Utah

I am the absolute worst at keeping up with this blog. Trying to keep my own personal journal up to date is a struggle. Half of this was actually written a year ago... somehow didn't finish it. Now I have more trips to add and getting behind is not helping. Sorry for the delays, hopefully I can get it together. Hope you enjoy!

What a week we had in Utah. We drove a lot of miles and hiked about 8 miles a day in the scorching summer heat.

Day1: We left home at 5pm when everyone was off work and drove straight through the night to Zion Nat'l Park in Utah. We got there about 6am and pulled off on BLM land for a nap before exploring the park.

Sarah, Alicia and Maggie all packed up and ready to go

Day2: Our nap was short lived as we woke in a sweaty daze from the already hot morning. We were now running on excitement. We explored a little ghost town nearby and accidently took a 4x4 road in the little CRV. We drove into the park and decided to do the Canyon Overlook hike first which was a short 1 mile hike to a view of Zion and Pine Creek Canyon.  We then decided to make our way up to Angel's Landing. At about 3pm we started out ascent, I highly suggest hiking at a cooler time of day. We were just excited to break some ground and see some epic views. I have to admit I was very out of shape for this hike and being easily dehydrated called for tons of water breaks, which slowed Sarah and Maggie down.
Side note: earlier this week Maggie was in a motorcycle accident and had sprained her ankle and had road rash so bad, she decided to hike without any shoes from the descent of Angel's landing onward for the rest of the trip. She is the true beast of this trip!!
 Anyways we hiked upward and upward to a landing that was unfortunately not the top. I could see the pathway to the top, a narrow trail on the mountains edge that you had to support yourself by hanging onto chains in order to not fall the 1500' to your death. Did I mention that I am afraid of heights!! Ok I had come this far already I had to complete the trip. I was worried because I was fatigued by now and sweaty, I didn't want to slip off the chains. I just focused on each step and made my way to the top for the most beautiful overlook. It was so worth it. The view overlooks Zion Canyon with the Virgin River carving its way through. It was one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. I really didn't want to climb down, I was seriously wishing I had a parachute or something for a quick escape off the mountain, anything but climb slowly down the steep cliff. After catching our breaths and enjoying the view we made our way back down the mountain and now enjoyed the cooling shade of the canyon. We got down and decided to cool off in the river, we swam around until we felt cool and energized. We refilled our waters at the station then hiked out to Emerald Pools. We hiked along the Kayante trail to Emerald Pools. We stopped at the middle pool and found a secluded area away from the other tourists, and we were able to hear the bleating of the Canyon Frogs. Someone told us that the upper pool wasn't worth the hike and based on the middle pool not being as we had imagined, we decided to head back. We stopped at the lower pool where Maggie and Abe (a stranger at the time) took turns letting a waterfall shower over them. We hiked back to the shuttle talking with Abe's family about their trip, we learned they were from North Carolina so I conversed with them about the Blue Ridge Parkway which brought back tons of memories from last years road trip. We were luckily able to get the last campsite available in the park and set up camp for the night. After cooking up a delicious meal of chicken and fresh veggies from Maggie's farm I passed out exhausted from the long drive and day.

Angel's Landing acent

Resting at the top of Angel's Landing

Day 3: We woke early and cooked up some breakfast burritos. We had to switch campsites as someone had previously reserved ours. We headed to the South Campground for first come first serve and found a perfect spot. We dropped our stuff then headed out for another long day of hiking. We took the shuttle to the Temple of Sinawava to hike the Narrows. This hike is throughout the canyon following the virgin river. The path crisscrosses the river which is achieved by wading in the water. We came upon a jumping rock where kids were enjoying the thrill. Maggie decided to jump off, she said it was only about 5 feet deep max and was a sketchy jump. We continued on, swimming in the deeper pools, and pushing our way against the stream. We hiked about 4 hours into the canyon and decided we should head back. Back near the start of the trail we heard a boy crying, turns out he had broke his ankle on the same jumping rock Maggie had leapt from hours prior. He was with boyscouts, they had fashioned a gurney from 2 hiking sticks and their t-shirts. His foot was wrapped up and the boys were trying to get him downstream. We continued on and passed Search and Rescue marching to the hurt boy's rescue. We reached the trail head and I could feel the blisters on my feet from hiking in wet sneakers all day and sand getting into my shoe and rubbing my feet raw. I hobbled onto the shuttle. We got back to camp and cooked up dinner and set up the slack line. We listened to some music and attempted slack lining across our camp. After dinner we set up a corn hole game and invited our neighbors over to play. After some time a couple other neighbors joined in. We ended up playing Cards Against Humanity with the neighbors into the middle of the night until we got a noise complaint then we said our goodbyes and headed to bed. It was fun to catch up with people and hear of their adventures too.

