Greetings from Washington

Greetings from the sunny Pacific Northwest, formerly the dreary Pacific Northwest. Right now we’re in Burlington, WA spending in last night in the Continental US for the next month or so. Tomorrow we enter Canada, then Alaska, then some more time in Canada. We won’t be back to the lower 48 until the end of July. Phase two of our trip will be beginning. We’re expecting longer days, bigger bugs, and more rain.

Me and Delicate Arch

Oh so long ago was Monday a week and on Monday a week it was 95 degrees and sunny. We got up and prepared ourselves for a day at Arches National Park. We filled up our camelpaks and headed into the red butte and arched desert. The Arches drive takes you to and through a few neighborhoods in the park. The first stop being Park Avenue. From there we hiked a little ways and got excellent views of eroded rock formations. After Park Avenue is the Windows section which gave us our first up close experience with arches. The arches in this region were formed because salt from the long extinct seas that used to cover that area forced its way up causing the rocks to jut out. Erosion formed many of the jutting rocks into arches. At the Windows we hiked up to and hung out under the giant arches. Next up was Delicate Arch, the most iconic arch in the park and the arch that was on many signs and pictures in the Moab area. It’s even on Utah’s new license plates. There’s a three mile round-trip hike up to Delicate Arch, but Alicia and I decided to view it from the viewing area instead. From there we hiked up an escalating ridge to get a great view of it from across a gulch. I’m not sure we were supposed to go up there, but it made the decision not to do the official hike worth it. The last stop was the Devil’s Garden which has a plethora of arches, including most famously, Landscape Arch. We hiked to the arch, took our pictures and got out of the scorching sun with only slight sun burns to our name. We then drove back through the park, took a scenic drive along the Colorado River through a canyon and then went back to the campground to relax by the pool. For dinner we went to what we thought was a roadhouse right next to the campground only to find out it was a fine dining roadhouse. So classy was it that they used bandanas for napkins. Alicia had the duck bacon tamales and I had the Mole Turkey Enchiladas. We finished dinner as the sun was beginning to set and decided to go back out into the park to take sunset pictures. We did and some look pretty cool. We watched the sunset from Balanced Rock.

Canyonlands!

Tuesday was a trip to Canyonlands, Moab’s other National Park. Canyonlands is a little further away and split into two parts, Islands in the Sky, which we visited, and Needles, which was a hundred miles in the other direction. We planned on going to Needles but we were exhausted from the first part and chose to spend another afternoon by the pool. Islands in the Sky was definitely worth the visit. We climbed the mesa leading to the park entrance and were greeted with a grand view of a canyon that was carved by now non-existent water. Alicia and I took photos from precarious places and saw more epic vistas of the water formed canyons. I climbed up Mesa arch which overlooks a canyon probably over a thousand feet down. The canyon floor looks like fingers carved into the ground, or maybe like cracks caused by ice. Alicia is family geologist, so you’ll have to ask her about all of the layers of rocks exposed on the walls. All I can tell you is that the ranger giving a lecture on the canyon geology named all of the “neighborhoods” at our campground. Layers like Moenkopi and Morrison. After the pool and a shower we went into Moab and got some ice cream and went into a few shops on the strip. Moab is kind of like Jackson, Wyoming only red instead of green and not as classy. Nice none-the-less.

Petroglyphs at Capitol Reef

Wednesday we packed up camp and headed on our way to Idaho with a stop at Capitol Reef National Park along the way. Capitol Reef is probably Utah’s least known national park and it doesn’t help that it’s in the middle, with Arches and Canyonlands to the east and Zion and Bryce to the west. We could see many of the same geographic features from the other four parks in Capitol Reef: the white rocks and swirls of Zion, the intense redness of Bryce, the arches of Arches, and the long vistas of Canyonlands. We took the scenic drive, but like I said, it wasn’t anything new, though the trek through Capitol Gorge was pretty cool. Capitol Reef does have Native America petroglyphs from about 800 years ago still etched into the walls of the cliffs. It has 19^th century graffiti from Mormons who went through the area. After that we drove north through Utah, getting to Salt Lake City right at five. Fortunately they have an HOV lane so we basically cruised up I-15. Not far across the border into Idaho is Preston, the town where Napoleon Dynamite was filmed. If you knew me in 2004 you knew I was somewhat obsessed with the film. I took pictures by the town sign and in front of the high school. We took a picture of what may be Pedro’s house and were disappointed not to find any tetherball poles in town. Our destination for the night was Pocatello, where we found a cheap, but nice motel across from Idaho State University (Go Bengals) ate at a diner and went to bed.

