CJ's Corner

Day one on the RV... no sign of intelligent life anywhere. there seem to be four other living organisms inhabiting this vessel. One of them, the leader, goes by the name of carl/dad... he has some affixiation with bad 70s music and looking like santa clause, but overall, i think he means well for his group of misfits. The main goal this bunch has is to make it to Los Angeles and see a mysterious woman they call "nana." doing some research, i learned that nana is another name for someones grandmother. It seemed like a slight waste of time to go all this way just to see "nana" but from what ive experianced, she is one of, if not THE, sweetest women on the face of the earth. Another unfortunate soul aboard this vessel is one known as "isabel" i have had a chance to experiance numerous recreational activities with this girl, and from what i have gathered, she seems to be bad at every game played because i smoked her in all of them. Although i surpass her in age by 6 years.... i still feel fairly accomplished. Now we have pulled into a RV camp for the night and are beginning system shut downs. I will return tomorow with new news and information on the RV "NA conquest"

day two on the RV and the landscape is starting to blur together. Once you travel past the first half of illinois and start getting into the iowa area... it all looks the same. same cornfield, same silo, same cornfield, same barn, same cornfield, same pile of hay, and THE SAME FREAKING CORNFIELD! I never really noticed how urban my life was untill I experianced THAT rural of a place. The only thing that kept me sane during that streach of driving was my music. My favorite band, Slipknot, was formed in des moine iowa and grew up there. they came out with an album named "iowa" and a 15 min song called "Iowa" In the song, they feature bird calls and other noises that they heard growing up in Iowa. It was kinda neat to go back to where they started and listen to the album they dedicated to their home state. The search for intelligent life aboard this craft has made some fairly good progress. It seems that I now have some competition in a card game called "crazy 8s". The one they call Isabel is actually fairly good at it. However, I am determined to beat her at her own game at some point. I'll start tomorrow. Because today, I'm in South Dakota and need to rest up for my trip to Mount Rushmore.

Day three on the RV... TOday was spent mostly outside of the RV on foot. We went to go visit Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse monuments. Now, I had heard of Mount Rushmore before because it is a national monument and very well recognized. However, I did not know what/who Crazy Horse is/was. Apparently, he was a great native american cheif who fought bravely against white invaders and never agreed to live on a reservation. The sculpture of Crazy Horse, much like Rushmore, is carved into the side of a mountain. The big difference is the size. Crazy Horse is going to be much, much bigger than Mount Rushmore. The only problem is that it is not finished yet, in fact, they only have the face done. They still have to do the horse, his had, his hair, and basically everything else. It will take a TON of work, but it will be quite the spectical when it is completed.... Isabel beat me in crazy 8s again... I will continue my quest to crush her.

Internet is a tad hard to come by so I am including days four, five, and six into this one entry.

Day four: Do you know what is really interesting about Wyoming???? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Remember how I was complaining about how boring Iowa was? Well take Iowa and subtract all the cornfields and silos... You're basically left with nothing. That's what Wyoming is, just a big field of nothing with a huge highway going through the middle of it. Now I'm trying to be witty and humorous like the rest of this blog, but there is only so many witty observations I can make with a the huge open field of Wyoming... There are a few hills in Wyoming that broke the otherwise completely flat land scape. Some people describe these hills as "rolling" but they looked pretty stagnant to me.... Isabel and I are tied in crazy 8s 7-7... I'm so close I can taste it

Day 5: We arrived in Salt Lake City late at night and went to bed almost right away. When we woke up, Dad/Carl had this whole itinerary for us to do... First comes Going to the great salt lake and seeing if we could float... But that plan backfired because if you went too far into the lake, bad things would happen... Still not sure what those bad things are, but I'll take Dad's/Carl's word for it. So, instead, we just went about knee deep in the lake and took pictures so we could say "we were in the great salt lake" and get away with it with some credibility.... The lake was gross and salty... That is basically my only comment. The second order of business was going to the Mormon tabernacle. I learned some new things about the mormon culture, such as everyone is unnaturally nice and cheerfull. That cannot be healthy.... But, it was cool talking to people giving off such positive energy. Next, it was off to VEGAS BABY! I don't know why I was so excited for Vegas because I'm only 17... i guess I just wanted to see all of the lights and whatnot. We arrived there at around 9:00 local time and the lights were spectacular. The drive over was through a desert, but it had a ton of awesome mountains and valleys. The clash between the red sand, red rock, and the sky was just absolutely stunning. In fact, I thought it paralleled if not exceeded the beauty of the lights in Las Vegas. but, my excitement was short lived because parking in the middle of Las Vegas with and RV was an absolute nightmare. But, we eventually found a spot and started walking around and seeing all of the sights. Dad/Carl was basically a tour guide. he has a ton of knowledge about the city and gambling games.... Not that that's a bad thing.... We didn't eat untill around 1045. And get this, we ate at a Dennys.... we were in the middle of a bustling, famous city, and we ate at a Dennys... however, if I had to pick one word to describe Las Vegas it would be..... Frivolous.

