Wednesday 8 August 2012

Day 28 - Santa Monica and the Road to San Francisco!


After another successful roadside pit stop, we pushed forward towards the Santa Monica pier and the final morphing leg of our Route 66 journey... Craig successfully braved the ridiculous traffic with the help of co-pilot Danny, we made it to the waterfront and went for a quick stroll down to one of the Route 66 information booths. They told us that the final street sign was actually on the pier itself and that once we had finished there we could come back and each get certificates stating that we had successfully completed Route 66!


We went down and checked out the sign and even though it was early, there were still tons of people walking around the pier... Quickly getting changed into the Morph suits for one final time, we grabbed a few snapshots and posed for a few pictures and then went and changed out of the suits... It felt good in a way, knowing that we didn't have to publicly expose ourselves anymore and that we had finally completed the entire Route 66, but, it also meant that our trip was almost at an end...


We walked to the end of the pier and had some lunch, as well as going on the roller coaster that they had there... Well Matt and I did anyway haha! Danny and Craig went down to the beach for a beer and Adam waited for us at the entrance... 


After everyone had finished walking around the pier, we head off towards San Francisco in hopes to make it just outside off the city so that we could go on our Alcatraz tour the next day! We made it to a town just outside of the city called Patterson. The owner of the RV Park we stayed in was really nice, he ended up chatting to Adam, Matt and I for almost 3 hours haha! As well as offering to introduce all of us to his 3 half Swedish daughters, who were all about the same age as us haha... 


We went and had dinner at a small Mexican restaurant across the road from us to have dinner and a few drinks; it was amazing as usual, even to Craig's surprise haha! After dinner we went back to the RV and crashed out, in preparation for the big day we had ahead of us!


Next stop... San Francisco and Alcatraz!

Mark

Wednesday 18 July 2012

Day 27 - Hoover Dam and the Road to Santa Monica

We checked out early the next morning, everyone met up in the main foyer at 8:30 in the morning so that we could make our way out of Vegas before hitting any peak hour traffic. Our first stop of the morning, was the old Las Vegas sign, after all, we couldn't leave without showing Vegas how to really dress up haha! We grabbed a few quick photo's, but couldn't really take too many, because there was a line up and it started raining as well...

We then headed towards the Hoover Dam on our way out of the city, it was huge! It was most probably over a 100m drop on one of the sides! We walked across the entire length of the Dam but didn't go on any of the tours that took us inside, because the lines were huge and we had to press on to make it to Santa Monica, the end of Route 66!

We stopped of at a few more historical sites along the highway, as well as another original Route 66 Diner called Mr D'z, where we had lunch, they served classic food and drink, it was also were Adam and Myself tried our first root beer floats... I can tell you right now I am definitely not a fan haha! The food however, was really nice!

We then continued on through the desert, realising that we still had an entire bag left of fireworks! There was only one thing for us to do... LET THEM ALL OFF!! We went for about an hour before an off-duty fireman drove up to us in his car and said that there was a $2500 fine for letting of fire crackers in that area and that someone will most probably be along pretty soon, considering how far away he spotted some of the fireworks we had been letting off haha! He did however compliment us on the light show that we provided haha! We continued on and ended up pulling over on the side of the road and sleeping there instead of driving all the way to Santa Monica...


Next stop... Santa Monica and the Road to San Francisco!

Mark

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Day 26 - Vegas... The Continuation

Needless to say, we all woke up with extremely sore heads and in need of a greasy breakfast haha! Matt and I didn't even leave our room until about lunchtime that day... (It wasn't too bad of an effort considering we didn't get to sleep until 6am that morning!) We eventually gained the strength to leave the room and head out in search for the others, we had decided that we were going to meet up at M&M World (It has 4 massive floors of just M&M related objects). Matt and I went off to have a look around at a few shops and ended up buying some clothes and souvenirs for ourselves, while Craig had gone of on one of his little adventures by himself as usual... (Craig has a habit of disappearing for periods of time, but we always end up finding him haha!) Danny and Adam continued to walk down the strip having a look at a few other things.


We met up at M&M World and decided to have lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe... Again... This was most probably the 6th Hard Rock that we had eaten at haha, the menu doesn't change that much, I can tell you that. But it was good nonetheless. Our hostess just so happened to share the same birthday as Matt, we didn't get anything special for it, but she let us know that all the 7/11 stores give you a special present if you have the birthday 7/11! I wish there was a store called 26/02 now... After finishing yet another gargantuan meal, we headed back towards the hotel for another quick rest... Adam, Matt and Myself had already had enough sleep so we went and checked out the pool... It took us 30 minutes just to walk to the pool! It was ages away but they had four massive pools and all of them were buzzing! We had a quick gander and then walked back to the room to chill before we went to the Old Vegas Strip for dinner!


