A man came in today to buy lottery tickets and identified himself as the one who left me a generous tip. He bought a 20$ scratch ticket, scratched it right there, won 35$, and gave me 5$!
What an easy and inexpensive way to do something nice for someone.
How I came to Colorado with a friend to represent Canada at an environmental youth summit is a rather long story featuring a famous anthropologist. Suffice it to say that it was the opportunity of a lifetime, one I had been told I would have to miss because there was no way I could come up with the necessary funds for the flight in the time I had. Readers of this blog should know by now that the best way to get me to do something is to tell me I can’t. 馃檪
This trip happened the fall after I finished high school; I was seventeen. I squirreled away the prize monies I’d won upon graduation, including the $300 award for creative writing that I had no doubt would be mine, and worked all summer. It had been a very difficult September and this trip couldn’t have come at a better time. It was to be the first major life-changing trip of my life.
the Farmer’s Union outside of Bailey, where we spent the first half of our Colorado adventure (http://nfu.org/about/education/education-center)
The five day adventure featured many challenges to surmount, one of which was standing before a crowd of thirty, including my hero, and talking about my accomplishments in the environmental field.
I was so scared; others had surely done bigger and greater things than I had. My accomplishments would seem insignificant when compared to that of the others. Surely, I had nothing to teach and I would be ridiculed for thinking that I had made any difference at all. To my surprise, the response to my speech was positive and I saw my hero glow with pride. She made it clear to me that I had something to give to the world and that I could be an inspiration.
Windy Peak outdoor school, a day’s hike from the Farmer’s Union, where we spent the second half of our trip
Had that moment fallen flat, I might never have had the courage or self-assurance to blog about my life on the road, much less to publish my ebook聽Sorting It Out.
My first morning in Las Vegas had me being driven down the Strip to McCarran airport in a stretch limo.
There, I climbed into a tiny helicopter that took me over the Mojave desert, within view of Mead Lake and the Hoover dam, all the way to the Grand Canyon. We landed within it and were given time to explore and enjoy a champagne brunch.
Let’s just say this was a more luxe experience than I normally go for.聽I was until then a backpacker, a camper, a youth聽hosteler,聽not someone who stays at a nice hotel and drinks fancy drinks by a pool lined with palm trees! And I most certainly was a frugal traveler, not one who would do such extravagant things as take a half-day helicopter ride from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon. Nope!
I’m not sure what came over me during my planning of my southwest road trip. I’ll plead mental exhaustion, what with the stress of having lost my dad earlier that year. I needed to be pampered and catered-to, to do things just for fun to reawaken my zest for life.聽I didn’t know if I’d ever come back to that part of the US and I was so close to the Grand Canyon. The helicopter jaunt sounded like the perfect way to see the Canyon with the time I had available to me. It just about broke my budget, but it is now one of my most cherished memories.
Rather than taking photos during this jaunt, I made full use of the video setting on my camera, so the following images are stills from my movies, explaining the poor quality. Unfortunately, the second half of my Grand Canyon recordings have been lost due to reshuffling between several computers. I have managed to save a picture of me at the bottom of the canyon, proof enough that I was there even if someone did tell me that the image seems to be photoshopped. 馃榾
a glimpse of the Strip
Lake Mead
Mojave desert
Colorado River and the Grand Canyon
a non-photoshopped picture of me at the bottom of the Grand Canyon
Sometimes you end up in a place where you get the chance to experience an incredible adventure. Do it and @%@$ the budget. I applied this lesson when I decided to hike the Chilkoot Pass at a time when I financially had no business doing so.
Alcatraz Island is breathtakingly beautiful in a barren and desolate sort of way, architecturally graceful ruins blending in perfectly with scrub grasses, trees, and various flowers. Birds abound and, in fact, most of the island is white with guano. It is a stark, foreboding place, but truly beautiful. Some might think me crazy to find that place so pretty, but it is if you like ruins that blend in so thoroughly with their natural surroundings that you could not possibly imagine one without the other, then Alcatraz is the place for you.
I spent a sunny day touring the ill-famed Rock. Even though it houses one of the most notorious US jails and was the site of native protests, today the island is a peaceful bird sanctuary that belies the supposed horrors that went on between the crumbling walls of the prison.
chapel
mint green on the exterior
interior sampling of the mint green and baby pink colour scheme
those marks on the floor are bullet spray from a shooting during a hostage crisis
inmates had a lot of time on their hand (the knitting alone provides an interesting image, but the hot pink yarn is too much)
sample menu
The architectural details of the place are striking, showing an aesthetic that belies the purpose of the building. Add the surprising mint green and baby pink colour scheme and Alcatraz does not even remotely look as you would expect it would.
As it turns out, the prison’s reputation was not entirely warranted. I learned there that inmates actually tried to get transferred to Alcatraz as it was a more comfortable prison with some of the best food in the penal system. This is not to say that some of the stories that have come out of Alcatraz are not true; it was a brutal place housing hardened criminals, but there was a softer side to the Rock.
