Fremont, Nebraska

1200 out of 12000 miles

I orginally had planned to camp tonight at Columbus but there was still time left in the day when I got there so I decided to press on for another 50 miles.

When I broke camp and "got the hell out of Dodge" :) thick dark clouds were just a few hundred feet overhead. I thought I was in for a rainy day but it turned to just be cold. I can handle cold. I can handle rain, but cold and rainy just plain sucks. Thankfully I only had one today.

Sorry for the infrequency of posts, but as you can imagine GPRS coverage isn't that great out here.

So the suspensful suprise I had in store for today was the geographic center of the continental US! I stopped by and snapped a picture. It's in the center of some Kansas' fields and isn't much to look at (everyone in unison say, "No shit!"). The people of Lebanon, KS, a nearby town, erected a monument at the actual coordinates and a really really small chapel about 20 feet away called "US Center Chapel". Not quite sure why the chapel is there, especially since it's too small to be functional.

Several people at gas stations wanted to shoot the shit with me today. I always love those conversations. Some of them have bikes themselves. Other people want to know what the hell I'm doing. When one guy asked me where I'm going I said, "Minneapolis". To which he asked, "Minneapolis, Kansas?" "Nope. The real one." "Wow. You've got a ways to go!". "Yup and then I'm heading for Anchorage." He started laughing. I love those gas station chats.

After another 400 miles, I'll finally be at my sisters in Minneapolis. It seems like its taking forever to get there but I keep reminding myself that this is only the beginning!

Dodge City

850 miles out of 12000

So the weather didn't turn out to be as bad as weather.com made it sound. I drove through rain for about an hour. Mostly, it was light showers. While driving through a small town in the very noth of Texas I caught something unusual out of corner of my eye. I quickly turned my head in time to see a grandma and grandpa riding two longhorn steers. Saddles and all!

Dodge City doesn't really have the quaint western feel you think it would. The people seem friendly but the town is kinda crappy. There's a huge rail yard, some big ass grain silos and not much else. That doesn't stop the locals from making the most of the towns relative popularity. There are several "chuckwagon" style shows around town that feature mock shootouts. I'm sure the shows are more entertaining than Rosewell, New Mexico's alien observation deck. No joke - they've got an elevated platform out in the desert where you can watch for aliens. I'm somewhat disturbed that its a viable commercial enterprise. At least in Dodge City you get to see some action.

Tomorrow promises more central/mid-west US excitment. I'm hoping to send a post from a surprise location. I don't want to spoil it.

More Pictures of Jay

Okay, so I'm a dumbass and forgot to add the link to the photo gallery of Jay. Here it is:

Jay Pictures

Tomorrow I'm heading to Dodge City, Kansas, home to such top lawmen and gunfighters as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. I'm also heading into what the video forecast on weather.com describes as a "big mess across the central U.S." Lots of damn rain - the bane of a motorcyclist's existence. The show must go on and I'm sure this is far from the last time I'll get wet on this trip.

Depending on the cell coverage, I'll try to post a few times tomorrow along my route (This is the approximate route I'm taking).

Today's excitement

My brother and I went golfing today. It's the first time I've hit a golf ball in at least a year. I used to golf quite a bit a few years back so it was fun to get back out there. I didn't do particularly well, but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

In the afternoon, we swung by Jay's day care center for pajama day and petting zoo day. (I think pajama day is regular thing and just happened to line up with the petty zoo.) A lady from the zoo brought in a hedgehog, tortoise, and a constrictor snake. You should have heard all of the kids scream when she took that snake out of the bag! I think I heard some of the day care center staff scream too. Jay was mighty pleased with petting the hedgehog, so it was a good day all around. I've uploaded more pictures of this to the album linked to in yesterday's post.

The big excitement for today was the big-ass "bang" my brother and I heard as we were getting ready to go golfing. I stuck my head out the garage door, took a look at the main street in the distance and saw a 15 foot aluminum tough-shed sitting in the middle of the road! Apparently it fell of the back of some guys truck. It reminded me of my biggest fears in riding my motorcycle, road debris. I get nervous when I'm riding around flatbed semis where the load is strapped down. I always imagine something rolling off the back or a tire cap coming off. That makes me nervous.