Hiking the Narrows

Day 4: We had another early morning and packed up to head to Bryce Canyon to check out some Hoodoos. The drive didn't take too long. Our first stop was the Visitor center where we ran in Abe. He was visiting the parks with his family and decided to hike with us for the day. We decided to do a shorter hike then to make our way to Arches. My feet were also dead from the blisters and 16 miles of hiking we had done so far this week. We decided to take the Sunrise loop into the Navajo loop for about 3 miles of hiking. The decent was nice into Hoodoo land. We saw some major rock formations that looked like Thor's hammer and a queen. We picked out different shapes and named some Hoodoos ourselves. The hike out of the canyon was tiring. A mix of the heat, the grade, and my blistered feet made for a tiring trek up. At the top we got a great view overlooking Bryce Canyon. We then went to Inspiration point for a quick upward hike to get a better of the National Park. We drove back to the visitor center and created a little picnic area with our mats and broke out a mix of our remaining snacks. We rested, ate, played Frisbee and talked for hours before saying our goodbyes to Abe. We invited him to come to Arches with us but he had a family reunion near Provo. He invited us to stop by on our way through. Leaving Bryce Canyon we decided to take the scenic route to Arches. Our first stop was a Petrified Forest near Escalante. The park ranger talked us out of wasting our time there but informed us that Hwy 12 that we were on is the 2nd most scenic route in the world to New Zealand. I definitely had my doubts, wondering how there could be a road here more beautiful than the Blue Ridge Parkway on the east coast. The drive left us in awe. The landscape changed so much in such a short drive from red canyons, white canyons, meadows and aspen forested. I understood how this had beat the Blue Ridge Parkway. As beautiful as it is, the roadway was 500 some miles of roughly the same landscape. This Hwy we were on had so much variety, every turn lead to an amazing view. We drove into Capitol Reef NP where we admired purple and pink hues in the rocks. We snuck into the fruit gardens to pick apricots and  cherries. After a quick stop to check out petroglyphs we were on our way again. There was a huge forest fire we passed through. Driving along we notices a couple people riding dirtbikes in the hills and a bunch of campers set up so we turned in to check out what was going on. We were stopped by security, turns out they were filming the opening scenes for Point Break 2. A couple of workers told us a little bit about the shoot and technicalities they faced. It was really interesting to hear about. We turned back onto the road and decided it was getting late so we needed to make our way to Moab faster. We turned up Hwy 24, saw the famous "cock rock" and drove along the straight hwy. We decided we should make some music while driving. Sarah driving and on flute, me terribly on bongos and Maggie in the backseat played guitar.We rocked out up the highway and laughed till we cried. We got into Moab late, got a campsite and fell asleep reminiscing on our driving band.

Selfie stick for the win.

Bryce Canyon

Day 5: Today we made it into Arches NP. We happened to get the very last campsite available, unloaded some things then headed to Delicate Arch trailhead to hike before it got too hot. This hike was less occupied than it had been the previous year which was strange it was almost the same time of year and day of the week. We were able to get some great shots of the arch without having strangers in them too. We drove into Devil's Garden to do the loop hike here. I'm pretty happy I finally got to see this section of the park as it was closed last year. We hiked to all the arches. My new favorite being Partition Arch because you can walk through the arch lay on a cliffside in shade while looking out over the NP. The summer day heat made the hike difficult, blisters and minimal water made for a hard hike back. We drove back to camp for lunch and I changed into flip flops to check out some remaining arches in the park. After dinner we hurried to view the sunset over the park then drove into Moab to check out some bars and night life. We met some locals and listened to mediocre karaoke. It was getting late so we drove back to camp and fell asleep after promising to wake early for a sunrise.

