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Bourbon Roadtrip Writeup

Published on September 30, 2009 in Life and Travel. View Comments Tags: 2009-BourbonRoadtrip.

After a month of recovery, I’ve managed to write up the experiences from my bourbon roadtrip over the summer. My plans for this trip are here. Overall, it was a great time to drive across America and meet some very unique people. I enjoyed the different perspectives that I gained and the connections that I made. Also the food and drink that I sampled was fantastic.

Some quick stats:

About 4500 miles driven on my car
About $1800 total spent on the trip
- $600 on gas + oil change
- $350 on 6 days in hotels
- $800 on food and drinks

Week 1

I left Rochester with my roommate Luke to drop him off in Cincinnati, so he could buy a truck from his uncle. We stopped off in Pittsburgh overnight, to grab some sleep and see my mom.

We left early Monday morning and wound up in Cincinnati sometime around noon. Ohio is a boring state to drive through, cornfields and flat everywhere. His uncle is a priest at a convent, so I had lunch with a bunch of priests that day! I left Luke there and headed off toward Kentucky to try and visit some distilleries. I made it down to Frankfort, KY by around 4PM and started driving the Bourbon Trail http://www.kybourbontrail.com/ I found the Buffalo Trace distillery after a bit, but since their last tour was at 3PM, I was too late and just took some pictures and enjoyed the smell of bourbon in the air. It was the best smell in the world, you could practically taste it on your tongue. I kept driving south into the Daniel Boone National Forest, which is where I planned to camp that night. I drove into the Bee Rock campground before the sun set and checked out the area. I was immediately surprised by the amount of bugs in the air, bugs so large that they sounded like birds when they flew by me. The bugs really kept me from exploring and being relaxed that night. I setup a small fire, baked some beans, and had a few drinks to calm my nerves from the bugs.

It was a short and restless night for me, again, due to the bugs and random things that kept bumping around. I was up at 6AM to drive 3 hours to the other side of Kentucky, to go spelunking at Mammoth Caves! There was a great fiery sunrise that morning, I was glad to be awake for that. I showed up Mammoth Caves around 8 because I completely forgot about crossing the EST/CST time barrier, so I slept in my car for another hour, before my first tour at 9AM. I signed up for 2 tours that day, a walking lantern tour of the caves and a get down and dirty spelunking tour. The lantern tour was pretty laid back, the tour guide was a very interesting and eccentric old man who knew the caves well. The spelunking tour started around 2PM and was an amazing time. I had to wear ankle rise boots, long pants, and I was given a helmet with a mounted light. I was with about 15 people wandering around underground for 3 hours and loved every minute of it. Definitely something I want to try again! I got out the caves by 6PM and didn’t have any other plans, so I headed off toward Dallas! I drove until I was dead, sometime past midnight. I checked into the closest motel and slept for 8 hours.

I woke up on Wednesday, took a shower, and then hit the road again. I kept driving for the rest of the day. I stopped off to eat at random southern restaurants that I didn’t have up north when I could. I stopped off at Hope, Arkansas, the birthplace of Bill Clinton, on a friend’s suggestion and it was a terrible town. I couldn’t find a single non-chain restaurant! I had a deadline that day, I was supposed to pickup up a friend in the Dallas airport at 7PM and I was going to meet that deadline. I showed up at maybe 7:30PM after driving past the airport 3 times because Dallas has terrible traffic patterns. Quakecon had begun!

The next few days, from Thursday through Sunday were pretty much a blur. Playing games, checking out exhibits, finding stuff todo in Dallas, and a bit of drinking. It was a great time to meet many of my friends from the internet, that I have only known online. I went to John Carmack’s keynote speech and was amazed by everything that was going on in his head. It was a great event!

Sunday morning, Quakecon was over and I hung around helping clean up tables and chairs from the event. Later in the afternoon, I met up with some friends and we went to grab Ethiopian food somewhere. It was really tasty, more people should try Ethiopian food! After this, I took off toward Austin with my buddy Josh, who was coming along with me for the next week! He had arranged some time off from work and was traveling with me to split gas/hotel costs. We had another mutual friend, Shane, in Austin who was letting us stay at his house for the next 2 nights. We arrived in Austin and then headed out! Grabbed some pizza and hit up 6th St. for the rest of the night. Austin nightlife is quite crazy!

