In closing...

This post is not going to be easy to write. Not just because I have to face facts that this trip, this epic journey is over, but because it is going to be hard to make it readable - not to turn it into a novel that nobody wants to read. When I sat down to start thinking about the trip as a whole I decided to write down quick notes on my memories, of people, and of 'firsts' - the first time that I saw something, or did something on this trip. I filled a whole page of my journal within minutes... and then I started looking through my 1400 photographs for promting.



I will start by writing about the 'firsts'. This really was a journey of firsts for me. It was during the past 53 days that I first rode on a transcontinental train, crossed the Mississippi (i might be wrong on that one, but definately the first time since I've been old enough to remember), saw the Statue of Liberty, went to a Broadway show, saw the majestic beauty and felt the mist of the Niagara Falls... [deep breath] ... saw the White House, the Capitol, the Pentagon... stood in the United Nations General Assembly, went to Canada ('Why would you leave America to visit America Junior?' -Homer J Simpson), saw a snake in the wild (!!), saw a scorpion, truly crossed the country from the West Coast to the East Coast and back. I could go on but I won't...



I have always had a kind of mental 'to-do' list of things I want to see and places I want to visit, and I crossed off a lot of those on this trip. But I have discovered that it is not that simple in practice. For everything that I have crossed off I have added another, from learning about places and talking to people about their travels. And some of the places I have been to, I havn't been able to truly cross off because I liked them so much I'm going to need to go back.



I have met over a hundred people along the way, there is no way I can remember all of their names. Among them are some awesome people who I was so lucky to meet, new friends who I will do my best to keep in touch with:

• Joe, from Portland, who I met on the train as it rolled out of Denver, and whose conversations kept me sane on the 21-hour ride to Chicago, and who I would cross paths with along the road more times than either of us could have predicted.
  
• Dave who I met on a hostel-organized walking tour of downtown Chicago and with whom I shared stuffed pizza, the magnificent view from the 103rd storey of the Sears Tower, very expensive non-alcoholic beer on the 95th storey of John Hancock Center, and an early morning soccer game at a pub full of his English countrymen.
  
• Komathi, from Singapore, who I met on the street in Buffalo, she established that I did not look like I was local and came up and asked me if I was staying at the same hostel as her. Turned out I was and we spent the next day at the Niagara Falls and in Canada.
  
• Constanza (from Mexico City, but currently living in Alexandria, Virginia for a year) who I met on the walking tour of the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York City. I had hoped to meet up with her again when I was in DC but I was a bit slack on the organization and it didn't work out. Nevertheless her advice and metro card helped me out no end in Capitol City.
  
• Tina (from Germany but resident in Switzerland) who I met waiting for the pub crawl in the lobby of the hostel in New York City. We had a good night downing beers at several Upper West Side bars, and spent the next several days exploring New York City together and with Joe as well once he arrived in the city. Tina is on a world trip for a year, which began with 10 days in Iceland. When I first met her she had just arrived in the United States beginning her three months of crossing the country. She also has 3 month stints planned in Australia and New Zealand and somewhere else that I can't remember. A truly ambitious and inspirational traveler!
  
• Enrico (from Germany) who I met at the hostel in Philadelphia. We had some free beers at the hostel while playing some pool before going out to some art galleries where he was certain there would be free alcohol given out. The galleries were good but the free alcohol didn't flow, and we ended up hitting a couple of Philly bars together on a Saturday night, and exploring the historical Old Town section of Philadelphia the following day.
  
• Michael, the flight attendant from Canada who was staying in my dorm at the hostel in DC. He had only 23 hours in DC but managed to make the most of it. He and I were among a group of 9 travellers from 7 different countries who went out for a few drinks one night in the capital. While talking to him I discovered that his mum is a New Zealander and he has family in Timaru which is where a lot of my family comes from! I still follow his rapid-fire visits to all manner of destinations on Facebook. Since I left DC he has visited Japan and is now in England. He does all this during his rostered days off and gets ridiculously cheap airfares from his work.
  
