Entry 001
7.1.2003 8:22
Well, it's another trip log, this time I'm in ATA flight
297 to Denver. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to use my trusty PDA. Okay the
plane is apparently on the taxiway in front of the runway... Okay, this is
it--I hope I survive to leave another entry.
Entry 002
8:39
Okay now that my initial fears of a possible freak
accident at take off has been proven wrong I'm feeling a lot better. It
was a pretty cool take off actually--I could actually identify several
cities, even landmark buildings along the way. I'm had Inha take pictures
of opportunity but now we're past our usual range--probably in
northwestern Illinois. My mom was being stupid, somehow thinking that the
EM waves from the camera would interfere with takeoff. She, like so many
other ignorant people like that are everywhere, just trusting rules and
obediently following them. I suppose it makes it easier for leaders in
society. I'm different--I try to understand the why behind those
rules. It's not that I don't trust society enough with rules, just that I
feel a little better trusting the facts behind their judgment. It might
get me into trouble with certain parts of society, but at least I myself
know I'm right. Awareness and independent analysis is an important skill
for leaders in society. I wish I were making those rules.
Anyway, back to my trip log. Its about 30 minutes into
the flight and we're at around 30,000 feet--well above the dense white
cloud layer. The last landmark I remember seeing is the Mississippi river.
Now I don't see jack.
Okay, I was going to talk about how crappy ATA was, but
I've changed my mind. It's not that bad--it's cheap--and it flies. My only
complaint is directed at the crappy headphones I bought for 2 bucks. The
moron who designed it seemed to think that it's better to have two plugs
instead of one, so I can only get sound out of one at a time. Retarded.
Oh, I just remembered something that happened earlier. I
was in the restroom taking a piss, and then this Filipino dumbshit grabs
my backpack from behind and tries to keep me from turning. He lets go when
he sees me and is like, "oh, I'm sorry I thought you were Tony--and
then he sees Tony and starts talking about how he thought I was Tony.
Except Tony is Hispanic, has brown hair, and is at least 6'2". So
this Flip is either severely retarded or he had a more subversive reason
for grabbing my bag and made this stupid cover story. Whatever. I'm not
missing anything so I don't really care. I just will be watching my back
more when I'm peeing.
Entry 003
7.2.2003 12:47 MDT
Okay, It's been a while since my last entry, for several
reasons. One, thankfully, I've been keeping myself busy, and two, there's
been a few incidents along the way. I'd like to attach some pictures to
this entry-I'll do that later. Anyway, we just went up this amazing
mountain, with many many amazing picture moments, I'm pretty sure I
got at least 100 new pictures in the three hours we were there. It was an
amazing scene, over two miles up, and then there were lakes here and there
on the way up-just beautiful. And then, there was SNOW! I mean I could see
snow way up on the tops of the mountains, but I had no idea that there
would be snow where we would be going. We played around the little snow
pile for a while, but later when we got to Emerald Lake, we were dazzled
by the fact that there was a whole blanket of snow over a portion of the
path. I seriously don't get it-how there could be snow up there in July
when the temperature is in the upper 70s every day. Apparently they were
from last winter-snow that still hasn't melted. Weird. I did a lot of
thinking along the way there… but I'm too tired now do go on-I'll finish
up my thoughts in the next entry.
Entry 004
7.3.2003 22:08 MDT
Damn, I haven't been keeping up with my journal entries.
Oh well, I guess I'll go over what I can. Today was the third day of our
trip, and we're now getting ready to sleep our first night in the fabled
Yellowstone National Park. I still haven't gotten over the feeling that
we're wasting our time/money, but today was a better day. After leaving
Jackson, WY, we headed to Grand Teton National Park (just south of
Yellowstone), and on the way, stopped at a visitor center. It was pretty
cool there was this guy who talked about the animals in the national
forests, and I bought a postcard that I'm supposed to send to Crystl. [I
have 5 minutes left so I'll have to type faster.] She wanted me to send
her one from here, and it sounded like good idea. I had a bunch of other
present ideas-but I lacked the money to buy anything. Besides, I can buy
stuff later for the peoples.
I had my first contact with the “outside world” (as
in, beyond this traveling convoy) when I called Priscilla earlier today.
