Day 16

The Last Post

So the trip is offically over. Pete headed for his final destination, San Diego CA, this morning. Before getting all sentimental, one final recap of the night before is in order. We spent 8 hours (5 -1am) on the porch of Barney's Beanery, basically an eight hour work day on the porch drinking pitchers of beer. We never moved and had a few different groups of people to party with as the day AND night went along. Highlights included Pete buying everyone a shot and everyone taking their shot except Matt who poured it into an empty pitcher where Pete found it a half an hour later and yelled, Jessica/Justine reappearing with her friends at which point we discovered Pete and Brendan were in diapers when they went to their first concert, and everyone coming to realization that drinking for eight consecutive hours is actually harder than the average work day. We all made it Black Out City and we had plenty of passengers for the HOV lane so we got there in a hurry.

This was really a great trip. From Chicago Meg and drinking on the top of the Hancock Tower to fly fishing and rafting with Ed in Jackon, WY to Sunset Blvd LA with Matt, we had a great time at all the stops and saw/met some great people. Thank you everyone that took us in, you made the trip that much better and that much cheaper. So now on to the Top Five Moments of the Great Cross Country Adventure:

5. Meeting "Kerri" in a random bar in Chicago, only to have her both befriend Pete and try to run him over with her car, all in the same night. Only Pete...."But my friends gotta come with us."
4. 2 hours in to the trip having both the engine light come on and Pete's e-brake cut lose, sending the car down the steep driveway and into the middle of a cul-de-sac, the Whip was good to us.
3. Getting stranded in the Salt Flats of Utah. Thanks to Pete's "lifeguard training" he was able to identify his dehydration and complain about it for the 120 miles until the first gas station.
2. Any of the times we entered a random gas station with basketball jerseys, backwards hats, and mesh shorts and mingled with the natives. "Samuari Swords huh, they a big seller?" "What exactly you boys have on the top of your car? Those are surf boards sir." Brendan to Pete after leaving one restroom, 'Its always comforting to be at a random gas station bathroom next to a 300 pound man with a large hunting knife attached to his belt..... Can we go?".
1. Getting Pete to SD somewhat hungover but in one piece to begin life on the West Coast.

Over 4000 miles
16 days
13 states
8 different cities
2 buddies
1 great fuckin road trip.

Thanks for Reading.....

Pete and B

P.S. The pictures will be up on the site when Brendan finally makes it home to Quincy MA so take a look in a couple of days for a good take on the San Francisco and LA stops.

Day 15

The Saddle Ranch

Our first experience of the LA night scene was memorable. Couple blocks from Matt's apartment is a bar/restaurant called the Saddle Ranch. Good food, good drinks, and a mechanical bull. It is unfortunate Pete didn't ride the bull but he did other stupid things that made up fo it. The Saddle Ranch has these beer tubes you can get that are 4 liters of beer with a tap at the end. Makes it a little too easy to get a beer. 5 hours and 4 tubes later everyone at the table was a candidate for the bull. The manager for some reason, I think Pete was winking at him, took a liking to us and kept sending his girlfriends over to our table. One, we'll call her Jessica, as always, took a liking to Pete. Jessica was 30 years old, she sold used furniture, and has cats. She was just enamered by Pete's ability to converse (keep in mind the four tubes) Pete: I've had this watch....great watch. I have had it for 3.5 years....now that tells you something. The pictures give a better view on the ridiculousness (Matt doesn't have wireless so the pics can't be uploaded yet). It should also be noted that as this blog is being typed Pete is Nairing his back because we all made fun of him at the beach today.

So yeah we got up and went to the beach. Santa Monica Pier. Not much happened except a lot of making fun of Pete, mostly just refering to him as Patch hair Adams.

This blog would be a whole lot longer if I was able to write everything that happened at The Saddle Ranch. Wait for individual stories, just straight ridiculousness. Pete is still Nairing and now singing "Im bringing Sexy Back". We are heading out to watch the Sox game. Apparently Jessica is coming as she has been texting Pete like a schoolgirl. Just another city, the last, on the great cross country adventure.

Song of the Day: Sad to admit, but Weezer Beverly Hills as we drove through BH, we were those people.
Moment of the Day: Has to be told in person but it involves Pete, like everything else on this trip.

Pete and B

Day 14

The Land of Beautiful People

We left Uncle Mud and Aunt Candice in half Moon Bay yesterday morning for the final stop of the trip, LA. Brendan's brother Matt lives in West Hollywood, just passed The Seventh Vail (The dance establishment Kevin Dillon's Name appears above in the opening of Entourage), nice little neighborhood.

