Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/MTN5gsMhppinXLBX9
So I came back to the US for a bachelor party and two weddings – very lucky that these three things that I would have come back for anyways all lined up so nicely for me. And since my passport expires in April 2023 and I “only” had 10 pages left, I also expedited a passport renewal, since I was going on this Glacier/Yellowstone/Grand Tetons roadtrip after my 2nd wedding.
The bachelor party was in Nashville and was surprisingly fun. I thought I would hate Nashville (gave me strong Vegas vibes at first) but it was an awesome time. One of the highlights was this live musician, Buck McCoy, who would play at this wonderful bar called the Redneck Riviera. In a 5 minute window he made an Elizabeth Warren Cherokee joke, an anti-trans joke, and an anti-gay joke. Legitimately funny stuff but it definitely wouldn’t fly in NYC/Chicago/etc. We also went to this incredible 24/7 xmas karaoke bar called Santa’s Pub. It was a bit further from the tourist stretch so had a lot more locals instead of the roving bachelorette parties, but it was an incredible (and cheap!) place. Other highlights were white-water rafting (obviously not as crazy as Zambia but still a super fun time) and riding a mechanical bull (my legs were legitimately more sore after this than they were after Kilimanjaro). And obviously it was good to see a bunch of good friends for the first time since last August when I stopped by Chicago before one of my road trips out west.
I also spent some time in NYC between the bachelor party and first wedding which was upstate, where I got to catch up with some high school friends and also my friend Roy who I failed to meet up with in Shanghai (he had moved out to Bangkok by then)/Bangkok (he was away the weekend I was there with another college friend Tim)/Yogyakarta (was actually going to meet here but then COVID happened), so it was nice to finally meet up…he was in town while remote interning during his summer off from Stanford Business School.
The Indian wedding was, simply put, majestic. 450 people (should have been 600 but ~150 could not make it from India due to COVID) in a gorgeous outdoor space that was a converted brickyard called Hutton Brickyards. Super nice venue that has actually been written up in the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal. I’m pretty confident in saying it will be the nicest wedding I will ever go to. It was also nicely understated and not super gaudy like other expensive weddings might be. There might be *some* recency bias here but I would comfortably place this as the second best party I have ever been to. Funnily enough the runaway best party I’ve ever been to was for this same couple – Arjun threw a surprise engagement party for Nirali after their engagement, where they walked into a 100+ person surprise party in an Philly AirBnB and she literally had zero idea.
The wedding playlist was full of bangers from our college days and catchy Bollywood songs. And as per usual, the 60 year old uncles were the stars of the dance floor – one of them even moonwalked to Billie Jean! But the wedding was just so so much fun. The first night was just a more casual dance event to more traditional Indian music. The second morning was a Bharat, where we all danced behind a moving vehicle and roaming drummer as we walked Arjun towards Nirali, before the actual wedding ceremony (he walked into the Shire theme from LOTR!). And the night was basically 6 straight hours of dancing in a massive mosh pit with hundreds of other people non stop. I literally was not even drunk at the end of this because of all the jumping and dancing…my rental tuxedo and dress shirt/undershirt/underwear were basically ruined by the puddles of sweat, and every single person was dripping wet from sweat by the end of it it was hilarious. Honestly probably the sweatiest environment I have ever been in. One crazy anecdote from this wedding – I posted a story on Instagram congratulating Arjun and Nirali, and a girl I met in Guatemala (who lives there) who I hung out with while going out with the drug cartel dude that one night messaged and said she had a friend who was also in the wedding…turns out she knew one of their high school friends (who I have also met numerous times!) via a mutual friend of both of them who lives in NYC.
After this, I flew out to Chicago to catch up with friends for a week before the second wedding that I was in. It was great to see everyone again, but honestly while visiting I literally had zero desire to ever live in Chicago – like sometimes when I visit cities I am like “I can see myself here in the future” and I was surprised that I did not get that feeling for Chicago after my 4 (or 8 including if you include college) years there. Though I will say Chicago is a fantastic food city and it was great to eat at some of my favorite places, especially considering it has been 2 years…highlights were Au Cheval (the best burger I’ve ever had by far) and The Chicken Shack (an Evanston hole in the wall that is the best fried chicken this side of the Mason-Dixon). It was very sobering that the first few places I stayed in were in a guest room instead of a couch…I really am getting old, but I suppose I am retired. The wedding itself was super fun, in a pretty cool venue that had great views of the Chicago skyline. There was a rehearsal dinner the day before which was basically just another catchup event, and then the day of we met up early to pregame before a party bus picked us up to drive around town for photos before the wedding itself. The dancing wasn’t quite as crazy as in Arjun’s wedding but I did work up a decent sweat…my rental tuxedo pants also ripped right along my buttcrack from one of my many incredible dance moves but I was wearing black boxers so that helped cover it up I guess. I also gave a speech with one of the bridesmaids, and I think/hope it went well. We stayed out til 4am, and then the next day Nick, Ben and I left for Minneapolis as we started the road trip towards Glacier. Was a little dissapointed that I didn’t get to give “proper” goodbyes to most people but I guess I’ll see everyone next year when I stop by in Chicago before Burning Man (probably?). But overall, it was definitely great to come back to the US to see two of my closest friends get married – and I’m also good friends with both brides to boot. Nice little reboot to mark the rough halfway point of my retirement…can’t believe I’m already halfway there.
