Wrap Up of Me

So, I figured I would end my blog with a wrap up of myself. It is hard for one to observe oneself and describe who they are; it is always easiest for someone else to describe you. So if you have followed me through all, or portions, of this blog, then you would be better off writing this than me.

I'm just a boy from the south, raised with a shotgun in my hand and tobacco in my mouth; not exactly a characteristic of a world traveler. The more I traveled the larger my thirst for learning about new things grew. When you think of someone who has traveled as much as I, you may think of a guy walking around without his shoes on and sitting on the ground, eating with his bare hands. I can definitely admit that I did that a time or two, but why? The real question is, why do the locals in the countries I visited do it? The not knowing is the reason why I do those things; I want to know why.

Now, I don't want to sit here and answer all the questions that I think you may have about the world. I am going to charge you to go out and answer your own questions. Don't ever look at someone you know nothing about and judge him or her right off the bat. Try to look at where that person is coming from, try to understand why they do what they do. When I first started traveling, I was always afraid to ask why because I felt like it was disrespectful. I then realized that me not knowing and coming up with my own reasoning was more disrespectful.

Travel, see, do, experience, and live. You should never be unhappy with your life when there is a world out there that you have most likely seen less than 10% of.

Before we part, I want to thank you, the audience, for following me around the world. The main reason why I liked keeping this blog was that you kept me charged to do something different everyday. I felt like such a waste whenever I sat there and did nothing, knowing that everyone of you would have killed to be where I was. You are the reason why I visited 20 countries, you were the drive that helped me ask why, and you were the hand that pushed me out of my comfort zone time and time again.

To complete my journey around the world, I will leave you with this: An excuse is the easiest thing in the world to create; just close your eyes and jump, I promise you'll make it out alive.

Will our paths ever cross again? Only time will tell and anything is possible.

Good luck world

USA Wrap Up

My trip in the US was amazing. I never thought that I would enjoy traveling in the States as much as I did. Everything from playing volleyball on the beaches of San Diego to camping by a pond at the bottom of the Mt. Rainier National Park. The US is truly an under rated traveling destination. I feel sorry for all of those that I met while traveling who had said they just visited NY, LA, and San Francisco; visit three national parks and I'm sure you'll have a much better time.

Day 230: Columbia

This morning, we gathered our thing and I waved my friends goodbye. We made the long trip back to Columbia. Home sweet home. 

Day 229: Athens

Today is the day we have all been waiting for, Gameday.

An early hungover morning filled with ESPN, eggs, and beer started off my first true Gamecocks gameday.

Luckily I was able get a great ticket with William a couple rows from the Gamecocks sideline. This game ended up being a heartbreaking loss, 30-41. Our schools are both big rivals, so most of my friends were so upset with the loss that they just wanted to go back to the house and to sleep. I didn't let that get in the way of me and the other guys having a great time.

Day 228: Athens

This morning, more friends from Columbia showed up; literally a bus showed up and dropped off about 8 people in front of their house. One of their friends bought and an old bus and turned it in to a road trip machine.

By about mid-day the keg and most of the friends had arrived. It was great catching up with friends and sharing stories from around the world.

Later that night we headed out to a half-day music festival featuring Savoy and Wiz Khalifa, among other artists. Another night with good friends and live music.

Day 227: Athens

I decided not to finish my blog until I get back home. I trip around the world is not completed until I get back to where I started.

This morning, I caught an early flight to Atlanta, Georgia. The coast to coast flight was not as bad as I was expecting, but the time change did throw me off. Once I landed, I took a shuttle a hour away to Athens, Ga. This weekend, my alma mater, the University of South Carolina Gamecocks, play the University of Georgia Bulldogs; not only a football game worth coming back for but an even better group of friends to ease me back into home.

My friend William picked me up where I was dropped off in the center of town. We headed over to some friend of our's house, James and Harper, two guys that I basically grew up with through high school.

We all met up with my sister and my cousin later that night for dinner and some drinks. It was great to see two girls from my family, it has been way too long!

First night back on the east coast in 227 days with great friends and family, couldn't think of a better first night back.

Day 226: Seattle

So, today is my last day on the west coast... What to do?

I decided to see one more thing in Canada and then head back to Seattle, Grouse Mountain, which is in North Vancouver, across the Harbor. Grouse Mountain is a great ski park that becomes a green tourist attraction during the summers. I took a large skyride up to the park, which was filled with tourist activities. They had a really cheesy lumberjack show that had me laughing at them rather than with them.

