american diary – a catch up attempt

Why haven´t I been blogging in such a long time, what happened? To tell the truth: a lot. I have been back in Germany for almost two months now and since then time was breathtaking, many things happened and I had to rearrange some basic things in life, that´s the reason for no updates, sorry pals.
I came to the conclusion to write a blog post in english every once on a while so my beloved friends all over the world (and unknown interested readers if they like, also) may read here, as well.
For now, let me begin with the rest of the travels in the US. I will try to make it short, I could fill a whole book with the experiences. If you like to know more, you have to catch up with me in person I guess, the stories will be even more colorful. But for the written part I will have to drop some side stories here and there. And now, enjoy:

(I couldn’t make it any shorter, no way)

Lake Tahoe


After leaving  SF I went with the greyhound to Lake Tahoe, which is pretty close to being a perfect place according to natural sites: it has huge mounains that surround the great lake with according beautiful sand-beaches. So you can go snowboarding in the morning and swimming in the afternoon, which we almost did.

My friend invited me to go snow tubing with here on top of the mountains of South Lake Tahoe at Heavenly Ski Resort, I got super sunburned, only on the legs though, the rest of the body I put sunscreen on, I got a nice farmers tan, very tourist like 🙂 I kept it for the rest of the trip and still have a little tan line.

 

Troy took me on a snowmobile ride to the top of the mountain, what a priviledge, astonishing views from up there. Too bad my hard drive ate almost all of the pics from Tahoe, so no top of the mountain impressions for you guys, they are only in my head. After that trip the snow mobile broke down, but that’s a whole different story 🙂

After that we went camping for a couple of days at the beautiful bay of Emerald, and hiked, barbecued, did not encounter bears, chilled, talked, friends stopped by and

 

 

 

I got to paddle off in a little blue rubber boat with some pbr and loved it. Those were truly perfect days.

 

 

 

 

Salt Lake City

After about five days I had to rush to the airport, to get to Salt Lake City with the air-bus (no, no Airbus, an air-bus, because it stopped so often 😉 from Reno, via Portland/Oregon, Boise/Idahoe to SLC. Sitting on the plane for 6 hours but to the cost of 50 bucks was unbeatable, so I did it. A now good friend Raquel picked me up at the airport and we rushed to the Red Butte Garden Ampitheater to see one of my favorite Bands, CAKE, live in concert. I ordered the tickets online from germany and wasn’t sure if everything would work out. Well, it did. We arrived, got the tix, opened up a beer which Raquel brought along and 30 seconds later the band came up on stage. We made it to the point, perfect!  It was an evening with CAKE, so they opened up for themselves, it was a wonderful and long concert, we ended up dancing a lot, the sun even came out although it had been raining the whole day, and red butte garden is a beautiful, natural outside venue. Thanx everyone! (There will be a surprise coming up that relates to this band, I will let you know as soon as it’s ready…)

Later that night we went to Raquels house which is very close to the canyon and way up on the hill, again, and had an amazing sunset and  view over the city, wow! We had another home brewn beer and then I had to pull the trigger, off to bed for me.

 

 

The next day was just relaxing, hiking, exploring the canyon, dining, drinking some more of that home brewn dark beer. A few days later we went to a soccer game, as you have to know, soccer is just not so popular in the US, we saw Real Salt Lake vs DC United, the game ended up even, although SLC led for a while. But the most amazing thing I saw was a St Pauli flag in the stadium! During half time we had to go and say hi to the fans; they told me that the flag was a gift by Ian Joy who played for Real SLC for a while, did not know that, we were both excited to meet genuine FCSP fans! Btw, it was the only other flag in the stadium, what a coincidence. Or was it not? Well, it was a blast, anyways.

 

Eastbound

Some days later, Joules picked me up in SLC and we went to see her family, my old host family and then started our road trip eastwards. First we were headed to Strawberry Park for the hot springs to relax for a bit.

Usually the overnight beds at Hot Springs are booked out forever, we just gave it a try and stopped by, and good karma was already waiting for us: we got a night in a covered wagon.

