Introduction:


My name is Gilanni I was born in the state of Minnesota. Specifically Austin, MN. My birthday is June 30th, 1998. I am currently 19 years old. I have dark brown hair and eyes. I moved to Spirit Lake, IA, in the middle of 8th grade. It was hard making new friends, but in the end it didn’t matter. It’s not what’s happening to you now or what has happened in your past that determines who you become. But it’s rather your decisions to focus on what things mean to you, and what you’re going to do about them that will determine your ultimate destiny...








6/30/17 Day one:

Location: Terrace Park Blvd. 51351, West okoboji, IA


I woke up early in the morning. Today was my 19th birthday, but my party was last weekend. It was 7am; I woke up late. For some reason my alarm had not gone off. I hopped in the shower and got ready. I ran down stairs and the kitchen was filled with the smell of fresh bacon and eggs. I loved bacon so much, that juicy smell when it’s being made is so enticing. I made my mom buy bacon every time we would run out, which was all the time. I had to be at the presentation around 12 pm. It was 8:30 am by the time I left my house. The drive was 106 miles, it was gonna take me 2 hours and 5 minutes. I arrived around 11 pm. I got hungry considering it was around lunch time. I stopped at a McDonalds ordering a 20 pc. chicken nugget meal w/barbeque sauce, a strawberry banana smoothie. My favorites. I headed to the University and arrived right on time. The presentation was short but had all the information needed. We then took a tour around the campus. The place was very spacious and had a good learning environment. The day was almost over, and again I was starving. I was driving through the city when I spotted Burger King. Not the most convenient dinner, but it had to do. I ordered my favorite, a whopper meal. I headed to the hotel to check in. The Holiday Inn was packed. Even though it was packed, I was glad that I stayed at the Holiday Inn cause it was the only hotel within 10 miles or so.



7/1/17 Day two:



I awoke early in the morning thinking to myself “what time is it?” I looked at the clock and realized it was 3am. I fell back asleep. But then I heard a sudden loud noise in the apartment next to me. I got up and opened my door. And suddenly a man ran passed. I heard a lady from the room next door screaming. I ran in and saw her laying down on the ground. On the floor all around her were pieces of a shattered lamp. I helped her get up off the floor. I noticed she had some blood on her leg probably from the sharp glass she was laying on. I asked her what happened.


“I have just been robbed!” she screamed.

“Oh no,” was all that I could function through my head, and all that came out of my mouth.

“We gotta call the police right now!” she shouted.

“Do you know who did this?” I asked.

“No,” she said.



One of the other residents staying at the Inn walked in and looked around trying to speculate what had happened. He checked the bathroom and closets to make sure no one was hiding. He stared at us blankly.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I was robbed,” she said again frustrated.


The man took out his cellphone and dialed 911. While he was on the phone, I asked the lady some more questions. It made me feel like a detective, but that was irrelevant. I first asked her what her name was.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“I’m Kayla. I’m from Hawaii visiting my parents. They asked me to come and visit them. It’s been so many years since I’ve seen them. And now that I actually decide to come all the way from Hawaii, I get robbed! This is unbelieveable.”

“It’s ok. I’m sure the police will be able to figure out who would have the need to rob you.” I said trying to calm her down.

“Well I’m glad it was me and not you,” she said.

“Why are you happy it was you and not me?” I asked in confusion.

“I saw you walk in with the lobby with a bunch of souvenirs from the university. I’m only 22 and you look like you’re 19. I’m sure you have a big future ahead of you. And besides I was only robbed. I’m glad he didn’t beat me up or something.”

“How did the lamp break then?” I asked with my eyebrows raised.

“Oh. Haha I tried to hit him in the shoulder with the lamp next to my bed when I saw him looking through my luggage,” She said laughing.


She’s acting like nothing happened. She was robbed and she thinks it’s all a joke. But it’s not. She was robbed and possibly could’ve been beaten to death. The police arrived and questioned me. I told them everything that I saw and did. I headed back to my room and bolted the door shut. I wasn’t taking any chances. I looked at the clock, it was 4:39. I had to get up at 6. I got in bed and fell back asleep.



I woke up a little late hoping no one robbed me when I was sleeping. I checked to make sure, and nothing seemed different. I was startled by a knock on the door. I went to go and answer the door. The bolt on the door was unlocked. How was that possible? I was sure I had locked it last night. I opened the door and the owner of the inn was holding a sorry basket. He smiled and apologized for last nights ruckus. After that I shut the door and looked through it. The basket was huge and contained a teddy bear, a bunch of candy, lotions, and $100. What kind of hotel gives people money? Especially a a hundred dollars? I used the money to pay for my hotel bill; but not the whole bill because the cost was $136.00. .