Jay petting a hedge hog

My Nephew

I'll be here in Lubbock till Sunday. I then leave for my sister's place in Minneapolis. While I'm here, I'm spending some time with this little guy - what a ladykiller! He's 2.5 years old right now and pretty well natured from what I can tell. His parents might say differently. :-)


My nephew, James "Jay" Anderson

Too much stuff!

Here's a few pictures of my bike with all my bags loaded on to it. My girlfriend had already left for work by the time I left, so I couldn't get a shot of me on the bike. When I pack everything back up and leave Lubbock, I'll ask my brother to take some pictures. If he's got the time, I might ask him to follow me in his truck and take some "actions shots" of me driving down the highway. I've always wanted a few pictures like that but haven't yet had the opportunity.

I'm also getting a little bit more blog savvy and have posted more pictures on Ofoto so I don't have to post a bunch of them directly into my blog. You can also have an one of my pictures printed out and framed...you know, for your fireplace mantle. ;-) Here's a link to a few more bike photos:

More bike photos


Side angle

Rear angle

From Austin to Lubbock

402.6 out of 12,142 miles
Average speed: 57 mph
Top speed: 102 mph (passing a few semi's on a two lane road)

I got on the road at about 11 AM today, three hours later than I had planned. After my packing experience, I broke down and bought some saddle bags from Wood's Fun Center in Austin. I had been to Wood's before and had seen a set of Oxford saddle bags that would perfectly for my bike, but they just seemed to expensive. Now, they seem worth it. I was able to get everything on my bike that I wanted to and I feel better because of it.

I've made the drive to Lubbock no less than six times since I've lived in Austin. It's not a particularly scenic drive so I decided to take a different route than I usually do. This route took me through a town named Eden. I thought to myself, "That sounds nice. I wonder what makes that place so special as to name it Eden." When I got there, I drove into town on the main highway which was also the main street. It seemed like any other town where the streets are lined with little shops until I got to the center of town. Smakck dab between some shops was a20 foot chain link fence topped with bales of razor wire. 10 feet behind it was another chain link fence not nearly as high. Between the two fences lay two more bales or razor wire. If you haven't guessed by now, it's a high security prison...in the middle of "Eden."

Otherwise the drive was uneventful. So far, the hardest part has been getting on and off my bike with all the stuff packed on it. It takes a little more finesse than I have to do gracefully, so I'm sure it's pretty funny to see me mount and dismount. :-)

Test

This is a test post from my blackberry.
-Brian

Preemptive Apology

So from here on out, I'll be posting to my blog from my Blackberry. This means a few things:

• Plenty of misspellings
• Shorter posts
• Few pictures or links to other sites

When I got my Blackberry, I had this trip in mind, but I wasn't thinking about a blog. If I had known I was going to blog with it I would have got something with a camera on it so I could make things more entertaining. Again, I'll do the best with what I've got. I'll post pictures where I can (from internet cafes, friends/family houses, etc) but they'll lag from the actual event.

Packing

Since I'm leaving tomorrow, today was dedicated to taking an inventory of all my stuff, buying any missing things, and packing it all up. I attempted to pack all my stuff into my yellow duffel bag and tank bag THREE times before it all fit. I had to take out: a bag of ground coffee, a 5 gallon water carrier, three shirts, three pairs of socks, swim trunks, and a pair of shorts. While I was buying everything I kept reminding myself that space is at a premium and I still managed to go past the limit. I wish I had one of those big BMW R1200's right now. I could pack all this stuff on there with plenty of room to spare. My bike isn't exactly designed for long distance touring, but it's what I've got so I'm making do. When I did my Grand Canyon trip last year, I stayed in motels (HoJo's and 6's) and fitting everything on the bike was not a problem. All the camping gear really adds a lot even though I've got the bare minimum.

Below is a picture of all the bags I'll have with me on my trip. From top to bottom: tent, foam mattress, sleeping bag, yellow duffel, and my tank bag.



The realness of what I'm about to do is finally catching up with me. I've found that although I plan for the future, I don't really internalize the feelings associated with my plan until it actually happens. I'm sure I'll be fine, but what I'm about to do is no joke. Any time you take yourself out of your urban surroundings and get closer to nature, there's real danger. It really makes you appreciate how much of our society is geared around making life safe and muting the consequences of mother nature.