• Mariel (from England) who I met in Washington DC. When she is not travelling the world she works at a professional theater in Stratford-apon-Avon (the home of William Shakespeare!) She arrived at the hostel TV room frantically asking we turn on CNN. When an 89 year-old crazyman neo-nazi opened fire at the Holocaust Museum murdering a security gaurd, she had been standing right across the street and was herded off by police in the commotion. In need of a good night out, she got one later that night after we had also met Paul.
  
• Paul (from North Carolina) was staying at the same hostel as me and Mariel in DC having just arrived for a new job with the government and having difficulty with apartment hunting. Paul, Mariel and I met at a free dinner put on by the hostel for travellers and ended up hanging out together for the rest of the night. We hit a couple of bars, both interesting experiences in themselves, before heading to the National Mall. Being merry at the Lincoln Memorial at 3 o'clock in the morning with these two is an experience I will never forget. We were the only people there except for the security gaurd, stark contrast to the crowds that fill it every day.
  
• Gayoung (from Korea, currently a student in Syracuse, NY but spending her summer in the DC area) who I met at the DC hostel. She was volunteering at the hostel helping with one of the free dinners I mentioned above. The day after I met her she showed me around DC and we went to see the Smithsonian Holocaust Museum (the day before it was shot up) and had a nice lunch in Georgetown.
  
• Elyse (from Oklahoma City) who I met during delays at the airport in DC waiting for my flight to El Paso. It was excellent luck to meet someone so open and friendly to break up an otherwise boring airport delay. I was only too eager for an excuse to have a beer at the airport bar but I wasn't going to drink alone, so it was good for that reason as well. And she was kind enough to invite me along on a rafting trip with her friends in Oklahoma. The rafting trip didn't pan out, but it gave me an oppertunity to see a cool city I otherwise wouldn't have seen and I am grateful for her generous hospitality.
• Antonio (from El Paso, Texas) - the hostel employee who went the extra mile. He really knew the area on both sides of the border and was kind enough to take myself and another traveller up to see the city lights of El Paso-Juarez in his own time before starting nightshift. He was really one of the most interesting characters I met on the whole trip.

Flying towards San Francisco the other day, on leg one from Oklahoma City to Denver I got talking to the two passangers seated either side of me. We all got along really well and shared stories with each other. One of them was Anne who lived in Las Vegas. She moved there from LA when her company expanded there and bought a house with her husband. The house has since halved in value with the economic downturn, and the work in Las Vegas is drying up. She didn't seem too concerned about it but felt somewhat stuck in Las Vegas until house prices go up again. During the course of the conversation the stewardesses came around taking drinks orders. Airlines here have started charging for everything, even checked luggage, so a beer costs $6 in the air. They only accept credit card so I handed it over. I knew from my previous flights that their handheld scanners don't like my credit card and therefore I can normally score my drinks for free. Predictably this happened again and the stewardess apologized for the card not working and said "that ones on us". I made some comment about how I had just lucked out. Anne said "I get the feeling you luck out a lot". I said nothing but I thought that certainly is true on this trip.

So we have covered firsts and people, and now all that is left are memories. It would be futile to try and write them all down here, but here are some that come to mind.

