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**I have done four cross country roadtrips in my life, and this is the journey of my third one...**

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Our first stop was a last morning surf at Pacifica. We were still beginners at this time so we hopped on our 8 foot soft top "Gnaraloo's" ;-) My friends that visit me from the East Coast always have a perception of California beaches. They think all California beaches are sunny, bikinis, beach volleyball, ect. Ha! I can't remember the last sunny day I've had on a Northern Californian beach (jk it was about a year ago). 

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We then headed down south to La La Land (AKA Los Angeles). We spent a day renting bikes and riding around Santa Monica and Venice Beach. 

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Then we did as all tourists in LA must - a studio tour. We headed over to Warner Brothers Studio Tour, where we got to see the Big Bang Theory set, the real cars from the Batman movies, the Friends set, and I got to ride on a broom through Diagon Alley and Hogwarts!

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We set off and headed to the land of canyons!

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Our next stop...the Grand Canyon! This was both of our first times visiting the Grand Canyon and boy were we in for a treat. We arrived at our campsite and set up the tent and queen-sized air mattress. To be honest we didn't sleep much on this road trip, as the air mattress barely fit into the tent and each time one of us would move the whole mattress would move and wake us up. The verdict for the future...out with the air mattresses in with the foam pads! Our campsite was sweet. If you've never been to the Grand Canyon before, they have the nicest camp facilities that I've ever been to. We chatted with our neighbors and some of them had been camping there for the whole summer (around 3 months). On our first morning we peaked outside of our tent and saw massive elk hanging around the campsite, along with massive black ravens that were ripping apart the food that our neighbors had not properly sealed up. 

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We hopped on over to the Grand Canyon to experience a majestic sunset. When I first lay my eyes on the canyon, I could not believe the sheer size. It is huge!!! It was definitely not an over-rated tourist attraction, nor was it a destination that you go to, snap a few pictures to say you've been there, and then head off. Once again, it is huge!!! Also, every part of the canyon looks different. 

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We spent our whole second day hiking around, experiencing 1000 different angles of the canyon. This was during mid-August and we were pleasantly surprised that we barely ran into anyone else on the trails. 

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The next day we drove up about an hour north to Page, AZ. Our destination: Antelope Canyon. I have shared my pictures from this stop in another post, because the photo opportunities were endless here. The Navajo name for the slot canyon is Tsé bighánílíní, which translates to "the place where water runs through rocks". You have to go with a tour guide in order to protect the slot canyons, and often the tours are cancelled or postponed due to flash floods. 

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I did not have my camera on me, so these photos were taken with my Iphone. I can't even imagine the photo possibilities with a professional camera. The whole tour through the slot canyon was surreal. I could feel myself **inside** the earth, and every crevice was a different skin fold of this living entity. 

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A short drive away was Horseshoe Canyon. My first thought...how are there so many unique and absolutely out-of-this world formations in Arizona?! We slowly made our way to the edge, as there is no fence to stop a potential death-fall over the cliff. The color opposition between the pink rock and blue-green water was breath taking. 

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Our next stop...Santa Fe, New Mexico!

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When we arrived we were in for a surprise! We had somehow managed to line our dates up to make the Annual Invitational Antique Indian Art Show. Santa Fe is a small New Mexico city that is an art capital. To add an art show onto an already thriving art community...well there was just an overwhelming amount of high-quality artwork everywhere! 

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We spent the days wandering around the massive street markets, eating delicious Mexican food, and taking part in traditional Native American dance workshops. 

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In the evenings we headed back to our campsite and did the only logical thing to do...we made s'mores! 

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The next part of our trip was a hoot (in a ha ha it'll be funny once it's over way). We spent a 16 hour day driving from Santa Fe to Memphis. We did not yet have a place to stay in Memphis so I put out a request on Couchsurfing. The first response that we received was from a very nice guy who had many raving reviews. In his message he invited us to stay with him, but told us that he was a nudist and that we would also have to be comfortable living nude as long as we were in his house. We decided that after a 16 hour drive we wouldn't be up to finding comfort in our nudity among strangers...as interesting an experience as that could have been. So we responded to the nice biology major who had an extra bedroom in his home. We passed out fast that night. I don't have any photos from Memphis other than this sweet acai bowl that we had for lunch because we honestly did not spend much time there. I think we were already on sensory over-load from the Western part of the U.S. that we were ready to get to D.C. by the time we reached Memphis. We were also supposed to go rafting in the Blue Ridge Mountains for our next stop. However, I received a call from the rafting company cancelling our trip due to drought conditions. There went our last destination...

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We set off the next day to Washington D.C., where a comfortable bed and familiar faces were waiting for us. It was time to settle back into the college groove. I had experienced enough outstanding nature to be content in the big-building capital of the country for a while. 

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On of our first meals back...Chipotle on 14th Street. And in the words of the ever-so-wise Judd Apatow, "Don't be a jerk. Try to love everyone. Give more than you take. And do it despite the fact that you really only like about seven out of 500 people."

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