Week 2

We woke Monday morning up around 10am and played XBOX 360 for a bit. Shane had to work, so Josh and I headed to the Alamo Drafthouse to see District 9. The drafthouse is a movie theater that serves food and beer while you watch the movie. Amazing experience hands down, great food, great beer, and great movie! We went back to Shane’s house and then met up with some of his friends and to go hangout at another house for awhile. We spent the rest of the grilling outside, playing more XBOX, and hanging out.

Tuesday morning, we slept in again. I had been taking Vitamin C pills by this point to try and stay healthy, the long days and nights driving were wearing me down. We went to Freebirds World Burritos for lunch with Shane and it was pretty good. Similar to Chipotle but different. Josh and I left for Houston around 4PM, to another friend’s house, Keith. Keith and his wife made awesome potstickers for dinner! Some more friends showed up for dinner and then we left to hit up the Houston nightlife afterwards. Houston is a very different place from what I am used to., but not that bad.

We woke up around noon on Wednesday and took off to New Orleans. It was a boring drive, but it was a new drive and not that bad overall. It took like 7 hours with traffic. We checked into the hotel and then headed to Bourbon St. for dinner. We had some gumbo, jambalaya, catfish, bbq shrimp, and rice for dinner and it was fantastic! I definitely fell in love with the cooking on New Orleans at that point. We were back by 11PM and went to sleep.

Thursday was a wandering day. We went to Cafe du Monde for excellent coffee and donuts. Went to random shops and looked at antiques. Got lost and stuff. We got headed to Snug Harbor around 7PM for dinner and some live jazz afterward. Seeing jazz in New Orleans was definitely one of the more memorable experiences of the trip. After that, Josh and I had a wild night out on the town that I won’t soon forget.

Friday was a bit of a wash, waking up around noon and heading out with Josh to go meet some girl that he wanted to take photographs of. Josh is a fashion photographer and knew a model in the area that he wanted to shoot with. I just tagged along for the ride and passed out most of the day. By 7-8PM, we headed across Lake Pontchartrain to grab dinner with some friends and hangout. We took it pretty easy Friday night and were grateful to be able to do that!

I was up early on Saturday to drop Josh off at the airport, for his flight home. After that, I checked out of the hotel, and started driving toward Memphis, TN! I arrived later that night, just in time for dinner plans with some friends in the area at Rendezvous, a famous ribhouse in Memphis that I had never heard of! They serve dry ribs, which are very different from what I am used to. I had to put sauce on them, made them “muddy” ribs. After that, plenty of drinking and good times on the town in Memphis. Quite a vibrant and interesting city!

Week 3

I woke up Sunday morning on my friend’s couch and took off pretty early. 6 hour drive to Hardon, IL, a quiet farming town an hour outside of St. Louis where my father was born, raised, and now buried. My aunt still lives there as a teacher and mayor of a neighboring town. I grabbed diner with her and another aunt and then got some much needed sleep.

Monday morning, I took off to Palatine, Chicago to visit more relatives. Most of this week was spent lounging around and not drinking. The previous 2 weeks had been heavy drinking every night for 14 days in a row, it was taking its toll on me. I met up with a bunch of cousins I hadn’t seen like 4-5 years. My aunt took me out to lunch at Gene and Georgetti’s steakhouse, that was a fantastic meal. I saw the big shiny bean in Grant Park and I went to the new walkout sky outlook thing at the SEARS tower. That was pretty awesome. Chicago is a cool town.

After a week of downtime, Saturday morning I took off to Cleveland, OH to meetup with a good friend, Disco, who I knew from my time in Pittsburgh. He’s been finishing up his law degree there and Cleveland is a good mid-way stopping point going back to Rochester. We went down the warehouse district, grabbed dinner, a few drinks, and had a good time catching up.

Sunday morning, I took off toward Rochester and home, very glad to get home after 3 weeks away. Always good to come home after a long trip away!

Bourbon Roadtrip

Published on August 9, 2009 in Life and Travel. View Comments Tags: 2009-BourbonRoadtrip.