• I remember arriving at Union Station in Chicago, some four days after landing in the country having had no sleep longer than a couple of hours. All the trains going all the different directions, it was the most impressive station I had ever seen. And walking up the famous staircase that appeard in The Untouchables and Naked Gun 33 1/3 to street level.
• I remember the huge skyscrapers that fill downtown Chicago, some of the tallest in the world, and seeing the clouds roll in off Lake Michigan only half the height of some of the buildings.
• I remember standing aboard the Maid of the Mist as it ventured up close to the Niagara Falls, the frigid water raining down on me.
• I remember a day-long train ride from Buffalo to New York City, and the excitement I felt as the conductor announced "Ladies and Gentlemen, New York's world famous Penn Station is next." And then stepping off the train into the terminal to see people running in all different directions and thinking that something was wrong. I discovered that nothing was wrong, that people running everywhere in a rush was to be the norm for my next 8 days in the Big Apple.
• The first time I saw such things as the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and Central Park, and just the skyline of New York that seemed to go on and on and on.
• Riding the subways trying to get my head around the fact that the train I was on went all the way to 242nd Street. There's a 242nd Street? That was like 200 blocks north of where I got on.
• Wandering around Ellis Island with Tina and Joe.
• Having 'one light and one dark' at McSorleys Old Ale House with Tina and Joe, sawdust on the floor, and old old newspapers on the walls.
• Curtain up time and the power of the music at the Phantom of the Opera, the first show I have ever seen on Broadway.
• Standing in the room where the declaration of independence was written and signed, and seeing the very chairs that George Washington and Benjamijn Franklin had sat in, and seeing the Liberty Bell.
• Seeing such things as the Washington Monument, the Capitol Building, all the war memorials and presidential monuments of the National Mall by day and by night.
• The Smithsonian Musesums, especially the Natural History Museum which was magnificent.
• The heavily armed military men patrolling the streets of Juarez, Mexico as the drug war raged on.
• Seeing the border jumpers make a run for it into downtown El Paso... I wonder if they made it, and all the people who hung around in the international no-mans land waiting for their oppertunity to slip through.
• Sitting at a Ranger talk in Big Bend National Park. As the ranger spoke about the ice age the thunderclaps grew louder and closer and lightening began to pierce the sky. The talk was cut short and the ranger gave us a ride back to the lodge. The thunderstorm opened up into one of the most spectacular I have ever seen. I sat on the porch with Dad practicing my lightening photography techniques!
• Deer grazing right outside the lodge the following morning.
• Seeing Carlsbad Caverns for the first time, and the bats flying out by the million. And getting evacuated from that park as yet another thunderstorm rolled in.
• Coming across the Prada store outside of Marfa, Texas in the middle of nowhere.
• Driving along the Rio Grande on the River Road, and stopping to wade in the river that forms the international boundary between Mexico and the United States. Getting stuck in the mud.
• Discovering Terlingua, Texas - a much written-about ghost town and the weird and wonderful people who have inhabited it.
• Feeling the gypsum crystals slide through my toes as I hopelessly attempted to assend the dunes at the White Sands National Monument.
• Going to a ballgame in Oklahoma City, where the heat was on and the beer was $1.
• Driving beneath the redwood trees along the Russian River, heading towards the Pacific Coast Highway.

And there is so much more. I just can't remember everything all at once. I bet I have missed entire cities! It is difficult to think about the trip as a whole. It has felt like many small trips all rolled together. Even a long distance train ride is a trip in and of itself, the train takes on a life of its on as the horn blasts through the night. I highly recommend travelling by train to anyone anywhere there is the oppertunity to do so. It may not be fast but it is stress-free. And the journey is so long it would be so boring without the people around you, so even the shyest person gets talking and you learn so much from other people. The biggest thing that the trains taught me is that just by talking to somebody you can throw out any stereotypes you had in your mind. Every person is different and it is interesting and eye opening to learn about them and their way of life. The train gives you a chance to slow down and stop missing what is going on right in front of your eyes all around you every single day.

Hostels are good to. The accommodations may not be luxiourious, modern, or even that clean, but meeting people to share your trip with makes travelling so much more fun. I'll stay in hostels more often in the future, and I'll never overlook the most important ingredient to a good trip again: people you meet along the way.

Berkeley and the East Bay

After spending the best part of two days dealing with the collective incompetence of my bank and Mastercard (thanks for sending me a new credit card that doesn't work!!), I was feeling pretty stink about everything. I finally sorted it out though, and today was a great day.

Joe arrived in the city last night, reaching the end of his 45 day train journey around the country. Joe is the guy I met on my very first train ride this trip from Denver to Chicago and who I hung out with in New York, and who since then has been shaddowing a lot of my trip a few days later than me, even seperately meeting some of the same people that I've met along the way! This morning afforded me the opportunity to meet up with him again, to compare notes at the end of our trips. I rode the BART out to Oakland and he picked me up and took me on a tour of UC Berkeley and surrounding area. He went to school here so he was a good guide. Then we drove through the Berkeley Hills where there are some spectacular views and big Redwood forests.

San Francisco is really the city of the elusive photograph. It is so hard to get a good photo of the skylines because of the fog that seems to be constantly present, even on a hot day. Like the above photo - taken from the Berkeley Hills it shows the downtown Oakland skyline in the forground and directly on top of that is the bay, and then beyond that is downtown San Francisco skyline. But you really have to squint to see it in the photograph. It looked better in person.

