My Adventures Living Daily Life & Traveling the World

Buffalo

My final thoughts on this trip is that it was a lot of fun, and I’m glad I had the chance to see so many famous tourist spots. I didn’t like the tour guide’s inexperience and some passengers’ lack of time management skills, though.

Also, there were way more women than men on the trip. Every time I had to go to the bathroom, I’m standing in this long ass line. Not fun at all. One time it was especially bad, and I don’t remember what day it was, but I got so frustrated that I went into the men’s room. It had no line after all. At first I heard people laughing at me and someone said “Why are you going into the men’s room?” in Chinese. But when I got out another woman went into the men’s room. Both of the bathrooms became women’s rooms. It was funny.

When I was first told that Denver’s airport was the largest in the U.S., I didn’t believe it. I didn’t truly grasp how big it was until today. The airport had two wings, East and West. Both wings each had 3 terminals. I don’t know how many gates each terminal had, but in terminal B, where my flight was to depart from, there were 95 gates. That’s about twice as many as Houston’s terminal B, and Bush International is a huge enough airport. Also, to go from one terminal to the next, you have to take a shuttle. It reminded me of Atlanta.

We got to the airport just after 3 P.M. but our flight isn’t departing until 8:10 that night. I just love spending 5 hours in the airport! Not to mention that the weather was not on our side today. There was a hurricane in Houston and thunderstorms in Denver, so the first few flights from Denver to Houston today have been cancelled. There is an earlier flight available at 5:20, but with 30 people already on the standby list, like we had a chance!

Well, turned out that it didn’t matter anyway because the 5:20 flight was delayed until 8:10, same time as ours. What we feared the most were further delays or a cancellation. But luckily, while our flight was delayed several times, I am writing on the plane right now, so that at least means we’ve left. J We should be landing around 12:11 A.M. central time.

Well because I couldn’t go swimming, I just sat in the lobby chatting with these two Chinese women from Vancouver, Canada instead. I’ve talked briefly with them throughout the trip, and they were very interesting people. They used to be on the professional volleyball team in China, and they are so tall. Both of them are over 40 but they acted like 20 year olds. We got along well even though their kids are almost as old as I am. I learned about the economic situation in Canada, how they want their kids to go to college in the U.S. because schools here are considered more prestigious. I told them the best advice I could about college and that is for their kids to pick a major they’d actually enjoy, not one for career purposes. No employers give a damn what your undergraduate major is. I, for one, wish I had not taken business. I love business, of course, but I already knew from the start that a major in business would teach me stuff I already knew, and are generally outdated at this point in time. I wish I had done linguistics or English, or even computer science instead. But four years ago, like my business partner, I felt like I “had” to take it for what I wanted to become.

Arches

I looked around some more but refused to buy anything else. I would have probably found something else I wanted if I kept on looking. All the products in there were just so unique and fascinating. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one who thought this way, because as George predicted, we were delayed 15 minutes because so many people were still shopping when it came time to leave.

The scheduled lunch was Chinese buffet again!! I just can’t believe this. I mean, I guess it’s hard to feed 50 people any other way, but two days in a row is just sick. We tried our darned hardest to find something else nearby, but there was nothing. At least this one is better than the one last night.

The whole afternoon was spent driving towards Arch National Park, the last destination for the day. I slept just about the whole way, drifting in and out because the bus bounced up and down on the crappy roads like some old amusement park kids ride. By the time we got there, the sun was already setting. We had to hurry because it would be impossible to take pictures in the dark. The Arch National Park had over 2,000 different natural stone formations, the shapes of which can be very… interesting. There are ones that looked like penguins, people, lions, windows, and even body parts! I don’t feel the need to explain further. Anyway, the most famous of all the arches are probably the two windows, which we spent a lot of time at. Too much, I should say. They are just holes in the rock. I personally thought the body part look-alikes are more interesting.

Old Faithful

The second stop was the Old Faithful geyser, apparently the most reliable geyser in the park, or was it in the world? I’m not sure. We had just missed its eruption when we arrived, so we had to wait until the next one, which could be in 30 minutes or hours. For us, it was two hours. I sat in the shade with my camera ready the whole time so I wouldn’t miss the start. Luckily, I was able to capture its entire eruption on camera.

On the way, we got to see a few wild animals, including huge herds of buffalo and an elk here or there. In fact, we were delayed for one hour because of all the buffalo crossing the street. It was a nice delay. I got to take a lot of pictures and even a video of a buffalo rolling in the dust. I was told it was a rare sight and how lucky I was. And, if I may say so myself, the quality of the buffalo video is pro! Like something I’d see on Animal Planet.

However, I’m very disappointed I didn’t see any bears or wolves. The wolf is my favorite animal because I can identify with them. They are loners, and so am I in most cases. It’s mainly because I devote so much energy and time onto one person that I don’t have enough to give to everyone else. Long consecutive periods of social events tire me out. I then have to be alone just to recuperate to socialize again. That’s the hallmark of introverted personality though. A lot of people think I’m extroverted, but they just don’t know how exhausted I am after these lengthy social gatherings, especially with family!

I was really enjoying reading about each of the four presidents on the signs along the trail, when a very cute voice interrupted me. It was an adorable little girl, maybe six years old or so. Our conversation went something like this:

Her: Ma’am, have you met Mr. George Washington?
Me: [chuckle] No, sweetie, I haven’t.
Her: Are you going up there to meet him now?
Me: No, I’m just going to take a photo with him. He’s very… busy. [or very dead!]
Her: Oh, ok.
At this point I see no adults around and start to worry.
Me: Where’s your mommy?
Her: She’s back there with my brother.
She pointed to the way I came from, and I see a youngish woman with a baby rushing over.
Woman: Ashley (I think), I told you not to run too far ahead. Come on.

The woman then turns towards me and smiles. I fake a smile back, thinking that if the little girl was my kid, I would never leave her alone like that. It would be so easy to get lost on that trail. The kid pretty much made my day though. I love her innocence.