There is a saying that has stuck with me
since I was young:
"Take every opportunity you can to
travel or go somewhere, you never know who you're going to meet."
During the previous school year I was on
autopilot since fall semester. School, work, homework, sleep, repeat. I never
took any vacations or did anything for myself. I decided I was not going to let
any of that hold me back this summer and I was only going to worry about what I
wanted.
Florida-Boca, Fort Lauderdale May 22-26
I went to Florida with my mom for a
wedding. A life long friend of hers was finally getting married, of course my
mom didn't want to go alone, and I didn't want her to go alone so we worked it
out so I could go with her. We went and saw how the east-siders live. I had
never been anywhere farther east than Wisconsin, so this was a treat. The
wedding was beautiful and everyone was so nice! We went shopping at the
Seagrass Mills mall, and let me tell you, that is the football stadium of
malls! We spent 6 hours there! In Fort Lauderdale we went to the beach, which
was poppin' because it was Memorial Day. We found parking for $20, but as we were
leaving it was $40! Anyway, that was my first time ever touching the Atlantic
waters. I highly recommend making a trip down to Florida so you can swim in the
bath warm water.
Washington, Seattle (Roadtrip)- Seattle, Olympia,
Portland, Susanville, Reno, Carson City June 11-14
My boyfriend had been looking at buying a
new car for about a year now and finally his old car took a tanker. It took him
2 weeks to find the car he wanted (Subaru BRZ in white only), except it was in
Seattle. So we found the cheapest flight we could, on the most uncomfortable
airplane ever (cough cough UNITED) after a stop in San Francisco, we were on
our way to Seattle. We landed at about 1:00 a.m. and we wanted a hotel, but
everything was booked and we had no car to get anywhere! So that was the first
time I slept in an airport. If you ever do that, my advice, bring a jacket,
SeaTac is sooooooo cold at night. They had the coolest shops there though so I
was happy once it was about 7:00 a.m. Our car sales lady, Amanda, picked us up
and brought us to the dealership. Took the BRZ for a spin, signed some papers
and left on our way to Portland. Portland is very historical looking, but I did
not feel comfortable at all there. Homeless people everywhere, three people
asked us if we needed drugs, and it POURED on us ( that wasn't too bad though.)
We went to VooDoo donuts; the line was out the door, but totally worth it. We
stayed at my boyfriends grandma’s house and left for Reno, 10 hours away, The
sights were incredible, so many trees, and weather changes, and mountains!
Stopped in Susanville for a quick bite at a local place called Lumberjacks,
they have very yummy salads, and continued o our way. Reno was fun, its literally a mini Vegas, but more tattoo parlors. It definitely is a college town and a hipster town. The next morning we made the trip down to Vegas. We stopped in Carson City because Shanon (boyfriend) had never seen the Capitol before and stopped along the road at abandoned buildings for a little excitement!
California- San Diego, La Jolla June 24-28th
This trip was with my parents. They had just gotten back from an all inclusive resort in Cozumel and weren't done vacationing yet. We got there and shopped around at the mall across from our hotel for a bit. It reminds me of Town Square in Las Vegas. The next day we went to the San Diego Safari Zoo! I didn't think you could spend all day in a Zoo but we walked up, down and around that whole facility! I loved the Elephants and the Kirk Dik-Diks. They looked like they were chewing gum for days! The next day we got up early and went to the beach to look at the tide pools. We saw some crabs and urchins, fun stuff like that. I still don't like seaweed, though. It's slimy and gross. We walked along the shops of La Jolla beach and just had a relaxing day. I love shopping in other cities, I feel like I'm taking a piece home with me.
Colorado- Denver, Colorado Springs July 7-12
This was my favorite trip! We took an extra long route to get to Colorado so we could stop st four corners where Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado all meet. Everyone should do it at least once. It's not that great to look at and its a little out of the way but I thought it was cool. Once we got to Denver we went to Dave and Busters, which I'm soooooo peeved we don't have one here in Vegas, its so much fun! I loved all the houses in Denver. They were all so unique and beautiful. We went to Ikea since we don;t have one here, and man I think we spent 6 hours in that store! It was the size of a mall. The Denver Zoo was a fantastic experience as well. I liked that zoo because the animals were more lively there than in San Diego. We saw cheetahs fight and we saw an elephant run and bang his head against his structure, but i was told that is common for him to do that. Also, we went to the butterfly pavilion. Shanon and I held a tarantula and we both caught butterflies! We got the idea for the pavilion from the movie Heaven is For Real. Aside from that, we ate at as many local places we could. On the base, where we stayed or half our trip, we conquered the stair-way to heaven! That's pretty much a 80 degree incline to the top of a mountain. We did do a little bit of ZIP LINING too! Thst wa so awesome. We were jumping off the Rockie Mountains! Insane! Then, when we ventured home we made it in about 11 hours.
California- Santa Clara Aug 2-4
This was a quick trip. Shanon had some friends that wanted to see the new 49ers Stadium, Levi Stadium, so after an all-nighter of driving, and walking 5 miles to find a restaurant we made it to the Sounders VS Quakes game. The entrance part of the stadium needed a lot of work, and their food is crazy expensive, but other than that everything was very modern and there was not a bad view in the house! Oh and we bought A LOT of scratch cards, we weren't too lucky, but the other couple we went with were. It was insane, they always got the winning tickets! The next day we went to the Great Mall and shopped for about 5 hours, and then we went to Dave and Busters. We wanted to take the light rail back to our hotel so we waited for half an hour on the light rail track. We started to think we missed it since it was so late and we weren't experts in the light rail maps, but eventually it came. I like light rail systems, I think they're efficient and fun.
***Next time you decide to go on a road trip I highly recommend the app Roadtrippers. It's a nifty app that tells you where you should pull off to stretch or give you interesting places to eat and visit. ***
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