Day 10 San Diego

Today is my second to last day in San Diego. I am sad that our vacation is almost over. We woke up pretty late today, around 9 am. We went to lunch at a "Fresh Mexican Grill" called Rubio's where I ate a deep fried fish taco. It was as all deep fried things are -- tasty and delicious. We also went to Blockbuster and Von's and a bike shop. When we got back, Seth's uncle was here so we met him. In the afternoon, Seth and Lydia went bowling and to dinner at Seth's uncle's house. Dane and I brought a load of stuff over to his new house, and then we went to a shopping center to look up movie times for Up. Since we had 2 hours to kill, we went to the 99 cents store and Big Lots where we got various items like bathroom rugs, grippy things for the tub, shower curtain rings, a Spanish Santa Claus shower curtain that says "jo! jo! jo!", hand soap, etc. We still had almost an hour so we went to Costco, where Dane found an ultra on sale mattress so we bought that, and a bed frame, and an ipod alarm clock. We put all this stuff in his new place but by this time we missed the movie. Oh well. We came back and got sandwich stuff at Von's. We made sandwiches while we were eating, Seth, Lydia, and Seth's grandmother came back. We chatted and watched the beginnings of the movie The Wrestler, directed by that guy who does Pi and Requiem for a Dream. I hemmed some rags and Lydia fell asleep. Seth's grandmother said it was the worst movie she had already seen, and went upstairs. I started surfing the internet and Dane and Seth finished that movie. Now they are watching some horror movie but I have already retired for the evening. I'm watching TV that consists of mostly commercials. I feel that I need many of the things that are advertised... that must mean that I am in every single target market.

DAY 9 San Diego

I woke up when Dane had to go to Scripps around 7 am but I was busy coughing up both my lungs so Dane went to Scripps by himself. I watched Sabrina the Teenage Witch and then Step By Step on the TV. I went inside to Seth's grandmother's house where I ate raisin bran and milk. When Dane got back, Dane, Seth, Lydia, and I went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant where I had a gross flan. I typically am a gigantic fan of flan too. After lunch, we went to Costco where we looked at cheap and high quality mattresses, but Dane did not want to buy because they do not deliver. We found a Walmart, where Dane basically bought everything he needs for his new life in San Diego. We also went to Sports Authority where Dane got a Jansport backpack, and OrthoMattress where Dane wanted to buy the first mattress the sales guy recommended but I strongly felt that Dane was getting ripped off (I think maybe Seth felt the same way, but less strongly than I did), so we ushered him out of the store before he could buy while he gave us a confused look. Then Seth and Lydia had to go out to dinner with Seth's family so Dane and I ate leftover pasta. We fixed his bike wheel and went to a bike shop near his new apt, and then we went to his new apt to look around. It is super nice! It is large and in charge, very clean, and has a gigantic kitchen. I felt this way about Dane's first kitchen, but then they were so dirty that the kitchen became smaller (counters were covered with stuff, messy insides of cabinets, etc) and less usable. I hope that this does not happen with the new apt. The landlord was nice and talked our faces off. We went back to Seth's because he and Lydia had just arrived home. I ate a leftover pork chop, a piece of key lime pie, and a piece of cheesecake (strangely, the cheesecake crust contained pepper??? or was that from the pork chop????) while everyone including Seth's grandmother watched the movie Taken. I thought it was okay... but implausible and unrelatable. Following the movie I went to bed, and I don't know what the others did.

DAY 8 Las Vegas to San Diego

We chilled in Las Vegas in the am and Dane ate pudding and coffee. I ate pudding, chips and salsa, and orange juice. Then at 10:00 am we peaced out of our hotel and drove to LA. We first went to Caltech to visit Jeff Kaplan but he wasn't in his office. To find his office, we found the astro/astrophysics building and literally walked past every office on every floor starting from the bottom until we found his on the third floor. No one seemed to know where he had gone. We left a note for him.

