My time in Colorado came to an end... to fast though. I had such a great time with Amber and Jessica. They were definately the best hostesses ever! We did everything from the Garden of the Gods, to eating Chipotle and Rohas and Texas Road house and Sonic and Little Bite of Heaven... yeah i think we ate out a few times. haha. We hung out with the cutest kids ever too! Amber's sister Amy, has three kids: little Emma, and Sherry and Trevor, amber and Jess's nieces and nephew. They are adorable and definately have me excited to be an aunt one day... hint hint...
From my last blog, i left off by telling you i was heading out to the Drive-in. And yes, we did go... we saw Fantastic Four and Ocean's 13... don't bother seeing either. trust me. But we did have fun so that was good!
now, as tradition, here are some pictures i have collected over the past few days of my journeys...


Amber and I had fun driving around in the Mercedes Benz. Just after this picture a truck of really old guys came up to us and asked us if we needed to borrow a comb because our hair was getting pretty messy. They were so persistant and kinda ackward too. we just looked at each other and laughed. what else could you do??

This is one of the many drive-in photo opts... we opened up the back of Amber's truck and made a fun little bed... matt and jess and their dog ricky were in the tiniest little car, laying in the trunk. it was cute.

the next few pictures i think are of my trip this morning through Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. It was an absoluting gorgesou day to drive through the park.... and seeing as i had next to no sleep in my car the night before, i needed to have a scenic drive to keep me alert and wide awake looking for all the HUGE animals!

This is one of the many little rivers the flow by the roads as you drive by.
This is a picture of a little stream of water flowing bown by the side of the road. Looking directly up from this stream is a huge Gehiser. This are sulphuric bubbles in the ground that have made their way to the surface and blow steam up from little pockets of water. The smell is so deadly too!


These are two pictures of the hundreds of Geishers that were everywhere in the park. They were so cool. I like to think of them as mini volcanos without the volcanic part or the mountain part... hmmm... well, i guess that doesn't leave much. but that's still what i think. ok.
A driving view...
This was the funniest thing i saw on my whole trip... going around thisHUGE cliff hang, there walking in the middle of the road is this HUGE Bison... it was as if he thought he owned the entire world. The funny part was that there was a huge line up of cars all the way backed up because of this one dumb big animal. i had my window rolled down and came about 6 feet from it's face. it was HUGE. really huge.

This is me in my new hat. This was taken yesterday while i was driving through Colorado Springs....
and this is me again driving on my way to Green River Wyoming. That is where i was going to spend the night, however when i got there the 9 hotels that i looked at staying at were all booked. although it was 9:30pm so maybe it was to late to look for a room.... so i just kept driving. and i'm glad that i did because it just added to the adventure of this whole road trip. As i was driving on my way to Jackson Wyoming, i got to see two of the most coolest things ever.... first of, i need to say that i don't think there are UFO's out there, but i did get to see something pretty cool. I think that maybe it was a shooting star, but it looked really big and moved pretty slow. I thought at first that maybe it was the space ship shuttle flying through... but it was too late to be that... so i don't know what it was, but it looked cool.... the second thing which i thought just showed the power of God even more so was seen to the WEST of the road i was driving on. The sun was setting and there was this huge darker cloud just sitting on top of the mountains, and as i drove closer, it looked like really thick smoke because the cloud wasn't really moving. the closer i got, i started to see this red glow and it kept getting closer and closer and bigger and brighter and more intense. Then i realized that i was heading towards a HUGE Forest Fire! Luckily i bypassed it but i did get to see it from afar and it was a sight that i will never forget.
mmmm. i love the mountains.

Me. and Yellowstone.


So that's a little wrap up of a bit of the past few days. Right now i am in Lethbridge Alberta heading back to Maple Ridge. I hope to be ther this time tomorrow night and that will put an offical end to my road trip. It's really a bitter sweet feeling.... i want it to end because there is a certain someone that i just have to get home to... but this is such an invigorating feeling, being on the road and just living every moment as it comes, as if there isn't a care in the world.

... I figure that since i only have one more blog to write on this road trip adventure, i thought i'd give YOU, my avide readers a chance to ask me any questions about the adventures i've been on... SO... if you want to know about the ethnic food in San Francisco, or about the hiking in redwood national park... or about whatever you thought intriging.... just ask. I'd love to answer them for you through my next blog... i'm expecting BIG things for this next blog, so get your question in... just ask me through the comments.

okay. well, i'm signing off from another long day!

cheers

HELLO! one and all...
so apparently i was entirely wrong! there are way more people reading these blog entries than i knew about! so hello to you all and welcome to the journey of "just undiscovered" .... So far on this road trip i have been to 6 different states and many amazing cities! I've met some amazing people and i've had so many fun adventures that i have only ever dreamed of!
Right now i am in Colorado at my friend Amber's house! i've been hanging out with her and her sisterinlaw Jessica who is also another one of my good friends! Since being here we have gone to Garden of the Gods and seen some amazing red rocks! the view was spectacular and i took lots of pictures... so don't worry mom! that was yesterday. Today we went shopping! wooop wooop!! i might have spent some money... and by some, i mean a lot. but i got some really great clothes and amazing deals at bath and body! ohhhhh.... so good. tonight we are going to the drive in theatre!
So here are some much anticipated pictures of the journey through Nevada and Utah.
AGAIN, they were loaded backwards, so first you will see fun pictures of me and amber and jess here in colorado, then pictures of the drive through the desert and some of RENO and me gambling! so much fun!! and i might have bought some fuzzy dice!