The Old Vegas was awesome! They had a giant LED screen that stretched the entire length of the mall, and they played songs with video clips of the artists live performance and everything! Some of the favourite artists were Bon Jovi and Queen, both of them were spectacular, and everyone was singing along to it haha! We ended up having a buffet dinner again at the Golden Nugget, this one was a little more expensive but was still really good! After dinner we went to go and spend some money down on the gaming floor, Danny, Matt and Adam went to the pokies, while Craig and Myself went to the blackjack tables. We played a really strange version, where you put in $5 minimum to play and the put another $5 into the pot, whoever gets the highest hand out of the entire table wins both their original bet and the pot... This was great, except Craig and I were the only ones playing on the table haha! I ended up taking the majority of Craig's money haha!

We met up with everyone outside the front of the casino and headed back towards the MGM in a taxi... Matt and I decided that we were going to stay down stairs in the MGM and continue gambling.. We had a few more drinks and ended up breaking even before heading back upstairs and calling it a night..


Next stop... Hoover Dam and the road to L.A!

Mark

Monday 16 July 2012

Day 25 - Grand Canyon and Las Vegas!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MATT!! It was the day I had been waiting for, for a long time haha! Matt could finally come out and drink in the bars and clubs! We stated the day out at the Grand Canyon one of the many detours of our trips! Danny wanted to make it there by sunrise, but we got there just after sunrise and got a massive view of the canyon from one of the lookouts! The canyon measures about 16km across at most parts and you can see the Colorado River down at the very bottom if you zoom right in with the camera haha! As usual we grabbed out the morphsuits and took advantage of the spectacular view! One of the guys we had asked to take a few photos of us, was a real tool haha! We went to jump into a different pose and he just looked at us and said "NO!" and shoved the camera back into our hands... We then proceeded to walk back to the van to get changed and got stopped by what appeared to be an entire bollywood film cast! They took hundreds of photos haha, we actually had to tell them we had to go!


After getting changed we headed towards the main information centre, which had only just opened at 9am, and read a few of the information boards before stumbling across a brochure that advertised helicopter flights of the canyon... We were sold! The only problem was, that we had to make it all the way to the airport in under 15 minutes to make the flight! We ran back to the van and floored it all the way to the airport! We made it just in time and the flight crew prepped us for taking our flight over the Grand Canyon! It was an amazing experience and I would recommend that anyone seeing the Canyon, do it by air! You can see so much more!

We then hit tthe road and continued on towards Las Vegas! We didn't get there until about 5:30 - 6pm but as usual it was still bright... We ended up staying at the MGM Grand after I had walked in trying to book a few rooms and getting shot down by the manager after he told me that every single room in the casino was booked out... I walked outside and decided that every room could not possibly be booked out and that it was most probably because I was wearing a singlet and boardshorts, not to mention that I look yoounger then I actually am haha! We went across the road to Hooters and had a few beers while we used their internet and within 30 minutes, we were back inside with three rooms booked haha! You should have seen the look on the guys face when we went back inside and lined up!


After settling into our rooms everyone got ready to go out and have a birthday dinner for Matt... We had a few drinks and each bought a 25 oz alcoholic slushie to have while we were walking down the strip. After checking out a few stores, Danny, Craig, Matt and myself headed to a bar called Centrifuge and had multiple drinks to celebrate, including a few half scotch glasses full of patron tequila, before we headed off to our next location, the Spearmint Rhino... After that it is history, because what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!!

Next stop... The Continuation!

Mark

Tuesday 10 July 2012

Day 24 - The road to the Grand Canyon

We got up the next morning and decide that we would have breakfast in a town called Gallup at the restaurant El Rancho. The reason we decide to have breakfast there was because it was a historic location along Route 66. When Western films were a big thing, the majority of them were filmed out in the desert. Gallup was a town where a lot of movie stars stayed, including; John Wayne, Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and many more. It was really interesting checking out how many "stars" had actually stayed in the hotel, the breakfast was most probably the best we had eaten in a while too haha!


