In the west Texas town of El Paso

The Bulls topped off a really good season with a trip to a prestigous bowl game. El Paso is a perfectly sized town for such an event. In Tampa, most people have no idea who is in the Outback Bowl. In Birmingham, they seemed unbelieveably illprepared for the game. El Paso is different. It is a "small" town that can sell out the Utep stadium without a traveling presence from the participating schools. It's also the biggest event in the town and they definitely celebrate it.

Em and I arrived on 12/28 late to our Holiday Inn Express downtown. With a full day ahead of us and Em coming down with a little cold, we called it an early night and slept in. The plan for 12/29 was to catch one of the bowl games down Mexico way with Margaret and her crew of Bulls fans who were driving in from Dallas. Unfortunately, flying standby has its diswindows and they got a complimentary night in the Hartfield concourse due to some weather problems in Chicago.

Ay Chihuaua...

When Em came to around 3, we crossed over into Juarez. While on the bridge we met a few Americans telling us to relax--I guess my state of readiness was apparent. Being a Friday night there were tons of people on the streets and a situation that was perfectly situated for losing your belongings. Wallets, phones, and other valuables into the front pocket, we went from Estacio Sants escalator mode to Bucharest during a Roma pride march mode upon arrival.

Given Juarez's infamous and dubious honor of being one the most dangerous cities in North America, we kept our visit on main roads during daylight hours. The outskirts of the city is quite poor and to the extent that they rely on the trickle down of Gringo Greenbacks to help change that, the future is going to be rough; Come the end of January a passport will be required to visit Mexico. Em tried a little haggling with a nice guy from Seattle. He got deported and is waiting to get back to the US. Shortly thereafter a girl approaches us and tells us she got stranded in Mexico and was asking if she could catch a ride with us across the border. Slightly suspicious as the border was within easy walking distance. She was probably Mexican and wanted across. Assuming my diagnosis was right, her English was impeccable and could fool anyone. The stateside immigration checkpoint was only a 25 minute wait so we felt confident that we could visit again on January 1st with Scott and Kim and still leave them enough time to get back to their plane.

With night quickly approaching we made a beeline to the hotel to meetup with Dad who was flying in from Toronto. Mexican food rocking the way it does, I was in the mood to try some of the local specialties. Avila's is an El Paso favorite and the plate of carnitas was just a ton of food. A good way to close out the day.

Carlsfrigginawesome Caverns

Chalking up another country was definitely going to be a highlight of the trip but if possible I wanted to hit up White Sands or Carlsbad Caverns. We chose the latter and Em, Dad and I headed out on an Americana roadtrip past Guadalupe peak (Texas' tallest).

The entrance to Carlsbad makes you wonder how it was ever found. It is quite isolated from the world and the trailers for ticket offices didn't quite mesh with how we envisioned the park. We opted for the 700 foot elevator into the cave rather than the 1.2 mile "natural entrance"


The Big Room was well marked and beautifully lit. Soaring stalagmites and bizzare formations resembled everything from Jabba the Hut to large seals with scary teeth. As an interesting sidenote the flash from the camera made the cave glisten with a warmer color palette. Not sure if it is some kind of reflection or constructive interferance but unfortunately what you are seeing in the blog is not what you see in person. Eitherway I rank Carlsbad in my natures top 10 and it is a must for any traveler.




Ro-cky! Ro-cky!

The trek back to El Paso went fairly quickly and we were pushing it for the "Battle of the Bands" between the USF herd of thunder and the Oregon band. Dad pulled into the convention center parking lot and they asked for five bucks. Dad said "20?" kind of jokingly. The ticket taker reacted with surprise and said "Wow is it 20 bucks to park in Tampa?"

"No, it is actually free and I think you should extend the same courtesy"

Em and I were too busy rolling our eyes to hear him say "Umm.. Okay.. go ahead". When does that EVER work?

Inside the Mayor was doing his best to rile up both sides. Our section was a lot louder (the general observation was that Bulls outnumbered Ducks by 2:1) even if Oregon had some better tunes. The firework show afterwards was pretty spectacular and it capped another great day.

BRUTal game....

The Bulls came into the Sun Bowl favored over the Oregon Ducks who were on their 4th and 5th string QBs. The game started a little shaky and by half time we were trailing 18-14. A quick strike by Oregon, a USF fumble on our 25, and an interception runback for a touchdown on the ensuing drive sealed our loss to end the season with 20 minutes left to play. The end result was a 56-21 lesson in humility. At least the stadium was kind of scenic and there were some scuffles in the crowd. Ready for more Mexican food, we returned to Avila's and again left fat and full.

