Here is the tale of my second cross-country drive. Like the last one, this one goes from the West Coast to the East Coast, but this time to Philadelphia.

Besides being a fun experience, this was Maha and my honeymoon! Enjoy!

Tuesday: 443 miles San Francisco, CA -> Los Angeles, CA

Every journey starts with one step, and that's how I felt when we reset the odometer to 0, to start a journey of over 3000 miles. Still having the memory of a wonderful wedding week, we left the city with a laughing and a crying eye. Even though we left the house at 10 am, we weren't on the road before 3 pm, after taking care of many little things, and seeing Gina for lunch to say good bye.

The drive was uneventful, and it was a pleasure to have some quiet time with Maha after a busy week of entertaining people. On the way, we made plans with Don and Susan, Anne's parents (the fiancé of Omar, Maha's brother). They were sweet enough to spend the night at their house in Placentia, a suburb of Los Angeles.

We arrived around 10 pm, and we spend a long evening chatting, eating and drinking wine. Don just returned the day before from Hong Kong, but he was energetic like a tiger nevertheless. Susan too just returned from a trip, still they invited their daughter Nancy and her boyfriend Nick, and we had a wonderful night.

Today we hit one of the sites that was way high on my list: Salvation Mountain! This place is by Niland, CA, near the Salton Sea - in other words, in the middle of nowhere. There was absolutely nothing - and the description of getting there was rather ambiguous. But then, from far away, we coud see the candy colors of the mountain. There were a few other people visiting as well, and Leonard Knight was just about to give them a tour. He should us a little cathedral, the site of the museum he's building, and finished the tour by sending us to the top of the mountain. After we were back down, we chattd with him for a while, and he insisted on giving us a handful of postcards.

We were running late, as we had a late start, and tried to find some hot springs earlier. So we just drove a few miles into the Joshua Tree National Forest, as it was already getting dark. So instead of driving all the way to Phoenix as planned, we spend the night in Blythe, close to the Arizona border, early enough for a leisurely dinner and some soaking time in the motel's hot tub.

As we didn't have too many miles to drive today, we decided to leave the major highways, and we took the 60, whicheventually leads into Phoenix. This was the best thing to do! The 60 had just one lane in each direction, but it went through little towsn (well, mainly trailer parks), and it was easy to stop. We discovered a wonderful place called ingridients - it was by Wenden, right on the 60 (easier to remember, it was right after Hope, after we passed a sign reading: "You are now beyond Hope"). Ingridients started as an arthouse, but quickly expended to coffee and light fare - in fact, it was the Espresso sign that made us stop! We chatted with the owners - a mother and her daughter - who fixed the place up four months ago, with nothing except a Home Deopot credit card. Considering that Maha wants to open a Café one day, this was great inspiration!

In Phoenix, we meat up with our friends Mickey and Kaia , and we spend a leisurely evening with them.

After a good-bye breakfast with Mickey and Kaia, we were on the road again around noon - rather late, considering that our plan was to drive more than 600 miles. The first 200 miles, we were again driving on Highways (rather than I-10), but it wasn't as interesting as on the previous day (Still, there were some charming sites, like this little highway temple ). We stopped in Deming, NM, for authentic Mexican food (and they even had live music), but we rushed on, to get as close as possible to Sweetwater. We didn't get quite as far as planned, but still got quite far into the state.

Shortly before our stop, there was actually a random check by border control: "Any non-Americans in this car?" - "Yes, I am German" - "Oh... can I see your greencard?" - "Don't have one, but my work visa is in the trunk." - "Nah... don't bother - drive on".

Considering that we spent the night in the middle of nowhere, we got an early start this morning, so that we arrived at a decent time - arround 2:30 pm - in Sweetwater, TX, where they had their annual "Rattlesnake Roundup". It was a huge event with food, rides, and what not - the Rattlesnakes were a relatively small part of it. There was one huge hall, were the actual Rattlesnake action took place. In there, they were "milking" snakes (collecting their poison), demonstrating their handling, and slaughtering them. The handlers let us touch the snakes, and their rattles. There was a station where snake hunters could submit their snakes. They would be measured (lenght) and weighted. And of course, there was a full array of merchandizing - all kinds of Rattlesnake products were available for purchase.