Hey look an arch!

Sunset in Arches Np

Day 6: I woke to Sarah telling us we had to get up for the sunrise. I wanted to go back to sleep, it was to early. Then Sarah said "omg, we might miss it" I jumped out of bed, eyes partially sealed shut, slipped my sandals on and bounded through the desert brush. Sarah and I ran as fast as we could to a big rock by our camp and climbed up it just in time to see the sun break the horizon and illuminate the desert around us. We enjoyed the suns glow. Sarah laughed at me saying she has never seen me move so fast, one second I was asleep in the bed and the next i was sprinting through the desert. After breakfast we walked the loop to Tapestry arch. The walk was nice with cool morning sand and no other hikers. We got back to camp, cleaned up and got on the road. After a  quick stop at a craft store for Maggie we were on the road home. After a couple hours into our drive we had to pull off for the restroom, Maggie realized she left her shoes at the craft store and had to call the store and pay for them to ship the shoes back to California. As we passed through Provo we messaged Abe to see about saying hi. He happened to be in Arches with his family till the evening. We headed on to the Salt Flats where we frolicked around on the pure white salt. I read Desert Solitaire out loud as we headed back into California. It was getting late and we were tired so we stopped at Sarah's families cabin in Tahoe city for the night.

Sunrise in Arches NP

Day 7:  We made the short trek home, said our goodbyes and promised to do another trip to Colorado next year.

Utah Here We Come

The Dolphin has been sold but that doesn't mean the adventures stop. Myself and my two friends Sarah and Maggie will be taking a week long road trip to Utah to explore some more national parks. We will be going to Zion national park, Bryce Canyon, and Arches National Park. The good news is we have AC in the car! The plan is to tent camp and to see as much as we can see in that week.

I have missed the Utah landscape and can't wait to get back there to explore some more. I will get to see the arches in Moab that I missed last summer due to road construction. I can't way to hike in Devil's Canyon at the back of the park.

Utah here we come!!

Trip Stats

Final- most accurate mapped route

We drove ~13,000 miles and spent about $4200 on gas. The cheapest we found gas for was about $2.20/ gal and that was in Colorado near 4-corners. We went to almost 30 states: California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho.

Our favorites:

Alicia- I really enjoyed the National Parks, Arches and Rocky Mountains. Colorado was my favorite state because it reminds me so much of home. The Rocky Mt really blew my mind on its beauty. The lush greenery and the transition to snow caps. I also loved driving through green valleys to get to Sand Dunes Nat'l Park. As far as night life goes Austin, Tx was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed our river float in Austin. I also thoroughly enjoyed my relaxation time on the Florida beaches with Mexico Beach being my favorite.

Natalie- She loved the desert the most. Arches Nat'l Park had been her dream location since reading about it in Desert Solitaire. She was most excited about the drive through the Painted Desert, Monument Valley, and Arches. She also really loved the artsy town Taos, in New Mexico. It had so much beauty in the buildings and landscape.

Nick- He loved Moab and Arches NP, he had a lot of fun running around and climbing up the rock formations. He also really loved Colorado and could see himself moving there some day. He was most excited about seeing Yellowstone NP and Wyoming state. He definitely wants to revisit Colorado and Wyoming to see more each state has to offer... and to try some Rocky Mt Oysters :)

Homeward Bound

Map Route

We woke early in Billings, Montana and drove west through the grasslands. The further west we drove the denser the trees got. We stopped in Livington for lunch then drove south to Yellowstone National Park. Along the way we stopped at the river to try to swim but the water was freezing. In the park we saw tons of elk and drove east through a part of the park. We went on a hike to Wraith Falls, a short hike through wildflowers to the waterfall. After playing with the flowers we drove on and stopped to see Tower Falls. The waterfall was a lot larger and we hiked to the base of it which flowed into Yellowstone River. The river smelled of sulphur and the stone walls across the bank were colored yellow. After our hike we spent some time in the gift shop then drove along the main road through the park. We saw our first bison and were thrilled. We exited the park into West Yellowstone where we found a lot to stay in for the night.

