David87's American Road Trip Thread Social • Page 2

This might be too specific of a question, but is going west through MD on the National Pike worth it, or should I just stick to Route 70/68 for most of the trip? seems like national pike kind of rotates between being Route 40 and route 144 in places, while also joining 70 in others. I'll def do route 40 for parts, but is the road scenic enough to skip the highway and skip making better time? I seem to remember route 70/68 itself having some decent scenery, so doesn't seem like a huge deal, just wondered if anyone knew anything about the route.

 

I grew up right off of route 40/144. For the most part it's not scenic at all, just goes through commercial areas with a lot of chain stores and restaurants. Also a ton of stop lights. You're much better off staying on 70.

EDIT: West of Frederick it might be more scenic, I haven't been out that far. But it's definitely not worth it east of Frederick.

 

I can recommend some stuff in Minneapolis/St. Paul and Fargo, ND for you! I've yet to go, but the Surly taproom in Minneapolis is always being praised, it has a bunch of different beers and they have a full menu as well, so it sounds a lot like what you're looking for. Here's their website: Home Page - Surly Brewing Co. While you're in town a nice scenic place to check out would be Minnehaha Falls, especially since you're into national parks and everything. It's a really beautiful waterfall, and I've heard that the seafood restaurant, Sea Salt Eatery, that is near it is really good (not a seafood guy myself so I can't attest to that). This is what the falls look like:

There's a few great record shops in the area I'd recommend you check out if you're into that, namely the Electric Fetus. I can give you more recs on places to check out depending on your interests/how long you plan to be in town! This is also a great website with "best of's" and a concert calendar: Latest Minneapolis & St. Paul News and Events | Minneapolis City Pages

As for Fargo, there's a couple places you should try to check out if you have the time. Fargo Brewing Company (Fargo Brewing Company - Craft Beer from the Heartland) is the most popular brewery in town, but if you go across the river to Moorhead, there's a really cool microbrewery named Junkyard Brewing (Junkyard Brewing Company | Nano Brewery in Moorhead, Minnesota) that is my favorite in the area. They almost always have live music and it's just a small and great place with an awesome atmosphere.

JL Beers is a great place to get a burger and beer and it's right in downtown Fargo. They have plenty of local beers on tap and their burgers are delicious. (JL Beers - Great Burgers Sold Here) The Fargo Theatre is a cool place to see a movie if you have the time, it's an old historic theatre and sometimes they'll have a guy play the organ before the movie starts. There's also a pretty cool record shop downtown, Orange Records, that I always make sure to go to whenever I'm back in town.

I can totally give you more recs for food/things to do for either of these cities, just let me know what you want to know.

The trip sounds awesome man, I hope you have a blast!

 

We were only in Bozeman for one night and we ate at MacKenzie River Pizza Co. I think they have a few locations in the northwest and we had heard good things and wanted to give it a try. Their pizza was amazing and they had a lot of unique specialty pizzas as well. There might be better spots if you're looking for a brewery, but if you're feeling pizza that day I would highly recommend it.

 

Yeah west of Frederick was mainly what I meant, but from looking it it seems like it won't be worth it to wonder off of 70/68 very much. There's maybe two or three parts of 40 or 144 I'll jump on, but ohterwise the road seems to run literally right next to the highway haha. Thanks for the info though man, definitely appreciate it.

So I'm a big big dummy and didn't realize I put North Dakota on my list, I definitely meant South Dakota :(. Sorry man I feel bad for making you type all that up on account of my dummy brain. But thanks for the Minneapolis suggestions! I wasn't quite sure what we were going to do there other than maybe stop at a restaurant or the Mall of America or something, but good to know there's some nature-y stuff to do near by as well. Will definitely be checking out those links...

Gotcha. Yeah the brewery will be a matter of convienence, so if there's one elsehwere in Montana on our way to Glacier, I'll stop at that one and then grab some pizza at that joint. I love trying different place's pizza and buffalo wings. Those are two foods that are hard to get wrong, where even the bland and generic are edible, but I love trying independently owned or small chain places that do their own thing with sauces.

 

this is the dream to do at some point. really jealous of you. I'm also a teacher, but I'll be in a masters program for the next three summers. maybe planning on doing this afterward.

edit: just realized I am useless with this post. I'm from around Philadelphia, but there aren't a ton of national park area and it seems like you'll be hitting up more of pittsburgh regardless.

 

Denver:
For breweries in Denver I have to recommend Ratio Beerworks. It's in downtown Denver a few blocks from the baseball stadium. My brother's friends own it and it's an awesome place. They all grew up in the punk scene so they kind of took that mentality as their inspiration when opening it so the music playing is mostly punk and they get a lot of bands to come in and do acoustic sets. They also have a different food truck outside everyday for food. If you have other questions about what to do in the city let me know and I'll think of something based on what you want to do.

