It's My Travelogue Blog

Homeward Bound

2011-09-11T22:11:00.026-06:00

Earlier I mentioned how California traffic jams seemed to start for no discernible reason, as if someone had suddenly flicked a switch. Well, road trips are like that too. You get ready, set, then go go go! And then, somewhere along the line, a switch gets flipped. All of a sudden, it's time to go home. Whether or not you've finished everything on your list, you just decide that you're almost done, and you start heading home.

Maybe it's like the instinct that migrating birds feel - time to go, before winter comes. Except, with us, it's the instinct that it's time to go, before our funds run out and the bill collector comes. Come home; your house is empty and lonely! Come home; your doggies miss you! Come home; your coworkers need you (nah, they're fine). Come home; the Americans are tired of you. Well, maybe...

But, on the other hand, maybe I could just NOT go home, and make a new home out here in the San- or Santa-lands. Let's consider the possibilities:

Maybe there could be a Santa Cruz version of me who owns a surfboard shop, and my accidental sunburn could eventually turn into a tan, and I'd learn to swim and surf and be happy (before I eventually die in a freak surfboard accident or get skin cancer).

Or, alternately, there could be artist me living in San Francisco, with me and my funky artworks all piled together in a tiny little place (located just above the fault, no doubt) because I can't afford the beautiful Victorians. And then, one bright happy morning, the next big earthquake happens...

Okay, so how about San Diego me, married to some rich businessman who's always away, and I just sit on his yacht, drinking margaritas all the time and adjusting my sunglasses. And I'll be snapping my fingers at the maid: "Go get me a Limey."

Hey, I think I like San Diego me! Not too likely, though, is it?

No, it's way more likely that I'd be living in a crappy house under an interchange in some far corner of Santa Rosa or somewhere, spending two hours every day commuting to a job in San Francisco, paying tolls to get across the Golden Gate Bridge and being trapped in traffic all the time. I'd never go anywhere, because there's always too much traffic, and the only thing that would bring me solace would be my gun collection. Hmm...

Yeah, okay - so it feels like it's time to go home. ;-)

Yesterday, after we left Rainier without having seen the whole park, we blew through Seattle, intending to see some of it, but we didn't do that either. Instead, we headed on towards Canada and the border. And, the most fearsome of all our challenges yet, the border guards. You never know what you're going to get with them. Will they pull us over and start going through our receipts? Will they ask about the roof rack? Will they confiscate our magnets, or decide that the apple I've just eaten isn't digested enough to safely to cross the border?

We drive through at Peace Arch Park, where there's a big gathering of people to mark September 11. I'd take out my camera and take a picture, except border guards hate cameras even more than they hate you. I wonder how you get to Peace Arch Park? Is this a no-man's land between the countries? Then how did all those people get there, and how will they get back? Do you have to carry your passport with you every time you wander out to have a picnic?

Our border guard asks what we're doing crossing in Vancouver when we're from Saskatchewan. Um, well, we thought we'd see a small slice of Canada to add to our big helping of American pie; we didn't realize that was suspicious behaviour. How much money did we spend? Oh, we spent a lot. I think what they really mean is "how much are you bringing back?" The answer to that question can be any number you like, as long as it's below $750. (Although, really, I think if I'm down there for a month, it should be 4 x $750 - but border guards do not care what I think.) So, $749.95. What do you do for a living? Well, I'm an instructor at the local clown college, and Stephen digs ditches. Okay, good enough - we're free to go. "Whoo hoo!" we cry, perhaps a bit too loudly, as we hit the gas and drive away to sweet, sweet freedom.

The plan was to stop in Vancouver to visit my high school pal, Kathleen. However, the mistake I made was in warning Kathleen that we were coming. "Sounds good," she'd said, and that gritty sound in her voice was the sound of her lying through her teeth, "can't wait to see you." And then she stopped answering her phone or checking her emails. We drive by her house. Either she is hiding inside with her doors locked and the blinds drawn, or she has left town, or - more likely - she's alerted her cop buddies that we're going to be in town, and she's out helping them deploy radar traps as we speak. Ha ha, Kathleen - we're too quick for you! (Literally.)

We kick around town a bit, waiting for Kathleen to emerge from hiding, but apparently, we've misjudged her resolve. She ignores our pounding on her doors, and our attempts to pry open her windows. Eventually, it become evident that Kathleen ain't coming back - she may even have left the country to avoid us - so we leave a flaming bag of poo on her doorstep and take off, heading out to see how the TransCanada compares to the Interstates.

We've got used to crowded highways in the US, everyone driving bumper to bumper at 120kph. The roads here seem to have needlessly low speed limits, considering that there are not that many people driving on them (at least in comparison to the US).

Canada may not have Paul Bunyan, but it does have giant bears.

Our GPS tells us where to go, but we like to double-check to make sure he's telling us the truth. I've got the map book, but I'm having trouble figuring out where we are - the map doesn't quite seem to match up with the exits I'm seeing. Eventually, we figure out that we're on the #5, not the #1. But our map book says the #5 is a toll highway. I didn't pay a toll. I didn't see a toll booth. Maybe that angry hitch-hiker running after us, shaking his fist, was really a toll booth operator? Oh well, too late now. (Oh wait, the Internet tells me it used to be a toll highway, but isn't any more. How disappointing. I thought we were getting a discount.)

We decide to call it a day at Revelstoke, and we stop at McDonald's for supper. I can't help but notice that everything is more expensive. "God Bless America," I sigh, with a sad little tear in my eye. "I miss you already."

Mount St. Helens & Rainier

2011-09-10T22:38:00.022-06:00

Left Little Vancouver this morning, only to drive back over the river into Portland, OR. Oregon was feeling snubbed, since we just did a drive-thru last night. But they've successfully lured Stephen back with a specialty booze store. Washington has government-owned liquor stores, and not only are the hours shorter, but also the prices are more expensive. Go figure. That'd never happen in Saskatchewan. ;-)

Downtown Portland seems like a nice place - very bicycle-friendly from what I could see. They had lots of bike lanes, dedicated and shared. At the pedestrian crossing, we pushed the button for the 'walk' light, and the pole said, "Wait." We found that funny, so we kept teasing him by pushing the button. "Wait. Wait. Wait." I'd like it better if it got angrier every time you pushed the button, but I guess they don't include a personality with the programming. Probably a good thing.

Stephen bought some whiskey for $70 (and he says it costs $140 in Canada). Yes, to all you lushes back home, it's definitely much more cost-effective to be a boozehound in the States.

All boozed up, we made our way back into Washington and headed to Mount St. Helen's, where there is both a state park and a national park. You arrive at the state park first - there's an admission fee to see their exhibits, but you don't have to pay anything to continue driving down the road towards the mountain. Eventually, you'll reach the national park, and that's where you have to pay to go further. "I believe there will be no charge for me," as I flash my magic National Park Pass. "Muahahah!"

I wonder how well the state park gets along with the national one. After all, the national park has occupied the prime spot, and once people realize they can drive there without paying the state, who's going to pay to see their exhibits? People with state park passes, maybe? There were some people inside. But I'll bet you the state guys curse the national park every time a car drives by. Add us to that list, because we get back into our car without giving any money to the state, and continue driving down the road towards Mount St. Helen's.

Mount St. Helen's erupted in 1980. When you're driving in, one side of the road is park space, the other side is owned by Weyerhauser. On the Weyerhauser side, you'll see signs by the side of the road, indicating when the trees were planted. 1985, and as you drive further along 1987 and 1991 and so on. The trees get shorter as you go, of course, but it's still very green. You'd have a hard time guessing that there'd been such devastation.

On the park side, however, there is no replanting of trees. They leave it as is. That side is definitely more sparse, more rocky, but it's still greener than you might expect.

About 14 miles from the mountain, you reach a sign that says "Entering the Blast Zone." This is the outer perimeter where charred dead trees were left standing after being burned by the heat. There's a very long, new-ish bridge (30 years old, I'd guess) leading into that area.

The road ends at the Observatory at Johnston Ridge, which is named after poor David Johnston, the geologist who was on the ridge when the volcano finally went off. When we parked at the observatory, it was a bit surprising to us how close it is to the mountain - just 5 or 6 miles away. However, at the time, that was considered a safe distance, since most volcanoes were expected to erupt upward, and not outwards.

When we went into the visitor centre to get our wristband, we had to wait in an unmoving line, because some Francophones were trying to get an audio tour in French. Meanwhile, in the background, I see a display telling us that the movie in the visitor centre begins in 47 seconds, 35 seconds, 22 seconds. I begin to get agitated: "You're in America! Speak American, dammit!" I yell.

Stephen is more philosophical: "It's not like we can't walk in after the movie starts," he says, as the counter runs down to 5 seconds, and then the time is up. Okay, fine, so I'll miss the first 15 seconds. I chill out.

We get our wristbands, walk towards the movie theatre, and yes, it is like you can't walk in after the movie starts. It's exactly like that. There's some automatic door that won't let you in, with a sign that says "No entrance after movie starts." Some poor woman in front of us got cut off from the rest of her family, who were now enjoying happy movie times without her.

Grr-argh! "Pourquoi?!" I cry, pounding on the closed doors. "POURQUOI??!?" It is a very sad moment: the French have ruined my vacation. C'est la ruined!

(Yes, Nic, I did include this part of the story just for you. Even from afar, I can feel you shooting me 'la look' and merde-y-pooing.) :-P

Eventually, we recover (slightly) from our tragic disappointment, and we go outside to look at the crater. Hmm, is that steam, or a wisp of cloud? Hard to say. However, the Ranger isn't running away, so we don't worry too much about it. We follow some of the pathways to the viewpoints to take a look at the surrounding landscape, but until we see the film AFTER THE FACT, it's hard to really appreciate it. We do notice, however, the surrounding peaks are still littered with fallen logs, all pointing in the direction of the blast.

Half the mountain blew away, with most of that material completely reshaping the valleys and rivers around the mountain. All the roads that we drove in on, all of the bridges, everything was rebuilt, because everything that was there before was destroyed. 57 people died, and 118 (I think) were rescued, among them campers and hikers who were supposedly in the safe zone, but the eruption was much bigger than anyone had expected. At the time, they didn't expect that anyone would be in danger when they were 25 or 30 miles away, but they were.

The film is really interesting and worth seeing (and it would have been even better if we'd seen it earlier). It talks about the changes in the area, and shows what it was like before. Must have been really difficult for the people who used to live here - they evacuated, and then had nothing to come back to. You'd just have to go away and start over somewhere else.

After Mount St. Helens, we drove to Mount Rainier National Park. Hey, guess what? Mount Rainier is another pretty snow-topped mountain, which is actually another stratovolcano, just like Mount St. Helens. One of these days... but not today.

Unfortunately, it's already later in the day by the time we're hitting this park. We stop for a hike, because I thought Stephen wanted to do it, and he thought I wanted to do it. Because time is of the essence, this might be our fastest speed-hike yet. It's uphill, uphill, and we're booting it up those hills so fast we hardly have time to see anything. There's the waterfalls - click-click, take the pics - and then we're running back down the mountain. This is harder than it sounds. Sure, you're not fighting gravity any more, but there are 22 billion tree branches and rocks that are just dying to take you out. Fortunately, neither one of us breaks an ankle or does a faceplant. We've done a 3.8 mile hike (that's supposed to take 2-3 hours) in about 55 minutes, but we're still short on time now.

We zoom to Paradise (one of the visitor centres) as fast as we can, and we get there in what might be called the nick of time. Or, on the other hand, it might not. We walk in, and we have 30 seconds before they start shutting things down. No gift shop for you! No ranger will speak to you! For God's sake, let me use the bathroom-- I wedge my foot in the door and get in there before they lock that up too.

Well, at least we can take a picture of the peak. Stephen is not mollified. This is his Zion* moment - he is filled with rage at the man who suggested the hike to us.
______
* This is referring to my massive hissy fit of last year, when we went to visit Zion, and then I realized we were inadvertently driving out of it before we'd seen it.

Now it's 6 p.m., which means we don't have time to drive out of the park on the other side, meaning we've seen less than half the park. I suggest that we stay somewhere near the park and come back tomorrow, but Stephen figures we should move on.

Okay, so it looks like Rainier is going on the do-over list for the next road trip. Sadly, we have to drive out the way we come in, because that's the shorter distance, and it's going to be getting dark.

Once we're out of the park, we're back on our way. Goodbye, Rainier! We'll be back.

Unfortunately, my speedy progress is stymied by the not-very-well-planned town of Puyallup. Not only do you have a dumb name, Puyallup, but funneling a highway onto this road of slow-moving traffic through a commercial district reminds me very much of Circle Drive at the north end. I didn't think anyone anywhere was stupid enough to replicate that traffic disaster, but here it is. Grr-arghh! I hate you, Puyallup! You are now my sworn enemy! Whenever anyone asks me, "What do you think of Puyallup?" I will spit on the ground and curse you.

Eventually, we got out of their red-light district (because that's the colour of all their traffic lights), and back onto a REAL highway, and we're eventually headed towards Seattle. We drive past downtown Seattle, and there's the Microsoft building. "Hello, Microsoft!" But we don't stop (no bikes to steal).

Originally, we had this idea that we were going to visit the over-priced Space Needle at night, but it's later than we anticipated (thanks a lot, Puyallup gridlock - I hate you), and it'll take too much time to drive back downtown. Not to mention factoring in the time we'd probably have to spend finding parking to accommodate an 8' vehicle. No Space Needle.

Instead, we decide to just go out for supper and relax. The GPS takes us on a needlessly circuitous path to an Outback Steakhouse. Whatever. It's a quirky GPS, but it navigates interchanges well, and it's never tried to actually kill us (just drive us crazy with its inability to find any kind of business).

Mysterious Trees & Going Going Oregon...

2011-09-09T22:49:00.047-06:00

The highway through Willets is a bit noisy, with a lot of trucking traffic, as we discovered last night in our hotel room facing main street. Vroom. Vroom. It's not so much the cars that bother you as the logging trucks.

Today, we're driving through Northern California. Lots of trees and small towns that distinguish themselves by their collection of roadside kitsch. One of the kitschy places we did decide to stop at is the 'World Famous' Confusion Hill, near Piercy. It's a gaudy garish stop, originally set up in 1949 when most of these things cropped up to capitalize on auto tourism. So it has a very 'Route 66' feel to it. Aside from the overt signage, it has a playground and rest site, one million tacky trinkets for sale, including the "rare chipalope" (a close relation of the "jacakalope", I think).

Hey, they have a visitor's map on the wall, and - what the heck?! - someone from Saskatoon has already been here before. Go figure.

Batgirl hanging from the ceiling

Anyway, the main attraction on Confusion Hill is the Gravity House. It's basically a house built crookedly on top of the slope of a steep hill. Still, when you get inside the building, you do get kind of dizzy and off-kilter. I think your brain is getting conflicting signals from your eyes and ears. Eyes are saying, "this is the horizon, therefore, this is up and that's down," and the balance centres in your ears are like, "no way, you're crazy. THIS is up and that's down." So your brain is busy going woo-woo-woo, what's happening? while you wobble around like a drunkard. It was pretty fun, actually. Sit in the gravity chair and get stuck there. Walk up the side of the walls.

There's plenty of other similar attractions in the area. There's the World!Famous! One Log House (yes, it's a house made out of a hollowed log). And Grandfather Tree. And this is apparently Bigfoot Country, with every kind of giant tacky woodcarving imaginable out front. Bears, Indians, lumberjacks, whirlygigs, and even Tolkien characters (?!).

We're already seeing signs for the "Trees of Mystery," which is quite a ways ahead. For some reason, that makes me laugh, because I think it sounds stupid. Stephen asks if I'd prefer "Trees of Death"? No. Not quite. But maybe "Trees of Danger." That might lure me in.

The coast is fogged in again today - we do stop at one beach. Unlike the sandy southern California beaches, this one is gray, made up of small pebbled rocks. Lots of waves crashing in, but it's quieter than I would have expected. We stood and watched for a while, then walked back to the car. Fortunately, Stephen noticed a big wave chasing us way up the beach, and we just barely escaped being soaked. Don't turn your back on the ocean - it's untrustworthy.

Redwood National and State Forest is a bit of a weird park in that the National and State parks overlap. There doesn't seem to be any entrance fee (I presume you'd have to pay for a camping permit), and the highway runs through the park, which is split into a north and a south wing.

We do divert onto the park's scenic byway, which takes you through the redwoods. Here's where you access most of the trailheads. We do get out and walk around for a bit. Yes, more big tall trees. Hello everyone, I'm on the forest moon of Endor. :-)

Very nice hiking trails - quite shady and pleasant temperature. You do have to watch your footing, due to all the tree roots, but it's a very nice quiet park.

Then we're driving on, through the town of Klamath, which is in between the parks. Okay, Klamath, I take it back about your Trees of Mystery. Totally worthwhile stop. Not so much for the trees (cause we didn't want to pay $15 for the tree cablecar ride), but for the giant tacky statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox. Does anyone know the story? I don't think I do. Just that Paul's a big ol' lumberjack who likes to cut down trees. Well, he's big, anyway.

Anyway, we like tacky, so we stop. I'm standing underneath his giant foot, and then we hear this voice: "Hey, I see a redhead, posing for a picture under my foot."

OMG! It speaks! It moves! His giant statue hand is doing the Queen's wave (you know, the little wrist twist). His big eyeball is slowly winking closed. Stephen and I are laughing and wondering if he can hear us? Yes, he can, apparently. Paul Bunyan asks where we're from; we explain that we're from Saskatchewan, where there aren't that many trees for him to cut down. He figures we must have a village or two that he can visit. We're having a conversation with a giant plaster statue. That's a bit unusual.

Sadly, Babe the Blue Ox does not say anything. I think it would be a nice touch if it occasionally made some sort of T-Rex style roar. And then just watch those tourists jump!

Well, since Paul Bunyan lured us in, we go inside the gift shop and buy a pound of fudge (you know, emergency supplies, in case we get lost in the woods and need sustenance).

Once we're back on the road, we're driving through the second wing of the park for a last look at the Redwoods and we're heading on towards Oregon. But first, a pit stop in Crescent City for gas & food. We stop at a Burger King, order our food in a Medium, and when it arrives, we're surprised at the size of the drink. "This is a medium?" Stephen says. "No wonder they're all--" I cut him off: "Don't say it!"

As we're driving out of the state, Hotel California is playing on the radio, but contrary to what the song says, we really can leave. Although, we have been in California for a quite while now. Big state. ("I'm bigger!" Texas yells. "Everything is bigger here!" Sorry, Texas. Next time.)

Out of the land of mysterious trees, and into the land of mysterious gas pumps. Did you know that according to Oregon state law, you are not allowed to pump your own gas. No! It's not safe! Only a highly trained technician can fill your car with gasoline. How you've managed to do it yourself all these years without accidentally immolating yourself or turning your vehicle into a giant fireball, we'll never know. But Oregon is not going to take that chance. Stephen tries to break the law by filling up his own car, but the gas jockey beats him to the pump.

Further down the Interstate, there was a grass fire ahead of us; it shut down the highway for a while. All the traffic signs were warning us of long delays. Fortunately, by the time we got there, the firefighters had put it out, leaving charred embankments on both sides of the highway, and traffic back up three lanes solid for over 5 miles on the OTHER side of the highway. Whew! I feel sorry for you poor sad suckers, but better you than me.

It's night time by the time we reach Portland, and it looks very nice at night. At least it has pretty lights. And a kickass system of overpasses, from the looks of it.

However, we are snubbing Oregon and staying just across the river in Vancouver, Washington. We snag the second-last room available in the hotel. The guide book in our hotel room tells us to "Discover the Original - Vancouver USA". Methinks someone feels a wee bit overshadowed. You guys think you have it bad? Ask Las Vegas, New Mexico, how it feels.

:-)

Walking walking walking. And Alcatraz!

2011-09-08T23:51:00.017-06:00

This morning we left Santa Clara at about 8:30 a.m., hoping to avoid most of the commuter rush as we drive to San Francisco. The carpool lanes in that area run from 5-9 a.m. Yikes. Can you imagine 5 a.m. traffic jams?

You ever heard of the butterfly effect? (No, not the movie.) It's the theory of seemingly small, unrelated events cascading into a big one. Example: a butterfly flaps its wings in Tokyo, and somewhere in California there's a traffic jam. Correction: Everywhere in California, there's a traffic jam.

You'll be driving along, and it's like a switch is flipped. As if suddenly, everyone decides they must drive slow, bumper to bumper, starting and stopping. Traffic will slowly creep forward, and then the switch flips back again: everyone suddenly picks up speed and drives fast again. We think they're actually delayed traffic waves, rippling back from the interchanges where people are suddenly jockeying to change lanes and catch their exit. But it is bizarre when you seem to have a traffic jam that has no apparent cause.

Anyway, the traffic isn't too bad by the time we're driving in, although we do avail ourselves of the commuter lanes. Two or more people = commuter express! Even if traffic is backed up in the commuter lanes, it's always faster than the other four or five single-vehicle lanes.

However, by the time we're reaching San Francisco proper, there's no avoiding the traffic. We're driving on a double-platformed bridge, and there's flyovers and bypasses branching out all over. These are what we call "spaghetti monsters" when we see them on the GPS - that diagram of intersecting roads with tendrils heading off in every direction does look a bit like a plate of spaghetti. Helping us navigate these freeways is one thing that the GPS does relatively well.

Parking in San Francisco is hard to come by and expensive, so we park at Pier 23, which is not far from the areas we want to frequent today ($25 for a flat daily rate). We have an Alcatraz tour booked at 1:10, and they start boarding at 12:40, so we have to be at Pier 33 by then.

The Golden Gate Bridge is about 5 miles off, so we catch a cab to take us there so we can walk across. That sets us back another $16. But it's quick!

We hop out at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. Hey, look, it's more fog - you can't even see the top of the bridge, it looks like it's been caught in the clouds - but you kind of expect San Francisco to be foggy. However, Marin County (on the other side) is sitting in the sun. Apparently money can buy happiness and sunny days, too!

Activate pedestrian powers! We boot it across the bridge, destroying all slower pedestrians in our path, and we step out at the viewpoint over in Marin County. Then it's already time to head back. We are, I think, the only people to walk all the way across and back (except for the heavily-armed cop walking the beat), because we don't see any of those weenies on the way back.

We do, however, see one million and two people riding rent-a-bikes. Damn it. How did we do all this research and read about parking issues and public transportation, and miss out on the idea of renting bikes. Doh! Another stunning research failure. (If only I'd kept that Google bike...)

Some of the biking tourists are wobbly wheelers, veering out of their bike lanes and into my pedestrian lane. Some of them are huffers and puffers, pushing their bikes uphill. If you haven't ridden a bike since Grade 3, maybe you should've trained more before getting on this one, dude. I could totally kick all of your biking-tourist-butts! Except for you, spandex San Francisco biker - you seem pretty buff. (It's all those hills.)

Yes, we are bike-less, but we can and will out-walk anyone. But it's a LONG walk back to Fisherman's Wharf, and then we still have to walk further to make it to Pier 33. We get there just in time to start boarding, which means "Go stand in a long, snaking line that's worthy of Disneyland on a busy day." My feet are tired. "Yeah? You should have thought of that before you embarked on a life of crime!" the boat tour people shout at me. I think they're getting a little TOO into their roles.

Do I get seasick? Who knows? Guess we'll find out. And that answer appears to be no. The boat bobs happily along, covering the 1.25 mile distance in about five minutes. There are people all around us wearing heavier jackets and scarfs and gloves. Weenies.

So we're at Alcatraz. They've got a very good audio tour, narrated by former prison guards and prisoners. If you're properly able to follow directions, the audio tour leads you through various areas of the prison as it recounts events like the Alcatraz Riot and the famous "escape" from Alcatraz. The only problem with it is that it does create pretty predictable bottlenecks in the prison. But, with that many people passing through, it's probably impossible to avoid.

It's SO windy out on the exercise yard. I think the building funnels the wind down into the court, and the walls keep it swirling around there. And it was even windier out in front of the prison. Stephen stopped to put on his windbreaker, and it was trying to fly away on him. If he'd lost his grip on it, it would've been gone forever. I imagine it did get very cold and chilly in that prison, especially in their rainy winter season.

It's a very interesting tour. You spend about two hours or so wandering around.

On the way back, Stephen and I staked out a spot right at the bow of the boat for the trip back to San Francisco. It's just a mile and a quarter back to San Francisco, but it seems like a really long way when you think of swimming through that choppy water. Brr.

Since we hadn't eaten since breakfast, and it was now after 4 p.m., we went to a place called Chowder's at Fisherman's Wharf, where we got some clam chowder in a sourdough bowl. Yum! A local pigeon flew in the front door, right to the back of the restaurant; it found a shrimp on the floor, ate it and flew out. Guess it must be his favourite spot.

Fisherman's Wharf is a complete tourist trap, filled with shops. And, just like a magnetic force, Stephen was drawn to Magnetron, his most favourite store ever. (It sells magnets. Duh.)

At a chocolate specialty store, we found Aero bars! Yes, imported from Canada. You can buy them $2.99 each (that's for a regular size bar).

Time to go. After walking back and forth over the Golden Gate, then to Fisherman's Wharf and past to Pier 33, then walking around Alcatraz, then back to Fisherman's Wharf, then back again to get to Pier 23, where we left the vehicle, we're getting a bit tired of walking. (I mapped it out later - it's something over 10 miles, which is over 16 kms. No wonder we were getting tired!)

By about 6 p.m., we were driving out of San Francisco, which is decidedly busier than when we came in. The Golden Gate Bridge has a bunch of traffic gates across the road that they use to filter the number of lanes heading each way. The wind is strong enough that it's buffeting even our big vehicle a bit. LOTS of traffic - but we can still use the commuter lane.

Our speedy progress is somewhat impeded by the presence of a state trooper behind me. And then, oh look, there's a California Highway Patrol guy in front of me. Surrounded by cops. That'll crimp your speedy travel plans. However, the chips guy is gone in no time (he's just checking the car pool lane to make sure there's no cheaters), and the cop behind me seems a bit speedy himself.

I've noticed the state cops really come out at night. You don't see them so much during the day, but in the evening, they're lurking out on the side of the highways a lot. We usually have a canary that we follow, though.

At about 8:30 in the evening, we finally called it a night in the little town of Willets. It took us three tries to find a room; we ended up at the Best Western, which at least has free breakfast and a spa. I do love the spa. Especially after a long day of walking.

Tomorrow, we're going to Redwood Park, and then on into Oregon.

Santa Clara Mysteries & Santa Cruz Beaches

2011-09-07T22:50:00.055-06:00

What do you do when you're in Santa Clara? You head on over to the Winchester Mystery House.

In case you've never heard of it, Sarah Pardee married William Winchester (of the Winchester Rifle Company). Their infant daughter died before reaching a year of age, and Sarah never got over that. After her father-in-law and husband died within a few months of each other, Sarah inherited $20 million, plus 50% stock in the company, and a daily income of $1,000 per day. Which, in 1880, was a freaking boatload of money.

Sarah consulted a psychic who told her she was cursed by the spirits of all those who'd been killed by Winchester guns (the source of the family fortune). She was told to move west and to build a house for herself and the spirits. If construction on the house stopped, she would die. So, that's the back-story.

And that's why Sarah Winchester moved to San Jose with her $20 million, and began building a house, and kept building it, every day of the year for the next 38 years (construction kept going up until the day she died). Consequently, as you might expect, it's a rather large house. It was built according to her whim, so it's also an eclectic house. Architectural oddities such as stairs that lead up into the ceiling, doors that open to solid walls, as well as a second-floor door that opens outside to empty space - that one, they call the Door to Nowhere. There's secret rooms, secret passageways, and at one time, there was a tall tower that was badly damaged during the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, so it was taken down. :-(

Why all the weird features? The popular theory is that the dead ends and blind corners were to confuse the angry spirits that were after her. Sarah was a bit of a whackadoodle. But she was a whackadoodle with a lot of money. And, as Alex Trebek would be sure to tell you, that makes all the difference.

The house has some absolutely fabulous stained glass windows and doors that were purchased from Tiffany's. They are SO beautiful, leaded and stained glass and crystal. Very dazzling when the light shines through them. The maintenance for the windows is a bit onerous - the tour guide told us that every 20 years, the windows have to be reset by hand, which means removing and replacing every single little piece of glass. It takes about 3 months to reset each window. Yikes!

In the gardens out front, among other statues, there's one of a Native American which Sarah intended as a memorial to those who were killed by Winchester guns. I'm sure he stopped haunting her after he got a statue.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to tour all of the gardens, as they're busy setting up a Fright Night tour for Halloween. Looks pretty impressive, actually. Too bad we won't be in town.

(Sadly, no sightings of Sam or Dean in the Winchester Mystery house - I did look, though. The tour guide seemed puzzled when I asked if they were related.)

For the afternoon, we drove over to Santa Cruz to visit their beach Boardwalk. Stephen wanted us to ride on the old wooden rollercoaster there - the Big Dipper (you've seen it in the movie Lost Boys, among other films). Unfortunately, if we wanted to ride, we should have come on a weekend, or before Labour Day. No rides now until the weekend. Doh! That means no fair food, either. Double doh!

I don't know if I'm sad that the coaster isn't running, or if I'm a bit relieved. Sure, I'll climb up the side of a mountain using chain handholds (risking a fatal fall on a trail that can and does kill people), but I'm not so sure I want to get on a creaky wooden coaster (even though it hasn't killed anyone as far as I know). I probably would have gone on it, but now we'll never know~!

Well, no carnival barkers today, but we walked through the boarded up Boardwalk to take a looksee anyway, then went out to walk on the beach. It's a bright sunny day, and the sand is soft and very warm - hot at times! (You are still my enemy, Sand, but you were okay today.)

Out on the wharf, there are lots of restaurants (yes, mostly fish - no surprise), outfitters, and tourist souvenir shops. Underneath the wharf, there are several sea lions resting on the support struts and barking away at each other. Noisy! We also spied a jellyfish swimming below, and a few times we caught sight of dolphins bouncing through the waves.

A little further out, by the Lighthouse state beach, we watched the surfers paddling around on their boards, trying to catch a good wave. Looks fun, but it also looks like a lot of work. Not being able to swim, I think I'll skip this activity.

There are some beautiful Victorian homes in Santa Cruz, and yet I've also never seen so many "hippie"-looking people wandering about. Guys who look like they could have just stepped out of the 1960s. It's an interesting mixture.

Stop, thief!

On our way back to Santa Clara, we diverted into Mountain View to go see Google. We successfully evaded Google security and wandered around on their campus for a while. Probably only managed that because some buses were arriving at the same time for some event, so they had a lot of extra people milling around. Whatever! I have been to Google. And escaped unscathed. I may or may not have (momentarily) stolen a Google bike.

(I probably shouldn't be using a Google blog to tell you all of this.)

:-)

Back in Santa Clara, we took a quick trip over to the Santana Row shopping mall, because we have to go get our supper from Cinnabons. Mmm, cinnamon and sugar goodness. So very nutritious. Sugar = energy, right?

Tomorrow, it's off to San Francisco and Alcatraz. While we would have liked to do a night tour, those ones are all sold out until October 3. Um, no, that's too long a wait. As it was, we had to book one early this morning in order to get on a boat tomorrow.

So, it's our last night of freedom here in Santa Clara before we're off to a (hopefully) brief internment on The Rock.

Alex Trebek and Transylvania

2011-09-06T23:49:00.078-06:00

This morning we left behind Lemoore and their tomato factory. (We drove past a big plant that was belching smoke - looked like it was some sort of heavy oil upgrader, but no, it was a tomato plant. Big trucks pulling in with lots of tomatoes in the back. Hello, ketchup! Funny thing was, a few miles down the road, there was a large red splotch in an intersection. Tomato accident. Tee hee! Lemoore, who knew you could be so exciting!)

So, we're heading for the west coast, driving through the Kettlemen Hills, which are dusty and yellow-grassed. After we pass over the hills, we're hitting wine country. Vineyard after vineyard, and even I recognize some of the labels.

We drive into Paso Robles, specifically to go to Walmart. Yes, we need to stock up on our Coke supplies - and it's cheaper to buy a box and bring it with us than it is to buy it a bottle at a time. There's a sign that says "El Paso de Robles", so Stephen tries to convince me that I've now been to El Paso, so I should stop complaining about the fact that he was too afraid to go to the real El Paso. Hah. As if that's going to happen.

After that little pit stop, we're headed towards San Simeon, where we're going to see if we can get tickets to tour Hearst Castle. The Rough Guide says that advance reservations are "virtually mandatory", so we may be out of luck. It's 10:30 a.m. when we arrive, and I have my fingers crossed as we pull into the parking lot; Stephen is naysaying, telling me that the parking lot is all we're going to get.

But, for once, the timing is in my favour: the next tour is the Grand Rooms, and it starts in 10 minutes. Sold! It's $50 for the two of us - Stephen is confused, and thinks it's $50 a ticket, which explains why he's glowering sullenly at me for the next three hours.

Anyway, we've got our tickets to take the bus that drives us up to the house. This is another one of those talking tour buses with the recorded monologue. Only this time, it's narrated by Alex Trebek. Seriously.

"I'm Alex Trebek," the bus tells me, "and welcome to the tour." I can't help it - I immediately yell back, "What is Hearst Castle?" But Alex-Trebek-the-bus doesn't want to play Jeopardy today - he keeps blathering on about the tour and what we're going to see. Snooty bastard - I remember before you were a bus, when you were just a humble TV game-show host! But I'm still puzzled as to how Alex Trebek came to be the narrator for Hearst Castle? This is a mystery I never unravel.

It's a long winding road up the hill - when we arrive at the house, the real live tour guide tells us that William Randolph Hearst never referred to this home as the castle (because apparently he had a real Norman castle somewhere in Europe that he called "the castle"), but it was always "the Ranch at San Simeon." I am now even more confused. If he never called it the castle, why is the tour now called Hearst Castle (narrated by Alex Trebek)? This is a day of many mysteries.

The property was and still is a working ranch where cattle are raised, but the house is spectacularly over the top. He was an avid art collector, and the place is stuffed with priceless antiques. The doors are from a monastery in Spain, I think, and the fireplace came from a castle in France, and there's sculptures from numerous artists, and a rare millefleur tapestry from France, and on and on. The patterned and carved ceilings are imported; everything costs a million billion dollars.

He started building in 1912, I think, and then continued for another 28 years or so. When he died, the family didn't know what to do with the estate, and eventually, they gave it to the state of California. Yes, they gave it away (because they're that rich). Apparently, they offered it to Berkeley University first, but Berkeley couldn't afford the upkeep; even California took three years to finally accept the offer and take ownership.

Our tour took us through several rooms: the main entrance hall, the formal dining hall, a breakfast room, the billiards room, and finally into a private movie theatre where they showed films of some of his visitors way back in the day (movie stars and politicians).

