The End?

After the chance meeting with Tobi and the week long adventure that followed I really felt like I had done all that I had set out to do. This trip started months earlier in Korea but went through Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and the west coast of the United States. My main focus was to get to the Grand Canyon, and I did that and then some. The feeling of complete freedom is something I will always remember about this trip. It was the feeling I was looking for when I decided to move to Korea, but when you have a job you can never feel completely free. A vacation from work is nothing compared to a vacation from life as you know it, but still life goes on and for the first time in months I felt I was ready to return home.

After dropping off the new pimped out rental car I had to return to the Las Vegas hostel that I had stayed at for almost a full week before I finally met Tobi. I left all of my belongings in a black garbage back in a storage room there. Yes, it was very high class and continuing with my luxurious ways I bought a Greyhound ticket out of Vegas all the way to Knoxville Tennessee. This wasn't the initial plan of how I was going to get to Tennessee but I just felt like it was time to make an exact date of completion, so buying the ticket did that...almost.

The bus ride from Vegas to Tennessee is almost 2 days on a bus, so I decided to stop at a friends place in Denver, Colorado. It kind of brought the whole trip full circle since the friend I was visiting was one that I made in Seoul. Rachel's best friend Mindy was willing to show me around Denver for a few days. It's a really nice city, but I was just happy to see her. I also got to see some old high school friends as well, and that's always fun. Caitlin and Dan also showed me some of the city's finer points, or better places to get a drink at least. But this was the final stop, the rest of the trip was a long, long, long bus ride. I thank G-d to this day for giving me the superpower of being able to fall asleep at anytime, anywhere. There were times in my life where I felt this superpower wasn't a great honor but then you take a bus across the country and you realize that everything happens for a reason.

So I made it home, but home wasn't my home anymore. Since my parents retired to Tennessee the home I knew growing up is long gone. I got to my new home and had to adjust to my new room, new people, a new area, and a new life. But hey, adjusting to new areas is nothing new to me, and at least they speak English here...kinda.