Entrance into Yellowstone

Wraith Falls

Nick enjoying the wild flowers

Alicia at Yellowstone River

In the morning we drove back into Yellowstone where we saw our first geysers. We saw tons of crystal blue pools that contrasted beautifully with the yellow and white soil. We hoped that Steamboat would go off, it is geyser that erupts every couple of years and lasts only minutes. The great thing about Steamboat is that it is three times larger than Old Faithful. It didn't go off while we there :(. We found a spot along the river for lunch, Nick and I waded in the cool river and Natalie showed our pet turtles off to a couple little kids. We drove to Old Faithful and got seats right up front to see the geyser go off. Within 5 minutes of waiting the geyser went off. It was really cool to see it in person and to feel the mist hitting us. After the eruption stopped we drove back towards West Yellowstone. We stopped just inside the park to eat dinner and watch the sunset. After dinner we parked for the night.





Hot springs at Yellowstone NP



Yellowstone Nat'l Park



Old Faithful



Alicia at the geysers in Yellowstone NP

We headed back to Yellowstone to finish checking out the park. We drove to Yellowstone Lake, along the way we saw a large bison making his way down the middle of the street. At the lake we had lunch and spent the afternoon laying in the sun, skipping rocks, and swimming. We left Yellowstone National Park and drove south to the Grand Teton Nat'l Park. We got to see the amazing mountain range reflecting off the lakes. We continued on into Jackson, Wyoming. We drove through the town and then headed west to Victor, Idaho for the night. We stayed at a campground and I finally got caught up on Orange is the New Black show off netflix.

Up close and personal with a buffalo in Yellowstone NP

Alicia, Natalie, and Nick in Grand Teton NP

Grand Teton NP

Nick enjoying the view at Grand Teton NP

We woke up early and thoroughly cleaned the motor home, then we drove south through Idaho to Utah. We stopped in Wellsville, UT to see Natalie's grandma. We told her grandma all about our trip and then we cooked up dinner. There was so much food we ate till we were sick. We left and drove through a crazy rainstorm to Salt Lake City, UT.

Nick riding shotgun 

We woke up and explored downtown Salt Lake City. We got to see Temple Square and look at the beautiful Mormon Temple. We left Salt Lake City and drove west past Salt Lake. We stopped at the Bonneville Salt Flats. The races were supposed to be going on while we were there but the rains earlier in the week flooded the area. We waded in the salty water and were blinded by the pure white salt reflecting the sun. We kept driving through the "loneliest road in America" through Nevada. It started raining and hailing really hard, we had to pull off for a minute until the storm passed because we couldn't see. We decided to drive through the night and we made it back home at midnight. We decided to spend our last night at our hometown Walmart because we had stayed at Walmarts all across the US.

Alicia at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah

Quote:
    " A journey of a thousand miles began with a single step" ~ Lao Tzu.

Lowlands, Highlands, and the Badlands

Map route

We woke up and drove north through Iowa into South Dakota. We headed west towards the Badlands Nat'l Park. Our first stop was a cowboy store in the middle of nowhere. We looked at buffalo hides and skulls and tons of fireworks. We got to see his domesticated bison in the fields. There was some strange animatronic machines that we put quarters into and watched some really creepy shows. At the store was Sturgis Motorcycle Rally stuff, we looked it up and the rally was going on this week. We decided we should check it out. All of the bikers on the road made a lot of sense now. We left the store and continued on, however it was getting late and I wanted to see the Buffalo Gap Nat'l Grasslands in daylight so we pulled off at a truck stop for the night.