Neptune Pool

The gardens are gorgeous, with these pure white marble statues everywhere. And the Neptune Pool - wow! Absolutely gorgeous, especially out there under the sunny sky. So beautiful.

Roman Pool

Then, under the tennis court, there was the indoor Roman Pool. Another wow. It's amazingly beautiful, with statues, blue tiled walls and floor, and even white marble ladders into the pool. There's a diving platform up high. I don't know which pool I like better.

I said it seemed too perfect a pool - you'd have to work on your dive, because you couldn't just cannonball into that water. One of the security guards piped up to disagree; he told us that Dan Aykroyd or Jim Belushi (he couldn't remember which one) had been at Hearst Castle for a special event, and he'd stripped nude and done a cannonball into the pool. Needless to say, he was not invited back. (But he'll always be able to say he did it - Dan or Jim, whoever it was. That's gotta be worth something.)

Then, back onto the bus and down the hill, and Alex Trebek is talking to us again, thanking us for coming. I notice that Alex Trebek asked if we could imagine what it was like to be a visitor at Hearst's estate; he didn't ask if we could imagine owning it. That's because we can't. We're too poor, all of us, and we have no idea what it's like to be that stinking rich. So stinking rich that we can have a fabulously priceless estate, and still afford to give it away.

:-)

Time to hit the road again! We're now driving on towards Big Sur. But we take a wrong turn on an Interstate somewhere and emerge in Transylvania. Yes, Transylvania. Land of endless gray fog and lurking vampire counts. Hey! Maybe I misread the sign on that last tourist stop. Maybe it wasn't Hearst Castle - maybe it was Dracula's Castle! No, can't be... it was far too sunny for that.

My favourite picture of Big Sur. It's a wee bit foggy.

I guess maybe it is Big Sur. But it is seriously fogged in. It's not early morning, either - it's already going on to 1 p.m. their time. And I'm not talking about a little bit of a fog. I'm talking about giant fog banks of white, rolling in across the road, like something from the scene of... yes, a vampire movie! Or Silent Hill - it has that look, too. Everything shrouded in white. Nuclear winter? Could be. Go ahead and film your post-apocalyptic movie here - it's perfect.

Every time we drive past one of the viewpoints, I roll down the window and shout, "Scenic drive, my ass!"

We'd be driving over a bridge, and we couldn't see what was on the other side. Oh, look, it's a big hill! I start to doubt there's even an ocean down there - maybe it's just someone with a giant fog machine.

There are many viewpoints and turnouts along the road, but, as you'd expect, most of them are being very sparsely used. Sure, there are a few people taking pictures of the fog, but once you've got one or two photos... well, then you've got your fog pics. How many more do you need? "This was the white fog. This was the heavy white fog. Oh, and this was the gray billowing cloud." I'm sure you can't wait to see that slide show. (Yes, I am going to make you sit through it. If I had to suffer through it, so do you.)

Every now and again, there'd be a tiny sheltered little cove that showed a hint of beach and a hint of blue ocean. There were three of those spots on the whole 90-mile drive. You could tell where they were, because all of the tourists were huddled around the roadside and pointing their cameras - "Look! I can see a little bit of something! There's something there!" (Of course they were all private beaches, so you couldn't go down.)

Supposedly, driving along Big Sur is a very spectacular drive on non-foggy days. But today was not that day. It was a very persistent fog; never lifted at all. Guess it's just the way the wind was blowing.

What are you going to do? You win some; you lose some.

We drove into Monterey and headed for the Aquarium, which is one of the things on Stephen's to-do list; it's supposed to be the best aquarium in California, so it's $30 to see the fishies. Hmph. I do, however, really like the jellyfish and the sea horse exhibits. Jellyfish are freaky, especially when you think of all those stingers, but when they're safely behind glass, they are quite beautiful.

They did have a bat ray that you could pet, so I did. Hello, slimy fella! I wasn't so struck on handling the star fish, though - they always look like they'll grab hold of you and won't let go, so I passed on that one. (Felt very smug when I saw several tourists trying to pry the starfish off their arms, yelling, "get it off, get it off!" Should've known better.)

Monterey is a tourist town, meaning it's on the expensive side, so we're heading on over to Santa Clara instead.

Movie geek quote for ya: "One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach...all the damn vampires." :-D

Whaddaya think? The name is close enough... I think I'll hang the garlic in the motel doorway night, just in case.

Big Rocks, Big Trees

2011-09-05T21:51:00.048-06:00

It's a bright new day in sunny California, and we're heading out to King's Canyon/Sequoia National Parks. I have high hopes - although it's a holiday Monday, we figure most people will be heading home, and apparently Yosemite is the heavyweight around here, so the crowds should be there. Fingers crossed!

We didn't see much of Fresno, as we were located at its north end, which feels a bit like Saskatoon's north end. Hotels, restaurants, big box districts, car dealerships. On our way out of Fresno, we get a glimpse of their downtown, and then we're zipping away on their concrete bypasses and overpasses. I tell you, Saskatoon could use a few of those. I was puzzled by the amount of four lane streets around here, and the many lights, which seemed a bit of overkill for the traffic we were seeing.

On the other hand, I'm thinking it's more likely that they have adequate infrastructure to move their traffic, whereas Saskatoon doesn't. Which is why we have way more congestion than we should for a city our size. Fresno is 400,000 to our 200,000.

We drive into the park on the north end, closer to King's Canyon, because we plan to do the scenic byway in that section first, then we'll double back and head out on the south side of Sequoia park. First stop is the visitor centre. Who do I run into there but the lady from Key West who was on the Forestiere tour with us yesterday in Fresno! We chat for a few minutes about what to do in the park, then we both head our separate ways (she's not going on any 4x4 trails).

First stop in the park is the General Grant Tree. This is the first sequoia we've seen, and it's freaking big. I know there will be bigger ones in the park, but it's still an impressive sight to see just how amazingly tall they are. One of those falls on you, and they'll never find you - it'd be like a bug on a windshield. Boom! Squish. By the time we've finished walking the small trail around the grove, there's a bus pulling up and many people bouncing out. Time to move on.

Our next two stops are on unpaved roads (which means the tour buses won't be following us). First stop, we drive to the trailhead and have a short hike out to see the Chicago Stump. This, as you probably already figured out, is the stump of a giant Sequoia that was cut down so that part of its trunk could be taken to the world expo in Chicago and reassembled there. And then, to top it off, people thought it was a hoax! You bastards cut down a 3,000-year-old tree to make a disposable decoration for a stupid expo?! Unbelievable.

The next drive takes us through Stump Meadow. You can guess what Stump Meadow is, right? A logging operation was set up in here around 1880; they cut down virtually everything, and here you can see a lot of the remaining stumps (the green trees in the background are new growth). There used to be about 6,000 Sequoias in this area; now there's only about 60-100 large ones remaining. Grrrr. Makes you very angry.

Just beyond Stump Meadow, you drive up a very sandy incline that's got to be tricky for any non-4x4 vehicles, and then you're at the hike to the Boole tree. The Boole tree is named after the logging supervisor who spared it because of its size. When the park service took over the land, it was the only large tree remaining in the area, with everything else cut down.

It's a 2.5 mile loop hike, and a pretty secluded hike. We ran into three other people on the trail in total, so it was nice and quiet. And when we reached the tree, we had it to ourselves.

The Boole tree

It's huge! I know, they're all huge - but this one has the largest circumference, and I think it's the 7th largest in the world. There are little hollows in its roots that some animals are probably using as dens. Amazingly big tree.

Then it's back to paved roads for us as we head into King's Canyon. This is your quintessential mountain road, clinging to the sides of mountain slopes as it curves back and forth with the landscape. The road is only open in summer (not a surprise, once you've seen the road). It is a great scenic drive, very beautiful, coming back down from the mountains, into the valley and following the river. We drove all the way out to Roads End, where the road ends. After that point, you're going on foot, and you need to get permits from the rangers to continue. There are so many people out there, heading out on hikes!

The Zumwalt Meadow near Roads End was particularly lovely. And when we stopped at the nearby Roaring River Falls, we ran into the Key West Florida couple again! Disneyland was right: it really is a small, small world. They're headed on to Yosemite tomorrow; we wished them better luck than we had. Actually, I'm sure Yosemite will be fine by tomorrow - all the weekenders should be gone.

Well, King's Canyon has been much more beautiful than I expected. Problem is, it's already 2 p.m., and we haven't even started back towards the Sequoia end of the park. Stephen thinks we'll be finished and out of Sequoia by 5 p.m. I think we'll be lucky to be out by 6 p.m.

It's a one-way drive into King's Canyon. From Roads End, we have to go alllll the way back to the beginning, then we head on the other road into Sequoia. That road is called the Generals Highway (since a lot of the big trees seem to be named after Civil War generals).

We stop in at the Lodgepole Visitor Centre, and I ask the ranger "why will marmots attack my car?" One of the park brochures warned that if you're camping overnight in Mineral King, you need to get chicken wire or something to wrap around your cars to keep the marmots out of the engine and undercarriage. Apparently, the marmots like to chew on the hoses. Who knew? Marmots seemed so friendly, and yet they want to strand you in the wilderness (and then they'll chew on your bones, no doubt).

We're finally in Sequoia National Park. The tallest tree is the General Sherman. Sherman is definitely a giant. The trail leading to Sherman is all downhill - everyone skips happily along to see the tallest tree in the world. General Sherman is also very difficult to photograph; you have to take the picture from far away if you want to fit the entire tree in, and then you have to squint to see the ant-sized people. And he's a giant tree in a grove of giant trees. Pretty impressive.

Once you've finished wandering through the Generals Grove, you have to climb all the way back up again. Doh! However, on the way back up to the parking lot, Stephen and I pass everyone. "You are all weenies!" I shout. "My brother has asthma! You need to exercise more!" They are angry and would beat me up if they could catch up to us, which they can't. Ha ha!

Tight squeeze under Tunnel Log

We drive through the Giant Forest, then over to Tunnel Log, where you can drive your vehicle through a log (as long as it's less than 8' high). As you'd expect, there's a bit of a line-up to drive through, with people standing on the sidelines taking photos. Other people's cars glide through easily - Stephen's over-sized vehicle is the tightest fit.

Nearby, is something called Moro Rock. We have no idea what it is, but it's right here, so let's go see. Uh oh. Stephen shakes his head. "There's no parking. We can't stay." He starts to slow down, and then we see the big rock jutting upwards above the tree line. "Do you want to take a picture?"

"No! I want to climb the damn rock!"

We circle around to take another try at the parking lot, and end up parking on the shoulder outside the parking lot, because once I've got my heart set on climbing the damn rock, you know we're going to climb the damn rock.

It's like a weenie version of Angel's Landing. Lots of stairs cut into the rock face. Sure, it's a steep climb, but there are railings everywhere. Easy-peasy. Are we obnoxious? Sure we are.

After that, it's time to go - it's already past 6 p.m., and the sun sets around 7:30. Not so much a problem if you're travelling on Interstates, but the Interstates mostly run North-South in California, and we're travelling West with only secondary highways, and not through very many towns, so wildlife is more of an issue. Stephen was hoping to make it to Morro Bay, but that ain't gonna happen - too far away, not enough time.

As always, it takes forever down a winding winding road to get out of the park. The little blip on the map called Lemoore is about as far as we can make it before running out of daylight. We get a room at the Motel 6 Maximum Security Prison (that's what the room looks like, anyway - either the hotel should be cheaper or the room should be nicer. And no free breakfast for you, you ungrateful inmate!).

Oh well. At least we're not sitting in a tent during a lightning storm.

Yosemite Gridlock & Going Underground in Fresno

2011-09-04T22:43:00.047-06:00

This morning, I was quite peeved to discover that we missed Vasquez Rock Park. Cue the anguished cry of "NOOooooOOOO!!!" That's right, Star Trek fans - Stephen and I won't be re-enacting those iconic moments of Captain Kirk versus the Gorn. (I was really looking forward to building that rock cannon and blasting Stephen with it.) :'-(

But - sadly - here we are, on the little part of the map labelled "Fresno", and there's Vasquez Rock Park, just outside that part of the map labelled "Los Angeles", and there's a big wide space in between. If only I had a transporter. Sigh. Guess that's another one that goes on the do-over list for next time.

We drove into Yosemite National Park this morning. It's just over an hour away - starts out through some pretty, rolling countryside, and then turns into the zig-zag express once you start getting nearer to the park. All of those car ads where you see the car veering back and forth along a ribbon of road? Those could all be filmed here.

Before the park gates are even in sight, there's a long line of vehicles crawling forward. This could be a bad sign. But, slowly but surely, we finally reach the park gates, show them our pass, and we're through! I'm sure it's all good now.

Stephen suggests we take the Glacier Pass road first - it's a long, winding drive upward through the forests. There are signs warning about smoke and/or firefighters on the road, but we figure if there were a giant forest fire ripping through the park, they probably wouldn't let us be driving on the road. There are a few smoky sections, though - mmm, smells like campfire. (Not like camps on fire and screaming people, but like happy campfire.)

It's a relatively long drive, but the view from Glacier Pass is spectacular. We can see Half-Dome (which we are not climbing on this trip - someday, we'll come for you Half-Dome, but not today), upper and lower falls nearby, and way way down there is the valley road and the park below. we walk around, take some photos and enjoy the views for a while.

It's all downhill from here (literally and figuratively). It's actually kind of a fun drive - I'm using the engine braking, which means constant shifting - zoom zoom zoom! Back down to the main park road, and we're driving into the park valley. Through the tunnel, and - all of a sudden, there's park staff directing traffic. No stopping at this viewpoint - the parking lot is full. Um, okay. So we have to park on the shoulder and walk back a short distance. Another beautiful view.

Next stop, Bridalveil Falls. A park employee lets in a few vehicles, counts them off, then ropes off the area. Parking lot full. Shoulders on both sides of the road are almost full too. I have to knock a small Mexican family into the river to be able to find a parking spot (What can I say? They shouldn't have been standing there). Now we've got a halfway serious hike back to the parking lot. There are hordes of people here - most of them slow-moving. Hey, there are the falls - they're almost pretty - except for the crowds of people milling around.

There are 2,000 people jockeying for position here. The only one I notice (only because she's a great immovable object in my way) is a chubby little girl who is huffing and puffing and has decided she'll go no further, in spite of the fact that her mom is standing behind her and shoving - "there are people trying to get around; you have to keep going." No idea whether she got to the viewpoint or not - we eventually managed to squeeze around her.

Stephen and I take the "backcountry" way back to our car, since we're way out on the road and not in the parking lot anyway. It probably does end up being shorter, since we don't have to dodge slow-moving pedestrians, but there is a stream in the way, so we end up having to walk across a fallen tree trunk. We manage that without falling in, whoo hoo!

The official weekend view of Yosemite.

Back at the car. Let's get out of this zoo. Drive on... to the next zoo. Even the trailhead parking lots are full. And then we're suddenly in a long long traffic jam, heading for Yosemite Village. It's crazy. Two lanes of traffic, hardly moving at all. At this point, we realize that this is just like being stuck in L.A. traffic, except with better scenery. This bites. You suck, Yosemite!

Okay, we're officially grumpy now. We give up on the visitor centre, give up on seeing anything in the valley, and we slowly wind our way through traffic, trying to find our way out of the park. Not so easy. It took a long time to wind our way in; takes a long time to wind our way back out.

Sidenote: I predict that Yosemite NP will eventually implement a car ban, just like Zion NP did, and the only traffic allowed through the valley will be shuttle buses. Cause it's seriously whackadoodle right now.

Anyway we're very slowly heading out of the park and back to Fresno; maybe we can get back in time to catch the last tour of the Forestiere Underground Gardens. It'll be close - last tour is at 4 p.m., and our GPS is predicting we'll be back at 3:45 p.m. Barring any traffic jams, of course. Fingers crossed!

It's a long winding drive back, shifting up and down as we negotiate the downhill curves. I want to speed, but there are too many people in the way.

And California drivers don't seem to understand passing lanes. In other states, the road sign typically says 'Keep Right Except to Pass.' Most people seem to comprehend that. But, in California, the sign says 'Slower Drivers Keep Right.' California drivers read that and think, "Oh, I'm not going slow," and they stay parked in the fast lane.

We pass them on the left or the right; whatever works. And we actually make it to the Forestiere Underground Gardens just in time for their last tour. Whew! Perhaps we can salvage the day yet. We're almost the only two people on the last tour; at the last minute, a couple from Key West, FL shows up. (We told them we want to drive out there someday.) Still, it's a pretty small tour group, which is nice.

I'm going to use Wikipedia's description of the gardens for you. They are: "an unusual manmade creation built by Baldasare Forestiere, an immigrant from Sicily, over a period of 40 years from 1906 to until his death in 1946. The gardens, while subterranean, have many skylights and catchbasins for water. There is a wide variety of hybrids and grafted trees, and the underground temperature helps guard against frost."

It's a very cool place (literally!). Fresno is pretty hot, but the underground rooms are much cooler. The guy dug them all out by hand, over many many years - the tour guide said that originally there was a giant underground labyrinth of up to 100 rooms. Now, they have only 5 acres left, of which only 2 acres are open for tours. Unfortunately, a lot of it was filled in and paved over by the freeway.

But, way back when, Baldasare dug out a warren of rooms, with skylights so that he could grow citrus trees in the cooler temperatures underground. There are still lots of plants below, growing oranges and grapes, kumquats and lemons, and a whole bunch of other fruits.

The guy was an eccentric, no question, and he took his vision to extremes - but it really is kind of brilliant, too. There are all kinds of catch-basins for the rain, and windows and tunnels for airflow. It's not deep underground - maybe 8-10 feet at most spots; I think the tour guide said the lowest point was about 25 feet underground - and so it's really quite bright in most places. It just looks like you're looking out onto a brick courtyard. And, considering there was no A/C back in those days - I think I'd join him underground where it's cooler.

Well, now we're hungry. It's off to KFC, where we confuse the staff by asking if we get gravy with our fries. No, you don't. I am sad. Because we made them laugh, they give me free gravy. Yay! (Yeah, I know - we're eating a lot of crappy food. What can you do? It's a road trip!)

Tomorrow morning, we're heading out to King's Canyon/Sequoia National Parks, where we hope to have better luck than we had at Yosemite. Go home, vacationing Californians! Wherever you live, I'm sure it's a long drive. You should really go now.

Get Lost! And getting nowhere fast.

2011-09-03T22:45:00.034-06:00

Today was primarily a driving day. First, we drove through Anaheim, where a local ordinance and traffic engineering experts have made it impossible for you to drive for more than a block without hitting a red light. In fact, if you do hit a green light at all, you're probably speeding. If you hit two green lights, they deploy a traffic SWAT team who will take out your tires to disable your vehicle. There's a light on every corner, and almost every one of them is perma-red.

Stephen was searching for a store that sells roof racks, but after driving for 20 minutes, the sports place he'd found didn't sell cargo pods; just bike and boat carriers. So then we ask our GPS to led us to REI, and it leads us to a big box district with no REI. Typical. Whatever. We give up on that idea for now.

Today, we're headed towards Fresno, which seems a convenient base between national parks, since we haven't a clear idea of what to do with L.A. I did want to see Watt's Towers. We input the address, and it calculates a route for us. Unfortunately, the highway department has closed our exit. The GPS recalculates our route, and now we're driving through Long Beach, and over some very big bridges. No scenic views from these bridges - just a long line of massive shipping cranes, and piles and piles and piles of shipping containers. It could almost quality as a park of its own: National Shipping Point. Thread your way through the maze of shipping containers, or climb on top of them.

I become suspicious when the GPS leads us to a nice suburban neighbourhood, with no towers in sight. Where the hell are we? We have no clue. We can't even figure out where we are on the map, because L.A. is too big to show in detail. The GPS can't find 'Watt's Towers' by name (too many things in L.A. for it to search properly), and we don't know the neighbourhoods well enough to narrow the search. Finally, we figure out we've got a typo in the address - it took us to 10th street instead of 107th street. Okay, backtracking now - we finally discover we're in the San Pedro neighbourhood.

Back onto one of California's many freeways. This time, the GPS spits us out near Watt's Towers, as requested, but we don't like the look of the neighbourhood.

Watt's Towers

"Wait," you say, "Watt's what?"

As Wikipedia puts it, they are: "a collection of 17 interconnected structures, two of which reach heights of over 99 feet (30 m). The Towers were built by Italian immigrant construction worker Sabato ("Sam" or "Simon") Rodia in his spare time over a period of 33 years, from 1921 to 1954."

Watt's Towers are very unfortunately located - I think they should be airlifted to a better location. :-) Yes, I know how that sounds - "hey, guys, you've got one nice thing here, and I want to take it away from you, because I don't like the look of your neighbourhood, and I don't feel safe here. No one wants to stop here, cause you're sketchy-looking." (But... it's kind of true.)

We park a short distance away, making sure the car doors are locked, because yes, we're those kind of paranoid, judgy people. The towers are fenced off - there are tours every half hour, but Stephen doesn't want to leave the car that long. Take a few clicky-pictures and we're off.

Corner store on the edge of Compton

Now, we're heading to downtown L.A. Stephen is very dismayed that the GPS has chosen to lead us through the edge of Compton. =:-O I'm a little bit afraid that some one will shoot me if I'm caught taking pictures. I reassure Stephen that the Rough Guide claims we "should be safe during the day." Stephen wants to know the definition of "should be". I tell him not to think about how many guns are probably stashed in glove compartments in the vehicles alongside us. (Yes, paranoid judgy people - that's us. I know.) Safely out of Compton, and back onto the freeway.

What do you think of when you think of L.A.? Swimming pools? Movie stars? No, you think of concrete highways and byways (most of them littered with junk).

Approaching downtown L.A., the traffic gets ridiculously bottlenecked. The main highway is branching off into six different options, and traffic is crawling while people slowly jockey back and forth. Oh, looks like someone had a fender bender under this bridge. Maybe that explains it. But we're still crawling - driving slower than we did on the road to Toroweap. We're about 6 miles away from the Egyptian Theatre, which - at our current speed of 6 mph - means we'll be there in about an hour. Whoo! Hold onto your seatbelts.

Finally, we creep past the second bottleneck: some guy's car has died in one of the lanes. So, one accident and one dud car have throttled traffic for miles behind them. Now it's relatively smooth sailing again. At the first sign of street parking, we park the car and walk out onto Hollywood Boulevard. Yes, almost immediately, there are stars underfoot - we're trekking along their walk of fame.

Hollywood: What a gong show. Parts of it are like a less shiny, more dirty version of the Vegas strip - instead of guys flicking girly cards in your face, you have people hawking sightseeing tours and Hollywood maps. There's a bazillion souvenir shops, tattoo joints, bars.

Walk like an Egyptian...

The Egyptian Theatre is in a quiet mostly-ignored little corner around from a cafe - I think its heyday was in the 1920s. I'd like to see inside, but no go.

Grauman's Chinese Theatre, on the other hand, is a complete zoo. The sightseeing buses are all stopping here and tourists are spilling out. Here are all the street performers, the people dressed up in costume. Dumbledore was crossing the street by us (and he REALLY looked like Dumbledore). There's at least three Darth Vaders; a Marilyn Monroe is standing in the hot sunshine; Iron Man is hanging out with Batman and Wonder Woman; and someone's dressed as a Transformer. I stop just long enough to kick the Transformer in the knee - "I really hated your movie, and I'm still angry about it!" - and we move on.

We stop at a mall, mostly because it has giant elephants perched at the top of some pillars, which seems to give it an air of importance (or ridiculousness - I'm not sure which). There's a Cold Stone Creamery there, so we get some ice cream (brownie batter with M&Ms mixed in), then wander back to our car, stepping on stars as we go. Oh, hey, it's Jimi Hendrix - we remember him from before, so we must be going the right way. Thanks, Jimi! I try not to stomp too hard on him.

Okay, found the car. Now let's get out of here. At this point, L.A. isn't looking like anything more than a pretty big obstacle on our map.

Back onto the freeways, then the Interstate, and eventually out of L.A. Whew. Nice to be back on the road. It's brown and hilly. (When we were driving near downtown L.A., you could only just barely see the outline of these hills through the layers of smog. Ick.)

***

It's a long drive to Fresno, through lots of farmland. Looks mostly like wineries, although there are some corn crops.

Why Fresno? Because it's conveniently located between Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks - at 400K people, it's large enough to have a lot of hotel rooms, without being too large a centre.

Another great thing about Fresno? It has an REI (which is the American MEC), and we finally got our roof-mounted cargo pod. We bought the floor model, carried it out into the parking lot and installed it. Whoo hoo! So much space. The tent and camping equipment are now all stored up in the pod. This means we can open the doors of the vehicles without having things instantly start spilling out. We can tilt back our chairs! We can pick up hitchhikers! We can buy more crap and bring it all home!

It also means that Stephen's big vehicle is now even bigger. We're going to have to calculate his clearance. But it does make the X-Terra really easy to find in parking lots!

We had supper at Logan's Roadhouse. Best dinner rolls ever. It's kind of a bar/restaurant. The food is yum!, but there was so very much food. I waddled out of there, a fat American. I may never need to eat again (but I'll probably eat again tomorrow).

Labour Day is mucking things up again - we're trying to figure out our best bets for tomorrow.

The Happiest Place on Earth...?

2011-09-02T22:55:00.007-06:00

"You've just survived offroad ~~horrors~~ adventures; thunderstorm and rain at the rim of the Grand Canyon; vehicular slalom on the Interstates, and crippling sunburn in San Diego. What are you going to do now???"

"We're going to Disneyland!!!"

Yes, we bunked down in Anaheim last night, and when we had a clear view of the fireworks from our Econolodge balcony, we realized we were closer to the Mouse than we'd thought.

Took a shuttle bus to Disneyland in the morning, and when we got to the gate, lobster-boy (aka Stephen) was granted free admission. OMG, they think he's one of the attractions! "He's not a freak; he's my brother! Why do I have to pay?"

Well, being bitchy may take you places in the military (got me the Captain's chair on the USs Midway), it doesn't fly so well in Disneyland. That place runs on sunshine, happiness and rainbows. It's the "Happiest Place on Earth!" (The giant voice on the loudspeaker says so.) Being angry here is like punching Tinkerbell. So, when I kick up a fuss at the entrance gate, the machinery of the park slowly grinds to a halt as I burn up all the good vibes in the vicinity. Children start to cry. Argh! Not the crying children - I hate that! All right, all right, I'll stop arguing and pay to get in. "How much is it? $10?"

After forking over the $80 admission, I punch another Tinkerbell. "I'd better be happy here," and I glare at the cashier.

We walk into the park, and there's a huge wave of people, all bottlenecking near the entrance, because the park hasn't officially opened for the day. Ta da! There's a big fanfare, and it's open, and we're walking down the street to a ridiculous fanfare of music. I am smirking at the cheesiness of it, and yet, I'm still here.

Quick, to Star Tours, our first ride. The ride has changed since the last time I was here (which must be 15 years ago), and it's now a 3D ride. Highlight was the angry Wookiee sliding off the windshield. Apparently this ride was just retrofitted in June 2011 - almost brand spanking new!

The lineups for everything but Star Tours are pretty short - we had to wait about 15 minutes for Indiana Jones, since they'd had some technical problem just before we got in. That one was a fun ride - sort of like a tamer version of some of Stephen's 4x4 roads. (Seriously, it's the same sort of car movement - the bumpy steps and the hurky-jerky side-to-side movement - only it's all toned down for the ride.) :-)

Unfortunately, Haunted Mansion was closed today, but we caught Pirates of the Carribean, which has had a whole lot of "Jack Sparrow" added in. He wasn't there at all last time.

The Matterhorn was fun, and the Great Thunder Railroad also a fun roller-coaster. Space Mountain felt really fast, and it was a bit disorienting - not sure if it's faster than the other rollercoasters, or if it's just because you can't see anything ahead of you. I have this dazed look of "what's happening?" on my face; Stephen is gung ho. (But look at the guy in the background-- ???!)

For Splash Mountain, Stephen was in the front seat (cause I wasn't dumb enough to take that one), so he got the clear view of the 50' drop right before we went over. Aaarghhh! and splooosh! We all got soaked! Thank goodness it's a sunny day.

We found out there were different planets in the Star Tours ride, so we got a Fast Pass for a later ride (first ride we got Kashyyk, second time was Tatooine. I was hoping for Hoth, but no luck).

I think that Disney must have something along the lines of that Arena software we used to use at work. They've definitely put a lot of work into the fine art of efficiently moving people along (without using cattle prods).

By the afternoon, we were just wandering around and looking at all the stores and the different kinds of merchandise. You've got the cheap kitsch (large market for that!), lots of clothing shops, a crystal shop which sold glass and crystal versions of Disney characters. A Princess Boutique where, if you have a little girl in tow, you'll be dropping a whole lot of money - they had princess costume dresses for about $69 each, plus jewelled slippers or purses, plus an attached hair salon for your little princess to get her hair done. Yikes! Little Princess is going to have to get a job to pay for all that herself, because Rotten Stepmother isn't gonna pay.

We were getting tired, so we wandered into 'Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln' with no idea what it was, but there was a nice auditorium with comfy chairs to sit down in. Sold! Eventually, a Disney film started, rhapsodizing about the awesomeness of Lincoln. And then, the voiceover told us that Lincoln is still alive in the hearts of all who believe (or something like that) - and then the curtain drew back and THERE WAS A ROBOT LINCOLN! HAHAHAHH!!

Sure, it's probably meant to be inspiring, not funny, but still I couldn't help snickering. Robot Lincoln moves! It blinks! It stands up! Good Lord - will it run for public office?! Who can stop Robot Lincoln now???!!!

I kept looking for the string pulling him up - I know robots have a hard time actually standing up - that's why they're usually sitting or standing (or wheeled) - getting up from a sitting position is kind of a complex movement. Maybe there was no string - maybe he had a pole up his butt. Whatever.

Robot Lincoln stood, and he gestured with his little robotic fingers, and he said a little speech. Then he sat down, and the music was inspiring, and the backdrop turned to a field of stars. It was really quite weird.

You know - I'll bet a lot of money that whatever Lincoln figured his legacy would be, he never envisioned a robot version of himself speaking in a theme park headlined by a mouse. I think he prefers to think of the Lincoln Monument. Or maybe his giant head outside Laramie, Co. Now that I think of it, Lincoln has a lot of crap of himself. He's like the Napoleon of the USA (but taller).

Okay, we're done now. Back to the Econolodge and the happy bubbling spa. I love spas!

P.S. When we got back to the hotel, I realized we could see the top of the Matterhorn from our hotel balcony.

The USS Midway and a Surprise!

2011-09-01T23:35:00.019-06:00

(Hey, you ever hear that song, "Wear Sunscreen"? You really should do that.)

Our day starts off in sunny San Diego. I am pleased that today is the first Thursday of the month, but instead of attending a staff meeting, I will be touring the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier anchored in the bay. My first mission, should I choose to accept it, is to find parking. Hmm. It's harder than it would usually be, because they've cordoned off large swathes of parking areas, setting up for a Labour Day weekend "Festival of Sail." Fortunately, there's a pay parking lot alongside the Midway, which is somewhat convenient. Mission accomplished!

I park the car way on the far end of the pier, because it amuses us, then when I get out of the car, "Aargh!" For some reason, I'm miscalculating the angle of the door swing and I keep knee-capping myself when I shut the door. This is the second time I've done it. The first time, I blamed the bruise on an angry billy goat atop Mount Evans - "didn't you see that? He ran up here and butted my knee!" - this time, I blame it on an errant anchor that the Midway just put down. "I know they seemed stationary, but they just dropped one more anchor, and it was swinging a bit. Hit me right here."

$18 to get on the boat - what a bargain! Hey, what's this small print on the ticket that says "Congratulations, you've just enlisted." Must be a typo.

Welcome Aboard the Midway, all you with sturdy knees! They've got those porthole doors everywhere, so you're always stepping up and over. Makes you look like some foot-stomping square dancer. Anyway, it's a self-guided tour, with a recorded commentary you can listen to if you want to. After about two selections of patriotic music, lots of atmosphere and not enough get-to-the-point-ness, I decide against listening to the recording. Instead, we play "let's pretend we're in the navy!" Sadly, it turns out that I am an enlisted grunt, and Stephen is an officer with much better quarters than I. Figures.

Ready for action! (Except for sunscreen, that is.)

But there's ways for me to move up. Jet fighter pilot? Check. Later, at an interactive display in Engineering, I try to balance the power output. The captain wants to fire missiles. I'm trying to reduce engine speed so he's got the other power, but that doesn't work, so I take it from everywhere else. I'm spinning the dials like crazy - the bridge calls back and tells me they have enough power, so "good work!" Problem is, the kitchen is calling me and telling me they have no power and they'll have to serve cold fruit or something, and some other guy is also beaking off because I stole all his power. "Oh, the hell with it. I fail."

I turn around, and there's a whole room full of spectators. (It was an empty room when I started out.)

Since I fail so spectacularly, I go to the brig, to think about where I've gone wrong.

Later on, someone realizes my vast potential for mayhem, and I am promoted to captain. At least, when we were on the bridge tour, the tour guide noted that I seemed like the bossy type - ergo, I got the big boss' chair. I immediately launched all active warplanes and ordered them to attack enemy surfers. (Sadly, there are no active warplanes on board. Mission aborted. For now...)

While we're on the flight deck, we spend some time just admiring the surrounding scenery from our vantage point. There's the Coronado Bridge (which I usually refer to as the "Simon and Simon Bridge"; however, for you fans of the movie Anchorman, this is also the bridge where Will Ferrell's dog is booted off of). It's a tall bridge - there are Navy ships and big cargo ships sailing underneath it.

There's also a lot of sailing ships coming into the harbour (for the Festival of Sail, we presume). BOOM! And they're firing their cannons! Kind of exciting. We don't see any spectator carnage, so presumably they're just using powder and no cannon balls.

Back to the Midway tour: It's a big big ship. And if they weren't cordoning off areas to herd us through in the right direction, you would have tourists lost there for days. We've already spent over two hours wandering around (and yes, it is really interesting. Lots of guides who actually served on these ships).

But the sailboats in the harbour remind Stephen and I that we also planned to tour another boat today - the HMS Surprise (it's the boat used in filming for the film Master and Commander and the Horatio Hornblower movies). So we get permission to go ashore, and we leave the USS Midway (and our military careers) behind.

Off we go, hot-footing it down the harbour. It's midday, and we want to get our tour before the crowds get too thick. Where's our boat? There's an empty space where it should be. Surprise! It's not there. The HMS Surprise is taking part in the Festival of Sail. It's one of the ones we were watching in the bay - probably the one who's shooting at everyone.

We overhear dock guy telling someone else that when it comes back, it won't be available for tours today; no tours until tomorrow. Woe.