Just an uplifting bilboard I found amusing.

Me at Sather Gate in Sproul Plaza, on the UC Berkeley campus.

The aforementioned forest atop the Berkeley Hills.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I do believe this is the first time in BeggsBlog history that a public restroom has been featured. But the grafitti was so cool! This is the restroom from People's Park in Berkeley, covered in artwork and grafiti mostly left over from the 'Bloody Thursday' clash of May 1969 when thousands of hippies who had built the park with their own hands (without legal permission on UC property) clashed with hundreds of law enforcement officers, culminating in 128 serious injuries and at least one death and leading to then Governor Ronald Reagan putting some 2700 National Gaurd troops on the streets of Berkeley to quell the uprising. But the park is still there today.

After the grand tour of the East Bay we went out for Mexican food in Oakland, which I liked.

Happy fourth everyone!

More from San Francisco

Well the trip is very much winding down, I don't have that much to write about from San Francisco.. I have not been doing much here, it is one of those places where I have done most things of touristic interest on past trips but it is a salubrious place to just be.

On Tuesday I rented a car and drove up to visit friends Katie and Sean who live in Healdsburg, a couple of hours north of the city and met their new son Cameron for the first time. We had a good time, watched some live music in the park and went out for a mexican feast. The following morning I drove back to San Francisco taking the scenic route, at first a small country road following the Russian River to the coast, and then south on California Hwy 1. The scenery was magnificent, particularly along the Russian River driving under towering giant redwood trees. I stopped in Sausalito before crossing the Golden Gate bridge back to the city.

Today I have been madly running around trying to organize a replacement credit card because I lost my wallet last night. Pretty catestrophic, but these things do happen... and towards the end of the trip is not too bad a time to have it happen I suppose. The mastercard people have been very helpful and I should have a new card by the morning, and they gave me $100 in the meantime. And when I say gave I mean advanced at huge cost. But still, what would I do without them.

Cal-ee-forn-yah

I arrived in San Francisco last night. It took two flights to get here. This is the last stop on my trip. I had to walk for 12 blocks from the BART station to the hostel with all my shit on my back. As I walked through the streets it felt quite underwhelming, just another day and arriving in another city. After checking in I went out and got some dinner, and didn't do much else except go to bed. It was only 11pm, but I was two timezones away still.

This morning I got up early and hit the streets, and slowly everything I love about this epically beautiful city began to reveal iteself to me again. Here are some pics of my morning:

As well as exploring the city and taking photographs, I spend a good portion of the morning at the Apple store trying to get my hands on 2 new 3G I-phones for a friend back home who had requested them. After lining up for an hour (it's a new product) I discovered the advertized $199 price was a ruse - only avaliable with an AT&T contract here. So the $1000+ price in New Zealand began to make sense. But it wasn't a wasted trip. I walked out with a new Ipod Touch for myself! I decided it was OK since I really havn't bought anything other than food, beer, and transport this entire trip. It is a cool machine.

I'm going up to Sonoma County this evening to visit Katie and Sean. I get to drive across the Golden Gate bridge in the process, so I'm very excited.

Update

Sorry I've been so weak with the blog updates in the past few days. The rafting trip was cancelled in the end but it has been good hanging out here in Oklahoma City anyway. I'm heading to San Francsico tonight.
It looks like I will get to go to Yosemite afterall, for one day only! Joe and his cousin (who has a car) are going so I'm getting in on that trip. We're going to leave San Francisco early in the morning on the 4th of July and not return til late at night. 4th of July in America's first national park. Wicked!
Ok there will be more from San Francisco tomorrow, if I have some good photos I'll try to do a blog update in the late afternoon.

Oklahoma City

Not the best photo taken from a moving vehicle, but shows a working oil well directly in front of the Oklahoma State Capitol!

Slight change to the trip itinirary. From Denver instead of going straight to San Francisco I have come to Oklahoma City to take up a kind offer from a new friend I met along the way who invited me to go rafting on the Illinois River near Tulsa with her and her friends. I have scrapped the Yosemite National Park segment of the trip (will have to do that next trip) in order to fit it in.

