, families and all. On the other side of the fence, we even caught some hippy chicks swimming and sunbathing topless. This I thought was weird considering that there were young children around, but no one seemed to surprised by the whole thing, so I guess, it happens alot and people just accept it. Hey..to each its own and Ryan and I got a kick out of it! ;)