We then continued onwards towards Willam, Arizona, which is just past Flagstaff... We decided that it would be better to continue on towards the Grand Canyon from there as it is was shorter then driving from Flagstaff... We stopped off at a few more historic landmarks along the way including a place called Jackrabbit, it kept us amused for a little while as they had a giant rabbit out the front of one of the stores...


We then pushed forward to William, skipping lunch so that we could actually arrive in a camp site before the sun had gone down for once haha! We got there at about 4pm and immediately went to the first pub we could find! Everyone in the bar was extremely friendly and was only too keen to chat, including an old guy by the name of Randy, who taught us how to play shuffle board, which is actually quiet amusing (especially while drinking haha!).


We then set off towards our campsite, and to our surprise they had a mini golf course! This of course meant that the championship was back up for grabs! We even set bets to make it that little bit more interesting, the loser had to do all of the washing and the winner got to select one of the players to scull a beer! Danny ended up winning... Again, and selected me to scull an entire beer (good thing I actually enjoy drinking the stuff haha!) and Adam ended up coming in last place so had to do every ones washing!


While Adam was busy doing his housewife duties, everyone else decided that it would be an excellent time to go and have a swim in the pool and hot tubs. After lots of frolicking about and multiple chin up competitions, it was time for dinner. We had a nice, healthy serving of Hot Dogs and bacon, with a side of alcohol to help wash it down. It was then time to crash because we wanted to be at the Grand Canyon before sunrise the next morning!


Next stop... Grand Canyon and Las Vegas!!

Mark

Day 23 - Albuquerque

Once again it was an early rise for everyone (Craig and Danny), eveyone else decided that a sleep in was in order, so we didn't actually get out of bed until about 11am... Thank god our beds can travel hundreds of miles haha! Danny and Craig stopped of at numerous spots along the road down to Albuquerque, and saw some pretty awesome rock formations, including the Hole in the Rock at Glen Canyon in  Southern Utah...


We ended up stopping in Durango for lunch that day and went to a pub called the Steamworks, they brewed their own beer there, which was pretty cool. Craig wasn't feeling overly hungry so decided to go for a walk around town instead... His loss, the food was pretty good and the beer was even better!


We then continued on towards  Albuquerque, only stopping at Santa Fe to pick up where we left of on Route 66, we checked out the oldest building in the US, apparently it was made in the 1600's, but it didn't look very old, and the inside was closed so we didn't get to check it out.


We stopped at a Burger King joint once we had arrived in Albuquerque because it was the only thing open once we had arrived! We didn't get there until about 10pm, but, all the extra long drives had finally paid off, because we were back on schedule! Which meant that we would be in Vegas in time for Matt's birthday!

Next stop... The road to the Grand Canyon.

Mark

Monday 9 July 2012

Day 22 - Yellowstone National Park

We got to Yellowstone at about 8am the next morning and had breakfast in one of the general stores they had located throughout the park. We quickly hoofed that down because we were all keen to go and check out the sights and hopefully spot some bear or wolves! Literally 100m down the road and we saw our very first animal! It was a bison and it was huge!! It was just casually walking along the side of the road eating grass, and it didn't seemed phased by the groups of people that had pulled over to take photos of it...


After grabbing a few snapshots we continued along down the road towards Old Faithful the geyser, we stopped to take a few photos of some elks that were in the bushes, but didn't see any bears or wolves before reaching the geysers... We walked into the main foyer area to check what time they had predicted the next eruption to be, and we had just missed one! The next one wasn't for another two hours so we went and watched a documentary about the park and the geysers.. Once the movie had finished we went out side and someone had mentioned that one of the other geysers was just about to go off, so we quickly hurried off towards and managed to get there about 5 minutes before it went off! Afterwards we continued along the path, spotting multiple chipmunks running around and checking out a few of the thermal pools, before eventually arriving back at Old Faithful just before it was about to go off! Both geysers shot super-heated water about 90 foot in the air, it was pretty spectacular to see, especially knowing that the water had actually started its journey towards the surface years ago...


We then had another hours drive to exit the park, and were hoping that we would finally see some bears, but i guess we were just unlucky, either that or we had to spend more time going around the park... You could easily spend 3 weeks camping in the park and still not even see a quarter of it... We then pushed forward towards Salt Lake City to find our camp site for the night, if we managed to make it down to Albuquerque by the next night we would have made up the day we had lost earlier in the trip and arrive in Las Vegas on time for Matt's 21st birthday! We made it through to Salt Lake and decided to go to an all you can eat buffet... Adam died and went to heaven! They had absolutely everything there, from chicken parmigiana to roast lamb, not to mention their massive dessert bar! They had chocolate fountains, soft serve ice cream, even fairy floss! The best thing about it was that it only cost us $10 each haha! After eating twice our weight in food we drove back to the camp site and had an extremely good nights sleep haha!