Jack Welch

I met Jack Welch and his wife Suzy today. He was here in Austin at a signing for his latest book, Winning. He did a 30 minute Q&A and then signed books. It was awesome to hear him speak and, as always, he was very candid. I have yet to read the book, but it looks pretty good. He wrote in my copy "Good luck with b-school." I had a quick chat with Suzy about Columbia and New York. They were both very friendly.

Welch made some really good points. People asked about executive compensation, corporate governance, differences between male and female managers, how to retain key talent during periods of stagnation, and how to approach VCs. He also took some time to talk about his slightly controversial 20/70/10 rule. Essentially, keep the top 20% of your people happy and work hard to grow them. Make sure the 70%'ers know exactly where they stand with you and how they can move into the top 20%. Tell the bottom 10% that they should find careers elsewhere. Don't fire them outright. Give them a chance to find something else. This might seem viciously Darwinian, but his point was that you do no one a favor by not telling them where they stand and then letting them go when times get tough. When they ask why they were let go and you tell them something like, "Well, you weren't performing all that well for the last X many years", you've done them a huge disservice. You've fired them when times are bad and they had no idea they were underperforming. Good point.

Tomorrow, I'm packing for me trip and then I'm off!

Possible rerouting

I had coffee the other day with a good friend and mentor of mine and he suggested I go through Banff and Jasper in Alberta/British Columbia. It's not on my current route but I think I can squeeze it in. It looks like it will be worth the extra driving.

I might also leave on Wednesday the 25th, a day later than planned so that a motorcycling friend of mine can ride with me for the first hundred miles or so. He says there's some good BBQ out in Llano, so we'll probably head there, have lunch and then he'll turn back. From that point, I'll continue on for another 320 miles to Lubbock. I tell you - you don't realize how big Texas is until you drive around it a bit. Austin is about in the center of the state and Lubbock is at the base of the stove-pipe thing at the top and they're 400 miles apart! I've got to drive about 600 miles to get out of the state.

After looking at the first few days of my drive, I wish I could fire myself out of a circus cannon across Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa and land in Minnesota. After that it should be pretty good sightseeing until the very last part of my trip when I'm driving through west Texas again.

What the good people at Google think of my lowly blog

When I was setting up this blog a few weeks ago, I saw a link to the right of the main page body that said something like, "Want to put Google AdSense on your blog?" Why not, I figured. It would be more for the techno cool factor than a money making endeavor. Here is Google's response to my inquiry:

Hello Brian,

Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. After reviewing your application, our specialists have found that it does not meet our program criteria. Therefore, we are unable to accept you into our program.

We have certain policies in place that we believe will help ensure the effectiveness of Google ads for our publishers as well as for our advertisers. We review all publishers, and we reserve the right to decline any application. As we grow, we may find that we are able to expand our program to more web publishers with a wider variety of web content.

Please note that we may not be able to respond to inquiries regarding the specific reasons for our decision. Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team A

I copied and pasted the above e-mail into Google's Translator service and asked it to go from "Marketingese" (an English dialect I know well) to "No B.S." Here's what came out:

Hello [insert enterprising capitalist's name here],

Thanks for nothing. Your "web page" is pretty bad. I bet you get no greater than 30 visits a day. I ran an internal search of Google's servers and couldn't find one stinking reference to your blog. That's CRAZY considering we've indexed over 8 billion web pages. It is with great pleasure I inform you that your site will not be graced with our advertisements. (We've got a brand to uphold here!)

We do actually have some one in [insert name of whatever outsourcing country is in currently in the news here] look at all the pages you people submit and see if they meet our stringent non-suckiness requirement. Although, once we pummel Microsoft and run out of places to make more money, we may contact people like you and let you pay us every time someone clicks on one of our ads on your site. But only if you've been nice.

Although we promise a conscious human-being looked at your web page he/she does not remember the reason why we rejected it and it would cost WAY too much to document that kind of thing. We hope you understand.

The Google AdSense "A" Team

(queue smoky narrator voice) "A crack commando unit was sent to prison for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Bay Area underground. They survived as coders of fortune shifting from dot.com to dot.com in hopes of real fortune until they found Google. If you have a website, and it doesn't suck, and you wanna make some money, maybe you can hire The Google AdSense "A" Team")

Nothing against the people at Google. I just have a little too much time on my hands and I thought their polite e-mail was pretty funny. Just shoot me straight.

