Our 52 day Trip in the U.S.A.

Day 1, 5/20/93
We left Iowa City at 10:30 a.m.  The odometer read 36,962 mi.  The weather was beautiful.  We took I80 to Des Moines and then onto I35 to Kansas City.  We arrived at Hays, KS at 8:30 p.m. ("Dances With Wolves" was filmed here.)  We decided to call it a day.

Day 2, 5/21/93
We drove by the Arches Canyon National Park.  How amazing!! .  We arrived at Moab at 8:50 p.m. and couldn't find any motels with vacancy, so we decided to try the next town, Monticello.  We were out of luck again, so we drove on to the next town, Blanding.  Alas, at last.

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Rocky Mountains Arches Canyon Nat'l Park

Day 3, 5/22/93
We left Blanding at 8:00 a.m. and headed for the South Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park which is about 242 miles away.  We arrived at 2:30 p.m.  We watched the sunset at Hopi Point.  The colors of the canyon seemed to change every second as the sun was setting down.  It was gorgeous!  We camped at Mather Campground and had BBQ and soup.  Nice dinner!

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Grand Canyon Waiting for the sunset

Day 4, 5/23/93
We got up at 6:40 a.m. and went hiking on the Kaibab Trail.  We left the trail head at 8:30 a.m. and arrived at Cedar Ridge at 9:30.  We were only 7 miles from the Colorado River.  The hike to Cedar Ridge was easy because it was down hill all the way, but the up hill hike was a real challenge to Peggy :o(  Well, we made it anyway and got back to the park lot at 11:15.  After lunch, we left Grand Canyon for California.  At 3:30 pm, we entered California and stayed overnight at Perrie, CA.

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Cedar Ridge

Day 5, 5/24/93
We left Perrie and headed for San Diego to see a friend of Sung's, who's a new professor in a university at San Macros.  We then went to the Sea World.  The killer whales were such beautiful creatures.  We stayed at Sung's friend's place.

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The killer whale show

Day 6, 5/25
We went to the San Diego Zoo and saw gorillas for the first time.  Amazing!

Day 7, 5/26
Sung loved fishing, so we went sport fishing today.  !  We had Mexican food with our friend.  The best Mexican food we've ever had.

Day 8, 5/27
We left San Diego for Los Angeles to visit Hiko.  We took a walk along the beach behind his apartment at Santa Monica.  It was a beautiful city.  We went to China Town at 11:00 pm and had a midnight meal ().

Day 9, 5/28
We spent the day at Universal Studio.

Day 10, 5/29
Hiko borrowed an airplane from his old company and flew us to Catalina.  We did an turnover in mid-air.  It was very exciting, fun, and yet, a bit scary.  Hiko went fishing by the dock and got 4 fish.  We flew back to Santa Monica and had BBQ.  Yummy!  At 11:00 pm, we went to the China Theatre in Hollywood and saw the handprints and footprints of some stars.  Pretty neat!

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Sung & Hiko Our little plane Catalina

Day 11, 5/30
Hiko took us to a dim sum restaurant in China Town.  We waited 1/2 hour for a table, but the food was great.  After lunch, we went to an indoor shooting range. We've never been to such a place before, so it was kind of shocking to hold a real gun and shoot.  We had dinner at Monterey Park and had .  Very nice.

Day 12, 5/31
We left Hiko and L.A. for Mt. Whitney and stayed at Mammoth Lakes.

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Mammoth Lakes

Day 13, 6/01
Sung went skiing.  Everything was so beautiful... the mountains, the lakes and snow.  We camped by Lake Melones.

Day 14, 6/02
We arrived at Santa Clara and stayed at Sung's uncle's.

Day 15, 6/03
We went to Santa Cruz and cruised along 17 Mile Drive and visited Mystery Spot.

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17 Mile Drive Mystery Spot

Day 16, 6/04
It was a rainy day.  We went to San Francisco downtown and Bay area and visited Lambard Ave., Golden Gate, and Fisherman's Wharf.  We had our first steamed Dungeon crab.  It was really big and delicious.

To be continued.....