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Today I needed to get to New York City, and I needed to be at the Ed Sullivan Theatre by 3pm to pickup my David Letterman tickets. However, I needed to eat in Delaware at least and hopefully also in New Jersey.

For breakfast I went to the European Bistro in Wilmington, Delaware and I had an omelet. It was really excellent, and if you knew my fondness for McDonald’s breakfast you would know that this is a huge compliment, if I lived in Wilmington I might get an omelet here over an Egg McMuffin sometimes. After eating the traffic was a little heavy and so I decided to put off New Jersey until later and went right into New York City.

I’ve been to NYC several times before and I have to say it is really an amazing place, however driving in the city for a tourist is not easy. Right when I got to my hotel I accidently (really!) made an illegal left turn with a police car right behind me. The officer yelled at me for a few minutes, but in kind of a way I might have taken offense to in Cleveland, but in NYC that’s just how I would expect someone to talk, but then let me go with a warning once he realized I was just a dumb tourist who missed a no left turn sign (well technically three signs as he pointed out to me). I gave my car to the valet afterwards where it will remain until I leave the day after tomorrow.

My hotel was the New Yorker Hotel which was a just few blocks from Madison Square Garden and the Empire State Building, and after checking in because I was running pretty close I took a cab up 20 blocks or so to the Ed Sullivan Theatre and picked up my ticket. They said to come back in 45 minutes and so I decided to walk down to Times Square and back to mean time. This was actually good because it provided context to one of Letterman’s jokes that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Apparently NYC closed several blocks around Times Square and people were sitting in the middle of the street in lawn chairs, and then on Letterman two people came out while he was talking and sat in front of him in lawn chairs and told him Mayor Bloomberg said they could sit there.

Going to see Letterman was an interesting experience, they had all sorts of people clapping and cheering as you entered to try to pump up the crowd. Interestingly when they said no photography I abided, yet a few days earlier in a remote patch of Nevada desert in front of an almost certainly armed guard with signs saying things like “no photography” and “deadly force authorized” outside of the infamous Area 51 facility I was snapping pictures like crazy Yet some college kid with a clipboard says no pictures, and I listened… this could make an interesting psychology paper perhaps The Letterman show was pretty good actually, and instead of a random Hollywood celebrity pushing their latest movie he had on former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner (pushing her latest children’s book). Overall it was very funny, and then afterwards by chance I went looking for the Hello Deli and I walked out to see David Letterman leaving the theatre and took a few Paparazzi pictures

After the show I had dinner at my all time favorite pizza place in NYC, Ray’s Pizza>, which serves enormous slices of pizza.

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So far I’ve not had a single day without hiking up mountains, driving hundreds of miles, or flying over oceans and tundra, so I had penciled in today as a “rest day,” and this was not what I had in mind for resting My hotel was just a few blocks south of the US Capitol Building, and so I though well I’ll just walk around DC.

I started off pretty well sing the Capitol Building, the House offices, the Museum of Natural History, the Washington Monument, WWII Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and Korean War Memorial. The I started to head over to the Jefferson Memorial and I think it was then that I managed to tear a hole in one of my socks which made for a very uncomfortable situation. After seeing the Jefferson Memorial I need to run a quick errand for Drew, which required me to go back over past the Capitol building on the other side of town, and I was not looking forward to walking anymore so I took the DC Metro. After taking care of the errand I then headed back to the hotel to get some new socks and rest for a few minutes before heading back out again.

With a pair of new socks and a little rest I felt like I was totally refreshed and so I walked back to the Capitol, and then over to the National Archives where the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are kept. While waiting in line a girl who worked at the archives came out and asked if anyone had any questions. Someone asked if they were in the right line for the Declaration of Independence, and she responded (and not kidding), yes, but all of you people aren’t just waiting to see a few documents right? Did you know we also have Shaq’s shoes? I wasn’t the only one more than a little horrified by that statement and a few jokes went around at her expense in the line, but otherwise she was very nice and answered a lot of other questions. As cool as Shaq’s shoes might have been, the country’s founding documents were really what I wanted to see When we finally got inside, they had several signs, and several announcements “no flash photography, it will over time damage the documents.” No problem right? It took about 3 minutes before someone’s flash went off, and I looked to see if that someone was about to be tackled, but unfortunately they weren’t that strict about it.