Today I had to go and pick up my friend. Her name is Lia; we’ve been friends since the second grade. We had been friends since the 2nd grade. We did talk a lot when we were in elementary and then I moved. But in middle school we became friends again. But then I moved during the end of 8th grade a month before school ended. Me and my family moved to Spirit Lake, IA. I visit her every now and then. And now she was gonna take a road trip with me. This was gonna be great time. Hopefully I don’t run into another incident. I packed all my stuff, and checked out. I was on the road heading out of the city, and had to stop by McDonalds for breakfast there was not enough time to sit down and eat. I headed for Chicago, Illinois to go and meet Lia at her new apartment she got by the Woodfield Mall. The Woodfield Mall is the second biggest mall in America. I’ve been there once before in my entire life and it was enormous. I finally made it to Chicago after 8 hours of driving. I was pretty exhausted, I usually never drive for so long. I arrived at Lia’s apartment.

“OMG!” she screamed running towards me.

“Hey omg i haven’t seen you in like forever!” i said.

“Right! I’m glad you made it. How was the drive?” she asked.

“How do you think it went?” I said smiling.

“Ha well I’m glad you’re not dead,” she said laughing.

“Haha you would say that. We should probably go inside. I’m as frozen as a ice cube,” I said sarcastically.


We walked into her apartment. The building she lived in was new. She was lucky she got the apartment, because it was the last one left. There were not many decent apartments in the area she wanted, except this one. Her apartment was big, spacious, modern, and lingering in the air was the smell of cinnamon. We had dinner at AppleBee’s down the street from her place. During dinner I told her all about the incident that happened at the Holiday Inn I was staying at the night before.

“Wow that’s crazy!” she said shocked.

“I know right,” I said nodding my head.

We got back home it was 10pm, we both thought it was time for bed. Before the night was over, i thought to myself. This journey is going to be exhausting but fun.




7/3/17 Day four:


I awoke to the sound of the newspaper being thrown at the door. Who knew that the delivery actually came to the apartment door. I went to read it. I saw my name directly under a headline that read “BURGLARY LEAVES BEHIND SUSPICIOUS EVIDENCE”. That’s when I started reading the whole article. Turns out that she staged the whole burglary. After reading the newspaper for about an hour, i all of a sudden heard a crying hiss. It was the sound of a cat, that I didn't know she had.

I called her name wondering where she was “Lia?”.

“Yeah” she said.

“Why didn’t you tell me you owned a cat? I thought you never even liked cats. At least that’s what you said like 2 years ago.” I replied.

“I don’t?” she said with confusion.

“Umm.. dispose of what I just said,” I said worryingly.



I opened the apartment door, and let the cat out. We had leftovers from AppleBee’s so we decided we should probably eat it, before it went bad. I wondered how it got in. Oh well, it didn’t matter. Me and Lia headed for Ohio. Determined to find the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I’m glad that Lia came along with me because her aunt lives in Ohio. It was gonna be 12 hours. I was driving along the road chit chatting with Lia. Then she fell asleep. I had a long road ahead of me.





It was about 2am when I passed the Ohio state border. I had to wake up Lia so she could tell me where I was going just in case I was reading my map wrong. After being lost for 2 hours, we finally found the hotel we were expecting to stay at. It looked old and ratted out. It looked as run down as 12 year old shoes. It looked nothing like the pictures we saw online. We unloaded our stuff, check in and went to bed. I was exhausted from all the driving.





I awoke. It was 12pm, we had a tour and showing of the park at 4pm just around the evening. The sun was going down and it was a beautiful scene. We learned a lot about the park such as it is the only national park in the state of Ohio, it has a unique habitat for animals(birds, deer, squirrels, raccoons, etc.), different hiking trails, a shore to swim at, campgrounds, stores, and a whole lot more. After all that walking around, we sat down to grab a bite at a shack that sold food. It was called “Rob’s Shack”. The food was fantastic. We left the national park Ohio, and went to visit her aunt. I’ve met her aunt before, when i was a freshman. Her name is Julie, I could definitely tell she was related to Lia. We headed back to the haunted and deserted looking hotel. I didn’t see any cars around when we left or when we arrived. By now it was 8pm, I was exhausted and had to get back up in the morning. I ate some dinner quickly, I had leftovers nothing special. And finally, I went to bed.