As the summer comes to a close, I have one more roadtrip planned. The main cause for this roadtrip is a gaming convention called Quakecon that is taking place in Dallas, TX next week, but I’m making a wide swing from New Orleans to Chicago, visiting a few friends and relatives along the way. As the title indicates, I am calling this my “Bourbon Roadtrip” because I am going to be spending 2 days in Kentucky, the home of some of the best bourbons in the US and I’m planning on visiting as many distilleries as I have time for! I have 3 weeks planned for this trip and will be trying to post as many stories as I can on here, through my newly installed iPhone WordPress app!

The current itinerary includes:

Leave today for Pittsburgh with a roommate along for the ride until Cincinnati. Dinner with my family that night.
Monday the 10th, drop off my friend in Cincinnati, hit up the bourbon trail in Kentucky, and then wind up in Daniel Boone National Park to camp out for the night! I have no reservations for the park, I’m just going to drive into the woods and pitch my tent somewhere.
Tuesday the 11th, wake up with the sun and show up at Mammoth Caves for 6 hours of tours inside the camp, including the “Introduction to Caving” and “Violet City Lantern” tours! This is going to be a great time, I already know.
Wednesday, I spend 12 hours driving to Dallas!
12th-15th in Dallas, TX at Quakecon.
16-17th Austin, TX staying with a friend
18th Houston, TX for a day! No clue where I am staying or what I am doing.
19-21th in New Orleans at the hotel Le Cirque. Plenty of bars and restaurants that have been suggested to try out! I cannot wait to sample all the cajun food!
22nd driving to Memphis, TN and having some great ribs.
23rd Saint Louis to visit my aunt.
24-28th visiting my cousins in Chicago.
29th in Columbus, OH, staying with another friend, I hope!
Home by the 30th.

Here is the map of my route, starting and ending in Rochester:

View Larger Map

I imagine that I am going get into a bunch of trouble, spend way too much money, eat too much, and totally love the entire experience! Traveling is something I have come to cherish and I cannot wait to hit the road for this adventure. If anyone has suggestions for things to do or see along the route, please leave a comment!

Semi-Graduation

Published on June 7, 2009 in Travel. View Comments

I am “graduated” currently, meaning I put on my cap and gown and walked with the graduating class this year, however, I am not yet 100% done with my degree. I have 6 months further in school while I am completing my senior project, a 5-person team project working with a teacher somewhere in RIT. Overall, I’m not sure how to take everything in, being almost done, but still having plenty of time to think about life, being done with college, and where to take my life from here. I have pretty wide open options to work anywhere in the US, an in demand major, and I’m open to anything.

In the 1 week break time between Spring and Fall classes, I managed to roadtrip through NH, MA, NYC, NJ, and PA, visiting my uncle and some friends I hadn’t seen in a bit. From May 24th to June 1st, I did 7 states in about 8 days, traveling about 1200 miles, and costing about $125-150 in gas! Here is my route.

View Larger Map

Specifically, 2 days in Merrimack, NH seeing my uncle. Breakfast in Dover, NH with an old friend of mine doing studies at UNH, then I drove down to NYC. 2 days in NYC with some more old friends and eating plenty of the latest and greatest foods of the town. I actually drove into Manhattan for kicks, such a terrible idea. Driving in Manhattan is such a joy and strain at the same time, you never have anytime to think, just to drive and not get hit! Next to NJ for 1 night, visiting my old high school town of Point Pleasant. I saw my old neighbors for the first time in about 4 years and boy was that a shock! Especially with the little kids I used to babysit, they all grow up so fast. I continued on to Phoenixville, PA for a night on the town with a few friends in the area, then stopped in Harrisburg, PA for another night, to watch ‘Up’ and relax for a bit, before heading back to Rochester in the morning.

Growing up is difficult. I’ve taken and asked for advice from many people much older and wiser than myself and even with their thoughts, I still can’t seem to plan for what the future will bring. I’m reaching a point in my life where there is no set plan at all for anything and it is entirely up to me to decide what I want to do. While somewhat scary, I feel that I have prepared myself well through my time in college and am looking forward to these new challenges. Bring it on!

