Salt Lake City

Well, I'm with my Grandpa in Salt Lake City right now. But it was a hell of a way getting here. Dawn and I left early on the morning of the 22e and headed for Lunchburg first. We went there to do the Jack Daniel's Distilery Tour. It was so nice to see and smell!!! I know everything about Jack Daniels now, haha.

After the tour we set of for Nashville, which is the capitol of Tennessee. We send the last hours of the day in the mall there. We looked around the shops, had dinner and decided to kill some time by going to the Imax movie theater. We bought tickets for the movie, prediction with Sandra Bullock. Good movie, I recommend it. After that we headed to the Motel where we had gotten a room earlier that day and got ready for bed. It took a couple of hours for us to fall asleep though. Eventually we did. But only to wake up early the next morning.

That morning we went to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast where I had amazing pancakes and 'keep it coming' coffee. We set of for Memphis after that. That's where my train would be departing from. But my train wouldn't leave till 10.50 pm and it was only noon when we got there. But we went there with a plan!!! We were going to Graceland. For the few people who do not know, Graceland is where Elvis Presley lived with his family. he bought the mansion when he was 22 until the end of his days. He was layed to rest there as well. We got to see most of his house. Apparently he never let people on the upper levels of his house when alive, so out of respect for him it is still closed for public today. They do charge you way to much seeing as in you can't see everything. We saw all of his property though and saw all his cars and airplanes. It was a nice experience. After that we went to down town memphis. We had some time to kill. We walked around there for a bit and then decided to find somewhere to eat. That appeared to be a much harder thing to do then it would appear to be. Memphis isn't really a city for me. It had a weird feel to it with even weirder people. Eventually we found somewhere to eat and after that we headed to the station. We had actually been there earlier in the day, right fater Graceland, to make sure they had my tickets. They did.

So we had some hours to kill before I could check in my bags. Around 9 pm we checked my bags and Dawn headed off. We both felt comftorable enough with leaving me there alone to wait for my train seeing as in there was a policestation right next to the train station. It was hard saying goodbye to Dawn. I love her so much. We had so much fun together. I miss her.

I still had to wait about 2 hours before the train would roll into the station and I spend those hours listening to music, smoking, listening to music and drinking (soft drink). Eventually my train rolled in and I boarded (duh). I found a seat next to a very nice old lady. It was her first time with Amtrak as well. Seeing as in it was night there wasn't a lot to see outside and I was dead teird. I slept around 12 o'clock and woke up a lot the rest of the night. I think I only slept about 4 hours that night. As I would the next. I eventually gave up around 6 o'clock. I walked up and down the train a bit and had a conversation with the lady next to me. We had a lively conversation about the big fat guy a couple of seats in front of us who had been snoring aaallll night. He kept sleeping until 10 o'clock when they woke him up because we had reached our destination, Chicago. A lot of people had gotten of already during the night in stations along the way.

I knew I had some time in Chicago. 4 and a half hours in fact. So I walked out the station and looked for a good place to eat breakfast. I ended up in a McDonalds. But they have great breakfast there. Pancakes, Sausages, Egg and everything. I had pancakes with a sausages. I took that time to call my parents and tell them I was ok adn where I was. Then i walked back to the station. Found a Starbucks on the way and of course walked in. And then I kept walking, I was lost...oops. I was god enough not to let people notice I was lost though. And it turned out I wasn't that lost at all. I had found the main entrence, but didn't reconize it as that because that wasn't where I had gone out of. Found it within a half hour after activating my brain.

I still had a lot of time to kill there. My train wouldn't leave till 1.30 pm or something. Finally that time rolled in and they called for the first people to start boarding. But then they said they couldn't board yet because the train hadn't arrived yet. It came in an hour late so eventually we left an hour late. They where pretty sure we would catch up on the time though. When I asked them half way through the trip we were 2 hours behind.

The train ride was ok. But highly uncomftorable to sleep there. There was a nice view in the train though. That being this cute guy. His name, as turned out the next morning when we spoke for the first and last time, is Jeremy. Lovely body, nice muscles and tattoo's on one arm. Not as nice a face as I at first thought he had though. It was dark first and I didn't want to look at him to closely, because it would have been even more obvious than it alreday was that we were watching eachother. We had a nice converstaion for about 2 hours in the morning. Up until the point he had to get off of the train in Denver. I still had, what, more than 15 hours to go. The rest of the trip was uneventfull though. The food was bad and over prized and the coffee tasted as if it was microwaved. There were way to less smoking stops as well. But it was a nice experience. Glad I did it because I got to see a lot of the country. I'm definatly never going to move to Iowa or any of those states. There's nothing there, at all...
Most of the train ride on the second day was through the mountains so I had a nice view. The Rocky Mountains are beautifull!!!

I arrived in Salt lake City around 12.30. being the middle of the night. AM on the 26e. Grandpa was already there waiting for me. It was so good seeing him again, still is obviously. We talked a bit when coming home and went to bed after that. Well, I took a shower first.

I woke up early again this morning. Around 8 o'clock . Grandpa was already in the kitchen making coffee. We went out to eat breakfast and spend the rest of the morning walking around down town Salt Lake City. We set off to see the Great Salt Lake after that and now we're in his appartment. I'm behind his computer and he's watching sports. We called Grandma and are seeing her at 7 pm for dinner at Ruby something. A restaurant. I'll be going with Grandma after that to spend the night with her and spend some time with her tomorrow. Owh, I call her Grandma because that's the roll she's always played in my live. She's Grandpa's ex-wife and Rhiannon's mother. But she's not a blood relation. I love her though. Can't wait to see her. haven't seen her for 7 or 8 years now.

I'm tierd though. I think I slept only 15 hours, if not less the last 3 nights. I guess I'll catch up on sleep in san Diego, haha.