Grand Canyon - 2 views

Jimmy's View:

So we finally made our way to the Grand Canyon after a few pit stops at some of the casinos on the way. Our drive to the Grand Canyon wasn’t all that bad, I think it was only a few hours. On the way to the Grand Canyon we made a stop at some of the local Native American shops along the highway. I was looking for some cool t-shirts but they didn’t have anything that was the least bit interesting. While in route to the Grand Canyon we did manage to see the world’s largest petrified tree and all I can say was that was a waste of time. We did almost stop at some meteor crater but our blog fans took too long to respond to our facebook status so we moved on.

After all that non-sense we finally get to the Grand Canyon (just an fyi it cost 25 bucks to see it). The Grand Canyon is actually really amazing and it would be hard to knock it any way. We got some cool pictures and some video for you guys. If you ever get the chance to go see the Grand Canyon you should definitely go check it out.

Dennis' View:

We departed the Super 8 and headed towards the Grand Canyon, which is the biggest piece of shit I ever saw. First off, they charge you $25 bucks just get into the park and they force you to get a 7-day pass. They could be nice and offer a 1-day 24-hour pass for a few bucks, which you go there to stare a frickin’ hole in the ground, to see as Jimmy put it “something that god created.” Then you get inside and have to drive like 5 miles to get to a parking lot and then walk more just to get the edge of nothing. If you like lots of open space and air, then you will love the Grand Canyon. No animals, no bears, yaks, jaguars, wolves, alligators, nothing but one faggy bluebird that we saw for like 2 seconds. This gash in the ground has been there forever and these bitches have been raking in cash for forever and don’t even have the decency to put up a guard rail or stock the place with a few wild badgers. What they do have are signs telling you that ‘many people die if they get too close to the edge’ and ‘not feed the animals’, but there are no animals and then they try to rip you off more with a lame book store, and they ask for donations on top of it!

This is the best way to view the Canyon...

It was awful, windy, cold, rainy, and dark… in the damn desert. The country must really be in a recession because we were one of the few Americans there. Everyone spoke some Nordic language or German or Indian or Spanish. The Americans we did run across are doomed, families with annoying ass little kids, singing fruity songs and acting like little sissies. Maybe it’s a good thing the guard rails aren’t there… I was hoping they would get close to me so I could have nudged some of those little punks over the edge.

Anyway, we finally got out of that hell hole and found a sweet camping place down the road to rough it for another night. It’s rained the past 3 days but there is a fire ban in place until Monday, so we have to sit here, in the dark, like idiots, eating egg salad sandwiches that we got from ‘General Store’ and drink in the dark.

Quiet time was 10pm and almost all the jerks in Arizona went to bed. Luckily, we ran into some lady campers from LA who were down to hang out. At first, we weren’t sure if we’d go talk to them. I was a bit nervous and was wondering if we would be intruding on their girl’s night out. But then 5-drink Dennis showed up and walked right over to their tent without hesitation and asked if we could ‘get in’ on their hot game of charades. It was a true learning experience, as we learned that Jimmy is not only awful at driving stick, but also horrible at charades. Thank god I wasn’t on his team or else I probably would have smacked him. All in all, it was a fun night and a horrible morning since we had to sleep on rocks and these stupid, fat ravens get up at the ass crack of dawn and make some chirping noise, but only until everyone wakes up and then they leave. Arizona is the worst, I can’t wait to get the hell out of here… Headed to Vegas cause it makes the most sense geographically and cause it’s a sin to waste a Saturday in this shitty state.

Ruidoso/Albuquerque

We went to the main part of Ruidoso during the day for some grub and it was very quaint and touristy. People in New Mexico have a poor sense of humor, the shops all seemed kinda like t-shirt shops from down the shore in Jersey, but from about 20 years ago. Italian food in New Mexico was also a bad idea - Chicken Alfredo was like a jar of Ragu poured onto over-processed chicken cubes (the kind you’d get at a supermarket salad bar). We left Ruidoso and the landscape got even better, edging it past Tennessee. It was the best stretch of driving so far, we had to go up and down winding mountains for about 20 miles and into the open road of a desert, haven’t seen anything like it yet.

We made our way to the Hard Rock Casino in Albuquerque, where the poker players were slightly better than in Ruidoso, but not by much. Jimmy said he felt like he was playing against people in the Senior Circuit, as he was the youngest player on his table by about 40 years. So far we are 3 for 3 with Casino trips and neither of us has left without winning at least a couple bucks. There are literally tons of casinos, we passed 3 more within an hour of the Hard Rock. Crashing for the night at the luxurious Super 8 since we roughed it for the past 2 nights.

Up next - 'Zona

Roswell/Ruidoso, New Mexico

Roswell sucks, almost as much as Richmond. There’s some bullshit alien landing that MAY OR MAY NOT have happened back in 1947 and the whole town is still riding that shit with corny t-shirts and museums in 2011. Get over it already and find something new. Here is a pic of some ‘Alien Shit’ anyway.

We wound up staying in Roswell for all of about 20 minutes before moving on to Ruidoso. We got the most bootlegginist cabin you could imagine. I’ll let the video speak for itself, but the cabin was only $20, it was dark, and we had no idea where or when we would find any shelter for the night.

