TravelStream™ news feed for member bobamaniac715 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/bobamaniac715 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:20:58 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1252652278/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1252652278/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1252652278/tpod.html Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:20:58 -0400 Mountain standard Time (2009)

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Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

Woke up early for breakfast! Yee-Haw! Don't know if we really took pictures of the Rocky Mountains, but we tried. We headed to Utah for Arches National Park, and was able to experience and witness beautiful creations, not man-made this time. :) And today was awesome because the weather was not too hot despite the fact that we were in a desert environment. We then took a 45 minute hike to some of the arches (one of the boulders even looked like the Three Wisemen)! Other boulders looked like a monkey, pride rock, a dragon, and some bears. After that, we took a 7 hour trip to Las Vegas. since I have been there so many times and got ultra tired by the time we arrived at night, I have decided to go to the ABC store (the one that resembled the ABC store from Hawaii) and got myself a Malibu and roasted flavored macadamia nuts to help me fall asleep.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1252651389/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1252651389/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1252651389/tpod.html Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:20:41 -0400 Mountain standard Time (2009)

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Grand Junction, Colorado, United States

Woke up pretty early (7 AM) from Deadwood to get to Mount Rushmore. However, we (as in all passengers) thought that we weren't going to receive a continental breakfast from the hotel. We thought that we were going to get food on our own, but thanks to being proactive by asking around! We got free food before we left for the bus and to Mount Rushmore! :)Now once we got there, all I could say was...nothing! The scenery was breathtaking and amazing to look at. I can really appreciate man-made sculptures and the presidents of the United states this way. I saw random goats, by the way! They were not your everyday goats. After checking out Mount Rushmore, we visited Bear Country Animal Park! I was relieved that the park was only a drive-through. Otherwise, we wouldn't witness the animals taking their course in their natural lives. Bears were cute to watch along with wolves, elk, otters, skunks, bobcats, coyotes, and foxes. We then headed for Crazy Horse, which will become the largest man-made sculpture ever created.Rain started to pour by the time we visited the place, but it didn't matter. I missed the rain and would love it if the rain came to California already so that the drought will disappear. Wishful thinking.After visiting Crazy Horse, we had the 12 hour DRIVE to Colorado. yes, 12 hours. That's half of 24 hours, half of one day. 12 hours worth of sitting, reading, watching movies, and sleeping. Oh boy! AND guess what? I had Mc Donalds for dinner! That was the THIRD time! Ahh!While sleeping (since it was already dark), I missed Denver, half of the drive past the tunnel and the Rocky Mountains because it was too dark to see! And when we stopped at the restroom, we ended up staying at the rest area in utter darkness and coldness! CRAZY! We arrived at the hotel at 2:15 AM, way past everyone's bed time. Gotta sleep now. Too sleepy to even think (and hence, the short post).   
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1252652903/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1252652903/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1252652903/tpod.html Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:19:41 -0400 Mountain standard Time (2009)

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Los Angeles, California, United States

We woke up at 8 AM and checked out the following:- Chocolate Factory- Botanical Gardens (many cactus from around the world) - Buffet (the same one from DAY ONE)- Barstow and outlet shopping- Los AngelesAnd by the time we arrived at Chinatown, I finished both "Eclipse" and "Breaking Dawn". :D Hooray! Anyway, we had to say goodbye to many passengers when we dropped them off at Rowland Heights, Alhambra, Cerritos, and other places before the final destination in Chinatown. I got sad because I will miss them. I was able to connect to some of these people, even if they were from a different background. It was nice to travel with different people for seven days, knowing that this trip wouldn't have been special without them, the funny tour guide, and the driver! It was crazy to hear that David and the driver had to return to work the next morning, doing the same tour for different people! It felt endless! But I must admit that they are doing a terrific job doing this all the time. I don't know who else would do such a job such as this - going on the road for seven days and doing it all over again. It was like they only have their own time to sleep and that's about it! I give my props to you guys because without you, none of this awesomeness would have happen.And now, I say goodbye to this trip!UNTIL NEXT YEAR!
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Utah, United States