I took a ski lift up to the park's wind turbine and was able to go up to the top of the turbine. I have never been this close to a wind turbine let alone take an elevator up to the top of it. It was pretty cool not to mention the view of the surrounding mountains were amazing. After I got done exploring the rest of the park, I had to head back to the US and return my car. The drive back to Seattle was a long ride; the entire ride was spent reflecting on the past eight and a half months of my excursion around the world. Its even crazier to think its been that long... Almost nine months. While each country seemed to take an eternity to explore, the world has flown by in a mere blink of an eye.

Once I got back to Seattle, I returned my car and made the walk to my hotel. The last walk I will take, the last backpack I'll pack, and the last hotel reservation I'll make. Until my next adventure.

Day 225: Vancouver

I started off the day by heading across the street to a great spot for brunch. After brunch, I headed into downtown Vancouver.

I first stopped off at False Creek, which is a small body of water that comes in off the English Bay. To my dismay, there wasn't really anything to see aside from the beautiful waterfront are. Afterwards, I drove further into downtown past the BC Place and Rogers Arena, home to both the BC Lions Canadian football team and the Vancouver Whitecaps soccer team and the Vancouver Canucks hockey team, respectively. These two large stadiums really welcome you to the city.

Before I went into the thick of the city, I stopped off at Sunset Beach, a nice beach where I was able to sit on some carved logs and watch the container ships come in.

Downtown Vancouver is nice, tall buildings just like any other big city. It is clean, lots of renovation and construction going on (which causes awful traffic), and bikes everywhere. The city is really pushing bike transportation; I even heard on the radio how they are pushing to have the center part of downtown Vancouver to be only foot and bike traffic by 2040.

I found a parking garage right next to the Vancouver Convention Center which is on the Vancouver Harbor. The CC had a great exhibit of the War of 1812. I didn't know that the Canadian and US boarder is the longest unguarded boarder in the world. The Harbor is really beautiful. Water planes taking off and landing right in front of me, with large lush green mountains in the background; a sight I could never get tired of.

To end the afternoon, I decided to rent a bike and explore the large Stanley Park. There is a great biking path that goes all the way around the park, so I decided to attempt to make it around before the sunset. About halfway around, I realized that I was not going to make it back before the store closed so I cut through the park. The park is really nice; deep forests right in downtown Vancouver overlooking the Harbor. Luckily, I made it back just in time and made my way back to the hotel.

Day 224: Vancouver

I woke up early to William's alarm as he got ready for his flight back to South Carolina. The shuttle was full to the airport, so I dropped him off. I went straight back to the hotel and slept until checkout.

I packed up and had two options: camp in Mt Olympic National Park or go to Vancouver, Canada. While I was traveling the world I met so many Canadians and was almost embarrassed to admit I had never been to my neighboring country, and I have heard many great things about Vancouver. The next thing I know, I'm in a foreign country with no no more cell service heading into downtown Vancouver. Luckily, my map also included Canada and I was able to piece together where I was and where I needed to go. So this is what life was like before the GPS?

I ended up making it to my hotel late in the afternoon. All I did was clean out my rental car and update my blog.

Day 223: Seattle

That morning, William and I packed up early and headed back to Seattle; since we didn't have much time a couple days ago, we want to cram as much as we can into one day.

We started off by heading to the southernmost part of downtown and walked to Pike Place Market, which was founded in 1907 and is where the local Farmer's Market. Everything from fresh squid to peaches were readily available. No wonder these people like to buy local, there is a fun good looking Farmer's Market right in downtown; you know you did something right when your city's Farmer's Market is a top tourist attraction!

After we got done walking around the Market for a bit, we joined in on a tour of Elliot Bay in the Puget Sound. The tour gave us a some general knowledge about Seattle and its history.

Once the boat tour ended, we walked into town and caught the underground tour. Back when Seattle was founded and being created, the town was built from the timber industry and the small town was surrounded by swampy grounds. With all the wood the town was built almost completely out of wood: everything from the streets to the buildings. Yes, the streets were created with the sawdust from the lumber mills along with the sidewalks. One big problem was that the city was close to sea level, so the city's crude plumbing would flood the city during above normal high rides. In 1889, a large fire burned down almost all of Seattle, which caused  the creation of a completely new city. Because of the fire, plumbing, and other problems, the town was to be rebuilt 22ft above the current town (the height varied depending on the location). This rebuilding process didn't just happen overnight, and you can't have merchants building their stores to be almost four stories higher before the roads were even built. So the stores did end up being about four stories higher, but the original ground level was still used during and after the road construction. At some points during the road construction process, the road was built well before the sidewalk. Once you got done buying your groceries you hiked up a 15 foot ladder to get to the road and then down another ladder if you wanted to continue shopping, or eat, or drink. Its pretty interesting, a city is built on top of another city; the underground tour company has to rent out each little segment of the tour because the property owners of the building above ground also own the property below ground, almost every year the tour has to be re-routed.

