Journey to the West: Ghost Town

After staying 2 nights in Fredonia, I'm finally back in Grand Canyon North Rim. Suddenly realised I miss this place so much! There are so many things I wanna blog about, but I can't possibly note down every single incident that happened in Fredonia. In short, I would say the experience in Fredonia was unforgettable one...cos it's something that I would never experience in my entire life if I wasn't there. Everthing was so unpredictable and unusual ...sometimes I even wondered if I'm in the States cos things were so different from what I expected before I came.

On Wednesday, which was the evacuation day, I woke up at 5.45am to get everything ready. My company, Xanterra, decided to evacuate in the morning cos fire usually grows more rapidly in the afternoon. After loading all our baggages into April's car, we headed to the lodge carpark to form a line (all vehicles were to leave in sigle file). We waited at the carpark for about 1.5 hours for Route 67 to be reopened. We weren’t just sitting waiting...everyone was so well equipped. Some brought frisbee, some brought badminton rackets, there were even ppl who brought juggling equipment...interesting….

@ Lodge Carpark
From left: Cindy, Zeliang, Joey, Seek Yin, Monica, Da Jie, Hongwei, Weiming, and me

Marinza Juggling

Badminton session

Ready to go....April and me!

Thank God Route 67 was reopened at 8.30am. (else we gotta take an alternative route called Route 22, which is dirty, bumpy, partilally paved and it takes so much longer to get to our destination). We had a great time riding on April's car. After 1.5 hours, we arrived at the "ghost" town, Fredonia. The town is so small and dead. There's absolutely nothing in the town except a gas station, a fire station and a library. I wondered how we gonna survive there if we oughta stay there for long period of time!!!

Initially we decided to go to Las Vegas with the rest in the car, but the problem is Lina, Manting and I will be going to Las vegas after we end work. If I go without them this time, I might need to go there with them again...sigh…that’s the reason we scrapped the plan. I came out with another plan which was to Grand Canyon South Rim with Jakub, Bertha, Joanne and April....but it failed again cos Jakub already promised his Czech frens to stay in a nearby motel...Fated to stay in Fredonia.

Actually the condition in the Red Cross camp wasn't as bad as we thought. Everything was well taken care of...we were given free food, free accomodation (just that the bed was stretcher kind)....also we had all kinda games to play....basketball, volleyball, soccer, softball etc….not that bad lar…but everyday play sports can be boring too!

@ Fredonia Red Cross Camp

I decided to move to the nearby motel with Bertha, Jakub, Joanne, Dorota, Tom and Martin cos there was nice bed there and we could stay up as late as we want to play! Guess how much it was......haha....it was only USD6 per person per night...damn cheap!

Our room!

We spent our first day playing volleyball, hanging out at a playground, chit-chattig with frens of cos....It was boring but everyone tired teir best to make it fun!

The "Ghost" town...Fredonia!

Our first meal in "refugee" camp

What's wrong?

Me with Bill's bike

Bertha and me @ pool

Jakub, bertha, Joanne and me with Czech flag!

Second day, woke up early to have breakfast...the rest of the ppl couldn't wake up for breakfast so only me and Jakub...We brought back the food to motel and had a long chat outside the motel. We talked bout anything under the sun, somehow I felt that Czech culture is way different from ours in many aspects! But that’s the whole point of coming for this programme... To see different things and experience different culture! Rested the whole day till dinner time. Weiming they all went to Kanab to find some chinese food. He bought us a packet of chinese beef fried rice...It tasted so good….maybe we haven’t been having chinese food for so long! After dinner, we played at the playground with some local kids. Hmmm....we could tell their upbringings are very different from ours.....hmmm....cos they were really really rough when they played...haha maybe I’m stereotyping! There was this strange girl who kept bugging me to run with her....she kept saying I'm cool cos I'm SHORT! Diao...dunno if I should be happy!! Played some softball at the playground till dusk and after that went to gasoline station to buy some beers. Beer here is really cheap...USD2 for one big bottle (32oz or 900ml)...Prepared to get drunk in motel room but we didn't...We just looked thru all the pictures we took for the day and watched tv....wat a relaxing day in Fredonia, the ghost town.

Jakub and me outside our motel

Lunch time!

Drinking session with Bertha, Jakub, and Martin

It's time to go home after spending 2 days in Fredonia...Yeah!! Fredonia is small and boring but we had a great time day. This place gives us a lot of unforgettable memory...!