I love taking road trips, I will always try to go on one any opportunity I get. This past weekend my roommate Thomas invited me and my other roommate Sam to join him on a trip to San Diego. Thomas had to attend a wedding there and I have a friend who goes to school there. It happened to be my friend’s birthday that weekend so I decided to join Thomas. We headed southwest from Prescott to San Diego. We made some very unusual stops. I’m the type of guy who stops at the very strange roadside attractions. Our first stop was Frog Rock. Frog Rock is a large boulder two hours south of Prescott that is shaped and painted like a rock. After Frog Rock we head towards the town of Quartzite, Quartzite is a small town in the middle of the Sonora Desert. It is filled with makeshift tent shops and very old abandon buildings. The strange thing about this town is that the population quadruples during the winter. The reason being is that it is the RV capitol of the world. Retirees come as far as from Alaska to warm up. Another cool thing about the town is that it is know to have camels (yes camels in the U.S). In the early 1900’s the U.S Army tried to test Camels around that area to see how well they would in combat. They ended up releasing them years later and they are supposedly still wandering around. We continued south on Highway 95. Highway 85 cuts right through the Yuma Proving grounds where the Army tests artillery and ordinance. On a clear day you can see large dust clouds and hear explosions out in the distance. There are also a bunch of vintage tanks on display all over the place. We then headed west; our next stop was Viejas Tribal Casino. I know what you’re thinking and yes they have tribal gambling in Arizona too, but in California you can gamble at age 18 instead of 21. We spent less then 10 minutes in the Casino and made over 40 bucks!! We then made it to San Diego. The Next morning we drove an hour south to Puerto Nuevo Mexico. Puerto Nuevo is known for being a great place to get cheap seafood, its kind of a local’s only place. We then headed back north to Tijuana Mexico a large boarder town. We did some sightseeing for a while then head back to Prescott. I got really sick thought the trip so we where not able to stay longer. But I had a great time I cant wait to go on another road trip with my roommates!

I just had a week off for student directed week. Student directed week is a one week break between the block and the quarter. I was originally going to Los Angeles and take some of my friends from Prescott sightseeing since they never been there. Well some things came up and I was unable to leave to Los Angeles. However I was able to explore Arizona a bit more. Me and a few friends decided to drive around Arizona and do a bit of sight seeing. We went to a few cool places, like the Grand Canyon, the Sedona red rocks, and this cool ghost town called Jerome. Jerome was the best part of the trip. It was once a booming silver mining town that became deserted in the 1950's. Then in the 90's the town had a small population boom, now the town is filled with Art studios, antique shops cool restaurants. It has a cool "artsy" type of feel to it. It is also on the edge of a mountain. This new experience made me realize how much there is to do in Arizona.

I had a four day weekend this week, so I decided to take advantage of that. I woke up friday morning and went on a hike at an area named thumb butte. I was incredibly cold yet it felt great going hiking. During my hike it started to snow a bit, I became increadibly exitied since I am from Los Angeles and I have never seen it snow before.

I just got back from Juarez Mexico, I attended a border social forum with my Latin America Revolutions class. It was awesome, I stayed with a host family in Juarez and I got to learn a bit about their culture. The border social forum was a great experience, I learned so much about immigrants trying to cross the border and their struggles trying to reach the United States. I also observed a march that the border social forum organized. It was a large gathering in front of the El Paso-Juarez border. The march actually blocked the border traffic for half an hour.