The one when we all went to Hearth...

Our first morning in Brooklyn was nice. It was actually warmer there than it was in Dallas the day before. We were packed for every climate on earth, and we were almost disappointed that we'd violated the luggage weight limit at the airport for nothing.



The first thing we did was head over to Amy's (where the New Year's party would be in a few days) to meet her for lunch.



Here are the four of us on the bus we caught on Union street. While trying to make sure that everyone would be in the picture (I'm just holding the camera out in front) I completely forgot to smile. At least now you know of a possible expression that I might make when I'm thinking.

This is the door to Amy's. It is seriously a fortress. You must go through a heavy iron gate and two locked doors in order to get inside. Here, Erin and LL struggle to remember the password.

It's amazing how much happier people can be once they've eaten. LL, Amy, Erin and Emily are all doing this Sex and the City style pose...some more exhuberantly than others. After this, we went ice-skating in Prospect Park. It was the first time I'd ever tried it and it was really, really fun. It reminded me a little of skiing, where you need to keep your legs loose so that you can give with the irregularities in the ice. Anyway, I picked it up okay, but I wasn't brave enough to take any pictures while doing it.

Eventually, we all got ready and went to dinner at Hearth where Jordan and Emily work. It is a really good restaurant. And since we know the chef (that being Jordan) we got to have lots of extras thrown in. It was one of the best dining experiences we've ever had, complete with lots of friends.

Here are LL and I, somewhere mid-meal. I'm not sure at this point if we are completely stuffed, or if we are just stuffed. We ate a lot. So did everyone else.

Nisha ate all five desserts. You can see Bryan's hands attempting to take one of them. He would not succeed.

Here is the whole gang! Amy, Nisha, Clay, LL, Emily, Jordan, Erin, Bryan, Wade and Andy.

Lastly, we have this lovely photo of Erin and Pee-wee Herman. It seems that Paul Reubens (that's P-W's real name) likes eating at Hearth and he sent the restaurant a Christmas card, personally signed and everything. So here is Erin holding said card. LL and I are not cool enough to be on PW's mailing list. We're OK with it, really.

No Sleep Till Brooklyn

Yesterday was pretty much a travel day. We just needed to get from Dallas to Erin and Bryan's place in Brooklyn. It wasn't too bad, really. We had a layover in Chicago...



This is us eating panini's in the Midway airport. We're lucky we didn't fly through O'Hare because there was a 4 hour delay with the snow (see behind us!).
For fun, I took a picture of us heading down the jetway to the plane. Aren't we super-cool? LL had been complaining about here hair. Make sure you tell her it looks good...but don't lie...she'll know.

This is just after takeoff in Chicago...yes I took this picture during the "no electronics" period. As an electrical engineer, I was confident that my camera would not cause the plane to crash. Both legs of our flight were on time and we got to Laguardia on time!

Because we are Big Time, we had a driver waiting for us in the airport. But, being famous people, we used the pseudonym "Baigle" just to shake off the stalkers.

Erin and Bryan's apt is really cool. Here is their kitchen, where Erin is showing off the dinner she made. It was eerily similar to the pizza place on the corner.

Amy also came to visit this evening. Here is LL, Amy and the Jete all hanging out on the bed. As a fun thought experiment, would you judge this photo differently if it were taken in someone's ranch house in Texas rather than in a fun brownstone in Brooklyn? You shouldn't, but it's hard not to :-)

Erin's Bling

Two days after Christmas, LL convinced me it would be fun to drive to Austin for the day. I hated being in the car again, but it did officially put me beyond 2000 miles driving for the trip, which is better than having to keep saying "I drove almost 2000 miles..." Anyway, I got to see my mom and Howard, and I got to hang out with my old roommate, Greg, a little. This fine photo is of Erin Campbell's flashy ring. Ain't it nice?

Christmas proper

Like lots of people, the Box family has a few traditions that make Christmas Christmas. LL, especially, makes sure that we at least attempt to reenact a vintage Box Family Christmas (think Clark W. Griswald, only without the apoplectic response to yuletide adversity).

Christmas Requirement 1:
We had a party on Dec 23rd with Streak and David (who probably have last names) and their kids Heather and Brandon. Heather and her husband Mike hosted the party at their house. Per tradition, the food was from Uncle Julio's (a restaurant, not a family member), and the margaritas were stout. A good time was had by all.