I don't know why, but it seems whenever I have the need to gather all my worldy belongings on my back and walk several miles to the train station or bus station to move on to a new city, it seems thatthe skies open as soon as I set out on my long walk. That has happend at least 3 times on this trip so far. Very annoying. This occured in Denver on Tuesday as I prepared to make my way to Oklahoma City.

I had to travel to Oklahoma City by bus, as an airfare was going to be $200+, and a train would have to go all the way to Chicago to connect before heading down to OKC. I cast my mind back to the last time I travelled by Greyhound bus, it was a few years ago on a relatively short 12-hr hop between Salt Lake City and Denver. I remember swearing that I would never travel by Greyhound ever again, it was so unpleasent. But necessity would make me eat my words. Never again.

Greyhound stations are almost without fail always in the worst part of every city, and even inside they are not nice. I had a couple of hours to kill at the Greyhound station in Denver. There was an obvious pickpocket hanging around. He kept trying to get people's wallets, and he kept failing. 3 people complained about and eventually some security gaurds came over, who were of course armed, and warned him and stopped him from boarding the bus he was ticketed for. Now he was stuck in the station, and he kept trying to pick pockets. Another security gaurd came over, warned him, and let him stay in the station. At no point did anyone ever call the police.

If the station was bad, the bus was no better. I think I was the only grown adult on the bus who knew how to pull my pants up above my ass. There is barely any legroom. The driver keeps stopping for his cigarette breaks every 45 minutes. And it was a 17hour ride to Oklahoma city, with a 2 hour layover in Amarillo, TX in another scummy Greyhound station.

Finally arrived in Oklahoma City. Went to a pool party my host Elyse was running for the youth group she runs, and then stayed up late drinking beer on the porch. The next day went to the Oklahoma City bombing Memorial. (see photos below)

After the memorial, we went to the Oklahoma History Museum, which was really good and included a brilliant exhibit on Oklahoma rock music. I was surprised by how many big name acts have come out of Oklahoma, including Hanson! They are still around and I was able to take these photos of original Hanson instruments:

Zac Hanson's drum

Isaac Hanson's Guitar

Taylor Hanson's Keyboard

Remember, you saw them first on Beggsblog!!

After the History museum, we went to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum where among all the museum exhibits was an amazing art gallery with some really brilliant paintings and sculpture. It wasn't your standard art gallery. These items were priced for up to $100,000 each.

Then I went to a ballgame at Red Brick Ballpark. A minor league game so tickets were only $10, and beers were $1. I didn't have my big camera with me so this is the photo you get:

After the ballgame went out to a bar in the Red Brick district. It was late but still very hot, over 90f outside. Like a lot of places here it seems, the bar's method of combatting the heat was 'misters'. I had never seen such a thing before, but they are like hoses that run along the length of a veranda and spray a light mist over patrons.

New Mexico (cont'd) and Colorado

White Sands National Monument, New Mexico

The International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, New Mexico

Starting off where we left off last posting... After Carlsbad we headed north through New Mexico in a zig-zag fassion, visiting Roswell to learn about UFO's, White Sands - an astonishing environment that provides vistas i imagine are similar to being on the moon, finally arriving in Santa Fe for the night.



In the morning we explored dowtown Santa Fe:

It must be some kind of local town planning law, because every building (even modern ones) are made in the adobe style.

This is the oldest house in America, circa 1646. Although it is a disputed claim that it is the oldest in America, its still pretty old so I thought it worthy of being blogged.

This is me at the ruins of a 16th century Spanish mission and an old indian Pueblo at the Pecos National Historical Park. Avid blog readers will note that I have been here before, but this time is the first time I have had a really good look around.

Dad going underground in the pueblo, to a room used by the puebloans for working - it is much cooler subsurface than the 100 deg f temperatures above ground.

We ended up that night east of Canon City, Colorado visiting our family friend Neil who was running a summer camp for geology students and very kindly invited us to stay for the night.

The next day we drove up to Denver, where Dad flew out of. Now I am just chilling down in Denver. I shelled out for a motel so that I could chill down and swim in the pool for a few days before heading to Oklahoma on Wednesday or Thursday. Today has been the first real quiet day I have had since the beginning of the trip! Today is Fathers Day in America, but my dad is aboard an international flight and by crossing the dateline he skips Sunday, so that avoids an awkward situation - no Dad deserves 2 fathers days a year, even one that was cool enough to come over here to travel with his son for a week!! But seriously, thanks to Dad for an awesome week exploring the west.