When I first thought about going to a bus tour for seven days, I thought to myself: What am I getting myself into? I thought about how utterly long and boring this was going to be! I thought about sitting in the bus for many hours, sleeping for half of the day! I thought about going to the restroom at the back of the bus, praying that I wouldn't have to do #2 and reveal to sixty people that I can fart. Yeah...all of these were ideas coming from my head, the negativity of them all. However, I completely had forgotten about the many optimistic opportunities when given the chance to ride in a tour bus: there is no need to DRIVE for 2,000 + miles, there is no need to find an inn or a hotel everyday, there is no need to find breakfast, lunch, and dinner, there is no need to get lost when getting to the destinations - all of that is taken care of by the tour guide. Thank God. :)So here I am, writing away my first day in the tour bus, my first day out of California, and my first day getting into the open road to the Midwestern United States. Heck, this is my first time going to the states I have mentioned in my blog (minus Utah, Arizona, and Nevada). I'm looking forward to hitting up Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, and South Dakota for my first try. 5 new states to see, 5 new states to explore! I can't wait for them all! <i>And so our journey begins.On Saturday morning at approximately 5:15 AM, I woke up having to endure waking up so darn early to wait for the freakin' bus at Chinatown in Los Angeles. We left home at 6 something AM. Before leaving, however, my grandmother from my father's side told me a few words since she was returning to the Philippines later that night. She told me the following advice (as if I have heard those already): if you are planning to get married, make sure you find someone with a really great family background, take care of your brother and sister...and be nice to them both, have a great career so that you can take care of your parents once they get old, etc. :) I said my goodbyes to the rest, leaving me, my sister, my mother, and uncle to experience a journey of a lifetime...or two.The bus approached at 7 AM. I felt exhausted from barely getting any sleep the night before, so I wanted to sleep already by the time I was inside the bus! However, the bus kept on stopping at Alhambra and other places before the man behind the wheel asked all of us to get out of the bus for a transfer. Crap! Okay? So I had to go to the restroom, but we ended up going to one that really sucked. No toilet paper, the floors were wet, plus the bathroom line was long for BOTH males and females, which indicated that the restroom is only for men AND women. That was great! &gt;_&lt; At least the bus we went to was completely prettier and nicer than the other ones. Comfort seating, clear windows, space for your feet (at least for half of the time), and more. My mom had to say something funny before we got in. For instance, instead of saying if we can ALL sit together since we have four people, she said, "Can the 4 of us FIT in ONE SEAT?" OMG HAHAH! I cracked up in my head because it was too funny! You gotta make sense in the english world. The tour guide, David Lam (I think), had set some ground rules for the bus trip! The most important one was this, "When we stop, go to the restroom! Don't say you don't want to get out because you don't need to go to the restroom. JUST DO IT! When I say "Happy Hour", that means that the restroom is ready for you." Hahaha. How nice of him to symbolize Happy Hour as the restroom to remove all that anxiety. Happy hour makes you feel good, and so does the restroom! It's a good thing that we stop every two and a half hours because if we go beyond that, everyone will really have major bladder problems. I kid you NOT. &gt;_&lt;The entire bus was filled with Chinese and Chinese Americans, with a bit of Taiwanese and Singaporean. Of all of the people there, we (Filipino) were the only ones present! It's quite interesting hearing all of the different languages and accents for 7 FULL days. I bet my uncle and my mother were Filipino deprived for the entire trip. :PSo we finally left, had to pick up people at Rowland Heights, and then stopped at Barstow for "Happy Hour". Oh man! and another thing, to get everyone's attention, the tour guide said, "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" in his happy voice. I gotta say, although this sounded ridiculous and funny, his cuckoo sound definitely got everyone's attention! :) Our next stop was lunch at Las Vegas! Whoo! We ended up eating together, all 60 of us, at a Chinese Buffet for $10. Not bad for a price such as that! It had over 100 entries ranging from mongolian BBQ to sushi and chinese food! YAY! I got full after that. Once we were back on the road, I saw more of Arizona's mountains and Utah's red boulder-like structures. Furthermore, I could feel the heat getting to me when the temperature rose to triple digit numbers! :( After a few hours of staying in the bus, we stopped by at St. George, Utah for dinner at Carl's Jr., the restroom break, and outlet shopping. By the time we arrived at the inn in Beaver, it was already past 9 PM MST (8 PM PST). I was able to read more than 100 pages of "Eclipse" for the first day, which indicated that I will complete this during the middle of the trip! Hmm...so the majority of today involved driving, DRIVING, and more driving. How fun. At least taking a swim in an indoor pool balanced sitting around for several hours! Tomorrow is where the real fun begins.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1252648488/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1252648488/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1252648488/tpod.html Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:35:49 -0400 Mountain standard Time (2009)

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Deadwood, South Dakota, United States

