Belem was next on my list of places to see. I caught a tram from the Praca do Comercio and started my 30 minute journey to Belem. The ride itself was uneventful. I was aware of the stops and could theoretically trace it on a map. I found my way to the impressed Jeronimos Monastery, a very ornate structure. I took plenty of photos of it and walked around until I found its entrance.
I had been in plenty of cathedrals before. I guess once you’ve seen the Sistine Chapel, all other cathedrals pale in comparison. This church was impressive with the stained glass.
When I was in 5th grade I remember studying the European explorers. We had tests where we had to remember where they explored. Being a geography buff I always enjoyed it. Little did I know that I would one day see Vasco da Gama’s grave within this church in the monastery. Before his big voyage he prayed in a small chapel where the current cathedral sits. Then he set sail to round the coast of Africa to confirm a sea route to India from Portugal. I took several photos of it.
Next was the courtyard of the church, the cloisters. Ironically you can see the church for free (more impressive) and have to pay 7 EUR to see the less impressive cloisters. The guidebook said to look for sculpted rain spouts shaped like a kitten, cricket and monkey. I only saw the one shaped like kitten. I tested out my Muvi clip on camera to film some footage. The footage itself was kinda grainy, but at $60 I wasn’t looking for some top level camera.
After getting plenty of pictures of Jeronimos Monastery, I decided to try to find the Belem Tower. I wandered around without much luck until I finally asked for directions. I was told to find an underpass near a garden as getting to the Tower involved going under a busy boulevard and train track. I found the Monument to Discoveries, and impressive giant sculpture. After taking several photos, I decided to try to find the Belem Tower. I wasn’t sure which direction it was, but I decided to head to the right of the monument further west.
The Belem Tower was the last thing the sailors saw before they left on their voyages and the first thing they say when they came back. It is truly a landmark in Portugal. I took several photos of the ornate structure and ornaments and decided to head home.
I spotted a McDonald’s (a rarity in Portugal) and decided it was a good time to get supper. As I entered two girls yelled at me (in Portuguese) to do something. I didn’t know what they meant and started walking to the order counter. As it turned out they wanted me to shut the door to keep the cold air out. I told them “sorry.”
It seemingly took forever for a Tram to arrive at the tram stop. I had just missed the tram after I ate at the Belem McDonald’s. The electronic sign kept flashing 1 minute until the tram arrived, but I listened to several songs before the tram arrived.
After a bit of shopping in central Lisbon I went back to my hotel room tired but fulfilled.

Friday morning of last week I awoke thinking the following week would be a normal work week. By that same afternoon I was prepared to act as a courier for my company to take 4 boxes from Laredo to Lisbon. I had lived in Germany for 2 and a half months in 2010, so I was familiar with Europe. Lisbon wasn’t high on my list to visit, but it intrigued me.
Monday morning came around I was prepared to fly to Laredo via Dallas, then fly to Lisbon via Houston and Frankfurt. I had never spent so much time in airports. I did survive. Made a few single serving friends. Like the guy who was from Lafayette, TN and was on 3 of my 4 flights that day. Then there was the American woman on the flight from Houston to Frankfurt who lived in Graz, Austria and didn’t want to return to Europe. Other weird things were seeing the foreigners, the German and African or Indian with cowboy hats on, while no Americans were traveling to Europe with cowboy hats.
My cell phone almost ran out of battery power before I left Houston and was relieved to find plugs under my seat in the plane. So I stayed up almost the entire flight trying to make sure it was fully charged by the time I got to Frankfurt. It never would charge with the electrical plug, so I charged it via my laptop. I had to keep my laptop from shutting down throughout the flight.
German customs was a breeze. Customs clerk stamped my passport and let me through. Luckily the Frankfurt airport had one free hour of internet access which I used to make contact with my employer to let them know I was en-route. My cell phone never did work. I don’t know why.
After arrival in Lisbon and going through a myriad of mazes to get to baggage claim, I was relieved to see the packages arrived. My contact in Lisbon was there and after a brief period of time I was free to go.
After withdrawing some Euros, I headed toward the Lisbon subway to buy tickets. A local (possibly scammer) approached me to try to sell me a Subway card. I told him to go away.
Found my way to the hotel. I was really tired but decided to head out to see the town, to Rossio station. I found myself somewhat overwhelmed seeing a dark town with no reference point, so I kept my guard up. I took some pictures and then headed back to the Pizza Hut beside my hotel. My waiter spoke good English and make good recommendations for specials on pizza.
The next day I had breakfast (bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast). Then I headed out to either find the Jorge Castle trolley or trolley going to Belem. I found the Jorge castle trolley first. I got out at the wrong place. I think it was at the end of the route. I waited a while, then went back and caught the trolley back to start the route all over again. I go out at what I thought was the right spot, but I went the wrong direction and got lost in the winding medieval roads of that neighborhood. Little did I know this was to be highlight of my trip. These roads are so small that trolleys are barely able to make it through.
I found the castle. It offered nice views of the city with cannons pointed toward the river. Cats and a peacock were around.
Afterwards I found a crowded trolley to catch a ride back on (consequentially there was an identical trolley on the same route behind us that was empty.
I went to the only McDonald’s I was aware of at Rossio. It was a good burger, but I had no free refills. Honestly I don’t know how Europeans do it. Don’t they get thirsty? Or am I just cheap for not buying another cup? Consequentially most times you had to pay to use the public bathroom in Europe. No free refills means no need to use the bathroom.
Well that’s it for part one. I’ll post more about Belem later on.