Celebrating New Years at the stroke of 10p

This being my first Dec 31 outside of Eastern Standard time I went ahead and just celebrated the Time Square version. I was coming down with a cold so I was not eager to make stay up much past 12 local time. The Ropers, Margaret, Carmen and I rang in 2008 in a Cincinatti Ave bar with a bunch of Bulls fans. I sipped my margarita outside of the most horrendous smelling ladies room I have ever come across. Any guy would be proud to leave that stench behind. Just before returning home, we made a quick drive to Rim road to overlook Mexico and El Paso. Very windy and very pretty.

Our New Years resolution was to make a three hour trip into Juarez and then get to the Holiday Inn by the airport. We lined up our 35 cents to cross the bridge and found a much different Mexico than the one we saw last Friday. No one was on the streets. Most shops were closed outside of Avenida Juarez (including the famous Mercado Reforma).

We headed to the cathedral roamed around a bit and headed to a tourist trap restaurant on the strip. We had some Mexican Coca Cola and a plate full of Enchiladas. Salimos lleno y satisfecho. One more thing to check off our list. Em needed to get that dog again. She succesfully haggled from 5 dollars to 4 in a shrewdness found only in the souks of Marakesh.

One more lap up to Rim road to check out the view and it was on to our hotel. Scott and Kim could only stay for a few minutes to catch the kick off for the Rose Bowl before they had to get their mosy on for the flight back.

--Joey

Camping eh?

I have been posting to an awesome travel messageboard for the past two years (one year with significant regularity) and for the 2nd year in a row, they decided to hold an annual campout. Last year was in Seattle, this year in Algonquin (roughly 300km North of Tronto). Sign me up!
Kevin and I were the out of towners, while Teri, Laura and Carolyn are native to Toronto.

After we squared our plans I booked a flight into Buffalo from Tampa, which is a scenic way to get there. With Dad in Mississauga at the time, he offered to come get me. On the way there we made a Niagara Falls detour. It was a bit shorter that I envisioned but a whole lot more water than I imagined. It never ceases to amaze me how idiotic parents can be. I saw at least three 5-6 year olds standing on the railing. I was so tense watching them I could barely enjoy my Tim Horton's lunch.

From Niagara, we made a pitstop in picturesque Oakville (ironically I took no photos ;) ) to check out the lake and the Tronto skyline in the background. Back at the hotel I just crashed until I would meetup at Teri's (coincidentally only about 10 minutes away) with Laura and Carolyn that night.

So they came to get me and I got to see the inside of my first Canadian house. Teri is renting the basement of her stepfather's house. He lives upstairs along with 2-3 Newfies that don't hold sobriety or pants in particularly high esteem. The neighboUrhood reminds me a lot of Washington DC only without the need for kevlar. After chitchatting we headed to the back yard to enjoy the 20 degree weather, but Teri was adamant about us just walking through not making eye contact.

I didn't listen closely enough because one of them stopped me to find out where I was from and he wanted me to stay and talk. I found out later that he was up stairs singing Yankee Doodle Dandy just after I left.

Departure day...

Our trip started with Kevin bashing his Jeep's secondary headlights in order to make room for a cooler. Three hours later we arrived at Algonquin where Carolyn and Laura had already setup camp and starting on some spaghetti. We foraged for some kindling (against the policies of Algonquin--whoops!) and before long had a decent fire going.

Our campsite was just one 1k from "the beach". Somehow a lake and beach just don't quite go together in my Floridian mind. Around 3am after several hours of pounding back Keith's IPAs (which were actually just highly drinkable lagers), we made the stroll down. The air temperature dipped down to about 50 degrees but the water was a "warm" 68. The fog that developed was so serene and was probably one of my top travel moments ever. It became our home away from campsite the following nights.

The next morning the plan was to head to the beach for a swim, draw our our messageboard logo in the sand and then go on an 11k nature trail. The water was either the coldest or second coldest water I had ever been submersed in without a wetsuit. As soon the water hit mid bathing suit I was an honorary Tdot girl.

"Now eventually you might have nature on your nature trail right? :breathes on lens:"

The last time I walked 11k straight was...never. I figured we would have plenty of time to stop and photograph all the nature which would prolong the trip thus making it easier me to catch my breath. Turns out they could have made a better nature trail at our campsite. Fat racoons, black squirrels, and even a bear made an appearance tentside whereas the dedicated trail offered up a chipmunk or two. Not that it mattered, the trail was really beautiful and easy to follow (with the exception of a beaver who flooded it temporarily) and we finished in just over 3 hours.

We got back to our site and started on the chicken and veggies.

The next day we did some canoing and I found that I never exercise canoing muscles...ever. Our three person boat was going in circles so for the way back, Kevin, Carolyn took the three person one and Laura and Teri took the other. Apparently it was not entirely my fault that we were slowing down. Score! In your face Teri and Laura ;)

We headed out the next day after one more trip on the lake. Algonquin rocks and it was a perfect place for my first "real" camping trip :)

Okay this blog is only a few months late...meh.. (actually almost ALL of it was written in October I just forgot to post it)


--Joey