Next stop... Albuquerque!

Mark

Day 21 - Mt. Rushmore and Sturgis

It was another early morning, not too mention it was a cold one at that haha! Matt, Adam and myself were all wrapped up in our doona's while we hit the road on our way to Mt. Rushmore! We drove the RV all the way to the top, near the viewing platform and they let us park it right out the front, which was good considering that was where we decided to get changed into our Morhpsuits haha! There was about a 300m walk before we reached the end of the viewing platform, as well as a line up to get a photo taken, so everyone got a good look at the Morphs in all their glory... We finally managed to get a spot and have our picture taken in various positions and then we were out of there! I think if we had of stayed out there any longer, frostbite would've set in... We went and visited a few more rock sculptures and formations before heading on to "Bob's World Famous Antique Shed", it had everything in it! Majority of our time was spent looking through piles of number plates for Craig, so that we could find the states that he was missing, but we still went around the store multiple times..


Then it was on to Sturgis to visit the Full Throttle Saloon, the biggest biker bar in the world! Every year they have a motorcycle rally and they literally pack the entire town! We were talking to a few of the bartenders and they said that they were expecting around about 750,000 people this year!! We all had a full throttle burger and multiple beers before we hit the road again heading towards Cody, just outside Yellowstone National Park.


It was my first time in the "Captain's Seat" and everyone was a little worried to start with... I may have tried to take the RV four wheel driving as soon as we left the service station, but it was nothing the RV couldn't handle haha! After the first little hiccough, it was smooth sailing along the freeway for about 4 or so hours and then we hit Bighorn county... I had to drive the RV all the way to the top of a mountain and back down again! That was good fun, the roads were extremely narrow and we had random deer's just jumping out into the middle of the road haha! We ended up surviving the mountain and made it Cody just before 1am the next morning and set up camp before heading into Yellowstone National Park the next morning...


Next stop... Yellowstone National Park!

Mark

Sunday 8 July 2012

Day 20 - The 18 Hour Drive...

We hit the road at 6am the next morning, because we were detouring off of Route 66 we weren't going to be stopping for any road side attractions, so we decided that this would be the best time to try and make up that day we had lost earlier in our trip... We drove roughly 800 miles from Santa Rosa in New Mexico all the way to Hot Springs in South Dakota!


The only stopping points along this leg of our trip was for petrol and lunch... We stopped at a takeaway joint called Arby's, which suprisingly, wasn't too bad... They even had curly fries like they do in Hog's Breath back home, so that was a definite plus haha! Even though we didn't really stop at any places to take a look around, didn't mean that we didn't have fun haha! We pretty much turned the lounge area of the RV into a batchelor pad and were watching movies, playing gameboys, stirring each other and and cranking some beats on the RV sound system. Not to mention the scenery was pretty amazing, we had just started our trip up into the rockies, so there was a lot of hills!


Craig was driving was experiencing his first drive for the trip, however, he must have drawn the short straw because it looked like all the rain in New Mexico followed us up into Denver haha! There was one point where you couldn't see more then 15 metres in front of you, and that was while we were on the freeway! But, Craig did a good job and made it safely to the next service station, where Matt took over for his first drive! We all thought we were going to die, but, he managed to drive us to our RV site and all keep us in one piece...


Next stop... Mt Rushmore and Sturgis!

Mark

Day 19 - Texas and New Mexico

As per usual we were up early the next morning trying to catch up on the day we were behind, and we still had a long way to drive before we were at the starting point of our second detour off Route 66.. We performed the usual morning ritual by stopping in at McDonalds and grabbing a feed before out long drive into Texas. We had planned to make it to a restaurant in Texas called "The Big Texan", the home of the man vs. food 72 oz. steak! It doesn't sound that big, but once you see it, it looks like they have put half a cow on your plate!! We decided that the challenge was a little too ambitious for us all haha (you had to eat a 72 oz steak, baked potato, steak fries, salad and a prawn cocktail all in under 60 minutes!) so we just ordered a slightly smaller steak each haha! The also had something called a beer tower, it contained 116 oz of beer, or about 8 or 9 pints of beer! So being the only Aussies in the big Texan, we thought why the hell not! Yes, we did manage to finish it, but it was an effort and a half after the meal we had!