Next on my list was the International Spy Museum, and unfortunately no tours were available when I got there, so my final destination was the White House. The last time I was at the White House was when Clinton was in office, and my brother threw a stick into the bushes past the fence (don’t worry, the President was in no immediate danger), however it did prompt Secret Service guys to come out to see what had happened, which was amusing to a couple of elementary school kids This time there were no shenanigans. I had actually expected to see protests because of some developments in Iran, however the protests I saw on the news must have ended before I got there and there was just one lone hippie with a no nuclear weapons protest underway. Washington is another place that I could have spent days and days in, but I wanted to find somewhere to eat in Maryland today and so after walking around the White House I found my way to a Metro Station and headed back to the hotel. It wasn’t until later that I had learned that a DC Metro train had crashed earlier and several people had actually been killed. Luckily for me, I wasn’t anywhere near the crash.

I had Foodio54 give me a recommendation for outside of Washington DC in Maryland and it sent me to the Moose Creek Steak House. I ordered the steak and crab cakes, and that’s where things started to go wrong. The salad was a salad bar, and while at the bar I could hear the kitchen staff saying “Are we closed yet? No? Awwww Come on!” and visions of the movie “Waiting” started to play in my head. Then I realized that I had no silverware, and my waitress was nowhere to be found, so I stole some from the next table over. After waiting forever my waitress came out and took my salad plate, but also grabbed my only fork and when she came back with the food I was forkless. I then had to steal another set of silverware from another table because again she was nowhere to be found. Aside from that, the food was actually pretty good, the crab wasn’t as good as the crab in Alaska, but since it was prepared quite differently I don’t think that’s really a fair comparison. Overall maybe if I had come at a different time it would have been a better experience.

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Today the goal was to get to Washington DC, but in a roundabout way, by first going west into West Virginia, then through southern Pennsylvania and finally south through Maryland.

The day started off by going through the mountains of West Virginia which provided many amazing views, although after seeing mountains in Alaska, Colorado, Montana, and elsewhere, I have to say West Virginia seemed to have just big hills Regardless, it was still great to see. I then drove to the college town of Morgantown and Foodio54 recommended Mountaineer Pizza. The pizza was pretty good, which is probably easy to expect of pizza place with competition for lots of hungry college students. After eating I headed through a bit of Maryland before going into southern Pennsylvania.

I’ve been trying to visit places of historical interest in addition to ones of culinary interest, and it seemed appropriate to visit the Flight 93 Memorial outside of Shanksville, PA. This is the location where United 93, the fourth hijacked plane on 9/11, was crashed when the passengers figured out what was going on and tried to retake the plane in midair. I’ve been here several times before actually, however always on or within a day or so of 9/11, and I was really surprised by how many people were there today. When I first arrived there were probably 40 or 50 people and then just before the park ranger started to tell the story of what happened a bus pulled up with another several dozen people. Right now they still have a temporary memorial, although they said that the new permanent memorial will be started this November, and they hope to have it mostly finished by 9/11/2011. The site of the crash itself is off limits for now, and is a few hundred yards from the memorial demarked by a fence bearing an American flag, the permanent memorial will allow visitors to get much closer to the actual crash site. The temporary memorial has benches with the names of all of the passengers and crew along with various plaques and a wall of items left by visitors.

After the Flight 93 memorial I headed east to Gettysburg, for another historical site. Gettysburg has simply too much to see in the very small time I had available before sunset. I had a general idea of how the battlefield was setup, however I at first I could not figure out where the Union line was as I kept on finding Confederate historical markers. Then I remember that this was mixed up and the south attacked from the north west and the north defended the south east and everything was much easier to find Because I had to be very selective of what I would see I decided I would try to find the spot where in the movie Gettysburg the unit that was primarily followed in the movie (the 20th Maine) was ordered to hold the extreme left of the line and ran out of ammunition causing their commander to order a bayonet charge to stop the Confederates from flanking the line. On an off note, for proof that Jeff Daniels is the best actor ever watch Gettysburg immediately before watching Dumb & Dumber He has quite the range of characters Basically I knew that this took place on little round top and that was it, so I used my iPhone to pull up a map of the battlefield and once I had identified where I was it was pretty easy to find. The site had just a simple marker, and another set of markers explaining what had happened. I then found my way up to the top of the little round top hill and the sun set which was my que to get moving to DC. I had planned on eating in Gettysburg, although unfortunately everything seemed to be closed.