Thailand Part 2

Published on January 19, 2009 in Travel. View Comments Tags: 2009-ThailandTrip.

Continuing my journal of my time spent in Thailand, here is Part 2.

Tuesday, December 16th

Today, Vicki had school to teach, so I headed off on my own for once. I tried grabbing a cab to Putunam Market, but I completely failed the first try. I had a pocket Thai dictionary and was trying to pronounce the name of it in Thai and English and it just wasn’t working. I hopped out of the first cab and then hopped right into a second one, in which the driver spoke a bit more English and understood me.

Putunam Market isn’t really a market, but a series of stalls all along this big street. Nothing really caught my eye, but it’s always fun browsing, the Thai people are very friendly to foreigners. That was one of the annoying things for me because for the first time in my travels, I haven’t been able to fit in. Generally I can pickup language and customs quickly, but being tall and white in Thailand always makes me stand out. At best when I travel, I wish to be treated equally like a local, but it was a challenge in all of Asia actually.

Anyways, here’s a pretty building:

Here’s the street that houses Putunam Market on its sides. I’d like to point out the tiny motorbikes flooding the street, those are my favorite method of travel. They are for short distances, you can find bike stations every few blocks and they are so fun to ride 30-40 MPH on the back of a bike with someone else driving. They zip in and out of tight traffic and you just hold on. I loved them!

There was another massage place that I stopped off at around there for a foot rub, it was nice to kill a few hours getting a massage anytime you wanted. Very relaxing and healthy for the body.

Along the way, I grabbed some rice with egg. One of the things unique to Thailand is the way they eat their meals: mostly communal and outside of their house. They eat many small meals throughout the day also, sampling lots of different meals. I loved that aspect, because it was easy for me as tourist to try alot of food and eat it on the go.

As I continued down this street, I came to Central World mall and the Siam Paragon mall.

Central World was only about 7 stories tall, but quite elegant and full of “rich” stores. It’s another interesting contrast when you have so many poor people and people in poverty on the street and yet here’s a huge air-conditioned mall with all the same luxury goods of the US. They were in full Christmas gift spending mode as well!

Then I came to the Siam Paragon, one of the largest malls in Asia. Jeez. This place was 8x as nice, with limo service outside, an aquarium in the basement, multiple theaters, and again, every luxury brand you can think of. The best thing I found while randomly wandering around was a string trio randomly setup playing Christmas music. The mall was practically empty, save for one other guy listening with me. They were a great trio, it’s just a shame for their performance to be only heard by two people.

I found my way outside and headed south. I came by a big mural of the King, so I might as well explain. The Thai people love the King ALOT. You don’t ever say anything negative about the King or you get arrested. He’s about 80 I think and solved many problems for Thailand and is very beloved. You see pictures of him every where, he has his own song which is played on the radio and TV at 8AM and 6PM every day, and also has a picture montage displayed before every film. He is everywhere.

My destination was Lumphini Park. I’ve heard people practice yoga in the mornings, but it was nice to check out some natural flora and relax for a bit.

Watching the motorbikes take off from a stoplight is always fun. Other random observation, they have stoplights with displayed timers on them; it shows that the light is 60 seconds long and counts down until it changes again.

At the park gate, there were a bunch of soi dogs lying around. ‘Soi’ is the Thai word for street, so they are street dogs. Many many stray dogs randomly running around Bangkok.

Near the North end of the park, there was a school, where I grabbed some quick food and hung out with a motorbike driver for awhile. He was very friendly, I guess, due to dealing with all the kids from the school. He spoke like two words of English and I spoke about six words of Thai, so we managed to talk and gesture for about 30 minutes, it was great. I think all of my gesturing with people with who don’t speak English have made me amazing at charades.

As I was heading home, I found one of the most delicious foods ever, roddi or rotti, I’m not sure. Dough is flatten out and then cooked in a large circular bowl. You get toppings added on top of the dough as it cooks and then it’s all sandwiched together, cut up, and covered with sugar and condensed milk. I got banana below, mixed with egg, below and it’s amazing!

Two hours of massage after dinner and I had a great day. Bangkok is a very laid back city. Here is a shot of the sun setting over the city!

