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!

(You’ll notice this is quite a long clip, there’s some editorializing and random thought in the second half of the video, depending on your mood, you may or may not enjoy that )

Today’s Flickr Gallery | July 30th: Denver to Amarillo

The drive today was somewhat of a homecoming, in the sense that my journey would be bringing me back to good ole’ Texas, and I’d put up at the same hotel in Amarillo that I spent my first night of the journey. Down through Colorado I went, passing through New Mexico for a little while before entering more familiar territory.

Like most of the journey, the clear skies through most of the drive afforded me lots of wonderful photo opportunities. This first set is just outside of Denver, just off Interstate 25.

I continued down I-25 for much of the drive, at one point pulling a fair distance off the highway a little north of Pueblo. Again, the fields, clouds and general atmosphere were a far cry from the concrete jungles I usually frequent when I’m not driving across the southwest, and, had I the option, I probably would have spent the night out there looking at the stars….however, I did have a schedule to keep to!

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Today’s Flickr Gallery | July 25th: Bakersfield to Las Vegas

I began the day with some delicious waffles. Up to this point, given that most of my breakfasts have consisted of eggs with too much salt, bland cereal, and sausage patties, this was certainly a welcome change. I also had a simple-but-awesome smoothie of sorts, which consisted of milk, banana and wheat-germ. Like I said: simple, but with an awesome taste. I’m going to be making more of those when I get home! I said goodbye to Rafaela and her family’s wonderful hospitality, setting off to find some gas.

The drive to Vegas was slated to take about 7 hours, including a planned stop at Death Valley National Park. As you’ll see in the video, this leg did indeed end up taking 7 hours including all my photo stops, but I didn’t end up making it to Death Valley. More on that in a bit.

Though I didn’t quite know it as I pulled out of Bakersfield, today’s route would allow me a rather breathtaking trip through the Sequoia National Forest.

Initially, it seemed I was in more of a valley, with the mountains off in the distance, but that soon changed. Winding through the hills, while the drive down California Highway 178 was at times slow going, it was anything but boring.

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Today’s Flickr Gallery | July 23rd: I left Flagstaff at 8:30 in the am, and finally arrived at Rafaela’s place in Bakersfield around 5:30 in the evening. Needless to say, apart from the Houston-Amarillo drive, this was one of the longer drives thus far.

As has become the norm over the past few days, the day started with breakfast from the hotel. Having devoured the somewhat salty scrambled eggs and a sausage patty, I stopped to get some gas and check the tire pressure, which gave me a chance to snap the friendly hotel greeting:

The drive itself was filled with a variety of landscapes, starting with Seqouia National forest just outside of Flagstaff proper. Usually, when people think Arizona, they conjure images of vast, sweeping deserts and the iconic Grand Canyon. But when you get this high in elevation, you really come to appreciate the beautifully vast forest that its also home to.

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It looked like it was going to rain. It did. Quite hard. Then it lightened up. Kind of. Eventually, I did in fact make it to the Grand Canyon, despite my musings to the contrary in the above video. As you’ll see, the bulk of today’s focus was indeed getting to the Grand Canyon.

Two quick things: today’s flickr gallery is here, yesterday’s is here, and you can view the entire Road Trip collection, as it continues to grow, here. The other thing is that you may notice the posts are coming progressively later-this is partly due to the fact that I’m moving further west and turning the clock back, and, I was pretty tired today, haha.

Leaving Albuquerque at 7:30 in the morning, I told myself I would need to make as few stops as possible in order to make it to the Grand Canyon by midday.

I did end up making a few stops, as my camera seemed to have a mind of its own, hitting the brakes and flipping on my turn signal without much work on my part…don’t know what I can really do about that beyond going with the flow .

I didn’t bother stopping for lunch, instead, I munched on this almond-cranberry-cashew nut trail mix that I’m sad to say I’m all out of at this point, but will probably end up getting again once I’m back in Houston and can find a Randalls. I daresay I may even have to make the stop before I pull into my driveway, ’cause it’s really that good.

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Today was the day of the famed New Mexico green chile. I’d been told about it previously, but had to have some myself.

The New Mexico chile is a local cultivar of the species, or subspecies otherwise represented as Anaheim peppers. The large, flavorful New Mexican variety gives the region’s cuisine much of its distinctive style, and used so extensively that it is known simply as “chile”. Green chiles are those that are picked unripe; they are fire-roasted, then peeled before further use. Unlike the ultra-mild canned supermarket green chiles, New Mexico green chiles can range from mild to hotter than jalapeños, and come in grades of spiciness at markets that cater to chile aficionados. (Wikipedia)

Leaving the hotel at 8:30 in the morning, I set out from Amarillo at a rather leisurely pace. The drive to Albuquerque was considerably more straightforward as compared to Houston-Amarillo: I simply headed west all day on I-40, ’till I finally got to the city.

Slated to last about five hours, I made sure to stop at various points to get some shots of the fields, which eventually turned into more undeveloped desert areas.

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