One From The Road! 
Our move to the mainland has allowed Deanna and I to enrich our lives through
many
activities we'd never have known had we stayed in Hawaii. One new activity
we've
found particularly enjoyable is cross-country driving.
Growing up in Hawaii sort of narrows your scope on life - it's an island
chain surrounded
by water. The most you can do there travel-wise is drive around in
a big circle. Before
moving out here, 75 miles was about the furthest I had driven in any one direction,
and the
scenery never changed a bit.
Since moving to California in 1995, Deanna and I have taken numerous road trips
to different places. Some were taken at a leisurely pace, while others
were done at the pace of
a Mad Max movie (963 miles in 18 hours). But all were fun and provided us with
hundreds
of new experiences. Here are a few places we've been to, and
my observations of them:
Click the name tags on the map to see my observations.
[Seattle] [Portland]
[Reno] [San Francisco]
[Las Vegas] [Flagstaff]
[Prescott] [Los
Angeles] [Tijuana]
Seattle
We rolled into Seattle the day after that city's
worst snowstorm in 85 years. All of
the downtown area was closed because the streets were covered
by 4 feet of snow.
We wandered the city on foot for about an hour looking for a place
to eat. Remarkably,
a few brave souls were out in their automobiles that day. We
watched as one man
careened down the street with only the most tenuous control over his
car. As he
approached an intersection, he applied his brakes, which put his car
into a skid. The car
ended up firmly planted in a snowbank on the side of the road.
Without batting an eye, the
man got out of his car and continued the rest of his journey like the
rest of us -- on foot.
Portland
We've been to the Portland area three times in
the last two years and we really like
it there. In fact, we like it so much, we hope to move there
one day! If you're in Oregon
and you're interested in snowboarding, check out Mt. Hood - it's a
mecca for the sport,
and it's one of the only spots in North America with year-round snow.
The Timberline
Lodge is open well
into spring, and they host snowboarding camps there through the
summer months!
Reno
We recently stopped in Reno on a drive back from
Oregon. Go there only if you're
serious about gambling. In my opinion, Reno is Vegas without
the merriment. But
then again, I don't go to Vegas for the gambling either!
San Francisco
San Francisco is a nice place if you like the
hustle & bustle of a big city. Two of our
favorite places there are the Exploratorium and Castagnola's.
The latter is a restaurant on
the wharf where they serve the finest Cioppino you'll find anywhere.
The exploratorium is a
hands-on science museum geared toward the young and young at heart.
There are a
couple of displays (which you can see in your peripheral vision, but
not while looking directly
at them) that will make you think you're losing your mind!
Las Vegas
Viva Las Vegas! Where else can you get an
all-you-can-eat prime rib and seafood
dinner for $8? Where else can you get free alcohol (provided
you're gambling)? Las
Vegas is a home away from home for Deanna and I, and we try to go there
as often as
we can. During our honeymoon, we stayed for two nights at the
Luxor hotel and two
nights at the MGM Grand hotel.
If you're going on your first trip to Vegas,
be sure to check out the Forum shops at
Caesar's Palace, the Merlin's
Magic Motion Machines at the Excalibur
hotel, the
Freemont Street
Experience in Downtown,
and the interior of the Luxor hotel.
The latter
is a wonder of modern architecture (the elevators go up at a 39 degree
incline!)
If you're into thrills, check out the A.J.
Hackett bungee tower right next to the Circus
Circus hotel.
I've jumped at this tower at least a dozen times over the last five years,
and I can safely say that these guys run the best operation in the
world! Also check out
the rides at the top of the 900 foot tall Stratosphere
hotel.
Flagstaff
Judging by the response I get, most people don't
know that it snows in Arizona. In
fact, Flagstaff is a bona fide ski town! This past winter (1996)
Flagstaff even had a day
where it was the coldest spot in the U.S. (-20 degrees Farenheit.)
If you like skiing or
snowboarding, check out the Arizona
Snowbowl on the San Francisco mountain. The
Snowbowl has a green run that's got to be at least a quarter mile wide,
and a mile
long -- perfect for high-speed carving runs on a snowboard. They've
also got a run
descending from the 11,000 foot level of the mountain - STEEP!
If you're making plans to go to ski the Snowbowl,
however, beware of the cheap
motels at the base of the mountain. We stayed at one (I forget
the name), where the
featured entertainment was an Amtrak line directly across the street,
and an
overactive room heater. The Amtrak train would go by every 15
minutes or so, causing
the whole building to shake. Every half hour, the room heater
would make a booming
sound (as if someone kicked the wall) before heating up to about 100
degrees
Farenheit. Deanna ended up getting a sunburn on one side of her
face because she
was on the side of the bed closest to the heater. The situation
was so ridiculous, we
stayed up all night laughing at every boom and shake of that motel
room. We chalked
up the sleepless night and awful room as sacrifices made for the love
of snowboarding,
but these are sacrifices we wouldn't want to make again any time soon.
Prescott
This is a small town in the mountains of Arizona.
I've been there a couple of times
over the last two years because a close friend attends Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical
University there.
Not much else can be said for this one-horse town in the Prescott
National Forest.
Los Angeles
Two years have been enough to tell us that we
down't want to spend the rest of
our lives here. What can you expect, having moved here from Hawaii?
In our opinion,
the weather is too hot and dry, there's too much crap in the air (smog)
and you can't go
out of your house without fear of being shot, stabbed or beaten up.
However, there are a
few things we've come to love about L.A., things like the lower cost
of living, nearby
major theme parks, and good prices on the latest gadgets at superstores
like Fry's!
Tijuana
On our only trip into Tijuana, we drove over the
border without benefit of a map or
understanding of the Spanish language. We spent the next few
hours driving around
Tijuana, lost and in fear of our lives. In our desperation to
get back on the American side
of the border, we spotted someone with California license plates and
trailed them, hoping
that it was someone headed home. Luckily, our plan worked, and
we followed the California
plates right into the biggest traffic jam we had ever seen.
We spent another two hours stuck in traffic at the
U.S. border crossing - a spectacle
like none we'd never experienced before. As we sat trapped in our car,
we were beset upon by waves of poor Mexican locals selling everything from candy
to small
children. Although we genuinely felt like buying some things - Deanna
tried to bargain in
Spanish with a man selling woven rugs, until she found out her word for $2 actually
meant
$20 - the whole experience made us pretty uncomfortable. If we ever go
back to T.J., you can
bet we'll leave our car on the AMERICAN side of the border!