As soon as we made it to the new Seattle, we made our way to a local microbrew, Pyramid Breweries. We each grabbed a sampler group of their beer and some finger food.

We then made our way to the hotel to rest off the long day.

Day 222: Gorge

We spent the morning hanging out with the guys next to us who are from Washington, from "the other side of the Mountains," (the Cascade Mountains). It was great to learn more about people from Washington and have him learn about the South; he has always wanted to visit the East Coast and, "see what its like on the other side of the country." Its crazy to think about it, learning what its like on the other side of the country, but thats why I am here... there's a lot to learn and many differences.

Later that night, we headed to the concert. There are two main reasons why I am here: I never never seen Dave Matthews live, and I have always wanted to see a concert at the Gorge. The Gorge is an amazingly beautiful music venue that sits right next to the Columbus River with the deep river gorge surrounding the venue; the general admissions seats are on a massive hill that overlooks the Gorge.

At night you can experience two almost completely different concerts at once. You can either lay down and stare at the almost perfect display of stars or you can stand up, allowing the music and the lights take over your body. A good night with great music and amazing surroundings.

Day 221: Gorge

This morning, William and I had to get to Gorge to see part of a three day Dave Matthews Band concert. Before we left, we headed into downtown Seattle and go to the top of the Columbia Center. Today is a much clearer day, so I was able to see much of the mountains and the bay. After we saw the city from above and gathered supplies, we headed out, except we decided to take the long way. Instead of taking I90 pretty much all the way to Gorge, we took Highway 2 through the Cascade Mountains and then down the Columbus River to Gorge; a slow but beautiful drive.

We ended up getting to the campsite pretty late; by the time we set up and pre-gamed some, we made it in for the last couple songs. Tonights concert ended much earlier than we both expected, 10pm. While we missed most of the concert, it was still a good night getting to know the people camping around us and enjoying a clear night's sky.

Day 220: Seattle

After a good morning of sleep, I headed into cloudy downtown Seattle. The first thing I wanted to do was see the whole city. I went up to the top of the second tallest building west of Chicago, the Columbia Center; at 73 stories, I was able to see everything that wasn't covered by fog, cloud, and rain.

Afterwards, I hunted for a sports bar where I could watch my Gamecock's first football game against the University of North Carolina. Luckily, its 3pm here on a Thursday, so no one is at the bar drinking, except me and two other USC fans, what are the odds.

At halftime, I headed to the airport to pick up William. It is good to see a good childhood friend after almost 9 months. We headed to the hotel to drop off his stuff then we headed back into town. We ended up going back to the same sports bar to grab some food. Afterwards, we walked across the street to the Seattle Space Needle to head to the top. The Space Needle was built for the World Fair of 1962, at the time, it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi. However, it was meant to be disassembled after the World Fair, as it was just a model of what skyscrapers were going to look like in the 21st century. The city refused to buy it, so Howard Wright, the contractor, bought it in 1977; the tower makes money from tour fees and the rotating restaurant at the top.

We then drove around downtown to get a feel for the Seattle nightlife.

Day 219: Seattle

So, today I was not too good of a tourist. As you can tell, I am pretty behind on my blog, so I spent most of today writing my blog. I was surprised that I had not caught up to today by the end of the night.

Day 218: Seattle

A night full of rain was followed by a morning full of mixed clouds with a clear lake at the base of the mountain and right next to my tent; not a bad view from bed.

I broke camp and headed to my next trail, and I ended up beginning at the wrong place, about 3 miles before I was supposed to. While the hike was beautiful, hiking a couple extra miles up a mountain is not a good way to start the day.

That afternoon, I made it to the part of the woods I was assigned to camp. Unfortunately, it was on the hill down the other side of the mountain. Not sure if it was the best decision, I decided to hike out of the woods and head to Seattle. Since it was past 7pm, I would not be able to get another permit; I was also worried about hiking in another spot and being fined by a Ranger, and since good friend of mine is meeting me in two day in Seattle, I figured I might as well go to Seattle.

