America, the Beautiful - Part 3

Okay, settle in.  This last one is going to be lengthy.  For our third and final leg of the trip, Brian and I decided to fly from Florida to Las Vegas, rent a car, and do a road trip through the Western States.  Why?  Well, it all started with one of those quizzes that they have on Facebook, where you check what beers you've tried, foods you've tried, or, in this case, places you have been.  I had been to nearly every place in Europe and Asia on the list, but, sadly, had not seen my own country.  So, we decided to correct that this year!  I had driven to New Jersey to see my mom's family many times growing up (about a 10 hour drive), but had never taken a "road trip" per se.  Brian is a king of the road, and has more road trips under his belt than I can count.  So many of his stories come from these trips, and I was excited that my first trip would be with him.  (okay, and after stopping to "look at stuff" about 5 times on our mini-trip from Wapakoneta, Ohio, to my parents' house, I was a little nervous that we would never make it back to Portland, but, I had faith...)

We arrived to Las Vegas super late, and, after waiting for nearly 30 minutes for the hotel shuttle, a kind airport employee told us that the last shuttle had left at midnight.  So, we got in the LOOOOONG taxi line and finally got a taxi to our hotel.  The guy made us feel REALLY old, questioning why we weren't going out to the clubs (um, clubs?  do either Brian or I really strike you as "club material"?  Yeah, thought so...).  Anyways, we got a few hours of sleep, and awoke at 6am to start the road trip.  I was seriously so excited that it felt like Christmas.  Sometimes, Brian just looks at me and laughs, because I'm a little more animated than he is, especially that early in the morning.

 

We picked up our car, a Jeep Liberty, and we were OFF!  Now, I let Brian do this road trip his way.  My way would have been to have already had a map, marked our route, prepared our snacks the night before, etc.  I let go of my type A personality for this trip, and I have to say, it suited me.  :)  We had no map to start with, and just sort of felt our way through to the Strip.  We made a quick pass through here (sorry, no gambling this trip!), and then made our way out of civilization for the next 6 days!

Brian was so happy to be driving after nearly 10 months of public transportation and taxi cabs!

First stop was the Hoover Dam.  I had no idea how old this was, or how beautiful it and Lake Meade are.  

Road trippin' with my best friend

Our first stop for a meal was Denny's... I had fond memories of this place from my childhood, but... um, I guess you could say my standards have changed?!?  :)

The miles passed quickly, and I was just taking it all in.  I kept offering to drive, but my sweet husband kept telling me, "No, you just sit and look out the window.  I have seen all of this and want you to see it".  Either that, or he was afraid that I didn't remember how to drive!!  ;)  It was amazing to me how different the landscape could be from one stretch of road to the next, and, I have to say, I had the song "America, the Beautiful" in my head for much of the trip.  How could I have waited so long to see all of this??  Every place that we went seemed more beautiful than the next, and every stop we made had me longing to stay just a little bit longer.  I think you could say that is a sign of a good vacation.  :)

Then, just like that, we were at the Grand Canyon!!  There is little you can do to prepare yourself for this sight.  It is just... IMMENSE.  I have to be honest, I had a hard time to take it all in, because it is just SO HUGE.  I think that is what makes it so special.  Approaching the Canyon sort of reminded me of the first time I walked up to the edge of another one of my favorite National Parks, Crater Lake.  You are walking up a hill, slowly, slowly, and then, holy crap, there it is!  Beautiful.  Breathtaking.  It's so hard to describe.  Perhaps it would be better if you asked one of the many other visitors that were there... so fun to hear French, German, Mandarin, Russian, Dutch... these sights attract people from all over the world!

My first view of the Canyon!  All I can say is "Wow!"