The amazing sky at a rest stop

In the morning we drove through the grasslands, no buffalo in sight. We made it to Badland's Nat'l Park. It's a grassland with some rock formations/ canyons of beautiful reds and yellows. We hiked out into them and played around on some rocks. We stopped at the visitor center where we got to see some fossils being uncovered. When we finished at the Nat'l Park we drove to Wall, SD. We had seen billboards for Wall Drug since we got into South Dakota. We looked up Wall Drug to find that it was a huge store that had gained business by offering free iced water in a dry desolate area. We had to see it. The store is so large there is a map letting you know what each section has to offer. We browsed the various items before finishing up in a corridor full of taxidermy animals and strange statues. Out on the patio was an animatronic monkey and a huge Jackalope that I climbed onto its back for a picture. Two bikers that we saw yesterday at the cowboy store took a picture of me on the Jackalope. It was a little strange. We ended up in Rapid City for the night.

Alicia and Natalie frolicking through grasslands

Alicia at Badland's Nat'l Park

Nick at Badland's Nat'l Park

After a refill on ice we drove to Mount Rushmore. The drive was through lush green forests, we rounded a corner and saw the president's faces on the mountain side. After parking we hiked around the mountain and got to learn about the carving process. There were miniature faces that the carvers used for comparison. After leaving Mount Rushmore we drove south to the Wind Cave Nat'l Park and paid for the Fairground Cave Tour. We had to have our shoes "decontaminated" since we had been in another cave in the last 5 years We were in Ruby Falls cave just a couple weeks ago. Turns out there's this fungus outbreak on the east coast that is waking up bats from hibernation and causing them to leave the cave in search of food. The bats are dieing and it turned out Tennessee had a really bad outbreak. Ruby Falls is in Tennessee, so the rangers were really happy that we told them. After the shoe cleaning we walked on a 1 1/2 mile tour of the upper and lower level of the caves. There was some box work going on, it's where the limestone has gypsum in it that expands and contracts causing the limestone to crack. The cracks are filled with calcite and the limestone breaks away leaving a negative of the cracks. It looks just like a wasp nest and is really cool and a little too fragile looking to be making up a roof of the cave. We finished our tour and drove back to Rapid City for the night. We stayed at a campground after haggling for a lower rate since the rates were raised from Sturgis Rally. We spent the night watching Noah, a crazy movie with Russel Crowe and some cannibalism.

Alicia at Mount Rushmore

Alicia at Wind Cave Nat'l Park

After we got ready for the day we headed into downtown Sturgis to see all of the motorcycles. We walked through the biker crowded streets looking at all of the booths. We ate lunch, Natalie finally found a corn dog to celebrate her sister Kim's birthday. We stopped into a restaurant for the restroom and saw a lady passed out on the table. Not only was she out she was topless and her boobs were resting on the table as well. We left the restaurant to see more biker women wearing next to nothing. We went back to the motor home that we parked at the city park. We laid around on the grass looking at magazines and Nick went for a run through Sturgis. When he got back we cooked up some kabobs for dinner. After dinner we drove to Deadwood to go out with a friend. My friend from home, Cacia, happened to be in Sturgis working the rally. We went out to a karaoke bar where Cacia and her coworkers belted out rock and rap songs. We ended the night at a live band and danced the night away.

Sturgis, SD

Natalie and her corn dog

Alicia at Sturgis

Alicia and Cacia in Deadwood

In the morning we woke up and drove out of South Dakota to Wyoming. We drove through grasslands to the Devil's Tower National Monument. This was the first Nat'l Monument ever. The Devil's Tower is a large rock formation in the middle of grasslands. We hiked all the way around the tower, and we were able to see ladders bolted to the rock. The ladders had been there since the 1890's when the tower was first climbed. We drove on to Billings, MT for the night.

View off lookout near Devil's Tower

Alicia at Devil's Tower

Quote:
      "What if it's the there and not the here that I long for. The wander and not the wait, the magic in the lost feet stumbling down the far away street and the way the moon never hangs quite the same."