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I started today in Santee, South Carolina and my goal was to make into West Virginia or at least get fairly close. Additionally I wanted to swing by the Yorktown battlefield site (where George Washington trapped Cornwallis with the aid of French troops and a French fleet in the last major battle of the Revolutionary War).

First things first, I needed to eat in South Carolina. I had Foodio54 give me a recommendation for Florence, SC and the site sent me to Shooki’s Deli. I got a hot turkey sandwich and it was perfect for an early lunch meal.

Back in Helena, Montana I had a lot of difficulty finding places open during lunchtime and I ran into the same problem in Raleigh, North Carolina. Finally I gave up and instead went to Rocky Mount and Foodio54 sent me to Mayflower Seafood Restaurant and ordered some flounder. It was pretty good, but not in the same ballpark as Key West or Anchorage for seafood.

I made it to Yorktown, however everything was closed although I was able to see the battlefield, a monument for the victory, and the ramparts used in the siege. I think one part that is somewhat lost today is the French contribution to this battle, and especially from the monument that was very heavily emphasized.

After Yorktown I headed to Richmond_VA to eat. It was getting late, but Foodio54 found me a bar called Border and I got a roast beef sub. The sub was excellent, and the bar was pretty cool as well with live music. Although I will say now that Ohio has banned smoking from bars there is a world of difference when it is allowed (and it was at Border). In the end I’d have to say I’d rather business owners be able to choose the policies of their own establishment, even though I’d much prefer a non-smoking policy myself.

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The goal today was to go from Key West to as far into South Carolina as I could.

Going south down to the Florida Keys I took the toll road almost the entire way because my Garmin told me to After looking at my backup paper road atlas it seemed as though I-95 went parallel to the toll highway for a significant chuck of the way. While I normally leave the directions planning mostly up to Garmin I decided that I would try to get over to I-95.

My Garmin was not pleased. Everyone who has one of these things has missed a turn and heard it say in an increasingly annoyed tone “recalculating” when it determines how to get you out of the mess you just got yourself in. In this case though, I was doing it on purpose. The Garmin told me at just about every street “turn left,” “turn right,” “make a u-turn” until I was almost right to the entrance ramp for I-95 (about a mile separated the two highways). Finally it recalculated and had me go along I-95, but a closer look showed that it wanted me to take the first possible exit and return to the toll highway. I was a bit worried that maybe there was something I wasn’t seeing, but once Garmin finally gave up and sent me along I-95 the estimated time to get to my destination dropped by one minute. This leads me to conclude that Garmin and the Florida Toll people are in cahoots with each other

I made it to Georgia and decided to get a recommendation for Savannah. Foodio54 sent me to Bella’s Italian Cafe. I’ve wanted to get just some lasagna for a few days now, but the opportunity hasn’t presented itself before today. The lasagna at Bella’s was fantastic. For some reason I will either love or hate lasagna, there is no in between, and I think it all comes down to the cheese. Additionally Bella’s makes their own bread and it’s almost like eating a donut instead of typical restaurant bread that is mostly only acceptable for birds and fish I would suggest that they hire maybe one more server (and in fairness I have no idea maybe someone called off), but it seemed like all of their servers were running all over, but were still a little slow because they had too many tables. Overall that’s really no big deal though.

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The plan today was to get to Key West.

The idea for today was that I would have already been in Key West and I could rest today, but instead I started off driving about 450 miles. I took Florida’s toll road down and I managed to accidentally go past one of the toll lanes, which according to the sign is a $100 fine. The issue was that the divider separating the cash lanes from the Sunpass lanes was way too far up so by the time I realized I was in the wrong lane there was nothing I could do. I called the number on the ticket and they said just to mail in the $13.70 for the toll and it wouldn’t be a problem.

I hadn’t looked too closely at the driving part of the Florida Keys, but from seeing the movie True Lies it seemed like it was basically just over the Seven Mile bridge The reality is that it was about 100 miles. There was a storm just off Keys and while I was mostly dry I got to see another big storm. The Keys themselves were a pretty amazing collection of islands and bridges. I finally made it to the last Key, Key West, and headed right for where the furthest southern point should be. The other two furthest directions so far (north and west) have been without any kind of markers, but the furthest southern point was kind of a tourist spot with lots of people milling about taking pictures.

In Key West I had Foodio54.com give me a restaurant recommendation and it sent me to Red Fish Blue Fish Grill. I ordered the citrus salmon and it was cooked perfectly with a crispy outside and a soft middle. I think that combined with some excellent rice this was better seafood than the Alaskan crab in Anchorage (but the Alaskan crab was a close second).

