Las Vegas

I haven’t updated since I got to Vegas mainly because the Flamingo does not have free Internet and it’s a chore to type on my phone…but I figured I’d give all my loyal fans some more to read before I head home tomorrow afternoon.

New Years in Vegas was nothing short of insane. There were mobs and mobs of people and we were in the middle of it all. We saw the fireworks and I was exhausted so Laura and I walked back to our hotel. I slept and then in the morning we moved hotels for the last time of the trip.

Matt’s business partner runs beerpong.com and they were having the World Series of Beer Pong event this week. Matt was doing some work for that and the rest of us got in for free so we were able to spectate. It was loud and rowdy and full of cute college boys. We met some people and it was a lot of fun to be there for it.

There has been a ton of eating out and all the extravagance that Las Vegas has to offer. We’ve had sushi a bunch of times, and despite being far from the ocean it has all been really good.

By far the highlight if the entire trip was today. Since I was here in May I really really wanted to go skydiving. I decided a few days before the trip out here that I was going to do it. Matt said that he would go with me and it would be awesome…he chickened out though.

I think I’m still experiencing the adrenaline high from doing it. It was so incredibly amazing. I took a shuttle from Paris and we went about 20 miles west to Jean, Nevada where there is a small airport dedicated just to recreational and sport activities. Since the plane is really small I had to wait a bit to go which didn’t help my nerves much!

One we got on the plane (me, my instructor/tandem jumper and two solo jumpers) it took about 20 minutes to get to an altitude of more than 10,000ft. When we jumped it was a free fall for 30 seconds…I later found out that is usually about 7,000ft and then the parachute opened and we floated the rest of the way down. I’m still in awe about the whole experience.

Other than that the week has been very low-key. I had really saved all my money for that one moment. We’ve walked a ton and Matt and I rode the New York, New York roller coaster a few times.

It’s been fun, albeit very dramatic at times with certain people…but nothing too serious.

I’m flying home tomorrow and definitle looking forward to being back in RI and getting to sleep in my own bed.

I absolutely love it out here.

We are just leaving the Grand Canyon and it is definitely the most majestic and awe-inspiring thing that I have ever seen.

The whole drive today has been amazing. We stayed in a small Colorado town called Cortez and left early this morning to go through Four Corners and then took a detour to Monument Valley. I really have never seen such beautiful natural rock and land formations.

We are currently en route to Flagstaff, AZ to get a quick bite to eat and maybe something from this brewery that was recommended to us before the final stretch of our trip into Vegas.

It’s hard to believe that I have been traveling across the country and seeing so much in just the past few days. This is something that I’d definitely like to do again over the course of a summer. I feel like I have barely put a dent in everything there is to see out here.

windy

We got an amazing hotel room last night.  It is basically an apartment sized place with a bedroom and a loft.  Yesterday was a nice relaxing day without too much driving.  In the morning we drove from our hotel to Boulder and spent the day walking around and visiting all the shops.  Matt had to get some work done so Nicole, Julie and I enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather as we walked up and down Pearl Street.

It really does seem like people are a lot more friendly out here.  Julie and I got lunch at a falafel place and it was very busy so seating was limited.  This woman who was sitting by herself invited us to join her and just started chatting with us and wanted to hear all about our trip thus far.  On our way out of Boulder to Colorado Springs we stopped at this place called Rush which had all natural smoothies and yogurt based frozen treats.  It was delicious and I’m a little disappointed that it’s only in Boulder and who knows when I’d be able to get it again :p

I woke up this morning to a view of Pike’s Peak outside the hotel room window.  The snow capped Rockies certainly are impressive.  Yesterday Nicole was talking to this couple who were from Boulder and they mentioned how unusual the weather was and that it is normal about 20 degrees out with very gusty winds.  Today we are getting the gusty winds.  I’m sitting in the bed in the loft of the hotel and I can actually feel the building move from the wind, it’s a little ridiculous.

Today we are planning on visiting Garden of the Gods which is fairly nearby and then the Sand Dunes National Park that I linked to yesterday before heading into Arizona and staying there so we can visit the Grand Canyon tomorrow!

After that the adventure dies down a bit and we’ll at least be settle in one place for a bit which will be nice.  It’s quite a chore to basically unpack and repack every day.

colorado

We are in Louisville, CO.  A small town northwest of Denver. The speed limit out here is 75mph so our 9 hour ride west from Des Moines flew by.

The weather is incredibly beautiful, I expected it to be a lot colder since we are at a 4000ft+ elevation.  Today we plan to go see Boulder and Denver as well as drive down to Colorado Springs and likely stay there tonight so we can go to the Sand Dunes National Park tomorrow while it is light out.

As we’ve been driving, I’ve seen so many Loves, Travel America and Pilot truck stops.  I find it kind of surreal that I used to access those sites remotely every day at my old job almost two years ago.  I would have to call the operators there when things weren’t working and I could access all of their fuel sale records for weeks at a time…while I was working there  I would have never imagined that I’d be visiting a bunch of them.

Anyway, some pretty horrible pictures have been posted to flickr and facebook…hopefully today I’ll be able to get some that aren’t taken through a dirty car window.

time stamp

I just realized that the time stamp on the posts is way off. I haven’t really been posting at 3-something in the morning.

nebraska

There isn’t much going on in Nebraska and there has been a whole lot of it.

We are a few miles from the Colorado border and we’ll be heading to Denver which is still about two hours away.

I got to go across my first state border as driver from Iowa into Nebraska. It seemed more exciting when it happened.

Originally I was disappointed that we got such a late start today because we end up doing the bulk of our driving in the dark…however I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t much matter out west since there isn’t much to see anyway.

But…mountains tomorrow!!

destination one

It’s almost 5am and we are finally rolling into Des Moines to meet up with Nicole.

We hit some bad weather just getting into Iowa but we kept on truckin’.

I’m excited to get some sleep and then we are off to Denver tomorrow afternoon!

Indiana

We just time traveled!

pennsylvania

We are currently in a hotel room in western Pennsylvania almost ready to get back on the road.  We drove as far as we could last night with the intentions of getting to Ohio but at that point it would have made no sense to stay in a hotel because we would have been checking in too late to make it worth it.

There is an ice storm west in Iowa so we may alter our plan to pick up Nicole depending on how bad it remains and go south for a while and meet her somewhere else once she figures out what she can do.

I drove for a good portion of the way last night, at least 3-4 hours and it was kind of surreal being the only person on the road that late at night, in a good way though.  It was definitely a strange yet cool feeling seeing nothing for miles and miles and having it be extra dark since it was foggy and rainy so no moon to light things up at all.  I’m pretty sure we drove through hilly and mountainous areas that would have looked very nice if I could have seen it.

We are going to be heading out in a bit and hopefully I’ll have some pictures to share with the next post…nothing much to show from nighttime driving

Bye for now!

on the road!

Matt, Julie and I are on the road. We are currently in New York. This is a boring entry. Yay.