Amber, me and Jess at Garden of the Gods... it was so incredibly gorgeous!!

yup. we're sitting underneath a rock... and the other pic is of the view driving by!

and a picture of the view from the side mirror

now for the drive:

singing through the dessert! so long and boring! went through all of my CD's i'm sure of it!
boring desert!
beautiful, but still boring....
BACK IN COLORADO! playing with the statues!
Garden of the Gods again... oh and afer we went there we went to this mexican restaurant for lunch and it was so entirely intense ust ordering your foodo that the people there all started laughing at me because i was so intense

the drive...
RENO!! i might have gambled a little... and won nothing... but bought some fuzzy dice...

and now, for all of you, my friends... this is a toilet in the desert... a little out house, just like you would see it in the movies! it was amazing... and in the middle of nowhere. Never again will i say that Granton is the middle of nowhere.... because this definatley was... oh and it was 105 degrees out that day. which equals death in a car with no air!


bye for now...

This blog i have entitled "the self portraits of a road tripper". When you are by yourself and having to take your own photos... you have a lot of these type of pics. so i thought i would share them with you and let you all see that i am alive and well and enjoying myself.

this photo on your left is of my first reaction coming over the mountain and through the tunnel looking at the golden gate bridge in all it's beauty!
the "i think i took a wrong turn somewheres" look. ... verses the "i'm sitting on the beach looking out over the OCEAN" look!

City Amanda, meet Sunset Amanda!

Hello crazy hair!

Contemplating the beauty of it all...
THUMBS UP! i'm at a water front harbour!and now i am standing in the water while i'm hiking through Fern Canyon! man alive that was cold water!
FERN CANYON... if only i could have captured the drive to Gull Beach and Fern Canyon... it was the craziest and coolest road i have ever traveled in my life.

PACIFIC CITY! in the rain... dancing on the beach... without a care in the world.
It was really rainy.
It wasn't so rainy here though...
not really sure what i am looking at here but this was while i was on a hike up to see a fun little water falls. it was gorgeous... and cold.
And thus ends this blog write up... with me driving in queen latifa. Tomorrow i will be starting a new adventure as i leave San Francisco and head on to RENO! i'm pretty stoked and apparently according to the momma i HAVE TO gamble 20$! so i'm stoked about that too...
Oh i guess i should tell you all what i did today. i didn't just go and take all these self portrai pictures! My camera battery has died on me and i haven't recharged it yet so i didn't have photos from today to put on this blog.... hence, the recap of past adventures.... But today i did have many adventures! i decided that i wanted to go down to china town, however i ended up taking the long way and went through Market Square and then through Union Square and back around through Yerba Buena Gardens where there was a huge music festival going on .... It felt like i was in victoria prak, although WAY more beautiful... right downtown surrounded by a bunch of tall fancy buildings and really old churches. I sat and listened to some Native American music and drank a Strawberry and Creme Frapp. from starbucks... which, bytheway, they ARE on every street corner! After the music I went on another long walk, through downtown and i got to see the HUGEST buildings and very interestingly designed artsy buildings. ANd i walked by the SFFD and saw huge firetrucks... mind you, i could here them everyday at least three or four times driving up and down the streets. So when i finally got to china town, i realized that i couldn't understand anything that was going on around me nor could i read any of the signs and every was my height... so i kinda fit in, but completely NOT. so i left. and then i returned back here to the hostel around 6ish after being out and walking for about 8 hours. but NO blisters this time! woop woop!!

okay, well... i think i'm going to go for a smoothie with some of the girls here... maybe, if they are still awake.

take care everyone who reads this... which apparently is only about two people. so I love you both and good night!

HELLO! i'm still in san francisco! and today i had a dream come true! all i kept thinking was... I'm going to see where Danny Tannor use to live! haha. and if you understand that then you know just how excited i am!/was today when i walked down 'postcard row'! These are the places used in so many videos and television shows!
yesteday when i was at Union Square going in and out of all the fancy shops... like Channel, Gorgio Armania, Ralph Lauren, Gucci... and my all time favorite, Virgin Records! they were having the biggest sale ever! i held back... don't worry Kris, i didn't buy anymore DVDs. but i did buy a CD. ha. oh... i forgot. my story. While in Union Square there was this dressed up big huge squirrel walking around and a bunch of cameras videoing taping peoples reactions to seeing him. anyways. it was weird and pretty cool.
anyways, so today i got to see this beautiful sight....


this is just ONE of the many photos i took!
and this is me. in Alamo Square looking on to Post Card Row!

These pictures are from yesterday... when i was down town in union sqaure.
yup. i was standing in the middle of the road to get this picture.
it was cray busy everywhere! so many people.
and a cello guy just playing at this little restaurant ona side street that i found myself on.


so i offically have one more full day here in san francisco before i head out to Colorado! I've met some great people here too and i'm excited to stay in touch with them! It's fun staying in this hostel environment. I love just sitting here and listening to about four different languages, and watching two girls from ireland trying to do a puzzle. and there are non-stop people going to and from in every which direction. ... anyway... i'm having fun.