KLOG--: February 2009

Trip to Salt Lake City! Brief outline of what went down.. via some crappy pictures.

This is Salt Lake City/what surrounds it on the plane. It is pretty and reminds me why Ontario sucks.

On the way to Eddie's I noticed that the E on this highschool looked rather familiar. Eddie informed me it is because that is where they film High School Musical. What a horrible addiction for young kids.

Maddie was my travel/boarder buddy. We are cute, nuff said.

This is driving to rail gardens. There wasn't a lot of snow. We hit a rail like 3 times. fs 50-50x2 and fs 50-50 180 outski. Shmeh. It woulda been wicked fun had the drop in not been a mud river.

This is where we stayed and what we drove in. Thanks to Eddie and his roomies Alex, Asher and Sean (and Gizmo) for sharing their abode.

Ya boring right? We rode Brighton which was really fun. I rode powder for the first time ever and almost killed myself by burying my head in the snow/suffocating myself. Ate total shit only once which is rather impressive for me. Reunited with so many friends. Overall, fantabulous reading week. And now only a month(ish) till SUMMER!

Longest Blog Post of my life starts..... now:

Reading week comes but once a year and for the second year in a row I have decided to pay a visit to our neighbours down south- the dutty amurricans. (Although I should not hate on em as I am technically one of those weasels.. shhh). Last year Liz and I jetted down to Bonita Springs, Florida for some fun in the sun. This year i've decided to take a different approach with a different tripod member (Madeleine) and venture westward in search of snow and mountains. We settled on Utah where there are mountains and mormons a plenty and where some of our good boarder friends have some sort of home base set up.

I find when I travel alone I get the urge to document what goes down as I have no one to joke about it with. So here we go.

9:30am EST. London, ON- The friendly Aboutown shuttle driver, George, stops by La Maison to begin my adventure. We grab our fellow travelers (An old lady who sits in the front seat, Brad- a former UWO prof with a phd in god damned library science, a couple with grand kids, and some dude with glasses) and begin the trip down the 401 towards Detroit rock city. All is silent (or so I imagine as my ears were too busy enjoying Band of Horses and Kid Cudi) until we reach Windsor and George lets us know that we will be crossing the boarder shortly (random glasses dude just walked by and we had awkward eye contact.. cute!). He lets us know that we'll have to get out of the van, go in some room blah blah blah clear customs. So we choose a line with a bus in it figuring that because it is long there are less cars in the line and therefore it will be quick.. or something. We pull up to the little booth and the customs officer informs us that there are 2 buses ahead of us and so we have to wait for them.. and that he hopes no one's flight is before 3. BRAD TO THE RESCUE. He later informs me that he is going to Florida to join his wife and 2 1/2 year old daughter, but whats really important is that his flight left at 2. Customs officer man decides since we're only 7 people he'll just grab our passports and let us slide on through. ZING! Thanks Brad. (Brad later decides he wants to talk to me and tells me that I have to get an MBA and basically lectures me on my future till the airport. I tell Brad I hated MIT 026 and that Library Science is boring.)

1:00pm EST. Detroit Wayne County Airport, Detroit, MI.- Say goodbye to George and Brad (no names aint gettin no attention!) and am instantly lost. Decide to follow glasses dude up an escalator, across a bridge, and up another escalator. Manage to find the line for Delta airlines and am standing in it when a nice lady says that all domestic flights (me) can go chat to with her. So I go.. this part is boring. Long story short this random dude sees me standing all confused after the lady apparently changed her mind about the domestic and that she would rather serve the first class losers. Dude cant say Minneapolis which is AMAZING. Like, you work at the airport buds, learn to say the cities you fly to. My 1 bag is small enough to take carry on, and my board bag gets checked ($15 dollars? What?) and I go to security.

