The votes are looking a little low right now. To spice it up, I added some clips from the road trip movies we’re polling on which ones resembles the Sams the most. My favorite is the Tommy Boy clip (Fat man in a little coat!). The Harold and Kumar scene is pretty good too. How much do you want to bet that somewhere on their road trip Sam and Sam broke into a popular song together.
The only clip missing is from Sideways. I couldn’t find a good one on Youtube.
For my Shanghai friends, this won’t be a new thing…you’ve seen it…you’ve loved it…
For all you others out there…we were recently in Vancouver, BC wandering around Chinatown (2nd only to San Francisco’s Chinatown…U-S-A…U-S-A…U-S-A!) and came across a block of hair salons offering CD$8.99 haircuts….which is the closest I’ve come to a Chinese-priced haircut in a long time (it’s still more than twice the usual price in Shanghai, but what the heck…you only live once). As an added bonus, everyone spoke Mandarin so it felt just like Shanghai…
So there it is…
Afterwards, as we walked down the streets of Chinatown, I noticed mothers grabbing their kids and pushing them away from me…so I guess it works.
btw…there is nothing in Montana and Wyoming….nothing….nothing….nothing
well, there’s legalized poker in bars..but other than that…nothing…
Be sure to keep checking back…we’re getting a little better with posting and stuff…much more to come….
Note: In case some of you don’t know yet..we did receive our t-shirts from our fantastic sponsor at Bulla Clothing (check out their site link in the upper right corner)…so we do have t-shirts to give away…..I wonder what you have to do to get a genuine “I’m with Sam” t-shirt….hmmmm? I wonder….
While we were leaving Spokane, Washington, we decided to skip Banff and head through Idaho to Kalispell, Montana. After a night there we went up to beautiful Glacier National Park and are staying in Missoula tonight. But that’s not the reason for this post. A while back you voted to have us try and get a Texas Ranger baseball player to say our tagline, “I’m with Sam, who YOU with?” Well, we actually made it out to the very first Rangers Cactus League spring training game in Surprise, Arizona, and here’s what we came up with…
There’s a new fun little poll on the side menu. Sam and Sam’s fun road trip had me thinking if their road trip was a movie, which movie would they most resemble? The movie had to have some sort of road trip and only two buddies hence something like European Vacation was not considered. Likewise with Wild Hogs.
If you have additional movie suggestions, leave them in the comments section.
After a fun-filled weekend with our friends in Seattle, Vancouver and Whistler, the Sams are back on the road again…this time heading east! Despite an unpleasant run-in with the Canadian Border Patrol on the way to Vancouver, we’re headed back up to Banff, Alberta. (There was an uncomfortably long stare-down match between Shanghai and the lovely border patrol lady after she exclaimed, “why would you do such a stupid thing?” referring to our attempt to videotape the border crossing.) Many people have told us Banff is just unbelievably beautiful so we’ve added it to the trip. Here’s a map of the route we have planned from Seattle to Mount Rushmore. We’ll be camping out in Yellowstone National Park along the way. Can’t wait!
Hey there,
we’re back to posting….we’re gonna jump ahead a little bit and give you the latest video from today in Seattle….SammyB will be blogging about the trip thus far so I’m just gonna show this video…
We’re in Seattle for a the weekend, staying with my high-school friend Erik (he’s actually in SF and just gave us the keys to his place, awesome!) We went out to Pike Place Market today and spent the afternoon walking around and buying random things (German walking sausage, assorted flavored honey-sticks) and I got to do one of the coolest things ever, catch a flying fish!
How cool is that….
Hope ya’ll enjoyed that video…we’ll be posting more this weekend as we work to get caught up and back on schedule….
Seattle rocks!
….and here’s me with some lovely ladies in LA a couple of weeks ago….
First of all, a HUGE thanks to everyone who has supported us throughout our RoadTrip. The generosity and hospitality of so many people along the way has blown me away and renewed my faith in mankind. Second, NO MORE READER SUBMISSIONS, Justin!
I’m writing this as Shanghai and I make our way through Oregon. We should be in Seattle on Thursday and will make that our base of operations as we make excursions throughout Washington and British Columbia. If anyone else is down for snowboarding or skiing, we’ll probably hit up Whistler this weekend with a few of our Seattle friends. Maybe we’ll even get Shanghai out on a board this weekend…maybe.