Christmas Requirement 2:
Christmas Eve was spent in Murphy, TX, with the Breens, who are members of LL's Dad's family. The Breens are a fun group. They also have lots of dogs and cats and birds and now kids. There was a bit of worry this year about the food (for some reason we were having sandwiches from the grocery store deli instead of Dickie's barbecue...LL handled this untraditional vulgarism admirably), but we ended with some quality gift opening and everyone went home happy.

Christmas Requirement 3:
Christmas morning with the Box family requires all the 'kids' (including 30-something-year-old married couples) to wait at the top of the stairs (even if you slept on the couch downstairs) while Santa finishes down in the den. Family photos on the walls indicate that this tradition used to include matching outfits, but I was against wearing a sailor suit. But LL did wake up early and get all spiffied up, whereas I slept until the last possible minute. It seems both of us were happy with our respective choices. Anyway, here we are on Christmas morning!

Gift-wise, I got quite a haul, honestly, but it might be tacky to tell everyone about it all. Tradition does not call for an online list of your presents, after all.

Here is a picture of LL and Grandma. LL's wearing a pink shirt that she got from Melissa from some store in Oklahoma that Melissa loves (Mark (her fiancee) is from Oklahoma). The shirt says "I'm so OK." I got one that says "Okie doke."

A house filled with candy and presents and wrapping paper is no place for a puppy. Teacup does not agree. She had to spend most of the day on the patio :-(

Christmas Requirement 4:

Later in the day, LL's mom's family came over for turkey and tamales. I succeeded in continuing my eating binge into a third consecutive day. It's not my fault, obviously. I mean...tamales. The picture above is Lillian (she's 4), Leslie, and a very-elated-to-be-inside Teacup. Lillian was very cool and she let me play with a "My Little Pony" named Rainbow Dash. Like me, you may be surprised to learn that Rainbow is a boy pony. I still have my doubts.

Christmas night culminated with a grab bag extravaganza. Basically, Leslie (who's a school teacher) let everyone rummage through her bag of goodies that her students gave her this year. None of the guys seemed willing to participate.

Well...that's it. All in all I think it was a great Christmas! I also think it's funny that Super-UT-fan Leslie Box has one son-in-law who's an Aggie (me), and a future son-in-law that's as Boomer Sooner as you can get. Bummer.

Merry Christmas!

Brunch at Neuhaus

Today we had brunch with Mema and the rest of the family. Leslie wins the award for Most Bundled.

Travel Day 3 and Teacup

The final leg of our cross country drive was not too bad. The drive from Roswell to the Texas state line was pretty nice. Not much fanfare, but still a significant accomplishment!

The first thing we learned about west Texas was that they grow lots of cotton. It gets put into enormous bales. It took at least an hour to get through all the cotton fields, which were apparently recently harvested.

The air throughout the cotton fields was full of red dust. Fortunately, my car hadn't been washed in a year and was still wearing a layer of winter grime from yesterday. But the dust looked pretty rough. It seems like it would be a big pain to live with that.

As we got closer to Abilene (and considering all the nothingness we had driven through, Abilene looked like a sophisticated urban paradise), the air cleared and we saw more windmills. They were similar to the ones in California, but about 3 times bigger (see pic below). You know what they say: Everything's bigger...oh nevermind.

Well, we finally achieved our primary goal (no, not just getting to Dallas): LL got to hold Teacup. Nirvana at last.

Made it to Dallas!

Just a quick post to let everyone know that we made it to Dallas! We'll post more in a bit, but for now we're just happy not to be in the car.

Go Scots Go!

I'll keep this short, since you are probably still bleary-eyed from reading about yesterday's adventures, but the fighting Scots are playing in the Tx State Championship game today!

I really wanted to wear my new "Maybe we don't believe in you either" Alien t-shirt today, but instead I am dressed out in Scotty pride. We maybe could have gone to the game, but while we managed to drive 1700 miles from California to Texas, that last 90 miles to Waco was deemed just too much...

Note for Leslie Box

We're being careful.

Day 2: Flagstaff to Roswell

Greetings from the Comfort Inn of Roswell!

We've had one heck of a day. There was snow. Lots and lots of snow, which caused my poor Jetta quite a bit of anxiety. We also narrowly avoided a scampering fox and a ballistic tumbleweed.

Also noted along the way was a billboard advertisement for the Horse Motel. Their tag line is "For Just One Night...Or Forever." We assume that the owner lives with his mother up on the hill out back.

The day started out fine. There was a tiny bit of snow during the night (see Jetta photo below), but it was sunny and it seemed like an innocent enough day.

We drove along I-40 toward Albuquerque. This split image shows all the fun snowy mountains behind us and the flat expanse up ahead.