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I started off today in McComb, MS and I was able to make it to Kissimmee, FL. I wanted to get a bit further, but after drinking 2 Monster Energy drinks with little effect I realized I should probably stop.

I made my way down to New Orleans and Foodio54 gave me a recommendation for Red Fish Grill. I was happy to see that this place was located on the famous (infamous?) Bourbon Street, and it was really just about on the corner of Canal and Bourbon. It was casual, but a little upscale. I looked over the menu for something local sounding and I decided I needed to eat either gumbo or jambalaya or something like that. I decided to order the pasta jambalaya, which I don’t think I’ve ever had before. It was really spicy and I liked it quite a bit, although I think I would like anything with shrimp in it.

After wandering around New Orleans a bit I was back on the road and headed for Mobile, AL. Foodio54 recommended another seafood place, Catalina Seafood Restaurant. This was a small restaurant and I order the flounder and I was disappointed to learn they didn’t have any in today. So instead I decided to pit Catalina’s against the Flying Fish from Little Rock. It was a bit unfair because I ordered catfish broiled instead of fried from Catalina’s and definitely the catfish here was better than Arkansas.

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I was running a little bit behind, and I got a little more behind today. I was supposed to start today in Little Rock and get to Biloxi, MS, but I ended up going from Jackson, TN to McComb, MS and went through Little Rock on the way (well actually way out of the way, but I needed to pick up Arkansas).

My first order of business was to find somewhere to have breakfast in Tennessee, so I decided to have Foodio54 give me a recommendation for Memphis and it sent me to Bryant’s. When I got in the place seemed to be in complete chaos, so I let a few people go in front of me as I checked out the menu. They had a lot of odd things, but the pork tenderloin, egg and cheese sandwich caught my eye. That seemed really bizarre, but I had a hunch that it would be good. In terms of a presentation I’d give Bryant’s an F, the sandwich looked like something I could make myself (and I can hardly heat up hot pockets), however the sandwich itself was amazing. It was extremely filling and even though it was a bit unusual combination it seemed to fit well together.

After eating in Memphis, I started to drive to Little Rock and got a recommendation for Flying Fish. Before I got there I got a call from the David Letterman people asking if I still wanted the ticket I had requested earlier. To get the ticket I would have to call another number and answer a trivia question. In high school I watched David Letterman religiously, but the truth of the matter is that I haven’t watched him in some time. I wasn’t sure how well I would fare on trivia, so I pulled into a rest area pulled out my iPhone and started to study up for the big test. After about 15 minutes of Googling I decided that unless it was something really obscure I had enough notes so I called the number I was given. The woman asked me “What color is the announcer, Alan Kalter’s, hair?” It’s red, I think I would have gotten that without studying but I am now scheduled to see the Late Show on Tuesday. I had also tried to get Conan tickets but they basically told me there was no way (and you can’t even get them on eBay apparently).

In Little Rock I was happy to find a free parking lot very close by and made my way into the restaurant. It was a pretty casual place and I decided to try the catfish. Typically I would prefer fish to be cooked in some way other than being baked (otherwise it typically just seems like McDonald’s to me), and I accidently picked the fried catfish. This was actually not bad and didn’t seem as much like McDonald’s as I feared, they also provided a few hush puppies which I absolutely love.

After eating catfish I made my way south into Louisiana and then because of the direction of the freeways I made my way into Mississippi. The original plan called for eating in New Orleans, Biloxi, and Mobile one after the other and that seemed like too much food in too short of a period of time. So to fix this problem I decided to eat in Jackson, MS to leave a little time between meals tomorrow. In Jackson, Foodio54 sent me to Haru Japanese Restaurant. I do love sushi although given the huge amount of variety I wasn’t sure what to get so I asked the waitress for recommendations. She suggested the salmon and the “dynamite” rolls, which were made of crab. Both were fantastic, the dynamite rolls had a sweet sauce on top which was very good. After leaving the restaurant something very odd happened. I turned down a road and I saw what appeared to be a narrow road with a police car with someone pulled over, so I decided I’ll just go around so I backed up and turned back on the road. Then it turned out that instead of having someone pulled over there were three police cars doing what looked to me like donuts, and as soon as I backed up they all turned on their flashing lights and it seemed like I was about to be pulled over. Instead they pulled up next to me at a stop light, starred at me, and then sped off… totally bizarre.