Over the course of a few years I’ve been to Kansas 4 times, three of which I traveled extensively throughout the region. Each trip had its own theme to it, which I will elaborate on this entry.

Trip #1 was in 2009. This was me getting to know Kansas. Very rarely do I travel west of the Mississippi and this was my first time to the plain states. And when I mean “plain” I mean flat. Flat as a pancake. I found Kansas to be an area of vastness once you got west of Olathe or Topeka. I am intrigued about how residents of these small remote towns, like Garfield, Kansas, get supplies, groceries, and basic human needs. Do they stock up on food after traveling for 2 or 3 hours to the next supermarket? Do they order the rest via the Sears catalog or the internet?
And it seemed that each medium sized town or county seat had its own claim to fame. This was a plea for the tourist dollars for those passing through the area. For example Greensburg, Kansas, has the world’s largest hand dug well. Meanwhile Cottonwood Falls has one of the oldest continual use courthouses west of the Mississippi.

Trip #2 was in 2012. This trip will best be remembered by my trip to Picher, Oklahoma. Picher had been closed by the EPA due to the mines in the area causing birth defects and learning disabilities among the town’s children. It was amazing to see a completely empty town and imagine what life must have been like just a few years before. Imagine a whole way of life being taken away.

Trip #3 was just last week. My friend had recently gotten his pilot’s license and it was time to put that to good use. My surprise came when I found that planes that small are still just as steady and smooth as those big jet airliners. Plus seeing towns from the air brought things into perspective. I saw plenty of Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska during the flights.
I wonder about the future of general aviation in this country. With much of our governments going bankrupt, general aviation airports might be the first to go. General aviation airports are in a Catch-22 in that they can’t get too busy or nearby residents will complain; and they need to stay somewhat busy or they might be closed down.
I wonder about those small town airport workers. When we landed at some of the airports I was under the impression that we might have been the first visitors all day or all week even. I wonder about how monotonous the days of the airport workers are. I wonder if they can make a living doing tasks for the low number of planes using the airport.
Kansas is an enigma to me. So many towns in Tennessee are so close to each other. If you can’t find something in your own hometown, just drive 30 minutes and you’re in another town. In Kansas it’s not so simple. Kansas is so vast and large compared to Tennessee. I look forward to many more opportunities to explore Kansas from the air and ground.

I visited Picher, Oklahoma, on September 2. The entire town was declared unsafe and was bought out by the EPA through immanent domain. Schools closed in 2009. Many of the town’s buildings have been torn down.
Squares of empty city blocks dotted the community. There were some houses still standing, but many of them looked like shacks about ready to collapse. There were several brick buildings, which I later found to be low cost housing, still standing…spray painted with KEEP OUT in big orange letters.
The Picher-Cardin High School stands as a reminder to how big the town was. The high school once was major, but the last remaining class of 2009 had 11 graduates. The school’s football stadium seemed to be in good shape when I arrived. A man was jogging around the track. Fearing that I’d be asked to leave I didn’t hang around to ask him questions.
I can only imagine the town’s residents reaction to being asked to move due to the metal contamination by the surrounding mines. From what I’ve read, the buildings are slowly being demolished. An entire town, an entire way of life gone in the matter of a few years. So sad. And to visit it afterwards was so haunting.