We went to Target to walk around because we were there really early - we arrived around 2 but we had told my brother that we'd be there around 3:30pm, and when we called, he was at some restaurant buying lunch. At Target, I found a cookie monster cap, the summer counterpart to my winter oscar the grouch beanie, but I didn't buy it because it was 16 dollars. That is a lot of money. Instead, I spent $1.09 on a blue icee. I actually wanted the cherry coke one, but then it was too watery so I had to ask food seller lady for another cup. Then I got blue, and filled her up but while I was putting the lid on, the icee exploded all over my hands. So I had to get another cup. I put the lid on first this time. It was great. My hands and face were blue.

Next we went to the Coffee Bean to meet with my brother. My brother had hot coffee and Dane had some sort of hazelnut milky iced coffee drink. Then we went to Borders where Dane spent his entire gift certificate on a map of San Diego. We ate at some Thai restaurant that was pretty good. Then we went back to my bro's apt to chill while we waited for my friend Jeannie to call. Jeannie called and we went to this place called Wurstkuche which sells exotic sausages and beers, a lot like Hot Dougs, but more swanky, and in downtown LA. Jeannie had the rattlesnake and rabbit and Dane and Andrew shared the duck and bacon for second dinner. Finally, we went to some yogurt shop where I had that tart pinkberry like yogurt that I like. Yum.

Then it was 10pm so we dropped off my brother and were on the road to San Diego. It was at this time that I discovered, trying to navigate for Dane, that the pages of his new San Diego key map from Borders were completely out of order. Dane felt angry because it was an $18 map. He says he is going to tkae it back but I think it might be faster to take it apart and put it in order and put it back together.

We arrived in San Diego around midnight and basically said hi to Seth and went to sleep in his grandmother's garage apartment. His grandma's place is SUPER nice. It is basically on the beach @ Del Mar and is really spacious and well decorated, and clearly built to accommodate many guests. I also like the shower, which has tiles with raised relief turtles on it.

DAY 7 Las Vegas, NV

Today we went to brunch at Bellagio. We left at 10:30, and got there at 11 am, but then we waited in line until 12:00 pm . It was full of delicious foods. I had 4 plates of food. On my first plate, I had watermelon, smoked salmon, some other smoked salmon, smoked herring, smoked trout, muesli, miso soup, cottage cheese, and cheddar cheese. On my second plate, I had two pieces of crab sushi, wasabi, soy sauce, seaweed salad, rice porridge, 2 pieces of bread, flan, and brazilian blue nose. On my third plate, I had cocktail shrimp, pineapple, cocktail sauce, lemons, and chicken noodle soup. My fourth plate was imaginary. Initially, I wanted to get ice cream at the end, but I was stuffed. When we got up to leave, I felt like I was going to barf, so we had to sit outside Bellagio for 5 minutes. We got back around 2:30. I took a nap until 6 pm. When I woke up, we went to Albertsons and bought chicken legs, tortilla chips, salsa, green beans, and couscous. We came back to the hotel and prepared all these things while we watched some murder mystery on PBS. Now it is 11:00pm and we are going to go to sleep now.

Assessment of Las Vegas: Lame + $$$$$$$$ + nice hotel = nice hotel

DAY 6 Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, and Las Vegas

This entry is by Dane.

Today was the ultimate whirlwind of Southwest United States adventuring. Our heroes begin their journey in Torrey, UT. Upon arising, packing the car, and eating cake, Gillian gets us lost. Luckily, we were able to find our way to Capitol Reef National Park. We did an impressive 20 mile scenic drive, culminating in homemade ice cream bought at the gift shop. Then we traveled 3 hours to Bryce Canyon National Park where I drove over some crazy arch thing that I tried to take a picture of but it didn't come out very well even though it was crazy (see image). We arrived at Bryce Canyon with only a short while to explore since we had 4.5 more hours until Las Vegas and we wanted to eat dinner there. We pwned the park in 1.5 hours and saw all there was to see. It was great, although at this point, Gillian and I were beginning to feel overwhelmed at all the awesome things in Utah national parks. I recommend that you all see them someday. Then Gillian drove on toward Las Vegas. I got a Subway sandwich, and confused the woman behind the counter by asking what city we were in (Cedar City, UT). After some more driving, we arrived in AZ, the surprise state, since we didn't know that we would be visiting it for 20 miles. Onward to Nevada. We got to Las Vegas, Gillian blamed me for losing her license, but in fact it was in her purse all along. We checked into a swanky hotel and were off to find some food. Las Vegas is like an amusement park for grown-ups, only really disgusting. I guess it's just not my style. Dinner was good, except we got 5 raviolis for 25 dollars. This means that they were 5 dollars each. But, on the other hand, they were lobster shrimp ravioli. Then we walked around and tried to find free stuff but Gillian was overcome with a strange malady so we got her some orange juice. The end.

