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You’re right. We were headed south, as in south of Mexico City. But then stuff changed (surprise) and we had to head north again. For the past three months (but who’s counting?) on a forced pit stop in California, so our posts have been few and far between. However, we had our reasons.

First, we needed to fix damage done to our truck after a taxi hit us a few months ago in Mexico and that turned out to be more of a fight than we expected, but hardly worth blogging about (we like you too much to subject you to the drama that ultimately unfolded). Suffice to say, we are NOT fans of GNP insurance and the profoundly incompetent “foreign client service” our claim received. That means you, Mr. Solis.

We also spent a lot of time working on new business ideas in an attempt to generate some funds to keep our Trans-Americas Journey rolling along. Most of you know about the time and energy we put into our video application and follow up hustling to try and land a Really Goode Job–a six month gig as social media wine country lifestyle correspondents for Murphy-Goode Winery.

When that didn’t go our way we decided to harness the knowledge, confidence and ideas we gained during the MG process to create our own social media marketing consulting business for wineries in the Paso Robles area. And, so, Paso Winos was born. Reception to our services was good but slow and we simply couldn’t hang around for the additional months needed to really get clients on board–though we are eternally grateful to those wineries and wine folks who got what we were trying to do right off the bat and supported us (talking ’bout you Meg at Alta Colina, Terry and Marissa at Clautiere, Ryan at Wine for Water and the Paso Wine Centre and Brandy and crew at Donati Family Vineyard).

We still have a very exciting iron in the fire (hint) and we hope to have some great news shortly. In  the meantime, we’re back on the road and our first destination is a doozie: Havasu Falls!

We’ve hiked into the Grand Canyon from both the South and North rims of Grand Canyon National Park, but we’ve never explored the canyon in the Havasu Falls area. Owned and managed by the Havasupai tribe, the area is famous for its blue/green water (the word Havasu means  blue green water). The beauty of the area is legendary and in high demand, however, the tribe limits the number of camping permits it issues each day so it’s tough to get in.

We got in for three nights and we can’t wait to see the area. Devastating floods hit the area in August of 2008, nearly killing some hikers and radically changing the landscape and water flow, so we’ll let you know how it is once we manage to hike back out.

After Havasu we are returning to our beloved Telluride, Colorado and checking into the Mountain Lodge for a few days so we can take in the Blues & Brews music festival.  Buddy Guy! Bonnie Raitt! Joe Cocker! Anders Osborne! Plus a chance to see our friends music photographers Dino Perucci and Allison Murphy.

From Telluride we’re planning an excellent Colorado adventure including Colorado Wine Country (who knew?), the Bar Lazy J ranch for some epic-sounding horseback riding, Valhalla cabin to hang with our very own nordic goddess (hi Marca!) and enjoy two nights (count ‘em) of Galactic live at the Fox theater in Boulder. Toss in some 4-wheel driving around Ouray/Silverton and Ute Mountain and Hovenweep in Mesa Verde Country and you’ve got a great month.

After that? Two words for you: Copper Canyon! Then we promise it’s all South from there.

It’s sure nice to be back where we belong.

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You know, by now, that despite our best efforts we did not make last week’s first cut of applicants vying for a six month job as Wine Lifestyle Correspondent for Murphy-Goode Winery. We tried our best and you tried your best (thanks for all your votes) and, honestly, we were a little surprised we didn’t make the top 50 given the raucous laughter our application video inspired, our deep online presence, our hundreds of online followers, our very impressive wine consumption and enthusiasm (in that order) and our contributions to lay-it-on-the-line wine discussions (thanks for including us, Andrea). Some top-50ers don’t even seem to have a Twitter account for heaven’s sake.

Others were shocked and disappointed too. One supporter, who happens to be the marketing manager of a major corporation for which we recently created a successful six month online branding and marketing campaign, had this measured reaction: “Those Bastards!   I’m from Cleveland. I know people.  I’ll take care of it.  They’ll never dance on grapes again if you know what I mean!”

But instead of the bad kind of whining (there’s been plenty of the good kind of wining), we started thinking. If Murphy-Goode “borrowed” the  buzz-generating online job contest idea from Tourism Queensland’s “Best Job in the World” competition (which it did) why can’t we “borrow” MG’s contest and give it a little twist?

After all, there must be other wineries out there in need of  high-performance social media marketing makeovers, right? Right. So we’re announcing our own online contest called Who’s Murphy-Better?

It goes like this: if you’re a winery in need of a short term dose of innovative, effective, creative and fun social media marketing work in the form of words, pictures and moving images that boost your brand, your wines, your wine country, your vineyard owls, your kooky winemaker, your obsessive card playing and anything else that might get more of your wine in more people’s glasses feel free to apply to hire us.

We could ask you to make a 60 second video about why we would want to work for you, but we won’t. Instead, just send a link to your winery’s web site (Don’t have one? That’s what we’re here for!), the proposed duration and salary/benefits of the Murphy-Better Wine Lifestyle Correspondent position that you’re offering to us and a way to reach you that does not require carrier pigeons and we’ll think about it.

Oh, and we reserve the right to close applications if we receive 5,000 or more.

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Exactly two months ago we read a Twitter post about Murphy-Goode Winery’s call for applicants for a Really Goode Job as their Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent for six months this summer and fall and it was love at first sight.  An opportunity to combine our journalism and new media skills with our love of wine and the Cali wine country lifestyle AND earn some much needed money to fuel the remaining years and miles of our Trans-Americas Journey? We’re in.