The first day of the roadtrip was a quick ~6ish hour drive from Chicago to Minneapolis, where we also saw another college buddy who I saw for the first time in a few years at Arjun’s wedding. Then was a marathon 12+ hour drive from Minny to Billings, Montana. Stopped by in Carson Wentz’s home state of North Dakota for lunch on the way there. Final day was a ~7 hour drive from Billings to the town of East Glaicer, just outside Glacier National Park. I had arguably the most subpar Mexican food of my life there at a fine establishment called Serrano’s, which became a running joke (along with Dorothy Mantooth of Anchorman fame) throughout the roadtrip. We had this shitty red Nissan Versa which would accelerate from like 32 to 40mph after 10 seconds of flooring it on an uphill mountain road, but she got the job done…we gave her the nickname of Rosie due to her color matching that of the hair of Samwise Gamgee’s wife, Rosie.
We were shooting for walk-in camping at Glacier, and given how the packed the park was, we left our East Glacier motel at like 6am and headed over to the Two Medicine camp (only a ~15 minute drive from East Glacier) to vulture around and look for people who were leaving so we could claim a spot. After about an hour we got a spot locked down and set up camp. To be honest, Two Medicine itself was a decent but not great hiking area. It was mildly scenic with mountains and lakes and the likes, but I would classify that region as like a worse version of the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. So definitely a nice area but nothing special. The next two days, we went driving on the Going on the Sun Road, which was absolutely gorgeous. Definitely the most scenic road I have ever driven in I think. Just tons of super cool pull out points where you could see towering mountains and glaciers circling all of these crystal blue lakes. We also did a couple of cool hikes while driving here – super easy hikes but ones that at least had great views in the end. Avalanche Lake and Hidden Lake were the two – Avalanche Lake had a great view of a super blue lake that had a cool flat mountain backdrop, while the Hidden Lake overlook had this really cool view of a long narrow lake (almost like a river) with a tall pointed mountain right behind it. One of the highlights of camping was the makeshift game of Codenames that we made. Ripped up 25 pieces of paper from Nick’s journal and we filled that up with 50 words, and also created a couple of the word maps. Even with just 3 people (two clue givers and one guesser) it was incredibly fun, and some of the hints that were given were just beyond absurd. Kind of funny that a highlight of two of my most recent trips (Honduras and now this) involved games of Codenames.
On our final day, we got up at 330am, left at 4am, and got to the Highline trail parking lot by 5:15am (where it was already over half full). Took a one hour nap and by the time we woke up the lot was full and cars were leaving because they got there too late. The highline was an easy ~15 mile roundtrip where you walk along the edge of the mountain the entire time. Just awesome views, and the only thing that even made it difficult was the beating sun on the way back. It was only like ~200 meters of elevation change across the whole thing so really something anyone could do. However, the absolute highlight of this was the optional Garden Wall extension. This was a ~half mile walk up a steep mountain path that gained basically over 900 feet of elevation in that half mile stretch. I absolutely loved this hike, really got the lungs and legs going. Felt like a million bucks after reaching the top, and the overlook view of Grinnell Glacier from there…honestly the single most stunning view I have had since the sand dune sunrise at Sossusvlei in Namibia. Just totally awesome, and I did my usual routine of listening to M83’s Intro and Jai Wolf’s Indian Summer while admiring the view.
The wildlife spotting this entire trip was great, and in Glacier we saw a youngish male moose (antlers weren’t fully developed) like 50 feet away across a pond in a small pond in a Sun Road pullout, a horned sheep/ram on the Highline, and a mountain goat on the Hidden Lake trail. And of course, saw a grizzly bear a couple of times while driving out of the park one day…everyone got out of their cars to snag a look and take photos and the park rangers were being buzzkills driving by and yelling at us to keep on driving.
Glacier is honestly like a 1a/1b with Yosemite as my favorite US destination. The southwest (especially Moab with Canyonlands/Arches) is still my favorite region of the US though, and Cali probably the place I’d want to live in the most. Just an incredible park and so much to do that we didn’t get to in 4 days (like the Many Glacier hikes). Good combination of stunning views and difficult hikes (which I unfortunately didn’t get much of a chance as my two friends aren’t as gung ho about pushing themselves to their limits like I am with hiking, which I suppose most people are like to be fair). I’d still place Ladakh, Namibia, and Wadi Rum as my 3 favorite outdoor/nature spots that I have ever seen however.