It has been four-and-a-half weeks and over 7,000 miles since we began our trip. Since my last update, we have seen and done quite a bit. After our welcome respite at the Westin Kierland Golf Resort in Scottsdale, we made our way through Phoenix to Surprise, Arizona where we watched the Texas Rangers’ first spring training game. There was no admission charge since we arrived in the 5th inning. And we were still able to hang out right next to the Rangers’ bullpen and dugout! If I remember right, y’all voted to have us get one of the Rangers to say our tagline “I’m with Sam, who YOU with?” Video to come soon…
Shanghai Sam & Jessica in Scottsdale
After that, we made our way down to southern Arizona where we stayed on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation with our new friends, Aaron and Morgana. (Aaron is a fraternity brother of Ewing, Shanghai’s brother.) There wasn’t a whole lot to see on the reservation itself but we did get to enjoy the company of new friends and check out the Kitt Peak National Observatory, home of the largest collection of optical telescopes in the world.
Aaron & Morgana with the Sams on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation
From there we made our way to sunny Southern Cali-forn-i-a. As luck would have it, Aaron knew another fraternity brother, Sean, who had recently moved to San Diego. Sean graciously hosted us road weary strangers at his beach house located right next to Mission Beach. Pimp! San Diego is the other big city I’m considering moving to, other than Denver, and it didn’t disappoint. The night we got in, Sean took us to a cool local pub called The Liar’s Club where we tried all kinds of different beers and had some surprisingly good food. We met a couple there who were a lot of fun and even gave us a good roadfood recommendation: The Coyote Grill, along the beautiful PCH. Later in Tahoe, we saw Rachel Ray visited the same place on her way along the PCH and Laguna Beach. The video footage looked like a high budget version of ours. We also hit up a popular place in Pacific Beach called Moondoggies. And while walking along Mission/Pacific Beach one morning, a girl jogged by and screamed, “I love Shady Grove!” at us. It took a second for me to register that I was wearing my Shady Grove “Keep Austin Shady” t-shirt. (Shady Grove is a popular restaurant in Austin.) Turns out she went to school at UT and she gave us a brunch recommendation so I guess it pays to go to a ginormous school. She pointed at the pier and said Kono’s Cafe was a good place for brunch. We thought, it’s a little far but no problem. So we walked and walked and walked (with mild hangovers and not enough sleep) and the pier still wasn’t getting any closer. Finally, after a two-and-a-half mile hike along the beach we made it to Kono’s only to find a 30-minute line just to get inside the place where the line kept going inside. We had breakfast burritos sitting along the pier overlooking the Pacific. The view was great but the food was just so-so. But maybe we just haven’t developed our taste for California breakfast cuisine. We both dozed off a little after eating, partly because of the lullaby the waves were singing, but mostly because of The Liar’s Club and Moondoggies. I liked San Diego a lot. It had a variety of neighborhoods, each with their own personality, all within a short driving distance of one another. There was the laid back beach life of Mission & Pacific Beaches, the downtown vibe of the Gaslamp Quarter, a huge public park housing the San Diego Zoo, and much, much more. One of the food highlights was the fish taco at the very first Rubio’s, a popular chain that introduced the fish taco to the US. My mouth is watering just writing about it. The only drawbacks I could see to San Diego were the lack of good nearby skiing and the cost of living. The cost to buy a home is sky high but a reasonable rental can be found if you look hard enough. I’ve also been told the traffic there is horrible but we didn’t experience it while we were there. Basically, if I were really into surfing, I’d probably move to San Diego. But heck, if I were really into surfing I might just move to Hawaii.
Sean (far right) and the couple we met at The Liar’s Club in San Diego
That’s about all I can muster to write right now. We just arrived in Portland and I’m HUNGRY…especially after having reminded myself of Rubio’s. Next update we’ll start with our extended stint in the OC & LA, where we actually took our very first surfing lessons.
BTW, I’ve updated our Flickr photos. There are quite a few since the last upload from San Diego, including the latest photos from last weekend where I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out and snowboarding with Aileen, Penelope, Karen, Jed, Ben, Amish and Anh in Lake Tahoe while Shanghai partied with Jessica (our Scottsdale host) and her crew. I’m having problems with the Flickr uploader but should be current after we get to Seattle. Happy Birthday to Jessica, Jed, Anita, Jordan, Anh, Jae, Tammy, George and all the other March babies out there!
Amish & Anh atop Kirkwood after Amish gave Anh a promise ring
Aileen, our new spokesmodel, and Penelope, Chilly Willy’s new spokesmodel, at Kirkwood
(left to right) SammyB, Aileen, Jed, Anh, Amish, Penelope and Bunky after a hard day of boarding at Kirkwood in South Lake Tahoe
Shanghai and Sammy B. haven’t updated in a while but luckily, we have loyal readers sending us content. These two clips are courtesy of good friend Steve B. from L.A. Be forewarned, the clips aren’t pretty.