Big lights will inspire you

Map route

We woke up early and packed our things. We had to throw out all of our perishable foods. I drove us to the Philadelphia Airport. We parked our motor home in the economy lot and put our turtles into one tank and then stowed them into a carry on bag. After taking the shuttle to the airport we walked through the terminal to arrivals and caught a cab to the greyhound station in Philly. There was time to spare after getting our tickets so we got breakfast at The Down Home Diner. We headed back to the station where we stood in line to board our bus. Finally we were on our way to NYC, with a 2 hour bus ride we made it in no time. When we had managed to get out of the underground station we came up to a huge city surrounding us. We had made it!! After deciding not to get into a non moving cab and too scared to learn the subway system we walked 1.2 miles to our hotel while lugging our bags through the crowded streets. The turtle bag fell once and we stopped to make sure they were ok, thankfully they were. We had a couple people ask us where we got them because they wanted turtles too. We checked into our hotel and were amazed at how fancy our room was. There was 2 bedrooms separated by a living room and a huge bathroom with 2 showers. After unpacking the turtles we rested for a couple hours. It was getting late so we decided to grab some pizza for dinner, Nick and I walked around the city looking for an affordable pizza place while Natalie napped. When we got back to the room with the pizza I woke Natalie up just with the smell of the hot pizza. We ate and then got ready to go out. Our first stop was Whiskey Trader where we had a shot of whiskey with a pickle back, delicious! Then we went to the Dream Hotel for a nightclub that was on the terrace. The music was good but we were a lot younger than the crowd and decided to take a cab elsewhere. We caught a cab across the city to a street where we were told there were more bars. Along the drive we got to see Times Square full of light up billboards and tourists. At our destination we saw a tattoo shop, where Nick decided to get his nose piercing changed to a ring and Natalie found another nose ring for herself. After a quick change we went to the bar across the street The Grisly Pear. We hung out there for a bit then decided this wasn't what we were looking for and took another cab to the  meat packing district where there were tons of nightclubs. We walked down the cobblestone streets till we heard some music coming from a building, there was a long line waiting to get in. We decided this was where we wanted to be. We stood in the line as the bouncer pointed at the various groupings of people asking how many in their party, still not letting anyone in. Another door guy leaned into the bouncer and pointed at us and the bouncer asked us, we responded with 3 and he waved us in. We had made the cut even though there were other groupings of 3 or less that could have been let in. We took the elevator up to the terrace top that was emitting loud club music and began to dance. After ordering a drink we realized how expensive everything was- $18 for a vodka and orange juice!! We danced the night away and some guy bought me two drinks, what a sucker! It had gotten late so we took a cab back to our hotel and fell asleep.

Smuggling some baby turtles

Alicia falling in LOVE with NYC

In the morning we were awoken by room service, we had ordered breakfast up since it was reasonably priced and sounded nice. Natalie and I ate our breakfast in bed while watching cartoons. We got ready for the day, and asked the front desk how the subway works. After walking to a subway station and figuring out the payments we took the subway to the Staten Island Ferry terminal. The terminal had lots of restaurants so we grabbed lunch and listened to a guy playing violin. He was really good and played cover songs we knew. When the ferry arrived we got on and went to the second floor deck outside so we could see the Statue of Liberty. We got to see Ellis Island and our Lady Liberty. At Staten Island we looked around at the little shops and the fish tanks in the terminal then took the ferry back, on the way back we were able to see the Brooklyn Bridge. From the station we walked to the World Trade Center Memorial. Along the way we saw the Wall Street Bull and took pictures with his balls that seemed to have been polished from years of being touched. We made our way to the memorial feeling sad along the way as we reflected on 9/11 events. The fountains were huge and we looked over the edge and read some of the names surrounding the memorial. We got to see some of the firefighters who had survived and look at their memorial for their fallen brothers. There was a tribute center nearby but we were unable to go in because it was closed for the day. Feeling exhausted we took the subway back to our hotel. We went to TJ Maxx, Natalie's favorite store, and then grabbed some drinks and a hot dog from a street cart before heading up. At our room we ate dinner and watched movies.