7/4/17 Day five:

I woke up early, the room was dark. I felt like we were inside a scary movie. It didn’t take us long to decide to leave right away, I didn’t care if it meant i had to get back on the road again. I just wanted to get to a place that didn’t look like a ghost town, and had human beings.


I had been on the road for at least 4 hours already, I had to stop for gas. I got back on the road and I was so tired I thought I was gonna fall asleep and crash. I had to stop at another gas station and buy a 5 Hour Energy hoping it would work. It did, and finally after 3 more hours. We made it to Yale School of Art.

“This place is fancy looking!” Lia said out of nowhere.

“Haha you’re so weird, that was really random,” I said laughing.

“I know, but you shouldn’t be surprised. Remember that I do it a lot?” She said looking at me surprisingly.

“Yeah I know, but I haven’t seen you in forever and it just seems so weird hearing it again. Just nevermind let’s let this conversation go.” I said tired. I needed a nap, but I couldn’t because i had to go to the school. First I needed to fuel up, meaning I had to have breakfast. I had some Perkins, something I usually didn’t eat but it didn’t matter. We then went back to the school and checked out all the paintings, sculptures, and different creations. They were amazing. We met some of the creators and painters, and they gave us a showing of all the exhibits. I talked to the administrators, and professors. I really didn’t consider them professors, more like art teachers. I used to have an amazing art teacher back when I was in elementary. His name was Mr.Sullivan. He was one of the greatest art teachers I had.



It was 1pm by the time we went to our hotel. We decided to postpone going to the New Jersey right away. Instead, we decided to leave the next morning. We were super hungry and wanted to eat at a fancy restaurant for lunch and dinner, because we saw plenty of them. There was a place called Nando’s. I heard it was so popular; even celebrities went there. An example is Niall Horan from One Direction, he’s plenty obsessed with that restaurant. We ate at Nando’s and walked around the city. There were so many places to shop, and so many different things to do. After we were done walking around the city. We headed back to the room. Later on, we decided to rent the movie Paranormal Activity 6, it was better than the 4th. We finished the movie and fell asleep.





7/5/17 Day six:



I awoke in the morning and we headed to New Jersey to see the Statue of Liberty. We had to take a boat out to the middle water to get to “her”. From afar she looked like a beauty, but as you got closer, you noticed she needed to be renewed. Going to the top you could see all throughout Jersey. It was the most amazing thing ever.



We left Jersey that day and went on our way to
Raleigh, North Carolina. It was gonna be about 6 hours.
Not too long. I the highway hoping it would take less time. That was a mistake, there was lots of traffic. After an hour; however, all the traffic went away.

After seven hours, we finally made it. The town was small, but that didn’t matter. We were only staying there for a night. We didn’t really do much just, went to a big thrift shop for Lia. It was Goodwill. She needed some fabric for her new project she was doing. I was walking around in the store and everything looked new. I didn’t get anything, cause I didn’t need to spend money for clothes I didn’t really need at all. When I think about shopping, I think about my mom. She likes to shop a lot and it causes her to get behind on bills and such. After she was done, we went the hotel to sleep.


7/6/17 Day seven:



I woke up with Lia blow drying her hair. Reminded me again, of my mother. Last night I plugged my phone into the wall to charge my phone. But when I looked for my phone I couldn’t find it. I looked at Lia, she grinned. She laughed and threw my phone at my face; consequently, it bounced off my forehead and fell on her toes. Later on, we left the Holiday Inn and went out to get some more Mcdonald’s. I was getting sick of it. Today we were going to Florida. I went on vacation to Jacksonville Florida once and it was crazy insane. I stayed at this huge rental beach home and it was really high in the air. It was built on top of tall stands in case of a hurricane, or a tsunami.


We arrived in Florida after 5 hours. It wasn’t long at all. But my hands were hurting for keeping the same position when I was driving. We dropped all our stuff off at the hotel and checked in. Then went to the University. The whole campus was covered in the colors of the mascot. They were the Florida Gators.



After driving and walking around the whole campus with one of the professors. My feet were hurting, because of all the walking we did. We went to Ruby Falls. The colorful waterfall was interesting. I wondered how they got the water to glow like that. You were able to touch the water as it fell from the top. We went back to the hotel and went out to eat at El Mariachi.
After that, we went to sleep.


The rest of the journey flew by, turns out that California was my favorite place to visit. It was very warm but somewhat breezy. The weather was perfect, the waters were warm, and there were many places full of activities. When I arrived back at home, i went to go see my friends. We went to dinner, and out to shop. Finally I went home, jumped in bed, and fell asleep.