July 22: Back Home

This morning, Denise, Josh, and I walked to a vegetarian restaurant right by the apartment. Very tasty. Then we went to the airport and caught our flight back home to Atlanta! Shout-out to Mary Beth from Clemson, South Carolina, who sat next to us on the flight home. It was nice sharing our stories.

It's good to be back in Atlanta. When Mrs. Rafshoon picked us up, she got a picture of the two of us:

Thank you to everyone who has been keeping up with the trip along the way.

If you're checking out this blog for the first time after the trip has finished, I hope you enjoy reading it!

It's been a great run.

July 21: Weekend in Denver

Yesterday, Josh and I went walking around Denver. We're staying two blocks from the state capitol building, so we're definitely in the heart of downtown Denver. We threw the Frisbee around by the capitol, and then we headed over to a thrift shop to find a duffel bag to put miscellaneous things in for the flight home.

Last night, we went to a Rockies vs. Cubs game.

The view of the mountains from the stadium was great.

The Rockies got a home run off of this pitch:

The Rockies won, which is too bad, since Josh is a Cubs fan. Today, Denise, John, Josh, and I went out to a coffee shop for a brunch of waffle sandwiches. Very tasty.

After brunch, Josh and I went to Cherry Creek Park, which is a twenty minute drive from downtown. Among other things, there's a nice lake.

We threw the Frisbee on the beach, and then we played cards by the lake. Later in the afternoon, we packed a meal, and the four of us went to City Park Jazz for a picnic. Basically, Denver just has free jazz concerts in the park every Sunday evening during the summer.

We met up with John's friend Ben, and after our meal, we played some good old-fashioned bocce. It was a solid game.

We fly back to Atlanta tomorrow afternoon. We had a good last night of our trip.

Trip odometer: 5748.6 miles
Currently listening to: Music of Arvo Pärt

July 20: Arches and a Thrown Rod

Thursday afternoon, after getting our hotel room in Moab, Utah, Josh and I took a drive around Arches National Park. We saw Balanced Rock:

Delicate Arch:

Something else!

Got this shot of Moab while coming back.

When we got back to the hotel, our old classmate Oliver (a future Georgia Tech-er with Josh) sent me a message on Facebook saying that he was in Moab for the past week. He gave us a suggestion for an outdoors store in Moab and a hike in Arches. In the morning, we went to the store he suggested, called GearHeads. It's a cool place. We stocked up on Cliff Bars, and then we hit the trail.

Side note: My camera's 18-70 lens no longer has autofocus, and it makes a really weird sound when the body is on, so I've mainly using my 55-200 lens. And both of my lend caps are broken.

Oliver suggested the Double O Arch trail, which is leads to the (wait for it…) Double O Arch.

Josh climbed up the fin.

We hiked back to the trailhead, and then drove towards Denver. We stopped for lunch in Grand Junction, Colorado. We ate at a Mexican restaurant called Cafe Rio.

It. Was. Amazing.

Everything was spot-on, from the made-to-order tortillas to the queso to the house-made strawberry lemonade. Delicious.

The drive up to the Continental Divide was uneventful. Then, about 40 miles west of Denver, the car started making a bit of weird sound, and was having a bit of an acceleration problem. We pulled off at the nearest exit and checked under the hood. It wasn't an oil problem, so Josh called AAA. When the tow truck finally came, the driver asked us to start the engine. He immediately knew what the problem was: the car threw a rod. The car is not going to make it back to Atlanta.

My Aunt Kate's friend Denise and her boyfriend live in Denver, and we were already planning on staying with them for the weekend. When I told Denise about the car, she said she would come and pick us up. She suggested a pizza place to go to while waiting. They came just a few minutes after we got to the restaurant, so we all ate dinner together. It was a lot of fun sharing our stories from the road. After the meal, we went to my car, and packed everything up into their car. I said my goodbyes, and we rode into Denver.

The plan is to have a good weekend in Denver, and fly back home in a few days. My parents, Josh, and I are still working everything out, but Josh and I have tickets for the Rockies vs. Cubs game tonight! I'm looking forward to it.

Final trip odometer reading: 5748.6 miles
Currently listening to: J. Cole

July 18: Boise, But Mainly Zion

We left Seattle Monday morning. After several hundred miles, we stopped for lunch in a small town in Oregon.

We rolled into Boise, Idaho, a bit before sunset. We stayed at a hostel called the the Idahostel, which is about a block from the capitol building. Boise!

Boise is a surprisingly hip place. The hostel was a bit… interesting. There was another person roughly our age--a recent Georgia Tech grad. But the other people at the hostel were about my parents' age. The hostel manager gave the two of us a private room. Crappy mattresses, though. Oh well.

The next day, we drove from Boise to Zion National Park, which is in southern Utah. It was a great drive, even though is was a haul. The sunset by our campsite that night was great.

The next day, we hiked Angels Landing. The trail starts off low, by the Virgin River.

