This past Sunday I graduated from USD!!! It was probably the best graduation weekend that I could have ever had. My mom, dad, little sister Tiffany, older sister Lindsey and her husband Justin, my Grandma and Grandpa Russ and Betty, my aunt Charlene, her friend Bill, and two children (my cousins) Justin and Michelle from my dad’s side, my Grandma Adeline, and my aunt Cathy from my mom’s side, my awesome friend Paul, and my buddies Carson and Lieu all came to San Diego to celebrate with me!

My parents rented this house in Mission Beach which was a real find. It was great because it was right on the beach, across the street from the Mission Bay Aquatic center, and down the street from some great restaurants.

Saturday, I took my immediate family plus my Grandma Adeline sailing. It was awesome because some of them had never been before. They maybe did not know the boom was called a boom for a reason because I almost knocked out everyone a few times when the main sail would fly over the top of where we were sitting. We sailed by Sea World, and had a great time out on the water. The way back was a little rough. We had to sail upwind through a bridge. It was pretty difficult and we were doing well until we had to make our last turn. We were completely under the bridge so the wind was pretty much non-existent and we had no momentum that was taking us forward. We came about and instead of our sail catching wind, we drifted down with the current of the water. The catch is is there is many pillars from the bridge down into the water and there happened to be a little red boat with three men fishing at the nearest pillar. The current kept taking us closer and closer to this little red dingy. There were many choice words said as the three men tried to brace themselves as this 22 foot sail boat headed right toward them. We did run into them, but we were going so slowly that everything was alright. The three men were very nice and completely understood our situation. Thank you to those three men out there if you ever happen to read this!

On Saturday night, we made reservations at the best restaurant in San Diego, Momma Mia. We had 19 people come to dinner, so they set up the patio just for us. The food was great, and the company was even better. Everyone loved the authentic Italian food and owner; they really make you feel like family! After our great dinner, We showed all of the 19 people the eBUS! They were blown away at all the improvements that we have made, and we were pretty excited to show it off. It was pretty late at this point, so we all went to our separate sleeping quarters.

That night, I slept on the roof with my aunt Cathy. It was a pretty cool place to sleep the night before my graduation, but the ocean kept waking me up, so I didn’t really wind up actually sleeping that much. I woke up, rather I got up, at 6:30 in the morning because I had to be at USD at 8:00AM! Man, I just graduated college, don’t they know that I don’t do early mornings? Anyway, my graduation was pretty flawless. Apparently my whole family was taking bets on when I actually walked across the stage, and I got my “diploma” (a USD folder with a note from the president) at 10:41AM. After the ceremony, we headed off to lunch at Anthony’s Downtown. Again, we had a party of 19; it was fabulous that everyone came to celebrate with me!

The next day, Monday, we went sailing again. This time, I took my Grandma Betty, aunt Charlene, my aunt Cathy, Paul and a few others that went the last time. It was awesome again. I think everyone loved being out on the water and sailing around the bay.

I had a great weekend and it really summed up a fabulous four years. Thank you Mom, Dad, Lindsey, Justin, Tiffany, Grandma Betty, Grandpa Russ, Grandma Adeline, aunt Cathy, aunt Charlene, Bill, cousin Michelle, cousin Justin, Carson, Lieu, and Paul for making this a weekend I will remember for ever!

Last weekend Carson, Lieu, Meghan (my longtime friend and roommate from sophomore year), and I went on an awesome hike to the top of Mount. Woodson at Lake Poway. Our whole goal was to make it to this thin rock extends about 8 feet over a cliff. We kept hiking up the mountain and searching for the rock and finally, when we made it to the very top, Carson spotted this amazing feet. We actually made it! We took some photos, ate some snacks and relaxed on the crazy rock.

In total, it was about a seven mile adventure. It had some great views and definitely was worth the trip! Check out the pictures of us on the rock in the photos section.

Carson’s mom, Suzanne, came down to see the bus and visit Carson before the big adventure. We took her to extraordinary desserts, the San Diego Zoo, Old Town, and we went sailing! It was a jam packed weekend, but we all had a lot of fun. It was the first time that Lieu, Carson, and Suzanne had been to the San Diego Zoo, and I think they really liked all the animals we saw there. It was also the first time Lieu went sailing. He even got to be the captain for a few minutes! Suzanne was very impressed with the bus and all the hard work that we have put into making this adventure possible. You can see some of our adventures at the zoo as the pictures are updated in the photos section.