So ends the barrage of happy hour pictures

If I were a savvy accomplished blogger I would know how to put my pictures in an archive with a link off to the right, but I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm just thrilled that I figured out how to post using my Blackberry.

So today is the first day that I'm truly unemployed. The morning is almost over and I have no intention of going to work...because I don't have a job anymore. This will take some getting used to, but I'm afraid it will take even more work to get "un-used" to it. :-)

MUST...FIGHT....URGE...TO...HECKLE...PEOPLE...WITH...JOBS. ;-) I promised I wouldn't but it's going to be tough. Especially when my former employer's annual customer convention puts the marketing group into a month long caffeine-fueled PowerPoint frenzy as they prepare. That doesn't happen till August so I should have it all worked out of my system by then.

Mike (my former supervisor) and his wife Laurie. Laurie is in the running for most loved spouse by the product marketing group. She's in cullinary school and frequently Mike will bring to work whatever she's been working on for all of us devour. That is something I'll miss terribly!

Sherry, Jenny, and Jackie at my going away party

Luke and Julie, two of my photogenic former coworkers and friends at my going away party

Sherry and I at my going away party

Going away party

On Friday afternoon, my girlfriend was gracious enough to organize a going away party for me, complete with a Statue of Liberty cake. I had a great time chatting with everyone one last time and I thank them all for coming out to see me off. I'll upload a few pictures later today.

This week I'll be hanging out in Austin...relaxing, reading, meeting people for lunch and dinner etc, so I don't imagine my blog is going to super exciting but I'll see what I can do. The real fun beings on Tuesday the 24th, when I pack up the SV and tear down the highway towards Lubbock.

In other news, one of the business magazines or national newspapers came out with their rankings of MBA programs this past week and put Columbia down around 10th. Someone asked me what I thought about that. I was thinking to myself, "What does this guy want me to say? Oh man...are you serious?! Boy, did I pick the wrong school or what?" I blathered my standard answer on how the rankings are mostly B.S. and are pretty subjective, citing how Harvard was ranked around dead last in one of them. I thought the whole situation was funny though.

New York, New York

Here's a little ditty I wrote this morning:

Start spreading the news
I'm leaving today
I want to be a part of it, New York, New York
These vagabond shoes
Are longing to stray
And make a brand new start of it
New York, New York
I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps
To find I'm king of hill, top of the heap
These little town blues
Are melting away
I'll make a brand new start of it
In old New York
If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York!

Okay, so I get an "E" for originality but that song really sums up what I'm feeling.

When I was about 5, my parents boarded horses at a stable just outside of Pittsburgh where we'd go trail riding on weekends. I remember the jukebox in the small lounge overlooking the riding ring. Whenever we'd get to the stable, one of my favorite things to do was bum a quarter from my mother or father and run to that jukebox. Everyone in the stable knew it was me when they heard Sinatra singing "New York, New York". They thought it was so cute that this little boy liked Sinatra. I truthfully have no idea what it was about that song that I liked so much at the time, but it was one of my childhood favorites.

My last day

It's finally here - my last day of gainful employment for the next two years (barring a summer internship). Since this wasn't a sudden decision to leave, I don't feel all that different today than I have for the last few months. I think it'll feel different next Monday when I realize I don't have to get up and go to the office.

Again, I'm most sad to leave the people who I know won't keep in touch with. Last night, I rode the elevator down with one of them. He got on, saw me, and said, "I heard you're leaving. Grad school or something?" I gave him the rundown (Columbia, New York, MBA, big trip to Alaska) which lasted until we to parted ways in the parking garage. I told him to have a good night and he replied, "See you later." I could tell, just I was turning away to go to my car, that he realized this was probably the last time we'd speak. It was such an odd look on his face - hesitant and confused. I could tell he was wondering if he should say something more sentimental or just let me go. That was sad.

Otherwise, I'm excited about it all. My trip, New York, b-school. I'm right on the brink of a whirlwind two years and I can feel it.

