the 2nd half of the great western road trip…

Before you go any further, make sure you have read the first half of the Road Trip.

Ok, so I last left off with Brett and  arriving in Salt Lake City. The next day we set out for Las Vegas, NV.

Well before we could leave Salt Lake, Brett had to get his coffee.

From Salt Lake we journeyed south on I-15 towards Las Vegas. There was not a whole lot to the first few hours of the drive, just a lot of scenery like this.

And this.

As we drove closer to St. George, UT the scenery started to change into this. For some reason Hurricane, Utah is one of my favorite names for a city. I doubt that this area has ever seen a Hurricane, but I find it amusing none the less. I discovered it on the cross country trip I did last year.

In continuing with Brett’s High School Musical theme for the trip, here is him in front of the country club where the second movie was filmed. Brett really wanted to jump the fence, but it was a gated country club, so we decided that a run in with the law would make a great story, but would not be worth it.

From Utah we entered into Arizona for about 25 miles. The drive drops you in elevation and takes you through an really cool mountain pass.

After about half an hour in Arizona we arrived at Nevada!

Nevada looked like this for a while.

Then, out of now where appeared Vegas!

We spent Thursday night and all day Friday in Las Vegas. Our time included walking the entire strip, eating, riding the rides on the Stratosphere, and staying cool in the 105 degree weather. More about the picture below and what I ate in another post.

On Saturday morning, Brett got his coffee and we were ready to head to California.

Of course you can’t leave Nevada without there being one more casino next to the state line.

As we drove through California and got closer to LA, the scenery changed and we discovered traffic!

Brett lives in Pasadena, but we took a trip up Highway 1 to visit my old home of Santa Barbara. In Malibu, we had to stop here. To find out what I ate you will have to wait for a post on that.

It was great being back in Santa Barbara. It had been almost a year since I left and the city is just as beautiful as ever. In later posts I will show you what I ate in Santa Barbara and the dish that started the whole food photography thing.

After leaving Santa Barbara, Brett and I headed back to Pasadena so he could move into his new place and I could fly up to the Bay Area ( I am currently writing this sitting on the floor at SFO waiting for my redeye flight back to Charlotte.)

I could not leave Pasadena with out a visit here !

Do you like College Football? Well I am a huge fan. GO BADGERS! I will discuss the details in a few weeks, but this fall I am embarking on a 13 week, 12 game, 11 state tour to find the best college football tailgate in the country! So stay tuned for that.

There is one thing missing from my great western roadtrip. What is that you ask?

The BEST fast Food hamburger in the world!

I am talking about In-N-Out and the #1. It is the Double Double. Two patties, two slices of cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, and thousand island dressing. Simply the best fast food burger you will ever have. They only exist on the west coast, so those of you on the East Coast and Midwest, you are out of luck. It is definitely worth a trip out west to get one.

The meal would not be complete without their fresh cut fries and a pink lemonade.

The In-N-Out Brett and I went to was right next to LAX, so it was a perfect dinner before heading up to the Bay area. I just got finished eating my way through Berkeley, CA, so I will bring you my food finds from there over the next few weeks. In the last 10 days I have been in 10 different states and eaten at 22 different restaurants, so needless to say I will sleep all the way on the redeye flight I am about to get on. Time to board.