Hi! -_-Well, let me tell you about what happened last night. First of all, the toilet began to malfunction, so my mother had to call room service to check the plumbing situation. At this rate, the toilet will get filled up with water and will overflow, which would suck! It was a good thing that nobody did #2 that night. Otherwise...well, you don't want to know! In addition to the plumbing problem, the air conditioner was too loud and thus, I barely slept. so I woke up on time for breakfast. Only had noodles this time because the inn didn't offer continental breakfast. Oh well! We then left for the national park again in the morning. It was amazing to see how huge the park was because it took TWO hours to get to the north side of the park for Big Mammoth springs! We were coming from the south side, by the way. In Big Mammoth springs, we were able to witness the beauty and the smell of hot springs in their glory! It was sad to see, however, that the colorful appearance of the springs from 10 years ago faded, leaving behind the colors of white and gray. The lava used to be so colorful (like the colors of the rainbow), but now dullness took over due to the fact that less water came this year and in previous years. After that, we left for south Dakota. But on our way there, we stopped by at a Mc Donald's in Montana for lunch. I seriously cannot handle Mc Donald's for a third time this week, but what can I do? :\ Just gotta keep ordering the $1 menu and eat whatever I can to survive. haha. By the way, a Filipino lady was working at the restaurant and to my surprise, she ended up going to our table during her break to talk to my mother and uncle! You had to see the look of my mother's face when she found a new friend to talk to in her language! she felt Filipino-deprived. Haha! Anyway, the worker kept on saying how only a few Filipinos live in Montana and hand to find out the passing of former President Cory Aquino through my mother. since this was the rural area in the middle of nowhere, it was difficult to find any news from the Philippines unless there was a computer with internet access nearby. After lunch, we got back on the road, watched several movies such as "spiderman 1 and 2", the entire "Rush Hour" trilogy, and saw several cows being themselves near ranches. Yes. The meadow area was all we could see for a few hours, and by then I had already know that I had "left" from the city life many hours ago.&nbsp; We finally arrived at Deadwood, south Dakota at approximately 8 PM! My first thought that came to mind was the Old West! I wasn't kidding. The historic town was surrounded by tall, pine trees and the town itself was the real deal - a wild west town! Furthermore, the hotel that we stayed in, the Franklin Hotel, was very historic because it was built in 1903 and survived fires from the past century. Although I admire the hotel's uniqueness for being fashionably old, the rooms creeped me out just a little bit. How? For instance, the room that we stayed in was scary looking, and my sister rambled about ghosts and scary stuff! For instance, the bathtub was REALLY old and reminded me of the movie, "Psycho". Yeah, remember THAT shower scene? I had no intention of putting my entire body into that bathtub just to take a shower! No way! Not me! haha. It was interesting to see names of famous people in front of the doors, and then see their obituary and picture in the middle of the room. Yeah, I actually got freaked out after seeing that for the first time. But I ended up not thinking about the scary stuff since I was hungry and wanted to check the town out. When we went out of the hotel to go around town, we saw how gambling became a necessity in this city by checking out every store that had slot machines and what not! Furthermore, we ended up eating at a steakhouse saloon and bar (yes, no more fast food for now). The food in itself (steak, potato, and more) was quite delicious and got me satisfied like crazy. In addition, I would like to thank Fat Tire beer for helping me get insanely full (aka BLOATED). sadly, I wasn't able to have my FREE drink back in my hotel because I was way too full to even get one. At least the coupons didn't go to waste because my family eventually used them. Mount Rushmore is next!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1251357538/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1251357538/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1251357538/tpod.html Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:22:01 -0400 Mountain standard Time (2009)

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Gardiner, Montana, United States