So, back to the Midway parking lot to retrieve our car, and we decide to drive out to Cabrillo National Monument (sounds like free admission with our magic park card!) at Point Loma. This is out on the little peninsula that stretches out between the Pacific Ocean and the San Diego Bay. The park pass gets us in, and there's a statue and a visitor center on the side looking towards San Diego. The old Point Loma lighthouse is up on the hill (which is very windy). And there's another set of roads that will take you down to the tidepools on the side facing the Pacific.

We spent a lot of time following the trails by the tide pools and the cliffs, watching the waves come crashing in.

After that, we drove back to Mission Beach to get some supper. It's a lot harder to find parking in the afternoon. I think most people come out in the morning, park their cars, and spend the whole day at the beach. We eventually found some parking about three or four blocks off the beach, and we walked back. Bright and sunny.

I want to eat some fish here before we go, so we go to Joe's Crab Shack, where we have a table facing the ocean. The Maui Mahi I have is freaking delicious. Our waitress is a surfer girl, and she explains to us that although the waves are much higher than usual (apparently, a storm in New Zealand has caused this?), they're not good surfing waves. The sandy base of Mission Beach is too shallow, and so the waves collapse too quickly. Fun for jumping around in, but not surfing. You need a rocky bottom, like the reef shoreline at La Jolla, so that the waves can hold their shape. (And now I've learned more than I'll ever need to know about surfing.)

Some lifeguard is scooting around on a sea-doo in the water, back and forth, and he seems to be herding people inward - apparently, they've had about 5 shark sightings in the last week. But no one's been eaten yet.

By the time we've finished supper, we suddenly realize we've been sitting in the hot sun for a long time, and hey, who forgot to put on sunscreen today? Uh oh. Too late now, the damage is done. That broiling sensation we feel is our skin.

So, it's the end of our stay in San Diego, and we've got a little souvenir to take with us: our San Diego sunburn. Doh!

Off we drive to our Econolodge in Anaheim (making a stop at the local WalMart so Stephen can buy some Aloe Vera lotion).

Goodbye, and stay classy, San Diego. ;-)

Balboa Park & Mission Beach

2011-08-31T23:25:00.000-06:00

Wow, Balboa Park is so beautiful!

As per usual, Stephen's GPS unit led us awry: in its haste to bring us to the visitor's centre for Balboa Park, it wanted us to drive over a pedestrian footbridge. Stephen declined to follow that advice (as the ticket for that would probably be extreme), and we kept driving, eventually pulling into a parking lot to try to figure out where we were. "Oh! I see old buildings! Beautiful old buildings!" And, at that point, I've practically toppled out of the car before Stephen has stopped. "Let's just go see them first; then we can figure out where we are."

We actually ARE in the park already. Balboa Park is larger than Central Park in NY, and we're in the museum district. The beautiful old buildings are from some world fair or expo in the 20s, I think?

We were a bit early - nothing opens until 10 a.m., so we wandered around looking at the buildings and gardens until opening time.

What's it cost? Well, you can wander around the park for free, of course. If you want to see the museums, you have the option of paying per museum (prices range from $3 to $15 for entrance), purchasing a pass that would give us any five museums for $35, or a booklet that entitles us to visit all 14 museums for $45. "Of course," the cashier told us, "you won't be able to see them all in one day." Hah! We museum like we hike. Go go go! Out of our way, grandma - we're on a schedule! :-)

Our first museum (which ended up being one of my favourites) was the Mingei - it reminded me very much of the Folk Museum in Santa Fe. It had some beautiful furniture designed by some famous guy I'd never heard of (so how famous are you REALLY, dude?), at least one hundred of those Japanese waving cats, and a quilt display. We went through about three art museums (El Greco!), and even one of the free art museums, the Timken, had a kickass collection. For the Natural History Museum, we zoomed through the dinosaur part (we have the Tyrell Museum at home, thank you very much), but they also had a gemstone display, and I am like a crow - I am drawn to sparkly things. Wow, some fabulously beautiful jewellery. Wow, so far out of my price range.

Balboa Park

There are also a lot of lovely gardens around. The beauty of the botanical displays was perhaps somewhat lessened by the hordes of screaming brats running around. Hordes, I tell you.

Okay, so not all of the children were screaming brats - but it doesn't take many bad apples to spoil the whole bunch. There was one kid in particular - tone it down five notches, okay? - you're what's called "obnoxious". As are your lame-ass parents. And you - other kid - stop chasing the damn pigeons!! How do you like it when I chase YOU around? Not so much fun now, is it?

Stephen's pick of the museums were the Air and Space Museum, the Railroad Museum, and the Automotive Museum. At the Air and Space Museum, I learned that I weigh 20 lbs on the moon - whoo hoo! On Mars, however, I weigh 50 lbs. I am beginning to suspect that North America's "obesity epidemic" is more likely a problem with the earth's gravitational pull. Think about it: when you wake up in the morning, and it's so hard to get out of bed? Gravity. Maybe it's not your fault you weigh so much; maybe it's NOT the jelly donut you each for lunch every day; maybe it's just gravity.

Our free pass into the science center comes with a free ticket to any Imax film. We just missed the Tornado showing, so we decide on the Hubble instead. While waiting, it's time to eat. Mmm, chili dog and chips - that might well be the messiest thing I ever ate. I'm pretty sure the clerk frowned disapprovingly at me when I went back for a knife and fork. "That's not how you eat a chili dog!"

By 5 p.m. (when the museums close), we'd visited 10 or 11 out of 14 possible museums. Ha ha!

Meanwhile, a US spy satellite drone deployed by the tourism department has identified and red-flagged us. "Don't sell those people any more passes. They use them TOO well." (Yes, our National Park pass has paid off very well for us, too.)

After our museum junket, we wandered through some of the nearby gardens in Balboa Park. There was a very large rose garden, as well as a cactus garden. The park is actually too big to see - there are many many trails there, lots of joggers and cyclists.

Eventually, we hopped back into the car and headed downtown to try to find a mall. Somehow, I lost my cell phone charger (I think it was probably left behind in Hurricane, UT), and I've been rationing power on my cell phone, but it won't last forever. The GPS led us downtown, where Stephen found a mall parkade and drove in. Apparently, I'm the only one who notices the 6'8" clearance bar that we bump out of the way when we drive in. Me: "Stephen, what's your vehicle clearance?" Stephen: "7 feet, I think. Why?" OMG! It's too late. We're inside, I'm ducking down and covering my head as we're just barely skimming below concrete beams. My advice? "Don't hit any bumps!"

Hey, at least he'll have scratch marks on the roof to match the scratch marks on his gas tank.

Apparently, his vehicle isn't quite as tall as he thinks, because we're squeaking through without that distinctive sound of rock grinding metal (I've heard it before, you know). We park, note that we're in the Chili Pepper section of the parkade, then head outside. Hey, where's the mall? We appear to be downtown. This is the gaslamp district. We wander aimlessly for a while, then again, try to find the mall. Eventually, following the pull on our wallets, we do find it - it's an open air mall, instead of the enclosed structures we have, since apparently these guys have perfect weather forever. Bastards.

I purchase a new cell phone charger: mission accomplished. Back to the Chili Pepper parking level, and we pry the oversized X-Terra out of its parking spot and get it safely outside. Whew!

Even though it's getting late, I want to see the ocean, so we drive out to Mission Beach. By some miracle, there is a parking spot near the beach. It's twilight, the sun's completely down, but it's still light enough, so we head out onto the sand. Hello, Sand, my old enemy - nice to see you again.

Then, down into the waves, because it's the freaking ocean, and I want to go see it. Whoosh! Hey, those are big waves, aren't they? Whoooshy-whoosh. Hey, those waves are getting bigger, aren't they?

Stephen at Mission Beach

Oh, the tide is coming in. (Check out our amazing cognitive skills.) Okay, let's maybe move back a bit. A lot. We retreat from the beach, and my sandals are FULL OF SAND. (Well played, Sand, my old enemy.) There's a beach hotel with a pier that's open to the public until sunset. Stephen stops, because it's after sunset. Screw that - we're going anyway. So we march on down to the end of the pier and watch the waves come crashing in for a while. Very nice.

We feel happy about our day - no lightning storms, no cannibals. We weren't swept out to sea, and the closest thing to a road-of-no-return was the parkade, and we managed to squeak through that one as well. All in all, that's a good day!

The Cannibal Flats of California

2011-08-30T23:19:00.010-06:00

This morning, Stephen thought he was going to get an oil change, so he put Jiffy Lube into his GPS. What an optimist! That thing can't find Hoover Dam; what makes him think it can find a Jiffy Lube?

The GPS lead us around to... a tire shop. Oh, so close. But no banana. (Hey, at least it's car-related. The last time he tried to get it to take us to a car wash, it took us to a dance studio.)

Stephen insists the maps are not old - that they're up-to-date as of May 2011. Since the bridge bypass at Hoover opened in October of last year, either they didn't update properly, or Garmin has some pretty crappy maps.

So, we skip the oil change, and head out of Vegas towards Joshua Tree National Park (cause National Parks are free for us!). It's kind of off by itself, so we don't get an Interstate; we have to head south on Highway 95. It's a pretty decent highway in Nevada, but when you cross into California, it downgrades. Also, cheapest welcome sign ever: it's just a standard green highway sign that says "Welcome to California". Methinks California is a bit frayed on the edges.

The other thing you quickly notice is that Nevada evens out its highways so they're relatively smooth. California doesn't bother to fix that. Their highways are like a ribbon - up and down, up and down. Fun at first, but then Stephen fears he's becoming seasick.

This is the far south-eastern edge of California where there is a lot of... nothing. It's bleak and abandoned-looking, and everything is in this washed-out shade of bleached dust.

Stephen and I call this "California's Cannibal Flats." Seriously, it looks like the setting for The Hills Have Eyes. We saw one guy crossing the street in Abandoned McEmpty Town, and he looked hungry. The roadside pullouts that they've provided so that you can look at non-existent views? That's a trap so that the CHUDs can snare the tasty, roly-poly tourists.

The map claims that there are tiny little places we're passing through, but there's nothing there. There's a burned out gas station. No sign of a town. Even the graffiti is weird - teenage zombies have used black stones to write messages on the sides of train track embankments.

Cannibals and/or zombies, I tell ya.

This theory is bolstered as we're approaching the town of Twentynine Palms, which is just before the turnoff into Joshua Tree National Park. Now we see houses, but it's a row of decrepit, tumbledown houses. Shacks and little bombed out structures, and even the road is crumbling. What the hell? This is getting seriously freaky. Fortunately, Twentynine Palms itself seems semi-normal, but I wouldn't want to be living there with the zombie suburbs so near.

When we drive into park, we get info on the trails, and then we mention that we came in through Cannibal-land, and what's with the many miles of shantytown?

Apparently, the government had passed something called the Homestead Act. If people came and settled there, they could get 16 acres of land, with the requirement that they had to maintain a house that was at least 12' x 11'. So, a lot of people did that. And then, once they owned it, what did they do with their 16 acres of dusty land and no water? "Unfortunately, a lot of them resorted to cannibalism. They set up roadside traps for the tourists. You two are lucky you made it through." Yes, we know. Thanks, Ranger! No, sorry, we can't stay for lunch. Next time.

So, Joshua Tree National Park. It reminds me of Saguaro park, except with Joshua Trees, and these weird aggregate rocks. (The hills around here are all just piles of boulders, like they all fell off something bigger. And the big round rocks are all made up of little pebbles. This is an odd corner of the world.)

Skull Rock

Stephen and I hike around the Jumbo Rock Park, and check out Skull Rock. Cool! (And also something that cannibals would think of to lure in tourists. I'm just saying...)

It's hot outside. This part of the park is still in the Mojave Desert. We drive up to the Key Point, where you can look towards Palm Springs, and hey, you can actually SEE the San Andreas fault. Did you know that? I didn't know that. Off in the other direction, we see the Salton Sea, which is a man-made oopsie that became a lake (we saw part of that in an exhibit at Hoover Dam).

After that, we hiked through the Barker Dam trail. Some crazy settlers had once tried to set up cattle ranching here. Now THAT's optimism. Way too rocky, way too dry. The ranchers eventually gave up and moved on.

We finally decided to call it a day, and head out of the park towards San Diego. Out of dusty California to exciting California!

We hit our first four-lane Interstate of this trip. Hey, there's a lot of people driving in California. The Interstate is okay, but when we switch off to a two-lane highway (connecting us to the San Diego Interstate), that's when it gets congested. Two tight lanes, everyone driving 120 kph, and we're all a car length apart. "It's like a video game," I tell Stephen. Vroom vroom - get around that semi; dodge that tan van; uh oh, that car is coming up quick behind us, get out of the way--! Speed limit? What speed limit? You drive the same speed everyone else is driving, or you get ploughed under.

We've gone from the barren cannibal-infested wastelands of California desert to the highly-highwayed constant stream of suburbia. Driving around here is taking some concentration. I'm going to get carpal tunnel from gripping this steering wheel, and I'm getting eye twitches from watching for lane changes. Simon & Simon always looked so relaxed driving around San Diego - I must be doing something wrong. Maybe I need a convertible.

We exit on Hotel Circle, which is (you guessed it) a street full of hotels. To our surprise, it's actually a lot cooler here. We're used to it feeling like an oven when we get out of the car, but it's very pleasant.

As you might expect in Hotel Circle, it's stuffed with hotels. That leaves us with a hotel-based restaurant as our only option for supper, or the hotel-based vending machine. We opt for the restaurant, Pam Pam Grill & Cafe. Mmm, California burger.

After that, we start to plan our next few days. I know what you're thinking. 'Plan? They don't plan.' It's true. Except the long weekend is coming up, and we're a bit wary of being caught without a place to stay. We map out the next few days and actually make reservations up to Sunday night. On Labour Day Monday, everyone should be headed back home, freeing up the motels, and we can go back to our standard "drive into town and pick a place" method of travelling.

Rhyolite & Death Valley

2011-08-29T22:30:00.061-06:00

Stephen and I totally missed out on the Vegas nightlife. We went to bed at 6 p.m. last night, and got up at 6 a.m. today. That's 12 hours of zzzs! Now I feel recovered from Toroweap.

So, of course, it's off to test our luck against Death Valley. (What could go wrong?)
The 95 north out of Vegas is not particularly interesting, except that the map indicates that there's a weapons testing site just on the other side of the mountains (that's where they used to do atomic tests). There are still lots of military bases there. We decide against seeing what kind of welcome we'd get if we drove in and played stupid: "Is this Death Valley? We're looking for Death Valley." Army guy: "It's the valley of death for you, spy!"

Nope. Better not.

We stop to gas up in Beatty, which is just outside Death Valley. It's a tiny little tourist town, but gas will be cheaper here than in the park. Side note: If we'd kept on driving down this highway, we would eventually get to the Extraterrestrial Highway. This confused me, but Stephen says it's because Area 51 is somewhere in Nevada, not in New Mexico. Who knew? (Those military base guys probably knew.) Oh yeah, and this travel agency in Yucca Mountain also knows.

Our first stop is not Death Valley, but the little ghost town of Rhyolite, NV. It was a mining town that started up with the gold rush in 1904, and it had about 3,000-5,000 people by 1907. The mine closed by 1910, the population dropped down to below 1,000, and by 1920 there was almost no one left there. Wow. Boom to bust. Most of the buildings are in the last stage of ruins, but the train station has been kept up, and Ned Kelly's bottle house - the walls are made of bottles! I'd love to take a peek inside - see how the light filters through, but alas, it is a ghost town and there's no one home. The BLM has also fenced off a lot of the sites now (in the past, it appeared to be wide open).

Just off from Rhyolite, there was also a little piece of property called the "Goldwell Open Air Museum". We wandered around and took a look at the sculptures (very cool!), but unfortunately, the building was closed when we were there.

After that, it's a short hop to cross the border into California, and on to Death Valley. I caught a glimpse of an old mine just as we were driving up the hills and into the park. The first thing you notice once you start descending down into the valley is this wide expansive salt flat that spreads over the base of the valley.

The first place we stopped was at the remains of the Harmony Borax Works (they used to mine a lot of minerals in Death Valley). There was a short little trail around the site, which was more than enough exertion in the heat.

At the Furnace Creek Visitor Centre, they've got a thermometer prominently mounted there, because they're the current record-holders for the highest temperature ever reported in North America: 134F (56C), set in July 13, 1913. Sadly, no records are broken today: it's only about 109F (43C) at Furnace Creek today. Oof. And I am apparently only one of three people in the park wearing long pants today (I don't want to burn).

There's a golf course at Furnace Creek, if you want to have a leisurely game in the heat. The visitor centre has tape wound all around their doorknob, so that you don't burn your hand when you grab the handle.

This is where we also discover that, yikes! gas is $5.30/gallon in the park. That exceeds Canadian gas prices (Stephen had calculated those to be around $4.50/gallon). Fortunately, we got cheaper gas in Beatty. Whew!

Zabriskie Point is a spectacular viewpoint of the desert, although you do face a short hike uphill to the viewpoint. :-) After that, we drove the Twenty Mule Team Canyon drive, which is an unpaved road (but it IS a road) - this was also a really cool drive, winding up and around where some of the old mines are located. The other very scenic drive was the Artists Palette (which reminded me of the Painted Desert in Arizona) - very beautiful multi-coloured hills.

But the hottest highlight of Death Valley was our little hike out to Badwater Basin. This is the lowest elevation in the US at 282ft (86m) below sea level. When we parked, there was a sign halfway up the rock face behind us, labelled "Sea Level". It wasn't a long walk, but I grabbed my water bottle anyway and clipped it to my belt.

Whew! It's HOT. Every time you open the door, it's a blast of heat. There's a hot wind blowing, like a little convection oven. Make that a big convection oven. We're walking out onto the salt flats at Badwater. It's very hot. Stephen checks his super-accurate lab thermometer (yes, he had permission to borrow it), and it's 52C. Fifty-freaking-two. By the time we turn around to go back, I decide to take a swig of my precious water - bleargh! We've been out here for maybe five minutes, and it's now the temperature of hot tea. Guess I should have got the insulated Sigg water bottle.

After that, our only stop was the Ashford Mill ruins (I like ruins!), and then we were driving out of the park towards Shoshone, and eventually Las Vegas. There's not much on the road, it's pretty empty until we're approaching the Interstate, and the small town of Baker.

Then I discover that we're near Zzyzx, which I want to see, and which is in the opposite direction of Vegas. This spurs a peculiar "who's on first, what's on second" imitation as we discuss "east of Baker... no, Barstow... but that's to the west... no, that's Baker, not Barstow." Baker/Barstow, east/west; we're not sure where we're going. Until we see the signs for the Alien Fresh Jerky store, at which point, everything is on hold: we slam on the brakes, go inside, and buy some Abducted Cow Jerky. (We're suckers for aliens.)

Eventually, having sorted out that we should go WEST from BAKER, we drive to the exit to Zzyzx, and I get my picture. We cruise over Zzyzx Road. Is that all there is? Somehow I want more. But there is no more. Zzyzx is gone, and only the signs remain. So sad. :'-(

We're too late in the day to visit the Mojave, but the Interstate runs alongside it for a long distance, so I get a peek at it. Back into Nevada, which immediately welcomes us with a flashy obnoxious casino right at the border. It's night by the time we're hitting Vegas again. We accidentally turn onto the strip for one block, before we get ourselves turned around and back to the Ramada. And that's it for Vegas. (We kind of snubbed it this time.)

Dam! (It's hot outside.)

2011-08-28T17:26:00.046-06:00

When we finally escaped Toroweap, the first sign of civilization on the highway was the Pipe Stream National Monument. What is it monumentalizing? Basically, some Mormon settler jerk appropriated the local water source from the Indians, then they (not surprisingly) killed him three years later, then the Mormon settlers built a fort around the water supply. Um, who's the bad guy in this picture? Anyway, it pleases me to see that this is now all Paiute reservation land.

We're not going in to see the exhibits, so we just stop in the parking lot to empty our garbage and our recyclables. But we're a bit tired, so when we drive away, it takes a while to realize that we've left the back hatch of the vehicle open. Oops. We then have to circle back to make sure nothing fell out. Yes, it feels we've been going in circles for a while now.

Before leaving, we stop to buy cheap gas from the Paiute indians. Thank you, Paiute! I will speak kindly of you.

By now we think we've experienced enough natural adventures - it's time to head for the plastic paradise of Vegas. "Viva Las Vegas!" Stephen asks why I even want to go, since I don't drink, I don't gamble, and I don't like stripper joints. But every time Elvis sings "Viva Las Vegas," he convinces me just a little bit. You know what's great about Vegas? Cheap hotels, baby.

Thankfully, we've left the rocky roads behind us, and we're now driving down a speedy paved Interstate. Still, I've never seen so many tire blowouts. We passed at least four vehicles that had lost a tire, one of which blew out just in front of me, leaving a lovely ribbon of tire on the road.

When we reach Vegas, it's too early to check into any hotels, so we set the GPS for the Hoover Dam. Sure, it's an unreliable GPS, but we figure the Hoover Dam doesn't move around much, so even if the maps are out of date, it should be able to find it. The GPS leads us through the north end of Vegas, which seems a bit sketchy. The houses are smaller, some of them needing repair, but it's the bars on EVERY available door and window that really drive the point home. Yikes. This must be Jacqueline's old neighbourhood. ;-)

Our not-so-trusty GPS takes us to where it knows Hoover Dam is. But it doesn't know about the new road, and it's confused. We bypass Hoover Dam on the giant new bridge, and our GPS thinks we're offroading. Swearing at the GPS about the dam road, I find a dam turning lane, get the car pointed in the right dam direction and try to find the dam visitor centre. Success! We're finally at the Hoover Dam Visitor Centre. $7 for parking, and $30 for the Dam Tour. Yes, I want the Damn Tour.

It is super-hot outside. Scorching, sidewalk-radiating heat. I'm suddenly wishing I had short sleeves.

The tour is actually pretty interesting. They start with an inspirational film, with the Hoover Dam trying to exhort me to do better, more noble things with my life. After that, there's a few display areas you can walk through. (Yikes, they were hard on their workers - those guys worked 7 days a week, and 363 days a year.)

For the tour itself, we go inside the dam, where we stand over one of the water intake pipes - you can feel the vibrations through the floor. We also got to go into one of the turbine rooms, and look out through one of the ventilation shafts on the side of the dam. They explain how everything works and lead you through several different areas. A lot of the dam is decorated with marble and has a lot of art deco touches. It's pretty snazzy for a dam.

Then we're back outside, on top of the dam. Tour's over; get lost.

Interestingly enough, even though the dam looks freaking massive, Stephen points out that it's only 750 feet high, whereas the drop-offs from Toroweap were 3,000 feet. Huh. I hadn't thought of it that way, but he's right.

Now it's late enough in the afternoon that we can head back to Vegas and get a hotel.

This time, we're not staying in one of the casino hotels. I want Internet, and I'd like free breakfast, and because we've got so much luggage, I don't want to have to trek a full mile into the hotel from some parkade.

So we picked the Ramada, which is about a block or two off the strip. We got the best room ever (by our standards, anyway)! We're on the ground floor, the first room from the entrance. From where we parked, the room is probably 20 feet away. Whoo hoo! Time to unload that baggage car - but it's never been so easy to do (excepting, of course, the motels where you can park right outside your door).

We've got a fridge, a room that faces a tree and a nearby wall (lots of shade), A/C and lots of electrical outlets. We even have a roof that deflects lightning, and a bed we can lie down on. Wow - it's like paradise.

Now, time to go to sleep. Zzz.

Thunderbolts & Lightning: Very Very Frightening

2011-08-28T09:19:00.035-06:00

When did our camping trip at Toroweap all start to go wrong? I don't know - maybe we misinterpreted the earlier harbingers of doom (the buzzards, Stephen feeling sick, fire ants biting me with their fiery biting bites).

It was late by the time we made our supper over the campfire (thanks, Mountain House freeze-dried foods!). Stephen stumbled over a tree trunk in the dark, falling on his face and sending chunks of his yummy-smelling chicken dinner flying everywhere. Great. Now we can expect the coyote to come back.

We'd been alternating between watching the stars start to come out, and watching the light from faraway thunderstorms on the south side of the Grand Canyon. Looks like several different storms, actually. Impressive lightshow, very far away - which was how we were hoping it would stay. Then we noticed that the stars were disappearing - clouds were moving in. Uh oh.

We climbed into our tent, apprehensively noting the increasing amount of lightning. Hmm. The tree that had once seemed a friendly source of shade for our tent now seemed to be a rather dangerous lightning rod. When the wind picked up significantly and the storm was obviously moving in fast, Stephen and I bailed from the tent and ran for the vehicle. Wind and lightning.

There was so much lightning, so much closer than I usually see it. So much closer than I want to see it. And, during one of the lightning strikes, Stephen noticed the tent was moving, so he turned on the car lights to get a better look. Our tent was starting to fly away on us. The campsites are rock and sand, and you can't use the tent pegs consistently (too many rocky surfaces below). We jumped out of the vehicle, grabbed four large stones and threw one in each corner of the tent to hold it in place, then ran back to the car. That worked for a while, but the tent was leaning over like the Tower of Pisa, and Stephen decided we'd be better off collapsing the tent completely rather than let it get blown to pieces.

So, out again loosen the poles, throw another rock on top of the deflated tent, then run back to the vehicle again (because there's lightning everywhere, and we're on the high ground next to the rim of the Grand Canyon. Really not the best place to be during a thunderstorm). We back the vehicle up a little bit, just to put some distance between us and the ~~lightning rod~~ tree.

And then it starts to rain. I don't want rain. I really don't want rain. That 62 mile road we drove in on? It can wash out in the rain, which would mean no way out.

But it was most definitely raining, and now we had a flattened tent, which meant we were going to be sleeping in the car (if you can really sleep while waiting to die by a lightning strike). I spent my time counting the distance between lightning and thunder to determine the distance, although it wasn't a comforting pastime. Way too close.

It was stifling hot in the car. Sometimes, we'd open the window a bit, if it wasn't raining too much, or if the lightning wasn't too near. Other times, Stephen would just start the vehicle, run the A/C for a while and turn on the headlights to peek at our sad little deflated tent.

Every now and again, Stephen would say, "I think the storm is passing." I'd tell him to shut up, because he was jinxing us, and sure enough, two minutes later, there'd be another crack of thunder and another onslaught of rain.

I don't want to be hit by lightning. I have lots of potato chips to live on, but I don't want to be stranded at Tuweep. Right now, I'd happily take that dingy little hotel room in Fredonia, complete with partying Mexicans.

Have you ever tried sleeping in a car? Sure you have. One stuffed to the gills with camping gear, so that you can't recline the seat very far? How about a car sitting high on the cliffs while three (or four) thunderstorms roll through? It's profoundly uncomfortable. It's worse than an airplane. (Although maybe not worse than an airplane in a storm - I'm not sure about that one.)

I am cursing the thunderstorms for being here, cursing them for not moving on, cursing Arizona for it's fantastically bad forecast of "30% chance of thunderstorms." 30%, my ass! There's a whole row of them lined up! How could you not see that coming?

It rained for at least two hours. I can't sleep, so I just alternate uncomfortable positions. Even so, I think when you're that tired, you get little microsleeps - no deep restful sleep, but I keep imagining that I was escaping Toroweap. A helpful ranger tells me to pull into the visitor centre or something like that. And then there's another bolt of lightning, and the more awake part of my brain reminds me that no, there's no visitor centre. There's no paved road. There's no building (unless you want to hide in the outhouse).

It was around 11 p.m. when we first retreated to the car. By 3 a.m., there's a break in between storms, and Stephen and I get out to pack up what we can of our ruined camp. The tent is soaked, as is one of the sleeping bags. There's still lightning flashing around, so Stephen hangs the tent pieces and the sleeping bag in a tree to hopefully dry out, and we go back into the car.

By 4 a.m., it seems there's only one faraway storm left floating around out there.

By 5 a.m., I'm thinking the sun can't rise quickly enough for me. I want to get out of here. I hope the roads will LET me get out of here.

By 6 a.m., the sun has finally risen. We're both up, and gathering our things together. Neither of us has slept, and we feel like crap. Across the campsite, I can see the other people's tent has also disappeared - either it took off on them, or they also dismantled it and hid in their car.

Our original plan was to do a few hikes before leaving Toroweap, but since we've slept a combined total of about two hours, that's not going to happen. We stagger around like zombies, pack everything up and decide to try to get out. I'm all stressed out and tired, and it's a million times slower driving out. Once we're out of the rocky section, we still can't relax, since it's the 25 miles of flood plains we're worried about.

However, it's encouraging when we see a truck coming from the other direction. He pulls over, and it's an Arizona Game & Fish department truck - he tells us that the roads are a bit muddy but we won't have any trouble getting through. Whew! Now we can start breathing again. Fortunately, the storm must have followed the canyon, rather than moving inland to the flood plains.

Still, we're not happy until we're back on the main highway. It takes us about three hours to drive out, but finally we're back to paved roads.

You know what? I like National Parks, and I like well-maintained roads. I think I'm done with primitive roads and back country. It's too freaking stressful if I think I can't get out.

And I still think I'm going to kill (or at least kick) a weatherman.

Toroweap: To the Edge of the Canyon

2011-08-27T21:38:00.007-06:00

When driving through Utah, I remember why I loved it so much - the hills are just so unique. Stratified layers of red and white and green, carved away into different configurations by infrequent rainfall.

But this morning, it's goodbye to Utah for a while, as we're heading into Arizona for Toroweap/Tuweep Point in the Grand Canyon park. Before leaving, Stephen checked on the Internet and looked up the phone numbers for the ranger's station (or what Stephen calls "The Lone Ranger", since there's one ranger stationed out there).

Stephen programmed the GPS with the latitude/longitude coordinates for Toroweap - we're taking the Sunshine Road near Fredonia, as it's considered the most reliable route. It's 61 miles of gravel road (about 100km).

Near the beginning of the road, we actually interrupt a cattle drive; the cowboys helpfully herd the cows off the road, and the cows look reproachfully at us for displacing them.

After that, the road unwinds for a long time through low rolling hills of rock and sagebrush. We pass through a 25-mile floodplain, with hills all around. Then the scenery starts to get greener, a lot of sagebrush and small trees. But the road gets rougher as it goes. As we go along, there are a lot of stones on the road. You can't avoid them all - you have to pick your rocks, and hope to avoid any of the sharp pointy ones. They're all trying to take you out - this road is notorious for tire punctures, and we see strips of tires on the side of the road to prove it.

No cell coverage or Internet (duh!) out here, but Stephen's Sirius satellite radio is happily broadcasting. I'm singing along to the 80's on 8. :-)

Near the turnoff to Mount Trumbull, some mudderfarker comes flying through at high speed at a cloud of dust, just missing us. Asshole. Hope he slows down now (or loses a tire. That would be okay, too). You know where the roadkill comes from on this road? Guys like that. Speed limit is 35 or lower for a reason.

OMG, we just saw a buzzard!

By the time we reach the Tuweep sign, we're hitting the "bad" stretches of road. Lots of rock, and you have to drive a lot slower. The worst is really in the last 10-mile stretch up to the camp - when the signs say primitive road, it means "lots of rocks" and "big rocks". That's when you need the 4x4.

Even so, the road isn't anywhere near as scary as the trail we'd tried in Arches. It's just slow going.

We finally reach the campsite! There are ten free camping sites available, first-come, first-served. we were the first (almost the only) to arrive, so we had our pick. And we picked campsite #2, which had a nice little tree to throw us a bit of shade. From the camp site, it's a half-mile walk (or drive) to the rim of the Grand Canyon.

The views are spectacular. There are no guard rails, no walkway; you just pick your way over the rocks, inch a bit closer to the edge, and you've suddenly got a 3000 ft vertical drop down to the bottom of the canyon, where you can see the Colorado River below. I think this is one of the few viewpoints where you can actually see the Colorado River.

We wandered around a bit, but the sun was high overhead and it was quite hot, so we headed back to camp. Stephen wasn't feeling well; it might have been the after-effects of hiking Angel's Landing, or it might have been that we were hiking around in the 40C heat. We got the tent set up, and he took some drugs and lay down for a while. There were ominously rumbling clouds in the afternoon, but they passed us by.

I asked him if he wanted to leave, but he said no (because he didn't want to ruin the experience). After resting, he eventually felt better.

The squirrels around the campsite are quite inquisitive (expecting food, I'd say), and are quite fun to watch as they run and play. They were crawling up into the wheels of Stephen's vehicles, probably to munch on some leftover grasshopper bodies. Some kind of bluebird was also hovering around our camp, but wasn't nearly as demanding as the squirrels. We did see a coyote saunter by, but he was pretty elusive.

Oh, and a fire ant got into my sandal and bit my foot (there was a colony of them next to our campsite), and it burned! Burned lke fire! Hence, the name, I suppose. Stupid ant. I changed back into my runners.

We hiked back out to Toroweap Point to watch the sunset. There were several people out there: two professional photographers perched on the ledge, and three other people who'd staked out rocks of their own. We wandered back and forth, and headed back before it got too dark.

There was one other couple at the campsite, a good distance away from us.

By 9:00 p.m., the temperature had dropped to 28C, and Stephen and I were sitting and watching lightning strikes from a faraway thunderstorm across the Grand Canyon. So far away we couldn't hear anything, but it was quite the lightshow. Crickets chirping, and bats flying around. Time to get our fire started, have some supper and go to sleep.

Zion: Angel's Landing

2011-08-26T21:30:00.018-06:00

As you may or may not recall, on our road trip last year, we stopped in Zion, and I was in awe at the beautiful mountains. After a brief stop in the visitor's centre, we hopped in our car and prepared to take the scenic drive through Zion - only to realize that we were driving OUT of Zion (too much construction, couldn't turn the car around). Too late, we learned that cars are not allowed on the park roads - you have to take the Zion buses.

"Ye-ahh, we wept - when we remembered Zion..." (Musical interlude by Boney M)

This time, we know better. We get to the park early in the morning, and board one of their talking buses (you know, the tour bus with the recorded track discussing the history of the park, the upcoming stop and what's available).

The bus tells us that Angel's Landing is so named because one of the early settlers believed that its peak was so inaccessible that only an angel could alight upon it. The bus continues to warn everyone that the trail is strenuous, with exposure to steep cliffs, and that if you are afraid of heights, you should not go; fatalities have occurred here, and your safety is your responsibility. (This bus is quite disapproving.) Stephen and I already know all of this, but we see other people's eyebrows being raised, and a few of them are shooting dirty looks at their hiking partners (who snicker evilly).

The bus stop for the Angel's Landing hike is The Grotto, and almost everyone gets off the bus at this point. Yes, it's a popular trail. In spite of the bus' warnings. "Why don't they listen to me?" he sighs, as he chugs away.

