Posts in the North American Travels Category

December 14, 2007

Days 15-18: Pagosa Springs Colorado

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Pictured: The Hot Springs in the town center. There are 18 pools with temperatures ranging from 101 to 112 degrees. Ahh, Pagosa Springs Colorado. What? You have never heard of it? Well, none of us had heard of it either before this trip. Friends of mine from back home in Baltimore, Lisa and Joe, decided to move their lives to the south west and stumbled on this quaint little town (population 6000) while exploring the area. What they discovered is nothing short of a diamond in the rough.

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Southern U.S Cross Country Road Trip Comments ( 1 )
December 11, 2007

Days 12, 13, and 14: Carlsbad Caverns, Rozwell, and the White Sands of New Mexico

on-a-hilltop.jpgPictured: in the Hills of New Mexico

From Austin we took off west towards Carlsbad Caverns in southeast New Mexico. It took us about 9ish hours if I do remember correctly.

200px-witchs_finger_carlsbad_caverns.jpgCarlsbad Caverns are very old, very deep, and very cave like. Yes, that is right I said cave like while describing caverns. In truth, I guess I am not all that into caves. Stalagmites and stalactites just do not do it for me. We arrived too late in the season to see the nightly bat migration (2 million bats fly out of the caverns every evening). Unfortunately, the bats leave for Mexico at the end of October. While I am at it, bats suck as well. Especially, when they leave a few weeks too soon for me to see them fly out of a big boring cave.

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Southern U.S Cross Country Road Trip Comments( 4 )
December 9, 2007

Days 8-10: The tattooed city of Austin, Texas

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The amount of tattoo shops and tattooed people in Austin is absolutely mind boggling. Austin is a place where it is normal for a mother to be pushing her baby down the street in a stroller while openly displaying her two arm sleeves (wrist to shoulder tattoo). The tattoos are bigger, bolder, and more daring than any other place I have been.

texas_waffle.JPGOur crew stayed at a shimmy shack of a hotel north of town, next to highway 35, and the University of Texas. It was a filthy, disgusting hole of a place. Yet, we were extremely pleased that they offered a continental breakfast complete with waffles made in the “shape of Texas”.

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Southern U.S Cross Country Road Trip Comments( 4 )
November 30, 2007

Thrown for a loop

On my last post I wrote about BBC journalist Lola Almudevar, a close friend of mine that was killed in Bolivia last weekend in a car accident on her way to cover political unrest in the city of Sucre.  Needless to say, I have been thrown for a loop by the loss of my friend.

I have spent the last three days hiking in the depths of the Grand Canyon attempting to come to terms with what happened to Lola. I still do not know why things like this happen. But, this whole experience has reaffirmed my purpose. If there is one prevailing idea that I am taking away from this tragedy, it is that I am not going to waste a second of this life.

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Southern U.S Cross Country Road Trip Comments( 4 )
November 27, 2007

A Very Sad Day

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I randomly checked my email this morning before hitting the road for a 10 hour journey to the Grand Canyon and found out that one of most dynamic people I have ever met died in an automobile accident in Bolivia.

Lola Almudevar and I met in Sucre, Bolivia last May. We were sitting with our laptops back to back at a restaurant with wireless capability. She was working on a deadline for BBC news, I was probably working on a post about how tremendously terrible I was at speaking Spanish.
Before we both knew it a drunken Irishman crashed into our completely covered table sending everything flying including our laptops. I was fortunate. Lola was not as lucky as her laptop did not make it through the night. Nonetheless, that crazy Irishman helped forge a friendship that I will never forget.

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Bolivia, People I've met along the way, Southern U.S Cross Country Road Trip Comments( 9 )
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