Thanks Suzanne for treating us to so many fun activities. We all had a lot of fun

For spring break, Carson, Lieu, my roommate Jessica, and I went on a hiking extravaganza. We visited Havasupai Falls, the Grand Canyon, Antelope Canyon, Bryce National Park, and Zion National Park all in one week. It was an intense seven days, but well worth the amazing sights we saw.

The adventure began on Friday morning when we left from Newport Beach and began our seven hour drive to Havasupai Falls trail head. We ate dinner, and set up camp at the rim of the canyon which we were to hike down in the morning. We woke up early the next morning and walked the 10 mile 2,500 foot decent to the falls. Before we got to the falls, we had to stop at the village (eight miles in) to pay for our campsite and to get some extra food because we decided to stay an extra night. I guess that would have been something we should have decided before we left our car, but luckily they had a “grocery store”. I say “grocery store” because it was about the size of my bedroom and it was out of stock of most things. It was however a pretty impressive village considering there are no roads that lead into the canyon and there are many houses, air-conditioning units, washer and dryers, and even a trailer RV. They get all of their supplies and materials there by only mule’s and helicopters; it must have been a lot of trips! We finally left the town and two miles later, we were there; an oasis in the middle of the desert. We set up camp again and went for a swim in Havasu Falls.

It was awesome; we had the whole falls to ourselves! The next day Carson, Lieu and I went down to Mooney falls. It was pretty scary getting down to the falls because we had to climb down a cliff that had chains and make-shift ladders to help you guide your way down the slippery wall. Once we got there it was definitely worth the climb. We again had the falls to ourselves; it was totally unbelievable, we had this incredible falls and only each other to share it with. I thought that was something that only happened in the movies. Mooney Falls was really impressive; there was also a rope swing there which really made the experience. After we had our share of the rope swing, we hiked down the river a little ways and we also found a really cool little fall which was like a natural shower; we all stood under it and took some photos, it was really cool. We climbed back up the wall we scaled down and went back to our campsite to hang out for one more night. The next morning we packed up and proceeded with the uphill 10 mile hike and three hour drive to the Grand Canyon.

We got to the Grand Canyon in the evening and took a nice and relaxing night; we made dinner, had some hot chocolate and went to bed. The next morning Carson, Lieu and I woke up at a quarter to four in the morning to watch the amazing sunrise. It was pretty awesome but we had to wait for the bus for like 15 minutes so we didn’t catch the sun actually coming up over the horizon, but we made in time to watch the beautiful pink and blue colors of the morning. During the day we finally showered off the layers of grime from our time at Havasu and did some laundry so my car would not smell like a dirty sock. Later in the day, we went on a little hike along the rim of the Canyon and watched the sunset at Mohave point overlooking the canyon and the Colorado River. We left the next morning for Bryce National Park and along the way we stopped at Antelope Canyon.

At first we were thinking that we were getting ripped off because the entrance to Antelope canyon is right across form this big power plant. Despite our concerns, we paid our money and loaded up into the back of this truck which drove a few miles through the desert sand to the canyon. It was pretty intense ride considering there were no seat belts and the back of bed of the truck we were sitting in was wide open for anyone to fall out. We got to the canyon and began our tour which was really a way for them to make people feel like they were getting their moneys worth. They just walked us through the canyon and would tell us when they thought a wall looked like Gorge Washington, or Abe Lincoln. It would have been much better if we didn’t have to go on a tour, but that was the only way we could see the canyon. It was really an amazing place. The pictures don’t even do it justice, so I would definitely recommend this stop if you are ever going through Page, AZ.

We got to Bryce in the evening, found a campsite, ate dinner and went to bed. The next morning, I decided that it would be a great idea to take a shower with the sun shower that Carson has. The problem about it was that the sun really didn’t have any time to warm up the water, and considering that there were spots of snow on the ground, it was definitely is in the running for the coldest shower I have ever taken. I was actually getting brain freezes when I would keep my head under the water for too long. I am not too sure how that happened, but it was quite uncomfortable. Needless to say, it was a really quick and short shower. Since we had some minor injuries and everyone was tired, we decided to take a driving tour of Bryce Canyon. There is a road that takes you to all of the great viewpoints and gives you nice overlooks of the whole park so it worked out that we got to see a lot of Bryce even though we didn’t go hiking. My favorite part of Bryce was definitely Inspiration Point. It had such cool views of all the hoodoos, which are those weird rock formations that you see in the Bryce pictures in the photos section of this website. After we drove around Bryce for a few hours, we continued on our journey and went to Zion National Park, or should I say the Disneyland of National Parks, which was only about an hour away. If you have ever been to Zion, you know exactly what I mean when I call it Disneyland. There are so many people there, many of which are children, because the park is so user friendly. They have short trails, some of which are paved, and a great tram service which enables people of all abilities to see the beauty of this area.