It's a 5-mile hike in total. The trail starts out with a two-mile climb up through the trees and onto the West Rim trail. Thank goodness it's early in the morning, because constantly trekking uphill is tiring. Very steep, very tiring. Fortunately, you get a break when you hit Refrigerator Canyon: that's where the trail curves behind the mountain, and it is refreshingly cool and mostly level. Here's where you catch your breath, because when the trail winds back around, you're facing the steep uphill climb of Walter's Wiggles (switchbacks cut into the mountain by a park employee back when the park was opened).

We start strong, but by the end, the Wiggles are killing us. Head down, trudging upward, like we're climbing stairs. Steep stairs. Stephen's taking shots off his asthma puffer.

Finally, the Wiggles end, and we're at Scout's Landing. Our first objective is to find a rock in the shade and sit down, guzzle some water and try not to melt. Another exhausted hiker staggers over to sit down next to us, and we briefly discuss fatality rates in the park (because, yes, I did research those before doing this hike, although eventually I had to stop reading because it was freaking me out).

Once we've caught our breath and the heart rate has come down a bit, we head towards the Angel's Landing trail. We're already running into people turning back from Angel's Landing. One woman tried it, but once she reached the gaps in the chains, she turned back. Another man told us he started and turned back because he'd "tested his life insurance policy enough already today."

We walked out towards the Angel's Landing part of the trail (it's only a half-mile to the top, but it's narrow AND steep). Yikes. Stephen was hesitant and more inclined to turn back, but I was committed to at least trying it. Still, it is an intimidating sight. A long, narrow ridge lined with people clinging to its side with the aid of chains bolted into the rock. We're about to set out, and have to wait a moment as yet another couple turns back and retreats.

Stephen starts out ahead of me, and we're both hanging onto the heavy chain, because it's our best friend in the whole wide world. I'm not happy when I reach the first gap in the chain. "What the f#@%? Why is there no chain here?" I knew there were gaps, I just really didn't like it when we hit the first one.

Okay, so we're creeping carefully along over the sandstone. There's a few slippery parts in the no-chain section. It's okay; we're moving slowly. And then there's another route of chains, and I take hold and keep going.

Our climbing strategy? I didn't look down at all, just tried to remember to keep "three points of contact", and was constantly watching my handholds and footholds. Also, keep sucking back water from the platypus bag in my hiking backpack.

Although it's listed as a hike, the Angel's Landing part is more climbing than hiking. It is strenuous, up up up. Not trudging up, but grab the chain and haul your ass up, using both arms and legs to clamber up over big rocks. Some of the rocks seemed to have little round footholds, but I eventually realized they weren't real footholds - just places where the rain had eroded the rock (sandstone is not all that strong; you can break some pieces off in your hand).

I am having to pause a lot, not because I'm scared, but because I have to catch my breath. But I do make sure I'm only pausing in a place where I've got a sturdy grip on the chain.

There's the Step of Faith, which is 3' wide, with 1000' dropoff on both sides. I've seen it on the Internet, and I know what it is, and I cross over it without looking down.

On top of Angel's Landing

I'm actually a bit surprised when we finally reach the top. No more climbing? Awesome! It is really beautiful up here. Stephen and I sit down and take a break. There are people all over the place; some lying down, some posing for photos, one particularly daring/crazy woman who is creeping down the slope to get better photos, and a lunatic standing posed on a crazy small outcropping.

I'd thought the descent would be scarier than the ascent, as I could now see where we were going, but for some reason it wasn't. Stephen and I took no photos on the way up, but stopped and posed multiple times on the way down.

Stephen descending from Angel's Landing

Once we were back at Scout's Landing, I got out the trekking poles for the rest of the descent (I was really feeling my knees by that point, and the poles take a lot of stress of the legs).

Back down into the valley, and back to the bus stop. Whoo hoo! Survived.

Our next stop was the Temple of Sinawava, which had a river hike up to the Narrows area. We also stopped at Weeping Rock, which has a huge rocky overhang, and a constant stream of water from a rockspring comes raining down.

By now, Stephen's done in (he doesn't have my cycling legs). We hop back on the buses, which take us back to the visitor centre. We're suddenly doing an impromptu hike as we realize we've lost our vehicle somewhere in the sprawling parking lot. It's 103F. Eventually, by process of elimination, we find the vehicle. Whew!

Back to Hurricane, and we decide to go out for supper (instead of eating chips). We stopped at a trendy little place called Barista's, which is a restaurant, not a coffee shop in spite of its name. All fresh ingredients, mostly organic. Very delicious food!

We asked the waitress if she knew why the town was called Hurricane, and she said she'd actually recently read an article about it. A whirlwind blew off the top of a buggy that one of the early settlers was driving, and he said, "Well, that's a Hurricane! That's what we'll name this place." LOL!

Hurricane might not be an exciting town, but it's close to Zion without the Zion prices. I'd definitely stay there again. Tomorrow morning, we're off to Toroweap!

Adventure (?!) in Arches

2011-08-25T17:15:00.133-06:00

Note: This is a long one, but it's a good one. "Good" being a relative word that sometimes means "very bad".

We got into Moab last night around 9 p.m. By that time, it was fully dark outside, but still hot hot hot outside. Oh, Utah, I'd forgotten how hot you can be. (Cue Hudson pointing out "But it's a dry heat." Yes. Yes, it is. But it's still frying pan hot out there, even at night.)

This morning, we had breakfast at Denny's (yeah,I know - caloric overload), then drove into Arches. First hike was an easy one - Park Avenue, one of the first stops in the park. It's called Park Avenue because the large monolithic slabs of rock reminded people of the walls of buildings in New York city. It was still early, so the sun was still behind the east wall, which meant part of the trail was in the shade. Beautiful! It's a one-way trail, not a loop - either someone picks you up at the other end, or you turn around and hoof it back on your own. We hoofed it (a bunch of weenie tourists had their tour bus waiting for them on the other side. Amateurs.)

I wanted to revisit double arch, but we had a hard time finding it - couldn't remember where it was. So we drove out to the Delicate Arch viewpoint, where we could see the Delicate Arch from a distance. I remember when we did that hike - it was a cloudy day, thankfully. We had no idea how lucky we were, because that was our first time in Arches. Now, under a hot sun, we're breaking a sweat even making the short ascent up to the Delicate Arch viewpoint.

On to Devil's Garden. We decided it was too hot a day to attempt the back arches that I want to hike, so they're on the do-over list for next time (yes, next time). Instead, Stephen wanted to try out his vehicle's off-road capabilities. We take the Salt Flats gravel road out to the Klondike Bluffs, which are an impressive stand of red and white rock formations. They're actually pretty remote from the rest of the park. We're going to do the Tower Arch trail, which is listed as "strenuous" (we're training for Zion), and then we'll drive back on a 4x4 trail which will eventually take us back to Balanced Rock.

The Salt Flats road is not paved; it's a 13 km gravel road, with slippery spots and several annoying washboard sections. Tower Arch is a 5.5 km round trip hike, one way in, same way back out.

When we finally get to the Klondike Bluffs, there's only one other car in the parking lot. Like I said, this is remote. We start off on the trail, and right away we're climbing up the bluffs, climbing over box-sized rocks, like a steep stairscase. whoo, hot. We're taking our time, looking for rock cairns (because sometimes we go too fast and "anticipate" where the trail is, and then we eventually find out we're horribly mistaken. Cairn, cairn, cairn. Just like in Wyoming, we keep ascending to other plateaus, except there's another beautiful view beyond each.

We get to the edge of the Marching Men rock formations, then head down into the valley. It's hot. Cross the valley, then start going uphill again. There's super-soft sand, really fine squishy beautiful sand that you'd find on some tropical beach somewhere. You know what's not fun? Hiking uphill in sand. It's really, really difficult. We're both huffing and puffing and sucking back water by the time we reach the top. Stephen finds a massive rock that's throwing a bit of shade for us to rest in. Then we go the last little stretch to Tower Arch. It's huge. And, because of the way the rock slabs are placed, it's completely hidden unless you hike in and around to see it. We climbed up to sit down in the shade of rocks below the arch, and sat down to catch our breath for a while. "Hello!" and it echoes back 'hello'. "Help!" Stephen yells, and it helpfully repeats that back to him. (In retrospect, maybe that should have been considered a bad omen?)

Time to go. We put our packs back on and take out our trekking poles for the return trip. It's much easier to go downhill on sandy slopes. Oh my goodness, it's hot, and it's a long way back to the Marching Men. Once we finally get back to the Marching Men, we know the end is in sight (which is one of the nice things about straight trails - you already passed through, so you know where you are). The trekking poles earn their keep on the way down the very steep stone "staircase" - extra footing.

Another car has pulled into the parking lot - we chat with the two for a bit before they head off on their hike, and we head to ~~our doom~~ the back loop of the 4x4 road.

It starts out as a red dirt road. Nothing the X-Terra can't handle. At first. Then we're heading upward. Then we're confronted with what I would call a f#@%ing big obstacle. It's several big boulders, surrounded by mostly washed away sand. We can't get over that. We can't. It's not possible.

But Stephen thinks we can, and he says I should get out and be his spotter. I try to wave him up the hill, but the vehicle keeps bouncing and sliding back. If at first you don't succeed, try try again. Which he does, and finally manages to vroom up over the impassable rocks.

I tell you, I wish I had been filming it. I'd filmed his first attempt, but then realized I needed to be more overtly directing him, so I stopped. But you know those ads where cars are effortlessly bouncing over those big rocks in wilderness settings? It was like that, but much scarier - there was a point where the left front tire and the right back tire were free-floating entities, which he does a weird diagonal balancing act and then fortunately found solid ground again.

Like I said, I wish I'd been filming it so I could have showed it to him. He said he could tell it was scary by the look on my face. Big wide eyes, horrified expression, and the "oh no" gesture where you put your hands over your mouth.

However, crisis averted. Onward and upward, right? Right. Because now we don't have much choice - we can't get back that way, right? The trail says North-South direction is recommended, and that's the way we're headed, so we figure we have to keep going. It'll get better.

But we keep driving upward over these horrible bumpy rock stairs. The vehicle is yawing back and forth. In the reality show of my life, the censor is busy bleeping out my speech. "This is not a road. F#@%! This is not a f#@%ing road!" The vehicle grinds as it bottoms out again. "Sonuvabeach! Where's the gas tank on this vehicle?" Stephen suddenly regrets not getting skid plates on the bottom of his vehicle.

And how long does this 'road' go on? We haven't even travelled one mile yet, and I'm scared. I've got that 'I'm really scared' queasy feeling in my stomach, because all of my internal organs are busying tying themselves in knots. I'm afraid we're going to tip, or roll, or lose a tire. I'm also afraid because there's no one else out here. Do the rangers patrol these stupid trails at night? It's 39C outside.

We stop the car and scout ahead a little way. More and more of those rock steps, now going downhill. Problem is, we have no idea how long this "bad" part goes on - whether it's a short patch, or half the way, or all the way.

The hell with it - I want to go back. We argue briefly about it, not in the "I want to do this and you want to do that" way, but in the sense that neither one of us knows what we should do.

Stephen finally figures that going back is a known quantity, whereas going forward is a total unknown, so we decide to turn back. Fortunately, we had stopped in an area where we were able to turn the vehicle around without doing a 23-point turn. We're heading back, which (known quantity or not) is still not an easy task.

Eventually, I have to get out and run ahead of the vehicle, directing him over the rocks, and tossing the smaller ones out of the way. We're making good progress, but there's still that horrendous rock obstacle standing between us and freedom.

It's freaking hot outside, and I am running in front of a car, throwing stones off the road. This is what prisoners on a chain gang do. But I'm so much happier to be doing that vs. sitting inside the vehicle and hanging on for dear life as it rocks back and forth. That probably says a lot about how much fun we were having then.

If we bomb out here and the vehicle gets stuck, we're going to have to hike out, but I'm thinking that at least we're close enough now to the trail head that we've got a chance of getting back to the road before the other two hikers finish Tower Arch trail, and then maybe they'll see us. Hopefully, it doesn't come to that, but they're the only other people out here.

This is NOT a road.

We stop at the boulders, study them for a while, and I think I've found the only safe path out. We have to skirt along the edge of one boulder, without falling into the sand pit next to it, then (right at a certain point when on top of the boulder), Stephen has to crank the wheels and make a sharp turn to avoid the other sand pit. All while heading sharply downhill.

We got the vehicle lined up; he started down, then I made him stop and readjust because it was slightly off. Stephen wasn't at all happy during this part, but he kept going when I kept waving him on. From his perspective, it was really scary, because he couldn't see the road at all, and the vehicle is teetering on an incline he can't see and dropping downward, and he was afraid he was going to roll or do a noseplant. However, the vehicle lurched and bounced safely past the rocks, and how we didn't lose a tire, I don't know.

Thank you, God! I am ready to kiss the sandy ground in front of us, and maybe erect a shrine there, dedicated to all stupid drivers who attempt things they shouldn't attempt to do. Freedom! Shiny, happy, mobile freedom! We are SO relieved, you have no idea. Or, after reading this, maybe you have a little idea. (By the way, the picture above does not do it justice, but it gives you an idea of the incline and the size of the rocks.)

After our escape from 4x4 hell, the gravel rounds seem like the happiest roads on earth. And then when we're back to Devil's Garden and PAVED roads! So fabulous. And safe.

We drive back to visit my favourite, Double Arch. It's beautiful. We hike up to the arch and climb into the middle and sit in a shady spot. Happiness.

After that, Stephen's too tired for any further hikes (although we do walk the super-easy paved pathway around Balanced Rock).

Then it's goodbye to Arches. I love you, Arches, but I'm afraid it's not mutual - you always try to kill us. :-(

The rest of the day is thankfully anticlimactic. Our last to-do (for this visit to Moab) is a scenic drive down Highway 128. It winds around right behind Arches. When you're driving there, you see how they set the boundaries for the park: there's a giant impassable wall of rock that goes on and on, and one side of that wall is Arches NP, and the other side is the rest of the world.

There are a lot of hiking trails on this side, and there's a river running alongside the highway, with busloads of people coming and going to whitewater rafting, or kayaking. (Add to to-do list for next Moab trip.)

We drive out to Fisher Towers, with a wee bit of offroad trail. "THIS is a road," I remark. Washboard and sandy, but it's entirely passable. We take a few pictures at Fisher Tower, then hop back in the car when the clouds overhead start thundering. I'm wary of being near any washes if it starts raining.

Then it's over to Castle Valley to see the Castleton Tower. You can climb it, if you're a freaking rock climber. Hey, we're not rock climbers. No more adventure for us today, please.

Back to Moab, fill up with gas (apparently the gas tank is still intact), buy some munchies, and back on the I70, heading west on another long drive towards the little town of Hurricane (and Zion tomorrow).

Because, after today's misadventures, what could go possibly wrong in a town called Hurricane?

Driving to the Sky, Part 2

2011-08-24T17:18:00.013-06:00

It's about 1:30 p.m. by the time we've finally reached Idaho Springs, CO, where we're hoping to drive up another mountain. (Why? Why not?)

Despite the cloudiness of the day (it looks like it's been raining), when we get to the turnoff, the sign says the road to Mount Evans is open. Yay! So now, after that long drive descending down from Rocky Mountain National Park, we're now driving back up again. Up and up. As you might imagine, it's a bit of a circuitous road, with a lot of switchbacks.

Surprisingly, there are many private residences on the way, and then there's a state park (Echo Lake) even higher up the road. It's just past the state park where you access the road up to the peak, which is a pay zone. To our surprise, they accept National Park Passes. Whoo hoo! It's a free ride for us today! The ranger does warn us that they do have a lightning warning in effect; we won't know if we'll be able to get out of our car until we get to the top. Fingers crossed and off we go.

If you're deathly afraid of heights, the road to Mount Evans is not for you. It's the highest road in North America, topping out at 14,264 feet. It's a narrow road, with no guard rails, and wow, some of the roadside dropoffs are extreme. Although I know we'd both die if the vehicle went over, I feel the need to keep reminding Stephen to "be careful" whenever I'm sitting on the outside edge. In some spots, I visualize the X-Terra rolling downhill like a crunchy silver ball. Other spots, I see us taking out a huge swath of trees before sliding off a cliff. And then, when creeping around some of the blind curves, I wonder if there might not be some dumbass coming around the curve just a little further out than he should be, and if he so much as taps us, then down we'd go.

Of course, none of that happened, which you already know, since you're reading this, and I don't have a data plan that extends beyond the grave. So, back to the drive:

As the road heads upward, we eventually climb above the treeline and it's all just rocks and some tiny, tough plants. Then it's very easy to see where the road is winding along the edges of these rocky slopes. It's slow going - the posted speed limit is really low, and most drivers don't seem inclined to go very fast, anyway. No one wants to slide off the road, especially after it's been raining.

There are a few lakes up there, probably from run off. And then the road abruptly got rougher. There was a surprise bump - we were driving along, and ~whoomp!~ all the heavy packed luggage in the back is suddenly airborne for a moment. Whoa! Hadn't been expecting that. Now THAT is a bump in the road.

The last ascent got even slower. We rounded a corner to find a sudden traffic jam. "What's the problem?" I ask. Stephen says, "There's a mountain goat." And so there is. There's a mountain goat standing right in the middle of the road, stopping cars and cyclists*. He's quite undisturbed by everyone standing around him. He looks around, poses for a few pictures, and then hops up onto the rocks and goes on his way.

When we get to the top, there's a little building called Crest House (with no roof! I'm not sure what it's there for), a few informational signs, and a rocky trail to the peak (that you have to climb on foot).

We go, we pose, we get that creepy crawly feeling that you get in your stomach when you are standing a little too close to certain doom. Stephen and I wandered around for a while up there until the clouds started moving in, and (not wanting to get hit by lightning), we started on the way down. Several marmots posed for pictures (we've seen more wildlife on these roads than in the national parks).

It was about five minutes later that it started raining, and then it started turning into sleet (oh great! icy mountain road!).

The visitor centre is much lower down, in the treeline (probably to avoid lightning strikes), so we popped in there for a few minutes to look at the displays, and I even wandered around in their garden out back, but it was a short stop, as the rain was still coming down.

*Re: Cyclists. There were a lot of cyclists heading up and down Mount Evans. I was surprised at just how many of them were there. We'd also seen a lot the day before in Rocky Mountain National Park. Most of these people were (obviously) hard core cyclists. They're wearing the cycling gear, they've got the road racing bikes, and they're all made of sinew and muscle, with less than 0.5% body fat. Turns out, there's a bicycle race in Colorado starting tomorrow. Ah! That explains it.

When we were near the peak (at a billy goat traffic stop), we asked one of the cyclists on their way down how long it took them to get to the top of Mount Evans. "About three hours." Yikes. I wish. So that's what super-fit people look like.

It's well past 5 in the afternoon by the time we've finally got down from Mount Evans and are back in Idaho Springs, gassing up the vehicle. Although Stephen had suggested we stay in Grand Junction (CO), I want to drive into Moab (UT) tonight, even though it's 5 hours away, which means we'd be getting in late. We're always a little too far out of the parks we want to visit, which means we waste time in transit, get there late, and then are too far behind to get to our next location.

Stephen's not sure, because Moab is literally in the middle of nowhere - there's nothing else in the area, so if there are no rooms, we're screwed (although we do have a tent, if all else fails). In the end, we call the Adventure Inn in Moab (where we stayed last time), book a room, and we're good to go.

Now it's a long drive down the I70 into Utah. On the positive side, it's listed as a scenic route, which we'll enjoy, for as long as the daylight holds out (about 8 p.m.).

Driving to the Sky, Part 1

2011-08-24T12:19:00.006-06:00

Today, we're starting out with Rocky Mountain National Park.

And, just like every other morning, the first thing we did was pack up the vehicle and get ready to hit the road. While we're loading up the vehicle, Stephen put both map books on the roof. "Don't forget to take those off of there," I said (because apparently I like to tell people what to do). We load the vehicle, we drive down the frontage road (that's what they call access roads in Colorado), and we're getting ready to turn onto the highway. "Where's the maps?" I ask, because I have to fact-check the GPS. Guess where the maps are? (One guess.) Guess who forgot to take the maps off the roof? (One guess.)

The X-Terra's big bulky roof rack (and the fact that we hadn't picked up much speed yet) saved the day: the maps were still there. Whew! What would we do without our map book? Yes, we have a GPS, but it's not entirely reliable. Stephen claimed he updated it before we left; I insist that (a) either he didn't do it right, or (b) it is possessed by the devil. Garmin is going to get a strongly worded letter.

Anyway, map and GPS issues notwithstanding, it was about an hour to drive into Rocky Mountain National Park. Lots of picturesque little resort communities on the way - and someone who had a house built like an Ark! (Yes, like Noah's Ark.) If the valleys flood, they're totally ready to leave their neighbours behind to drown. You had your chance to build a houseboat!

As you'd expect, there's some lovely scenery in RMNP. However, I was peeved that one particularly pretty photo op was ruined by some woman lumbering around on the rocks, trying to get her not-very-agile self into position so that her friend could take a photo. I waited and waited, but she kept slipping and sliding around, and I finally screamed, "You clumsy cow! How can I take a picture when you keep lumbering around here? I came all the way from Canada, and you've ruined this whole experience for me!" And that's how I ruined her day, too, which made me feel better. :-)

Okay, I didn't say anything of the sort. I just rolled my eyes and we moved on. And for a long time, I sadly mourned the loss of what might have been the bestest mountain picture of the day. If only...

Anyway. So, how does RMNP compare to Banff and Jasper? There's way more snow-topped mountains in Banff and Jasper, and the mountains in Jasper are more craggy and the scenery at the pull-offs are much more spectacular, with those beautiful blue blue lakes. So Banff and Jasper win overall. But, all is not lost, RMNP - what's cool about this park is that you're driving up near the top of the mountains. I imagine this must have been set up during the US' park-building phase in the 1930s, where they really didn't take environmental impact into account. Nevertheless, Trail Ridge road is there now, and it is an interesting drive.

At one of the lookouts, we were chatting with some of the other tourists, and one man mentioned that he'd left his wife behind several viewpoints ago. At first I thought he was joking, but no, he was serious. Apparently, she's deathly afraid of heights and couldn't go on. Wow. That's really scared of heights, I guess. No word on whether he was going back to get her or not. ;-)

The morning was blue skies, and one of the fluffiest happiest little clouds ever. Whenever I see those clouds, I automatically assume that they're just the happy sunny day clouds. But then other fluffy clouds join them. And although giant fluffy clouds may look happy and friendly, they are giants, and we are less than an ant to them. And if they want to squish us, they will, without even thinking about it.

In the morning, there was just one happy little cloud floating around, but the time we'd reached the Alpine visitor centre (11,796 ft), it looked like there might be some storm clouds heading in for the afternoon. Normally we wouldn't care (I mean, WE'D already driven through - who cares about those hapless tourists still winding their slow, sometimes lumbering, way through the park's sites?), except that our second stop of the day is Mount Evans. We don't want any storms when WE'RE on top of a mountain.

But, that adventure is still over 50 miles away, and we have to slowly drive back down, down, down, through some small towns and resort communities. It seems that all of Colorado's slowest drivers are out today. >:-(

Angry Lincoln will Haunt your Dreams

2011-08-23T23:12:00.000-06:00

The giant head of Abraham Lincoln looks down upon you, judging you. And I don't think he's happy with what he sees.

Wait - how did we get to this place? First we were having a happy road trip, and now it's judgement day.

Well, it all started in Wyoming. Sometimes I love you, Wyoming. Sometimes you bore me. I don't think I'll ever love you as much as I love Utah, but I hope we can be friends. (It's not you - it's me.) Anyway, about Wyoming - we had a long haul all the way across Wyoming into Colorado, so we looked around on RoadsideAmerica.com to see if there were any quirky attractions waiting for us. Voila! In Laramie, WY, the giant head of Lincoln looks down on the highway, and he looks down on you (because he's better than you, because he's Abraham Freaking Lincoln, that's why).

Giant head of Lincoln? Oh yeah, we're so going there! And so we arrive, and we pose for pictures, and Lincoln disdainfully thinks that I should not be climbing on top of his monument.

Anyway, you're wondering what Lincoln's giant cranium is doing there? I think the I80 used to be called the Lincoln highway, running from San Francisco to New York, and his giant rocky countenance is now situated at the highest point of where the highway used to be.

Nowadays, the road passes by beneath him at a respectful distance, and he's got a posh rest station next to him. (Seriously - it's pretty nice. Little museum off to the side, relatively fancy washrooms, a large glassed in observation deck, and a bored guy surfing the Internet at the front desk.)

So, we communed with Lincoln for a while; he frowned and sent us on our way to our next quirky stop. Hello, Fort Collins, Colorado! I saw the gaudy yellow gates to the Swetsville Zoon, and I clapped my hands with glee (for real).

OMG! Best. Zoo. Ever. Up yours, San Diego - how can you possibly compare? Bill Swets has crafted a huge backyard menagerie of whimsical little figures out of scrap metal - all kinds of dinosaurs and dragons and monsters. Free admission, although one of his little monsters has a cash deposit slot for donations.

Here's just one of his monsters (it's made from a real VW bug!):

I took a million pictures, posted a few. And I feel quite confident in saying that the Swetsville Zoo is probably the highlight of Fort Collins.

Hopping back into in the car, we said goodbye to Fort Collins, driving on to Loveland (which sits just outside Rocky Mountain National Park). We're trying to find a hotel. Stephen's GPS is possessed by the devil (like all GPS units). He said he updated it before we left, but that little hellspawn is out of date, no matter what it says. It couldn't find the Econolodge in Billings, it imagined the non-existent America's Best Value Inn in Jackson Hole, and now it's expecting a cloverleaf where there is none, and so we accidentally bypassed our exit. We went back and forth, and back again, and finally stopped at the promisingly-named "Value Inn" to see if they had a room. They had a price of $219 a week listed on the side of their building - but, with advertising like that, all their rooms were taken.

However, the desk clerk checked around for us, and sent us off to a Super 8 (back in Fort Collins). Back we go. Random road workers comment that there sure are a lot of silver X-Terras from Saskatchewan, because that's the fifth one they've seen go by.

You know what's super about the Super 8? It's cheap! What's not so super? No fridge or microwave. Super? They have rooms available. Not so super? No elevators, and we're on the second floor. Super: Internet. Not so super: slow. Hmm. Let's call it a draw.

Went to the Hacienda Real for supper. Holy crap, Mexicans feed you a lot of food. I can't finish my meal, and I still feel like I should immediately run out and do some manual labour. Anyway, that's all for now. Tomorrow, we're heading into Rocky Mountain Park.

Grand Tetons

2011-08-23T13:11:00.005-06:00

This morning we left the Elk Refuge Inn. I didn't think they provided breakfast, but when I was checking out, I found that they provided muffins. Hello, breakfast! Not my usual choice, but hey, it's food and it's free! (I hate paying for breakfast.)

The road into Grand Teton National Park

Then we started backtracking towards the Grand Teton National Park, which we just flew by last evening. We arrived before the Visitor Centre was open, so no shot glass for Stephen (he likes to buy one from every park). When we drove into the park, Stephen told the ranger that we didn't need a map (cause we had a driving map), but the driving map doesn't have any hiking routes listed. Damn. Not that I'm one to hold a grudge, or anything... It's not like I'm the type of person who would still be complaining that someone (who was not me) was too afraid to drive through El Paso. Now I am mildly miffed that we will miss out on most of the mystery hikes in Grand Teton.

However, moving on: There was a nice scenic drive through the park, and we walked out to Jenny's Lake overlook, which gives you a great view of the Teton range. We also drove up to the top of Signal Mountain (on a very nicely paved road, I might add. Better than most Saskatoon roads). On the top of Signal Mountain, there are two overlooks, one that looks out towards the mountains, and the other to the lowlands where the Elk migrate in the winter. (Yes, that's why our hotel was called Elk Refuge.) And there's also a giant cell phone tower at the peak. Hence the name "Signal Mountain"? Well... probably not. Nevertheless, cell reception was briefly excellent:

"Hi, guess where I'm calling you from? I'm right on the edge of Signal Mountain. Yeah, right on the ed-- Aaiiieeeee!!!" Oh look; another dropped call.

We stopped several times for pictures - those mountains are gorgeous - and we also were surprised to see that there was a dam in the park, which we hadn't expected (dam it). After those little diversions, it was back on the highway, heading towards Colorado.

For a brief while, it was a happy drive. This corner of Wyoming has a lot of pine trees, rivers and tree-covered hills. Very very green. Cause it's a forest, and those have lots of trees. Lots of whitewater rafting outfitters, and fishing tours. You can tell the touristy towns - cowboy this and cowboy that.

But, once you leave the park areas, Wyoming settles down into mile after mile of endless ranchland. Booorrrrinngg. There's always another scrubby plateau ahead, and at the top of it, you can see the rise to next scrubby plateau. And the next. It's like one of those Escher drawings with the stairs that go up endlessly. Endless ranchland, but almost no livestock to be seen. Weird. But not weird enough to be interesting. Just "meh."

Things will hopefully liven up when we reach the Interstate.

Yellowstone is B-I-G.

2011-08-22T22:28:00.003-06:00

So, Montana, I was unkind to you yesterday. After having supper at Applebee's the night before (and watching a storm roll through), we went to bed at the shockingly early time of 9 p.m. And yes, I woke refreshed and much happier at 6:30 a.m. It helped that the Boot Hill Inn had an awesome free breakfast. Read the local paper, and discovered that Billings is a bit like Saskatoon: their pedestrians want sidewalks, their cyclists want biking lanes. And, once we got driving, we see their road crews also block off roads when they aren't even working on them. Ah! - just like home.

After filling the X-Terra up with gas, we were back on the road and on the way to Yellowstone.

The view from the top of Beartooth Pass

Instead of entering the park by Gardiner, Stephen wanted to take the north-east entrance into Yellowstone, because it's a scenic route that goes up into the mountains - high point is Beartooth Pass (I think) at 10,947 ft. It was a spectacular drive, slowly winding up and up into the mountains. The road is closed in winter - no surprise. Lots of switchbacks and hairpin turns, and it's a long way down. The wind up there was quite chilly, but fabulous views.

Once on top of the mountains, the road led into Wyoming, then blipped back into Montana for a short time, then back into Wyoming again. Gorgeous mountain scenery, and we're nowhere near the park yet. I laughed when I saw the sign that said 35 miles to Yellowstone. Seriously? Felt like it should be part of the park.

Stephen also thought that, since we were now descending the mountain roads, it would be a good time to teach me how to use the engine braking so that I wasn't riding the brakes the whole way down. I'm not sure if everyone else appreciated me practicing - just try to envision the big X-Terra as it comes barrelling downhill towards the little VW bug - but hey, that's the price of learning. (Sometimes you've just gotta squish a bug.) ;-)

So... long distance to actually arrive at the park, little bit of road construction, lots of slow drivers, and no passing lanes. It was about 11:30 a.m. by the time we reached Yellowstone's Silver Gate. We were also surprised to see that we'd already burned half a tank of gas (darn those mountains!). But we're in Yellowstone now, so it's all good, right?

Um... Yellowstone is BIG. After we entered the Silver Gate, we were still over 100 miles away from Old Faithful. =:-O

Driving and driving, and more driving. The north-east corner seems to be filled with people who are fly-fishing in the rivers below. When a bison or a deer appears, there's a traffic jam as people slow down to see it.

On our to the other end of the park, we did stop at the Painted Pots and a few other geyser spots - steaming craters that are not only steaming hot, but also... fragrant. Sulphur? I'm not sure. But stinky! Did you know that Yellowstone is actually a massive, active volcano? Now you know why everything's bubbling and percolating.

So, finally, at 3 p.m., we reach Old Faithful. We pull into the massive parking lot, and walk forever towards Old Faithful. Do you see that spray just dissipating in the distance? Dammit, we just missed it. Now it's a 90-minute wait for the next eruption. Grr-aargh.

Because we're stupid, we forget our hats in the car. But we still go walking around the boardwalks to look at some of the other geysers. I would like to go on a longer hike, but we afraid of going too far and missing the next eruption, plus we're spending way more time in Yellowstone than we were expecting. We buy some ice cream and park our butts at the viewing area to wait for Old Faithful to go off. Yes, it's still Faithful: it cooperates, and even arrives a little bit early, at 4:25 instead of 4:32 as anticipated. We have now seen about 1/25th of the park, but we're on our way out.

Grand Tetons was also on our list for today, but we're at a quarter-tank of gas and we don't have a place to stay, so we make a beeline for Jackson, which is maybe a half-hour outside the Grand Tetons. Found a room at a reasonable price just outside of town. Jackson (aka Jackson Hole) is a tourist trap. Reminds me of the main streets in Banff and Jasper. We walked around for a bit, then had a super-spicy meal at Thai Plate (my mouth is burning, but yum!).

Now it's research time. What are tomorrow's plans? Backtrack to the Grand Tetons, and then we may be diverting into Colorado. There's another mountain that Stephen wants to drive up.

Boot Hill

2011-08-21T20:16:00.000-06:00

Our first day of the road trip, and where did we end up? Boot Hill.

That would be the Boot Hill Inn in Billings. A fitting end to today's drive - I died of boredom and woke up on Boot Hill.

Last year's road trip, we drove through Helena and Butte, and it was a much more scenic version of Montana. The road to Billings, on the other hand, is fall-asleep-while-driving boring. (Yes, I'm from Saskatchewan. So when I say "boring", you know that I know what I'm talking about.) Just miles and miles of nothing. A little place called Roundup was about the only bright spot on the drive. But even so, I was still falling asleep, randomly driving into meadows and ditches... Zzz... urk! Oops! Sorry.

And now I have a headache and a sideache and I'm really really tired (too many late nights prior to our departure), so we decided to call it a day in Billings. Didn't feel like attempting another 2+ hours on the road to reach Gardiner - and as Gardiner is right on the front doorstep of Yellowstone, the hotel prices would be that much higher.

When we left home this morning, Stephen had checked the highways hotline before leaving, and so decided to go through the Gardiner Dam route to avoid some road repairs. I'm not so sure it was an improvement. #1, that's a crappy highway. #2, there was road work going on there, and #3 that's a crappy highway. The Dam itself was interesting to see, at least. And finally we were back on main roads. Whew! Solid pavement.

Until we start approaching the border, anyway. The road to the border crossing at Climax (where we went last time) was crap, and the one at Val Marie might be marginally better. Bumpy, patchy, broken pavement all over. "Is that a gopher on the road? Oh, it's a piece of pavement. No wonder the little feller is moving so slow."

Then you get to the US side, and it's smooth sailing, with a big orange sign warning you whenever there's an innocuous little bump.

I feel sorry for the Americans heading into Canada. "What the hell is this? Why are we driving on logging roads?"

Anyway, the border guard let us cross over, after suspiciously quizzing us on how we could have 3-4 weeks of vacation, and taking note of our large supply of junk food. (It doesn't go bad in a hot car.)

As for Montana, I don't have much to say, except that they have lots of bugs. Lots and lots of them. Sometimes, it sounded like hail hitting the vehicle. Oh, and it's hot outside.

