Departure

It's been a month since my brother arrived here in Las Vegas for a vacation and visit. Although my brother's own family were not able to come with him because of his son's school commitments, it was still a memorable time for the family. The whole time that he stayed with us was so enriching with lots of stories and experiences being shared.
The highlight of his visit was attending the Maasin Fiesta celebrations in Northern California. We spent a total of 10 days for that trip. He was also able to spend time with my mom to celebrate her 80Th birthday. Going to the state of Arizona for two days added more adventure to his vacation here.
I was the one planning the road trips even before he arrived. I wanted his time here in the USA to be a memorable one, a huge contrast to the last time when he was here two years ago. We were able to visit a lot of beautiful places that one can only imagine upon reading travel books and magazines. I hope I successfully attained my goal of making his whole stay with us as memorable and enjoyable as can be.
As of this writing, my brother is already in-transit to the Philippines on board Philippine Airlines. Bon voyage my brother, we all miss you. Your room in our house suddenly becomes empty. I know my mom & dad were sad upon seeing him go but there were no tears because they can see that my brother have been enjoying his stay and that he was in his best condition health wise.

Last Leg - Going Home

The last leg of our road trip was our drive back to Las Vegas from Lake Tahoe. It took us a total of 10hrs straight drive with some stops to eat, rest or toilet break. I only relied on my mobile phone's GPS application since my old GPS bugged down on our way to San Francisco. To make sure and for added directions support, I printed out the driving directions from Google maps and my dad had with him his California - Nevada official map handy.
As we drove along, we noticed that the GPS guided us to a quite longer route, so we tried to divert to another route based on my dad's map but we missed one turn to bring us to the eastern direction towards the state of Nevada. Fortunately there were other alternate routes to link us to the US 95 South freeway. Once we hit this freeway, I tend to relax since this was just a matter of following this highway all through Las Vegas. One thing bad though, part of the highway after the town of Tonopah was being worked on and all motorists on both directions were using only one lane. So we took turns to pass that part of the highway which took us an additional half hour delay. We enjoyed the scenery along the way and we noticed the difference between the landscapes of California and Nevada. It was already dark when we reached Las Vegas and I think it was about 8pm when we reached home.
I am thankful to God for keeping us safe on all the drives we took for this road trip, my car for not bugging down on me and doing a very good job. Although my GPS failed on me, I guess we were still lucky since there were no major hitches along the way and it just added more thrill factor to the adventure.

My Bro Is Coming

What makes me so excited these days? We got confirmation that my brother in the Philippines will visit us here again in Las Vegas. This will be his second time to travel to America. The first time he was here was in 2009 with his own family. They ran out of luck during their visit because he had some medical emergency and ended up in the hospital. Eventually they cut short their visit and went back to the Philippines after just a month of stay with us. As you all know and as in my previous postings, my brother just had his kidney transplant in 2010. He can now travel after a year of the transplant. He will be travelling alone this coming August to attend our mom's 80Th birthday. His son and wife will not be coming with him because of the kid's school. We promised my nephew that we will let him come over and spend his summer vacation in Las Vegas after his elementary graduation, which is two years from now.

I am planning a road trip to San Francisco this coming August and maybe celebrate my mom's birthday in there. San Francisco was one of our destinations to visit the last time my brother was here but since his stay was cut short, we did not have the chance to travel to that city. This time around I want to make it memorable for him. I started searching online what to do while in San Francisco. I came across 49 points of interests within the city and the Bay area alone. This must be interesting. I am planning to have at least 10 days off from work so that we could visit other interesting places along the way to San Francisco.

Any suggestions as to things & places to see in this famous city are welcome. Just drop a note or two in the comments section. Thanks in advance.