1:30pm EST. Detroit Wayne County Airport (Security), Detroit, MI.- I hate security SO much. Nothing frustrates me more than "orange" levels for supposed terrorist attacks, removal of shoes, searching of bags. I want none of it. I decide I dont want a hassle so I leave my attitude at the door and like a good traveller take off my metal shit, remove my laptop, coat and and shoes blah blah. Security in the states is WHACK. There was some chamber thing that if you beep i guess you have to stand in and it rotates you around a bunch and does a 'full body scan'. (I asked the guy what it did and he said full body scan and then asked if i wanted to go in it. I passed.) Get through the dang thing and finally in the guts of the place. Airports are jokes. Some notables about DWC-

1. 2 starbucks within 20 metres of each other as soon as you pass through security. Yes please.

2. Bar across from the starbucks that allows smoking inside. No thankyou.

3. Starbucks employees who accept Canadian "just the payypa muney nawt the caaain" and then give you the wrong change in American. Apparently the educated workers of DWC starbucks don't know that the blue bill is 5 dollars. Chickypoo gave me 5 dollars and 87 cents change. Yes please!

4. Americans are so lazy that there is a TRAIN to take you from the centre of the terminal to your gate. Kinda cool looking but still. No wonder you betches are obese. No thankyou.

5. Standing in line for my free starbucks I notice there's a chirping noise. Look up and there are just birds hangin out! Flying around, chirpin. No once seemed concerned so I just played along. Yes please.

2:30pm EST. Detroit Wayne County Airport (Gate A7), Minneapolis, MN.- Due to the fact that the internet here would cost me 8 bucks US I have not signed on. Flight leaves in about 45 minutes anyway. Nothing exciting is happening at A7, just a bunch of people hangin around. Boring. Bye.

GIMMME FREE INTERNET!

4:57pm CST. Minneapolis-St.Paul Airport. (Gate E13), Minneapolis, MN.- Despite the de-icing procedure that was involved before my last flight could take off we managed to arrive on time which was nice. However, upon arrival in Minneapolis and after inspecting those TV things that dont have a real name I have come to discover that my flight to Salt Lake has been delayed! The TV thing that doesn't have a name predicts it will depart at 7:25pm instead of it's original 6:35pm departure. So, what to do with the extra hour I have..

1. Eat one of the following things I passed on the walk from F terminal to E terminal: sushi, burritos (my American friends, and ph, swear by the suckers), chilistogo, burger king...

2. Find an ATM machine that doesn't suck and allows me to take out the stupid one colour American cash.

3. Inspect the body shop for the nicest demo hand cream I can find.

4. Attempt to woo a bartender into serving poor lil itsie bitsie teeny weeny baby twenty year old and clearly too immature to consume alcohol me.
4.a. Find a fake id.
4.b. Make a friend who will buy me booze.
(Jesus am I in grade 10 again?)

5. Pee

The Minneapolis airport seems to be generally less entertaining than the Detroit one. Although I did pass a a vending machine for Proactiv and iPods on the way to the apparently abandoned cause no one flies out of it E terminal. Maybe i'll go do some more exploring. For now I only have one suggestion to all of the airports of the USA: FREE WIRELESS INTERNET. Are you living in the goddamn stone age? Pearson's got that shit on LOCK.

6:22pm CST. Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport (Gate E13), Minneapolis, MN.- Update: Time of departure has officially been changed from 7:25pm to 6:55pm. STOKED. Estimated time of arrival is 9:15pm MST. Also- 4/5 of the above have been accomplished. I ate a burrito (It was delicious), found an ATM, got some hand cream from the body shop, and peed. 4 has yet to be conquered. Maybe on my four hour layover on the way home... See you in Salt Lake.

9:24pm MST. Salt Lake City Airport (Baggage Belt 5), Salt Lake City, UT.- Successful arrival in Salt Lake! After what seemed like a 30 minute flight due to the fact that there was probably a grand total of 20 people on the plane resulting in my seats including not only 10A but also 10B and therefore an extremely comfortable sleeping arrangement, I have made it here. Salt Lake Airport is also boring so I have positioned myself in an ideal people watching location in attempt to distinguish the mormons from the 'normal people'. (I am failing).. Maddie's flight gets in in about half an hour and one of our many hosts, tEddie Grams will be here shortly to bring us somewhere.. Suppose that ends my travels. I may or may not update here depending on how much COOL SHIT IS GOING DOWNNNNN.

Seeya.