The trip to LA was interesting. Pete wanted to take the scenic/romantic route down the Pacific Coast Highway. It looked like a nice little drive on the map, however, it turned out to be a rollercoaster ride through the cliffs. Just one S turn after another coupled with Pete driving like Mario Andretti and Brendan peering over the side wondering if this is the S turn Pete is going to flip the Whip and end the trip altogether. Brendan started getting tha pale "This isn't going to just be Vitamin Water" look so Pete cooled it on the hairpin turns and we made it off the Cannonball in alittle over 2 hours. We hopped on the 101 (from the OC theme song) and made it into Hollywood in good time.

We hung out last night drank some beers and went to bed drunk for the first time this trip. Matt's roomate Kate took us on a great tour of Hollywood/Beverly Hills, etc. today. Brendan spent most of the trip hanging out the window snapping pictures of street signs and Pete was busy pointing out all the places Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohen, the Hill, etc. all hangout. (Notice Pete was doing the pointing out) Hollyhood is an interesting city, definatley not a tourist town, but there is some cool stuff to see, like where Vince buys Jonny Drama and Turtle their watches on Rodeo Drive. Lots of palm trees, lots of really attractive women, all in the land of beautiful people. We are heading out tonight to some place called the Saddle Ranch where Pete will most likely ride the mechanical bull. There will be pictures.

Quote of the Day: "Where is LC, Im probably gonna get arrested for trying to tackle her in public" - Pete (LC is a girl from the MTV show the Hills who Pete has been talking about since Iowa)
Song of the Day: The 10 Outkast songs brendan played on the way to LA. Pete: You play one more Outkast song and I will stab you in the jaw.

Our road unfortunatley is coming to an end......stay tuned

Pete and B

Day 13

Toughest Day of the Trip

Today was grueling. Uncle Mud got us up at 930 because he had prepared a full pancake breakfast. After that we went down to the beach to check the waves, Brendan's feeling was they were not good cuts to be surfing, Pete concurred so we head up to Pacifica. Pacifica is about 30 minutes north of half Moon Bay. The photos are up in Album III of our trip through there. The views were unbelievable.

This is a good time to review the photo situation. I am not pointing any fingers but it seems we are only getting calls from the Sylvester family about problems with the photos. Again not pointing fingers. So we made it easier. On the right side of the Blog there are now links labeled Album I, II, etc. Click on those and enter the email petesylvester@gmail.com and the password is redsox. LA will eventually be album IV and then to our dismay the trip will have concluded.

After the drive up and back from Pacifica, Aunt Candice took us to the Ritz Carlton- Half Moon bay for some relaxation by the pool/jaccuzzi/sauna/etc. We have been hard at work making our way across country so it was much need as well as much appreciated. We then went to the Ritz bar for some Mojitos. Again, Tough day.

We are sitting in front of the TV for the rest of the night with a break to eat some more of Uncle Mud's delicious cooking. Tommorrow, it is down to LA to party with B's brother Matt for a couple of days. It is the last leg of the trip so hopefully some crazy things, short of getting caught in a salt desert, will happen to finish of the drive. LA will be a good time and it is guaranteed Pete will do something entertaining/stupid for us to share.

Pete and B

Day 12

City By the Bay

After a delicious egg breakfast prepared by Uncle Mud, we headed for downtown San Francisco. First stop was the Rock (Alcatrez). Getting to the Pier where the tour company/boat is located was a journey. San Francisco has the worst/most confusing public transportation system we have ever experienced. We ended up in the middle of the city 20 blocks from the pier. Luckily there was a cable car coming to get us up over the hill toward the bay. This ended up working out as it gave us time to each do a Tanner Family pose on the SF cable cars. Finally we reached Pier 33 and for the bargain price of 21.75 (when the sun goes down this jumps to 30.00), we were shuttled across San Francisco Bay to the Prison at Alcatraz. Brendan at least 20 times did his Sean Connery, "Welcome to the Rock" bit on the boat over, on the island, and on the boat back. The island is impressive but at the same time completely falling apart. The highlight is the cellhouse which held the likes of Whitey Bulger, Al Capone, and The Birdman (a mass murderer, Brendan liked the name). You take kind of a self guided audio tour through the house and it tells you all kinds of stories. The funniest part of the audio tour was when we couldn't get our audio players in sync so Brendan was constantly lagging behind Pete and taking wrong turns, angering patient Pete. When we were leaving the cell house, Pete thought he saw John Mason and Dr. Stanley Goodspeed running along the south side of the island and feared for a split second we were gonna be napalmed. False alarm though, everything was fine.

After Alcatraz and some lunch we made our way to Buena Vista, the birth place of the Irish Coffee in America (1952). Hands down the best Irish Coffee either one of us has ever had. We wanted to have seconds but held back because we had to get back on the public transportation. Even without a second helping of Irish Whiskey it was entirely possible we could end up in Oakland. With some luck and a little help from the locals, we made it to AT&T Ballpark for the Giants vs. Astros, and more importantly Barry Bonds.