Wednesday, December 17th

Up early today around 7AM, to head to school with Vicki! We caught a bus around 8AM, it’s a 30 minute ride North to the official college campus. Class started at 9AM and I hung around and watched in the back of the room. Learning English is viewed as something very important for Thai people to rise out of poverty. I guess Thailand is a 2nd world country, with a good mix of poor and rich people. By learning to speak English or I guess a second language, the Thai people can interact with the rest of the world in commerce and improve the quality of their nation. Most of the students in the class were wealthy Thai kids, although there were a few Chinese students who were part of the international program. Even other countries do study abroad!

A comment about the campus, it’s huge. With labor being cheap, you can build huge things for cheap.

I don’t get the Roman/Greek architecture influences but I guess they view them as being fancy or official. In Thai terms, this is a very private and expensive college, their kinda Ivy League, so you gotta make it fancy.

Another amusing thing was that they use Dawson’s Creek as reading material. I hate to think that a teenage sitcom is how they view American customs.

I let Vicki teach and wandered around campus to find free Wifi for my iPhone. Most of Thailand is quite connected to the Internet and no firewall either, unlike China! We headed home by 4PM and then got ready for head out shopping. Another day, another sunset!

We headed out with some of Vicki’s friend to a local mall for dinner and rode on motorbikes there. I love them so much!

The mall was packed of course with people doing Christmas/Winter shopping. We headed to an all you can eat for 2 hours conveyor belt sushi buffet. It cost about $5 USD? I love conveyor belt sushi, America needs more places like this. The wait staff loved all of us because of course, Americans love their buffets! Everyone was very friendly and loved having us come in.

Finally, we headed outside this mall to a nighttime market. This was a real experience, night markets are not really typical tourist fare, so it was nice to be alone, wandering around. Scarves, burned DVDs, shoes, tattoos, miniature pets, knives, swords, haircuts, bags, purses, you can find it all.

We finished up the night by going to see “The Day The Earth Stood Still” in a theater. It was in English with Thai subtitles, with the King song montage before of course. The best part was bringing beer into the movie and drinking the entire time. America has amazingly stupid drinking laws.

Thursday, December 18th

I got up early again and headed back to the airport. The taxi driver ripped me off by saying he didn’t have change for my 100 dollar Thai bill, but I didn’t mind too much because it was like a $3 taxi fare and I needed to get rid of the Thai money anyways. Always trying to rip off foreigners…

My flight from Suvarnabhum Airport to Kunming, China was about 4 hours long and cost about $300 USD. There were only like 4 other white people on the flight, always a fun game in Asia, count the white people. I got served coffee, red wine, green tea, cognac, and scotch during this flight, I tried to stay hydrated as best I could! I arrived in China and then began my journey alone.

In Summary

Bangkok was a great city, quite affordable for housing and food for an American with the exchange rate. The people were very friendly and good handful spoke English or were interested in learning. The beer, Singha, was cheap and good. The women, or atleast the people I thought were women, were all pretty attractive and petite. I can see why so many expats want to retire there!

I spent about $400 USD total for the 5-6 days, a good portion of it on drinking and buying clothes/gifts. It’s really not expensive to get by, maybe $20-30 USD a day easily or less if you just want basic food and housing.

I’ll continue with my travels in China soon!

Thailand Part 1

Published on January 15, 2009 in Travel. View Comments Tags: 2009-ThailandTrip.

Its taken me about a week to get over my jetlag and re-adjust to life in the US, three weeks of traveling really throws your system off. I wrote up my initial thoughts on the trip the weekend I got back, but now I’m going through my journal and pictures to provide a thorough experience for those interested. Let’s begin with my time in Thailand!

Saturday, December 13th

I left Rochester Friday morning, the 12th actually, but wound up travel for 27-something hours and arrived sometime Saturday evening. 3 flights, Rochester to JFK, JFK to Hong Kong with a 17 hour flight, and then 4 hours Hong Kong to Bangkok. Buying one-way tickets, this cost $950 for JFK -> BKK on Cathay Pacific and $110 for the Jet Blue flight ROC -> JFK. I highly recommend Cathay, unlimited Johnny Walker Black Label on the flights and in-seat LCD screens, I just got drunk and watched movies the entire time. A great flight!