I was sad that we were leaving the mountains because it was unlikely that we'd see much more snow...or at least that's what a completely wrong person would say. When we were about 200 miles from Albuquerque, we saw...

The Jetta was NOT happy. Luckily, the snow was not sticking to the road, and, apart from the occasional zero-visibility blast from a passing semi, we felt totally safe. Before you knew it, things were nice again. Yay!

We were making good time. There were lots of trains along the way. You never see trains so exposed as they are out in the desert. Since I've always lived in places with lots of trees, I usually can only see a long train four or five cars at a time. But out here they stretch out across ground and you can see them start to finish. The train above had only tank cars and looked like giant pipe.

Let's see...we ate lunch in Albuquerque at Subway because we couldn't figure out what we were in the mood for. It was getting a bit desperate, as happens when you are hungry and stuck in a car. LL and I both need regular feeding.

During lunch, the weather started to look menacing. Stuff was blowing everywhere. I think if we weren't completely clueless we might have stayed there and not risked...

I know that it doesn't look any worse than the other dumb snowy picture, but trust me, it was much worse. In this picture the snow is just starting to pile on the road. In another 5 miles everyone was single file going 20 MPH following the wheel tracks of the car in front. We would have taken a picture of that too, but we were sortof focused on not killing ourselves.

Actually, about this time, LL called Celeste (my sister) to see if she could check the weather for us (LL also reminded me that, if she only had an iPhone, then she could look up the weather herself). Celeste told us that there were winter storms all over New Mexico, and her husband, who grew up in the mountains in Oregon, acted like we were snow-wimps. I told Celeste that, if we didn't make it, she could have my Holeyboard set (my set was made by Darrel Perrin himself).

I was happy that we were at least on a busy road in bumper-to-bumper traffic. It seemed like that many people would be worth saving if we all ended up stranded when some speeding idiot (probably from Oregon) careened into our otherwise single-file caravan, caused a big wreck, and shut down I-40 for the night. Unfortunately, Roswell is off the beaten path a bit. So we had to make a decision to leave the interstate and drive down some highway where you could not see the road. Also, it got dark.

However, things improve a little when...

...I got out and broke all the ice off the windshield wipers. It turns out that rubber is much more effective than ice and swiping crud off the windshield. Of course, in just a few miles, the snow lessened and the road became clear and we drove into Roswell under a pretty moon.

We got some dinner and visited a touristy store that had all the kinds of things you expect in a place like that. And of course there is the obligatory pic of us posing with a real alien...

Actually, after looking at this photo, I am considering donating my extra chin to this poor guy. He does look like he could use it.

Travel Day 1: Menlo Park to Flagstaff

Check us out operating BEFORE DAWN. This is me putting on new windshield wipers (they are still on!).


Sadly, they don't spin in still photos.

Ah...the Mojave desert. Most of our day looked a lot like this. I was really amused that someone named a town Boron. Boron is, of course, everyone's favorite p-type dopant. Coincidentally, LL has been referring to me as a big boron all day. :-)

Where in the desert can you stop for a great hamburger? We still haven't found that place, but we did find "Mega Tom's Chargrilled Hamburgers" (we're not making it up). Check out the little burger-head character on the sign behind us.

Finally, we've made it to Flagstaff. It's a full-on Winter Wonderland here, which is great. But Chili's is the only place open after 9:00, which was still pretty great, just not the local flair we were hoping for. Nothing like Mega Tom's, anyway.

Night before the trip

Following a lovely dinner with Liz and Bart (recently promoted to chief robot brain designer at SRI...Congrats, Bart!), LL and I went home to open those presents deemed too heavy to haul across the country and back.


For example, iron pots are heavy.

Our Christmas Tree

 

Here is a pic of our Christmas tree this year. Believe it or not, this is AFTER we mailed all of Clay's family's presents to Louisiana.

Trip Plan

For no good reason (other than letting a few friends and family track us across the country this winter), I want to chronicle our Christmas 2007 and New Years 2008 trip. This involves a road trip to Dallas from Menlo Park, CA that will take three days. Then there is a flight to New York somewhere along the way and eventually we will have to make it back to CA...but I don't want to think that for ahead just yet. So far I have only looked at the roadtrip part, and it looks like this.


View Larger Map

As you can see, we're staying the first night in Flagstaff and the second in Roswell. We'll try to take some pictures along the way and maybe post a few if we are in hotels with decent internet access.

We plan to leave early tomorrow...this probably means we'll leave at 10:00 once we've gone back and picked up all the things we forgot.