Day 6: We drove to the house of the mysterious "Nana". On the way there, we stopped at one of the greatest, classiest, and most delicious restaurant on the west coast. Yes, I am refferring to In-n-out burger! It. Was. Delicious! Then, we arrived at Nana's house! I was instantly ushered in by great hospitality and the comforting scent found only at my grandmother's house. I wish I could live here. Great food, great company, and the sweetest and most cheerfull woman you will ever meet. i am looking forward to staying here for a couple of days.... Isabel and I have not yet continued our card game. It is still 7-7.

Day 7: Today I did not even need to step inside the RV. We were staying at Nana's and everything just seemed to be perfect. The food was sublime. I have never been more satisfied with food in my entire life. And it came just in time too, I was getting tired of eating the same sandwich every day. I also got to catch up on recent activity in the world. Mostly the sports world. The Red Sox are still #1 in the AL east, and the pirates are only 1 game out of first place in the NL central. If the pirates make the playoffs.... Something is wrong with the world. I went to the beach today! The waves were nice and I got some body surfing in. It felt great to finally be able to do that again since we aren't going to be able to go to Cancun this year.... For dinner, Nana invited Uncle Steve and his gang over. She also had Aunt Caroline's parents over. It was nice catching up with everybody.... Isabel beat me in crazy 8s again... I'm begginning to get a tad frustrated... but, that's okay because I BEAT DAD/CARL IN MONOPOLY!!!! I've been trying to beat him ever since I learned how to play, and I finally did. So that made up for my lack of skill in crazy 8s.... but Isabel is still going down

Day 8/9: on day 8, we went to the grand canyon. That thing is bigger than I expected. I've seen photographs before but none have done it justice. Imagine the most beautiful landscape you can imagine, and take away the superfluous rainbows (I know you had those in there don't lie to me) and that is what you have. The only thing I found wrong with it was that I wanted more lookouts where I can see the Colorado River. I wanted a place where I could see the entire river and all of its roaring might and beauty. I did enjoy the hike down the side of the canyon though. We hiked about 1 3/4 miles down to "Ooh Aah point" (it should have been about 45 min.... But we had old people with us. Not mentioning any names... but his initials are DAD. But, when we made it to Ooh Aah Point, the entire canyon opened up in front of us. As a poet might say, that thing was freakin' HUGE! After an entire day of walking/limping around the grand canyon, we turned in and ate in a local restaurant. I don't think I have ever eaten so much food in my life! I had some corn chowder, a salad, an avacado burger, 3/4 of isabel's quesadilla, and raspberry sherbet. I have never seen my stomach that bloated... I looked like dad. I got scared for a little. I thought I was going to explode or something. After that we went to a bus stop to catch a shuttle back to the RV park. All of a sudden, this HUGE moose-looking thing came up to us and a handful of people at the bus stop. The best way i can describe it is a bit bigger than a horse, but it had GIGANTIC antlers. It came about 5 yards away from us! Isabel screamed, I laughed, she screamed louder, I laughed harder. It was a good time. We later learned that it was an elk. I want to domesticate one and ride it to school... how sick would i look on one of those? I shall name him steven. Steven the elk.

Did you know it could rain in Arizona? I just assumed that it never rained there and that's why everything was red and whatnot. Apparently it can, and it did. Very heavily, in fact. When we went to New Mexico, it rained even harder. I found it ironic because we were in the middle of a desert. I actully enjoyed looking out into the desert as we drove. There was nothing except a few scattered bushes. No hills, just flat sand. I found it fun to look at because i was pretty sure I could see the curvature of the earth. It was cool looking out into nothing. It gave you the same feeling as listening to silence after a noise filled day. Like no other sound in the world. After we trekked through the desert, dad took a 2 hour detour to stand on some corner in scenic (sarcasm) Winslow, Arizona. i didn't see the point of it. but it seemed to make him happy, so I played along. We are now stationed in Durango, Colorado... I'm beating Isabel 7-6 in the most recent game of crazy 8s... If I don't win this time..... I quit

I beat Isabel in crazy 8s!!! HA! HA! and another HA! I probably should have stopped after that game because she creamed me in the next match. But then she taught me how to play rummy and i wiped the floor with her... So add on another HA to my collection. Anyway, it is day.... you know what? I don't even know anymore. 12? ya, let's go with 12. Ok, so it's day 12 and we drove to St. Louis. There, we saw the St. Louis arch. Did you know you could go to the top of that thing? There are windows to look out of and stuff. For some reason, everyone was scared. Dad was holding on the the ceiling, Isabel was chanting something under her breath to keep herself calm. And Duncan and Julie were claustraphobic... Yes, they're afraid of santa clause. Anyway, I loved it up there. It was a cool view and you could feel the arch's curve. it was all really neat. Then, we went to go dip out toes in the mississippi river.... I'm pretty sure it is dirtier than the allegheny and Ohio river combined... Isabel's leg touched a piece of toilet paper.... That made my day. Then, we pulled into the campground and are getting ready for system shut down. In the mornin', I'm makin' waffles!!