Brian Goes Remote Control

I was chatting with my girlfriend about my "Easy Rider" blog, and how cool it will be that readers can tell me about good places to go when I'm in a certain area, and I had a GREAT idea. If this blog gets sufficient public interest, for my next big trip I'll let people vote on where I should go each day. I figure I could come up with 4 or so different destinations within 300 miles of where I currently am, post them to the blog, and then let people vote on where I should go next. What do you all think? I'm really curious to see what would happen. Where would it send me?

I thought about retooling this trip to be interactive but I already have a defined route and I'm not willing to budge. Maybe next time.

A few days ago, I got all excited about the possibility of automatically posting my daily location using a GPS enabled cell phone. I found a kit of gear that will do it from anywhere in the world using a satellite phone. It even had a camera! How cool would that be to mount the camera on the front of my bike and have it upload a location and time stamped picture every day?! That idea seemed great until I saw the price tag: $2K. Pretty soon I'm going to be up to my eyeballs in student loans so I didn't think a $2K ghee-whiz-gizmo purchase was a good idea. I've heard satellite phone time is expensive too. I'm feeling my motivation for pursuing an investment banking career growing by the minute!

What is all this motorcycling to Alaska stuff about, anyhow?

When I graduated from the University of Colorado in 2001, I started working for a company that makes electrical test equipment. When I first started I had fun learning about the market and all the stuff that we sell (thousands of products) but the romance quickly wore off and I started wondering what the hell I was doing with my life beyond work now that college was over. I sat down and made a big list of things I'd like to do before I kick the bucket.

I wrote down a bunch of stuff that ranges from going to the local library to doing an Ironman. The first one I crossed off? "Buy motorcycle and go on a journey." I bought my bike and went on two "journeys". My first one took me through New Mexico (White Sands, Carlsbad Caverns) and west Texas. That was in July 2003 with my buddy Arek. (Arek is a med student living in Denver.) The following year, we decided to up the stakes and do the Grand Canyon, Vegas and Death Valley. I don't know what kinda drugs we were on (Death Valley on a motorcycle in July?!) but we decided to call it quits in Vegas and head back. I loved that trip...without doubt it was one of the best times of my life.

The idea of all this long distance riding stuff came from reading a book called "Ghost Rider" by Niel Peart, the drummer for Rush. After his daughter died in a car accident and his wife from cancer, he set off on a 25,000 mile trip around North America to find a reason to keep living....not exactly light stuff. Anyhow, the idea of walking out of my apartment with a bag stuffed with clothes and a helmet, leaving everything else behind, was infectious. Talk about freedom!

I've been working on applying to b-school since about April last year (an experience in itself) and started thinking about what I wanted to do during the transition period between work and school. My first idea was totally nuts. My plan was to ship my motorcycle as far north as possible...like Prudhoe Bay, Alaska or something like that, and then drive down to the tip of Argentina and Chile. I rolled the idea over in my mind a few times but never really got that serious about it. I remember thinking..."Well, I think I can make it through Mexico, but I saw Russell Crow and Meg Ryan in Proof of Life and the Columbian FARC looks like a mean bunch of hombres. Maybe it's a better idea to stay in the Northern Hemisphere. The Canadians are more my speed." I figure I have much better odds dealing with Smokey in Alaska than with armed communist rebels. :-)

So that's where the Alaska idea came from. "Travel the Trans-Alaskan" highway is also on my big list of things to do. I'll scratch that one off soon!

Another bike picture

Believe it or not, this is the only picture I have of me actually on my bike. I've got a bunch of my bike by itself, but only this one of me in the saddle. This is from my Grand Canyon trip as well. Ship Rock is one bizarre looking rock formation on an Indian reservation in SW Colorado.


Ship Rock in southwest Colorado by Four Corners

Equipment

Two more days of work to go...
I'm beginning to feel the typical mix of sadness and excitement that comes with any big life change. What saddens me the most is saying goodbye to the people I can call friends, but are not close enough to me to stay in touch with. I'm old enough to know that "keep in touch" is a nicety we voice when we don't really know what else to say. Of course, there's a handful of people I will actually stay in touch with - I'm not sad about moving away from them. I'll see them all again...it's the bunch of great people who I only run into every few weeks that I'm sad about.

