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Kate and I have finished preparing the guest room, we are officially ready to accept Visitors! Don’t wait! Plan your trip(s) now. We are in fabulous Menlo Park, CA. Here are the distances and driving time to just a few fun places:

Downtown San Fran

Fisherman’s Wharf (Ferry to Alcatraz) – 35.2 mi or about 47 mins

Lombard Street (World’s Most Crooked Street) – 34.9 mi or about 46 mins

Surrounding Area

Muir Woods (Redwoods, plus Golden Gate Bridge Drive) – 51.1 mi or about 1 hour 12 mins

Los Gatos (Interesting Little Town in the Hills) – 24.9 mi or about 33 mins

Monterey Bay Aquarium (Top 5 Aquariums in the World) – 92.1 mi or about 1 hour 42 mins

Napa Valley (Wine Country) – 77.7 mi or about 1 hour 33 mins

Sonoma (Wine Country) – 102 mi or about 1 hour 58 mins

Lake Tahoe (Skiing, Watersports, Donnor Pass) – 231 mi or about 3 hours 56 mins

Today we started out early from Reno. First making sure we were prepared to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Double checking our Windshield Fluid, Water, Snow Shovel, Tire Chains, and Peanut M&Ms. Once we knew we had all those bases covered, and with a full tank of gas we started up the mountains and towards California. Once we arrived at an elevation of 5500 feet or so, it became mandatory to have chains on the tires. So we pulled off, and paid a chain installer to put ours on. We then proceeded towards the crest of the sierra’s, Donner Pass. This lies at an elevation of about 7500 feet. When we reached Donner Pass it was snowing pretty heavily, but we took our time and before we knew it, we were out of the snow, taking our chains off, and heading down the mountain. At the base of the mountains we came up to Sacramento and 2 hours later we arrived in Menlo Park. After unpacking the car, and meeting one of our neighbors, we headed off to Christen California with Dinner and a Movie!! And we might of snuck some shopping for much needed supplies in there somewhere. Let’s just say that our new bathroom looks great!

We also updated the Web Gallery with today’s pictures, including some of the new apartment.

Total miles driven: 3126

Our eighth day’s route: (click to zoom, explore, etc)

Today we started out from Salt Lake City early. Taking in a few of the sights downtown, before heading west. After about 20 miles we stopped to check out the Great Salt Lake. It was pretty amazing. We even saw some people out sailing on it. Since it’s so salty, very little of it freezes in the winter. We then continued West. 100 miles of Utah and almost 400 miles of Nevada before reaching Reno. Reno sits right at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Tomorrow we will continue on 80, over the mountains into California. The current estimate is 4 hours until we reach our temporary home in Menlo Park.

We also updated the Web Gallery with today’s pictures.

Our seventh day’s route: (click to zoom, explore, etc)

On our sixth day, we started out from Evanston, WY where it was clear and chilly. Driving a short 90 mins to Park City, UT. This is where the Sundance Film Festival is currently taking place. We walked around downtown Park City, which is a very cool Ski Town. There is a Ski Lift that runs right into town. Then we hung out with Kate’s friend Abby, and went to dinner. After dinner we all went to see GONZO a documentary premiering at Sundance. Then we drove down to our Hotel in Salt Lake City.

We’ve also updated the Web Gallery with the pics from today.

Our sixth day’s route (click to zoom, pan, etc):

Starting out at Gates Camp on top of a mountain in Ward, CO we headed across the PeakToPeak highway towards Estes Park for lunch. Then east out of the mountains, and north to hook up with 80. 300 more miles West, a brief snow storm, and we found ourselves in Evanston, Wyoming. This is right on the border with Utah.

Our Fifth Day’s Route: (Click on the map to zoom, move, etc)

We’ve created a Web Album of all the pictures we’ve taken so far. I haven’t done much editing so bear with us, there are a lot of them.

http://gallery.mac.com/theconneens#100070

Leaving the Cornhusker Marriott in fabulous Downtown Lincoln, NE we headed West yet again. We needed to knock off 300 miles of Nebraska before hitting Colorado. Another 200 or so miles in Colorado and we arrived in Boulder. Kate petitioned for a quick stop at the Celestial Seasonings factory, where we bought a few more souvenirs. Then we strolled the main street in downtown Boulder (Pearl Street), before heading up the mountain to see Tyler. As the Crow flies Tyler lives only 12 miles from Boulder, but on the mountain roads it is more like 35 miles. Let’s just say I was happy we got up here before dark. We are spending the night with Tyler at the camp he runs. We are at 9200 feet elevation in the Colorado Rockies. It might get as cold as 2 degrees tonight. We will post pictures from today, sometime tomorrow. The internet here is stable but a tad slow.