DAY 5 Denver to Capitol Reef

We left Denver at 4:00am so that we could make it to Arches at a decent hour. I put on my hat, fanny pack, and sweat-wicking-away shirt that I bought especially for the trip. We drove along many winding roads and crossed the Rockies. It was fun. We were prepared for Arches to be so hot that by 2pm we would fall over dead. I underestimated the time it took to drive, so we actually reached the trailhead at 11:00am and had to hike during the hottest part of the day. Luckily, i also underestimated the heat, and the high was only 83 degrees F. We hiked the Devil's Garden + Double O Arch + Primitive Loop trail (~7.2 miles). It took us 4 hours. We took some pictures and saw some lizards and flowers. We also scaled and scrambled over some large rocks. I became an expert scrambler. After the hike, we zipped on over to the visitor's center, where we looked at the gift shop and Dane discovered his blister and I discovered the exorbitant price of Arches National Park T-shirts (22 dollars). I did not buy a t-shirt, even though I had intended to originally. Then we drove to Torrey, UT along a slow winding path with many small country bumpkin towns. We saw sheep and cows. We liked them. At Torrey, we checked into Capitol Reef Inn and Cafe. We ate at the cafe. I liked the salad but Dane was not impressed. We both liked the trout. Then, we went to our room and watched a special on Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. I wanted to listen to Michael Jackson in the car, but Dane did not have any on his iPod. RIP the King (not Elvis). Then we went to sleep at 9 cause we were tired.

DAY 4 Exploring Denver

After breakfast and trying unsuccessfully to make this lady's TV work, we started out at 10:00am on our walking tour of Denver. We walked to 16th Street Mall and had lunch. The walk took us basically 1.5 hrs, but we stopped to look at things, like ducks and cannons in a park that we passed by. We reached 16th St Mall and had lunch at a place called Paradise, where they overcharged us for mediocre salads and a pretty good sandwich. They gave us a free cookie. Then we went to a western gear store founded by this guy who died last year at the age of 107, Mr Weil, called Rockmount Ranchwear. Everything was really expensive. After that, we went to the Tattered Cover, the nation's largest independent bookstore. Then we went to a nice map store. After this, it started raining. I had to poo so we went to Ross. While I was in the bathroom, Dane found a tool which we could not figure out what it does. Maybe it pits olives. We walked past Union Station and went back to 16th St Mall and went to a coffee shop called ink! They like to put ink! in red and put other black letters in front of it, like drink!, or think!, etc. Dane got a coffee and we sat out of the rain. When it let up a bit, we tried to go to the Molly Brown House, but it started raining again. I picked up a broken umbrella that someone had left on the ground and we used it for a bit.

We also ducked into the CO state capitol building for shelter, and found a mile above sea level step. When we finally got to the Molly Brown House, we were just in time for the 3pm tour.

It was great! Apparently her name was actually Margaret Brown and she was a greatly progressive lady. Later, she was sensationalized by Hollywood in a movie, just because she survived the Titanic, and they also changed her name to Molly. We bought 4 candycanes in the gift shop for 60 cents. I got green apple and some other flavor. Dane got lemon-lime and orange. Then we took the bus back to our homestay place. We drove to Safeway, where we got gas at Conoco and cleaned the windshield of a 1/4 inch thick layer of dead bugs.




We also got dinner of french bread, apples, tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella cheese. Yum. Now we are retiring because we are going to Arches in the a.m.

