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.

Click here to read more »

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.

Click here to read more »

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.

Click here to read more »

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.

Click here to read more »

Hello long-overdue blog post! Today I finally began my long-awaited road trip. It’s been a while since my original post about the trip. In that time, I’ve been rather busy, spending close to two months in Malaysia (for which there are blog posts I still haven’t written, but do plan to), in addition to planning for this trip.

The final route for the trip has me headed from Houston to Amarillo, then on to Albquerque, Flagstaff, Bakersfield, Las Vegas, Green River (Utah), Denver, back to Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Dallas, and finally, back to Houston! Also on the agenda are The Grand Canyon, Disneyland, Death Valley National Park, and perhaps a few other things.

Now, back to today: the Houston to Amarillo leg of the trip.

I left home around 5:45 in the morning, and finally arrived at my hotel in Amarillo around 5:30 in the evening. So, a little under 12 hours on the road. Not too bad, I think, considering the numerous short stops to take photos, lunch, and one more stop to stretch early on.

Below are a few photos from my phone, I’m uploading the ones taken with my proper camera at the moment, and the full gallery for today will be viewable at this link.

There were a ton of interesting sights along the way some of which I documented with photos, but I’m way too tired to go through everything right at the moment, so I’m going to let these three (short) videos do a little bit of the talking for now.

Random things worth noting:

• Saw a carnival being transported. Group of about six trucks with all sorts of games and contraptions
• Amarillo’s a little windy.
• Lotta dead bugs on the car. Watching the dragonflies hit the windscreen was quite sad.
• There’s a good amount of road work going on on highways 83 and 287. Mostly re-tarring from what I could tell.

I promise all further posts will be longer and more interesting than this brief status update; I doubt I’ll be nearly as tired! Otherwise, things are going swimmingly thus far!