The Highlight Reel

So if you haven’t noticed I deleted my previous blog site after some anxiety about what people thought about me when they read my stories. I’m going to try again. Since I have nowhere to go and nothing to do I’ll write about some of my previous trips. 🙂

Unfortunately when I deleted the old blog it looks like I permanently deleted original pictures. So that means I don’t have them anymore and they are gone forever. I tried to dredge up all the ones I could find though. Here are my favorite moments of the last year (and 2 months of the year before)!

In 2017 I had to go home to help take care of my dad. He had ALS. It’s a ~enter strings of creative swears and mean things~ of a disease and it was brutal to watch the progression. Anyways, in November I got to go to a Celtics game with him. It was a challenge to move around, but we made it work. A friend was nice enough to give us court-side seats. It was a great game. We got to see all the players up close and it was pretty sweet to watch.

^^I’m not really sure how to proceed here. I can’t leave this out, but to clarify: THIS IS NOT A HIGHLIGHT. Over the next few months I had to get over unimaginable hurtles. You think everything is fine and then out of nowhere there is a sudden change. That’s what happened in April and we took him to the hospital. Saying goodbye was really painful.

At the end of April I had no time to stop to think about things. I needed to start driving to Philmont for my summer job. My mom accompanied me and we set off a week later. We drove through Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana the first day. I was all for a Boston to Chicago one day drive, but my mom said that was too long so we stopped near the border of Illinois in a super small highway town. The second day we arrived in Chicago. I got to see my friends Andrew and Matt. It was super exciting. I got to go up and stand in the glass window thing super high over the city. It was at the Willis/Sears Tower. I’m not afraid of heights and it was super legit. We also took an architectural boat tour of Chicago, looked in the Art Museum, Ubered everywhere, ate at really swell restaurants, and walked around. I love walking around skyscrapers.

The next thing we did was drive to the middle of nowhere Nebraska. We drove through the rest of Illinois, cut through the boring expanses of Iowa, and all the way to Alliance, NE. If you don’t know, that’s waaaaay at the other end of the state next to Wyoming. In Alliance we saw Carhenge! It’s like Stonehenge, but with cars. I’m not going to lie, that was one of the longest most boring drives of all time. The next day we went through the corner of Wyoming, past Cheyenne, and stopped in Durango, CO for the night. The mountain drive was pretty exciting. I’m a huge fan of driving just for the drive…except Iowa.

After a night of rest we got up early and made it to Mesa Verde. That’s basically at the southwest corner of the Colorado. Trees galore. Mesa Verde is a bunch of cliff dwellings and we got to climb these super tall ladders to explore the dwellings for ourselves. We stayed the night in the park and headed out the next day. I freaked out my mom on the drive out. Granted I went below the speed limit around the hairpin turns so I don’t get what the big fuss was about.

The next destination was the Grand Canyon. On the way there we stopped briefly at the sort of underwhelming Four Corners National Monument and at the slightly more interesting Navajo Ruins National Monument before we arrived at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. We got to hike into the canyon which was awesome, but wicked hot. That’s me on a cliff edge. My mom wasn’t a big fan of these sort of pics, but where’s the thrill in standing 25ft away? We stayed at this National Park a couple more days. We then made our way towards Philmont! I drove through flagstaff and a couple super isolated towns. We stopped at the ‘Meteor Crater’ along the way to Gallup, New Mexico. This was slightly more exciting than 4 corners, but still a massive waste of time. I seem to have lost the pics for this one. Eventually we got to Albuquerque and I dropped my mom at the airport before driving 220 more miles to Philmont.

Aaaand the very next week I went on my first road trip of the summer. A friend and I went to Capulin Volcano NM (you need to quickly learn the National Park acronyms) about 45 mi from Raton, NM. There was magnificent views, but unfortunately there was also trillions of gnats flying around. Soo a bit of an overstatement, but you understand.

I wasted no time planning my next adventure and a week later I booked Skydiving. I’m a very impulsive person so I just thought about it for a few minutes, threw down $300, and 2 days later I drove 180 mi to the Royal Gorge in CO. It was incredible and totally worth the effort. On the drive home I decided to take a hundred mile detour and see the Great Sand Dunes NP. I got my National Park pass here. Another impulse buy. I tried to hike up to the top, but it was starting to get dark so I had to turn around halfway. It was about 85 degrees so that’s why I was all red. I’m glad I went.

On May 23 I went to Bandolier NM. It was a lot like Mesa Verde, but smaller and you could give a self guided tour. It was way in the canyons near Española, NM. I made a mistake here because I accidentally left my National Park passport in my car! I’m such an idiot. I ended up getting the stamp on a little piece of paper. About a week later the devastating Ute Park fire started. I stopped road tripping for a while after this.