Zion is really impressive. We drove for about a half an hour through the park to get to the visitors center and that half hour drive was unbelievable. The rock formations were unlike anything I had ever seen. It looked like a huge boulder was made from a stack of flat rocks piled on top of each other, and there were hundreds of these boulders, almost like a rock mountain range. After we got to the visitors center, we took the tram up to an easy hike at Emerald Pools. They were not that impressive after just being at Havasu falls, but it was still pretty cool. I guess they are much prettier when there is more water not during a drought. The campsites were full in Zion, so the backcountry ranger told us to go stay outside the park at mile marker 24. It was the start of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land which is land that no one owns; this meant that we would camp free! At first we were thinking we would be staying in a shady place off the side of the highway all by ourselves, the kind of place one would stay if they were a main character of a scary movie, but when we got to mile marker 24, we saw that it was quite the opposite. It was an RV haven; there was a ton of people doing the same thing we were, many of which had 300,000 dollar RV’s. We found a nice spot by the Virgin River, made some dinner, and went to bed. The next day, Carson, Lieu, and I decided that we wanted to get more of a feel of Zion so we went on some more short hikes while Jessica took some much needed rest at the Lodge. Our first stop was the weeping rock. It was nice, but there were so many people at this rock because it was the shortest hike (.5 miles round trip) and it was a fully paved trail. We wanted a more secluded hike where we could enjoy the views with out all the people so we went to the river walk which ended at the start of a narrows hike up the Virgin River. I guess because of our injuries, we were doomed to hang out at Disneyland for the remainder of the day because there were still a lot of people on this walk. We got to see a glimpse of what hiking the narrows would be like; I really would love to go back and hike the narrows. It looks so much fun, and most of the time you are hiking in the water; how awesome is that? At the end of the day, it seemed like everyone wanted to get back to a hot shower and real food, so we left after our hikes for home. Along the way we stopped at a state park called the Valley of Fire. We didn’t get out except to see this rock formation that looked like an elephant, but it was still really pretty to drive through and see all these unique red rock formations.

We got back to my grandmas, and immediately Carson, Lieu and I went into the hot-tub while Jessica took a hot shower. The next day I returned all the equipment to my aunt that she let us borrow; we repacked the car and headed back to my house. It was an unbelievable spring break, and I was able to do and see a lot of amazing things.

For my spring break, Carson, Lieu, my roommate Jessica, and I had an awesome hiking adventure. We went on a seven day excursion through Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. Our first stop was at Havasupai Falls. It was a 10 mile trek down hill to the falls. We stayed for two nights and pretty much had the falls to ourselves; it was unbelievable! The hike out was tough because it was all uphill, but it was well worth the work. Our next stop was the Grand Canyon. We stayed there for two nights as well and spent most of the time resting and relaxing from the prior few days of intense walking at Havasupai. We saw the canyon, went on a small hike on the rim of the canyon, and we managed to see a few awesome sunsets and sunrises. After the Grand Canyon, we stopped by Antelope Canyon on our way to Bryce National Park. Antelope Canyon was one of the most unique places I have ever been to. The flowing red rock walls were really an amazing sight, and I would definitely suggest anyone passing through Page, AZ to stop by this amazing place. After we finished up with Antelope Canyon, we went to Bryce National Park for one night. There we saw these impressive hoodoos and vast vistas. We then proceeded to Zion National Park and went on some short hikes. It was a beautiful area, but very popular. Since we did not get to spend much time there, I definitely want to go back and hike some of the backcountry where it will be less populated. Since everyone was tired and probably wanted to shower, we drove back to Newport. We made one more stop at the Valley of Fire state park in Nevada. We did not stay long because we were ready to get home to a hot shower and some real food. It was a great spring break filled with lots of wonderful memories and fantastic pictures.