Snake was served deep fried on the bone - but the taste was rather boring: like chicken (not kidding!), but with a rubbery texture, similar to octupus. To make up for the rather bland taste, we finished our lunch with a serving of Alligator, which was much more flavorful.

Our last destination for the day was Dallas. Our plan was to find an authentic "Honky Tonk" - the problem was that neither of us really knew what it was, and our guildebook (Eccentric America), referred only to one place as an example - a huge arena-like place, accommodating over 3000 peope. So instead we browsed the local paper, and went to Gilley's Dallas. The place was huge, and featured life music, a huge dancefloor, a game arcade and a merchandizing store. Overall, it was a rather mediocre experience - but at least we got to talk to some of the staff, and they elightened us about what a real Honkey Tonk is: A bar where thinks are rather rough, and you'd encounter the occasional fight. Unfortunately, they acknowledged that there aren't too many left in Dallas.

Another highlight of this trip: This morning we got together with my aunt Barbara, her son Eric, and his triplets Hanna, Preston and Peter. They were in town anyway to watch the St. Patricks Day Parade. So we had a nice, leisurly brunch together, saw the Kennedy memorial, and watched the parade.

While it was fun to see them, Dallas didn't leave a lasting impression. It seemed like a rather dull place, with a run-down downtown, and no visible public transportation.

Finding a decent Café in downtown Little Rock turned out to be not that easy. While downtown was quite recognizable, Cafés seem to be a coastal thing. Finally we found one that was part of a hotel by the convention center.

Once coffeinated and on the road, our next goal was Mempis - or to be precise, Graceland! Visiting on a rainy Monday afternoon was perfect, as there was barely any wait. The selfguided audiotour introduced us to the Jungle Room , the mirrored stair case, the Television Room and all the other excentric Elvis history, ending at his Grave - what a blast!

Nashvlle was ringing a bell, so we thought we'd check it out this morning, maybe even taking a tour of the city. Finding downtown was easy, and compared to some other places we've been quite recognizable. We even found a nice Espresso place, and the girl working there was from Philly. She went to Nashville for school, but was more than ready to move on soon - too many red necks and racists around. Later we did some shoe shopping (there was an outlet with dirt cheap cowboy boots). The guy behind the counter - a maybe 25 year old kids - told us then about the good sides of Nashville. Cheap place to live, he has 20 bars in walking distance, he can smoke pot with the store owner, who is, like him, a musician, it's easy to pick up girls, and so on. Well, at least he wasn't a confederalist, like some of the other people there, as could easily be seen from the stickers on some of the cars.

Bristol was our stop for the night, and it felt like we were back in civilization - there was even a movie theater, and we kicked back for a late show - for the unbelivable low price of $6 a person!

We were at least attempting to have an early start and to drive without much stopping, because we were planning on seeing our friend David in Annapolis. Well, we diddn't start that early, and made a stop in Roanoke, VA (which is a really charming town in the Appalachian mountains), and made it by 8:30 pm, which wasn't that bad at all. we spend a wonderful evening at the Annapolis waterfront with David and his wife Arlene.

We were really, really close to Philly now. And it was time to sleep in our own bed again. Still, there was the temptation to stop on the way, and the choice was Washington D.C., or Baltimore. While D.C. has more to offer, culturally, we never visited Baltimore. And it was right on the way. Our first stop was the Visitor Center, which was right downtown in the touristy warf area. But at this point, we were not interested in that kind of stuff any more. So we just found ourselves a nice Italian Café, where we played a few rounds of Go, before heading home

Finally there! And the neighbors certainly made us feel home - before we even got in, we were chatting with our friends, and when we got into the house, we were surounded by wedding bells - the neighbor watching our house decorated it together with friends. What a sweet surprise!