diary entries.

in 92 words or less.

1. The summer night was closing in around us. I was driving. My friend JW was in the front with me and SS was snoozing in the backseat. Sparklers, swimwear, and other July 4^th necessities were packed. The darkness as we drove through Lassen Volcanic National Park was thick and swallowed us whole. As we came around a bend, there in front of us, bumbling along the narrow 2-lane switchback highway was a black bear. I made a fast U-turn and paused on the offroad—the bear in our line-of-sight. He stared back. 
2. Already chilled with excitement, I sat with two close friends in seats just shy of the nosebleed section. As the lights dimmed, my heart started racing. Only a few eternal moments later, the familiar text appeared on screen and the famous theme began to pound through the arena:  a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Then the man who I only knew as the voice of C3PO showed up on stage and for the next two hours, he dazzled us with a live storytelling of the Star Wars saga.
3. On a dusty road, accompanied by my parents and younger brother, I bumped along in an open-air safari bus; my camera ready for that perfect shot. We happily greeted giraffes, camels, and on the hillside in the distance, cheetahs. A few miles further up the road we came upon a congregation of the endangered Southern White rhinoceros—light grayish tan in colour, broad and square-lipped. Overjoyed and awestruck, I stared at the magnificent creature, my favourite since childhood, only yards from my reach and two hours from home in Ohio. Unbelievable.