Day 3 Sciota to Denver

I took Tylenol with my cereal for breakfast and after breakfast, Loka and Jason went to work and Dane and I set out on our way to Denver at 8am. It was a really long drive. We stopped at Subway for lunch and this place called the Village Inn for dinner. Dane hated the food there but I really liked it, probably because it was reminiscent of the bad Sargent food which I also liked. We drove and drove all day until 11pm at night. We learned that mail trucks for the US postal service are labeled with the cities that they are supposed to go to. In Nebraska, we also picked up some pamphlets at the visitor's center with some Nebraska history. Did you know that many millions of years ago, Nebraska's flora and fauna resembled that of present day African savannah? Apparently there were many rhinoceroses. They died due to ash from a volcano creating something analogous to nuclear winter. We also passed some "Fort Cody" where we climbed on some stuff. This is my assessment of each state:
Illinois - Farmland
Iowa - Terrible roads, also farmland
Nebraska - Very flat. Farmland. High speed limit. Some cows.
Colorado - hillier but where were the mountains?? Apparently the entire eastern 2/5 of the state is really not mountainous, including Denver. Many cows. Some nice teepees.

We finally reached our destination, a homestay lady who is out on a conference. Her friend Bob let us in, and then we went straight to sleep.

Day 2 - Cincinnati to Sciota

We had to go to the real Skyline Chili before we left Cincinnati, so Dane's brosif (Dylan), Dane, and I went to Skyline Chili. I had my first Four-Way. It must be an acquired taste. I liked it but I didn't feel like it was something that I absolutely must have every time I pass through Cincinnati. Then we set off on our journey through miles of cornfields, through Indiana, to Sciota, IL. At Sciota, we were greeted by our friend Loka and her new husband since March, Jason. They are real adults now, even though they are the same age as us. They even have a house, and a really nice couch. At Sciota, I didn't take any pictures, which I really regret. It was great to see Loka! We caught up over a dinner of delicious potatoes, burgers, salad, and mojitos (maybe one of the better mojitos I have ever had in my life) and we went around the town and showed Dane the farm because he hasn't ever seen one. Then we went to Loka's parents house where I saw her family and the new dogs, Stella and King. The boys looked at machines and the girls sat in the house and chatted mostly about people who die in hospitals. I have been having a lot of those conversations recently because everyone likes to ask me about the coolest, AKA most morbid, thing I have seen. I started feeling ill, which ruined the night, because then I had a fever and it was terrible. We went basically directly to bed after that.

Day 1 - Cincinnati

Yesterday we left Chicago in the am after eating at Walker Brothers for the last time. Matt stayed up all night so he was unable to join me so we couldn't share the apple monstrosity. I got strawberry crepes instead. Then we loaded up the car and we started driving.

On the way, we passed through Indiana, stopped to get gas at Lafayette, the home of this one school that I can't remember, and passed a really trashy looking car.
There is also a picture of how the car was packed. We made dinner at home because we were tired of eating out. We had garlic bread, spaghetti, and salad. The spaghetti was the Better Homes and Gardens One Pot Spaghetti. It received mediocre reviews from Dane's family. The consensus was that it needed more salt.

Today, Dane and I went to his dentist so he could get his teeth cleaned, the bank, and he also got his eye glasses fixed. We drove by his Eagle Scout project from 8th grade, which was dilapidated by now. Afterward, we went to the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens. There, we saw several plants and animals, I ate Skyline Chili, a Cincinnati delicacy, for the first time, and I was a turtle.









My favorite animal was the little penguin (the breed is called little penguin) or maybe the manatee.

On our way home from the zoo, we stopped by the Whippy Dip (what is the real name? unsure) because Dane wanted to buy me a Mr Clyde. I devoured Mr Clyde even though he looked at me with sad eyes.












Now I am sitting in Dane's basement. He is visiting his grandparents and I stayed here to watch TV and surf the internet. Tonight I think Dane's family is grilling shrimp and chicken for dinner. Maybe we can see the movie "Up" or eat at Graeters Ice Cream, which I just found out is opening in Houston soon! Tomorrow we are leaving to go to Loka's house in Sciota, IL. We are scratching Louisville, KY off of our agenda because Dane's bike wheel is messed up and we can't go to the skate park.