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The American West 2015 | Homecomings, Bucket Lists & Endless Highways
Location
San Francisco, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Las Vegas, NV
Hoover Dam, NV/AZ
The Grand Canyon, AZ
Date
April/May 2015
- Our 2015 road trip through California, Nevada and Arizona wasn't really about seeing famous landmarks. It became a journey filled with little dreams that we'd talked about for years, finally becoming reality.
San Francisco had been on my bucket list since I was a kid. Standing in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge, watching the famous fog roll across the bay, cruising past Alcatraz, wandering Fisherman's Wharf and Chinatown... it somehow felt both exactly as I'd imagined, yet completely different at the same time.
But the real reason for this trip was Los Angeles.
For years, I'd listened to my wife tell stories about growing up there. The house she lived on South Occidental Blvd in Koreatown, the schools she attended, the friends she hadn't seen in decades. Watching her walk those streets again after so many years, smiling as memories came flooding back, made the entire journey worthwhile. We also spent a day at Universal Studios, rediscovered our inner child at Knott's Berry Farm, and finally watched a Dodgers game together. Amazingly, despite growing up in Los Angeles, she'd never actually been inside Dodger Stadium before, so being there together made it that much more special.
Being the sports nuts that we are, we also crossed another dream off the list by watching our first NBA playoff game at Staples Center before once again, cheering on the Dodgers against the Giants the very next evening. Two iconic venues. Two unforgettable nights.
From there we drove through the Mojave Desert to Las Vegas to fulfill my wife's dream of staying at both Circus Circus hotel and hitting the slot machines! We were in town for the Mayweather/Pacquiao fight and despite not being able to score reasonably priced tickets, the atmostphere in Sin City was electric and it was the best time to be there! After a few days of light gambling, we continued on to Hoover Dam, a place I'd wanted to visit ever since learning about it in school and later seeing immortalized in those epic Transformers scenes! The trip ended at the Grand Canyon, and like so many places we'd been fortunate enough to visit over the years, no photograph could ever prepare us for seeing it with our own eyes - its majesty was truly breathtaking!
When I think back on this trip today, I don't immediately remember the cities or the attractions. I remember watching my wife reconnect with the place she once called home, sharing a few bucket-list moments together, and another reminder that the best memories are rarely the ones you plan -they're the ones you end up talking about years, even decades later!
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