Category: Travel

For day three we went over to Jerome, AZ for a haunted hamburger.  Jerome is a really great tourist stop at 5,000 ft above sea level and I could really feel it walking around town.  We then went over to a ghost town a few miles from Jerome and then back to Sedona in their “uptown” area for some shopping (or at least some looking).

After surviving last night (and technically still being on the road this morning), we made it!  This is the view from the balcony of our room this morning.  We checked in and told the person at the front desk it is our honeymoon so he upgraded us from a standard room to a suite and let me tell you, the place is spectacular.  The view isn’t too shabby either huh?  We are having a lot of fun.  Now for something to eat…

We spent honeymoon day one with family.  We left the Bay Area for day two a little before noon and got to Sedona, AZ at 1am.  The ride to Sedona was pretty torturous but I had a pretty good time (I did 90% of the driving so I stayed occupied).  Christina on the other hand saw lots and lots and lots of desert.  I had no idea how big the Mojave Desert is!  The desert goes on and on and on. And nothing, and I mean nothing lives in the desert, not even palm trees at the rest stop.

After three or four hours of driving through the desert (and virtually no traffic or any sort of visual stimulation), my foot got heavier and heavier.  After the sun went down it got even heavier and I couldn’t wait to get to Sedona.  My trusty radar detector did work but it only works when radar is turned on so when the highway patrol turned it on as I was going down a hill it was too late (huh…bad boys, bad boys whatcha want, whatcha gonna do).  91 in a 70, yeah I was going at a “pretty good clip” but the cop was extremely kind and knocked it down to 80 so I could just do traffic school and not have it affect my insurance and pay a small fine.  I think the “just married stickers” all over the car might have helped.  So if you are going through the desert, or I guess anywhere, stay within 5 miles of the speed limit.  Good reminder.  The rest of the ride to Sedona took even longer…going the speed limit.  It did seem silly to go 70 with virtually NO CARS on a wide open road but lesson learned and Needles Highway Patrol was extremely fair.  I shook the officer’s hand as I really appreciated his kindness.

Christina drove after dinner and I got about an hour and a half of sleep in.  I drove the remaining 100 miles after stopping for some Red Bull and the remaining drive ended up to be the most exciting drive I think I’ve ever had.  20 miles outside of Sedona you have to go through this windy national forest road and there are a ton of signs to watch out for wildlife.  I definitely took note and wanted to make sure my new bride and myself got to Sedona safe.  The first group of animals we saw on the road were three large elk.  Those things are massive!  Then we saw two deer, then a skunk, then three racoons.  The twists and turns down the mountain (7000 foot elevation) definitely kept me awake!  Most of the turns are hair pin and 15 miles an hour to give you an idea.  Upon getting just south of the resort we are staying at we saw a havalina running down the street.  This place is crazy!  Lots more news to come but we are having a great time.

Video from the Richard Petty Driving Experience earlier in the year when I was in Charlotte for a conference. As you can tell I was pretty excited about it. I talked with the driver later on in the day who was super cool.

On our way down to Southern California over the weekend, we stopped by Andersen’s Pea Soup.

Sunday night Christina and I went out for dinner with some friends to Stone Brewing in Escondido, CA which is just outside of San Diego.  Stone Brewing has always been my favorite brewery so I was very excited to get the chance to go there.  I got the miso salmon with bok choy and a Stone 15th Anniversary Imperial Black IPA which may have been the best beer I’ve ever had (at least top 10).  Stone’s beers are famously robust and my favorite until having the Imperial IPA is the “Arrogant Bastard”.  The grounds of the complex are meticulously cared for and the property itself sits on a very large chunk of land.  Their parking lot alone must have covered several acres.  They believe in sustainability so their grounds and buildings are built and consist of reclaimed and sustainable materials.  If you ever get a chance to visit I highly recommend it.

A little after 11 am today if you are a very frequent visitor of this site you noticed it was down.  I went to a talk on security today at WordCamp and installed a plugin which completely “hosed” my blog after I removed it.  James looked at it today during lunch (above) and concluded that not only was the site “hosed”, but it somehow also completely broke PHP on the server.  After a chat with the Happiness Bar and a few sessions with HostGator, I finally got it back tonight which makes it the longest outage I’ve had for a personally maintained site.  Big lessons learned today and I am loving WordCamp this year.  Thanks to James, the WordPress geeks at the Happiness Bar, and HostGator for your help getting the site back online again today.