I checked into my hotel and fell asleep before I could put my bags down.

Day 217: Mt. Rainier National Park

This morning I headed out to Mt. Olympic National Park in Washington State. Instead of going straight to the park, I headed West to the mouth of the Columbia River. During the early 19th century, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark left St. Louis, MO set off on a mission to the West Coast; through Oregon, they canoed down part of the Columbia River. Currently, there are some National and State Parks around the river's end in both Oregon and Washington, there is also a great museum on the Oregon side.

I enjoyed the museum, they had a lot to display on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, current day Coast Guards, and the commercial shipping industry. This area combines the hard Pacific Ocean currents crashing into the end of the Columbia River with close to annual fog, cloud, and rain coverage, creating what is known as The Graveyard of the Pacific. I saw some pretty intense videos of large and small commercial freight boats getting thrown around by the waves. Because of this, the Coast Guard is among the top trained, prepared, and practiced in the country. And since this area on the West Coast (including both Portland & Seattle) is much closer to China's main ports than Los Angeles is, the Coast Guard gets a lot of practice.

After I finished up with the museum, I set off fo Mt Olympic National Park. It turns out that the Ranger Station is too far away for me to reach by 5pm (it is currently around noon), so I decided to go to Mt Rainier National Park, it turns out they have a Ranger Station that is open until 7pm. The drive through Washington was much different from Oregon, so far it has been nothing but trees. To my surprise, I passed a lot of logging sites and most of the trucks I passed were transporting tree trunks. I figured that, legally, it would be difficult to be in the logging industry in Washington.

After getting a little lost, I finally arrived and got my camping permit. Since I got in late, I chose a short hike to Snow Lake. Once I began the hike it started to rain. You'd think it would be a miserable hike, but the only bad part about it was that I knew the stuff in my bag would be wet. There was something about hiking in the woods, at night, and in the rain that truly added to the outdoor manly feeling you can get from camping; I really think my beard grew an inch that night.

Oregon Wrap Up

I really did like Oregon; I could have spent days just driving through countryside on back roads. Oregon is a green state in terms of both nature and technology. I was constantly reminded of the south: the people are nice, the trucks are big, and the so are the farms. Although, in Oregon, the deer crossing hazard sign is accompanied by cow, snowmobile, and horseback crossing signs as well. From mountains to rivers to fields, I think that it would be amazing to see Oregon by air.

Day 216: Portland

This morning, I had to stop by a pretty popular restaurant in Oregon, Voodoo Donuts, which is known for putting crazy ingredients on their donuts. I got the Bacon Maple, sweet and salty!

I then headed off to Portland. I connected with my friend Crystal's sister, Jenna,  who is living in Portland; luckily, she is going to let me crash on her couch.

First thing I wanted to do was check out a couple of Portland's 60 microbrews. I first headed over to Hair of the Dog. I got a sandwich and a couple beer samplers to wash it down.

I then headed into downtown to do some exploring. Downtown Portland is really cool, it is definitely not a typical US city. One way roads, full wide bike lanes everywhere, and electric streetcars everywhere. Thats one thing that I found odd in California; in busy places like San Francisco and Los Angeles buses had their own designated lane. However, in the mid 20th century places like LA were riddles with electric streetcars; believe it or not, those streetcar companies were bought up by large US car companies at the time, the tracks were removed, the streetcars discarded and replaced by highways and large buses. Somehow, Portland dodged that bullet.

Portland has taken large steps to "keep Portland weird." There is a large hipster population, everyone supports local businesses, and there is a large entrepreneur culture here. There is a funny TV show called Portlandia, while is is an exaggerated comedy, it does a pretty good job at describing Portland. The Columbia River runs right through Portland. I think Portland should be nicknamed the City of Bridges because there are so many bridges connecting the city.

While I was walking around in the downtown area, I saw a lot of homeless people. There was a large food program going on, so all of them were congested in one area. All of these people looked really bad, you could definitely tell who was a drug addicts and easily pick out the guys who were still high on drugs, head bobbling talking and yelling at no one. Time to pick a new place to explore...

I ended up stumbling upon an area that was full of food carts, another thing that Portland is known for. I briefly took myself back to the Middle East and got a lamb kabab, oh so good!

I then came across the Rock Bottom microbrew and decided to pop in for a couple samplers.

Afterwards, I headed over to meet up with Jenna and her boyfriend. That night we went to the larges movie rental store in the world (yes they still exist), with over 90,000 titles and got a good movie wot watch on their projection screen back home.