It rained much of the day and we spent the day in Olathe. Vacations should be about relaxing. That being the case we decided to sleep in and had an afternoon nap.
Probably the most memorable part of the day was having a cat almost vomit on my bed. Luckily the vomit hit the floor on the cat’s way out barely missing my suitcase.
We ate lunch at Culver’s which somewhat of a fast casual hamburger shop. The burger left me a bit hungry afterward.
I’m looking forward to visiting Joplin tomorrow.

My first day in Olathe, Kansas, and it’s been raining all day due to the remnants of Hurricane Isaac. Somehow I’m not all that disappointed. Vacations are supposed to be relaxing, shouldn’t it? I’ve kept my “go with the flow” attitude so as not to be stressed out.
I’m satisfied with Kansas as a whole. Small towns. Good people. I’m looking forward to reliving some of the quaintness of the past trip of 2009. We don’t have too many plans. Just taking it day by day to determine what we want to do and when exactly we want to do it. I’m afraid I wore Mark out last time with as much driving as we did. I’m planning on not doing the same this year.
Mark and Megan have 4 cats of their own and are cat sitting Megan’s mother’s 2 cats which makes for 6 total cats. Everyone seems to tolerate the others except Dessa, a female diva cat, who seems to dislike the newcomers.
Tomorrow its either Jamesport, Missouri – a Amish town….or Joplin, Missouri – viewing tornado damage. All depends on the weather.

I’m sitting in Stephen’s Restaurant in Sharon Springs, Kansas (pop 748). I probably would do a live video here, but it is way too quiet. People are looking at me funny for using this laptop even though there’s a sign stating “free wifi.” It’s the only restaurant in town.
Our drive so far has been nothing special, if only for the distance between restrooms. Except for a post office most of these towns have nothing.
In Cheyenne Wells, Colorado there was big excitement. At a gas station a lady pulled away from the pumps with the pump still attached to the car. I think this might be the most excitement that town has seen in a while
We are about ready to get on Interstate 70 to make our way back to Olathe, Kansas – a good 6 and 1/2 hour drive. Will keep you updated as the situation permits.

Pikes Peak is known as “America’s Mountain.” It’s not necessarily the tallest mountain the area, however it is one of the most advertised. While going to the top it was recommended that you should be “friendly” to your car by not stopping on the way up. It’s easier to stop and put less stress on the car’s engine going down. After seeing excellent views and driving along roads without guardrails, we made it to the top.
There is a viewing platform with coin operated binoculars. While I was on the viewing platform the train carrying tourists arrived. The tourists immediately went into the gift shop and restaurant at the top.
After about 15 minutes at the top, I noticed I began to feel lightheaded, and sleepy. It was the altitude that was making me feel this way. I figured the longer I stayed the more lightheaded I got. After getting souvenirs we took some more photos and started our decent down. I laid down in the backseat as I was feeling really tired. About midway down, we stopped at a ranger check station. As a courtesy to visitors rangers check the heat of the brakes using infrared gun. The ranger told us our brake temperature was good and that we were doing everything right…that is keeping our car in low gear and letting the engine keep the car going slowly rather than riding our brakes.
Next was onto Drifters hamburgers. The owner of the restaurant used to own a In-And-Out franchise and decided to attempt the same concept in Colorado Springs. Since In-And-Our only builds franchises near a day’s driving distance of their cattle ranches, Colorado is too far east to have an In-And-Out. The burger was good. I recommend it.
Victor, Colorado was kind of a spur of the moment type trip. I did a quick search on my smart phone for ghost towns and found National Geographic had an article about it “Ghost town” is a misnomer as the town is occupied. It’s heyday was around the turn of the century when mining was big. The town is staging a comeback with a renovation of a historic hotel and other tourist attractions. I took several photos and visited the lobby of the Victor museum.
We then drove a few miles up the road to Cripple Creek. We found that there was a biker event being held in downtown with very few free parking spaces. We wouldn’t have been able to get downtown without a lot of walking. We made a few photos from the car and moved on.
We then visited the Garden of the Gods trading post – a huge gift shop, restaurant, and art gallery. Pretty much any souvenir of Colorado is at this location.
Garden of the Gods is a free park near Colorado Springs. Within the park are some huge…almost alien looking…rock formations. These tan rocks are shaped like elephant ears. We stopped and took some photos while driving through the park.
We were really looking forward to relaxing in the hotel pool and Jacuzzi, however some teenagers had taken over the pool area and we would have been fighting for space. So it was on to our hotel room for a good night’s sleep before driving back to Kansas in the morning.