Time to go explore Boot Hill. I may be sitting in a hot tub tonight.

ETA: Why is it called the Boot Hill Inn? Because Boot Hill Cemetery is just across the street.

From It's My Travelogue Blog

T Minus 6 Hours

2011-08-21T00:55:00.003-06:00

Sounds more exciting when I say it that way, doesn't it? Instead of "you have to get up in six hours and start driving, and keep driving for the next few weeks."

So many things to pack, so little time. So hard to decide what makes the cut and gets to come along for the ride. I don't want to bring too many things, but I also don't want to leave out something important. Should I bring colder weather gear? There was only one chilly day on our last trip. Do I bring a rain jacket? It takes up a lot of space. Should I bring extra underwear, or just go commando? You can see how hard it is to make these kinds of decisions.

However, one thing I was absolutely certain that I needed was my passport. On Thursday morning, I went to go get it out of the drawer where the passport is always kept... and when I pulled it out, I realized it was my expired passport.

OMG. Where's my non-expired, current passport that I need to get into the United States? Did I put it somewhere else? I never put it anywhere else. Do not panic: Maybe I left it with my maps and booklets and bling that I brought back. So I look there. No luck. Back upstairs, because maybe I put it in another drawer? Nope. And I crawl around the living room and look under the couch, and I start throwing paid and unpaid bills in every direction to see if it's there. But it's not anywhere, and I'm starting to panic. What if I accidentally put it out with the recycling? What if it's gone forever? Sure, even at this late date, I can still get another one - if I pay rush fees of about $500, and for that price, I probably also get put on a terrorist watch list, too - what a bargain!

Okay, so by then I was panicking a bit, in spite of my mantra "Do not panic, do not panic."

Time to break out the big guns. Last year, in Santa Fe, I picked up a little painting of St. Jude (patron saint of hopeless cases). "Hey, Jude - don't let me down. Find my passport, and send it back to me." Then I repeated this incessantly for two hours.

Sure, you might think that wouldn't work, but I eventually wore St. Jude down. After 4 freaking hours of searching, finally, my passport was found! Where was it? I had put it in the proper drawer (where it always was), but the drawer was obviously a bit overstuffed, and the passport fell down the back of the cabinet. So I destroyed the whole house, when it was always still in the cabinet.

Who cares? I'm just happy to have my passport in hand again. Now I don't have to pay $500 and go straight to Guantanamo Bay. I am a law-abiding citizen once again! And, with any luck, they'll let me across the border tomorrow.

State-a Non Grata & The Most Boring Drive of All

2010-09-10T19:20:00.002-06:00

Stephen hates North Dakota - it is State-a Non Grata with him. Although I can only count 12 states that we've driven through, we feel certain that we must have winged another state, making North Dakota the unlucky 13th. It's the only explanation: so far, we've been here less than 24 hours, and there are three rock chips in Stephen's windshield.

Aside from that, North Dakota has road work clogging up the highways (some of the roads are down to unpaved surfaces), and road workers clogging up the motels. Cooler weather, rain, and tornadoes. A weird hodge-podge of time zones that meanders across the state. (Re: the time zones - can't believe there are some people who want to do that to Saskatchewan. One time zone - no weird town-by-town time changes. Simple.)

We feel that the Trapper's Inn has enough of our money, so we decline to eat breakfast in Belfield, and instead head for Williston. It will all be better in Williston, happy little town of cable televisions channels in my childhood.

Remember that? Maybe you're too young. Those were our first cable channels. Instead of just local content on CBC and QC8, it was our first access to American TV! Suddenly, we had NBC and CBS and ABC. So many Saturday morning cartoons, so little time. All broadcast from the big bustling metropolis of Willison.

Williston is a decent size, and they have a Rotten Ronnies. Hooray! However, due to their weird time zone issues, we're there at 11:20 (even though it's really only 10:30 - what are you people doing on Mountain Time? I don't see any freaking mountains around here, do you?) so we have Quarter Pounders for brekkie.

However, the curse of North Dakota still holds - I get ketchup on my shirt. Dammit! This would never have happened in Utah! (But if it had happened in Texas, it would have been an BIGGER splooch, just cause that's the way Texas rolls.)

Anyway, the roads after Williston are clear, no road work and no big rigs. Thank you, Williston! (Although Stephen still hates your state.)

The return to Canada starts with the border guard. He flips through our passports, vainly trying to discover when it was that we first went to the States (first border guard forgot to stamp our books. Doofus!).

Had we bought any guns or ammunition? No. (Although I am carrying my spent shells as a souvenir, I decline to mention this.)

Had we bought any booze? Well, duh.

Did we go into Mexico? No. In fact, our passports show we didn't even get into the States, except for the odd fact that our vehicle is now on the US side of the border. Huh.

Was there anyone else in the vehicle? Just the Mexican, hiding under the camping gear.

Did anyone ask us to bring them something back on their behalf. Why, yes, officer, my friend Jacqueline wanted magnets.
How many magnets?
Oh, lots and lots. She was especially interested in magnets from the Atomic Museum...
Border guards writes things down furiously, makes a phone call. (Later, I see that Dave's Facebook update says Jacqueline is missing, last seen being dragged into a black van. I'm sure it's all coincidence...)

Anyway, they let us back into Canada (because according to our passports, we've never left).

We drive into the grim, gray, rainy gloom - bumpity bump bump - over the Canadian roads, and wonder what the heck we were thinking, coming back here. There's Weyburn. Yawn. (Keifer Sutherland said the same thing, you know.)

Oh, I can tell we're back in Canada! The gas cartels are firmly in control, with their provincial gas prices. In the US, gas was more expensive in smaller centres, and cheaper in big cities. In big cities, you'd see different prices at gas stations that were a few blocks away from each other. In Saskatchewan, the price for gas is exactly the same whether you're in Weyburn (God help you!), Regina, or Saskatoon... but that's all just a coincidence, of course, no price fixing going on.

Right. And Saskatoon doesn't have a taxi-cab mafia either.

Also in the United States? What they call "bad roads", we call "roads". The road between Regina and Saskatoon would be a bad stretch of Interstate.

Oh, and just to highlight the gasoline price differences: I think the most we paid for gas in the US was $2.99 per gallon. It cost about $40 to fill Stephen's vehicle at that price. We get to Regina and we're at half a tank. It costs us $30 to fill half a tank with Canadian gas. With gas taxes like that, our crappy roads should be paved in gold.

And it also makes you think twice about your options - want to plan a road trip through Canada? Or down through the States? Even with the exchange rate, your food and gas will be cheaper down south. (Plus, you can go to Vegas and shoot things. Always fun.)

It's gray and rainy and flat as we drive homeward, and we're thinking sadly of Utah. Oh Utah! Why did we leave you??? (I know why I left you, Santa Fe. I can't afford you.)

And you know what? The traffic obstructions in Saskatoon are worse now than when we left. (Why are you knocking down bridges while I'm away? That's not smart.)

I guess there really is no place like home.

Cars, Presidents & Devils

2010-09-09T23:21:00.018-06:00

Nebraska seems to be mostly farmland. We're driving along, and I can't find any wireless networks. What the heck? Just cause we're driving in the middle of farmland... One day, the Internet will be everywhere. (It's close now, but still elusive at times. I want FREE Internet - and the Internet wants to be FREE.)

So, Alliance has several signs pointing towards Carhenge - this makes me laugh for some reason. I shouldn't laugh too hard - after all, I'm one of the dorky people driving into town specifically to see Carhenge. "Who's dorkier?" Obi-Wan Kenobi asks. "The dork who built it, or the dork who followed after to see it?" You're right, Obi-Wan. You're always right.

(What brought on the weird Star Wars reference? I dunno. It just pops up sometimes in unexpected places. ...Maybe it's the Rebel Alliance that brought it to mind. Bwahahah!)

Anyway, today is actually one of the times when the GPS is indisputably useful (the rest of the time, we are suspicious and dispute her motives). When I checked out Carhenge online, I found an actual address on a country road, input it into the GPS, and we're on our way.

Carhenge!

There's a sign at the entrance: Carhenge and Car Art Reserve. Not just Carhenge now, but more! And it's FREE! You just can't argue with "free." :-)

I cannot describe how awe-inspiring it is to stand inside the mystic circle of Carhenge. The ancient dudes (pronounced doo-ids) built Carhenge, for some unknowable mystic reason of mysticism, of course. You just feel the weight of time, and the weight of all those gray-painted clunkers, and blah de blah.

Perhaps even more importantly, it's cheaper than flying to England and going to Stonehenge. (Free! Remember when I mentioned the part about it being free?!)

There are so many grasshoppers and crickets out in his field, we know we're headed back towards home. It's the return of the insects! Maybe it's just too hot during the day, but we didn't see much of them further south (I guess they only come out at night). Nevertheless, I brought some Watkin's bug repellent along with us, and we've never used any of it on this trip. Try THAT when you're in Waskesiu.

*****

After Carhenge, we head into South Dakota. Our GPS has decided to take us the fast way to Mount Rushmore - at least it's a real road - but it's a road that travels outside the Black Hills. I don't want to drive away from all the scenery (I'll have the whole road back to Saskatoon for that) - I want to drive through the Black Hills. I make Stephen turn around and go back, and we ignore the GPS as, for the next few miles, she tries to convince us to turn around.

Yes, it's a much more scenic drive in the Black Hills. :-) My first thought was "why are they black hills? The soil looks pretty red to me." But, as you keep driving, the hills get rockier, and yes, it's dark rock. Ergo, black hills, I presume.

What was also quite striking was that it appears as if there's a good amount of pyrite in the area - when we drove by, some of the rocky embankments were sparkling in the sun.

As we drove past the sign for the park, we wondered why it was Mount Rushmore National Memorial (versus National Monument). Eventually, we figured it out. It's so they could exempt our National Park pass, which gives us access to all parks and monuments (but not memorials?). So we had to pay $10 per vehicle to use their parkade. For some reason, I find it really amusing that Mount Rushmore has its own parkade and traffic lights. This place must be a zoo in the summer. But, fortunately, we're here after prime tourist season, and all the kids are now in school (who says we don't know how to plan?).

So, yeah - it's a bunch of presidents carved into a mountain. Washington and Lincoln, everyone recognizes. Then there's the other two... Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. If you think Roosevelt looks like an afterthought who was squeezed in there, you'd be right. The monument is also unfinished - it was supposed to have almost a full torso for Washington, and significantly more for Lincoln as well. (Roosevelt was probably always doomed to remain a shallow floating head.) But the project was put on hold when WWII started, and then the artist died, and his descendants have not wanted it continued. So, it stays as is.

We followed a hike around the grounds that takes you closer to the monument. There were workers crawling around on Washington's head and climbing up and down the side. (Must be giving Washington the heebie-jeebies. "Ants! There are ants crawling on me!") Part of the maintenance program; they check the rock for cracks and who knows what else.

*****

Since we'd already paid $10 to see four presidents, we decided not to spend $10 each to see unfinished Crazy Horse's giant head. What is it with carving mountains? The artists always seem to die and leave their sculpture unfinished. Hmm.

Anyway, we could see Crazy Horse's giant head from the highway as we drove by. I took a picture. Ha ha! Try to get your $20 now, suckers!

I wonder if you can hike up to his giant head. That might be worth $10 each.

*****

We'd contemplated going to the Badlands National Park, but since our park pass is good until August of 2011, we decided maybe we would take another swing down through the States next year; hit Badlands, and maybe Wind Cave, as well as Yellowstone.

For now, though, we head towards Wyoming and Devil's Tower. This takes us through Deadwood, South Dakota.

Deadwood appears to be a town that's put some work into retaining some of its "old west" persona. And I would have some nice pictures for you, if we hadn't been stuck driving behind a gigantic logging truck that blocked every possible photo. (I think it even blocked out the sun at some points.) >:-(

*****

You can see Devil's Tower quite easily from the highway, but it's worth going into the park to get a closer view. (Especially when your park pass lets you in for free. Cha-ching!)

You can actually climb it if you want to, but you do need to register. And yes, you need proper climbing gear (ropes, harnesses, etc.) - this ain't no hiking trail. Stephen and I weren't interested in that kind of exertion anyway; we were content to walk along the trails at the bottom and take pictures from there.

We did actually see some climbers - no one really high up, in the long vertical lines of rock, but the were climbing through the upper boulder field. I'll bet you the view is spectacular - and that it's incredibly windy up there.

*****

After leaving Devil's Tower, we were back to driving again. Booting it out of Wyoming, back through South Dakota, and hoping to stop in North Dakota. From far off, we could see several storm systems in the east - the lightning was flashing off in several directions. (One of the interesting things about driving in flat lands - you really can see the weather moving.) However, there was a big ridge of low-lying cloud that I didn't like the looks of.

The sun set around 7 p.m., and we were still making our way through South Dakota. When we finally crossed over into North Dakota, we knew that we were definitely driving into the storm. The wind was picking up, and the lightning seemed to be far away, but it was a very big lightshow - quite impressive, except that I was busy intently watching for deer (I'd seen a few on the side of the road). When we turn on the radio, we hear that yes, there are large thunderstorms and a tornado watch for the area. Great.

By the time we get to Dickinson, it's almost 9 p.m., and there are no hotel rooms. We stop at four higher-end hotels. The Comfort Inn is the only one with any rooms left, but they just have a jacuzzi room and a two-room suite. "Ouch," says my wallet, and we move on.

We drive to Belfield, which is kind of nowhere. Still seeing 'No Vacancy' signs at the few motels they have. There's one room left at the Trapper's Lodge, for over $100. Well, it's either that, or we sleep at a roadside rest stop. So we take it, but ask the clerk why there's so few rooms available. She says they get a lot of workers staying in the area.

That explains all the Haliburton trucks and road crew vehicle. Darn them, taking all the hotel rooms. >:-(

The final insult? $100 for the room, and I don't even get freaking wireless Internet. What the heck? Even Grandma and Grandpa Bates in Fredonia tried to provide wireless Internet (sure, it mostly failed, but at least they made the attempt). But they do have crappy cable TV.

Well, there's thunder and lightning out there, and it's raining pretty hard, so I guess I should be glad we're not sleeping at the rest stop.

Roads to Nowhere

2010-09-08T23:01:00.024-06:00

Colorado is, I think, a combination of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Mountains to one side, and then the rest seems to be prairie farmland. Corn and wheat and other things I don't recognize. Sometimes, you could swear it is Saskatchewan.

In Colorado, we pass a billboard advising us to turn off the highway to see "The North Pole and Santa's Workshop." Really? I could've sworn the north pole was further north. Huh.

It's a mildly rainy day in Colorado (nothing like our New Mexico flash flood). We're booting our way northward. As we're not going through Denver, it appears we are going nowhere. Into a great empty space on the map...

I see a highway sign for Colorado Spgs, which is obviously an abbreviation for Colorado Spigots. Never heard of it.

Colorado Springs, on the other hand, is a very annoying city. To all appearances, we've already passed through the city, and we're way off in the middle of nowhere. And yet, there's a steady string of traffic lights. Why? For all the dumb burbies who live in the burbs. Live in the city, wankas! Or take your chances crossing the highway. So annoying.

Listen to me, I'm from Saskatoon, and I know from bitter experience: traffic lights do not coexist well with freeways/highways. They throttle traffic. And it's really annoying being in the middle of nowhere, and having to wait for a bunch of burbies to make the turn off to their dumb little houses.

*****

The day goes on, and we're still on a road to nowhere through Colorado. It seems quite literally nowhere, since we're not on the Interstate, and we're not passing through any discernible towns (although it seems they arbitrarily lower the speed limits for random cows and mailboxes).

There is a lot of truck traffic, though. We're zoning out and driving along, and coming around a corner (for some reason, the road sometimes goes AROUND nothing - no visible landmarks - but it banks around it anyway). Anyway, coming around a corner, and a semi-truck is approaching, and he's blinking his lights. WTF? It's daylight, dude, and my running lights are on. "Why is that guy flashing his lights at me?" Stephen tells me that there's a pickup truck pulled over on the highway ahead.

Aha! says my brain, and I slow down slightly (speed limit is 65 mph, I'm going 69, but quickly drop down to 67). It's the Sheriff!

Thank you, Mr. Awesome Semi-Truck Driver! You are my hero.

I drive past the Sheriff and set the cruise on 65 mph. We pass by, and I do notice that he eventually pulls out, but he's not coming after me. I keep an eye on the rearview mirror, because as long as he's there, I'm not inclined to speed up.

At some point, another car appears in my rearview mirror. Where did the Sheriff go? Did I lose him? I thought he was still there, but... Speedy little blue car comes up behind me, passes me, and zips ahead. We're surprised to see a familiar-looking license plate. Hello, Alberta!

Check my rearview mirror again, and yes, the Sheriff is there. He's coming up fast. I slow down some more because he's freaking me out. Not you, SK, he snorts, and he passes me and speeds on down the highway.

"Run, Alberta! Run!!!"

There's no escape for Alberta - the Sheriff runs them down, hits the lights, and pulls them over to give them a lecture about driving through the middle of nowhere.

Aww, sorry about that, Alberta. But better you than me! (And seriously, did you not notice that you blew past the Sheriff? Not smart.)

*****

We were trying to make it a bit further today, but the sun is setting at 7:15 p.m., and we're still in Nowhere, Colorado, with a ways to go before we hit Scottsbluff, Nebraska. I'm okay with driving at night on the Interstate, because there's a lot of traffic and they're well maintained, but I'm not so sure about these nothing roads that are nowhere. Seems more likely that we might run into wildlife out here.

Plus, let's not forget that all the vampires also come out at night - that can be a problem, too.

It's dark by the time we leave Colorado, and as soon as we cross into Nebraska, the speed limit drops down to 60 mph. You suck, Nebraska! Why can't you be more like Texas?? We were so happy in Texas, driving at 75 mph.

Therefore, when we reach Kimball, the only town in 400 miles, we decide to stay at the Not-So-Super 8. Oh well, it has Internet.

On the Trail of John Wayne?

2010-09-08T13:34:00.004-06:00

This morning, we left Santa Fe (before the coming of Zozobra!), and we took the high road (which is the scenic route) to Taos.

Taos appears to be a miniature Santa Fe. I believe it is most famous for the Taos Pueblo, which is a pueblo village about 1000 years old, with 150 families still living there in the traditional manner. However, we decided not to visit. For one, there's an admission fee of $10 per person plus $5 per camera. Ouch. But the other thing was that it would feel a bit weird going in there and taking pictures of people going about their daily lives. Oh, you and your quaint ways! Click. What peculiar clothes. Click. Ha ha, funny hair! Click.

Okay, so maybe our commentary wouldn't be quite that insensitive... but it seems really intrusive and awkward, so... no. We do a drive-through of Taos, and move on.

The highways we're on claim to be part of New Mexico's "Enchanted Circle". I think that's likely overselling it a bit, but we do drive into the mountains, where there are some lovely forests, and what are either bed and breakfasts or the homes of exceedingly rich people. Probably a mix of both. Sometimes, I forgot how rich some people are. (These are the people who buy $100K bracelets in Santa Fe.)

So far, on our road trip, we've passed through several western film point: Monument Valley being the stereotypical western backdrop. When we first drove into New Mexico, we passed through Lordsburg, which is the town John Wayne was trying to reach in the film Stagecoach. Today, it looks like we're going to go through Cimarron, which I'm pretty sure is also the title of a film I've seen in my dad's John Wayne DVD collection. No idea what the film's about, though.

Our Rough Guide says that, way back in the day, Cimarron was definitely the rough and tumble version of the wild west. We shall see!

****

The road to Cimarron passes through the mountains, and then you're following the Cimarron river down into the valley. The sides of the hills are covered with pines and junipers, which mask the very steep slope until you look closely. Still, you occasionally see some very high cliff faces. Very pretty countryside.

Cimarron itself seems to be a quiet town these days, with a short strip of locally-owned motels along the highway. We drove the few blocks into the town and stopped at the St. James Hotel (I'm pretty sure that's where John Wayne would have been headed). Built in 1872, the hotel has apparently had 26 murders(!!!), and both Jesse James and Buffalo Bill stayed there.

We're not checking in; we just stop in for lunch in their very "old west" dining room. Maple hardwood floors, pressed tin ceilings, and animals heads adorning the walls. And yes, it has one of those big, substantial, dark wooden bars that you see in saloons. The manager of the restaurant is an older gentleman in full western gear: hat, vest, boots. No gun that I could see, though. ;-)

Stephen and I both had quesadillas with rice and beans. I'm not sure John Wayne would have approved. Oh well! A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

Hey, you know, I don't know if I've ever actually seen a John Wayne film. I've heard him drawling in the background on the television, but I've never actually watched one.

Okay, John Wayne, you've worn me down. I'll watch one of your films. Cimarron, maybe. (ETA: Turns out that Cimarron is one of the DVDs in my dad's collection, but it is not a John Wayne film. I am so disillusioned - they made western movies without John Wayne??? No, I can't believe it. That's just crazy talk...)

:-)

*****

Just outside of Cimarron, we're driving into the rain. It's the first rain we've seen in over a week or so.

We can tell it's pretty heavy rain, because there are hills on the side, and then they just disappear into a field of blue. We pass through one moderately heavy rain belt, and then, just as we've turned onto the Interstate, we get hit with the really heavy rain.

"Holy $#*@!" says I. And then, "HOLY $#*@!!!"

We go from crap visibility with wipers on full to about 10 to 15 seconds of ZERO visibility. It's like being back in the great Saskatoon Blizzard of 2007. We know there was a pickup truck a very short distance ahead of us, but now we can't see him at all. So we crank the speed way back (now going only 40 mph in a 75 mph zone), and we consider pulling over, but it is the Interstate, and we're afraid of getting whacked from behind, because the visibility is that bad.

We keep going and, fortunately, it improves a teensy bit and we can see blinking hazard lights from the vehicle ahead. We're both leaning forward and squinting at the windshield for a while yet, and then eventually it eases off. Whew.

Bet you that all those dry washes and scrawny little streams are suddenly filling up. And if I now saw a sign that says "Watch for Water," I wouldn't laugh quite so hard.

Goodbye, New Mexico! Hello, Colorado!

Sante Fe: Museums, Zozobra and Shopping

2010-09-07T22:38:00.050-06:00

Today is museum day! Yesterday, we bought a museum pass that gives us access to five museums, but we only had time to visit the Museum of New Mexico. So, this morning, we head off to Museum Hill, where we visit the Museum of International Folk Art, Indian Arts and Culture, and the Spanish Colonial Art.

Of the three, the Folk Art was definitely our favourite. A large, diverse collection of silver works (artifacts and jewelry), clothing, art and sculpture, and a huge room filled with dolls and figures from many different cultures. Very very cool.

Then we headed back downtown to visit the museum inside the Palace of the Governors. Again, a lot of very interesting history around these buildings, if you're the type who likes old buildings and history. Fortunately, we are!

There's several musicians wandering through town, singing something about Santa Fe. The city is gearing up for a festival that starts on Thursday - Fiesta de Santa Fe - which features the burning of Zozobra! One of the merchants told us about it: Zozobra is a 50-foot figure that they burn "in effigy of Old Man Gloom, or Zozobra, to dispel the hardships and travails of the past year". (Hey... wait a minute... isn't this the plot to The Wicker Man? Must leave town immediately! Or stop watching horror movies...)

We won't be here, but I'm sure there will be another influx of tourists to take our place. Burn one of them in your wicker effigy, Santa Fe!

*****

Did I mention that I think that Santa Fe is a secret sister city to Las Vegas? Both of them really want your money - they just go after it in different ways.

Santa Fe is definitely an upmarket destination. Remember that necklace that I wanted in Monument Valley (until I discovered that it cost $5,000)? Well, now that's starting to look like a bargain. In a shop windows today, I saw a bracelet for $100,000. And I'm sure there's even more expensive stuff here - I'm just not allowed anywhere near it. You know when you look into certain shops, and the whole atmosphere just exudes a sense of "you can't afford this place"? There's a lot of those around here. They have some kind of anti-peasant barrier that keeps you out. We're like flies bouncing against the windows - I don't understand - why can't I get inside?

It's an artsy-fartsy town. Art is everywhere. And they ain't no starving artists, either (as long as they make a sale). Downtown, there are multiple galleries on each street. Fancy clothing, fancy boots, and jewelry jewelry jewelry with big honking jewels. Eh, I wouldn't wear it anyway.

~Buys a fridge magnet instead.~

*****

While we're driving back towards our hotel, a traffic light changes, and I slow down. Then I realize I've accidentally strayed into the big X's marked on the pavement because there's train tracks running through. Oops. Well, odds are good that I'll just be here a minute, and at least I'm not sitting on the tracks - just illegally close, I guess. Everyone else has parked lawfully further back (and you know they're thinking, what's up with that moron? And where in the hell is Saskatchewan?!).

I'm waiting for the traffic lights to change. I see a big headlight. #*$&@$! It's a train! what are the odds?!

At that moment, my traffic light changes to green, and I drive ahead to safety, whereas everyone else who parked further back is stuck behind the lowered railway arms. Haha! So long, suckers! And whew!

We stopped at Target to buy legitimate swimsuits so that we can use the pool and jacuzzi without fear of being thrown out. Spend an hour or so in the evening, bobbing around in the pool, and enjoying the bubbly jacuzzi. Ahh, so relaxing! Lamplighter Inn, you really are America's Best Value Inn!

:-)

Santa Fe!

2010-09-06T23:30:00.011-06:00

The scenery perked up as we got closer to Santa Fe. A little more hilly, a little more greenery. On the outskirts of Santa Fe, we started to see what we presume are bedroom communities, with an eclectic mix of old style pueblo houses and the typical American homes.

Santa Fe is celebrating its 400th year this year - 1610 to 2010 - and it has the narrow winding roads that are common to very old cities. When we first drove in, all we were seeing was a lot of greenery and adobe walls around single-story pueblo houses. Eventually, we found our way to the main drag, which had several lanes of traffic, and we found a cheaper room at "America's Best Value Inn - Lamplighter Motel." Long name, but what the heck. The price is right, and it's actually quite a nice little place. (Downtown hotel rooms are all prohibitively expensive.)

We head to downtown Santa Fe, and this is the most picturesque, traffic-unfriendly part of the city. We're driving in circles without being able to figure out how to get around or where we can park. Aha! There's the State Tourist Centre - we duck into their "30 minutes only or we'll tow you away" spots and go inside to ask for suggestions and a map.

The friendly worker there tells us that we can park here all day - it's a holiday, and she's not going to have us towed. She also gives us a map and marks off several things to see.

Right next door is the San Miguel Chapel, which was first built around 1610. This church is built like a tank - thick adobe walls, huge buttresses on the side. It would be more photogenic without the scaffolding, but they're doing some restorative work on it.

"Miraculous staircase" at Loretta Chapel

Another interesting church (now a private museum) is the Loretta Chapel, which has a "miraculous staircase." It is a lovely spiral staircase without a central support column. However, Wikipedia says it isn't miraculous, and that it is, in fact, "arguably unsafe". Nevertheless, it is a beautiful piece of architecture. Apparently, when it was first built, it didn't have a railing. Yikes! I don't think I'd have climbed it without a railing.

The whole downtown area is very pretty. Every building is either adobe pueblo, or a Spanish style. Even the parkades look like pueblos! (Which is why we can't find a place to park - they're too well disguised.) Provided you can find the parking, though, the downtown is very easily walkable.

Very few buildings here are more than two stories high. Even the State Capitol building surprised us - no big white dome, no giant lions. Instead, it's a tan-coloured circular building - not quite a pueblo, but not out of place either.

Even though it's the holiday Monday, a lot of the shops are open. There are many art shops, jewelery shops, clay pots and rug shops. In the main plaza, there's a virtual maze of vendors peddling their wares. In front of one wall at the Palace of the Governors, Indian vendors sell silver and turquoise jewelery, and some pottery as well.

We resist purchases for now, and retreat to the Museum of New Mexico, which we found really interesting. I'm not all that familiar with the history of the Southwest US, and Santa Fe is really an interesting mix of Spanish/Indian/American history.

We grab a bite to eat at a rooftop pizza place. Roasted chicken, green chilies and some kind of Mexican cheese I don't recognize the names of. Yum!

It's later in the day (we arrived here midday), and my feet are tired from walking. We drive around the city for a while, then head back to hotel, where I discover that our Best Value Inn has a big beautiful indoor/outdoor pool (sort of indoors in that there's a building around it, but sort of outdoor in that the roof is open to the sky) and a jacuzzi. And no one is using it.

Hmm. I didn't bring a swimsuit... but a black sports bra looks like a swim top, right? And if it's paired with black underwear, well, then no one will be the wiser, right? Ha ha! Off I go! I bounce from the poor to the hot tub, back to the pool, back to the hot tub, and I have the whole place to myself. Muahahaha - the perfect crime...

:-)

Alien Adventures in Roswell

2010-09-06T13:23:00.024-06:00

It's been several days, and my shoes are still shedding fine white dust from White Sands National Monument. In fact, Stephen kicked great crusted chalky piles of it off his vehicle in Carlsbad.

Dust around here seems to stick. The small amounts of red mud from Little Wild Horse canyon still show on my shoes and socks (I'm going to have to try bleach). The red dust from Monument Valley was clinging to the back bumper of Stephen's car until we went through a car wash after Vegas (that's a lot of highway driving).

It makes me wonder: Why buy people souvenirs? Just go into their house and stamp your feet. "Here's a little bit of Monument Valley for you, there's some gypsum from White Sands - and oh, there might be a little dandruff in there too. Had we gone to El Paso, we might be shaking marijuana leaves off our shoes, but alas..."

So, anyway, we're still is Roswell. Why stay in Roswell? We didn't want to hit Santa Fe at the end of the long weekend, as Santa Fe is more of a destination stop and hotels were more likely to be full. So, you see, we're planning ahead for once. :-)

As mentioned before, Roswell is a mixture of alien kitsch, military academy, and medium-sized normal town. I'm not sure who's winning - the aliens, the military, or the normals...

Anyway, the UFO Museum and Research Center was not expensive at $5, but it was a little too earnest for my taste. This is a place that really, really wants to believe. A lot of its displays are newspaper clippings and reports centred around the "Roswell Incident", as well as various photographic "proof" of UFOs, but - on the other hand - there's also some fun artwork around the place. However, unless you want to read up on Roswell, you might do well to stick to the nearby alien gift shops.

But, for the real fun, you need to head a little further down the street to the Alien Zone. Like everyone else in Roswell, they sell Alien t-shirts and toys. And, for a mere $3, you can get into their "Area 51" section, where you can pose with bobble-headed aliens in multiple settings. So awesome! Now this is the Roswell we came to see!

Roswell

Alas, after that, I think we've seen Roswell. There is supposed to be an interesting historical park, but our treacherous GPS claims it can't find it. Oh well, moving on.

Driving out of Roswell is very much like driving through Saskatchewan. Plains rolling off in every direction, although the vegetation is obviously scrubbier and more desert-like. In the fields, you can see that the ground also tends more towards sandy red dirt and white (alkali). There are farms, but I presume most of this wilder area is cattle country?

Yes, the scenery out here is as bland as it is at home. I keep waiting to see Lumsden over the next hill. :-)

Guadalupe Peak

2010-09-05T21:04:00.001-06:00

Checked out of the stagecoach Inn this morning, which (unlike our EconoLodges) does not offer free breakfast; therefore, we seek out a Rotten Ronnie's for a cheap breakfast. I try a Bacon McGriddle meal (which appears to be an Egg McMuffin with bacon). However, when I take a bite, I realize there's syrup in there somewhere. Um, yuck? Syrup on eggs, bacon and cheese? I can't find it at first, then finally realize it's in between the layers of the bun itself. Huh. And kind of bleargh. Should have stuck with the tried & true Egg McMuffin.

This morning, we're headed back into Texas, for a return trip to Guadalupe Mountains National Park. That's right, we're going to hike to Guadalupe Peak, the highest point in Texas.

You know what's great about Texas? Their single lane highways are 75 mph, versus New Mexico's double-lane highways at 65 mph. Viva Texas! Everything is bigger, bolder, and faster!

And you know what else that means? That it would have been FASTER to go through El Paso instead of that craptacular road to Nowhere, Artesia. (No, I'm never going to let that go.)

The other thing I've noticed about the whole southwest region of the US is that whenever they have a bridge, there's almost never any water there. A lot of the bridges are over "washes", so obviously they're seasonal. But some of them claim to be passing over "Black River" or something like that. You'd expect there to be water. Nope. Is this why they have signs telling us to "watch for water"? Who should I tell if I see some? I wonder if they find it weird when they drive through Canada, and there's always a river or stream when there's a sign that says "something river" or "something creek". Every single time, there's water!!!

Anyway, enough about Canada. Back to Texas.

*****

It's a long hike up. Of course, you will say "duh. The trail guide clearly says 8.4 miles. That's 13.5 kilometers." And it's UP. Up is tiring. Up is hot sun in your face and climbing, climbing, climbing. Thank God for my hiking poles! Worth every penny. When you're climbing, it takes some of the strain off your knees (you have to save those so that you can safely visit Carlsbad Caverns when you're older). When you trip over a rock, they save you from falling over the side of the cliff.

I guess our feet must be lazy from years of flat floors and concrete sidewalks, because scrambling and bouncing over rocks is tiring for them.

Anyway, hiking up up up. The beginning has a steady ascent, and then there's a series of switchbacks. It's a welcome relief when the trail levels off into slight dips and inclines. This is because the trail is winding its way around the hill you've halfway climbed. Then you go around the corner, and you see another bigger hill, and see the switchbacks going up that one. I can do that! I still have energy! So we motor off, up and up and up. And you get near the top - whew, that was tiring, wasn't it? - and the trail leads around another corner and over a wooden bridge... and there's another stinking peak hiding behind that one. @$#$%^!!!

Okay. Drink some water. Get moving again. Up and up. OMG, this is getting tiring. The ascent is much steeper. We sit down on a big rock to catch our breath, and look down at El Capitan (one of the other mountains, so obviously we're almost there). Just a little bit further, and finally we see the marker at the peak. Stagger up onto the rocks there, next to the other hikers, and sit down to drink some water.

I'm (momentarily) taller than you, El Capitan!

There's a log book for climbers at the peak; we sign the date and our names.

After that, it's time to stand up, look around, squint and look south to see if I can see Southfork. Darn it - not quite. But it is a clear day, and you can see a long long way. And there's a nice cool wind blowing (apparently, you have to watch out for the wind up there, but we've obviously picked a good day, because it's not blowing us off the peak).

As we start heading back down, there are only a few people coming up. Most of the hikers probably start earlier in the day. There's two park rangers on the way up, a guy with a backpack who is red-faced, but just motoring at an impressive speed. An army guy & girl who are in full combat gear (including gloves), and loaded down with a heavy backpack. Combination training and sight-seeing? There's an air force base nearby, so maybe.