Our Fourth Day’s Route: (Click on the map to zoom, move, etc)

Leaving suburbs of Chicago after a quick trip to Target and the local Mall we began to make our way West, yet again. The agenda for today was to drive through Iowa, into Nebraska to finally end in Lincoln. Today we crossed over The Mighty Mississippi and stopped at the biggest Truck Stop in the world. Our Hotel for the night is the Cornhusker Marriott in downtown Lincoln. I believe we are only a few blocks from the campus of the University of Nebraska.

Our Third Day’s Route: (Click on the map to zoom, move, etc)

Today started with a complimentary breakfast at the Hilton Toledo. Let’s just say that the folks in Toledo really know their sausage. We set out with full stomachs, west towards South Bend, IN. After a brief tour of Notre Dame, we enjoyed some shopping (Kate really) and a lunch at “Legends of Notre Dame”. Being a tried and true Penn Stater, I couldn’t let myself buy any souvenirs (it didn’t really seem to stop Kate though). Lunch was delicious, and we hit the road yet again. Passing through Indiana and entering into Illinois, which is actually in the Central time zone. We arrived in Downtown Naperville where we narrowly missed having our car towed. A few more seconds, and we might have had one miserable night. After some brief window shopping and trip planning, we hit the road again towards our evening’s lodgings. The brand new Westin in Lombard IL. All those trips to California are really paying off with free hotel stays.

Our Second Day’s Route: (Click on the map to zoom, move, etc)

After more than a few tearful goodbyes, we got to a somewhat late start. Leaving from Blue Bell we drove about 520 miles to our first destination, Tony Packo’s in Toledo, OH. Where we dined on Tony’s famous Hot Dogs and Chili. You might know Tony Packo’s as the favorite restaurant of Corporal Klinger on M.A.S.H. We then drove a quick 10 miles to our night’s lodging, the Hilton Toledo. At the Hilton we were able to catch the final minutes of the Packers vs. Giants, which was exciting since we listened to most of both games during the drive.

Our First Day’s Route: (Click on the map to zoom, move, etc)

As of February 1st, 2008 Kate and I will be living in Menlo Park, CA. This is about a 30 min drive from San Francisco. All of our friends and family are welcome to come visit us. In order to make planning easier we are going to update this calendar with the availability of our spare room, and when we will be in out of town.

Since we’ve recently gotten a Mac, we’ve uploaded our honeymoon pictures to the .Mac gallery.

Ladera

Sandals

St. Simons Island

Brian (and Kate)

I’ve been reading comics over at xkcd, and came across this one that I absolutely understand.

For more awesome comics check out the xkcd site.

Here is a quick slideshow I threw together from our engagement in NYC on July 4th.

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Kate and I got engaged on Tuesday July 4th.

I surprised her with a sailboat cruise through New York Harbor. The cruise included a complete gourmet dinner, and after the appetizers I couldn’t wait anymore and popped the question. This gave us some time to call our parents before dinner, and then the cruise continued through the harbor as we watched the amazing Macy’s Fireworks.

I and about 70 other people lined up outside of the Wilmington, DE Best Buy on Monday the 21st. After 12 hours in the rain and wind, Best Buy management came out to tell us they had 61 Xboxes (which we already knew thanks to the power of the internet) he told us that they would start handing out tickets at 8. At 8:30 they started handing out the tickets we could use to get our system, but somehow 11 of them mysteriously disapeared and only the first 50 people in line got them (Must of been 11 very happy Best Buy employees). Luckily I was number 36. I got my premium system, 3 more wireless controllers and some games.

So you might be asking yourself why in the heck did I wait in line for a Xbox 360? Well two months ago I promised my 9 year old brother that we would have a Pre Thanksgiving Sleepover / Xbox Marathon. Little did I know that Xbox 360’s would be as popular as Bread in Moscow circa 1990.

Game On!

Well I’m still waiting on the status of the restore of the old site. This way I can migrate the emails and other things over to the new format. In the meantime, I’ve changed the scheme to better suit me. As you can see I’ve added a custom header. The pictures link at the top points to my Flickr account. I’ll be migrating the rest of the pictures from the old site up to Flickr gradually. Anyone who has an email address @conneen.com, hopefully they will be back up shortly.

Hey There! My site (and email) have been down for the past week due to hosting issues. Hopefully everything will remain stable from here on. If you sent me an email in the past week (July 23-July 31) please resend it to me.

I’m using WordPress as my new site software. So I guess this is technically a blog. Blog On!!!