Alicia blowing away at Craters of the Moon

Thursday we drove deeper into the heart of Idaho. First up was Craters of the Moon National Monument. CotM was the site of a volcanic eruption a few thousand years ago, so the landscape is covered in jagged volcanic rock, which looks like a blackish-red version of the moon. The Oregon Trail went through the area. We hiked a few trails where we learned how humans destroyed a lot of the rocks and hills and cones by walking on them, then summited a large hill common to the area that was covered in volcanic rock. The entire area was windy. Maybe not as windy as Kansas, but the top of that hill definitely was. We planned on cooking hotdogs on our stove but we would have never gotten the stove lit in that wind. We then made our way north to the Sawtooth Mountains and just like that we were back to snowcapped peaks and alpine forests. After driving up and through the mountains we found a campsite by ourselves by a roaring river. I made a fire and we enjoyed a quiet evening alone.

The Sawtooths

Hell's Canyon

Friday, with rain threatening, we packed and headed into Boise to give it a look, then headed northwest towards Hell’s Canyon, the deepest Canyon in the US. The yellow rolling hills gradually get darker and higher as you drive down a narrow winding road, avoiding fallen rocks and other cars riding the yellow line. They say that in parts of the canyon, the rim is over 7000 feet above. They don’t let you drive down that far and neither Alicia nor I are known for our maritime skills, though I did earn Canoeing Merit Badge, so we settled seeing at not at its most hellish, but it’s an impressive canyon and the dark rock only makes it more imposing. From there we drove back the way came in and then crossed over into Oregon, took a winding mountain road over a mountain, met up with the rain, and arrived at our destination for the night, Wallowa Lake State Park near Joseph, Oregon. Wallowa Lake is a picturesque lake overlooked by snowcapped mountains. It was a busy park, which was a complete flip from the night before. We found our spot, set up the tent and the awning and prepared for a soggy night in the Northwest. During dinner it cleared and we drove around the lake taking foggy, cloudy, good light photos. We then went to bad as the rain began again, making for a wet morning.

Lowering Sun at Wallowa Lake

Unfortunately, Friday was dryer than Saturday. The day actually began overcast, cleared up as we drove through Washington, then began to cloud and then rain just after Yakima, less than 60 miles from Mount Rainier National Park. We drove up and over mountains only to find foggy, rainy conditions with zero visibility. I mean, we’re camping on a huge mountain, one that is clearly visible and a noticeably imposing view on the skyline, and we can’t see it. We’re driving through beautiful snowcapped peaks, with partially frozen lakes only a few days before July. We came upon pullouts without trees that certainly held majestic views of this gargantuan mountain. We saw absolutely nothing. When we arrived at the campsite it was soggy and drizzling, so we set up the tent under the awning and made a tarp awning that draped over the picnic table and a large, fallen tree. That came in handy as it began to rain harder. It allowed us place to hang out that wasn’t in the car on lying down in the tent (we have a small tent). By the next morning the rain had stopped but it was still damp and overcast. We packed everything up fairly wet, so good bye to the curious chipmunks, and left the park, hoping to catch a glimpse of the behemoth, unfortunately, it was not to be.