I had expected that I would return from my day on Alcatraz completed drained rather than refreshed, and instead learned that I should never assume anything, a lesson I applied during a humbling visit of the town of Banff.
Our journey begins in Mexico, in the border town of Tijuana.
I went there just to say I’d stepped foot in Mexico. I was in southern California, crossing Hollywood off my to-see list, and knew that I would most likely never again return to that part of the world, at least not in the life I was currently living. It seemed silly to be so close to Mexico and not go, just to say I’d been, even if Tijuana does not represent the ‘true’ Mexican experience.
After spending a night at a motel just south of San Diego, I drove to the Mexico/US border. There is a large parking lot on the US side where visitors can leave their cars and then walk over the border. Entering Mexico was anti-climatic as there were no border checks. I was greeted by taxi drivers eager to get my business, but I decided to walk the one kilometre or so to the centro.
Oh, Tijuana might not have been the true Mexico, but it was a sight to behold for someone who had never left the developed world! It was exactly the way I imagined a southern border town would be; very hot, dusty, and chaotic. It smelled of spices and sewage and there was this cacophony of people chattering in a language I could barely understand and vehicle horns blaring. It was as though I had stepped through a wormhole to a world a universe away. I just stood there on a sidewalk on the Avenida Revoluci贸n and drank it all in for a long, long spell.
Avenida Revoluci贸n in Tijuana, Mexico. Photo by Johntex
I only spent about an hour and a half in Tijuana, starting with some shopping, for lack of a better term. It was more like a sparring match with vendors who peddled an odd assortment of goods that spilled out into the streets, some nice, most gaudy.
I wanted a leather purse and everyone was eager to sell me their product at a ridiculous markup. I finally found one seller with purses I liked and then the battle began.
“One hundred dollars!” the seller proclaimed
I laughed, retorting “Mucho caro, adios!”
He called me back, yelling “Okay, fifty!”
I shook my head. “Quince!”
“Thirty-five!”
“Veinte y no mas!”
“Oh, you’re hurting me! Twenty-five!”
“Veinte!”
“Twenty-five!”
“Veinte!”
It became clear that twenty-five was the best I was going to do and I gladly paid it, learning after that I had paid a fair price. Not a bad introduction to bargaining with pushy sellers!
Next, I went into a shop selling linens and met a cultured gentleman who spoke impeccable English. He gave me some tips for a safe Tijuana experience and I repaid him for his kindness by purchasing four beautiful placements at a bargain $1.25 each. I eat on those placemats every day. I might have only spent five hours on Mexican soil, but every meal I eat at home validates the experience.
One of the many things I like to do when I travel is visit the local grocery stores, so I quickly popped into one in Tijuana. It was a surprising experience in that the supermarket looked no different from those in the US or Canada and even carried many of the same products. I was tempted by some exotic-looking fruit, but wasn’t sure what I’d be allowed to bring back with me to the US, so I bought nothing.
My final stop in Tijuana was the wax museum, well worth the fifteen peso entry fee. I learned quite a bit about the history of the area and important historic figures while discovering that my reading comprehension of Spanish is more than sufficient for tourism purposes.
Tijuana wax museum (museo de cera)
It was mid-morning when I stepped out of the museum and the sun was already set to broiling. I had had a lot of fun, but it was enough. I headed back to the border, fending off vendors hocking products made from seashells.
Entering Mexico might have been easy, but returning to the US was not. I spent close to three hours on my feet under that brutal sun waiting to get through customs. Folks in line who come to Tijuana regularly told me that this was unusual. I heard many complain that customs had never been this thorough in processing folks coming back from Tijuana on foot.
Finally, it was my turn to enter the shadowy, and comparatively cool, customs building. The conversation with the border guard made the three hour wait worthwhile for its comic value. He just couldn’t understand why a Canadian was entering the US from Mexico on foot, even after I told him that I’d left my car on the US side. He asked if I lived in Mexico (what?!) and expressed shock that I, a woman, would have gone to Mexico alone. I think that he finally let me go just because he couldn’t understand my situation. To this day, I can’t figure out what was so complicated for him to understand!
I paid dearly for my five Mexican hours in a journey back to Los Angeles that should have taken a couple of hours but which stretched into closer to nine, thanks to a gridlock on highway 101 and two unplanned adventures into military installations.
Even though I’ve been told that it was stupid of me to have gone to Mexico, even for such a brief period of time, citing all the dangers I could have possibly put myself into, the experience was completely worth it. I don’t even regret the mad dash back to San Francisco that should have been a leisurely trip up the Pacific Coast Highway. Sometimes going somewhere just to say you’ve been is a good enough reason to go.
Two years later, I had Tijuana in mind as I told an Alaskan customs officer that I was going to Chicken for the day, just to say I’d been.