Snakes, Bats, and Caverns...

For most of this trip I have been actively seeking out snakes as I had never seen one in the wild before. I have been stomping through long grass in dry areas, overturning rocks in the desert and had no luck at all until yesterday morning. Alongside New Mexico state highway 176 enroute to Carlsbad, I finally found what I was looking for. I have no idea what kind of snake this is, all I know is that it is not a rattlesnake. For the purposes of the blog we can imagine it is highly venomous and aggressive.

Earlier in the morning we visited Fort Davis, an old US government post that protected emigrants heading west in the 19th century.

And then... Carlsbad Caverns national park where we took an elevator 750ft below the surface to a huge cave system.

Once back on the surface, we went to the amphitheater to watch hundreds of thousands of bats fly out of the cave together at dusk. This sign in the parking lot had us packing water and scroggin for the journey, only to discover that the 10 minute walk to the amphitheater, all on paved tracks, was anything but strenuous. Cameras are banned during the bat flight, so you'll have to take my word for it that it was cool.

Into the Wild

The first night in Big Bend National Park, a spectacular electrical storm struck the Chisos Mountains as we watched from our porch at the lodge.

On Saturday I met up with my Dad in El Paso. He had been at a conference in Denver and he drove down so we could head to Big Bend. After a night in El Paso, we hit the road. As quickly as possible we got off the interstate and headed into real remote Texas on country roads. On some of these roads you could look around for 360 degrees and not see a single other car or building, not another living thing. It was on one of these stretches when we came across this:

This is the Prada store of Marfa, Texas. Not actually a functioning store but built as a sculpture. Apparently the art is in the contrast between something normally only found in the most urban environments and the wide open spaces of this setting. A short distance down the road we came across the town of Marfa, which was anything but just another small desert town. It had undergone a renewal as a center of modern art. All kinds of artists have moved in and opened galleries, and it was actually pretty cool. When in Texas, expect the unexpected.

Inside Big Bend National Park.

In the park we did a couple of hikes, attended some talks by the national park service rangers, saw deer, lizards, and a scorpian - no snakes yet but not for lack of trying. Also experienced a spectacular storm which lasted a good couple of hours and knocked out power to our lodge for 12 hours. Tonight as I write this we are in Fort Davis, TX and going to see the McDonald Observatory as soon as it gets dark for some astronomy. Tomorrow's plan is to go to Guadalupe Mountains National Park for a hike, and then White Sands, New Mexico the next day. Still having a great time... Here's some more pics.

This is the Santa Elena Canyon, taken from the Big Bend National Park the left side of the canyon is in Mexico and the right is in Texas. Through the middle flows the Rio Grande. The canyon is the height of three Washington Monuments.

This is the Rio Grande just outside the park. The horses just across the river are grazing on Mexican land. At some points the river is so shallow you can easily walk across to Mexico. While technically illegal to come back into the US, there is literally no one around.

Dad across the river.

You've gotta be careful around the river bank. I discovered quicksand the hard way (not the hardest possible way luckily I hit bedrock about a foot deep). One of my footprints is visible here. After getting myself out I had to dig my flipflops out.

The town of Lajitas, Texas. Complete with posts to tie your horse up on should you happen to arrive that way. We had to park our Jeep around the corner.

The remains of an adobe schoolhouse in Terlingua, Texas. Yes that is the same Terlingua of the world famous chilli-cookoffs.

Hamburgers for dinner:

Don't let slip to anyone from Masterton, but there's a lot of Loose Livestock in West Texas!!

On a more serious note though, Dad's attention while driving was often diverted by looking left across the Mexican border this morning. This poor little calf nearly met with the Jeep's bonnet.

That's 42.7 deg celcius.

Contrabando Creek. An amusing name for a tributary that flows into the Rio Grande along the Mexican border in one of the most active drug smugling zones in the world.

And some old news, from before I left El Paso:

El Paso is in the foreground, Juarez in the background. In this photo the increased density of the lights in Juarez illustrates the international border. Buildings are much smaller and closer together on the Mexican side.