After everyone finishing their meals, there was only one thing left on our plates... A giant chilli! So using our superior logic and common sense, Danny, Adam and myself decided that it would be a good idea to see who could eat the most... BAD IDEA! I ended up having to scull almost a litre of milk just to make breathing bearable! It did provide good entertainment though haha! We then left The Big Texan, and proceeded to quickly get into our morph suits and show all our avid readers that we really did go there haha! We then continued along the road towards the next attraction, the ten Cadillacs. The story behind the ten Cadillacs is, a Texan land owner decided to half bury ten Cadillacs to create a sort of modern age stone henge, and then provides spray cans for visitors to put their "tag" on the cars and every couple of years he comes and gives them a fresh coat of paint and starts all over again. We spent nearly thirty minutes playing around on the cars, spraying everywhere and Craig even left behind an NT number plate on one of the cadillacs but it wasn't visible unless you climbed to the top...


After enjoying ourselves a little too much, we moved on to our next destination, the halfway point of Route 66! We exactly 1139 miles from the start of Route 66 in Chicago and still had another 1139 miles before we reached the Santa Monica pier in Las Angeles. It was a little surreal to think we had travelled halfway across the US in what seemed like such a short amount of time, but we still had a long way to go yet..


We then continued on to our final resting stop, Santa Rosa, before our second detour of the journey. It was a nice little caravan site in New Mexico. We had a massive storm rolling in though which was pretty daunting, because the radio was broadcasting warnings for flash flooding... It turned out the storm was pretty harmless and we didn't get swept away by any flash flooding...


Next stop... The road to Mt. Rushmore!

Mark

Thursday 5 July 2012

Day 18 - July 4th = FIREWORKS!!

The next morning was spent driving around and visiting various historical locations along Route 66... The road being as run down as it is, it made for a very bumpy ride! So bumpy in fact that as we were driving, one of the shelves in the fridge broke! Don't worry all of the beer was saved, I know that is what everyone else was wondering too, wasn't it? haha.


We were supposed to stop in at another Route 66 diner, but when we got there, it was closed for some reason... It looked like they may have been doing renovations? Instead we drove for about another 30 minutes and gave up on trying to find a decent place to eat and settled for a nice, healthy serving of KFC... It was disgusting as expected, but did the job and stopped our stomachs from eating us from the inside out! After that we stopped of at a Route 66 museum just outside of Ohklahoma City.. It wasn't too bad but they didn't have much memorabilia as we had expected, but we learn't that the building itself was actually an old military garrison that had been used for storing weapons and artillery...

By that point of the day I think everyone had had enough of museums and wanted to hurry up and set up camp for the night, because everyone knew that after we had finished setting up for the night, we could finally let off the fireworks that had been sitting in the back of the RV for the better part of a week!! We ended up staying in a town about 100 miles or so out of Oklahoma City, called Elk City. We didn't get there until about 7:30 and then hung around the campsite for a little bit to recooperate from the long drive we'd had that day... Before we knew it, it was 9pm (sun was only just setting haha) and we decide that it was time to go and unleash mayhem on the citizens of Elk City!


We parked in an empty baseball field where multiple groups had set up and started to let their own fireworks off and proceeded to get stuck into our own pile! I will tell you this now, if you thought some of the firecrackers they allow in the N.T. were big, wait until you hear some of these ones! We had managed to survive the night and came out relatively unscathed (a few burns from adam throwing jumping jacks at us while we were trying to light some of the missiles) and there was one last firecracker that we wanted to try that night... THE BESERKER!! It shot single artillery rounds and they were as big as the government displays that they let off down at the waterfront!! Of course we decided we would save a few for when we were camping in the desert over the next few days so we could stay entertained haha!


We didn't get back to the RV until about 12 midnight and everyone  had a few nibbles of some food out of the fridge and crashed out for the night...

Next stop... Texas and New Mexico!

Mark

Day 17 - Meramac Caverns and the Road to Carthage

The next morning we all woke to a funny aroma... Danny 'Law-Breaker" Bacon himself had broken the cardinal rule of the Wannabango Express during the night... He had taken a great big dump in the RV's toilet! (At the start of the trip, we had set a rule that only "Number 1's" were allowed on the bus toilets due to the smell wafting through the bus...). We decided that there was no better place for an intervention then the Meramac Caverns! Straight away, as soon as we confronted him, he gave us his first guilty sign... DENIAL! Throughout the whole day he remained adamant that he didn't do it, but we all knew the truth (not to mention Adam heard him haha). A close eye was kept on him from that point on... The Meramac Caverns were amazing though! We learn't a bunch of new facts about it, including that the infamous outlaw gang, The James Gang used the caverns as their secret hideout and it was were they dumped all their loot after they commited all of their train robberies. Some of the stalactite and stalagmite formations were amazing as well, some of them are the biggest in the world (one is estimated to have started forming over 70 million years ago!). The caverns have also been used in numerous hollywood movies as well.