After departing Durango we drove though the mountains on our way to Great Sand Dunes National Park. Along the way we drove though some significant towns geared toward tourists with hotels, camping facilities and businesses. Other were significantly lacking in services.
Along the way we stopped and Leandro’s Resaturante in Center, Colorado. It was a Mexican restaurant run by a family. It was a restaurants catering mostly to the locals – those who farmed the area and worked at the oil businesses. We waited a longer than usual time for our food, but realized that the cook might have been so used to cooking for the buffet that anything apart from the buffet would be a special order. Our food portions were huge. However I have found that at most all Mexican restaurants the portions are almost always huge.
Great Sand Dunes National Park is a long drive from the main road. We drove in an open range for cattle. Saw some llamas along the way. We stopped at the vistors’ center, purchased some postcards and souvenirs. We then proceeded to the dunes.
The sand dunes is somewhat like a big sandbox with dunes built up as high as small hills. Those photos of a explorer or sheik walking through the desert could have easily been filmed here. Vistors brought boards to slide down the dunes on. I spied a camping table in the middle of the park and took some photos. I don’t know how or why the table was there. I’m guessing maybe someone had a picnic on the dune and decided not to take it back with them. In any case it made for some good photos.
I would have stayed longer on the dunes, but we had a time schedule to adhere to. We drove though several small towns to get to the Royal Gorge. The area around the gorge is quite desolate. We arrive at around 6:15PM and found that the bridge closed at 5:30PM, a extraordinary early time We left somewhat disappointed, however we realized that some things are beyond our control. We have to save the Royal Gorge for another time.
We made it to Colorado Springs at around 7:30PM. We ate at Fargo’s Pizza, as recommended by a coworker. The themeing of the restaurant was an old west saloon style with female servers dressed in frilly dresses. A player piano played music in the background while we waited for our order to be prepared. The pizza was good, although the crust was not baked in-house.
I highly recommend the Holiday Inn in Colorado Springs. From flat screen Tvs, DVD player, fridge, microwave – it has it all. Definitely one of the better hotels I’ve stayed at.

Moab is a city set at the foot of tan monoliths…the same mountainous structures prevalent in Arches National Park. I have a feeling Moab is primarily a tourist town. Within the town and Arches N.P. I heard more foreign languages than I ever had before on this trip. Japanese, Spanish, French…they were all there.
The drive from Moab to Four Corners was a lot of ranchland and a lot of nothingness. Desert areas stretched as far as the eye could see.
We stopped in Blanding to pick up some sandwiches at the local Shell Station. Its probably a good idea we did as the communities of Montezuma Creek and Aneth had virtually no services except for a lone gas station. As we traveled to Four Corners we crossed into a Navajo Indian reservation. You know what they say about Indian reservations being desolate? It’s completely true. Seeing several abandoned houses along the side of the road was a unusual site.
The Navajo and Ute Indian Reservations own the land that the Four Corners monument sits on. Therefore it’s upto them how they want to maintain it. It was $3 / person / no exceptions to get it (or so the sign said). We paid and parked the car. It was extremely hot outside, a far cry from some of the temperatures we’ve experienced on top of the Colorado mountains.
The monument to where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico come together is known as Four Corners. it’s a geographic anomaly. Tourists were lining up to have their photo made at that spot and then realizing it’s hot outside. The available shade is along the square border by the booths manned by Indians. Trinkets and souvenirs consisted of t-shirts, jewelry, postcards, pottery. I spoke to a merchant who gave me a brief recent history of the place – how the booths had been upgraded last year and how they hope to have plumbing and electricity to the monument soon.
We ate lunch in the Arizona side and used the porta potties on the New Mexico side.
Next it was onto Mesa Verde – a group of Indian dwellings along the overhang of mountains. The drive up to the National Park was a journey in itself, with signs indicating “No Stopping.”
In order to visit the bottom of some monuments including the Cliff Palace you must pay to take a tour. We signed up for the 4:30PM tour. Since it was sprinkling rain we waited for the rain to cease before proceeding down to the tour waiting area.
Our tour guide was a Native American himself and gave use a unique perspective on the culture of the Native Americans. We learned how sometimes people take things away from Indian tribes in order to “save” their culture. Due to pillaging by an early explorer other artifacts of the cliff dwellings had been put in museums in Helsinki, Finland. Some other artifacts ended up in Denver. Our tour guide asked the question “Are you here just to get your passport stamped or are you going to take something home from this experience?”
I think at that point we realized that it was all about heritage and culture, rather than just getting ones photo made in front of an abandoned residence. This was someone’s home at one time. This was their whole life and now its some type of tourist attraction to some, a valuable site to man’s culture to others.