In the town of Ruidoso, we hit up the local Billy the Kid casino/racetrack. Shit was awful – virtual blackjack, virtual craps and virtual roulette all suck in reality. Plus those bastards run the horses at 1pm when it’s like a 100 degrees out, I’m surprised PETA doesn’t picket around the place. We moved on to the innofthemountaingods.com casino which was much more happenin'. They had real table games and a poker room. Both Jimmy and I did our best JoeBurger impersonation and took the New Mexicans’ hard earned dollars without hesitation. Not sure if it was our awesome poker skills or if they just don’t know shit about poker, but I think we just ensured we have enough gas money to make it all the way home after this. After leaving the 'Haunted Cabin of Death' this morning, I came across a pure black cat, so I’m not sure if I want to go back to the casino…

New Mexico is beautiful in terms of landscape, it’s in a tie with Tennessee right now, but there’s still plenty left to travel.

Odessa, Texas

Since we were heading west we decided to meet up with one of the Odessa locals who we met at the Willie Nelson picnic. Odessa is five hours west from Fort Worth and we needed a place to stop since Texas is so damn big. So we made our way to Odessa and we decided to camp it up at some local RV and tent camp ground called the Midessa Oil Field. It was like a hidden camp ground in the middle of the desert but it was good enough to call home for the night. They had a nice pool, bathrooms, showers and even electricity (sorry no internet, it wasn't that fancy).

We had Tara and her friend Catelyn come visit our camp ground and hang out for a few drinks. While they were at our camp ground they taught us the wonders of 'planking' and I still don’t understand it very well but here is a photo of what the kids are doing these days.

Before we hit the road again the next day they brought us out to lunch to get some official Mexican food. They said it was in the shady part of town but it still looked nice to us. The strangest part about the restaurant were the stalls in the men’s room where you can basically rub elbows with the guy next to you.

They also helped guide us towards our next destination which happens to be Roswell, New Mexico. They say there’s all kinds of crazy alien shit out here so we figured its on the way, so why not check it out. Our main goal tonight is to get to the local casino/race track because we need to make some money.

Fort Worth, Texas - Willie Nelson 4th of July BBQ

Houston was city-ish, Dallas was city-ish, Forth Worth is REAL MO’FO Texas, old western style signs, Cowboy hats EVERYWHERE, All Day, Every Day. Accents all around, people doing dip, dressed in American flag clothing, and unabashed, shameless drinking. We spent the whole day at Billy Bob’s Texas, the world’s largest Honky Tonk for the Willie Nelson 4th of July BBQ picnic. It seems the further away we get from jersey, the nicer people get. People come from all over for this thing, from New Mexico, Arkansas, and all over Texas, with some driving 6-7 hours to come see Willie, grab a hotel, and then go home the next day. Said they ain’t got nothing better to do where they from so why not?
Back in New Jersey, I’m an adequate dancer. I know some moves and can pretty much wing it if I don’t. However, that shit does NOT fly round these parts. I was looking at the dance floor, taking notes, and just itching to get out there. Some 40 year old woman comes up to us and says ‘her friend’ wants to dance, would either of us like to dance with her. I was hesitant Jimmy immediately replies “Oh he’s an EXCELLENT dancer!” She then brings over this beautiful, young Latina looking blonde and we giddily hit the dance floor. It was all downhill from there.

I ask her if she knows the ‘El Paso’ to which she replies “Huh?” So I grab her and attempt to do what I consider dancing. After several attempts, she says “What are you trying to do?” to which I reply “I have NO idea!” I then asked her to two-step and she says ok, but apparently jersey skills don’t translate to the Texas floor. She then says “We can’t do this, we gotta get outta here.” She runs of the dance floor, grabbed a real cowboy from what I can tell and got on the dance floor immediately and started ripping it up.
Despite my dancing failures, it was an amazing day. After telling tales of Jimmy’s stick driving adventures, some 18 year old girls must have been eavesdropping because they went up to JB and said “We heard you can’t drive stick… My car’s stick, I drive stick every day.” Guess everyone isn’t nice around these parts. The performances were great. Drake White.com - if you haven’t heard him and you like country check him out, best performance of the day. Also Craig Campbell is badass. Willie was actually the worst of all the day’s performances, but everyone around there talked about him as if he was a god. (FYI: 78 Year Old Willie Nelson got arrested after the show. I guess he is pretty bad ass.)

In the words of JB “Being a traveling Cowboy is tough. We’re on the road all day, stopping in towns for mere hours before moving on.” I will use his wisdom and witty one liners to create some country music, as we are headed to Odessa, Texas to go camping for the night. (Song till pending).

Day 8 - Dallas

Dallas was pretty badass, we got here and immediately hit up one of the hottest spots around, the local “Wash and Dry”. It had to be 150 degrees, but Jimmy needed some fresh underoos and I couldn’t let him go alone, not after what happened in New Orleans. We hit up a few places on Main Street and things were kind of dead so we cabbed it over to McKinney Ave to the Idle Rich Pub. It was the best bar we’ve been to so far, despite the fact that ‘Petty Theft’ on the stage and would not play anything other than Tom Petty… The locals seemed to like it. The girl situation picked up a little bit, we went 0 for 5 but put some pretty good swings on the ball. These Dallas girls are scared of our Jersey dart skills (who could blame them?). Dallas is one of the top spots of places I would consider moving to. It seems easy to make it in this town, we had a bouncer telling us how kick ass his job is, and our cabbie said he owns 2 houses and lives the sweet life. Headed over to the Willie Nelson BBQ Picnic now. We were warned to watch out ‘if you mess with wrong person, those cowboys are tough.’ I’m not scared cause I got Jimmy in my corner and these Texas boys don’t know about our Jersey Jitsu. Breaking out the ‘woman’s’ cowboy hat for one more spin to see if it works outside of Nashville.

We didn’t take any photos of Dallas, so here is a photo of me writing this blog…

Week 2 - Day 1 - On the Way to Dallas

After a long day of driving we turn our hopes to Dallas and eventually to the Willie Nelson Country Music Festival in Fort Worth, Texas.