Lots of switchbacks up the trail. The last half-mile is steep, with sharp drop-offs. The path has chains to grip for support. It was a tough climb, but totally worth it. Here's the view from the summit:

Relaxing:

Someone took our picture. Such a killer view.

That night, we ended up going to a place called the Thunderbird Diner, which is a few miles east of the park. I got a pretty good black bean burger.

Before I forget, here's a picture of our humble abode:

This morning, on our drive out of Zion, we drove by this:

Keepin' it real.

We had a good drive through southern Utah. Some Interstate driving, some state roads. We got a hotel for the night in Moab, Utah, near Arches National Park. We'll hopefully do a hike in Arches tomorrow. We head for Colorado soon.

Trip odometer: 5330.3 miles
Currently listening to: Of Monsters And Men (Such a great debut album.)

July 14: Weekend in Seattle

Yesterday, a group of us went to a Rocky & Bullwinkle-themed Family Fun Center.

There were eight people total: me, Josh, Josh's brother Ben, two of Ben's roommates, and the three girls they're subletting from. We did things like laser tag, go karts, bumper boats, and mini-golf. It was a good day.

Today, Josh, Ben, two of Ben's other roommates, and I went to Mount Pilchuck to go hiking. The hike was a good challenge, especially with us slipping on snow half the time. It was fun nonetheless. This shot was from maybe 30% up the hike.

Here's Ben making a snowball:

The view during the hike was great.

On the summit:

Here's a picture of me on the summit. You can see Rainier in the background.

We rested up for the hike back down.

I got this picture with the lens flare:

It was a fun weekend. Seattle's been good to us. Not a drop of rain.

Trip odometer: 3715.0 miles
Currently listening to: Macklemore

July 12: Driving West and First Day in Seattle

From Gillette, Wyoming, we drove to Butte, Montana. Here was our view through northern Wyoming:

We took a bit of a detour to go through Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming.

Pictures can't capture how cool the drive was. After a couple of hundred miles, we crossed the Continental Divide in Montana, and we spent the night at a hotel in Butte. The next morning, we made the drive from Butte to Seattle, Washington. Here was our view from the road in Montana.

Another:

We crossed into Idaho:

We drove by Lake Coeur d'Alene, but I didn't get a good picture of it. After we stopped at a rest stop for lunch, we passed into Washington state. We stopped at a scenic overlook of the Columbia River in central Washington.

The rest of the drive wasn't too bad. Once we made it into Seattle, we got an oil change, and then we went to Josh's brother Ben's place. Ben is a Northwestern student, and is interning with Microsoft this summer. He's subletting a house in the University District with some other Northwestern students, and Josh and I are staying with them.

Josh, Ben, and I went out to eat at a truly "hole in the wall" Thai joint called Thai Tom. All three of us ended up getting Pad Thai. We enjoyed our meals.

Today, Josh and I went to Pike Place Market, which is one of the oldest farmers markets in the United States. It's pretty cool.

We saw the famous Pike Place Fish Company. I didn't get a good picture of the fish throwing, though.

We ate lunch at a deli at the Market. The potato salad was great!

After Pike Place, we went to the Space Needle.

Here's the Seattle skyline from the top of the Space Needle.

After that, we went to Gas Works Park, which is on the shore of Lake Union.

Here's another, just in case you need to see more of Seattle. (Unlikely, I know.)

Looking forward to seeing more of the city during the weekend.

Trip odometer: 3715.0 miles
Currently listening to: Passion Pit

July 9: The Badlands

We left Minneapolis yesterday early in the morning. Here's a picture driving through western Minnesota:

We stopped for lunch in Mitchell, South Dakota.

This was taken by a gas station that was "closed for season." Whatever that means.

Once we got to Badlands National Park, we saw this:

Another pic:

After we set up camp, Josh made dinner, and the Badlands welcomed us with a rainbow.

Here's a shot maybe a mile away from the campground.

There was tons of intra-cloud lightning many miles away, and it continued through the night. It was amazing.

When it got dark, we taped glow sticks to the Frisbee and threw it around in the field by the tent. It was really neat.

This morning, after packing up camp, we saw some wild buffalo.

We went to another scenic overlook.

We drove to a trailhead and went on a hike. Here's a bunch of pictures from the trail:

After the hike, we drove to Mount Rushmore.

After that, we drove to Gillette, Wyoming, and we're staying the night at a hotel here. It should be a two day drive to Seattle.

On the road, we've been listening to a lot of a podcast called Stuff You Should Know. I've been a fan of the show for a few years now, and the podcasts are a great way to pass the time. We've also been listening to a lot of Mumford and Son's album Babel. Shout-out to Katie Brewer-Calvert for the CD, and another shout-out to Morgan Winn for the CD of The Carpenter by The Avett Brothers.

"I was totally unprepared for that revelation called the Dakota Bad Lands… What I saw gave me an indescribable since of mysterious elsewhere--a distant architecture, ethereal… an endless supernatural world more spiritual than earth but created out of it." --Frank Lloyd Wright

Trip odometer: 2555.5 miles
Currently listening to: Chopped in the background