hello there! so we woke up at approximately 5:05 AM. Eww! That was super early in my book! I normally sleep in rather than wake up super early, but we WERE on a very tight schedule. I can't control that! haha. so we had a continental breakfast at Ramada Inn, but&nbsp; it took forever for us to get and eat the food because there was some confusion and communication problems between our tour guide and the lady who made the continental breakfast. To be completely honest, everything was rather annoying from the get go. Anyway, we left to the countryside once again, but instead of going north like before, we headed east to the state of Wyoming! Rivers and pine trees replaced the flat, green grass, meadow, and desert-looking hills. Once we arrived at Grand Teton, our first checkpoint of the day, we first looked at how beautiful the mountain range was! The mountain reminded me of the Rocky Mountains, but it turned out that it symbolized the logo of Paramount Pictures! Amazing!We then stopped by the Jackson Lake Lodge where we had our lunch and took memorable pictures of preserved bears and the table where the peace agreement between the United states and Russia (1989) was made. By the way, the forest smelled like nature up to this point! Good morning, nature! We then traveled to Yellowstone National Park, the 1st American National Park! It was a beautiful sight to begin with. From the trees and the animals to the geysers and yellow stones, you can tell that all of this belonged to Yellowstone and nowhere else. It was sad, however, to see that half of the forest was burned down from the 1988 wild fires. They are still in their current, darkened state. But I heard that after 100 years, new trees will slowly blossom to replace the messed up ones! Hmm...it just goes to show you that nature does takes its course.We were able to first meet Old Faithful, face-to-face. Well, not really face-to-face but close enough. ;) The geyser erupted hot water up to 150 feet and did that every 90 minutes. It was awesome to see God's creation in action. We then went to the Midway Geyser after, which was smaller than Old Faithful but had 160 degrees Fahrenheit of water, making this one a hot spring! We also saw some waterfalls, rivers, yellow stones, elk, deer, a bear near a car, and more! I wish I can hike here someday because the park has at least 1,000 miles of hiking trails to choose from! It would be pretty cool to live in nature for one day and experience the ultimate survival test. We later ate dinner at KFC in West Yellowstone, Montana.&nbsp;
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1251357306/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1251357306/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1251357306/tpod.html Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:15:58 -0400 Mountain standard Time (2009)

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Los Angeles, California, United States

testing...1, 2, 3!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1251356012/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1251356012/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/2/1251356012/tpod.html Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:14:13 -0400 Mountain standard Time (2009)

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Pocatello, Idaho, United States

First and foremost, happy 23rd anniversary to my parents (although one of them is back home in California). :Pso today I woke up at Quality Inn at 6:25 AM. seriously, we're at the inn just to shower, sleep and eat some continental breakfast such as peanut butter sandwiches and orange juice! That's all! Nothing to see at the inn, really.Anyway, we left for the Great salt lake first, one of the our stops for the day. The ride took a while (at least 3 long hours) to get there. When we finally arrived to the Great salt Lake, the first thing that came to mind that distinguished this lake from the rest was the stench! It was horrendous since the stench was made up of sulfur. I wouldn't plan on staying there too long if I were you! But it's cool how the lake was surrounded by mountains and was filled up with minerals and salts! No wonder&nbsp; it has been called as the 2nd saltiest body of water in the world. After the lake, we headed to the Brigham Copper Mine, the largest man-made excursion in the world. Awesome stuff to see, including the big tires from the mining tractor. You can see the pictures that I have provided for you! After that, we ate at a copper-made Mc Donald's for lunch. Copper is an important mineral in the state of Utah. Therefore, several buildings added cooper-made roofs into their structure, including the one that I visited to for lunch. We then went to a mormon temple in salt lake city. The ladies wore long black skirts while the men wore a suit and a tie. Everyone was nice to us; they even gave us a tour around the temples! The two tour guides we have were ladies and kept on talking about the history of Mormons and how it came to be in Utah. For brownie points, they made a compliment (to me) on how nice my green bag was. haha. Finally, we went to the state capital that was marble-made! From the exterior, it looks like the capitol from Washington DC, but it really isn't! Maybe this capital in Utah and pass as its twin from the other side of the United states! Then, we were on the road for another 3 hours to hit Idaho, the land of potatoes. We stopped by Pizza Hut for dinner because we were completely tired of eating at a Chinese buffet! I'm serious. As of now, we saw THREE Chinese buffet places - one in Nevada, one in Utah, and now one in Idaho! It was either fast food or that for a few days.Went to Fred Meyer's afterwards for grocery shopping. It was quite interesting to see this like Costco because they both have several similarities - food place, electronics place, etc. Currently staying at Ramada Inn. I'm going to get some sleep due to exhaustion from sitting in the bus for too long! haha.<i>Tomorrow is where nature will take its course.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/1/1220413740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/1/1220413740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/bobamaniac715/1/1220413740/tpod.html Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:40:46 -0400 Three States and One Island (Summer 2008)

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Los Angeles, California, United States

