Colorado and Kansas

 So Kyle and I got into Colorado after driving through the oddest part of America, Wyoming.  We stayed with Kyle's friend, Laura in Golden, CO, which is about 30 minutes from Denver.  There really isn't much to report about Golden other than it's the home of the Coors Brewing Company.  It's a really cute little town, though.  Laura gave us a little tour around the town.  And then I spent a little time hanging out in the Mile High City.

Fire thrower.

 After being done with CO, I parted ways with Kyle and headed to Ohio to meet my friends Jason and John.  To do so, I had to drive through Kansas.  It was everything you'd think a drive through the entire state of Kansas would be like.

Notice the incorrect use of quotation marks.

The Mississippi River :3

Interactive Art.

Potatoes, Mormons, and Prairie dogs.

 So...after I dropped Chad off at the Boise airport after camping in an RV park the night before, I met back up with Kyle.  From Boise we trekked to Salt Lake City, Utah.  And boy-howdy was that place tons of fun....

 They had a really neat...(art?) installation....that you could....walk through?  I think?

 SLC is home to the Mormon Church of Latter-Day Saints.  So we took a tour of Temple Square.  As you can see, Temple Square has extremely beautiful architecture, beautiful gardens, and really happy Mormon girls from around the world who won't stop smiling and keep asking where you're visiting from.  Seriously though...there IS such a thing as too friendly...and you'll only find it in Utah.

So LDS is a beautiful religion, and I absolutely respect it, but seriously...the Mormon church loves to tell you exactly what your family should look like.  They have videos constantly playing in these tiny little house displays that tell you that your family should be hard-working, God-oriented, and above all, your family should be white.  Or at least that's what I noticed about the educational videos in general.

 Here is a statue of a bunch of white guys with beards shampooing the scalp of some other white guy without a beard.  It was very moving.

 Yes, this is White Jesus.  And yes, he does live in outer space...apparently.

The only graffiti in the state of Utah.

 So once we decided we were done with Utah, Kyle and I made a caravan trip to Denver, CO. 

I don't know whether it was trying to keep up with one another or what, but for some reason the trip felt like it took the entire day even though it was only 8 hours.  So the following photos are pictures of Wyoming from my car.

 I saw a prairie dog for the first time at a rest stop.  It was  making the little squeaking noises they make.  It was super cute.

It was giving me "Blue Steel" for sure.

 On our way through WY, we stopped in Laramie to see "The Fence".

 It was pretty powerful.

So now we're in Denver for the weekend.  I'll keep ya posted on my next stops! :)

My failed attempt at talk-show hosting

Family, Seattle, Chad, and Vancouver!

 I left Portland for Seattle, but on the way, I stopped to catch up with some "long-lost" family members of mine.  My Aunt Mary and Uncle Colton have a beautiful home in Vancouver, WA (not to be confused with the Canadian city).  They live there with my cousin Corey, pictured to the left there.  It was so nice to visit with them since it has literally been almost half a decade since I've been able to see them.

Aunt Mary made a delicious dinner and Corey and I revisited our childhood by watching The Power Rangers Movie until about 2:00 in the morning. 

Getting to see them was REALLY refreshing! Love y'all!

Seattle was AWESOME!  I was able to stay with my new friend Logan, who I met through couchsurfing.org. He gave me a small tour of Seattle and showed me a few cool places to eat and whatnot.  He was an awesome host!  He even had a place for Chad when he flew into town.

The Seattle Library.  It's way too big.

The view from the piers.

The other view from the piers.

 So this is the Gum Wall.  It's really close to the Seattle Market.  For some reason people have been sticking their chewed gum all over this one area of an alleyway for years.  It's kinda gross and cool at the same time.  But what can I say?  Seattle people are weird.

 The Seattle Market is supposedly a huge tourist place to be.  I found it a little boring.  I wasn't really sure why it was such a spectacle...other than being the birthplace of Starbucks...which made me not like it even more.

 Interesting story about this totem pole. Fishermen stole it from the Alaska natives and erected it in Seattle in the 1800's.  Seriously. They stole like seven sacred totems from them and put them all over the city.  How American!  They later gave the natives monetary compensation and made replicas to replace the stolen ones.

Another racist fact about Seattle...it's known as the City with Seven Hills or something like that and the oldest one is named after the first white family.  Not the proprietors or anyone that worked hard to make Seattle what it is, mind you...but they named an entire district after someone just because they were white.  Again...how American!

 So while I was in Seattle, one of my best friends, Chad, flew into town.  His dad works for Delta so he gets free flights and decided to meet me in Seattle to drive around with me for a while. 

When we get together, though...we basically become idiots.

 We decided to see a few sights, like the Space Needle and the EMP Museum and head to up to Canada to see Vancouver.

The EMP Museum had really weird architecture.

 So don't be jealous, but the EMP has a science fiction museum and while we were there they were featuring Avatar and Battlestar: Galactica exhibits.

Ok, fine.  Be jealous.

Movie plants from the movie.

Unobtainium!!

Concept designs for the Na'Vi

 The EMP is mainly a music museum and it features an instrument tornado in the main lobby. 

Dave Grohl's drum set in Nirvana

Kurt Cobain

 Dubble-Yoo Tee Frack?!

 We left for Vancouver after we got bored  with the Space Needle and EMP Museum....

 ...and spent the car ride being stupid.  But getting into Canada marked the first time I've ever left the country.  It was really cool to finally be able to say that.

Also...I really don't like Customs.  They stressed me out.

This building is going to be their soccer field, but it reminded me of Ursula's crown when she gets giant in The Little Mermaid.

 This is a Canadian dish called poutine.  It's basically French fries with mashed potatoes on top and smothered in gravy.  It was really disgusting.  Only in Canada would someone think poutine is a good idea!! >:(

Everything is so freaking Canadian in Canada! WTF?!

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 Chad and I stayed in a hostel the one night we were in Vancouver.  The guys in our dorm were SO awkward that I had physical pain from talking to them.  We later went out on the town to get stupid and drunk and met these really cool people that were there for a conference, one of which was from Toronto.  She later explained that all Canadian men are awkward.  It made sense once we realized our roommates were from Toronto.

Boston tore the Canucks a new one in the hockey game.  The entire city was depressed the day we got there.

 The next morning we hit the road back to the states.  We had to get Chad to an airport by Friday afternoon, so we decided to head to Boise, Idaho.  It was a good 12 hour drive, but it was great to finally have someone to talk to on this stretch, especially Chad who is all kinds of awesome.

 We stopped along the way a few times.  The scenery in Washington and Oregon is breathtaking!  Luckily we found a scenic route close to dusk, which was AMAZING!!

We didn't get into Idaho until after dark (as you can see by the picture).  But after a little bit of getting lost in Boise, we were able to find an RV park where we could pitch a tent and do some guerrilla camping for the night.

I just dropped Chad off at the Boise Airport not too long ago, so he should be getting back into Atlanta sometime later tonight. 

Next up is Salt Lake City!