There were some elk just hanging out as we walked to dinner that night.  You know, nothing special, happens all the time...  ;)

July is a pretty special month for us.  We have three days that we call "The Tri-Fecta".  July 15th is the anniversary of our marriage.  July 16th is the day that we met.  July 17th is my birthday.  We happened to be on our road trip for all three of these special days, and we celebrated properly.  :)  For our anniversary, we went to dinner at the beautiful El Tovar restaurant at the Grand Canyon.  This place was built in 1905, and is just gorgeous inside.  We also had a nice surprise when we arrived to the park and were checking in to our cabin...  I had sort of sheepishly told the lady at the desk that it was our anniversary, but at the time she said there was not much they could do because those cabins were fully booked.  Well, it turns out that the cabins we were supposed to stay in had flooded, so they had an overbooking situation.  The front desk lady found out about this as we were walking to our car to get our things, and immediately came running out saying "Wait, wait!".  She told us to go to this other lodge and check-in there... turns out, they had upgraded us to a cabin RIGHT ON THE RIM OF THE CANYON!!  What an amazing way to celebrate one year of marriage!

Hard to believe it's already been one year, and things just keep getting better and better!

The next morning, we woke up early to watch the sun rise over the Canyon.  It was a little too cloudy to get good pictures, but it was still nice to wake up to... silence.  Living in the city, it is never quiet, and this relief from noise pollution was surely welcome.

Next up, more driving - on to Moab!!

But not before driving through the painted desert!!

Even KPO took a turn... after 10 months, I still got it!  (just don't ask me to parallel park... that brought on a panic attack!)

This was actually our anniversary, so, once we got to Moab (and checked in at the Brandin' Iron Inn), we went to the Moab Brewery to celebrate.  Kind of strange rules in Utah... I'm not hating on the Mormons, but, seriously, we could not order a "beer sampler" because there would be too many beers on the table???  This was the worst brewery I have ever been to!  We had to order one sample at a time!  But, we still had a nice time.  :)

We finished up with dinner and there was still light, so we drove to Arches National Park to watch the sun go down.  We were not disappointed.  :)  Arches had been this mystical place for me ever since I saw a friend's pictures about 5 years ago.  I could have seriously spent an entire week there - it was absolutely gorgeous.

Sundown at Arches

Since it was the end of the day, we had one of the arches to ourselves for about 5 minutes.  Such a nice, quiet place.

Balanced Rock

The next morning, we again got up early and went back to the park.  We took the ~1 hour hike to get back to Delicate Arch - I am so glad we did.  It was so beautiful!!

Such a beautiful sight!

No rest for the weary!  After visiting the park (which I really did not want to leave), we started our longest day of driving.  We drove from Moab, Utah, all the way to Jackson, Wyoming.  While Arches was my favorite National Park, Wyoming was my favorite state.  There was just NOTHING there.  I'm not sure if I would have said this years ago, but, coming from a place where all you see are skyscrapers and tons of people, this was just a breath of fresh air.  If the real estate offices in Jackson were not owned by Christie's and Sotheby's, I would have looked for a house and just stayed there.

Now I know why they call this "Big Sky Country" - you can see for miles and miles!!!

We spent the night in Jackson (at the Ranch Inn... don't you love these names!?!), and had a nice time listening to live music and checking out the local life.  We woke up early (are you sensing a pattern?) the next day (my birthday!!), and made our way out to Grand Teton National Park, followed by Yellowstone National Park.  The Tetons were absolutely stunning!  And Yellowstone, well, I think you just have to go there and experience it for yourself.  It's such a special place... interesting figure - nearly half of the world's geothermic features (like geysers, ie: Old Faithful) are located in this park.  There are all kinds of weird bubbling mud pits and hot springs.  You have to see it to believe it!

It doesn't really get more beautiful than this!

We originally drove by this lake... but after about 5 minutes, I told Brian to turn around.  These are some of my favorite pictures from the trip - so serene!  I wanted to pitch a tent right here and stay!

Next stop, Old Faithful!  We got there just in time to see her erupt!