 

 

 

I am speechless about the hot springs, they are located in a very unique spot, they were very relaxing, not many people are allowed in during the day, somewhat around 50, we soaked in the water for such a long time and almost got webbed hands and feet. Since we were overnight guests, we could float even at night, J. was too tired so I went in again and found myself being the only guest, no one else was there, watching the stars, floating on the water dazing of into the milky way and wondering about the satellites which you could see in the starry night flying by at a high speed rate. Except for the satellites it felt like I was in the ancient roman or greek days, you can forget about time out there pretty good. Relaxation: complete.

 

Colorado

The next destination led us into the wild of the mountains in Colorado for some days, Joules used to live there, we camped at a natural camp site in the woods just outside of town, there was almost no sign of human activity out there, except for the dirt road. The rest was just a huge forest, an ice cold river, our little blue tent, a fire place and that’s it. We camped again, ate well, had  a camp fire, some beers at night and friends stopping by, we also had some good talks about philosophy and culture. I was freezing a little bit, but Joules really enjoyed the climate.

 

The Great Divide

Some days later we headed over the Great Divide towards southern Utah. This is where the melted snow of the Rockies divides: it either flows to the great planes or to the other direction, towards California.

 

 

The Great Divide seen from above

 

 

 

 

 

Across the Great Divide – Nancy Griffith and Emmylou Harris

Road Trip

For the heck of it just some impressions from road tripping and a song we sang on the way.

Golgi Apparatus

 

Goblin Valley

Headed southbound now, we wanted to hike Goblin Valley again. We went there the first time 18 years ago and have been coming back ever since, it is a magical place. It consists of round red rock formations that have been formed by the ancient sea over 170 million years ago. One feels so small when standing there in this vast and overwhelming beauty of nature. It adjusts your little self to the point where you recognize, you´re NOT that important to the world, really don´t stress out, there’s no need for it. Not very many people know about this place and it takes a bit of an effort to get there, plus it is in the desert, you have to be well prepared when going there. We arrived in the middle of the night and camped under the clear blue desert sky. I will not even try to put in words what I felt there. This time it was the other way around: I was feeling pretty comfortable in that climate, for Joules it was just a little too hot in the desert.

 

Las Vegas

Since it’s so close, let’s go off to Vegas, baby! Visit grandma Vesta! And J.s sister in law Shelley who just moved there! Grandma is 89 years old now and when we arrived she invited us to dinner, she is just such a local after 30 years in Vegas that she almost raced some young guys down the street. It was a bit scary, but a bit funny, too.

The next day the four of us (only ladies) just relaxed inside where there’s an AC, cause outsides it was deserty hot like around 110 degree fahrenheit (which is around 41 degrees celsius). It was actually very hot, hot and dry. Whose idea was it to built this city into the desert anyways? Nonetheless, saturday was our girls night out on the Freemont and the MGM Grand, it was way fun, we partied till the morning light and took a taxi home, oh Vegas baby, you are a lot of fun. No fearing or loathing for us this time!

I even got to meet Johnny Depp 😉 And no, I did not lose too much money. I even won some with Shelleys help and invested that in drinks again!

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday we were hungover and grandma laughed at us and our headaches, but we had to simply ignore that and head out of town since my flight was leaving the next morning from San Francisco again. We drove something like 10 to 12 hours straight. The area around southern SF we just drove through during dawn and only got a  glimpse of it, but it looked so beautiful, I definitely have to go back there. What a round trip.

Good Bye

Driving along we listened to a radio show that is on every night nationwide, called coast to coast am (find the link here on the right side), which is an independent radio show that reveals some not so mainstream news from all around the world and the US, I became a fan of it. Listening to it, we learned that the end of the mayan calendar is not in december 2012, which is just a very common misinterpretation that got popular. Actually, that mayan calendar ends this year on october the 28th. What happens afterwards they could just not predict. I am very curious what will happen, if anything at all. But don’t say we did not inform you!

We arrived at the airport at 6 in the morning, my plane took off at 7. We just hugged each other and said see you in a bit! Because everything else like a long good bye would have made both of us cry.
So, see you in a bit my beloved friend!!
Thank you, Joules, for making everything possible. I love you.

This ones for you:

Brown Y R Stomp