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Today the plan was to get from Columbia, MO to Little Rock, and along the way see the St. Louis Arch, Fort Knox Kentucky, and eat somewhere in Tennessee. This turned out to be a bit much for one day and I ended up stopping in Jackson, TN just outside of Memphis

When I started today it was raining, and the rain seemed to get worse as the day went on. By the time I made it to the St. Louis Arch it was raining cats and dogs. However by the time I realized that there was nowhere close enough to park where I wouldn’t get soaking wet (I should mention I threw out the cheap poncho I had in Yosemite) the rain let up enough that I could get a couple of pictures of the Arch.

Next on the list was the Fort Knox Gold Vault. I made my way into Kentucky through southern Illinois and Indiana and I wasn’t exactly sure where the Gold Vault was, but I knew it would be on my left going south on 31W and I knew there would be an interchange right after I went past it from looking at Google Maps during my planning. I came across a few buildings that I thought might possibly be the vault, but when I got to the actual vault there was no mistaking it. It is an imposing building in a clearing surrounded by fences with guard posts all around it. The main gate looked like you would need to pass through a series of gates to gain entry, although of course they don’t give tours, and I didn’t ask for an exception Fort Knox itself was pretty interesting as well. My Dad was stationed here as a tank instructor so I’ve heard lots of stories and it was cool to see the older WWII and Vietnam era tanks that are on display around the outskirts of the base.

I was getting pretty hungry so I decided to have Foodio54 give me a recommendation for nearby Elizabethtown, and the site sent me to Green Bamboo Chinese Restaurant. I initially ordered the General Tso’s Chicken, however the waitress suggested that what I probably wanted was the Mandarin Chicken because their General Tso’s Chicken was not the same as what other places have. I took her suggestion and she brought out some noodles, then an egg roll, and then the chicken. For some reason I can usually eat a ton of Chinese food, but only in several attempts and I think I filled up a bit too much on noodles and the egg roll before the main course came out, but I was able to eat about half of it there and it was delicious. I then made the mistake a trying to eat the rest of it in the car about an hour later and I made a complete mess, although luckily I remembered to bring a roll of paper towels on the trip and so I don’t think I made any permanent stains (on the car at least).

The plan called for me to eat in Tennessee, but it became evident that was not going to work because by the time I was hungry after eating the Chinese food most everything was closed. Instead I decided to stop in Jackson, TN and eat in Tennessee tomorrow.

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The plan is going to be a little bit off until I get to Key West. Today I drove through Oklahoma, Kansas, and stopped in Columbia, MO.

For the first meal of the day I stopped in Oklahoma City at Cimarron Steak House. The place was really enormous to the point where they had wagons hanging from the ceiling. The waiter was very friendly, however, I ordered a medium rare steak and I got a probably medium well done one instead. I’m not one to whine and send things back to the kitchen, and the reality was that the steak was pretty good even if it was cooked a little too much, but I think a nice juicy medium rare steak would have been much better

After eating I headed over to the location where the Alfred P Murrah building once stood before the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. I imagine that in a few years there will be permanent memorials like this in New York and Shanksville, PA for 9/11 (I think the Pentagon memorial is complete). The street where the bomb detonated has been replaced with a reflecting pool with two large gates displaying 9:01, the moment before the blast and 9:03, the moment afterwards. In the area where the actual building once stood are empty chairs for each victim. I was a bit surprised after over 14 years how many people were visiting on a rainy Sunday afternoon, but certainly people still remember.

I headed back north to Kansas and stopped for a quick bite to eat at Sirloin Stockade in Ottawa, KS. This is a chain that has a few dozen locations across several of the plains states and offers a buffet that you pay for by the pound. For the price that actually works out really well. I loaded up on ribs and it cost be about $4, but I think that the ribs at Cruiser’s Cafe 66 were better.

I ended the day in Columbia, Missouri and Foodio54 recommended that I eat at Sophia’s, so I did. I ordered the Ravioli Aragosta, which is ravioli with shrimp and lobster and it was just fantastic. The ravioli was served with a mushroom sauce with tomatoes (which I sometimes don’t like, but this was good). The restaurant was pretty classy, which was surprising for a college town On that note, being a Buckeye fan from Ohio I was horrified to see a giant yellow “M” on one of the overpasses, Missouri or not it was offensive