So we shifted gears, quite literally pulling our little road trip over to the side of the road in Ajijic, Mexico where we sat out the swine flu and began conceptualizing, writing, shooting and editing our application video, complete with an original soundtrack. We worked hard, but made sure we also had fun tossing around ideas for the video over many, many glasses of wine with our friends.

During the video production process we also began taking our love of wine from the conceptual (we love it, we drink it, it’s part of our life, duh) to the concrete: why do we love it and how can we become the best vessels for most effectively communicating all the wonderful things about wine, winemakers and the wine lifestyle to as many people as possible?

We worked hard, got creative, stayed committed, met new people and learned new things and made sacrifices–the same approach we used to make our Trans-Americas Journey a reality. We’ve even returned to the U.S. from Mexico in preparation for the call (or email or Twitter) we hope is coming our way.

Every day for the past two months we get up in the morning and screen all the new application videos over coffee. Then we hit Twitter to spread the word about the funniest one of the day. Then it’s time to read through the best new posts on various web sites from contenders and non-contenders and post some mini-thesis of our own as the conversation about how best to use web 2.0 tools to market wine and boost brands rages on across the internet on neutral sites like Andy’s Goode Life.

Through it all we’ve honestly been too busy to be nervous. Until now. In less than four days, on Friday June 26,  the folks at Murphy-Goode Winery will narrow down the 1,000+ applications they’ve received to 50 finalists. In mid July those 50 will become just 10 and those final finalists will be brought to the winery for some in-person evaluation and other Sonoma shenanigans.

The other night, as we opened a couple of bottles of wine from a winery in New Mexico (the fume blanc was good but the chardonnay was somehow leaden and thin at the same time), it hit us how invested we are in getting this job. As the last of the sunset light turned the Franklin Mountains above El Paso a tender shade of pink, we started feeling applicant anxiety for the very first time. If we get this job we not only earn the right to an amazing continuation of the hard work, creativity, learning and commitment we’ve already invested in the application process, but the future of our Trans-Americas Journey will be assured. If we don’t get this job, well, we prefer to stay positive.

As Friday approaches we’ll be self-medicating by planning a brief return to the road to visit some area wineries (watch this space to hear all about what we discover in Texas and New Mexico wine country). With your help and a little luck we look forward to celebrating Friday’s announcement with a bottle of 2003 Murphy-Goode Wild Card Claret (possibly the last bottle to be found in west Texas) which we’ve been hoarding in our friends’ new wine refrigerator, which we’re still on the fence about.

Please, if you haven’t already watched and voted for our one minute application video, make like an Iranian and GO VOTE!

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As you know, we’re roughly three years into the Trans-Americas Journey–our five year 200,000 mile working road trip through North, Central and South America. And it’s cool as hell. But last month we were tempted with an opportunity worth putting our little Journey on hold for.

The Murphy-Goode Winery in Sonoma County, California is looking for a Wine Lifestyle Correspondent for six months (learn more about what the heck we’re talking about here). Essentially, they need someone (in our case, two someones since we’re applying together) to learn more about wine and meet other wine lovers and potential wine lovers then blog, vlog, write, photograph, film and social media the heck out of the experience in order to promote wine in general and the Murphy-Goode and Sonoma County brands in specific.

The biggest part of the application process, so far, is a 60 second video that we produced and submitted. Check it out and vote for us if you can. It’s funny, even according to non-relatives, and it’s  just a minute long, so there’s not much risk on your end.

WATCH AND VOTE FOR OUR REALLY GOODE VIDEO

Learn more about us and the making of our video

So for the past six weeks or so we’ve been doing what we normally do–blogging, making videos, twittering, reaching out to our fan base and friends and family online, maintaining a blog and building out our web site and drinking wine–but with the focus shifted to this new and exciting goal.

One of the happy new connections we’ve made during the Murphy-Goode Wine Lifestyle Correspondent application process is Andrea over Andy’s Goode Life who’s been gracious enough to publish a few guest posts from us about how to achieve Brand Believablity and Consumer Credibility, why V is for  Vaynerchuk, Not Vino and Bringing the Wine Home: Passion in the Passing Lane. She also recently threw down a bit of a wine challenge, asking for solutions to one of three specific wine-consumption conundrums. It’s the least we can do, so here’s our answer to her #1 question…

Q: When I drink red wine, I often get the dreaded “red wine teeth,” which is an embarrassing condition to have at a party when I intend on talking, smiling, or otherwise showing my newly wine-stained chompers. And is there any way to reduce this affliction without hampering my enjoyment of reds?

A: Rinse with white.

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It’s official. We’ve reached 100,000 miles on our Trans-Americas Journey! It happened just outside Arandas here in Mexico (more on that cool town in a post we’re working on right now). It’s a milestone we feel pretty good about,especially given the fact that our intial mileage projection for the Journey, back in early 2006 when we were preapreing to leave NYC, was 70,000 miles total for the whole thing and now we’ve clocked 100,000 miles and we haven’t even touched Central or South America yet.

That’s what happens when you open your National Geographic Atlas to The Americas page, squiggle a piece of string around from top to bottom and side to side, then measure it out to calculate miles…

We now figure we’ve got at least another 100,000 miles to go, but we wouldn’t write that down  in ink if we were you.

Help keep us on the road by voting for our video application for a Really Goode six month job as Lifestyle Correspondents at Murphy-Goode Winery, a gig that would re-fill our coffers and our gas tank.

Please watch our video (it will make you laugh and it’s only a minute long) and vote for it.

Just be sure to click on the vote confirmation link you’ll get in a follow up email or you vote won’t count. And check out a special web page we created for more random information about us and answers to FAQs about the making of the video including “Who’s that guy dancing behind you?”