Around June 20 I started up again and this time I brought my little bb8 lego along for company. I usually go on trips alone so it’s nice to have at least something with me. I went to another one of the worst/most boring places on the globe. It is Point of Rocks State Park. Off in the upper right corner of New Mexico in the absolutely boring expanses. Luckily the weather was good. See those mountains in the distance? I drove all the freakin way down there for a pile of rocks. Read my review on Google Maps for more details.

A couple days later I drove all the way to Dallas, TX with another friend to go to Six Flags. So far the current Six Flags record was Philmont to St. Louis, MO in one day, but this drive was pretty grueling as well. We left at 12:30am in order to get to the park at opening time. It was also about 100°F out so we put on SPF 100 sun screen on. I got a sunburn on my ears I think, but that’s it! The plan was to drive back the same day except my aunt shut that down real quick. So we stayed in Dallas a night. It was a truly epic adventure.

The following week a few friends and I went to Albuquerque to go do an escape room and see the top of Sandia Peak. It’s the mountain next to Albuquerque. The view from the summit was pretty phenomenal. Those cables are from the Tram we took to get to the top.

At this point most people’s summers were drawing to an end. Except mine! July 11th I drove to Oklahoma city with my friend Ethan. We stopped along the way at Washita BNHS. (It says on the sign too) I brought bb8 on this trip. We met up with another friend from Philmont in OK city and the next day drove the 600 mi back. Oklahoma is fun to drive in.

The week after, my Boy Scout troop was in the neighboring state of Colorado so I drove up to visit. I drove up with my friend Ethan and we went to Red Rocks amphitheater first. This was the first busy public place I brought bb8 to this summer. This is sort of what I looked like except I was holding a lego. (That was my dad before he got sick.) People thought I was funny though (I wonder why? *sarcasm*). The bad part was I parked waaaaaay up in the top parking lot so when we went hiking to the bottom I had to quickly ascend back up in order to catch up to my troop. They had strategically parked at the bottom. After Red Rocks we were going to go to the Air Force academy in Colorado Springs, but Ethan wanted to get a bite to eat so we we went to Wendy’s. I missed a few turns because of the crazy traffic and we ended up missing our meet up time with the troop. After the base we headed to dinner at Rudy’s bbq. Ethan was raving about this place in the car so I went there. It’s pretty good. I’d recommend it.

The next week I got to peer over the side of the Rio Grande gorge bridge near Taos, NM. It is 565 ft high! Every time a car went over the whole bridge shook. Reminder: I’m not afraid of heights so I thought it was exciting. That’s literally just about the whole trip.

A few weeks later I got asked to drive someone to the airport. See the thing is I was one of the only seasonal employees at ptc dining hall that had a car and was willing to drive people. The other is the airports are FAR. Anyways, I went up to Denver airport. It was a fun 4.5 hour drive to the airport. On the way back I decided to try to hit up the Florissant Fossil Beds NM. I barely made it! There were some super ancient petrified tree/tree stumps there and lots of history. Another stamp for the book!

On August 22 I drove from the top of New Mexico to the bottom. One day my friend Fish (his last name is Fish) asked me if I could drive him home to get his Xbox and see his family. I said yes. It turns out ‘home’ is in Las Cruces. It’s beautiful there, but oh boy is it far away. After a nice 9 hours of traveling we got there. I wanted to see the National Solar Observatory so that’s where we went to first. I drove up a 10 mile (16.09km); 7% grade dirt road to get there. I honestly thought I would bottom out or get a flat tire. There were a bunch of telescopes there and we got to go inside of the biggest observatory. It was pretty wild. The next place we went to was the Worlds Largest Pistachio. Bet you haven’t been there. I stayed at Fish’s house for the night and the next day we stopped at White Sands NM before heading back to Philmont. White Sands was massive and I found it hard to take pictures because of how white it was. The sun reflects off everything so the picture comes out white. Down there you can see Mr. Car enjoying the view of the mountains too.

A couple days later I went back to Taos with another friend and on the way back we went though an intense hail storm and I saw my first ever tornado! We drove right past about a football field away. (I stopped to take a picture from a safer distance.) It’s not really a ‘true’ tornado. Not quite F1 level, but still pretty cool to see. No one got hurt so that’s why it was cool. 🙂

At this point my summer was about at an end and I basically didn’t do anything exciting for a few weeks. The first week of September I went home for a mini break from Philmont. On September 5th I drove about 280 miles to see my brother Philip. I stopped at Saratoga Battlefield NHP. It had a bunch of hiking trails and it was about 10000 degrees with lots of humidity. I quickly got back in the car and met up with the Philster at Hamilton College. We went to 5 Guys *fast food* and then saw The Meg’. The movie wasn’t bad. On the second day I went to play mini golf at this place my brother fantasized about. It was pretty ok. I always like to see my brother since we don’t talk much and we almost never go out to do things as brothers.