Interesting thing was that the Suvarnabhum airport I flew into had been shutdown for 10 days the week before I arrived due to protesters taking over the airport. I was a bit worried about my flight, but there were no problems and the airport was clean as could be. My friend Vicki from high school, was my main reason for visiting and she was waiting to meet me at the airport. She is 5 months into a year long English teaching contract. We headed back to her apartment, located in the east of the city by Rajamangala Stadium, pictured below. Her apartment is on the 13th floor (yes, they have a 13th floor!).

And the courtyard below.

I unpacked, showered, and then we headed out for dinner and drinks. I had my first local dish of pad thai and it was delicious! We then headed to Santika, a popular nightclub, which I found out burned down 2 weeks later on New Years Eve, killing 59 people. While I had fun time there, it’s kind of weird to look back and think that everything burned down. Very tragic, the place only had 1 entrance/exit, which got clogged of course when the fire started…

Sunday, December 14th

Woke up by 9am and it was 85F outside. I planned poorly and was forced to wear jeans as we grabbed brunch at a local place. Vicki and I headed to the Chatuchak weekend market, my main reason for flying in on a weekend. It takes place Saturday/Sunday and is a huge open air market that has about 200K – 300K people visit daily. You can just get lost in tiny corridors and stalls, it’s amazing. I bought a new warm weather wardrobe for maybe $20 USD, everything was incredibly cheap. I bought a huge Deuter (German brand) backpack for $40 USD after haggling, when I know this backpack should cost $150-200 new. Probably counterfeit but it lasted me the rest of the trip, so it was a good buy! The food was amazing as well, plenty of pork stick stands and green tea ice pops.

We headed back home by 5 or 6 and then I ventured out to a massage place. It was such a great time, seriously. 2 hours of thai massage for about $12 USD. Thai massage is very forceful and strong, it involves lots of rubbing to increase bloodflow, painful at times, but very worth it. I returned to the apartment and immediately passed, I just felt so good!

Monday, December 15th

Up by noon and grabbed breakfast at a different place. I had some coffee which tasted delicious, but I found out it was because Thais like to put 3-4 creamers and a cup full of sugar in. Vicki had the day off from teaching, so we headed downtown in a klong, one of the many methods of travel in Bangkok. They are wide, long boats that fit about 40 people and travel on the narrow canals left in the city. There are docks every 5 minutes or so, but the interesting thing is the boats never stop, they just slow down and coast by. Everyone hops on and off in a few seconds. A 45 minute boat ride all the way downtown costed about 40 cents.

Here’s one of the infamous tuk tuks as well, terrible to get around with. The drivers just try and take you someplace that sells jewelry and charges you too much.

We walked to the Wat Suthat and this old Buddhist arch, which people used to swing from and try and reach this bag of gold that was tied to the top, but once too many people died, the King closed it off.

We were headed to the Wat Phra Kaew, a giant golden temple with a giant emerald Buddha inside. I believe it’s also the King’s palace part of the year. We ran into a monk along the way, there are actually alot of them wandering around! I think the color of his robe signifies which temple he is from.

From here we headed more “central” downtown I guess, toward the main bridge that cross the large river that cuts through Bangkok. Below are some boats and the river. In the second picture, you can view the garbage build up. It’s one of the weird contrasts I noticed in Thailand and China. With labor being so cheap, people are paid to clean everything, the streets are always very clean, but the water is always completely dirty. I don’t know why they don’t clean the water.

We continued on to Th Khao San street, the main foreigner area. Tons of hotels and hostels built up in this area, so this where everything English is and where everyone is trying to sell you something.

I found this to be ingenious, with everything being counterfeit, why not steal music too?

With the sun falling, we grabbed dinner at the Hemlock cafe and I had some delicious mai tais, trying to sample everything thai related. One of the random things I want to point out is 7/11. It is a clean, respectable establishment outside of the US, they sell everything and anything and are everywhere, it’s very nice.

I think I will pause here and finish Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off later, I have alot more pictures and stories to post. Look for Part 2 soon!