We also briefly chatted with a couple from Roswell who were making their the way up the trail. He was a reporter, so he'd had to go to the Roswell Museum several times, and he says he's sick of aliens. We told them that we were sure that Roswell would be the highlight of our trip (but only because we don't have time to go to Lubbock, the real Jewel of the South).

It's a happy thing when we can finally see the parking lot way off in the distance.

Off with the hiking boots - ahhh! My feet taste freedom again. Unload the backpacks, start up the car, turn on the A/C, and we're good to go again.

Off to Roswell! Unfortunately, that means driving past my sworn enemy, Artesia. >:-( Artesia, why did you take El Paso away from me, and leave me with nothing but boredom???

It also means we're driving north, for what might be the first time in a long time.

*****

To summarize our climb:

10:30 a.m. We start out from the trailhead.
12:48 p.m. We reach the summit. We then kick around for about 15-20 minutes, eating our trail mix and guzzling Gatorade. It's a clear day, and despite the sun, there's a refreshing breeze blowing. We sign the logbook with our names and city, take a few pics, then start down.
3:05 p.m. We're back at the trail head.

That's about 4.5 hours. The visitor centre says 6 to 8 hours. Hah! Beat ya again! :-)

We passed 7 people on the way up (although two of those were senior citizens, so I'm not sure they count - an 80-year-old man is hiking up that mountain. Awesome!), and of those we met at the summit, we passed 6 of them on the way down. Not that anyone is keeping track, or anything. ;-)

*****

Roswell! Aliens! IHOP! Need I say more? This place is like paradise. Tacky paradise.

Have I ever mentioned my love of the IHOP? It was in Chicago that we first met. Yummy pancakes, so much food, and so cheap! Well, there's an IHOP in Roswell, and when Stephen asked where we wanted to go eat supper - the Cattle Baron steakhouse, maybe? Or Applebee's? - I screamed "THE IHOP!" in his ear.

Now that he's eaten there, he's a recent convert to the Church of IHOPiness. Yum!

Yes, they have more than just pancakes. I had Mediterranean Chicken, because I'm trying to teach my body that healthy food does exist, and he had the sirloin tips. Unfortunately, while my intentions to eat healthy were good, I got derailed a bit. Stephen doesn't like veggies, and gave me his broccoli. I'd already eaten mine, and now I had another serving to eat. Stephen had leftover gravy. I discovered that broccoli dipped in gravy tastes divine. (To be fair, anything is gravy is pretty awesome.)

Back at our motel, I had my first extraterrestrial incident. The bathtub wouldn't fill with water. The tap ran and ran, but still, there was only a shallow pool of water. OMG, the aliens are totally stealing my bath water! Some might say it was just that the plug was a crappy loose plug that wasn't sitting properly, but you and I both know it was THE ALIENS.

In a completely unrelated topic, any news of sudden water shortages in Roswell are totally not my fault. ALIENS.

To the Bat Cave!

2010-09-04T23:34:00.050-06:00

As noted yesterday, we have been underwhelmed by the town of Carlsbad, but hope that Carlsbad Caverns will be the antidote. As this the Labour Day long weekend, that means families will be out in full force at the park, so we start off early. Yay for our National Park Pass, which once again gains us free admission. The US government is going to be peeved at just how many parks we've hit. :-)

You have two options to get to the caves: either walk down through the natural entrance to the cave, or ride the elevator. As we're not physically infirm, we see no reason to ride the elevator. We walk out to the natural entrance, and are confronted with a stop sign. "STOP! Assess hiking fitness!" Yeah, we're good. We go on, and there's another warning sign. And another. Long hike - steep incline - darkness. Warning signs for weak knees and exhaustion. We laugh at the idea (exhausted people with weak knees glare at us).

After all these warnings, there's a ranger waiting for you, and he gives you one last warning speech. Long steep descent, make sure you're physically fit. Hold onto the handrails, be quiet in the caves, don't let your kids run around, don't touch the rock, don't throw anything in the pools, and use the toilets now because there's no restrooms underground and it's illegal to pee in the caves (yes, people do that, apparently).

Roger that, ranger. We don't have any bladder or knee problems, so we're good to go.

Down the ramp into the wide gaping mouth of the cave. We're a short distance down, and I wrinkle my nose. "I smell bat poo." (I later discover that it's not bat poo - which is more correctly called "guano" - but it's bird poo. There are many cave swallows living in the entrance, so that's where they poo, too.)

The natural entrance trails downward in a long, looping switchback down, and you slowly move out of the sunlight, into shadow, and then into semi-darkness (and what would be total darkness if it weren't for the dim lighting that they have along the way). It really is quite dark, and you do have to be careful of your footing as the incline may very suddenly get steeper.

In spite of the multitude of warnings topside, as Stephen and I are descending, we pass three people who are moving VERY slowly. One of them was hobbling and complaining that "it really hurts" (their knees, of course), and another one was noticeably gasping and panting.

A few twisty turns of the path downward and we meet a ranger, let him know that there are some people back there having problems. "Are they about your size?" he asked hopefully. Um, no - a bit bigger. Sorry about that, dude. He seemed sadly resigned to his fate.

If you ever go to Carlsbad (and you don't have bad knees), make sure you do take the natural entrance. You miss out on a whole lot of cave if you take the elevators.

The caves themselves are amazing, and it really is impossible to describe them. Also, due to the low light and the scale of everything around you, very difficult to photograph. The "Big Room" is huge, and yes, there's stalactites and stalagmites, cave pearls, rock formations that look like moss or popcorn. One large stalagmite that is wet with constant water, and it appears to be slowly melting away.

At one place, there was a large hole in the ground, obviously going to lower caves, and an old wire and wood ladder dangling over the edge. This was left there from one of their exploratory expeditions in the 1930s. Man, that is one scary ladder into one dark hole. No thank you.

From Roadtrip

At another point, we could see wooden stairs climbing up into a rock tunnel. Visitors in the 50s came down the ramps into the natural entrance, then had to climb those stairs all the way out again. Wow, can you imagine that bottleneck? Strong knees indeed. :-)

Yes, Stephen and I would have taken the stairs (it's a challenge!), but you're not allowed to. Everyone rides up on the elevator now.

I think we spent over an hour of wandering through the caves before we were at the elevators. We timed our visit well, because just as we were getting ready to leave, a mass of people with noisy children come spilling out of the elevators.

Sadly, it looks like they've discontinued the kitschy 1950's style Underground cafeteria (apparently the park service has been trying to shut it down for a while - guess they succeeded). You can see where the cafeteria was, although there's just a small refrigerator with bottled drinks there now, and some tables for you to sit down at. There are two souvenir t-shirt kiosks as well. And yes, they are a bit garish and tacky - but if people didn't love garish and tacky, would Vegas be so popular?

The elevator ride back to the surface is a 750-foot ascent. It's like a cattle car, in more ways than one. (Moo. Somebody in here stinks.)

It's now about noon, and we don't have tickets to any tours (because apparently they sell out weeks or months in advance. Who knew?). There's the bat flight in the evening, but that's many hours away, and there's nothing to do in Carlsbad, so we've decided to drive out to Guadalupe Mountain National Park just over the border in Texas.

*****

At the visitor centre in Guadalupe Mountain National Park, there's a man asking the ranger about how to get rid of "chiggers". I have no idea what chiggers are, but from the sounds of his conversation, I'm guessing it's some kind of itchy tick thing that burrows under the skin. Eek! I glance at my capris and resolve to avoid McKittrick Canyon (which is where he said he picked them up).

Guadalupe Mountains is another relatively unspoiled national park, very little in the way of roads, and lots of hiking and camping. There's the 8.4 mile hike to the top of Guadalupe Peak (the highest point in Texas), but that's listed as strenuous, and the rangers say that takes about 6 to 8 hours, and we don't have time. We look at the shorter day hikes, and decide on the 4.2 mile Devil's Hall trail because it has some narrow canyons and natural rock stairs.

We grab our backpacks, fill up with water, and set off on our hike. My capris are good because it's a hot day, and they are not good because there are many scratchy grasses and yuccas swiping at my legs. (Hopefully no chiggers!)

It's not steep, but it is a steady climb uphill for a while, and it's hot. There's a lot of walking along a dry wash, climbing over rocks and then up and over boulders. Finally, we get to the rock staircases, climb up and go through the narrow canyon, which must be where it got the name of Devil's Hall.

(Devil's Hall is a narrow canyon, yes, but it's a short distance and not nearly as tight as Little Wild Horse Canyon.)

On the way back, we take out our hiking poles, and they are so helpful when it comes to clambering back down all the rocks we've just climbed over. Should have been using them on the way in.

I'm a little bit sad that we don't have the time to try to climb Guadalupe Peak. Next time, Guadalupe; next time. The mountain is unimpressed.

*****

Back to Carlsbad Caverns, where we still have two hours to burn before the bat flight. A sandwich and a cookie at the cafeteria eats up a bit of time. We start reading books in the bookstore for a while ("hey, it ain't a library, pal!"), and eventually we decide, "To the bat cave!" And we swoop off to the amphitheater to find a place to sit.

Fortunately, we decided to head in early. The amphitheater seats about 1,000, and it's eventually packed to overflowing. Thankfully, the ranger reminds parents to take cranky kids out, as we're all supposed to be QUIET so that the bats come out. Some parents are diligent about this; others, not so much. :-/

It's around 7:30 when the bats finally start flying out. Most of them immediately head off over the hills, but a few fly close by us. They're smaller than you'd expect (maybe because we most commonly see vampire bats in horror movies), and there's estimated to be about 300,000 to 500,000 roosting in the caverns. And yes, they fly out every night.

Two seconds after the bats start flying, some people are ready to leave (obviously intent on being part of the big traffic jam out of the park). Stephen and I figure we might as sit and watch the bats for a while - that's what we came for, after all.

When it got too dark to see them any more, we briefly chatted with one of the park rangers; I asked about the poo smell when the bats were flying out - this is where we learned it was the bird droppings that stink - when the bats all come flying out in their little tornado, they create a nice little breeze that wafts that scent back up to us. So, it turns out that bats aren't as stinky as I at first supposed. :-)

At this point, it's 9 p.m., and it's very dark outside. The caverns are a good distance away from Carlsbad, and you can see so many stars in the sky. Venus is glowing brightly, and Stephen thinks he's picked out Mars as well. We found the big dipper, and I think I can actually see the North Star (which I usually have a hard time finding). There's also a pale sweep of light that Stephen says is the milky way. Sweet! (Maybe not quite as sweet as the Milky Way chocolate bar, but close.)

Driving back into Carlsbad, we stop at a Wal-Mart, where we behold yet more wonders. A pizza for $1.25! A case of Diet Coke with Lime for $4.00 (no deposit)! Some weird soda called Dr. Thunder and Diet Dr. Thunder! Booze!

Yes, folks, it's a bizarre and exciting new world down here.

White Sands National Monument

2010-09-03T20:32:00.040-06:00

Roadrunner! If he catches you, he'll eat your shoes...

We're on our way to White Sands National Monument this morning.

However, driving through Las Cruces, we first stopped to see the giant roadrunner made of trash. Yes, you read that right. It was constructed of trash from the landfill (mostly shoes, from what we could see). Yesterday, when we'd mentioned we were going through Las Cruces, we were told about the roadrunner at the rest stop there, which, of course, meant we had to stop and see it. :-) He's quite a large roadrunner. Sadly, I don't think I've seen any real roadrunners yet.

Also saw another interesting road-side sign, except of a more official variety than most. We passed by a correctional facility (aka a prison), and a few miles down the road, there's a sign warning us "Do NOT Pick Up Hitch-hikers in This Area!" Ha ha ha! Noted.

There are some lovely mountains just beyond Las Cruces, and there's farmland in the valleys. Not quite what we expected of New Mexico. The temperature this morning was 28C, which seems much more manageable than Tucson's weather.

Just before reaching White Sands, we noticed some kind of traffic diversion ahead. All traffic on our side of the highway was directed off to a temporary border station. Not your usual border guards, but soldiers from the nearby missile base, wearing their camouflage uniforms and everything. So, naturally, they were much friendlier than the real border guards.

They asked if we were American citizens. Stephen said, "Si, senor," and they started to drag him away. Fortunately, I had our passports on hand for the army dude. "Canadians?" Looks at our passport pics, and snorts because passport pictures are always so awful. "You look like dorks. What are you doing here?"

"We're going to White Sands, and Carlsbad Caverns, and Stephen wants to buy Tequila in Santa Fe."

"Okay. No one's in the back of your car?" Nope. No room for anyone in there, what with all the chips and pop and souvenir magnets that we're carting along with us. (In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if our vehicle gives off weird magnetic readings...)

We're free to go. Yay!

White Sands is just past the illegal immigrant checkpoint. And, in case you didn't know, White Sands is a combination National Monument *and* a missile range. Several times a week, the highway we were driving on and the park are shut down while fighter jets test missiles. Fortunately, today was not a bombing day. Which means they're not allowed to launch things at hapless hikers and tourists (no matter how much they might want to).

The white sands are actually gypsum, carried down from the mountains in streams, but as this area is a low-lying basin surrounded by mountains, there's nowhere for it to go, and the water eventually evaporates, leaving behind the gypsum. Fast forward who knows how many million years (some park ranger probably knows, but I don't), and you have vast dunes of gypsum. Vast, as in it covers 275 miles!!! It's something to see, and you definitely want your sunglasses. It is blindingly white. Every time I tried to peek with my sunglasses off, I burned my retinas. Now I see white sands everywhere...

First, we drove into the picnic area, with the funky covered picnic tables (those are sun shades), and you can run around and play in the dunes. The gift shop at the entrance sells sleds, too.

The roads seem to be just plowed out of the sand and sprayed down with water. Looks like snow and ice, but it's all gypsum sand.

Stephen and I did the 4.8 mile Alkali Flats hike. You have to sign in and sign out, and it's recommended that you take a GPS with you. Yay, I get to use my hiking GPS!

It's not long into the hike before you realize why they recommend the GPS. You'll be fine if you stick to the trail markers (which are orange-tipped posts stuck into the sad, so they do stick out from a distance), but if you wander off, it's just sloping white sand dunes everywhere. In between the dunes, there are little flat areas where plants are growing. Occasionally, you even see the top of a tree poking through the sides of a dune. The dunes are constantly moving with the wind and will sweep over everything in their path.

Hiking through sand dunes is harder than you might expect. Some parts of the dunes are relatively hard-packed by the wind, which is easier, but a lot of it is like squishy soft sand, and it's hard work slogging through it.

We eventually reach the Alkali Flats, and we can see some military base stuff way off in the distance. I wonder if the army will have cookies and orange juice waiting for us? Stephen thinks not - but he figures if we keep going, we may get a free trip to Guantanamo.

Eh, maybe not this time - it's not on my list of things to see. This is the end of the shared use area - the trail loops back the way we came, and we decide it's a good idea to head back.

FYI, the trail guide says the hike should take three hours, but Stephen and I do it in two. Whoo! Our streak of speed hiking remains intact. :-)

*****

After White Sands, we're heading towards Carlsbad.

But Stephen is ruining all my fun - he's afraid of El Paso (and Mexican drug lords who might shoot at his car as we drive by), so instead we're driving through Alamogordo. Who ever heard of Alamogordo before? It's a silly name. And I'm pretty sure I can't see Mexico from Alamogordo. >:-(

Instead, we take a road towards Artesia. It starts out promisingly enough, going through a high point at the appropriately named Cloudcroft - all pine trees and high elevation and blue skies and happy clouds. It appears to be a resort community, and for a while, you have the fancy cabins and houses in the woods, then a few picturesque little farms.

Then, all of a sudden, nothing. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Miles and miles of it. The happy trees and streams are gone, and there's no towns, so there's also no stupid roadside signs, which at least alleviate the boredom. Road to Artesia, you stink. And I'm telling all my friends about you. >:-( I'm sure the road to El Paso would have been much more interesting, if only someone in this car didn't have Mexiphobia...

We hope that things will improve, but alas, no such luck. In fact, we pass through a tumbledown little town called Hope. I'm pretty sure that I caught a glimpse of their 'welcome' sign, and it said "Abandon all Hope, all ye who enter here..."

Oh, look, Artesia is an oil town. There are statues of guys building derricks. There's a place called the Wellhead. I am grouchy and of the opinion that there is more oil in Stephen's car. Although the giant refinery in the middle of town might prove me wrong. Still, aside from an excess of statuary, I don't see much to recommend Artesia.

You know those movies where the kid grows up in the small town and he can't wait to do something, to get out of this small town? Wow, I totally get it now.

We finally, finally arrive at Carlsbad, which our Rough Guide says is "astonishing in its blandness." I'll say. What the heck, Carlsbad? Why are you so boring? You've got a National Park that brings in 1 million visitors a year - if you tried to be a little bit interesting, you might actually get people to stay more than a day or two. But the main street through Carlsbad is little more than a string of average motels, gas stations, utilitarian local businesses, and boarded up buildings (maybe the recession hit them hard?).

Hey, did anyone notice that it's the Labour Day Weekend? Great. Now we're competing with a multitude of families out for one last vacation. We find a room at The Stagecoach Inn, which is one of those family-owned motels. Although the decor is somewhat dated, the rooms are cheap enough and clean, and so we're set.

Next door is the "No-Whiner Diner" (where apparently you're not allowed to complain). We're going to wander over there to eat.

Place to stay, place to eat, and Internet, too. Things are looking up.

Hot in the City (of Tucson)

2010-09-02T23:04:00.025-06:00

At 7 a.m. in Tucson, it's already hot. Unbelievable! There is no cold water in our hotel. Just hot, and then warm (from what most people would consider the cold-water tap). Oh well, it's not like we planned to sit in a motel room and drink tap water anyway.

After a quick bite of breakfast, we drive out to Saguaro National Park. What's a saguaro? Think of the typical cactus that you'd see on a Warner Bros cartoon - one of those tall cactuses with arms - that's a saguaro. They're apparently very finicky about the climate and land where they grow, but there's a large concentration of them around Tucson.

I kind of love the saguaros - they're almost comical, they way they look like large stick people. Although I'm sure that some would argue that anything that takes 250 years to grow that tall cannot be described as comical, it must be stately and dignified. But still... Look, that one is waving his arms. Hahaha!

Saguaro National Park is split into two halves - one on the east side of the city, and the other on the west side. We start with the east one, as it's closer to where we're staying, and we'll be working out way west as we go through the day.

When we pull into visitor center, a girl walking by warns us not to use the restrooms, because there's a big rattlesnake beside the wall there. We immediately perk up. Really? Thanks for telling us. And then we quickly go over to take a look (because we're dumb, and we've never seen a rattlesnake). Yup, there it is.

I take a photo, but the rattlesnake is not as exciting as I expect it to be. I tell Stephen to go pose beside it. It bites his head! Aargh!, he screams. Thinking quickly, I use his belt as a tourniquet and wrap it around his neck, but then his face turns red and then blue and his whole head balloons up like a big discoloured balloon--

Uh oh. This scenario will likely end up with me in jail, or at least answering awkward questions. Let's have a do-over.

~Rewinding...~

I take a photo, and the rattlesnake slides off the sidewalk and goes into the shrubbery. Everyone lives happily ever after.

When a staff member finally arrives for work (slackers!), Stephen goes to warn him that there are rattlesnakes in them thar hills! The park worker is unimpressed. (It's like someone coming up to us, and saying, "There's a gopher outside!") While chatting with him about our plans for the day, he suggested that we go to the Arizona & Sonora Desert Museum first, then come back to visit Saguaro afterward; the animals at the zoo are more active early in the day, before it gets too hot.

The Arizona & Sonora Desert Museum is about five minutes away, so we backtracked. It's a large complex, mostly outdoors. One of the park guides mentions that there's free sunscreen inside in case we need it. I've already applied it, and we're both wearing hats and long pants. I mention the epidemic of people hiking in flip-flops, and the park guide rolls her eyes. She's suggested that park management should rent out proper shoes to people, because they'd make a fortune. She told us about people going off the marked paths, hiking through cactus patches wearing flip-flops, and coming back crying because - guess what? - they've got cactus needles in their feet and legs.

The museum is mostly outside, although there are shady patches here and there. We did see quite a few animals: mountain lion, Mexican coyotes, lizards and birds, and some interior exhibits with creepy crawlies. We meet another wild snake on a path, but stand back to let it go by.

Inside their auditorium, we went in to see the "Animals Running Wild" show. A cute little parrot says "Hi" when we walk in the room. "Hi! Hello!" And, of course, we laugh and keep saying Hello! right back at it. For the show, a ranger gave a speech about animals and their habitat, and then some of the animals would come running across the stage. Happy times! :-)

After that, we'd pretty much worked our way through the park, so we returned to Saguaro and drove the scenic loop. It was too freaking hot to hike any distance, but we did stop to take a few pictures.

Next on the list was to pay a visit to the mission church of San Xavier del Bac. It's a beautiful white plaster church built around 1790. Fortunately for art lovers everywhere, the church has brought in an Italian team of experts in restoring paintings; they're busy removing the layers of grime that have accumulated over the last 100 years from candle smoke, dust, etc. Unfortunately, for us, it meant that the most spectacular pieces of art in the church were hidden behind scaffolding. Doh!

Are we done yet? No, now we're going to the Pima Air & Space Museum. You know what sucks about air museums? They need gigantic hangars, and even then, they don't have enough room, so most of the planes are outside in the baking, baking heat of day. So hot. Need water. I'm melting - melting! Oh, what a world, what a world--!!!

My favourite part of the Air & Space Museum was the space hangar. Because it was indoors, it had air conditioning, and it's nice and dark and cold in space. In space, no one will hear you scream, "It's so hot!" (Hey, that sounds like the tagline for a movie. A movie about someone dying of heatstroke in Tucson...)

Our last stop on this very busy day was to head to Saguaro National Park West, on the other side of town from where we'd started. This appear to be the original park, with a larger visitor center, fully paved roads and far more hiking trails. The road is very hilly, and there's maybe a little more variety in the type of cactuses here. Because it's the end of the day, we just do the scenic drive.

Now it's time to gas up and leave Tucson (because we've now seen everything there is in Tucson). However, lately, every time we stop at a gas station, I'm unable to use my credit card to pay at the pump. You insert the card, and then it asks for a zip code. When that happens, I always scream, "What if you don't have a *&#*$^ing zip code, you *#$&*#?!?!?!" It always makes me feel better to show off my Canadian affinity for casual swearing. Anyway, it's very annoying. It seemed that our cards worked in Utah, but Arizona has been insisting on zip codes. Wankas.

We were optimistically heading for Las Cruces, but there wasn't that much daylight left. The sun sets early around here - driving into the east, the sky is pink and purple twilight, with a bright desert orange sunset in the rearview mirror. Beautiful. I'd have taken a picture for you if I hadn't been driving on the Interstate. :-)

By the time we've reached New Mexico, we were driving in darkness. So, the scenery was very... um... dark. It looks like nothing I've ever seen before (because I can't see it. Duh). There are many warning signs about dust storms, so I presume we're in some open area.

We keep going until Deming, where we decide to call it a night at a Best Western.

Vegas to Phoenix to Tucson

2010-09-01T23:13:00.001-06:00

First day of September, and we're leaving Las Vegas early in the day. There's some kind of facility in the middle of the desert a short distance outside the city. It looks like it might be a solar-power plant, which would definitely be a good location for it; however, it's equally possible that it's a zombie-manufacturing plant. You never know. (What? Am I the only person who watches these movies?!)

Still, we haven't entirely left the Vegas weirdness behind yet: there's a wide-load truck hauling half a house. A minute later, another wide-load truck with the other half of the house. Actually, scratch that. It's a whole caravan of houses, all cut in half. Guess they're relocating an entire neighbourhood. :-)

Today is a long-drive day, from Vegas to Tuscon (with a brief planned stop in Phoenix). We're seeing proper desert scenery now - definitely things got drier and more desert-like around Vegas.

What else do we see? A lot of nothing. Sometimes, the road-side signs even admit it. ;-)

It's another hot day, even in the car. Maybe it's because I'm just not used to the sun, but I always feel like I'm roasting here. And although long sleeves sound counter-intuitive for the desert, I'm so glad I have them. My shirts are lightweight enough, and I don't like the sun beating down on my skin. Maybe it's because I'm just not used to it, but I always feel like I'm roasting. I'm a turkey in a hot oven, and those little cool zones in Vegas are nothing more than little spritzes of cooking oil to keep me from shrivelling up completely.

Or maybe that's just the feeling of Vitamin D being generated. Like I said, I guess I'm just not used to it. :-)

We take a different highway to bypass Hoover Dam, because there's a whole lot of construction going on there and long delays are expected (we must have lucked out and timed it right when driving into Vegas - it was quite late in the day when we went over the Hoover Dam, and traffic wasn't bad in spite of the road restrictions).
It's mid-afternoon by the time we reach Surprise, AZ. What's the surprise? I don't know. The only surprising thing that I note is that it's as flat as Saskatchewan, with less greenery and more cactuses. The temperature outside the car is now 43C. Thank God for A/C!

In Phoenix, we manage to NOT get lost in the 5-lane freeway traffic. The GPS has lane assist, which helps (when she's not trying to kill us).


Stephen is admitted to the Heart Attack Grill

We arrived at Stephen's special tourist stop - the Heart Attack Grill. There's an ambulance parked outside, and the front door has a big warning that 'this establishment may be dangerous to your health.' As soon as you go in, a waitress dressed as a sexy nurse "checks you in" to the facility. She gives you a hospital gown and a wrist band. Then you can look over your "medicine list" (menu) and choose your "prescription" (fatty food).

We both went with the Single Bypass Burger, which was the smallest option (1/2 lb), and the all-you-can-eat Flatliner Fries (which are fried in pure lard). Stephen had a Coke; although I knew it was probably a dumb question, I asked if they had Diet Coke? No. They don't have anything "diet". In fact, they spit when you say the word "diet". So I went with water.

I hate to say it, but the food was pretty yum! (Isn't that always the way, though? The worse it is for you, the better it tastes.) Still, I ate only half my burger and carrried the rest away for later.

The waitress told us that a nine-year-old girl once ate the entire quadruple bypass burger. And one guy ate one, then ordered another and almost finished that one. Yikes. If you eat a quadruple bypass burger, the nurses will wheel you back to your car in a wheelchair. If I ate that much, I'd have to be wheeled back on a gurney.

So, that was our only stop in Phoenix, then it was back on the road to Tucson.

When we arrived, we found another EconoLodge, although this one was a bit more downscale than some of the others. We have no idea whether this is a good part of town or a bad part of town (although the grotty little liquor store right next door might be a hint).

It's hot in Tucson. It's hot in our EconoLodge room - I won't stay until I'm convinced that the A/C is working. It is working, slowly, so we unpack the car. There is no cold water in the taps - there's only hot water and not-quite-so-hot water. Whatever.

Rather than sit in a hot hotel room, we decide to head out and give the A/C a chance to catch up. So, we head for the Tucson Mall! There's something called REI (Recreational Equipment something-with-an-I), which is a big beautiful store with outdoor equipment and clothing, and I think I'm in heaven. It's just like MEC! And then I realize, it IS just like MEC. It's the American version of MEC (or MEC is the Canadian version of REI), and I need a membership. Oh. I deflate into sadness. No purchases for me. :-(

However, consolation waits for me elsewhere in the mall - they have a Cinnabon. Hello, yummy delicious cinnamon bun. Stephen opts for a Mint Oreo blizzard from DQ. (Yes, another day of bad food choices for us.)

That's the excitement in Tucson so far!

Guns, Glitz & Bodies: Vegas, Part 2

2010-08-31T23:53:00.038-06:00

We're staying on the 26th floor at New York New York, and it's definitely the nicest hotel we've been in so far (and at about the same price as the EconoLodges that we usually prefer). Ooh, fancy marbled bathroom.

This morning, we head out to see the sights. It's already hot here, and it's only 9 a.m. There's a scruffy man standing out on a traffic median as we drive by, holding a sign that says "Hungry & Homeless". :-(

Between the quirks of our GPS and the determined efforts of construction crews to obscure every directional sign they can, we're having a bit of trouble navigating the city.

GPS: Take the exit ahead on Paradise Road.
Me: There is no Paradise Road! I don't see it! Is this it?
GPS: Take the exit on Paradise Road.
Me: What's the exit number? Do I exit here or the next one? (Decide to take exit)
GPS: Take exit 38B.
Me: Aargh! This is 38A! Why didn't you say so earlier?!
GPS: Snickers quietly to itself.

We're trying to get to the Gun Store. We drove past it last night on our way into the city. For some reason, the GPS now claims it's 833 miles away. Um, no. It's on East Tropicana - we saw it there! And besides, this is the United States - there's no way there's no guns in an 800-mile radius.

Eventually, we manage to get the GPS reset, and we arrive at The Gun Shop. There's a pretty girl sitting at a tent set up outside, probably stationed there to coax people inside. When we walk up, she says, "I see we have two shooters."

We're thinking of Fredonia, and looking around suspiciously: "You do? Where are they?"

Of course, she meant us. Oops. Yes, we are clueless Canadians.

So, what did we want to shoot today.

A gun!

What kind of gun?

Um... a gun!

She went through the various options. I chose the Ladies package: a Glock (pistol) and 20 rounds, and 10 rounds on the "Hello Kitty" pink AK-47. Yeah!

Stephen got the Coalition package - an increasingly lethal assortment of weapons. First, a Beretta (pistol), then an M4 carbine (automatic rifle), and an M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon - an even bigger rifle).

Since we're obviously a danger to ourselves and others, we paid extra to get an actual instructor and a semi-private room. We had to promise we weren't pregnant, crazy, or on drugs, sign a waiver (aside from accidentally getting shot, there's hearing damage, vapours from gun powder, etc. etc.), then put on our safety glasses and ear protection. In we go!

The instructor shows me how to hold the gun. Obviously, I haven't paid enough attention to TV, because I keep wanting to hold it wrong. Finally, I do it properly, and he loads the gun and hands it to me. Okay, time to point and shoot at my paper target.

BANG! "Eek!" says I. It was louder than I expected, has a bit of a kick, there's gun smoke and bullet casings are flying back at me. (Hence the safety eyewear.)

I kill my target dummy pretty good - don't do so well with the head shots (missed with one shot and only nicked the top of his brain with the other).

Stephen shoots his Beretta, which keeps jamming. Fortunately, the instructor knows how to fix it. Obviously, Stephen's goggles weren't on tightly enough, because he gets gun powder in his eyes and has to go wash them out.

Next up, is Stephen's fully automatic weapon. BangbangbangbangabangaBANG!!! Apparently it has quite the kick, and Stephen's moving backward while spraying bullets everywhere (OMG, we're all gonna die!) - the instructor jumps forward to steady him and push him back into the booth. Apparently, the trigger was a little more sensitive than Stephen expected. Our instructor said it was too bad we hadn't filmed that, because it would have made for a funny video. If only he'd suggested it beforehand.

Stephen's last gun is the biggest, but he says that the SAW is actually a bit easier to handle, because it's got a tripod thing and it's more stable. He successfully kills his target poster of Osama bin Laden.

You laugh at my safety goggles and earmuffs...?
I kill you!! With my pink AK-47!

At last, it's my turn again! They bring me my pink AK-47 (it has a faded "Hello Kitty" sticker on the side). And it has a laser sight thingy - cool! I kill my target again. (She was evil.)

Hooray! We haven't accidentally shot ourselves or the instructor. That's got to be a success!

It was actually a lot of fun. And it's all done in a very controlled, safety-conscious place. The scary thing is to think that people can actually own all of those guns, and might have them in their house. Yikes!

But, if you're just a tourist in Vegas, why not go shoot some guns? I have to admit, it was loads of fun. (And I think even the instructor found it amusing to coach completely clueless people.)

P.S. Now I know how to shoot you. With an AK-47. You just think about that for a while. ;-)

Moving on, we went to the Liberace museum, which has his incredibly over-blinged cars, pianos and costumes. Seriously, I've never seen more glitter and feathers in my life. The spirit of Vegas in a nutshell.

After Liberace, we went to the Atomic Testing Museum. Very interesting. They had a pretty creative setup - a room with faux concrete walls, like it's a bunker, where you watch a film of an atomic explosion. Lots of video displays. It was sort of like wandering through a large interactive documentary.

Obviously, I did know about the Nevada test sites. However, I did not know that people used to park up on the hills and watch the tests. =:-O

There were some old instructional films, telling people what to do in the event of atomic attack. They had footage of soldiers in a dugout near a test explosion. After the explosion, they all got out and marched towards ground zero. The film doesn't mention what happened to them, but I presume they all eventually died of cancer. And irony of ironies as the film shows the soldiers marching towards the cloud, with a 1950s voiceover about how there's nothing to fear, the soldiers pull out cigarettes and start smoking. Aargh!

You don't know what you don't know, I guess.

Anyway, definitely a worthwhile stop.

For lunch, we drove down to Fremont Street and stopped at the Four Queens to have lunch at Magnolia's. This is at the older end of the strip, I think. We wandered around on a pedestrian street for a while.

At the Golden Nugget, Stephen gambled one dollar on a giant slot machine. He lost. We left. Yes, we're sore losers. That's the last dollar you get from us, Vegas!!! (From gambling, anyway.)

This it's back to NYNY, where we park our car, because we don't want to be driving later when the traffic gets crazy. We walk along the strip all the way down to the Wynn, then head back. Despite the midday heat, there's no shortage of people clicking girly cards in your face. They're a good part of the gridlock problem on the sidewalks. There's enough slow-moving people already, and when you've got four or five card people on each corner, they end up causing a bottleneck, as people try to squeeze past them without seeing or acknowledging them.

We walked over to the Luxor, to see the Bodies exhibition. Yes, that's the one with actual bodies on display. It's kind of fascinating, and kind of disturbing at the same time. Because, most of the time, most parts of the human body look disturbingly like meat. Which, of course, it is, but it's still a bit creepy to see. I did find it really interesting, however.

At the Luxor, the staff were trying to coax us to come back and stay with them. Stay, Vegas says. You can't leave yet - there's still money in your bank account. Vegas is a financial vampire.

Oh, speaking of money, there was an Elvis Cirque de Soleil show playing at one of the hotels. I kind of wanted to go see that, until I saw that the tickets were about $200.

Anyway, we were played out by that time. Got some New York pretzels for supper, and started packing up to leave tomorrow morning.

Viva Las Vegas...?

2010-08-31T01:01:00.036-06:00

I have been in Vegas for maybe 5 hours now, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

We're staying at New York New York hotel in Vegas

At first, it was shiny and exciting (if a bit difficult to find out how and where to park). Already dark when we arrived, the city was lit up, blinking and flashing everywhere. The rollercoaster is running on New York New York, the Luxor is shooting a blue spotlight into the sky, the whole surface of the MGM Grand is throwing off multiple colours in multiple directions, and the Tropicana is just sitting there (do something, Tropicana). Further down the street, the Eiffel Tower at the Paris hotel is calling to me like a siren...

