Day 29 and epilogue

Since our week was nice, but still filled with unusual setbacks, we decided to go to the airport in plenty of time.  So we ate breakfast and then took the shuttle to the airport and did make it there in plenty of time!   I decided to go through security (after getting my boarding pass and handing ver my bags), since the line looked long and I didn't want to miss my flight.  So, that's what I did, and then I sat and waited.  Paul eventually got through as well (I was taking JetBlue and he was taking Southwest so we waiting in different boarding pass lines).  He came over to my gate, since his flight was a couple hours after mine.  We waited for my flight and then parted  ways!!  I went on my way to Boston, where I saw a beautiful sunset from my window just before landing.  I didn't stand up the entire flight, so my leg hurt later, but Mom, Dad, Katrina, Pierce, and I went to Nana's for awhile after they picked me up.  Then we went home!! (Krysta)

I proceeded to fly back to LAX, got picked up by William, and spent some time in Burbank, later met Austin and went over to his place to drink beers and watch this new U2 documentary! Ended up staying in the Glen Capri on San Fernando Rd. for 3 nights before heading to Oakwood and staying with William and Aaron for 6 nights. That was nice because I was finally able to go to the gym on a somewhat regular basis, didn't want to try running yet cause my foot was still healing. Ended up going to the movies quite a few times on the second part of my trip, mostly at the AMC Downtown Burbank 16. Tried (unsuccessfully) looking for jobs out there, came back with a few leads, but nothing ever really materialized... oh well... My dad flew out on November 2nd I believe, and he stayed for about a week, mostly in the good ol Residence Inn again. They were probably getting sick of me by then, spending the better part of a month there. We did a few things while he was in town, went to an LA Kings game, who little did we know would win the Stanley Cup and the end of the season. Visited the Reagan library in Simi Valley, and had a nice dinner at a friend of his from medical school's house in Santa Monica. 

When he went back I started to realize that it was probably getting near the time I should start thinking about leaving as well. Money was getting really low, yeah I had a credit card, but I didn't want to rack up an unpayable amount on it... I ended up heading back to the Glen Capri for the rest of my trip, 7 or 8 more nights I think. Tried more job searching, thought I might have had something promising with NBCUniversal when a recruiter called me, but that didn't manifest. Not really too much else to say about my last week or so there. Eventually I booked a red eye flight out of the Burbank airport on the night of November 15th. William and I got dinner and Outback Steakhouse off Victory Blvd. and he then dropped me off at the airport. My flight was a little delayed, so I almost missed my connecting flight from NYC to Boston. Got picked up at Logan by my mom, and headed home....

Overall it was quite an experience, probably a once in a lifetime type. While I would have loved to have stayed out in LA indefinitely, it was realistically probably time to come home. I feel very lucky to have been able to take that trip and seen so many amazing things. Anyway, I did go back to LA this past May for a week, nice to see my friends again, but it was far too short of a time to be that memorable, guess if I'm not going to end up living out there, which seems to be the likely scenario now, I can at least visit once or twice a year. 

Well thanks to everyone who followed our trip, it was fun writing this blog (most of the time...) and along with the pictures, it'll be a good way to remember our trip by. Sorry it took me so long to finish it, but I'm glad it finally is done.

The End.

Day 28 (by Krysta)

From Alamosa, CO, we drove up to Colorado Springs, where we visited Cave of the Winds, which was very cool.  The guy said that if we touched the wall we would be fined about $2000, Paul wanted to note that insanity.  Also, they had some wall that people could throw metal things on (like pennies, etc.), "legend" has it that if the penny doesn't stick you will get divorced or something. It had something to do with two women who left  bobby pins there and right after they got married.  Also, when they were discovering the caves, people would smoke and hold candles for light, so there were black marks on the ceiling of the cave from them. It was a fun place to visit.

Afterwards, we drove to Denver, where we sat in traffic waiting to get into the city and drop off the car before the Hertz closed.  We thankfully made it there just before it closed, parked Mazey, emptied it out, and said bye to our Mazda! :(

From there, we dragged all our crap to the bus station.  I laughed a lot during the walk to the station since we must have looked so ridiculous dragging several suitcases through the streets of Denver.  We were also not sure which was to go, so while Paul was calling Dad to have him look at a map on Google, I asked some random dude on the street.  We walked over to station and stood outside of it, confused.  Paul went in to figure out what to do, while I waited outside with some homeless dude and a security guard watching him.  Eventually Paul came back and we went into the station and sat down.  Thankfully they had a bathroom and a little cafe store thing.  We waited for our bus, only to get into the wrong line and miss our bus.  To be fair, though, the driver did not stay there for more than about one minute and the announcement that the bus was here was said as the bus was leaving (or had just left..). We asked some guy working there and he said it hadn't come yet, but he was wrong and so we waited an hour for the next bus to the airport.  We ate sandwiches from the little store cafe place for dinner. 

When the bus got there the second time, we did not miss it, thankfully!  So we began our trip to the airport, though at one point the bus stopped at some stop for at least 20 minutes and I was very happy we didn't have to catch a plane!  Finally, we made it to the airport, where we called the hotel.  They told us that their shuttles come at every hour and half hour, and of course it was about 8:26pm.  So Paul quickly ran to see if he could find and ATM to get cash for a tip for the driver, but he couldn't find one and came back.  We rushed outside, waiting about a minute until shuttle that said Fairfield Inn (a Marriott) drove up.  I thought we were staying there, so I almost got us on the wrong shuttle, but thankfully Paul asked the guy if he was going to the Residence Inn (also a Marriott), which is where we were really staying, and the guy said no.  So, we didn't get on that one and waited for the right shuttle to pick us up.  Soon after, our shuttle showed up and we headed to the Residence Inn.

When we got there, we attempted and failed to print the boarding passes for our flights due to weird computer issues they were having.  Paul then washed all his clothes because of the bed bugs and the fact that he was heading back to LA and not home.  I think I just showered and went to bed.  That Residence Inn was nice because it reminded us of the one we had stayed so long in while in LA..like our "home" during the trip.

Day 27 (by Krysta)

The next morning, I called Mom to tell her about the wonderful news of bed bugs, ate breakfast, showered and tied all my bed-bug clothes in plastic bags.  Later in the morning, we headed out...and then came back after Dad had spoken to the manager of the motel..and got our night's stay for free.

We headed over to the Four Corner's (Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico), where both of us got to stand in four states at one time! It was on some sort of Indian reservation, it was pretty cool to go to since it is kinda of in the middle of nowhere.  But we did get to spend about one hour in New Mexico (total) on our trip!

We went to a Burger King in Kayenta, Arizona (not sure of the spelling..) for lunch, I'm not sure if it was before or after going to the Four Corner's, but I believe it was before since it was in Arizona and we were heading back to Colorado.

We decided to go to another National Park, Mesa Verde, which is near the southwest corner of Colorado.  Mesa Verde used to house cliff-dwelling Indians, which was pretty amazing.  They built cities, including a palace on the side of the mountains.  Thankfully, we got a chance to stop at all the overlooks and other types of stops they had there (such as where huts used to be, on top of the mountains). Yet again, we left a national park as the sun was setting.

I believe we went to Denny's for dinner that night in Durango along the way (in the dark again) to a Days Inn in Alamosa, CO, which is in southern Colorado.  We stayed there for the night and it was such a relief to stay in a reasonable hotel!