Hi once again. Well, I'm now recovering from my east coast trip! It was so sudden and so fast! To be honest, two weeks in the east coast wasn't enough for me. I should have stayed longer! There were just too many places to see in such a little amount of time! But I had fun! I truly did! If I ever want to go back to the east coast, I would for the second time around! Besides, I didn't even get to experience the Bahamas in all its entirety! I only went to Coco Cay and not even a bit of Nassau (due to wedding), but it's okay! I'm hoping that once I have enough money to save me a trip, I would definitely go to the Bahamas first (and Florida second to experience ALL of Disney World and not just the Magic Kingdom). Well, here is my recap for the last few days of my trip. <i>Every picture deserves an explanation. On Thursday night, my family decided to go to Old Bridge, New Jersey to say hello to a relative we haven't seen in such a long time - my grandfather's sister from my mother side. We stayed there for a couple of hours remembering the good times they had shared and the "oh wow! you look so grown up now" compliments that many aunts offered. I saw my second cousin for the first time (although technically it was the first but I didn't remember much when I was a young toddler when we first met). We exchanged contact information and took pictures before saying our goodbyes and leaving New Jersey behind for New York the next morning....errr afternoon. On Friday morning, our eyes widely opened from the nonstop chitter chatter by the adults in the kitchen. I was sleeping in the living room, by the way! We immediately got our things ready (clothes for wedding, heels, clothes to sleep over, cell phone) and managed to leave to New York some time in the afternoon. What was sucky was the fact that the GPS brought us to another place in New York instead of the main site, Our Lady of Snows in Floral Park, New York. That OTHER Place was none other than a simple corn field! A CORN FIELD! That has nothing to do with a church at all! At least we were 20 minutes away from the site once we fixed things with the soon-to-be bride, my cousin! After arriving at the place, we had only an hour dress rehearsal and then we went to my future cousin-in-law's sister's house for a BBQ. The weather was starting to become gloomy, but food was always good. Ron's mom makes the best food ever! You gotta try it sometime. Anyway, didn't felt like playing Guitar Hero III because all of the little kids were playing it. After that, we left for the Red Roof Inn where we stayed for the night. =] Saturday was the big day for most of us, but most importantly for my other cousin - Rachel! We took time to put our clothes, makeup, and hair together and then left for Rachel's hotel to take family portraits and other pictures! I didn't eat for many hours! Had to wait forever to eat dinner. But anyway, back to the point. Raj was kind enough to give us some of the fries from McDonalds while waiting to go to church for the wedding. Weather was getting better from there. Once we arrived at the scene, the wedding took place...and all I can really remember were these words from the priest. <i>"What God had joined, man MUST NOT break." It was such a powerful phrase to be heard in a wedding because it truly signifies how powerful marriage can be! Anyway, after the wedding we went to a nearby park to take more pictures. Took almost forever.I was already complaining from walking so much in my heels. But this only happens once in a while. =P Once pictures were done, we headed off to the Chateau Briand, a very expensive restaurant in Bellerose, New York. This awesome and unique place can only take me into the mind of Gossip Girl for everyone in that show lived in upstate New York! It's amazing how an open bar was OPEN FOR EVERYONE, a cocktail party had a buffet of food that were MORE than just appetizers even though they were only appetizers, a pianist and violinist playing nonstop, and a reception hall with MORE food, MORE DESSERT, and more drinks. =D I had a Long Island Iced Tea (how funny that I had one near Long Island), white wine with strawberry on top, amaretto sour, and s** at the beach. Reception went well with random dancing and performances in between eating for dinner! There was one part where the groom sang a Filipino love song to his bride! So cute! After midnight, we went home and it took at least an hour to get home, fighting off NYC traffic in the process. Oh! Here's another thing about New York! Drivers were mean when we were driving to get to our destination. It reminded me of L.A. drivers and how they cut off other drivers without having their signal lights on. Not cool for foreigners when they are the ones driving. On Sunday, I pretty much did nothing. Just watched "Stardust" and printed out boarding passes for the flight to L.A. Said goodbyes to everyone. I know I will see them again, so it wasn't that bad to say goodbye! But I got sad once I went to the airport and it was just the family now....the six of us. No more the twenty three of us in the house! It's going to get lonely once the Canadian people finish their vacations and leave for Canada. Anyway, we were in the air for five hours with little delay and BARELY any turbulence at all. =] Arrived at LAX safely and after getting our stuff and riding the taxi, we finally went home at exactly midnight, ending a chapter of my trip in 2008. Thank you for reading my journey to the east coast and back. Good bye for now. Always, <i>Jerryl&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<i>
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Kissimmee, Florida, United States