But then, five minutes after you've been walking out and about outside, you start noticing the beggars sitting off to the side, hoping for spare change. On every corner, people wearing "Girls Girls Girls" t-shirts, and snapping girly cards in your face. Throngs of people everywhere. No matter which direction you go, or how many times you navigate around somebody who's annoyingly slow, there's always another annoyingly slow person in front of them ready to take their place.

Inside is equally chaotic. There's a constant beep-beepbeep-bing from the slot machines, and the bars are cranking out loud music. People are lounging like zombies in front of the slot machines, just hitting the buttons to keep it rolling. The noise is driving me crazy. About the only escape from it is to go up to our hotel room, where at least it's nice and quiet and you can enjoy the lights without bumping around on the overcrowded sidewalks.

However, there is no microwave or fridge in our hotel room (because they don't want you eating food you didn't buy from them! They don't want you saving food you DID buy from them! You should throw it out and buy some more tomorrow).

Vegas is definitely worth seeing - but wow, does the sheer sensory overload start to rot your brain and your nerves. I think Vegas has just made me into an epileptic. Possibly a curmudgeon as well. Oh wait, I already was that. Never mind.

Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I'll like it better tomorrow. After all, the fountains in front of the Bellagio were definitely worth seeing - we actually stood around to watch two shows.

***********

The whole place is opulence on a grand scale, and yet it's gaudy and tacky. It's very nouveau riche, where it's all in your face.

There's a bride hobbling along up the stairs into Caesar's Palace, grimacing either because her feet hurt her, or because she's only just now realized she married a lout. (I vote for Door #2.) In a nice contrast, there's also some skanktastic ladies lounging outside Caesar's Palace. Working girls waiting for a job, or tacky tourists just dressing for the nightclubs? (I'll take Door #1 on that one.)

When you do venture inside the hotel casinos, there are no obvious exit signs anywhere, because they don't want you to exit. Hypnotic Hotel Voice: Why would you want to go anywhere else? I have everything you need right here. (Except a fridge and a microwave.)

***************

So, I'm still ambivalent. But it's hard to hold a grudge against a city that has a two-storey Coca Cola store. Yes, TWO FLOORS of Coke products and memorabilia. And yet... not a single Diet Coke with Lime? So disappointed in you, Vegas. :-(

Grand Canyon South!

2010-08-30T19:24:00.000-06:00

By the way, yes (as some of you have ~~complained~~ noted), there is a delay on posting sometimes. If we're on the road and I'm not driving, I'll try to write up my blog postings in the car. If we're on the road and I am driving, well, then I type a lot slower so it takes a lot longer. ;-)

This morning, we made a quick pit-stop at a Jiffy Lube to make sure that the car keeps going, and then we left Flagstaff. Goodbye, Flagstaff! I'll miss all your cheesy motels and restaurants. :-(

So, we're headed for the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. We were at the North Rim a few days ago, and the Grand Canyon is about 10 miles wide across, but there's no way across - and it's over 200 miles and five hours to drive around. (Which is why we stopped in Flagstaff.)

We headed into the Grand Canyon park from the west entrance (vs the south entry to the park, which is where most of the traffic is), and our first stop was the Desert View watchtower. Here we saw the first of what would be many construction signs. The crowds were noticeably larger than at the North Rim, but we were still early enough in the day that it wasn't too bad yet. The Watchtower was being renovated, but we could still get inside and climb up to the top. I think the views would be improved by the lack of fingerprints and nose prints on the windows, but maybe that's just me.

At the Tusayan Ruins and Museum, we noticed a display about the "(Dine) Navajo" and their Athabascan-based language. We asked the ranger if the Navajo were related to Dene, who are still in the Athabasca region? The ranger said that the Navajo were newer arrivals to the area, so it was likely that they did migrate down from Canada. Smart, to have kept going south where the winters are much better! :-)

As we drove along through the park, we stopped at most of the viewpoints, and the view is always impressive no matter where you are, but I think I liked the viewpoints themselves more at the North Rim. More of them were perched way out on rocky outcroppings, instead of being located just along the rim.

The Grand Canyon Village at the South Rim is an absolute zoo. Probably more so now because they had large chunks of area closed off for construction. If you have restricted spaces, construction signs, and add in many busloads of tourists - what do you get? You get hordes of people wandering like cattle through narrow detour corridors marked with orange construction fencing. All of the main South Rim outlooks are closed - so you walk for about 10 or 15 minutes, and the minute we're anywhere near the rim, everyone is spilling out into the bushes and the trees and scrambling for photos.

I did hear one woman, shuffling along the makeshift gravel pathways, complain about her shoes. Yes, flip-flops. (When will you learn, people?!) Although, I have to say, there were others who made worse footwear choices. I saw a woman wearing three-inch wedge sandals, and another girl wearing hotpants and heels (must have come straight from Vegas).

The Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim (taken from
Yavapai point on the South Rim)

We hiked along the rim to the Yavapai point, which is across from the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim. From the information posted inside at Yavapai, we had a general idea of where the lodge was - I used the zoom on my camera to see if I could find it. I did! Then I tried to take a picture - had the zoom up to 80x, and there's a lot of wobbly hand when the zoom is that high. My first attempt bombed out, but I got it on the second. Whoohoo! Look - we had breakfast there two days ago! That's about 10 miles away - have I mentioned that I love my camera?

Anyway, North or South? There's no bad views of the Grand Canyon, so I suppose it depends on your preference (or, probably more often, the direction you're approaching from). Personally, given a choice, I'd book space at the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim and vacation a few days there. Same view, different angle, and WAY less crowds.

To be fair, I hate crowds. They always walk slower than me and I find it annoying. I also find it annoying when all of the main viewpoints are closed for renovation. But, whatever. Go North. You'll like it.

Okay, we've had enough of the crowds. We're back on the road, driving on the speedy interstate. 75 mph. Whee!

A few notable things we saw on the road:

A truck hauling a tank. Yes, a tank! Ka-BOOM! That kind of tank (not a water tank, or a gas tank, duh). Where's it going? I don't know. It's painted green, so I guess it's not going to Afghanistan.
The Roadkill Cafe outside Seligman. Mmm. (No, we didn't stop. We weren't THAT hungry.)

Oh, and one last note for today: We stopped to gas up the vehicle in Kingman. While we're at the pumps, a salesman walks up because they're doing a promo where they're trying to sell some car cleaning stuff. He starts his spiel, then breaks off, "OMG, those are BUGS! I thought that was DIRT! Where did you come from?!" The front of Stephen's car is littered with bug corpses (mostly from Saskatchewan and Montana... maybe a bit of Idaho). He calls the other guy over to see, and actually asks to take a picture of the car. We tell him to peek down and look at the radiator. When he does, his mouth drops open. "OMG! That's mass murder! Did it sound like rain, when their little bodies were hitting your car?!"

He was killing himself laughing - I think we made his day. He took several photos, we bought a bottle of his cleaner, and everyone's happy. (One of these days we'll find a car wash somewhere...)

Getting Our Kicks on Route 66

2010-08-29T22:44:00.032-06:00

Well, I got a kick out of the steady stream of funny motels and restaurants running all along the main drag (which is now the I40, but used to be Route 66). Oh look, express liquor (for when you just can't wait to get drunk). And a big sign that simply says GUNS. I guess that says it all. :-) I also get a kick out of the "no guns" signs you see whenever you enter a national park. What?! No guns?! How will I protect myself? What if I'm attacked by a bear?!

You're in Flagstaff - where do you want to be?

As we're not going to Toroweap, we spent last night deciding what to do instead of the extreme wilderness trek. We didn't want to hit the South Rim on a weekend, so we looked at day trips from Flagstaff instead. Eventually, we decided on Walnut Canyon National Monument, and the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert.

Our GPS considered how to get to Walnut Canyon - take the speedy paved Interstate, or take the road called Old Walnut Canyon Road? Guess which one she took? This time, she successfully tricked us, because Old Walnut Canyon Road sounded legit. However, eventually we realized that by "old", they mean that the Sinagua peoples used it back when they lived in their cliff dwellings in Walnut Canyon.

In any case, it was a bumpy, rocky road - and if we didn't like driving 5 minutes on that, we would have hated driving to Toroweap.

It's 28C today, which may be a tad bit cool for Arizona; I'm not really sure. However, it is super windy. The digital signs over the interstate had warnings of high winds, and I could really feel it buffeting the car as we drove along.

When we arrived at Walnut Canyon, we laughed to see the sign at the park desk about how GPS units can lead people astray. We mentioned that our GPS had done the same thing (the ranger said we were only the 990th person to tell them that this year), but at least it wasn't as bad as when it had tried to kill us near Goblin Valley.

Anyway, Walnut Canyon was a nice stop. If I had to be a cliff dweller, I'd probably pick Walnut Canyon, as the cliffs here are not as extreme as at Mesa Verde. Much more accessible, and the residents probably didn't have nearly as many fatal falls. :-)

In the park, we also saw that the prickly Yucca plant actually grows fruit that you can eat. Who knew? It's not just a nasty Aloe Vera. And when you're walking the trails through the canyon, you see lots of little lizards, very speedy little things.

When we finished the trail and headed back through the visitor center, the guy at the front desk remarked that we finished quickly. Yes, sir! We are strong, sturdy Canadians! You Americans walk slowly.

Actually, there appears to be a million and two German tourists in this area of the country, along with about 40 Brits. The Canadians are harder to pick out of the crowd, but I hear there's at least two of them staying in Flagstaff. :-)

Moving on towards the Petrified Forest, we were back on the I40. We laughed at the sign for Two Guns, 1 Mile. But we laughed from the safety of our speeding car, because that looks like a place where they kill tourists for fun.

Also, there were a plethora of signs for the Meteor Crater, Meteor Crater 1/4 mile, Meteor Crater now, OMG you're going to miss the Meteor Crater if you don't exit now, now, NOW!!! Too late, you missed the Meteor Crater. :-(

Yes, we deliberately skipped the Meteor Crater. It's actually a privately owned landmark, and admission was $15 per person in 2007. You can't hike down, you can just stare at the hole in the ground. Wow. Thanks, but no.

Anyway, no sooner does Meteor Crater stopped nagging you to visit, when we start seeing signs for Meteor City. Meteor City Indian Blankets! Real jewellery made by Indians! And a place called Jack Rabbit's something or other that noted it had "Nice Indians". What a relief! I hate those mean Indians they have everywhere else. ;-)

Oh, let's not forget the roadside signs for Knife City, where a sequence of roadside signs informs you that you can get kitchen knives, guns, high capacity clips, and all kinds of self-defense items. Someone breaks in, you use your throwing knives, shoot him with your high-capacity clips (that'll be 110 bullet holes), and then - just to finish him off - you pepper spray him. Ouch - that stings!

Eventually, we did have to exit the Interstate and drive through Holbrook, which has the Wigwam Hotel. OMG, if I didn't already have a room, we would SO be staying there. They're cute little wooden wigwams! Also, as Holbrook is right next to the entrance to Petrified Forest, there are a million rock and petrified wood vendors. Little mom & pop shops with dinosaur statues outside. It's like being back in Drumheller. ;-)

Petrified Forest/Painted Desert is essentially a drive along a closed highway, with Petrified Forest at one end and Painted Desert at the other (and visitor centres at both ends). So it's a drive-through park with lots of pullouts and hiking ttrails on the way.

Petrified Forest is, as you'd expect, a great expanse of desert with petrified wood littered everywhere. When you enter the park, you are warned that it is illegal to take any of the petrified wood, and that they may inspect your vehicle when you leave the park.

Our first hike was probably the longest, through a field of fallen logs that have turned into stone (likely from a long-ago volcanic eruption at the nearby Sunset crater), and to Agate House, which is a pueblo constructed from petrified wood. Probably the sturdiest pueblo ever, but the poor builders likely ended up with hernias.

The Blue Mesa hike was probably the hardest, just because you hike down from the hills, and then back up again. Very soft hills, you can tell the rain cuts into them whenever it falls. White, blue, pink stripes. Again, very reminiscent of Drumheller's badlands, with maybe slightly more exotic colouring.

In the Painted Desert, there was a Route 66 stop on the road; we found out that portions of the park road used to be Route 66. The Painted Desert is very beautiful, but photos don't really seem to catch the depth of the colours, or the panoramic sweep of it.

Still in the park, there was the Painted Desert Inn, which is now a little museum/gift shop. So beautiful! I'd pay a good bit of money to stay there. I guess maybe a lot of people did. :-)

Then it was back to Flagstaff. The I40 heading into east into Flagstaff is a freaking busy trucking corridor. It's like a forest of semi-trucks, all playing leapfrog with each other and hopefully noticing the tiny little cars sneaking in around them. Hello, I'm small! Don't crush me! At this point, you're really aware of the wind, and those big rigs weaving around on the road.

After we made it safely back to Flagstaff, we wandered through their "historic downtown" for a while. It's really very nice. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), most of the shops were closed. There are so many outdoor sports gear places. They're selling Patagonia, Columbia, North Face, and I'm standing with my face pressed up against the glass, drooling.

Eventually, we tracked down a place to get ice cream - no, not an everyday DQ (we have those at home), but a Cold Stone Creamery. They're infamous for being heavy on the calories. I had an "Oh Fudge" milkshake. When we get back to the hotel, Stephen looks up the calorie count and tells me that it has 1600 calories. Oh Fudge~! I'd better go climb another Blue Mesa now...

Grand Canyon North!

2010-08-28T22:22:00.046-06:00

So, we survived our sleepless sleepover in Fredonia, and headed out early for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Today is a sad day, as it marks the first day I've ever seen a cow as roadkill. Poor cow! :'-( After leaving Fredonia, one of the first things you drive through is the Kaibab National Forest (apparently, we've just traded Dixie for Kaibab), and apparently cattle graze in the forests...? Every forest we drive through, there are always warning signs to watch for cattle.

It's a pretty long drive into the park, and it's mostly forests and meadows. The open meadows are lovely - there were bison grazing in one! - but it makes me kind of sad that every meadow has to have a sign saying "Do Not Drive Across Meadows." What kind of people are you, anyway? That's what roads are for! Meadows are for flowers and happy animals. (But I guess the fat-tire brigade of ATV owners would disagree with me. Nevertheless, the states of Arizona and Utah agree with me. Neener neener.)

Our National Park Pass ($80) has been paying off. The entrance fees have been $25 for Grand Canyon, $25 for Bryce, $25 for Zion, $10 for Arches, $10 for Canyonlands, $10 for Craters, and we've got several more national parks to go. Whoo hoo! I love you, Park pass.

When we arrived at the North Rim, the temperature was a surprisingly cool 13C, and a windy and an intermittently cloudy day. Again, this is perfect for hiking (in our opinion,anyway. I think the couple from Phoenix found it a bit chilly). As for the Grand Canyon, spectacular views go without saying, right? Even so, Bright Angel Point offers a great view, and minimal trail (the drop-offs are amazing). The Trans-Sept trail is another trail that creeps right along the side of the canyon with fenced overlooks.

As our last "good" meal was back in Hanksville, we've been hungry for a while. (It's not that we haven't eaten, we just haven't eaten well.) So we had breakfast at the Grand Canyon Lodge. It's a very high-ceilinged room, lodge style with timber construction, and big big windows overlooking the canyon, of course. Both Stephen and I thought it would be fun to see a thunderstorm from there.

Oh, by the way, there are warning signs about lightning storms around the rim. Noting that "if you smell ozone and your hair starts to stand up, move away from the edge and back into the trees." Duh. I think I'll stand here and hold onto this metal guardrail and try to get a picture of lightning - what could go wrong?

Aside from the trails near the Grand Canyon Lodge, there is also a scenic drive that runs through the park. Point Imperial is the highest point on the Grand Canyon (north or south rim). Angels Window is another great lookout point, but it's also pretty neat to see from far away, as the whole lookout is perched on a spur of rock that has a "window" hole in it. Very, very windy at Angels Window. I was a bit afraid my sunglasses might actually be blown off my face. The last point we went to was Cape Royal.

On the way back, we hiked the Cliff Springs trail. Nice scenic hike, but going back uphill is definitely the killer. Always a good idea to have hiking boots on, and always a good idea to have water with you. You'll regret the flip-flops and the pop, mark my words, people.

The really nice thing about the North Rim? There's other people, but not hordes of other people. It's a pleasant change.

Anyway, next on the agenda was supposed to be Toroweap Point. This is a remote point on the Grand Canyon, with a view of the Colorado River and something like a straight 3000 foot vertical dropoff. I've been iffy about this part of the trip for a while, but Stephen was quite gung-ho on the idea. The road to Toroweap is a 60-mile crap road, or what they call "primitive" roads here. Travel guides always advise you to ask about the condition of the road, as it isn't maintained. When you do ask about it, the rangers stare at you, as if trying to memorize your face so that they can identify your dead body later. And then they hand you a brochure:

25% of vehicles get a flat while driving into Toroweap.

Translation: Do ya feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?

Navigational skills are required for the four hikes at Toroweap.

Translation: You will get lost.

If you get in trouble, self-rescue is your only option.

Translation: You will get lost and die, and no one will find your mouldering corpse.

Have enough food and water for several days.

Translation: You will starve and/or dehydrate and die.

Have spare parts for your vehicle and know how to fix it.

Translation: We're not coming to save you.

And, the actual wording for one of the supposed trails at Toroweap: "This is considered life-threatening."

It's actually not one single thing that's worrisome - it's the combination of many things. Supplies, car, road, weather. It's been rainy around here lately; the locals all say it's "monsoon season" right now. So, of course, I'm thinking, what if we go out to Toroweap - say that we actually make it there without losing a tire - and then it rains, and then the roads are washed out and we can't get out?! =:-O

Anyway, it's also Stephen's vehicle, and he admitted to being nervous about the trip as well, and it seems risky. So... no Toroweap. (Whew.) I'm sure the view would have been spectacular, but, to be honest, if it's as windy there as it is here at the North Rim, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near that edge anyway.

So, instead of venturing into unpaved roads into danger, we're going to follow the paved roads into Flagstaff. "Yay!" for that. And "Boo!" for the fact that now, it means I really only did visit the road out of Zion, because we're now heading in the opposite direction. :-/ You win some, you lose some.

The scenic route to Flagstaff took us past the Vermilion Cliffs, which are (as you'd expect) red, with lovely green meadows. We could actually see some of this scenery from afar on the North Rim, so it's neat to be driving through it. There's also a fancy Navajo bridge over the Colorado River, with a twin pedestrian bridge alongside it. This is where all the tourists stop their cars, get out and walk halfway back over the pedestrian bridge to take a picture. :-)

In Flagstaff, we found ourselves an EconoLodge that costs twice as much as our motel in Fredonia, but I feel 14 times safer already. Whew! And, Internet, you came back! I missed you so much.

Fredonia Fright Night

2010-08-28T07:35:00.001-06:00

Okay, more about Fredonia.

The Grand Canyon Inn is a tattered little motel that's being run by a Grandma & Grandpa couple. I'm sure it was quite nice in 1950. Now... well, it's old. The sink had two separate taps, one for hot and one for cold. The hot water one squeals when you use it. However, although the room was tacky-cheap, it was clean - no bugs (we searched).

But, as I mentioned earlier, there was a grubby little trailer park right next to the motel, and when we drove up to our parking spot, there were people sitting and drinking on the back step of our unit. Uh... Do I say hello? Do I ignore them and just start unpacking? They are sitting two feet away from me.

Eventually, they wandered back to the trailer park while we unpacked everything in our vehicle.

The motel supposedly had wireless Internet, but it obviously needed a booster. Our cabin was at the end of the lot, and occasionally, my computer could briefly find the Internet. So, when I caught a blip of connectivity, I googled Fredonia to find out more about it.

It's a town of about 1,000, median household income about $30,000, and - oh hey, breaking news. What's this...? Scott Curley, resident of Fredonia, wanted for the murder of a sheriff's deputy. Apparently, on Thursday (the day before we arrived), he shot and killed the sheriff's deputy with a high-powered rifle. And he's very familiar with the area and may have caches of spider-holes around town where he's hiding out.

I suddenly realize that this is the same guy from the "Wanted" poster we saw posted on the door of the visitor center in Zion. At the time, we'd taken note of it only as a "huh, they still do that." Now, we realize we're sitting in his home town. =:-O

Meanwhile, the trailer park people are back, drinking and carousing on our back step. Maybe those are his buddies?

Great. We've got an armed & dangerous fugitive maybe in the area, and scary people on our back step. (Are they really scary? I don't know. Maybe they're just uncouth drunk people. But Stephen was worried that he'd wake up to find the tires had been removed from his vehicle.)

Paranoid now, we piled all of our luggage up against the door. (Yes, we really did.) Because nothing stops an armed intruder like a sticky door. Maybe he'd just shoot out the windows, then? Nothing we can do about that. We just close the curtains tightly. That'll slow him down. Now we'll just sit here in the dark and freak out...

I mean, we've all seen a movie variant on this situation, right? People from out-of-town check into dusty little motel in the middle of nowhere. Armed madman on a rampage? He's probably the motel owners' son, and he's going to come back tonight, and then we'll see something we shouldn't and he'll want to kill us. We'll run out into the night, pursued by the hordes of bloodthirsty locals determined to protect their own...

(What? You didn't see that movie? Maybe I've got to stop renting horror movies...)

Anyway, obviously, we survived, and no one tried to kill us. Or, if they did, they were thwarted by the pile of unpacked luggage.

Now, to be fair, by the light of day next morning, the people of Fredonia seemed friendly enough. When Stephen pulled up to the gas station and was about to fill up, they pointed out that he was at the diesel pump. No one tried to kill us. :-)

And, lest we complain too much about the tattered old Grand Canyon Inn: when we were driving out of Fredonia, we saw another motel, the Shiprock. Good lord! At that moment, I realize we just stayed in the Ritz by comparison. I'd have slept in the car before staying at the Shipwreck.

(I guess things can always be worse.)

:-)

Horsies! Oops, Zion. And Cave-Dwellers.

2010-08-27T19:21:00.026-06:00

Had free breakfast at the Bryce Canyon Inn - some kind of cinnamon wafer thingy. Probably marginally better than Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs.

This morning started off with an early-morning hike in Bryce, from Sunset Point to Inspiration Point, which is maybe just a mile-long rim walk. We met up with a ranger and chatted for a bit about the canyons, the weather here and where we're from.

Then we had to return to Bryce Canyon City for our trail ride in Bryce. I was insistent about riding horses somewhere on this trip - since we didn't do so in Monument Valley, we booked a ride here in Bryce. The cowboys picked out horses for us - I was given "Kino" and Stephen was riding "Copenhagen".

A few of the horses seemed to be running on cruise control, always going where they were supposed to and doing what they were supposed to. And then there were our horses. Kino liked to go as fast as Kino liked to go. This might be moderate, or it might be slow. Kino also liked to try to stop and eat grass. Kino also liked to walk beside the trail, instead of on the trail. This made Stephen's horse, Copenhagen, go crazy, because Copenhagen didn't want to be at the end of the line. However, one of the rules is that we ride single file, no passing. Copenhagen keeps head-butting Kino to try to get him to go faster. Kino goes as fast as Kino wants to go.

We rode through the forest up to the rim of Bryce Canyon and alongside it for a short distance. Fortunately, Kino didn't see any especially tasty-looking blades of grass just over the edge of the canyon. :-)

The ride was an hour and a half - any longer, and Stephen may never have walked again. But, anyway, I am happy. Because, yay! Horsies!

In the afternoon, we left Bryce, heading up towards Zion National Park. Huh? How come we're driving through Dixie National Forest again?! I swear, the forest is following us. Just when you think you've left it behind for good, there it is again, just around the bend. Dixie. It exists in the Twilight Zone, outside our reality, everywhere and anywhere all at once... (Cue Twilight Zone music, look in rearview mirror, and start whistling Dixie... --yeah, yeah, lame joke. Sorry.)

Hey, you know what else is weird? When you're driving to Zion National Park, and you pass an ostrich farm. That's also a bit weird.

And, speaking of Zion, I am angry with the GPS. Or perhaps I should rephrase. Don't put the destination in until you're ready to go there. Because otherwise, you'll just find out that you've followed it blindly, and now you're heading out of the park.

The GPS keeps giving us directions, and I tell it to shut up, because no one cares what it thinks. Stephen asks if I'm mad at the GPS? Well, what do you think? We drive to Zion National Park, stop in at the washrooms and the visitor centre, and as soon as we hop back into the car, this Garmin beyotch has taken us straight out of the park. Thank god I got a magnet - I can't wait to tell everyone about my trip to the toilets, and the spiffy hand dryers they have there (which actually are really neat, but that's not the point, and won't be part of my commemorative slide show).

Stephen eventually placates me by saying that we'll detour and return. I am only temporarily mollified. But I tell you, one more slip up by that GPS, and she's out the window. And then we never find our way home... :-/ Eh. At this point, it's anyone's guess as to whether or not she's going to steer us into some desolate hillbilly-mutant infested stretch of road anyway.

Anyhoo: from my very brief visit to Zion. It's a fricking zoo. Unbelieveably crowded. The first tip-off should have been the 8-mile stretch of gift shops, motels, resorts, B&Bs, etc. The few communities before the park are all awash with tourist stuff.

Of course, I imagine that everyone is just going to Zion to use the washroom facilities, and then leave at the first available exit. >:-( Oh well, let it go, right? From our brief stop in the visitor centre, we saw that the flash flood risk was pegged at moderate today, and several trails had been closed as a result. And there was no way I was going to do that Angel's Landing hike.

And, to be honest, the road out of Zion is quite scenic in its own right. That's why we didn't immediately realize we were leaving so soon. Switchbacks up the mountain, and a mile long tunnel through the mountain! Dark. :-)

We planned to stop in Kanab for the night. It's the largest town before the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

On the way to Kanab, we stopped at the Moqui Rock Cave. It's a quirky little family-run museum - yes, inside a cave - which houses an eclectic collection of historic memorabilia, rocks, glow-in-the-dark rocks, arrowheads, clay pots, and even a small collection of Elvis items. ?! It was a fun little stop. And I think that the family lives inside the cave.

Oh, and really surprising? The guy running the museum asked us where we were from. When Stephen tells him "Saskatoon," the man says, "Oh, a city that's named for a berry that grows on the riverbank." WOW. We were impressed. (Because I've never heard of the Moqui Rock Cave.) Obviously someone from Saskatoon had passed through here before and the guy must have a great memory.

When we got to Kanab, we discovered it was hosting some Western Legends film festival thing, so we drove through to Fredonia, which is pretty much the last stop before nowhere, and so we're staying in the downscale Grand Canyon Inn. And, I don't much care for the look of the neighbours. But what do I know?

(Then again, have you ever seen those horror movies, where the people check into the cheap motel, and then the locals kill them??? Our GPS has been trying to set us up for a while now...) =:-O

On the road: Hanksville to Tropic

2010-08-26T21:41:00.036-06:00

This morning, we had breakfast at Blondies in Hanksville. The guy taking the orders had a shirt that read "Where the hell is Hanksville?" I LOL'd. Blueberry pancakes for me, and steak & eggs for Stephen. Wow, real food!

While we were having breakfast, we saw numerous vehicles driving by, hauling boats behind them. WTF?! It's kind of a desert-y stretch around here. Also, across the street, there was a lot selling houseboats. We finally asked someone, and he said that Glen Canyon was the nearest lake area, but people brought their boats to Hanksville to work on them, or have someone else repair them. Apparently, it's cheaper to do so in Hanksville. Huh. So, they aren't just optimistic fools chasing after mirages.

After filling up at the Hollow Mountain Gas Station (yes, it's a gimmicky building set inside a big hunk o' rock - I wouldn't call it a mountain per se, but whatever), we hit the road.

We drove from Hanksville to Capitol Reef National Park. And it was such a scenic drive, we decided to do it three times! (Or, more accurately, when we stopped at Capitol Reef's visitor center, Stephen realized he'd forgotten his souvenirs in his motel room. So we had to turn around, go all the way back to Hanksville - where the hell is that? - retrieve his loot, and then turn around and drive all the way back again to Capitol Reef. Oops.)

Anyway, Capitol Reef. It's a very long narrow park, and there's a short scenic drive through part of it - the rest of it is (like Canyonlands) accessible only by hiking or maybe off-road vehicles where allowed. However, what is a bit unusual is that there are fruit orchards in the park, and you can pick and eat whatever fruit you like (although you are supposed to pay for anything you take out of the park). It also has some lovely, well-treed campgrounds (which seems to be a rarity in Utah parks!). We didn't do any hiking here, just drove through the park's scenic drive and stopped at a few points to admire the views.

Every time I see a beautiful new rock range, I think of those poor pioneers. I can't imagine why the Mormons don't drink by default. It'd be just another day in pioneer-land: Finally dragging your overloaded wagons and your oxen and all your supplies to the top of some godawful hill - only to be confronted with the next range of hills barricading the way. "Dammit, another freaking rock. Hand me the whiskey, Silas." Of course, that'd make you even more likely to totter off a cliff, so there you go.

Fortunately for us, there are roads. I am a fan of roads. Makes the travel much easier. ;-) Even so, a lot of the scenic roads in Capitol Reef had flashflood warnings posted. The lower areas are easily flooded out during rainstorms.

So, after a brief stop in Capitol Reef, we were back on the road again. Next thing you know, there's a break in the rocky scenery, and we're driving up into the hills and into Dixie National Forest. Rocks, rocks, rocks - and then, it's like someone flips a switch and there are suddenly trees everywhere.

Another area we passed through was the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Yes, more rocks! Mostly white rock, and the road is climbing up into the hills and teetering along the widest point between drop-offs. Calf Creek Falls is in this area, and it was originally one of our stops - but since we spent many hours trapped in Little Wild Horse Canyon yesterday, it didn't seem urgent that we do another three-hour hike through sand and water. I hear the waterfall there is absolutely beautiful, and I believe it, and maybe if we hadn't spent so much time doing the Triple-Hanksville run today... ;-)

Speaking of Little Wild Horse Canyon, I don't think I'm ever going to get the last of that red sand out of my shoes.

In the afternoon, we stopped in Tropic to find a place to stay. According to the maps and the books, both of which are about 3 years old, Tropic is the last stop before Bryce. However, as we drove into the park, it turns out that a whole new "city" has sprung up even closer to the park. Bryce Canyon City (established 2007). That's a grand tradition of three years of quality, people! Anyway, it's a very touristy setup. There's money in them thar tourists!

Bryce Canyon is amazing - totally unique. It's like a gathering of a million little pink and white hoodoos. It's mostly limestone, which is worn away by the freeze & thaw cycles. It was late afternoon, so we only did a short hike at the Mossy Cave & Creek, and then drove through the park proper for sightseeing at most of the viewpoints.

For now, back to our cute little log cabins in Tropic. :-)

Monuments, Goblins & Wild Horses

2010-08-25T23:23:00.000-06:00

Quick thoughts for today:

(1) Monument Valley - pretty.
(2) Goblin Valley - hot.
(3) Little Wild Horse Canyon - skinny. And 4 times longer than we expected.
(4) Don't always trust your GPS - it may be trying to kill you.

Okay, long version follows:

We left Bluff, Utah this morning, started the drive into Monument Valley, which is just over the border in Arizona. Travelling into Monument Valley is yet another one of Utah's many impressive drives.

Monument Valley park is operated by the Navajo, and yes, admission fees are charged per person. However, you get considerably more bang for your $5 at Monument Valley than you do with your $3 at Four Corners. (Yes, Stephen is still bitter.) Once you get into the valley, you can opt for group or personalized Jeep tours, or you can drive through on your own.

The roads are very rough, so it's slow going (15 mph, and that doesn't feel too slow when you're bouncing over rocks or sliding down a sandy slope), but because the scenery is so spectacular, you don't mind the slower pace. There's 11 stops on the circuit, and at John Ford Point, I happily forked over $2 to have my picture taken on Pistol, the 27-year-old horse. :-) Yay, horsey!

Monument Valley has a very nice visitor centre, with a restaurant overlooking the valley, and now a new hotel where all the rooms face the valley as well. Would be spectacular at sunset. And pricey, I imagine.

I'm not much of a jewelry person, but in the gift shop, I saw a beautiful necklace - it had little segmented pieces that made up a scene of pueblos at night with a starry sky background. I knew I shouldn't even ask, but I did. How much? $5,000. Ouch; that's a bit out of my price range. Well, I was in luck, because it was on sale - 40% off. Which put it somewhere around $3,000. Um... let me check my wallet. Nope, I don't seem to have that much in here. Never mind, I'll go buy a magnet.

After that, we drove back to the town of Mexican Hat, where we decided to fill up with gas as we were driving into the desert, and there aren't any towns on the road for the next few hours. We head down Highway 261 past the Valley of the Gods, and the road is heading straight towards this huge wall of mesas. Huh. We keep getting closer. Does the highway go around? No, it doesn't. It goes over.

You know how I said that when you drive up into Mesa Verde, that you're clinging to the cliff sides? Well, in Mesa Verde, those were real paved roads, with lines and guard rails and everything. THIS is clinging to the side of a mountain. This is a gravel road, no guard rails, switchbacks and hairpin curves, all with horrendous drops right next to the car, and giant round boulders perched precariously overhead. In Arches, I was never afraid of the boulders falling down on me. Here, we were a little bit afraid. "Stay," we command the big rocks, and fortunately they obey.

It is an amazingly scenic route, although it does give you that feeling of "eeurghhh" as you look over the edge and see the heights. Thankfully, we didn't encounter anyone driving down, because I'd hate to have to squeeze past another vehicle on that road. And imagine driving it in the dark – eek!

Then, when we finally reached the top of the mesa, it was all greenery and happy plateau land. You'd never know there was a cliff side anywhere at all. The only thing we passed was a ranger station.

Long drive through several canyons. Fry's Canyon, with its amusingly named landmarks (such as Box-Cheese Butte and Jacob's Chair). Glen Canyon, which seems to be a park, and it has at least some water somewhere out there.

We're heading towards Goblin Valley State Park, with the San Rafael desert on the one side, and the San Rafael Swell (where the land is being pushed up) on the other side. The GPS is warning us that we need to turn in one mile. "Where's the road?" I wonder. Usually, there are signs when you're approaching a junction. But not this time. We turn where the GPS tells us to. There's a gated road – the gate is tied with rope, with a note to re-tie the gate when you pass through. On the other side, a red dirt road leads off towards a butte, and a sign says "Molly's Castle."

Stephen and I stare at the gate and the tumbledown road. Um... I know that state parks are cheaper than national parks, but they usually have real roads. And proper signs. I begin to suspect that the GPS is lying to us – I dig out our Rough Guide to the Southwest, and discover that the GPS has us turning at mile 130 instead of mile 137. I knew it - it is plotting against us!

