My father, the biggest inspiration for my decision to go out and travel the world, has explored a huge part of Europe, Asia and Middle East by driving a car, truck or bus.
Thus will come as no surprise, that most of my traveling up to now has been by the means of an automobile or truck. When I was younger, during the time of school breaks, I often used to hop in the truck with him and go to wherever he was going. I still do it whenever I have time to spare. One of those times, was the trip I remember the most.
With a lot of free times on my hands, I decided to tag along with my dad on a cross continent trip: Montreal to California. With five cities to stop off at on the way and many more to drive through, I knew I was never going to get a road trip experience better than that.
Montreal to California is a pretty standard route for most drivers, including my dad. For me, it was super exciting. Driving days and nights, staring at the road for countless hours. Living out of a truck cab and eating almost nothing else except truck stop food for three weeks, is painfully hard to adjust to, but it is all worth it for the scenery of the country side and the skylines of unfamiliar cities.
On the way I got to see small parts of some of the biggest and most know cities in USA. Cities like Chicago, Detroit, Salt Lake City, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and my personal favorite, Las Vegas. Nearly half of my favorite memories of that trip are from Las Vegas. Never mind the beautiful lakes and forests, the rivers and the desert that I saw, it was the concrete jungle in the middle of nowhere that stuck with me then most.
We were on our way back after picking up a load in Los Angles to bring back to Canada. The load we were bringing back was not set to be delivered for a week, which meant we had more time than we needed to get back. My dad asked me if I wanted to stop off in Vegas for a day, even though he already knew the answer to that question.
Surprisingly, even though it is packed with people and cars, it did not take too much effort to find a place to park an 18 wheeler near the strip.
We tried to fit in as many cliché Las Vegas activities into one as possible. Taking a ride on the New York New York Casino roller coaster almost gave my father a heart attack, but it was hilarious to watch him freak out as he tried not to look down. Then of course we went to take some pictures of the replica Eiffel tower at Paris Las Vegas, because who has the time to go see the real one. While on our way there, we stopped to watch the the first evening show of the Bellagio fountains, a must see for anyone visit the city. We finished off the night by walking up and down the strip with a couple of cold beers, only stopping to watch some street performers, which make up a huge part of the Vegas experience.
During this trip, I learned many thing new things. Like the fact that there IS snow in California, the state of Oregon has no sales tax and the prices for wine and liquor in Unites States are ridiculously low compared to everywhere else.
I think it was one of the best bonding experiences I had with my father. There were hard parts. We argued and got mad at each other, but we also laughed, joked around and had long meaningful, honest, life changing conversation.
Memories that I will never forget.
Hopefully, we will create a lot more soon.
