My Family in the U.S.
Our Two Stays
We have been in the U.S. twice so far. First time, we spent almost 10 years in Austin, TX from July 1984 to February 1994 for my study. My two boys (Chung-Hyun Paul Moon & Chung-Woo Andrew Moon) were born in Texas. So they are genuine Texans.
And this time, we came back to Austin, TX for my sabbatical on the 2nd of July. 1999. Then we moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in a big truck on the 3rd of July, 2000. We will be here in Milwaukee until the end of this year, after which we will be back in Korea.
Our Road Trips Since July 1999
Since we came to the U.S. on the 2nd of July, 1999, we have logged over 10,000 miles on the road. This was much more than the distance we traveled while we had been in our previous 10-year stay. How is it possible? First of all, I can look at the world from a little different perspective. Back then, I was a graduate student, who did not have time nor money to travel a lot. And secondly, after spending 6 years in Korea after the graduation, I felt that my whole family should travel as much as possible when we have a chance to really travel, not to be stuck in the road-turned-to-parking lot.
Now, I will summarize our trips with some of pictures starting from the most current one. (But it will be a while until I finish listing all the trips.)
Other than the fact that we can't afford travelling by air (with 4 family members), road trips have their own advantages. We can get to see everything much better. Even though sometimes we got tired of seeing the more or less same scenery for a whole day or two, it surely beats seeing, or trying to see something from 25,000 feet above. Another fun part is getting to drive many different kinds of cars. These trips were about the only chances I could get to drive those cars still with fresh, or nauseating, smell of brand-new automobiles.
FIRST TRIP
Duration: 7/26/99 - 8/8/99
Distance traveled: 4,400 miles
Via: Austin - Grand Canyon - Disneyland - Yosemite National Park - Lake Tahoe - San Francisco - Austin
Vehicle: Pontiac Grand AM (V6) - Oldsmobile Allero (Grand AM had a trouble and we had to switch the cars in Arizona on the second day)
This trip was planned around my attending the XIIIth International Congress of Phonetics Sciences on the 2nd of August for my paper presentation. My (and also My wife's) favorite was Yosemite. We stayed in a small cottage in an RV park called "Indian Flat." It was rather our luck that the landlady whom I had talked over the phone before the trip overbooked us in her motel. It was supposed to be $120 a night because it was a peak season. It was hard to find any vacancy at all. But when we arrived she said she didn't know we had a reservation. We were very concerned. After I produced some kind of proof that I indeed had a reservation she began calling here and there and found this "Indian Flat" for us. "Indian Flat" is mainly an RV park with only two cottages. We were lucky to get into one of those with much less money ($75 a night) than we expected to pay for one room we had reserved. And it wasn't a room, it was a whole cottage with a kitchen and utensils! We had barbecue for dinner in front of the cottage. The owner of the place was very kind and helpful to us. (When we locked out of the car, she found a wire hangar for us, and I managed to open the car without any damage at all. After the incident, the way she looked at me changed a little, I think. She might have been suspicious about me.) On the second day in the Yosemite Park, Paul (Chung-Hyun) and Andrew (Chung-Woo) were scared stiff after hearing that a bear paid a visit to where we stayed. Also one of the brochure given by the Park about mountain lion scared the heck out of them. (I was a bit concerned, I admit.) The brochure listed what you should or shouldn't do if you happen to meet a mountain lion. Among them the last line was "Don't run. Fight back!"
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Entrance to the Grand Canyon National Park |
Bridal Falls in Yosemite (Andrew is pointing his tooth, or the place where his tooth used to be. I pulled out his front tooth in the morning we left for this trip.) |
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Disneyland |
With Winnie-the-Pooh (Chung-Woo's favorite) at Disneyland |