We decide against the gate and Molly's road of doom, and instead turn back onto the highway. Eventually, the GPS grudgingly recalculates, and decides that we can take the main roads if we're going to be so insistent.

We mention our GPS & Molly's Castle to the ranger in the park, and he said that the same thing has happened to a few other people, and that they were thinking of contacting the GPS companies to get that road removed. He told us that a couple had actually gone through that way (because they were obviously really, really dumb), and he had to go out with his rescue buggy to make sure that they'd made it out, and even he almost got stuck in some sand dunes. You need a real off-road vehicle for those trails.

So why did the GPS think this was a good idea? It's got a murderous streak, that Garmin.

Anyway, Goblin Valley. OMG, it was so hot. It was broiling hot. Convection oven hot. The sandy surface underfoot feels weird, like it's been baked solid. The stone formations are whimsically cute, like playdough sculptures that have been baked solid, and you can climb on them. We wandered for a while, climbing on and around stone mushrooms and gnomes and goblins, and guzzling our bottled water because we were melting. The little goblins seem to radiate heat. After a while, I've had enough of Hot Goblin Hell. Back to the car.

Nearby is the Little Wild Horse Canyon. This is a slot canyon in the San Rafael Swell. Meaning that you're basically hiking along the bottom of a very narrow crevice in the canyon. It is very tight. At times, it is really no wider than shoulder-width, and my feet are too wide for the bottom of the path. We're squeezing down narrow passages, and climbing over boulders. It's very impressive scenery, but it's also hard work and you really have to watch your footing.

Little Wild Horse Canyon is part of a loop that joins up with Bell Canyon, but it's not clear where one canyon ends and the other begins. This isn't part of the state park, and there isn't much of anything in the way of trail markers. Because it's a loop, I don't think you can get lost per se – but you also can't tell how far along the trail you are.

It's rained within the last week, and there are some puddles in the canyon, which makes the rock super slippery. I think we're in Bell Canyon, probably on the loop back, but we're running into larger and larger water puddles.

We eventually decide to turn back and retrace our steps. It's after 6 p.m., and I'm worried about it getting darker, because it will get dark very fast in a canyon this tight. Back and back and back we go. We've just climbed back down the 6' dryfall, and we're almost out. Then Stephen realizes he's dropped his camera.

Okay, so we're going back into the canyon. Climb back up the 6' dryfall, and we're looking. And I'm praying that we PLEASE find that camera. Back we go, and I'm already worried about how far back he dropped it, because this hike is now at the 2-hour mark with no signs of ending-- And then I finally see the camera sitting there in the gravel in the middle of the trail. Thank you, God!

Okay, we've got the camera. Now we get to march back out again. At this point, we've squeezed our butts back and forth through the same spots in the canyon four times now. We are freaking tired. I was carrying two litres of water with me, and I drank at least 1.75 litres. We are very glad to hop back into the car.

We're toasted now. We drive back to civilization, find a motel with Internet, a nearby gas station and a burger joint, so that's good enough for us.

Ladder & Tunnels & (4) Corners, oh my!

2010-08-24T23:11:00.002-06:00

We left Utah yesterday, heading for Cortez, Colorado, which has the main attraction of being the closest town to Mesa Verde National Park. We found another Econolodge, moved in for the evening, then walked down the street to the KFC... where Stephen finally had his Double Down. Yes, that's two pieces of chicken with mayo, bacon & cheese in between. No buns (because you don't want to load up on carbs, right?) - the chicken takes the place of the buns. Anyway, he said it was very good, and that we should be allowed to eat it in Canada.

This morning, we started off to Mesa Verde about 9 a.m. With a name like that, you kind of figure out that you're going to be heading to a mesa; nevertheless, the drive up is pretty spectacular. The road winds up and up the sides of the mesa, hairpin curves and all, and some pretty amazing views of the surrounding area. Of course, the driver isn't supposed to be looking at that. ;-) I think the highest elevation we hit was somewhere around 8400 ft.

In 2002, the park was hit with forest fires, and you can still see these vast swaths of empty bony trees where the fires went through. Incidentally, that was how we first heard about Mesa Verde - my sister Patricia had planned to go on a trip, but then the park was shut down due to the fires, and so she went to Vegas instead. Thus began her long love-affair with Vegas... but that's another story. :-)

Anyway, back to the mesa: It's 21 miles of driving along the outside of the mesa walls before you finally get to the visitor centre.

With your park entrance fee, you have the option of just driving around the park and visiting everything but the guided tours. However, we wanted a guided tour, so we stopped at the ranger's desk to buy tickets. At $3 a person (and since they weren't restricting tours today), we decided to do both the Cliff Palace and the Balcony House tours.

The ranger sternly warns us about the physical requirements of these tours. "You will have to climb a 32 foot ladder on the side of a cliff. You will have to crawl 12 feet through a cramped tunnel. Once the tour begins, you will NOT have an option to turn back."

Well, I wasn't afraid until now... but give us the tickets anyway, Mr. Scary Guy.

We went to the overlook point to wait for our tour to start. Our tour ranger gave another warning speech - there will be climbing, this is a high elevation, you must have water, etc. etc. No one opts out.

When the tour starts, you descend several flights of stairs - a modern steel set, then a lot of narrow, uneven stone stairs. You trail along the side of the mesa, and eventually come around a corner and are at Cliff Palace. It is certainly an impressive collection of buildings, mostly because they were all built into the side of the cliff by the Anasazi people (although the rangers said that "Anasazi" is a Navajo word, and the preferred term is "Ancestral Puebloan People"). The stairs were added, by the way. The original people didn't use stairs or ladders or rope - they free-climbed up and down. =:-O Yikes.

The scary speech is unwarranted. I'm not fazed by any of the heights, and the pace is super-slow, due to the-- (how to put this politely??? I don't think there's any way to do so--) due to the many old and fat people in front of us. I mean, it's a freakin' leisurely stroll, and there are people huffing and puffing. At the end, you have to climb up some stairs cut into the rocks, and some ladders to get out. Talk about a bottleneck.

Cliff House was nice, but it felt too slow and too rushed at the same time. Because the group was taking too long (because they were SLOW), and then the ranger was trying to hurry everyone through the sites to compensate, because there was another tour group coming up behind us.

Balcony House was the second tour - and for that one, I was a bit nervous about the heights. Stephen and I got there early, staked out a good spot at the front of the line. Yeah! It was a much smaller, more fit tour group (probably because they really discouraged this one if they figured you couldn't handle it).

Our ranger arrived, and we climbed down the stairs to our first set of ladders. That's the 32 foot ladder. Well, it is a bit tall, and I'm climbing for a little longer than I prefer, but I make it to the top easily enough. Then we immediately have to proceed through a very tight tunnel (these people were short and tiny, I'm telling you!), and into a little alcove with a ladder where we climb into a balcony overlook in the side of the cliff.

Very, very cool. The ranger gathers the group, then gives us some information about the buildings and the people who lived here. Then up another set of ladders, through another tunnel to a similar area, except this balcony has no railing. Since it's a 650 foot drop, we have to stand back against the wall, and the ranger stands out there (because they're immune to 650 foot drops, I guess).

Then, we have to crawl through the 12 foot tunnel. I have to take off my backpack to fit, and push it ahead of me. Crawling along, I discover that I'm actually short enough that I can do a crouchy shuffle, so I do that instead of crawling on my hands & knees. I am short enough to be an Ancestral Puebloan person, but I would be the oldest one they'd ever seen - their life expectancy was about 30 or 35 (probably due to falling off of cliffs).

Now we're leaving Balcony House, and the real fun climbing starts. There's a ladder up a short ways, where you then are walking up "stairs" - which are really foot-slots cut into the side of the mountain, with a chain on each side to use as a handrail, and it's steep, baby. Stephen and I are the first ones up and out, so we don't know if anyone else fell to their death - the important thing is, we didn't. (Whoo hoo! I didn't injure myself today!)

Back at the parking lot, Stephen laughs at the absurdity of the fact that there are handicapped parking spots. It's doubtful that anyone with any kind of physical handicap would even want to attempt that tour.

Anyway, Balcony House is awesome! Totally worth my $3 - and then some. After that, we drove around to look at the canyon overlooks, some archaeological sites, the museum, and went down to Spruce House, which is a self-guided tour of another pueblo. Again, I see people hiking in flip flops. What is with you people?!

It was another hot day, but by the time we left, some dark clouds were rolling in, and as we started driving out, there was lightning. Whoo hoo! Where do you want to be during a lightning storm? At 8200 feet, that's where! (You get a better view from up there.) And we did have a fabulous view of the storm sweeping over the mountains and moving closer. We did manage to make it off the mesa entirely before it began raining, and then it was a heavy-duty downpour. It lasted maybe 10 minutes, and then it was like flipping a switch - whoosh: it's done. Back to sunshine.

As it was nearby, we decided to head to Four Corners Monument. What's that? Where the four corners of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah meet up - so you can stand in all four states at once. Imagine our surprise when we turn in to Four Corners Monument, only to realize, "we have to pay?" This is a Navajo site - they don't accept our park pass. And they charge $3 per person (vs. a charge per vehicle - and by the way, Waskesiu does that too, and I find it chintzy. Charge per vehicle, dammit). However, we've just driven all this way - we're not going to turn back over $6 (no matter how much Stephen complains about it).

So, now the Navajo nation has $3 of Stephen's that they aren't going to give back, and all he got was a lousy photo of him standing in four states at one time. :-)

Now it was time to find a place to stay. We're actually in Ute reservation land, so it's a long haul to another town. The highway takes us down into Arizona, but we eventually turn back towards Utah and drive to Bluff. It is a very small little town (yes, with a lot of bluffs in the background), with a rustic little motel called the Recapture Lodge. And it has Internet! (Yes, I was surprised.) Lovely restaurant across the street. It's a nice break from the motel chains.

Oh, and we found out from the desk clerk that there has been far more rain this year than usual. Which explains why everything has been greener than we expected. Apparently, it IS much greener than usual.

So, right now, the wind is blowing outside, and there's a legion of crickets chirping outside. Tomorrow, we plan to go to Monument Valley. That's in Navajo land, so I'm pretty sure the $5 entrance fee is going to be per person, not per vehicle. (They're not finished emptying Stephen's wallet yet...)

Canyonlands! And more Arches.

2010-08-23T23:42:00.000-06:00

Today, we decided to go to Canyonlands National Park, which is pretty much next door to Arches National Park. It's a very large park, with two access points over 100 miles apart. We headed for the nearby "Island in the Sky" portion of the park. Sunny and warm this morning (26C), so we loaded up on sunscreen and brought our hats.

The Island in the Sky is a giant Y-shaped plateau, and except for the plateau, the rest of the land falls away into sharp, deep canyons. Hence the name Canyonlands. So, when you drive into the park, you find yourself at the top of a plateau with spectacular views. And the views you see? The areas below are completely inaccessible by car - you can't get there from here. However, there are marked trails for Jeeps, and serious off-road vehicles (which is why Moab has so many Hummer/ATV/Jeep rentals). However, Stephen and I stayed on the paved roads and enjoyed the views from there. :-)

Shafer Canyon Overlook gives a spectacular view with a very long drop (as with everything here, no railings), and Arches National Park apparently hasn't cornered the market on rock arches: we did a short hike out to Mesa Arch, which is just on the edge of another spectacular/terrible drop. Don't fall!

Out at Grand View Point Overlook, when you look down into the canyons below, you can see another layer of canyons below that flaring out like a three-toed footprint - as if a giant raptor went stomping around down there millions of years ago. (Stephen doesn't think raptors were that big. Anyway - pic to the right! From the lookout point, we set out on a trail along the rim. Lots of steep drop-offs and scenic views. Before returning, we built another Inukshuk on the edge of the canyon.

The last hike we did at Canyonlands was Whale Rock, where, once again, we got over-eager with scaling any hill in front of us, and then we lost the cairns that mark the trail and went briefly astray. However, the cairns at Canyonlands were better than Arches, and we were back on track again. :-) No life and death decisions this time!

After Canyonlands, we headed back to Arches, as we hadn't had time to do the Landscape Arch hike, which is supposed to be the longest arch in the world. There were a LOT more people in Arches today; can't imagine how busy the Delicate Arch trail would be today (that's their busiest trail). Anyway, the trails we were doing leave from Devils Garden, and the day was fittingly hot and sunny. No clouds overhead today, and the sun just seems to bake off that red rock everywhere. Hot hot hot!

It's hard to call anything unique in Arches, when everything's unique, but still - Devils Garden is a quite striking place, where a lot of the rocks seemed to be piled together in giant upright slabs. For at least the first part of the hike, we were walking in between some of the giant slabs, and fortunately the sun was still to the side, so we were walking in shade. Eventually, though, the trail devolves into super soft sand. Lovely to sit on with a drink in your hand and an umbrella overhead, but the lack of traction makes it a little bit tiring to walk through. The sun was coming over the mesa when we got to Landscape Arch, making photos a bit blindingly difficult.

After that, I wanted to do the next two arches on the trail (the Partition Arch and the Navajo Arch), even though the signs warned that the trails were "primitive" and marked as difficult hiking.

Me: Difficult? Hah! I laugh in the face of difficult! I spit in its eye! I--
Stephen (interrupting my self-confidence spree, and pointing up at one of the rock slabs): Do we have to climb up there?
Me: No, I don't think so. That'd be crazy hard.
Stephen: There are people hiking up there.
Me: Damn...

Climbing in the heat is hard. And this ain't no weeny trail. Cause it's primitive and difficult. And, of course, I make a misstep over a crevice, and down I go -- protect the camera! -- onto my face and elbows. Ouch. That's going to leave a mark. I'm going to look like a beating victim by the time I get back home. But the camera is mostly okay!

It's not long before I'm getting winded and thirsty, what with the climbing and the falling and the super-sunshine. So, I sit down and drink water. Ask German tourists if the whole trail is this hard? No, they say, that was the worst part. Whew. We get up and go on. And yes, the remainder is much easier. We're hiking out in full sun now.

First, there's Partition Arch, overlooking some of the trail we've come up. Then we have to backtrack a ways, as the trail to the Navajo Arch is another spur off the main trail.

We're walking along a massive rock wall that has a little alcove worn away at the bottom, almost like a little sheltered walkway (if we were a tiny bit shorter). And there are little holes in the rock wall, worn out by rainwater somehow, I suppose? People have put little pebbles into the holes, and they look like row upon row of little cliff dwellers. :-)

A little further along and we reach the Navajo Arch, which is an archway into a long narrow open-roofed "room" in the middle of everything. If I get too tired to leave, I think I'm going to live in this space. (And eventually die of thirst, I guess.)

Instead, we head back down to the main trail. The heck with the Double O Arch and Dark Angel - it's hot, and we're not carrying enough water.

When we get back to the Visitor Centre, I'm busy washing the dirt off my crunched elbows. One is bruised, and the other one looks like I ran it along a sander. And - uh oh! I see where I missed a bit of sunscreen on one arm. However, Stephen fared worse than I did. He declined to put sunscreen on his legs this morning, saying that they could use a bit of colour. Hey, how's red working out for you? You like that colour? (Of course, the clumsy bruised woman probably shouldn't say anything at all.)

That's it for Arches (at least for this year). :-)

Utah has very pretty scenery. But it's also a very weird state - it seems the geography changes every twenty minutes. You go from plateaus with lots of vegetation, to scary canyons, to monolithic red slabs of rock, to hills and forest, and then into gently rolling rural scenery that could come from Manitoba or Saskatchewan.

I can see why Moab is such a tourist town, though - you could spend a week there, hiking at Arches and then exploring Canyonlands. Their outfitters organize river and jeep expeditions, and we saw a company that did Canyonlands by Night boat tours (to watch the sunset and stargaze). Would be nice.

And I have no idea how any pioneers got through that area or Utah, unless they backtracked and turned around. It is so full of obstacles - I think that just putting in roads must have been a monumental tasks. Canyonlands owes much of its few sparse roads to trails that were cut by uranium prospectors in the 1950s, but it still remains a huge park with very few roads. A horse might be the best way through, except for all the cliffs. So maybe most of the pioneers did go back and find a way around.

Words that Start with D: Delicate. Death. Dumb.

2010-08-22T23:44:00.000-06:00

It was already hot (by our standards) when we got up at 9 a.m. 26C. As we were getting ready to leave Provo, Stephen had a nice conversation with two people in the parking lot who were attracted by the SK license plate. They gave us some travel advice, what to see, where to go, if we haven't already overloaded our schedule. (Stephen and I have been disputing some of our destinations.)

As we travelled further from Provo/Salt Lake City (and no, we never did see the Salt Lake), the landscape shifts from green hills, to a sparser trees and rocky hills (think Northern Ontario, with bigger hills). The farms in this area seem to rely very heavily on irrigation - I think the land would prefer to be desert.

There's not a lot of communities on Highway 6 and 121 - the largest community is Price, but Stephen preferred the small town of Wellington and its cheap little "Pillow Talk Motel." LOL! But as we drove along, the landscape was definitely looking more and more like desert, with buttes off in the distance.

Of course, the landscape got steadily more impressive the closer we got to Arches National Park. Big, monumental, red rock ranges. And then, once you drive in, your car is heading up on a narrow road that climbs way up along the hillside. The scenery is spectacular. Yes, it's all rocks - but wow. :-)

We stopped at most of the viewpoints along the way and took pictures. Then we decided to skip past the Windows section on the way in and head straight to the Delicate Arch hiking trail (4.8 km round trip, 146m elevation change). Stephen and I had our backpacks, hiking shoes, and were carrying water, as the tour guide lists it as a strenuous hike and advises each person carries two quarts/litres of water. Our adventure begins...

The first half of the hike, we were motoring along, uphill uphill uphill. Whew. The trail is supposed to be marked with rock cairns. However, when we finally reached the top of the hilly range, the rock cairns disappeared. That's weird. As well, no one was catching up to us. Also weird.

Oh well. We kept going on, and eventually we saw what appeared to be the Delicate Arch, and lots of tiny little people wandering around. So, there it is. But that's a weird angle, isn't it? How to approach...?

How about that way? Hmm. One one side, a steeply sloping rim that slides down into a huge rock depression. Crater, really. On the other side, another steep slope that drops off WAY down to a place I can't even see. Neither route looks very passable. Maybe we're just supposed to wander across the skinny plateau between the two? Yes, let's do that.

So we do that. We're walking forward and forward over slickrock, and the closer we get, the less passable it looks. But we are close, dammit. I mean, we're on the far end of the Delicate Arch. So there must be a way around. We keep going. Because we're just that smart.

And finally, we're close enough to come to the realization that trying to squeeze around the one side of the column is certain death. And trying to get around the other side of the column... also certain death.

This is not the right way.

And you just know that fifty tourists safely ensconced on the safe side of the Arch have their cameras raised to record our last moments before we bounce down the canyon walls.

Stephen says, "Thank goodness I brought this utility rope along!" And he quickly lassoes the Arch, and we swing safely across to the other side. A terrible cracking noise sounds, and the Delicate Arch slowly crumbles, then breaks away and falls into rubble. Many angry tourists stare at us in recrimination.

Okay, so that last part didn't happen that way (although some Hollywood director might say it should have happened that way). :-)

What happened is that our instincts for self-preservation finally kicked in, and we backtracked yet again. Way way back, until we got to the point where we finally saw other hikers. Yes, we missed a damn cairn. (I'll also note that, upon re-reading our guide book, it does state that the trail isn't very well marked once you get up into the slickrock.) Anyway, I think it's to our credit that neither one of us ever suggested climbing up and OVER the Delicate Arch. Even we're not that dumb.

So, on the right trail again at last, we're back on track, and have to travel all the way behind the sloping walls of death, to approach the Delicate Arch from the other side. Finally! It's cool and windy up there, which is quite refreshing after all the exertion. I think we added at least a full kilometer to our hike with all of our scurrying to and fro. And you just know that we're in a whole lot of photos. "Look at this picture - some dummies were wandering on the other side. I was sure they were going to die."

Anyhoo, we made it there alive, and we got our pictures taken under the Delicate Arch (and it didn't fall on our heads either). Success! All our troubles are behind us; it's all downhill from here.

Nevertheless, I managed to gouge my shin on the way out. I look much more impressive with a bloody leg. I tell everyone Stephen stabbed me with his hiking pole.

Oh, and a side note: I could not believe the number of people who were hiking in flip flops, and not carrying any water at all. When we were leaving, there was a man walking along the ledge next to his toddler (the kid was not more than 2 years old). Yes, the dad was hovering right there next to the kid, but still... the path is three feet wide, and it's a long way down. Yikes.

After that, we drove through the rest of the park's viewpoints, and the only other hike we did was to the Double Arch. That was really beautiful, and there were surprisingly few people there for such a short hike. It's almost cathedral-like, with the two spires overhead, and it throws a lot of echoes when people are talking. Very cool.

Then it was time to find a place to stay. Moab is about four miles away, and being located between Arches and Canyonlands, it's definitely geared towards tourists. Meaning everything is a bit pricier. We're staying at the Adventure Inn Motel (everything is an "adventure" in Moab. Adventure Outfitters, Adventure Jeeps, Adventure Post Office).

We wandered through a few of the shops, then had supper at Fiesta Mexicana. Enchilada Mole - yum! (I wanted to try the Deep Fried Ice Cream for dessert, but the meal was too big. No room left. Some other time.)

:-)

Reduced Salt Lake City

2010-08-21T23:45:00.002-06:00

Okay, so I was driving into Utah, and since we weren't sure what else we wanted to do (cause hello, pit stop), we programmed the GPS to take us straight to the Temple Square in Salt Lake City. I'm happily driving along through progressively larger centres, and more and more lanes of traffic are getting thrown into the mix. Three lanes, then four lanes, then five, and finally six lanes of traffic each way.

Now, we typically drive about 2 or 3 miles over the speed limit (I'm paranoid about going faster than that, as I'm convinced that they'll ticket the foreigners first - we saw Texas getting ticketed in Idaho. Thank you, Texas, for getting caught instead of us). However, as we're approaching Salt Lake City, I find that I'm doing 68 in a 65 mph zone, and I'm still being passed by a lot of vehicles. Eventually, I gave up on moderation and just joined the crowd. Twice, we saw traffic cops on the side of the road, but as everyone blew past them at 75 mph, I have no idea what the cops were enforcing. They definitely didn't seem worried about the rampant speeding. On the other hand, it would be an exercise in futility: so many speeders, not enough cops.

Anyway, I missed my turnoff - couldn't hear what the GPS said at first, and then when I realized I should be in the far right lane, I managed to get across three lanes of traffic, but couldn't get across the fourth and final lane to the exit (unless I'd pulled one of those Hollywood screechy tire slide things). No biggie. The GPS helpfully recalculated, and we took another exit several miles later.

So, it is stifling hot in Salt Lake City, and we're driving through the Temple area downtown, bemoaning the fact that the GPS can't find parking spaces. We noticed a visitor information sign, and drove several blocks up a very steep hill to find ourselves a parking spot just outside Utah's state capital building. The visitor center is closed on weekends (?!?), so we wandered up to look at the capital building. Typical domed government building. But with lions! (Stone lions, of course.) According to the plaques, the lions were added in 2009, and they're named Patience, Honour and Intestinal Fortitude. Oh wait, those last two lions were named Integrity and Fortitude. My mistake. (Must be the atomic burger settling in my stomach.) ;-)

There were quite a few gardens and statuary around the Capital building. And it was freaking hot on the terrace overlooking the city; the sun just seemed to be beating off the white stone. Stephen's not sure of the accuracy of his car thermometer, but it read 37C. In any case, it feels very hot.

We decided to leave our vehicle at the top of the hill, and we hoofed it back down to the Temple area. Lots of flowers, lots of fountains. Really lovely gardens. It was already after 6 p.m., so the sun was behind the Temple; otherwise, I'm sure it would be a blinding white. The white stone makes it pretty, but it's a very simple style, actually, just quite monumental in scale. A minimum of decoration, no stained glass windows, but again, very nice gardens.

Tourists are free to walk around the grounds, but are not allowed to go inside. Apparently, you can only get in with a recommend from a Mormon? Anyway, we're on a schedule, and Salt Lake is just a pit stop, so we decided against conversion. :-)

Eventually, after wandering along several streets and looking at the historic looking buildings, we started back up the hill in the heat, to the GPS. Take us to 7-11, GPS! A coke slurpee was waiting for us there, as well as some Limey! Yay, Limey! It's cheaper when you don't have to pay the deposit.

As our mini-Mormon experience was the only sightseeing we had planned for Salt Lake City, we decided it was probably best to head for the south end of the city to find a place to stay.

Stephen was driving, we got onto the Interstate, the sun was right down there in the west, and we again missed our turnoff. This is one of those big elevated freeways, where the six lanes of traffic suddenly branches off into multiple cloverleafs and flyovers and diversions all in the same area. From the air, it must look like a giant gordian knot. Anyway, we're speeding along in the wrong direction. Eventually, the GPS gets us to exit, then turn around and start heading in the right direction. We see our first road sign for Las Vegas - not heading there just yet, but it's fun to see it on a road sign!

Now that we were back on the Interstate, it was starting to get dark, and Stephen noted that there were no street lights on the roadway. I figured they didn't bother because there's always so much traffic. With that many headlights, who needs additional illumination? If you're ever the only person driving on the Interstate, it means there has been a Zombie Apocalypse. (In which case, you'd better gas up, get some guns, and keep going.)

By the way, there's a lot of supposed construction going on. By which I mean, they have lots of barricades, and they've closed off some lanes. But traffic is always allowed through, and while it may slow down slightly, it keeps moving. I doubt we drove less than 80km in any construction zones. compare that to Winnipeg, who throttled everyone into single lane washboard for 60km (while restricting us to 50kph), or Saskatoon, who just shuts down entire roadways. No, you can't drive on Idylwyld. Sorry, we've closed University Drive - find some other way. Hey, you bicycles - get out of here!

Anyway, we exited in Provo, which is the southern outskirts of Salt Lake City's metropolitan area. Decided on an Econolodge which was one block off the Interstate and next to a Quik-E-Mart. (Who needs the Quik-E-Mart? I doooo....) We bought strange American food: Pibb Xtra, Milky Way chocolate bars, and Funnyions.

Inukshuks Stand on Guard for Thee!

2010-08-21T15:36:00.002-06:00

We were on the road early this morning, heading out to the Craters of the Moon National Monument.

And at this point, I should just say: Okay, Idaho, I stand corrected. You are not exactly like Saskatchewan. In the corner of Idaho that we drove in on, you are very much like Saskatchewan. However, that might be the one happy farming corner. The rest of the areas that we drove through seem a little more mountainous, a little more scrubby, with some of it tipping towards desert-ish. (As in, "hot like the desert", not "yum! candy mountain desert!").

So, driving on this quiet bypass road on the way to Craters: There are a lot of government research facilities in this area. Restricted access, yadda yadda, all out in the the middle of nowhere, and yes, with the fencing and the electronic frontier, etc. I'm pretty sure at least one spy drone followed our car, probably zooming in to eavesdrop, then got its circuits fried when it heard the eclectic music mix we were listening to. ~Does not process - too many conflicting genres~ KABOOM! (goes down in flames)

Anyway, Craters of the Moon. Very cool! It's basically a post-volcanic landscape (from eruptions about 2000 years ago), and it is really bizarre and unusual. I'd picked out three hikes ahead of time; unfortunately for us, they're doing work on the sites, and that kiboshed two of the three planned hikes. Oh well, c'est la vie!

We wandered through several lava flow trails, checked out the spatter cones, one of which had a deep well with snow at the bottom, in spite of the hot day. We also followed one of the longer trails up to one of the peaks. It was alternating between sunny and cloudy. Cloudy was fine; sunny could get really hot really quickly. All that black rock everywhere. :-)

After the trails, we moved onto the caves, which were very cool - literally and figuratively. You can feel it getting cooler every step you take down into the cave. The first one was Dewpoint Cave, and we happily clambered down. Almost immediately, I've got a small cut on one arm - volcanic rock is sharp. Down into the cave and the darkness, and we discover our flashlights are woefully inadequate. Also, headlamps would leave you with both hands free, either to flail around to catch your balance, or to hold onto rocks while climbing around.

The trails are all paved or marked, and there's no straying from the paths. With the caves, you're pretty much allowed to go on your own, as long as you obey the posted no-go zones.

We spent a lot of time in the lava tube trail. Big wide underground caverns, with lots of rooftop openings, so it was pretty easy to see where you were going. which was up and down and all over the place. Stephen climbs onto a rocky ledge. I'm busy falling off the peak of stones I've just scaled. Our main objective, of course, is to always protect the camera. :-)

When we emerged back on top, Stephen had the absolutely fabulous idea of building an inukshuk. But, with volcanic rock, it's so much harder than you think. The rock is light, but the ground is all hard rock, and it's a tricky, slippery balancing act. Nevertheless, we both managed to make our little inukshuks. Ta da!

The other remaining caves were much darker, and one had ice on the ground. Imagine pitch blackness, a crappy flashlight, and ice. It's fun! (Protect the camera.) And the Boy Scout Cave was a tight fit - again, headlamp would have been nice, and I could've used some knee pads. Ouch - volcanic rock is pointy. We figure all of this is our early training for Carlsbad Caverns.

By the time we're walking back out to the parking lot, I've got four scrapes. But my camera is okay!

So, we bid farewell to the Moon, and head back to Earth. Next stop, Arco - which has an awesome looking roadside bar. One of those small-town bars that you'd step into, and either there'd be a biker gang in there, or a bunch of vampires would eventually show up and kill everyone. (You know - you've seen those places in the movies.)

Anyway, we skip the bar and go to Pickle's Placer, "The Home of the Atomic Burger." Come on. Who doesn't want an atomic burger??? Both Stephen and I had one, and glowed a pleasant atomic pickle-green for a while afterward. (Arco was the first place to be lit by atomic power, way back in 1955; hence, the atomic references.)

After leaving Arco, we drove past Atomic City, which apparently has 22 people living there, 14 of whom are shambling, irradiated zombies. Mmm, atomic burgers...

Then it was keep on driving until we hit Salt Lake City. For a while, the scenery seemed nice and... well, scenic. Pretty range of hills on the right, some plains and faraway hills on the left. And the same scenery kept on unwinding, like a neverending roll of matchy matchy wallpaper. :-/ (Yes, the people from Saskatchewan are saying that the thrill of your scenery wears off. Would it kill you to put in a waterfall or something to break up the monotony?)

Goodbye Idaho, and thanks for the potatoes. Hello, Utah!

We're Tourists, not Terrorists

2010-08-20T23:23:00.001-06:00

So, we made it into the States in spite of the fact that I apparently made a faux pas by taking a picture of the prairie scenery as we were pulling up to the border crossing. This was not a good time to be testing my camera. Even though it was pointed away from them and out at the prairie, mind you, but yeah - apparently there's a strict no-pictures policy on all federal buildings. Or you can go to jail and they can beat you with your camera case. (Does that include the White House or Congress, I wonder? I'll bet they're constantly beating up tourists. "No pictures! No pictures!")

Border Dude: "You can't take pictures. What did you take a picture of?"
Me: "Um. A tree."
Border Dude (disbelieving): "A tree?!"
Me: "Well, it seemed like it would be an interesting picture... mostly because of that Taliban-looking guy hiding behind it..."

Border guards run off to investigate, we drive on through and escape. Whew!

Okay, perhaps I exaggerate slightly. :-) But only slightly.

Anyway, near the border, Montana's landscape is pretty much the same as Saskatchewan, although it seems to have more cattle than crops so there's more greenery. And way more casinos! These people are gambling nuts. Every two bit town has a casino. And bars are attached to everything.

There was some very pretty scenery in between Cascade and Craig - some dramatic hills and very curving roads. It felt like I was driving in a video game simulation. Zoom! Whoosh! And the speed limits were still really high in spite of the weaving and teetering along hillsides. "Does this seem fast to you? It seems fast to me..." Concentrate on not flying off road...

Butte was notable for the fact that it's got a giant mine cutting into the hillside. One of those open mines where they terrace and scale away the hills. Huge mine. It's the entire backdrop of the city. So, instead of looking up into the hills, the residents look up at the mine. Nice.

Other than that, I'd say that Montana's rolling hills are pretty, but it's like an extended version of the Calgary foothills, without ever reaching the real mountains. (Sorry, Montana - Alberta does it better.) :-)

Then, at last, into Idaho. Except for the hills off in the distance, Idaho seems very much like Saskatchewan, but with better roads. We made it to Idaho Falls, checked in at a Super8 and wandered around for a bit. There's a river running through the city, which they've dammed and use for hydroelectric power. After that, we ate at Jack in the Box, just because we don't have those at home.

A few pics for ya! (Click on the pic to open the album.)

Roadtrip

Tomorrow, it's on to Craters of the Moon national monument, and after that, Salt Lake City.

Hitting the Road

2010-08-20T11:15:00.003-06:00

Okay, fortune cookie - I shouldn't have doubted your powers of precognition. Next time you tell me to be frugal, I'll listen. :-( (Story for another time.)

Woke up this morning, stepped outside and thought "Is my house on fire?" But no, apparently the smoke is from the forest fires in BC. Wow. That's a ways off. If the smoke was that thick in Saskatoon, I wonder how they're doing in Calgary? Not to mention BC itself, of course. Yikes.

Anyway, all the smoke made for a dull gray morning of driving. Saskatchewan Landing looks like it's probably a really nice park - today, it looked like the mist shrouded hills of Scotland (not that I've been there, but I've seen Braveheart, and I'm sure it's exactly the same. I kept expecting Mel Gibson to pop out, with half his face painted blue, and come running after me while yelling profanities. It's not that far-fetched.)

Anyhoo, we're making good time so far. Despite wanting to get going a bit earlier, we ended up leaving the city at 6:30 a.m. Stephen hadn't filled up the night before, and apparently there are no working gas stations on the west side before 6:30. Weird. Anyhoo, at the time I'm writing this, we just filled up with gas in Shaunavon, and we're now en route to Climax and the border crossing to the US. So far, the roads have been good, and only passed through one construction zone. Oh wait, I spoke too soon - the roads are starting to get crappy - we just passed a sign warning about "Broken Pavement" and now Stephen is driving like it's a slalom. Still, not as bad as that craptacular road to Coronach; Leader also sucked; and let not forget 60 kms of washboard road in MB. My fillings are still rattling from that last one.

Hey, my laptop just told me it couldn't find a wireless connection. That's okay, little fella, you keep trying.

Oh, so we were worried about forgetting something. Got the car packed up, got our passports, our cameras, our map book, etc. Remembered the toothbrush and the floss and the sunscreen. Know what we forgot to bring? Our map for our route. Doh! Fortunately, I had put it on a USB stick, and so we can view it on the laptop. Whew! I'd hate to have forgotten to see the Grand Canyon because I didn't have my map.