I am excited about an upcoming road trip I have planned. We are going to take a drive on historic Route 66. A stretch from California, through Arizona and finally ending in New Mexico.  A total of about 900 miles.  Ideally I wanted to be able to rent a 4×4, perhaps a Jeep Wrangler, but options seem to be quite limited.  Route 66 has a variety of roads, some in good condition, and some so bad that an alternate path is highly recommended unless you have 4×4.  In these few instances we will likely take the alternate path.

Pacing ourselves over approximately three full days of driving, our itinerary roughly looks like this:

Day 1

Los Angeles, California to Needles, California
Lodging: Best Western Colorado River Inn , Needles, California

Day 2

Needles, California to Flagstaff, Arizona
Lodging: Hyatt Pinon Pointe , Sedona, Arizona

Day 3

Flagstaff, Arizona to Albuquerque, New Mexico
Lodging: Hyatt Regency, Albuquerque, New Mexico

No real plans along the route yet.  Likely just take it as it comes.  I do plan to bring my metal detector, there is much gold in those areas as well as meteorites.  We will definitely be taking lots of pics.  I will blog about each day on my site and post pictures.

One cool part about this trip, is that it was almost entirely financed by my rewards points.  I am Hyatt Diamond and that sure came in handy.  I was surprised that the Hyatt Regency in Albuquerque was a mere 6000 points and likewise the Hyatt Pinon Pointe Resort was only 12000 points.  The flight in is Palm Beach to Los Angeles via Southwest.  I used points here as well, unfortunately it’s two stops along the way, so basically a full day of traveling out.  My travel days are not counted in the above three road trip days, those are full days of being on Route 66.  Flight out is Albuquerque back to Palm Beach, once again two stops along the way.

Although I travel quite a bit, I have spent the least amount of time in the mountains, deserts and other places out west. The closest I have even come to that was several weeks I have spent in California around Orange County and Anaheim, and several months that I spent in Las Vegas (yes, I spent months in Vegas).  This gave me a feel for the intense desert climate with its dry heat and cold nights, but I did not get to go around the actual Mojave Desert and see mesas, mountains, cacti, etc.

If anyone has any tips on places to see along this stretch of Route 66, or something not to far off the beaten path, please let me know.

Jeju Sauna Entrance

The other night I went to Jeju Sauna in Atlanta, Georgia.  This place gets rave reviews on Yelp.com, so I had to check it out.  Basically it’s like nothing you have probably ever been to in your life.  Something right out of Asia.  It’s a Korean Spa.  Here is the rundown.

First, this place is huge, like the size of an LA Fitness.  You walk in and you pay $25.00, you have to give them your ID as well, they hold onto it until you leave.  They hand you a toothbrush, razor and a “uniform”.  The uniform is like orange for guys and pink for girls.  You then proceed to either the Men’s area or the Women’s area.  In there you find lockers, sinks, bathrooms, changing areas.  There is an area in here where you are supposed to be nude.  These are hot whirlpools (hotter than any whirlpool I have ever been in, in my life, like way hot), showers, hip showers, pool (a bit cold), hot sauna, steam sauna.  I had never been in a real steam sauna.  It was quite unbelievable, I could never have imagined just how much damn steam was in there.  It was very hard to breathe, and honestly I don’t know how people do it I had to leave after just a few minutes.  I went back several times but I could not stay in there.

Also on the same-sex sides, they have services like massage, body scrub, etc.  The body scrub is an experience you can’t imagine.  Before doing something like this you will want to spend alot of times in the saunas, pools, steam rooms, etc to loosen your skin.  Then after that, they basically put you on a table and goto work.  I paid $70 for 1/2 hour massage, 1/2 hour scrub.  They wash everything, many times, scrub your entire body, major exfoliation, then wash again, wash your hair, massage with this accupressure that was the roughest massage ever, it was almost hard to bare it.  Felt like it was doing some good though.  Same-sex staff are doing this btw, so if your a homophobe then this may not be for you.  These people scrub your face, massage your face, it’s insane.  Anyways, it was worth it i would go back.

Once you leave the same-sex area, you goto the co-ed area.  In here are numerous rooms.  These are huge.  Some made of charcoal, salt, jade, and many other things.  Each has a different temperature.  They even have cold rooms.  You can use towels, blankets, pillows, and many people goto sleep.  There is a complete restaurant inside, swimming pools, eating areas, TV areas, sleeping areas, its quite the sight.  I hung out in the co-ed areas first, hit all the different saunas, then went into the same-sex area, loosened up, and then got the massage/scrub.  Most of the people in here are asian, yes.  But there are many non-asian people as well as customers.

One thing that is definitely noticeable is this place is clean as can be.  The whole place is immaculately clean.  There is also areas in the co-ed where you can get regular massages (not scrubs), foot massages, manicures, pedicures, facials, etc.  The place is quite busy.  Many bring their children, many spend the night.  The $25 fee gets you there for 24 hours if you like.

I have never seen anything like this.  There aren’t that many in the US, but Atlanta has one.  None exist in South Florida that I know of.

Just something I wanted to share.  This is so dead-on……….our country is run by ineffective idiots who use politics as war.

Posted by Goldenstate on FlyerTalk.com

“Fair enough. As for the “liberal slant” on FT, I will only say that in my view, this thread is a good example of how political discourse in this country has slanted not toward liberalism or conservatism, but rather toward stupidity and the death of reason, intellect, and pragmatism. We all bear responsibility for it–the shouters at both political extremes and the mindless people who listen to their every word, the spineless politicians that pander to the ideological poles, and the electorate for allowing this to happen.

I’m just one voter, but I have no interest in ideological food fights. The perpetual campaign and politics-as-war are fatal to effective government. We have serious problems that need to be addressed by rational adults who can put aside their differences and be responsible stewards of the country. Unfortunately, that approach is not very popular in American politics these days.”

When I travel I pack my Leatherman Charge TTi in my checked luggage to avoid any issue with the TSA (It does have a rather sharp S30V blade as well as numerous other attachments that could be considered “weapons”).  But in my carry on I just leave my bit set, as these are approx 5 cm in length.  yes 5cm.  None of them are sharpened, just your standard flat bit, phillips bits, hex bits, etc.  TSA pulled my bag today at PBI and went through it, and pulled out the bits.  The TSA guy asked another TSA guy “Are these allowed?”, and the person he asked replied “It’s at your discretion.”.  Then he proceeds to tell me how they are really cracking down on this sort of thing and that he will let it slide this time but I need to make sure not to bring them next time.  WTF?  Have our rights and liberties really been diminished to where I can’t bring 5cm phillips bit on a plane?  Actually I use to travel with a full on bit driver and bits, sort of an all-in-one tool I got from Lowes, and It was below the limit of length and I never really had an issue with it other than the occasional TSA agent measuring it.

Anyways, pics of my bits…..these are very small, they are in fact smaller than normal bits as these are more rectangle rather than square at the base.

Today at ATL airport it was quite crazy.  They had the line for security backed up all the way to Baggage Claim!  They were snaking the people for security all the way around Baggage Claim #6.  So once this line started to backup, people now picking up their bags would have trouble getting through it.  I have no idea what caused this.  Many airport employees were saying they have never seen it backed up this far.  This was at around 7:30am today.