Natalie checking out the Brooklyn Bridge from the ferry

Statue of Liberty from the ferry

9/11 Memorial

I woke early and got my stuff packed to leave. I wanted to go to Central Park before check out so we didn't have to carry our bags around. It took too long for everyone else to get ready, with only 30 min till check out I dragged Nick and Natalie out of the room for a quick walk to the park. We walked through part of the park and then grabbed breakfast to go. It was past check out time so we hurried to grab our bags and leave for our bus. We were barely going to make the bus so we ran down the street to the subway but couldn't find the subway entrance we needed, after asking for direction we back tracked to our terminal. The first train was a couple minutes out and turned out to not be ours, our train came a couple minutes afterwards. We got on and rode the train to the greyhound station. We hurried off the train and up from the subway, lugging our heavy suitcases after us. I tried to orient ourselves to find the bus station and then we hurried towards it. Once inside the station we had to find our terminal, we took the escalator down and ran down the hall. We got to our terminal, there was no one in line, everyone had already boarded. We went outside where the bus driver took our tickets and asked us why we were late, all while he shook his head at us. He finally opened the luggage compartment where we threw our bags into and he let us on the bus. We had barely made it!! Once on the bus we were able to relax. The bus ride was 3 hours long because it had a couple stops in New Jersey to make. Once back in Philly we took a cab back to the airport to get our motor home. It was like being back home and we were too happy to be back in our tiny box. Tomorrow we will go to Gettysburg so we drove west stopping at a brewery outside of Philadelphia for dinner. We made it into Gettysburg just in time for bed.

Natalie looking bisque at dinner

In the morning we drove straight to Gettysburg battlefield and stopped inside the visitor center, we decided to not pay extra for the museum and instead bought an audio tour that we listened too as we drove to various point in the park. We learned all about the battle and got to see the memorials and representations for the states that were involved. Throughout the park are tons of canyons and statues that were really cool to look at. We tried to take a hot air balloon ride because it was the cheapest we had seen but weather conditions wouldn't allow it and we looked inside a free museum about Gettysburg instead. After we were done in Gettysburg we drove to Hershey, PA to see the Hershey Chocolate Factory. We rode a Disneyland like ride through a mock factory to see how the chocolate it made, at the end of the tour we got free candy and then looked through the huge candy shop. After we were done at the store we drove towards Niagara Falls, we made it to Painted Post, NY where we stayed for the night.

Natalie in battle at Gettysburg

The battlefield at Gettysburg

Memorial at Gettysburg

I got up early and ran into Walmart for some more milk when I got back to the motor home I realized I was somehow missing a back piercing and I didn't know when I had lost. We searched the bed and the floor of the motor home but we couldn't find the tiny jewel. Our first stop of the day was a pet store to buy a new lamp for our turtles. I played with the bunnies and looked at all of the animals. There was a ferret and a huge iguana as well as lots of pythons. After looking around the pet store for a while we drove towards Buffalo, NY and along the way we went through a small town where we saw an open tattoo shop, we stopped to buy a new jewel. The shop didn't carry the type of jewelry I had but they did change Nick's nose ring out to a better ring for free. We drove on and Natalie found the only shop in Buffalo that had the type I was looking for but they said it would be $60 and they wouldn't just sell me the jewelry separate from a piercing price. I decided we had better head there and try to bargain with the guy. At the shop he said they didn't just sell the jewelry. I told him I had 10 dermal piercings and that one came out, usually I can just shove the skin diver in and tape it over to heal up, I didn't see how paying $60 was justifiable. He finally said he would sell me the jewel for $20, I took it. Back at the motor home I went to the bathroom before we put the new jewelry in and I heard a clink, my original dermal had fell out of my short and landed on the floor. Thank god I didn't pay $60 for the skin diver, at least now I have a spare. We cleaned mine off and Natalie put it back in for me and then we were off to Niagara Falls. On the way to the falls Natalie got a warning on her phone about being in a flash flood zone. We drove out to the falls while it poured and water pooled up on the roadway. We got to Niagara Falls and the rain stopped. We went on the Maid of the Mist, a boat ride that took us right next to the falls and we got sprayed with the mist coming off of the falls. The waterfalls were huge and we enjoyed the beautiful scenery with Canada in the background. We left Niagara Falls and drove to Cleveland, Ohio. Our first parking lot we picked for the night we go kicked out of so we drove across town to another Walmart to sleep.

A farmhouse in New York

Alicia, Nick, and Natalie at Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls

Maid of the Mist Ferry at Niagara Falls

Quote:
     "When you die God and all of the angels will hold you accountable for the joys in life you've denied yourself."