We hit the road after the caverns in search of a place to have lunch. We ended up coming across a sports bar and grill just outside of Wainsbridge called Peppers, they claimed to be famous for their "wings". They are right to promote their wings, they were awesome! So were their tacos and other foods on the menu.. Our waitress "Tina", was extremely friendly and we ended chatting up a storm, one thing led to another and we found ourselves putting on our favourite costume of the trip and getting multiple photo's both inside and outside the bar haha.

After lunch we stopped of at a few small places along Route 66 (Danny's favourite was "Danny's Gas Hole") and in the meantime Matt was searching the camping book for our next stop... We ended up deciding on a town called Carthage about 100 miles from Oklahoma City. We also stopped at our second Walmart for the trip, just as keen as before and this time hoping to grab a few snaps of some "Wal-martians"... It was a little disappointing compared to the last one, not only did they not have any motorized shopping carts that Adam and I could use, but we didn't see any outrageous "Wal-martians"... We did however feel like we had walked into an 80's country/rock music video... There were mullets everywhere!! Males, females, KIDS! We actually felt out of place for once haha! Not too mention we had that sneaking suspicion that we were being watched by everyone haha!

Next Stop... Ohklahoma City and the 4th of July!

Mark

Tuesday 3 July 2012

Day 16 - Jack Daniel's Distillery and Beyond!!

We got another sleep in again this morning, but everyone was up fairly early as we were all quite excited! We were going to the Jack Daniel's Distillery in Lynchburg! We managed to get there before the opening time and get on the first tour of the day... Our tour guides name was Jesse James (same as the infamous thief and Sandra Bullock's ex husband...) But it wasn't either of those two haha! He was actually one of the master testers (what a job!). He took us through to a movie room to start us of with a bit of history behind the company before leading us onto the natural spring where they collect the water that the use in the process of making Jack's.


They then took us on a tour of the rest of the distillery, but we weren't allowed to take any photos because we might give away their secrets and how they make their wonderful drink! We went on up to the fermenting room which held millions of gallons of Jack Daniel's and that was only one warehouse... They had 80 more exactly the same!! There was a small gap in one of the fermenting vats that allowed us to take a quick whiff... If you ever have a blocked nose and want to get rid of it, this is the place to be! It literally burnt the back of my throat it was that bad! The head jerk reaction that everyone experienced whilst smelling was classic! No one was expecting it at all as Jesse didn't clue us in at all! We then moved on to the next room while everyone was having a good laugh about what had just happened...


The next room was the filtering room where they allowed the fermented alcohol to filter through maple charcoal to give it a little bit of flavour and rid it of all the impurities. This room smelt 100 times better haha! We then moved onto the bottling room and the storage barrel rooms. We were allowed to take a few photos in here as it was closed for the day due to some malfunctions. This was great because they had actually bottled and entire barrel of Jack Daniel's and stacked it up on a feature podium. For one single barrel, it made 240 bottles of Jack Daniel's! I think both Craig and I had at this point started to consider buying a barrel... We ended up settling for a holiday special edition they had for sale in the shop (Only 55,000 bottles were made and it can only be bought in the U.S.) and we got some engraving done on the bottles. Our last stop before we left the distillery was a special room known as the Squires Room. The only reason we had access to this was because Craig is a Jack Daniel's Squire, the room was pretty cool, it had a very "secret society" feel to it haha!


Against our will, it was time to leave as we needed to press forward in hopes to make it past St.Louis again by that night. We stopped off for a quick bite in town for lunch and hit the road. We ended up stopping at a caravan park just outside of St.Louis that night, which just so happened to be down the road from a White Castle food joint... For those who don't know what a White Castle is, I suggest you stop reading right now and go and watch the movie "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle"...


It was the most vile food I have ever tasted haha! I thought McDonald's was bad! I now know why the people who eat here are always high... You have to high to eat that junk haha!! We left in a fit of laughter about how bad it was and went to sleep.

Next stop... The road to Oklahoma City!

Mark