August 20th. 6 a.m. Baltimore International Airport. My arm had gone numb for the third time after another attempt to get at least half an hour of sleep before the flight. My tour of the Western US was starting today, right from this airport, 'Baltimore/Washington or just BWI'. Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Los Angeles, San Francisco—I was to visit all of this within a week with a new tour group, mostly consisting of people from CIS countries, so there was no language barrier at all.

Boarding announcement. A flight to Las Vegas via Southwest Airlines. I'm on the road again, filled with hopes and emotions, adventures again, but this time I have to fly across 2 time zones from east to west...

'EasyUSA' is the name of the organization run by Andrey Shilov, who organizes amazing week-long trips to the main spots of the West. He met us at Las Vegas airport – 'McCarran'. A quick briefing and we were already in a minibus, all 23 of us from different towns on the East Coast. Driving past the main hotels, I thought about how far I had come from home, and where a simple desire to fulfill a dream can lead. I was in a light euphoria and a sleepy but pleasant state of mind. While we were driving, I nudged Aika again so she would look at the 'Bellagio.Plaza' hotel—we were accommodated in this hotel in the Downtown Las Vegas area, right opposite the famous Freemont street, where there is a unique system that implements a video show in the form of a 'movie' on a huge screen in the shape of an arched dome covering the entire street. It's hard to imagine, you have to see it.

I slept all day and woke up at 9:13 pm with the thought: 'Yeah! And what should I do now in a city where all material and fantasy needs are gathered in one place?'—and half an hour later I was walking down Freemont street and enjoying the spectacle. People, people, people everywhere... It felt like they were waiting for darkness to fall. A city that doesn't sleep 24 hours a day, people who don't sleep 24 hours a day, everything here doesn't sleep, people from all over the world hang out here day and night. And I put on my headphones and got on a bus heading to the center of Vegas.

In the center, there were even more people than on Freemont, street performances, conversations in different languages, the famous Bellagio fountain, the Paris hotel, the Venetian hotel, Caesars palace. I still couldn't believe I was seeing this in reality and not in the movie 'The Hangover'. Nothing could take these moments away from me, and I just enjoyed the moment.

The next day, the alarm clock at 9 a.m. forced me to wake up and wash up quickly. After breakfast at McDonald's, everyone gathered in front of the hotel entrance and we loaded into 3 minibuses of 13-14 people each. 'Hi, my name is Scott!' 'Hi, my name is Sergey,' that's how the conversation with our bus driver started. Since I was sitting in the front, I often had to translate what he was saying, and meanwhile, we were already approaching the HooverDam—this was the last stop before the great Grand Canyon. This dam made me remember one of the 'Transformers' parts and a shot from the movie 'Universal Soldier'. That day there was scorching heat of +35 degrees. We spent some time looking at the dam from different angles and moved on. 'I think I'll call this day 'On the way to the Grand Canyon',' I thought to myself. As soon as we started getting out of the minibuses, the weather started to deteriorate. In the distance, on the horizon, I was looking for the canyon and waiting for the moment when I would finally get closer. The weather kept getting worse and dark clouds were getting closer and closer, but the heat subsided, which certainly pleased me, and we were already approaching the main point on a special excursion bus, from where it was visible how deep these canyons are. Just a stunning and mesmerizing view! When I looked down, I realized that I definitely wouldn't see such a view for a long time, and I just looked and enjoyed these beauties. In the distance, the Colorado River was visible, and my gaze turned to the sky, which had become darker than last night's Vegas too quickly. A sharp and strong wind replaced the light breeze, a storm almost started, we even had to take shelter for a while in a crevice of a small rock nearby. That's how we waited out a small five-minute storm. Then, unfortunately, we had to return, and that meant it was time to go back to Vegas. To some extent, I was even glad, because if small adventures hadn't happened at the canyon, I probably wouldn't have remembered this day much, but as it turned out, everything was very exciting, with the taste of sand after a strong wind on my lips.

The third day of my tour of the West was filled with emotions that the Walk of Fame in Los Angeles and the sunset on the beach of the famous Santa Monica gave me. The pier where Route 66 ends and the 'Bubba Gump Shrimp Co' restaurant, decorated based on the movie Forrest Gump. Since we were planning to return to LA on the way back, we didn't spend much time there. Our journey continued to San Francisco...

There are about 9 hours on the road between LA and SF, so it was decided to continue the journey to San Francisco in a day to rest a little. After driving a couple of hours from Los Angeles, I woke up because we had significantly slowed down. Asking Scott where we had arrived, he said it was a small town called Fresno. 'We'll stop here, friend, and tomorrow we'll go to the Giant Sequoia National Park, where the oldest and tallest trees in the world grow.' 'Mmm... that will be interesting,' I thought.

The trip to Sequoia National Park once again made me think about the diversity of nature in the USA: I saw deserts, semi-deserts, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, canyons, waterfalls, rivers, this time there were long, drawn-out climbs along a serpentine road and a multitude of very tall trees that stretched to the high mountains located around us. After another hike up the mountain, I decided to deliberately break away from the group and climb a mountain with a bunch of steps, 400 to be exact, carved right into the Mororock mountain. With each step, I felt the air change and it became harder to breathe, and besides, you don't climb 400 steps every day. Having climbed to the observation deck, that wasn't enough for me, so I stepped over the fence and walked further to a small rise, and I didn't regret it. I felt fear when I looked down, because you don't climb a mountain that is about 3 kilometers high every day, but when I looked around, I caught myself thinking again that this was that moment that would remain only in memory, and those emotions that overwhelmed me at that moment, I won't even describe in words, because it's better to feel it once than to hear it from the stories of a crazy guy who doesn't have enough adventures.