Hi, everyone! It has been quite a while since I last wrote in here! During that time, I went to several states down south to get into Florida and then cruise my way into the Bahamas for my cousin's wedding and some awesome beach time! Once again, I cannot stay on for long because other cousins are planning to use the laptop while I'm staying in an inn close to Orlando and to Disneyworld! So here I go...from state to state!To Florida!Road trip lasted for 30 hours due to 11 or 12 stops, picture taking, rest, restroom breaks, and eating! &gt;_&lt; Sleeping in the van wasn't fun! And what was worse was the fact that we actually experienced tropical storm Fay for the first time ever! Well, for most of the my family, it was the first! We went through New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida via interstate 95!!! We then&nbsp;went through some ugly, yucky weather with thunderstorms, gusty winds, and sooooo much rain! At least we were able to arrive in time for the cruise to the Bahamas come Friday morning. New Jersey - stopped by at the place where the person established the American Red Cross during the war - Clara Barton. went through a bridge to get to&nbsp;Delaware.&nbsp;Delaware - went through so many trees and green stuff!&nbsp;It didn't take long to get to Maryland because the state was so small. Maryland -&nbsp;went&nbsp;pass Baltimore, more trees,&nbsp;the huge tunnel that went&nbsp;through part of Maryland,&nbsp;saw the sunset.Virginia - stopped in a couple of rest stops, rested in the middle of the night,&nbsp;went to Petersburg where the last battle of the Civil War took place.North Carolina - too sleepy to get out of van while everyone else was going to the restroom in one of the stops! more green places. =]South Carolina - wasn't able to buy local&nbsp;chips&nbsp;and snacks, but took pictures of the sign and what not. It's on facebook. hahaha. Stopped at&nbsp;a&nbsp;local market&nbsp;to buy food at Taco Bell&nbsp;and then checked out boiled peanuts and bought pork cracklings! A favorite! Georgia&nbsp;- Everyone in the south was awesome! Lovin' the southern accent! =D Probably slept through the storm for most of the ride, but stopped by at the outlet in Darien, Georgia for 75% worth of Bath and Body Works stuff! And then there was the lunch at Wendy's! Once again, people were nice over there! They say, "Mam" and "do you like my&nbsp;nuggets"&nbsp;a lot!Florida - finally arrived at florida but had to go to so many hours to get Miami, Florida. Once we arrived there, we slept at an inn (which was sucky and yucky) for the night and woke up the next day for the cruise.note: 23 people came in TWO VANS.The Cruise to the BahamasCruise that we took was the Royal Caribbean: Majesty of the Seas! Amazing cruise to be in (for the most part). Was able to watch shows, get in a bar (haha legal me), stayed near the pool, went around the ship, went in front of the ship at night, and ate fine dining like crazy! People were mostly nice! Food was sooooo delicious like escargo (snail), roasted salmon, chicken, shouffle, and more! Wine was great to have, but for some reason (FLORIDA LAW), I can't have any wine during fine dining because I just TURN 21! Weird. =[ Anyway, we arrived at Coco Cay, Bahamas first! The Bahamas is home to 700 islands, one of them as a private island excusively for the Royal Caribbean Travelers! Crazy huh? The beaches surrounding the island were really clear and pretty (and clean compared to SOCAL beaches). I went snorkeling (for the second time) for a good hour and a half. Note to self: I still can't swim. It's all good though. I had a lifevest to keep myself from drowning! Suppose to go parasailing but it would only last for 5-6 minutes. &gt;_&lt; Got pretty dark. Back and stomach got sunburned! Bought A LOT of stuf! =] Went to Holly's wedding the next day at Nassau, Bahamas - the capital of this commonwealth island! It rained for quite a bit, but the wedding turned out to be successful! Nobody got super wet! =] The trip to get there from van was crazy and different. We were riding on the opposite side of the road (like Europe) because the Bahamas is international and not from the U.S. Rather, it was a British colony. Gained its independence in 1973. Anyway, wedding took place on a beach with the shore in the background. Water was soooo beautiful! Looks very turquoise! =D Wedding was beautiful! Reception was back at the ship while everyone else (like the rest of the people in the cruise) where shopping at the Bahamas! Reception had great food, dancing, performances (from stacey and alvin), and super more! After that, we had mass for my lolo and lola's 60th anniversary! more stuff! =] went clubbing at the ship in the end...I think. met new friends too! YAY! Today, we had to wait to disembark the ship, but it took such a long time to get out because the disembarkation procedure was disorganized. However, customs didn't took that long! =] Took the van to Orlando, but had to meet Tropical Depression Fay this time. LOUD thunder and lightning almost hit the van at one point, but we survived! Now, we're chilling at the inn until the rain disappears! HOPEFULLY...we can go to Disneyworld tomorrow before going straight to New Jersey and New York to finish off the rest of the trip. AUGUST 31. I'll return!Miss you all!Always,Jerryl
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