Conclusion

This marks the conclusion of my retro-blog about my road trip across the USA this summer. I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Introduction

In this blog I plan to retroactively detail my road trip across the USA this summer. I'm not sure how well it will go, but I'll be basing it on the journal I tried to keep at the time.

Unknown entry

I found this entry halfway through my journal, with no date. I don't remember writing it.

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I'm Richard. I'm a crazy English bloke. I have no opinions. My favourite friend in the whole world is Autumn. I wish I was just like her but without lady-parts [censored -ed]. I sure will miss her when I'm gone.

Thursday

I'm at the airport, having missed my flight - United kept me in line for ages just to tell me I was in the wrong place! It's Opodo's fault really - they gave me the wrong airline on my itinerary. I won't be booking with them again! Luckily the lady at Air Canada helped me out and found me a new flight tonight, at no extra charge, but it's going to be a long wait. 

Yesterday was really fun, we had a small party on Arroya Verde park. We barbequed, had a piñata, and went iceblocking. It was all great fun! First time I'd ever iceblocked (sliding down a grassy hill on a big block of ice) or had a piñata! Afterwards we went back to Leila's dad's again for more games. During the day we'd been to buy party supplies, ate at Johnny's - great chips! I'm really going to miss Ventura and the people who live here.

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I'm now on the plane for Toronto. Autumn came back to the airport and we spent the afternoon together, we went to Santa Monica, got pizza for lunch and went to the beach. I managed to relax after the stress of missing my flight, and say bye to Autumn again. It's going to be so strange not seeing her! 

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I'm now in Heathrow central bus station waiting for a coach home. The flights weren't bad, I had lots to watch and listen to on the seat-back screens, got window seats on both flights, and was at a wing exit from Toronto-London, which meant extra legroom!

I should be home by about 4:30am.

Tuesday

On Friday night we arrived in Ventura at about 2am. We watched a couple of episodes of Flight of the Conchords and then slept. We woke up at about noon on Saturday and just lazed around all day - it was nice not being in the car, or being on any kind of schedule! We watched more Flight of the Conchords (after getting familiar with all the songs, I had to see what the show was like), played Xbox, and ate mexican food. Autumn's older (middle-aged) cousin and his wife came round and we watched some dirt bike showreels while we ate.

On Sunday we all went to see an airshow at Point Mugu naval air station. There were lots of cool flying displays from stunt planes, military planes, and a display team called the Blue Angels. In the evening Autumn and I hung out with her friend Leila, watched Shaun of the Dead and made stuffed felt shapes (I made a flower for Autumn, she made a dinosaur for me). 

Yesterday we met Jenna again and went to the park with her dog to play frisbee and ate lunch at Chipotle, which was pretty tasty. In the evening Autumn, Leila, Jenna and I went to Golf 'n' Stuff and had fun on the games, won lots of tickets, and got lots of prizes. Later Sakwa and Jason joined us and we went to the fair - which we got into for free thanks to Leila being a county employee! It was fun, we went on a cool ride and played some games, Jenna won a stuffed penguin. We all went back to Leila's dad's again and played games - one called Set which was difficult but fun (especially difficult when you're colourblind), and one called Blokus.

Today we slept in quite late and are now going to lunch with Leila.

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Leila bought us lunch which was really nice of her, we got real Mexican food from Taqueria Vallarta, it was very very good. After lunch we went to a shop called Rocket Fizz where I got Dal a selection of candy. Then Autumn and I came home, watched more Conchords and went to the beach. In the evening Julie and Joe took us to Red Robin for a tasty dinner, and we got fancy chocolate from See's. It's so sad that tomorrow is my last day!

Friday

Last night we stayed in Hurricane, Utah, just about 30 minutes away from the entrance to Zion national park, where we visited today. We walked a couple of short trails and saw a museum of human history in the area, along with paintings of the park. We decided that rather than staying in a hotel another night or camping, we'd just drive straight back to Ventura - it's only 7 hours or so, meaning we'll arrive at about 1 or 2 am. It's sad to think I'll be home this time next week, but it will be nice to see my friends and family again! It'll be so weird not seeing Autumn at all, after spending 5 weeks constantly together.

Thursday

Last night we stayed in Green River, Utah. We'd left Colorado so late that we couldn't go all the way to Zion in a day, and to top it off there was a pretty huge thunderstorm in the area. It's only about 4 hours from here to where we want to be, though.

As we left Colorado we drove through and took a break in Glenwood Canyon, which was apparently the hardest 12 miles of the Interstate system to build. I'm glad they did, though, as it's a beautiful drive!

As we got into Utah we started to hit the electrical storm I mentioned. It looked really cool, as it was happening literally all around us, but as we were outside you could see the entire storm, with flickers of lightning but no thunder (I guess we were too far away). Utah is quite flat and desert-y, but with big mesas and buttes and other rock formations in the distance, so it's quite pretty. I'm looking forward to visiting Zion park again, as I remember it being very pretty.