The Giants Ballpark is right on the bay, gorgeous views. Tonight wasn't a good night for Bonds, no homeruns and the only thing he broke was the scoreboard behind homeplate with a foul ball. We were lucky we didn't get any beers off the head during his at bats as Brendan was not shy in yelling things like "Juicer" or "Give us a Roid Rage, Barry". Giants won 4-2. Great Ballpark, also the cleanest ballpark we have ever seen.

San Francisco is a great city. They have mastered the trolley/cable car scene but entirely dropped the ball on the high speed underground transit system. Pete: "Pretty sure a blind person was head architect of this shitshow"

Song of the Day: Theme song from "The Rock".
Quote of the Day: "Sweet Alcatraz Tour. I hope half way through 8 Marines don't seize the island and leave us in the cells to be napalmed. That would suck." - Pete

This blog was heavily saturated with "The Rock" references. If you haven't seen the movie we apologize but after the day we had it was a must. "Im only borrowing your humvee".

Tommorow will be a relaxing day in Half Moon Bay. More delicious food from Aunt Candice and Uncle Mud. Life is good.

Pete and B

Day 11

Pass the Salt

Outdoorman Ed deserves another quick shout out for our time in Jackson, WY. Good times. Thanks Again (Jeannelle too)!

Leaving Jackson it was decided we would not make it to Lake Tahoe, CA before one or both of us passed out so we settled on Reno, NV. Reno was a story in and of itself, however, the trip went south, literally, well before then. About 45 minutes from Jackson, the following exchange took place: Pete: "What do we think about swinging by Salt Lake City?" Brendan: "I think Salt Lake is a great idea." On the map it "appeared" the trip through Salt Lake was equidistant to the route AAA set out through Idaho. This however, ended up not being the case at all and 5 hours to the south later we still were not in Salt Lake. We bailed on the Morman capital and hopped back on I-80 west. Things got interesting when the Interstate dumped us into the Utah Salt Flats (Bonneville Salt Flats- where they race cars with jet engines... watch the Discovery Channel). For those who have never had the pleasure, the salt flats are similar to a desert, except instead of sand there is just salt as far as the eye can see. The temperature at this point was hovering around 95 degrees and once you hit the flat there are no exits for around 120 miles. Also, the Audi has no AC (beat salad). Little hot. Brendan: "Pete, grab me a water in the cooler" Pete: "Yup, no water in the cooler." 25 minutes later.... Pete: "B, I remember from my lifeguard training, signs of dehydration include inablity to sweat, dry mouth, lightheadedness. B I'm experiencing all of these." No need to worry, we made it out of the flats, got Pete some water and a Valium, and headed on through Nevada.

There is literally nothing in Nevada. Aside from the few casinos scattered around it is just another useless state. Even the gas stations are filled with slot machines and extremely sketchy people. Mostly it is overwight men and women who look like they smoked 45,000 packs of cigarettes yesterday. Jean shorts, mullets, and white hightops just made their way here. Then there was Reno.

After around 12 hours of driving we made our way into Reno. We settled on the Silver City Hotel and Casino (The $35.99/night place from the previous blog.) This place was classic and words just wouldn't do it justice. Just imagine the oldest, dingiest, rundown hotel/casino and you will come well short of the Silver City Hotel. But we got coupons for free beers at the casino so we were happy. The casino scene was something. Tons of very old women looking like that had smoked 80,000 packs of cigaretts yesterday glued to slot machines just ripping butts. We sat in the bamboo lounge and listened to some band cover one cheesy song after another. Pete got hit on by a woman who easily could have been 45 years old. She was no "Kerri" but then again who is. After a few more beers and unsuccesful attempts at gamblin, we decided to head for bed.

Brendan: "One f@#$ing pillow, what hotel gives you one pillow?"......The Silver City Hotel and Casino

Song of the Day: Whatever song was on the radio when we made our way out of the flats.
Quote of the Day: "Its 95 degrees, you have no A/C, and I am surrounded by salt. This is the WORST place I have ever been" - Brendan

We have been enjoying the great cooking and hospitality of Aunt Candice and Uncle Mudd in Half Moon Bay, CA and will be touring the City by the Bay tommorow.
*Chicago-Meg, do we need a mustache???

NEW Pictures are posted from Wyoming..take a Look Under Album II

Pete and B

Day 10

The Worst Day Ever...

Sitting in a $35.99/night hotel/casino in Reno, Neveda. No internet access. Worst day ever (more details to come tomorrow).

Happy Monday
- Pete & B