trip2000

Dear friends,

I am home now, in Waterbury, safe and sound and happy as a pig in TV(if you know what I mean:-)

What will follow is a little bit about my trip. I haven't written it yet so I don't know what it will be like. I will share it with you now because unfortunately you were not with me as it happened to experience it then. I would have preferred you could. But, since you couldn't, I at least hope to give you something not too boring to read:

I flew from Hartford to Los Angeles last Saturday(8 days ago). That Saturday night I had dinner in Santa Monica with my cousin, an uncle, and his woman friend. We ate on the Third Street Promenade in a pretty nice club. Later we walked to a pier overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Sunday my cousin(who I was staying with and would eventually make the drive with - his name is Anthony) were going to see the sights of LA. But, we decided that was not cool enough. We thought it would be more cool to go to, oh, say...Mexico. So, that's what we did:-) We got up the next morning and drove to Tijuana(which took us through San Diego!) I crossed the US-Mexican border for the first time that afternoon. We parked just inside the International line and paid $2 for a round trip bus ticket into Tijuana and back. Crossing the border on the way in was no big deal. On the way out they make you get off the bus. For us, all they did is asked what our citizenship was. We told them and they let us go. That's all. Anyone looking Spanish had a little more trouble.

Tijuana is a pretty intense place. Picture a board walk(Wildwood, Virginia Beach, anything like that), make it a little more promiscous and give everyone else a langauage in addition to the one(s) you know(almost everyone there spoke English) and you'll get a pretty good idea. The shopping district, which is about 15-20 blocks is the only place we went. Things were pretty crazy there. Many clubs gave out free margaritas. In the drug stores you could get most any sort of prescription drug over the counter. In the leather shops you could get gun holsters - and they didn't have to be empty. Most places sold firecrackers - right up to half sticks of dynamite! One guy on the street sees us coming says to us, "Taxi?" in an offer of service. We say no. So, he says, "Women?" I think you get the picture - you could get whatever you might feel the whim for there(P.S. I didn't take the taxi either.). And, the prices were very negotiable. Shopping was not for the weak of heart. For example, I bought myself(what I think is) a really cool leather hat. When I first tried it on and asked the price the man said $100. Twenty minutes later I paid $15.

I spent that night in LA and the next morning(after Anthony took forever and an hour to load up his stuff) we left. At first we headed North - to Las Vegas. Well, as most or all of you know, I'm not 21. And, when I tried to sit down at the Roullette table in Caeser's Palace I got carded. It tried playing dumb and saying that I thought the gambling age in Vegas was 18, but that didn't help. I got kicked out. Kicked right out and into the door of Harrah's Casino. Well, I am a persistent person and I quickly found out that they do no card in Harrah's:-) So, I sat down at a table with $20 and a little while later I walked away with $81. I enjoy Roullette:-)

The next day we continued north on Route 15 through Nevada, and we caught the northwest corner of Arizona(where saw some absolutely amazing and beautiful canyons) and then into Utah. About 200 miles South of Salt Lake City we caught Route 70 East and took that, eventually, all the way to Pittsburg. But, that night we stayed in some hotel town in Utah.

The morning I woke up in Utah it was very nice(hot) out. My cousin, who is a musician, wanted to practice his violin. So, I decided to go for a jog. I was going to just go on down the street but I got the end of the block and realized that a few blocks away the town ended and the desert began. I figured I had been jogging in towns, but never before in the desert. So, that's what I did. There was literally a line where there tar ended and the sand began and I followed some dirt bike trails about a mile and half into the desert when I came to a dune. I picked out one and ran to the top - about 20 feet(steep enough that I had to help with my arms). I got the top and looked around and realized that I had an absolutely perfect 360 degree panaroma! It was amazing! I was almost half sourrounded by some more amazing canyons off in the distance - 3 or 4 hundred foot of sheer rock topped by odd shapped formations caused by wind and erosion. If you've ever seen pictures of the rock formations like an arch, a snoopy, three penguins, or these other things - that's where I was. Like, where the road runner and coyote were. Just like that. It was great.

So, I jog back and we start driving. 5 hours later we are driving through a SNOW STORM in Vail, Colorado! It was absurd! I was still in shorts and sandals!! But, Vail was beautiful! It was like Christmas time, no exaggeration! But, by the time we had dinner in Denver it was regular weather again. Vail is just so high in the mountains that it has crazy weather! The day that we were in Colorado there were some mountain tornados, a tractor trailer that drove off the side of a cliff, and 70 mile an hour wind gusts. But, it would take bigger, scarier things than that to bother me:-) We ran into no problems at all.

We slept that night in Colby, Kansas. I really mean no offense to anyone when I say this;-), but Kansas was the most boring state on the trip to drive through! (And, the only reason it beat Missouri was because in Missouri I happened to see a small pack of camels grazing on the side of the highway - I'm still trying to figure how exactly that happened.

From Colby we drove all the way through to St. Louis. Anthony had a really cool friend in St. Louis that we were able to stay with. He had a beautiful, three story house on Lafayette Square(very much like Beacon Hill, in Boston.) The next morning we went to Favanni's for breakfast and then to Dave Drew's for ice cream(apparently both famous St. Louis places).

From St. Louis we drove through Illinois, Indiana(we stopped in Indianapolis - I really liked Indianapolis - it seemed like a nice city!:-), and then stayed the night in Cambridge, Ohio. While we were in Illinois we also stopped at the final home of Abe Lincoln's parents. It was kinda cool - we got to play with farm pigs:-)

From Ohio we drove straight through the very tip of West Virginia, and after those 25 seconds we went through Pennsylvania and into Southern New Jersey to stay at my grandparents' house last night, and I'm here now.

That is not EVERYTHING, I'm am sure! I could easily write for volumes on any one of those days, but I would love to talk/write more about anything you are interested in.

It was all super fun, and I hope to tell each of you more about it!:-) I hope to hear from you all soon! Smile and take care!!:-)

Your friend,

Ryan

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