Reis door de VS

Het is alweer bijna een maand geleden dat de familie op bezoek kwam en we door Nevada, Utah, Arizona en California zijn gereisd. Ik heb hier voor school een verhaaltje over geschreven en het leek me wel leuk om die met jullie te delen! Ik kom heel snel met een nieuwe blog over prom, graduation en nog veel meer!
April 22 was finally there. I was about to meet my parents and my brother after eight months. They flew from Amsterdam to Salt Lake City, and from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas. My ticket said that I would fly from Missoula to SLC, and from there I would fly to Las Vegas. I was going to meet them in Las Vegas. My host mom and I drove to the airport around 4 o’clock. The days before the reunion with my family, I wasn’t feeling very good, probably because I was nervous to see them after all that time. But luckily, that day, I was very excited and not stressed at all. The only obstacle was the flying itself. I hate flying. The reason for that is probably because of the thing that happened in 2014. We were in Vietnam and we had to fly through the mountains to the countryside, which gave a lot of turbulence. A few days before that, there was a plane shot out of the air in Ukraine and everyone in that plane died. So you might understand that I wasn’t very excited about the whole flying thing back then. There was this moment during the flight that we, in my experience, fell several meters down because of the turbulence. In that moment, I thought we were gonna die and I screamed the whole plane together. But we survived.
But back to April 22, the flight to SLC was totally fine. I was sitting next to a really kind man with 3 daughters who go to different colleges across the country. He just visited one of them who goes to the University of Montana. He showed me several pictures of them and for some reason talking to him made me feel relaxed. When we arrived in Salt Lake City, I would have to wait for about 1,5 hour until the plane to Las Vegas was going to take off. I got some food, and while I was paying, I saw a KLM plane arriving from Amsterdam. This couldn’t be a coincidence. I looked at everyone who came out of that plane. Suddenly I saw them. But they didn’t see me. I ran to the end of the hall that I thought they would come out of, but apparently there was another space they went to. I waited and waited, but decided that I had to go to the gate and check in. So after looking back for the last time hoping that I would see them, I walked into the tunnel. I went to my seat and was getting ready to take off. Suddenly I saw a familiar face, it was my dad’s! Behind him was the rest of the family. They were as surprised as I was. They had seats right in front of me too! After awkward hugs and the faces of everyone in our direction, my parents and brother sat down and the plane took off. It was great to see my family again after so many months.
A few hours later we landed in Las Vegas. Such a weird city! That night we didn’t do anything, but we went to The Strip the next evening. So many colors, big buildings and a lot of people. It was a great first impression of America. The next morning, the 25th of April, we got the car we were gonna drive around with. A huge Ford Expedition, the dream of every non-American man (my dad). We drove to Springdale, where we went to Zion National Park. My family saw a deer, the first one in a long time! Which is normal to me, because I see deer everyday, but it was special to them. We also saw a lot of squirrels. The orange rocks were pretty cool too. On the 26th, we headed to Page, where we stayed for two nights. We went to Bryce National Park, Antelope Canyon and Horse Shoe Bend. Bryce National Park had the same kind of material as in Springdale, but with really weird shapings. We took some really cool pictures that day. In Antelope Canyon, we were in the middle of a Native American reservation. The woman who gave us a tour, was a Native American too and told us the story about the history of that area. Pretty impressive. And not in a good way. But the Canyon was cool, you should definitely go there someday. We went through the Canyon, which was Idon’tknowhowmanyfeethigh. But also there, we made some pretty cool pictures. The HSB thing was really early in the morning. My parents and I (Kalle, my brother, didn’t want to wake up that early (which he did anyway because of us)), set the alarm at 4:45 AM. It was really pretty and as the sun was rising higher in the sky, it got prettier and prettier. Definitely worth it. And Page is where we got a little bit tanned at the swimming pool. The 28th was gonna be a long day. We drove past the Grand Canyon, which was impressive, but not as impressive, because we had already seen those other cool things made by nature out of the same material. We also drove on the world famous Route 66 that day on our way to Kingman, where we would stay for one night on our way to Los Angeles. There were some nice ghost towns and western villages next to Route 66.
We arrived in LA on the 29th, something Kalle had been looking forward to this whole trip. We saw the Hollywood Signs, we walked on the Walk of Fame, and we went to Venice Beach and I loved it at that beach. At that moment, we realized that we got to the last part of the trip. Next big city: San Francisco. But until then, we would make a stop twice to spend the night. The first night we were staying at Pismo Beach. This was a perfect place, super nice hotel, beautiful view at the beach AND a hot tub. Kalle and I got to enjoy the view from the hot tub and met a man who gave us some tips about what we could do in San Francisco. When we were on the road again the next morning, we were driving on a road next to the sea. We saw a sign that we would not be able to drive past something, because the road would end there. This was 7 miles ahead. So we thought that we could try. But when we got there, the road actually ended and we apparently missed 3 others signs with the same warning, according to that woman. So we had no choice than to drive back 50 miles. But luckily we had seen sea lions, and now twice! We stopped in Santa Cruz that night. The next day we arrived at our final destination before heading back to Missoula: San Francisco, where we did a lot of shopping, sightseeing, whale spotting, eating and a little bit of sleeping.