If you're driving through, definitely spend some time in the mountains. Rocky Mountain National Park is the big main park and there are definitely some beautiful places there. You can drive to the top of Mt. Evans and the road up there is the highest paved road in the country. I don't know which way you're planning on going through but if you can make it to Telluride, it's supposed to be amazing. I've never been but my brother said it was one of the most beautiful places he's ever seen.

I live in New Hampshire now, and it doesn't look like you're going through New England, but if you decide to and want recommendations for up here I can try and help.

 

I'll elaborate on your cities list...

Cleveland - Great Lakes Brewing
Denver - Great Divide, Oskar Blues
San Diego - Green Flash
Chicago - Revolution, Half Acre (I'll be there at the end of the month)

If you are passing through Chicago, Grand Rapids may be worth the 2 hour drive to go to Founders and Brewery Vivant.

 

are you going to be keeping us in the loop when you go on the trip? trying to live vicariously through you.

 

Awesome man, thanks! I've got a friend living in Denver so I may end up getting taken to wherever he likes, but I'll be writing this one down and seeing if I can convince him when we're there. I love when bars have good music playing haha.

Unfortunately, besides Denver, Colorado is going to be mostly a drive through for us. The route we want to take takes us sharply south after Denver. But RMNP is closer to Denver than I thought, so maybe if we spend a second full day there we can drive up to it. Basically it's going to depend on how much time we have when we get to Denver haha. I may def have to add RMNP in if I get to the end of this plan and see we have a few weeks to spare. We'll probably be coming into Colorado from Utah on I-70, so I doubt we'll be able to hit Telluride.

Yes, thank you! Great Lakes has been suggested by others so I think that'll definitely be the one in Cleveland for sure. I was getting ready to do Illinois/Chicago this week, so was just about to ask for some recs for there. If you know Chicago well at all, any suggestions on what you should definitely do if you're there for a full day?

Thanks so much for this. Tapistry and Greenbush are the exact two places I saw were close enough to the border to hit. I was still iffy on if we were going to do this, and I know convincing my GF to drive in what will essentially be "the opposite direction" might be tough haha, but with these suggestions I think I'm going to make it a must-do. If she were a big wine drinker, I'd bribe her with a stop at one of those wineries haha. We probably wouldn't have time to hit both places, so would you def rec one over the other? Greenbush was your food rec, so I'm guessing the beer would have to be much much better at Tapistry to make that the go-to over Greenbush.

Yeah it's not until next summer (hopefully, I need to get a contracted teaching job this upcoming school year to make sure we have enough money haha, perm. subbing doesn't pay), but I definitely will post some things after the trip, and try to do so during the trip too. I haven't decided if I'm going to do the whole blog thing that people do sometimes with trips like this, but I may do that too.

 

awesome, I'd love to read about it/steal ideas for my own trip. what's your cert in? I'm in first year of teaching now.

 

My degree is Elementary Ed but I want to teach high school social studies. In my state you can get certs just by taking Praxis II's in subjects, so technically I'm certified to teach elementary, secondary and middle english, secondary and middle social studies, and special ed. I'd be a terrible special ed teacher though haha, writing IEP's is a lost art on me I'm afraid. But I long term/perm subbed this year for Environmental Science before health issues knocked me out of work for a couple months which was a bummer.

 

oh, that's rough. and I'm pretty sure I can do the same in PA, but I'm happy with the full-time position that I have now and I'm getting my Masters in English, so I might as well just stay with the one cert. also getting my ESL cert, but that doesn't require a praxis II test.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do for a day/night in Chicago? What would someone who only has one day, maybe two, have to do in Chicago? Boat tour? etc.

 

For Milwaukee, I would recommend stopping at Lakefront Brewery. It's downtown, and they have great beer and food.

 

Visit Wrigley Park, the Art Institute, Buckingham Fountain


There are actually A LOT of museums in Chicago that I've never been to: science museum, National Mexican Art museum, cultural museum, etc, etc

 

Have you hit DC yet? If not I will give you the full list!

 

I mroe or less know what we're doing in DC, the only thing I haven't completely settled on is a brewery. THe only two I wrote down so far were Capitol City Brewing and Denizens Brewing, don't really know anything about any of them.

 

Go to Port City in alexandria. It's incredible.

 

Denizens is really good, relatively new place. DC Brau is also very good. I've heard good things about Port City but that's much further for me.

 

DC brau is good. I'd skip cap city.

 

Both of these reminded me that I asked the beer thread for some advice as well, and they also threw Port city my way. I have a couple of friends who live down there, I may ask them as well. I def gotta write Port City down.


Related to this thread--has anyone ever used AirBNB? Any experiences? good, bad, etc?

 

I did one AirBNB experience and it was really excellent. super nice family we stayed with, just gotta read the reviews and find one that seems to fit you preferences

 

So port city brewing is in Alexandria. You can get off at king st. And uber over for a few bucks. So if you're going an old town alexandria day...

 

We'll probably be willing to drive at night to go to a place to eat before returning to wherever we're staying. I doubt I'll get bombed at any of these palces, will probably just try one or two beers with dinner, or do one flight sampler.