For you motorcyclists out there, here's a shot of my bike. This is from a trip I did last year to the Grand Canyon. My bike is a 2003 (?) Suzuki SV650S that is almost entirely stock. The only changes I've made to it is to switch the crappy stock seat to a nice Corbin one and also add some convex mirrors so I can see more than a small patch of what's behind going on behind me. I know, I'm so boring...no aftermarket pipe, tailkit, frame sliders, bodywork, etc...just the plain old Suzuki. I've never really been one to tinker with my bike (or car). I just like riding on it and seeing new places.

My luggage is best described as cheap. I've got a Joe Rocket Tank bag (in the picture) that works really well, but other than that, I have no "real" motorcycle luggage. For the Grand Canyon trip, I spider webbed a backpack to the pillion for extra storage. Since I slept in hotels for that trip (and it was only 10 days long) I didn't need to pack much. For the Alaska trip I decided to take the plunge and camp most of the time so I'll have a mid-size one man tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and a duffel bag full of stuff strapped on the back.

I thought about investing in some Givi hard luggage, but I'm just too damn cheap. I don't know when I'll take another huge trip like this again...and if I do, I'll probably trade in the Suzuki for something a bit more amenable to long distance driving (a BMW perhap$), so I don't want to get some hard luggage that has no use on my next bike.


My trusty Suzuki SV650S in front of the Painted Desert in Arizona

Some trip details

So here's a map of the big trip! I'm planning on leaving Austin on Tuesday, May 24 for Lubbock, TX, where my brother lives. I'll spend a few days there and then head up to Minneapolis to see my sister. Let me explain the map a little bit:

The numbers are the different stops but sometimes I spend a few days in a location so the numbers don't correspond to the day of the trip, just the stop number. I figure this trip will take around 52 days, but I could be totally nuts...I've never done anything this big before. For planning I used Microsoft Streets and Trips and made a big Excel spreadsheet so I think I've got a good idea of how long it'll take. On the days that I drive, I only need to do between 300 and 400 miles, which I know I can do on my bike, a 2004 Suzuki SV650S (for those of you versed on motorcycle models). Also, I didn't put the Austin to New York leg on the map since it won't be by motorcycle. I'll be doing that in a U-Haul which you can easily argue is MUCH more dangerous than the motorcycle part of my trip. :-) (I have a personal near death U-Haul experience I might share some time.)

The big highlight of my trip is my 8 day stop at Denali National Park (aka Mt. McKinley). I'm staying at a campsite about 90 miles into the park. I'm so excited to get up there, but I'm a bit anxious about the widelife i.e. bears. I still need to pick up some bear spray (a more potent version of pepper spray). Anyone have suggestions? I don't want to pack a handgun on my motorcycle.

Inaugural Post

Ahem, thanks for coming to my blog. Let me first explain what the point of my blog is (I realize that for some that might sound really funny...a blog with a point?) This Friday is my last day at my first job right out of college. It's been a great 3 1/2 years marketing electronic test equipment, but I'm off to get my MBA at Columbia University in New York. Between this Friday and when I start school in late August, I plan to drive a little over 12,000 miles on a grand tour of North America. This blog will be a chronicle of my trip! I'd also like to do it for the following:

• Let my fellow CBS '07 admits know where I am so we can possibly meet for a beer...or two
• Keep my family and girlfriend in a less panicked state (and the state police from searching for me when I haven't called to check in)
• Let people make suggestions on where I should go when I'm in an area they've been to
• Make use of my Blackberry when I'm hanging out in my tent at night
  
• Let strangers know more about me than most of my friends do. ;-)

Generally, that's the point of this blog. I might keep writing stuff in it after I get to New York, but it seems more likely that I'll A) start a new one B) stop blogging and start reading b-school case studies till my eyes can't focus. :-)

I'll post more stuff about my route and I'll that stuff soon, but I wanted to get some stuff up here right quick.

Brian
0 out of 12,142 miles
Austin, TX

Corporate Brian

This was taken at a Christmas party last year (notice the wine glass), but I figure this is what I look like most of the time after b-school. As a product marketing guy I wore jeans most of the time.

Mesa Verde, Colorado

This is from last year's motorcycle trip to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas with my buddy Arek. This trip was amazing! 10 days long over the 4th of July seeing some America's most beautiful sights.