A week later I was back in New Mexico to continue work. On September 20th I got super bored so I decided today was the day to visit the desolate barren wastelands of south east Colorado. I drove up to Bents Old Fort NHS. It is a reconstructed fort in the middle of nowhere. I got to walk through every room and see pretty sweet views. Next I drove to Sand Creek Massacre NHS. That was arguably one of the most remote spots I’ve been alone at ever… I drove that extra 100 miles to see a grassy field and a plaque. Just like Point of Rocks there was a building and somewhere where some people once stood. Awesome! *sarcasm everywhere* The Rangers were super nice and very informative so that was awesome. It made up for the boredom. I then continued on in a rainstorm 200 miles into Kansas only to discover the dirt road to the Monument Rocks attraction was too muddy from the rain for my car. I thought I was going to get stuck so I turned around and drove through more of Kansas. I got to see my favorite sunset ever just before I hit the Kansas border. I went through some of Oklahoma, about 100 more miles of New Mexico, and made it back to Philmont at 11:55pm. So a total of 702 miles because I was bored.

On October 13th I went to the Albuquerque International Balloon Festival with my Aunt and Uncle. It was amazing! There were hundreds of balloons and a ton of people. We got there really early and got to see the balloons light up in the dark. I practiced my photography.

At this point I had to slow down my driving because I needed to replace the belt on my car. On Halloween we got one of the first substantial snow storms so I went out and took pictures with BB8.

On November 9th I drove to lubbock to see the Texas Tech vs University of Texas game. It was pretty exciting!! Thank you for the tickets Jack! I thought it would be awesome to go see a college football game and Texas Tech isn’t too far (350mi) and always a fun game. I’m a Red Raider just like my dad and I was a tad disappointed that they lost, but happy overall that I got to go. I got to see my Nana and my mom too. I didn’t get to see them very often last year. On the 11th I drove back to Philmont and got there just as the snow from the next snowstorm was sticking to the ground.

On November 29th I went to Farmington, NM with my friend Graham. We stopped by the Navajo Dam first and a took a few pictures with bb8. I try to fill up the longer drives with more than 2 or 3 things do I can get the most out of it. This is one of the places I saw on the map and it was really cool. I got to drive on the dam itself and I got to peer down the spillway. The lake behind it is really neat too. Overall I’d recommend it if you are in the area. Next we went to the Aztec Ruins NM. It’s a bunch of Pueblo style buildings built by the Aztecs. I got to walk around inside and the doorways were really small! Walking through with a backpack, camera, and bb8 was hard. We also went to the Salmon Ruins Museum. It’s a bit interesting as well, but not as cool as the Aztec Ruins. We got lunch at Fuddruckers in Farmington, NM and then drove back. We got back just in time for dinner at Philmont. It was a long day. I drove 667 miles total starting at 3:00am and ending at 5:30pm.

On December 15th I decided I needed to get out one more time before 2019 so Graham and I went on another adventure. This time we went to Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks NM. It is a bunch of rocks shaped like tents. After a short hike to the top of the Mesa we got a great view of the rocks and snowy mountains in the distance. Bb8 wanted a picture in the canyon so I obliged him. We then drove to Santa Fe and got haircuts before heading back to Philmont. Short day!

December 18th was my last day at Philmont for 2018 and after work I drove to my Aunt and Uncle’s house in Albuquerque. The next day I flew to London for the family vacation. My mom had put the idea forth a couple months ago, I had considered it, and thought it was possible for me to go. It was a loaded trip! I previously had 5 separate blog entries on it. I got to see the famous studio where Harry Potter was filmed. I went on a tour of Oxford University. I got to see the Crown Jewels. I went to The Dungeon, the London Eye, and I drank beer on a literary pub crawl. I saw Parliament, the London Underground, the Tower Bridge, an Arsenal game, and I walked miles around the city. I got to stand on both sides of the Meridian Line. I could talk about what we did for hours. It was a trip on par with my trip to Iceland. I’m super lucky I got to spend Christmas in London with my family. At the end of the trip I had a nightmarish time getting back to Philmont. When I got into Dallas airport I waited 9 hours for my flight. There was a massive rainstorm that caused basically everyone in the American Airlines terminal to get a cancelled flight. I missed 2 flights, had 1 cancellation, and waited through 8 hours of delays. I finally got a flight to Pheonix since every flight to Albuquerque was cancelled. I got to pheonix at around 3:08am and proceeded to wait another 7 hours for my flight to Albuquerque later that morning. It was terrible. Then when I got back to Albuquerque I had to quickly jump in my car and immediately drive 200 miles to Philmont so I could miss the snowstorm that was potentially going to shut town the highway. I made it.

Overall this year was terrible and fabulous at the same time. I hope 2019 will be just as fun. I’m in the process of planning more exciting trips. They are getting bigger and require more planning. I might take you through a planning session. I don’t just go ‘why not go to Denver today?’ Usually there is some sort of idea behind every drive. Lastly, the Patriots won the Super Bowl! Go Patriots! See you next time

*not my picture, found on Patriots website here*