Artist's Point

Mammoth Hot Springs

Our next day was a lot of driving as well.  We made our way out of Montana, and through Idaho, stopping briefly in Boise just to see what it is all about.  We finally made it to Pendleton, Oregon, home of the Pendleton Round Up.  When the lady told us our room rate at the Knight's Inn was only $55, we both looked at each other, wondering what $55 in Eastern Oregon would get us.  Well, we got a nice cinder block room with a microwave and refrigerator plugged into an extension cord.  Okay... note to self: we will not stay at a Knight's Inn again!  The location couldn't have been any more perfect though - we were right across the street from the local brewery, and we had such a nice night just talking about our trip and all the amazing things we had seen.  The next morning, after a two hour drive, that was it.  The road trip was over.  Brian and I met his two best buddies, Erin & Gavin, in Hood River, Oregon, and they went off for an evening of camping and fishing.  It was weird to drive the car back to Portland by myself.  I missed my road trip partner!  But, I was so glad that Gavin had flown in from New York (Erin lives in Portland), because I know that Brian misses those guys so much.  I made my way back to Portland and got to spend my afternoon and evening with friends that I miss dearly.

The campsite - Brian can write about this if he ever, ahem, blogs again!

The next morning, I woke up, went for a peaceful run around Portland, and then got to meet my dear friend Anna for coffee.  This was kind of special, because right after coffee, Anna was driving up to Seattle, where she and her family are relocating.  I felt so happy that she made the time to see me even in all the craziness she was going through.  I also ran into another friend at Starbucks while I was waiting for Anna... these are the things that make me miss home.  I am so blessed to have so many friends in Portland, and I miss these random run-ins and friendly faces.  But, alas, Brian and I love our life in Hong Kong too, so we are sort of bi-polar that way...

Soon enough, the boys were back from camping, and all of us (plus Sareana, Erin's wife, their kids, Alex and Dean, and Gavin's wife Katie) all made our way to the Oregon coast.  This trip was literally coast to coast for us (and, yes, I realize that the Gulf of Mexico is not technically the coast, but close enough!).  We had a great time in Pacific City, renting wet suits and boogie boards and just enjoying our time together.  

The Oregon Coast is chock full of these amazing monoliths - and, yes, you can drive on the beach at Pacific City!

Alex in his wet suit... I didn't look nearly as cute in mine!

We made our way back to Portland, and had one last meal there.  Sadly, we hadn't had any good Southern food while we were in the South, which Brian loves, so we went to his favorite Southern cookin' place in North Portland.  We had a great evening with our friends Chad and Suzie, topped off with ice cream at a place where you pay by the ounce (reminded me of the sundae bar at Ponderosa as a kid!)  That night, we started the not-so-fun process of trying to pack all of the things we had purchased into our 5 suitcases... we eventually got everything in, and all of our suitcases were under their weight limits (whew!). 

 

After a few more essential Portland moments the next morning (breakfast at Lovejoy Bakers, getting a few India tour books at Powell's), we made our way to the airport and bid a fond farewell to our Jeep Liberty.  

This really should be the end of our exciting trip, however, the fun did not end here... we made it safely to Tokyo, and were patiently awaiting our next flight to Hong Kong when I saw one of my friends in HK post to Facebook that there was a level 8 typhoon about to hit.  Oh dear!  Our flight was slightly delayed, but they decided in the end that the "storm should clear out" before we landed.  So... we got closer and closer to Hong Kong, and the air got bumpier and bumpier.  I have never been sick on a plane, but I was darn close this time.  We tried to land once, and missed the runway, so the plane quickly returned to altitude, circled, then tried to land again.  We missed the runway AGAIN, so then the pilot came on the loud speaker and announced that we did not have enough gas to circle again, so we would be making an emergency landing in Taiwan.  Awesome.  We landed in the south of Taiwan, and, I have to say, I was impressed with how organized they were getting 275 people off the plane, through customs, and to an hotel.  We didn't get to go to bed until 3:30 in the morning, but we were jetlagged anyways, so it didn't really matter.  We finally got back to Hong Kong at about 6:00pm the next day.  The damage to the trees was amazing... turns out that the time that we were trying to land, the typhoon had turned into a level 10, which was the worst the city had seen since 1999.  Epic. 

In this picture, we look the most fresh and well-rested of the whole trip.  ;)

Anyways... we are back in our home now, and getting back into the swing of things.  It was hard to go back to work after spending 24-7 with my wonderful husband, but, it's also nice to be back to a normal routine.  I will never forget this amazing road trip, and I'm already looking forward to our next one... maybe a road trip through China... yeah...  ;)