San Francisco. This city was as mysterious and enigmatic to me as my father when he finds out about my screw-ups, then looks at me mysteriously, as if I know what he's thinking. Approaching the city, Scott had been talking for half an hour about its pros and cons, and most importantly, where you can eat inexpensively. 'San Fran', as I called it, at first glance looked like roads up and down, up and down, but I paid more attention to how cars don't roll down on such a slope. Probably, they are released with reinforced brakes, or they always have a couple of bricks in the trunk to put under the wheels at any moment. Passing block after block, the picture changed to narrow streets with low houses in different architectural colors. 'Fun city!', I thought. Of course, I wanted to see the famous 'Golden Gate' bridge. But first, the plan was to visit an observation deck. The view from this observation deck just can't be described in two words. From the place where I was looking, the entire city was visible, I even saw my long-awaited bridge, about which Scott had buzzed all my ears. After a bunch of photos and selfies, our group headed to the buses and the next mark was the Golden Gate.

'Hey, Scott, may I take your snapback SF?', I asked and heard in response: 'Sure, man'. After that, I looked at the bridge and realized again how far I had come, already San Francisco, man! What's next?

Next, I walked along this beautiful and lovely bridge, looked at the small island - Alcatraz prison and realized that it would be really hard to get out of there. After a half-hour walk with music in my ears, I decided to return and wait for further instructions. Returning, I saw that everyone was already gathering for the buses and hurried. Next, we were brought to pier number 39. I took my new cap for photos again, received instructions, we were given a city map and we split into groups and confidently stepped towards the city and adventures. For some unknown reason, I stared deep into the pier, I wanted to walk and meet someone from my city, because I knew that this year SF is full of people from Pavlodar. That's what I should have done, walk a little deeper, go into some bakery and ask... Meeting someone there, I would probably have stayed in this mysterious city for an indefinite period and we would have spent a wonderful time together.

Suddenly, my fantasy and romantic thought about a mysterious rosy-cheeked girl with a beautiful smile and brown eyes was interrupted by the words: 'Well, shall we go?!' I hesitated for a moment and moved on to explore the city. We walked for about an hour along the embankment, on which there were piers and passersby. Then, by joint decision, we walked into the city. The first climb made me so out of breath that I regretted coming here, but after greedy gulps of water, I changed my hasty opinion. At the top, I saw a very strange and unusual street. 'Too winding,' I thought.

'Jump in!', I shouted to the others. This time we finally caught that tram and continued our hike deep into the city. Chinatown - that's where you should eat according to Scott. And it's true: we were brought huge portions of rice for a small price. How my stomach rejoiced at such an amount of food, and I was in solidarity with it. The sunset was already near and the meeting place was pier 39. After such a number of climbs up and down, I was glad to sit for at least a few minutes on a bench. That's what I did at sunset: I sat on the pier.

Again I'm drawn deep, again the same thought. Without thinking long, after resting on the bench, I started walking around the pier and followed my inner voice. To my slight disappointment, I didn't meet anyone, probably just didn't look in the right place... Only after the flight did I realize how right I was, but that's another story...

The next day, after saying goodbye to Fresno, we were in LA again. Today we need to see Hollywood and spend the day at Universal Studios.

August 28th. And again I'm on the road, now I'm riding on the second floor of a bus heading to New York. After an exhausting flight from Vegas to Baltimore, I hadn't closed my eyes for about 48 hours. Realizing this, I fell asleep unnoticed. I woke up at the corner of 7th and 34th streets. That's exactly where I had to get off and make my way 20 streets to the apartment of my old friend, who willingly agreed to meet me again. I arrived at his place at three in the morning, so I immediately went to sleep with thoughts of the coming day. For me, this is the last day of my unforgettable summer. August 29th at 2:25 p.m. flight from Kennedy airport. 10 a.m., and my alarm clock is already going off for the first time. Taking a bike from a friend, I rode towards the Statue of Liberty. Along the edges of Manhattan, there are special paths for cycling, that's how I got to the pier, where I parked my new iron friend and went to buy a ticket to the Statue of Liberty island. You won't believe me, but tickets inside the statue are sold out until mid-November. 'The main thing is that they aren't sold out for the island,' I thought and was again standing on the ship in the bow in anticipation of the audio guide tour, which was included in the price of my ticket. 'Hello, you are now on Liberty Island....', not really delving into the words of greeting in the audio tour, I was calmly walking around the island and getting closer and closer to the statue. Here it is - this Statue of Liberty, the gaze of a woman directed towards where the bay begins. Up close, this statue seems even more powerful, it embodies the freedom and independence of the USA. That's exactly how majestic I remembered it. Closer to the evening, my friend and I attended a tennis match of the US Open tournament between the Englishman Andy Murray and the German Matthias Bachinger. We both attended a tennis match for the first time, we liked the atmosphere, and no special events happened in the game. Murray calmly won with a total score of 3-0. After a series of small adventures, at one in the morning we were finally home.

I couldn't sleep for a long time on the last night. According to the laws of the genre, I remembered everything that had happened to me over the last 3 months, or, to be precise, 98 days. Undoubtedly, this summer will remain the best summer in my twenty-year life. This trip changed me radically, showed me what I am capable of, how far I can go and at what moment to stop. This summer brought me an ocean of emotions, and the most diverse ones at that. I realized that a dream must come true, and ideas must be developed. Follow your dream, and I believe you too will be able to make your journey from east to west...