the Malaysian Cowboy

(the main video)

(the epilogue, of sorts)

Today’s Flickr Gallery | August 2nd: Dallas to Houston-HOME!

Over the course of this trip, I’d gotten used to heading out on the road at progressively later times. While the first day started with me leaving home at the ripe hour of 5:30, I left yesterday for Dallas at only 11 am. Granted, not all drives were the same length, but, I’m pretty sure as the days wore on and I became progressively tired, I made up for that by getting just a little more shut eye when I could. Today was, however, a bit different: I was headed home!

Leaving Rebecca’s place at the ripe hour of 8:30, I made one stop for gas along the way, but otherwise pressed on. As such, I’m going to leave most of the explanation to the video above, and the epilogue below, which will end up doing most of the heavy lifting in this post.

All told, once home I snapped a shot of the GPS totals for the miles travelled, hours driven, and all the other fun stuff. 4,685 miles. It’s only four simple digits, but behind that number’s an awesome, truly memorable trip.

Emptying my bags later, I laid out all the tangible souvenirs I had accumulated over the course of the trip. A little bit of a mess, but it definitely tells part of the story. Much later, Keesh and I popped a bottle of champagne Mom had gotten for my return

In a way, it feels weird that I’m not going to be continuing with the onslaught of daily videos, photos and blog posts. For a long time I talked mightily of it but wasn’t quite sure myself whether I would actually follow through. Now that I’ve done it, what I can tell you, is that sometimes you just have to do something without thinking too much about it. I can hardly do justice to it all with just a few simple sentences, so rather than try, I’ll leave you with a massive thank you to everyone that made this trip possible, big and large: Mom, Dad, Keesh, my friends Rafaela, Julia and Rebecca, and everyone else that I’ve talked to about this trip either before, during, or after. It was a blast. Thanks for reading and keeping up with my blog, and if you ever do find yourself bored at random other points in the future, chances are I’ll be here blogging, so feel free to come back. For now, this cowboy’s signing off!

Today’s Flickr Gallery | August 1st: Oklahoma City to Dallas

The last two days were comparatively light on the photos, as the drives themselves were only about four hours, including the time I spent stopping off for photos. Still, as I set out from Oklahoma close to 11 am, I was interested to see what I’d find along the way to Dallas, as I was still on roads I’d never travelled before.

My first stop was just outside Oklahoma City, right off the highway. Nothing too different from what I’ve seen at this point, though the fullness of the trees was a little bit of a change.

Later, however, as I was nearing the Oklahoma-Texas border, I took another one of those “scenic overlook” exists . While this leg of the trip was short in terms of distance, it also hadn’t provided much in the way of easy-to-spot photo opportunities from the highway, which explains the other half of why it was relatively short on photos. That being said, at this stop, there was a pretty decent view, along with a bit of geological information along Interstate 35. Click here to read more »

The Flickr Galleries: Day 1 | Day 2 || Denver: July 28th & 29th

After a good night’s rest and a late breakfast, our first stop was Casa Bonita, a wonderful dining experience similar to a Rainforest Café, only better. Now I must tell you that Julia and her mom went to great lengths to inform me that the food there was pretty bad, and, really, we were going for the experience over anything else. Obviously, being familiar with the numerous Tex-Mex dining options in Houston and Texas, while I can’t say I’m a connoisseur of good Tex-Mex, I can certainly tell good food from the bad stuff.

As it turns out, the food wasn’t really as bad as I’d expected (in fact, the nachos were pretty good, if not rather filling), and the rest of the experience was really cool (check out the video clip for a better idea)!

Having watched a few of the cliff diving shows and a pirate duel, we finished our meal and explored Black Bart’s hideout, which took us through a windy cave filled with lots of interesting creatures and sights.

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Today’s Flickr Gallery | July 24th: Disneyland. When I was six years old, I made my one and only visit to Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida. At the time, I quite enjoyed myself. Thirteen years later, I’m glad to say I experienced much of the same enjoyment one comes to know only by having been there for yourself! That being said, apart from the video above, I’m going to try and detail what we did do.

After a two and a half-hour drive down to Anaheim, we arrived at the ripe hour of 9:30 to find parking already beginning to fill up.  Given that Disneyland itself closes at midnight, we had designs on spending the entire day there. And, while we ended up leaving at around 10:30 instead of midnight, I can assure you we didn’t have to work too hard to tire ourselves out =P.

Click here to read more »