After Glacier we had a 8 hour drive to Island Park, Idaho to our lodge for Yellowstone. I’d probably put Yellowstone down there with Joshua Tree as the most underwhelming spots in the US I have been to. Like I am still glad I went but wow. Combination of Disney crowds (took over an hour to get in once we got to the park entrance road both days) and just subpar scenery didn’t really do it for me. For me, I’m all about desolation (hence the Ladakh/Nambia/Wadi Rum/US Southwest love) or soaring peaks and mountains with scenic valleys (like Yosemite/Glacier and Ladakh again for example), while Yellowstone was just a bunch of tree-lined hills. The elevation was actually higher than Glacier but because the base elevation was also high, they just appeared as hills. Same reason I sort of found Acadia underwhelming I suppose. It did remind me of like the “rugged America” you see in those beef jerky and car commercials though. Some of the highlights of Yosemite were seeing the countless herds of bison, black bears up close while driving (we stayed in the car this time!), and the Grand Prismatic Spring overlook, which was very trippy and colorful. Ol’ Faithful was probably one of the more underwhelming things I have ever seen given the hype, where we waited for an hour to see some water shoot and steam up. I’m also pretty sure I was the only minority in that giant group watching Ol Faithful. Overall still glad I went to Yosemite and it wasn’t *bad* per se, but just that there are way way better locations out there in the US I think.
Our final stop was a couple of days in Grand Teton National Park, which is just south of Yellowstone in Wyoming. These were some of the most jagged mountains I have ever seen, and was a cool park. Obviously not as awesome as Glacier but still a nice spot. And the town of Jackson Hole just outside was pretty fun too. In terms of wildlife, we saw a mama brown bear and her two cubs like <50 feet away while they blocked our hiking trail which was awesome. Kind of nice to complete the bear trifecta of grizzly/black/brown. I will say the elitist in me was more wow’d by the grizzlies and browns since the black bears were shockingly small. At least the other two were massive. But I suppose that I’ve seen so much that it’s a lot harder to “WOW” me now, which is a definite pitfall of travelling so much. But yea, Tetons was a great park – bit unfortunate that I wasn’t able to do some of the more crazy difficult hikes, but it was still just very scenic with the jagged mountain peaks rising above the landscape. Overall, this was a fantastic road trip, and definitely glad that I got Ben and Nick to join me in on this.
After this, we drove like 9 hours to Denver, where Nick and Ben spent the night en route to Chicago while I got dropped off in the airport to visit my high school buddy Martin in LA. I’ve seen him in Bombay, Acadia, Tulum, and now LA since I quit, and will also hopefully be seeing him in Europe since he has one more year left at London Business School. LAX was the biggest airport shitshow I have ever seen in my life…20+ flights on two carousels (I had checked baggage due to my sleeping bag for Glacier), and it took over an hour for me to get my bag while I heard of others who had been there for 4+ hours. Just absolute chaos. I actually really enjoyed LA again, and could definitely see myself out here (especially since USC apparently has a great nonprofit/NGO grad school!). We did a dad rock tourism day, going out on Sunset Strip to Rainbow bar – which is where the Hollywood Vampires have a memorialized booth. They were a drinking club founded by Alice Cooper, Keith Moon, and Harry Nillsson, with members such as Ringo and John Lennon. Also went to the Andaz hotel rooftop bar, which is where Robert Plant once yelled “I am a Golden God!” among other rock history shenangians, and the Whiskey A Go Go bar, which had The Doors as a house band before they got fired (and subsequently made it big). Went to a comedy show that night which was great, and it got crashed at the end by surprise guest Jeff Garlin of Curb fame which was awesome – my first celeb sighting in LA. The next day was more lowkey and recovery based, but we did go surfing which was significantly harder than my first time last year between LA and Santa Barbara since we went in the afternoon and the waves were waaaay choppier. Still had a great time and one of the only activities I know of where it is fun to constantly fail and wipe out.
The highlight/lowlight of LA, however, was seeing the hallowed location of what is one of the greatest movie scenes of all time. What was once an abandoned parking lot is now a developed intersection with a yuppie coffeeshop, so while many parts of the Anchorman fight scene are now unrecognizable, there were still some clear spots that have thankfully remained unchanged. The pilgrimage was 100% worth it, but I did shed a tear at the unnecessary changes that were made to this locale. I also grabbed lunch with my friend Mike who I basically traveled in Egypt with for two weeks, though our third member of the group Anna is back in Europe (and lives in Boston) so it wasn’t a *full* Egyptian reunion. Really the only dissapointment of my time in LA was that I didn’t see a bunch of gen-Z-ers film a Tik Tok in person…I feel like that is a vital part of the modern LA experience.
After LA, I spent a few days back in NY to catch up with friends in the city and out on Long Island. Flying out to Tajikistan in a few days for like a 10 day roadtrip with some day hikes and trekking interspersed before hopefully making it to Kyrgyzstan afterwards for more trekking and some horseback trekking as well. Plan is then to meet my dad in Uzbekistan for the last two weeks of September, and then probably like Georgia and Armenia? Who knows.