Well, that is, not counting the email that may or may not have reached
her, but I'm going to disregard that for now. Actually no, I want to talk
about it-I wrote it at the height of my stress when I thought the best
thing I could do was steal the car and drive off-and by the time anyone
reads it, I'm feeling a lot better. It would have made more sense if there
was no cell phone reception at all, but oh well. I'm not planning anything
so excuse me. Anyway, I'm back into no cell phone reception land, and will
probably be here for the next few days. I'm kind of wondering what's going
on back at home, but I'm not going to focus on that-I don't want my
experience here to be hampered in any way, not like it's all that
great-but I still want to salvage what I can. IN an attempt to bring some
more excitement into this trip, I made a deal with my dad that if I ever
happen get the chance to either go rafting or parachuting, then I'm going.
Not like there's a big chance of that happening, but at least it gives me
something to hope for.
I'm getting really tired of eating sandwiches; I've been
eating them for every goddammed meal. Jackson was just about the best
place in this state so far. For one thing, it had a lot of places where I
could get good personalized souvenirs; there was this poster at this
steakhouse perfect for Anubhav, “Of course we serve vegetarians (what do
you think cows are?).” At least it's memorable-and he'd get a laugh out
of it too. There was this knife shop-sounded cool, I'm sure someone could
use a replica of a Confederate saber. And… that's about it. I'll have to
admit though, everything is overpriced at that place. The crappy ass motel
we were in cost 100 bucks a night, and it sucked.
But anyway, back to the trip. At Teton, we went on this
really long hike, but early into the 2 mile walk through the mountain, I
had to go back to the car. I was sitting down on a rock by the lake,
admiring the serenity of nature. It was really cool, and it calmed down
some inner rage. But just then I was reminded of a part of an Evangelion
episode I saw the day before we left. It's the part where Rei is in a sort
of trance, and she's going through a bunch of images-I was really moved by
that scene, and wanted to make my own version. Anyway, I had to run all
the way back to the car, get my own tape so I could start filming, but I
knew I couldn't catch up with the rest of the travelers any time soon, so
I took my time filming. Really short shots of ordinary things, cool
landscapes, close ups of flowers, of people, the path, etc... One thing I
noticed early on was the diversity of license plates-there had to be at
least 20 states of our part of the parking lot alone! And then I noticed
the abundance of outsiders. I couldn't help but notice that the people
here were different-most of them didn't wear the western hats, I'm
guessing that at least… 90% of the people there were from out of state.
Just something I noticed.
I had a bunch of cool shots (that I'll compile and edit
into an even cooler sequence when I get back) by the time I got caught up
with my group. We didn't do much afterwards at Teton, and then we headed
on towards Yellowstone. On the way there were some really cool looking
bison by the road but I was really tired, and just wanted to get to our
cabin so I could sleep. Annoyingly there were several of these animals.
You could tell there were wild animals by how the cars just stopped
abruptly in the middle of the road-the first one was okay because it was
in an open plain. But the second time, we were SO close to getting into an
accident. There was apparently some animal on the opposite side of the
road, jamming traffic on that side (because people “had” to stop to
watch), and impatient drivers from further behind would just gun it down
our side, hoping there weren't any cars. The thing is-this was at the
bottom of a hill, AND right after a turn with very little warning. So we
were driving all normally, and then all of a sudden, the first car of our
convoy (of two) slows down. I was driving about 200 feet behind them so I
had plenty of time to slow down a little, but I was watching what was
happening: a van on the opposite side of the road had just edged into our
side, and our first car had slowed down just to be safe. The van stopped
intruding into our lane so our first car started to proceed again. I was
(what I thought) a safe distance behind, so I didn't slow down. So I'm
going at about 45 mph, and am about 60 feet from our first car, when the
stupid ass van decides to just barge in-I guess he thought he had enough
room to go through. Our first car just stops, leaving me with NO stopping
distance. I slammed on the brakes, but it wasn't enough to stop us from
plowing into the van at 20 mph-incredibly luckily for us, I was already
considering an alternative to a possible collision when the first car
stopped, and was able to turn fast enough along side the first car (also
without hitting the rocky boulders that had blocked our vision earlier).
Anyway, it was really really close-and I thank God, and my
foresight for our survival (not literally, but both vehicles would have
been seriously damaged, had we collided).
Anyway, yea, that incident woke me up, but I was damn
glad to make it into our cabin. We went to the gift shop earlier this
evening, and I spotted some really cool things. For example, handmade
dream catchers and medicine wheels, both affordably cheap as gifts, but
what I really wanted was a replica of an native American ax. Twenty five
dollars though. Also there were some cool looking necklaces-though I'm not
sure who would be suitable to wear those.
Well yea, that was a long entry-makes up for all the
entries that I missed I guess. I'm really tired now, so I think I'm done.
I hope we don't waste more time tomorrow.