We drove on through Washington, which was alternating between rainy and overcast, bought some Bing and Rainier cherries from a road sign stand, and headed east towards the Olympic Peninsula. Then, a funny thing happened after we passed Olympia – the clouds went away and the sun came out like “What? You think I went away forever?” and the temperatures went into the seventies (from the lower forties earlier in the day) and we arrived at the Pacific Ocean. Did I mention it was sunny for real and pleasant? We had plans to camp in the Hoh Rain forest, but said no thanks and found one of the last available spots at the Kalloloch Campground. The site was still very wet from an earlier shower, but with no threat of rain, who cares. This was National Park land and their aim was to preserve the coastal forest, and since they get a whole lot of rain, the forest was lush and mossy, and the ocean was about 100 yards away. We could hear the crashing waves from our site. After dinner we drove down to Ruby Beach, a pebble beach that overlooked a few rock outcroppings in the ocean. It was sunset, so Alicia and I drank some wine and snapped a lot of photographs of the islands/outcroppings silhouetted in the waning sun. I was kind of looking forward to the rainforest, but this was way better than the forest would have been. It’s amazing what a little sun will do for the spirits.

Sunset over the Pacific at Olympic National Park

Monday we got up and prepared for our day on the Olympic Peninsula and it looked like another great day of weather. We first went to the Hoh Rain Forest, saw some enormous Sitka Spruces, Cedars, and Hemlocks, many covered in moss. The bright greens were illuminated by the bright sun. We walked the Hall of Mosses, saw the biggest maples I’ve ever seen, and marveled at some massive trees. On the last trip we went to the Redwoods and saw a few Sequoias, and while these trees aren’t as big, I do enjoy being around the large trees. I’m glad we didn’t do both the Redwoods and Olympic on the same trip because I feel like the bigness and grandeur of these trees would have been diminished by the Redwoods, but on their own, they were one of my highlights so far.

After Hoh we began Alicia’s Twilight tour by visiting Forks and La Push, two major settings in those books. Forks had Twilight stuff in all the stores and many businesses and ads were still on the bandwagon. We crossed the Vampire/Werewolf treaty line on the way to La Push and bought Twilight postcards from the grocery store. It actually wasn’t too overdone, but then again, we didn’t take the Twilight tour. From La Push we continued on the 101 and drove alongside Crescent Lake and marveled at its blue waters before driving through Port Angeles and setting up camp at Heart o’ the Hills campground. We had a clean-out-the-cooler dinner before driving up to Hurricane Ridge, a grassy mountain top that has a commanding view of the Olympic Mountains, including Mount Olympus as well as distant Mount Baker in the North Cascades and Vancouver Island, on the other side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We took a short hike and had close encounters with grazing deer and some noisy ravens before heading back to camp for a fire and card games.

We woke up today and it was still sunny – two and a half days bright and sunny days in the Pacific Northwest.

We packed up and headed to Bainbridge Island to catch the ferry into Seattle. About thirty minutes into the drive we got up in traffic. An hour later, we had traveled about a mile and passed what was causing the delay, which was a Semi which did its best to run over a minivan which it seems had pulled out in front of it. The EMT’s were gone but the cops weren’t exactly sure, it seems what to do about the wreckage. Fortunately, it was smooth sailing after that. We rode the ferry across the Puget Sound and got our first real view of Mt. Rainier, hulking off to the southeast,went to Pike’s Market, the large market, tourist area in Seattle. We watched the fish mongers toss fish, marveled at other massive, delicious looking seafood, veggies, and flowers and squeezed our way through throngs of tourists. We then walked the mile to the Space Needle, rode the forty two second elevator ride to the top, and spent some time circling the top of the needle, taking pictures of the clear vistas that it provided. On the elevator ride down we learned that Mt. Baker, the second largest mountain in sight was only visible 70-80 days out of the year, so we were lucky to have received such good weather. We then walked back to the car, left Seattle, and are now about an hour south of Canada.

Hey, it's Mt. Rainier! (From the Space Needle)

Greetings from Moab, Utah

The road trip is finally finding a groove. With the early calamities behind us, we’ve successfully reached the west and all of the splendors it has to offer. And we’re ahead of schedule. Right now I’m sitting in my hammock at an RV park in Moab, Utah watching the sun set over the red rock mountains.  Here’s what’s happened since last time.

Wednesday morning we got up and left Wichita early so that we could make it to Dodge City in time to see the high noon Wild West shootout spectacular. Basically some high school kids and local community theater actors reenact what a typical day in Dodge City was like, where in the end everyone dies in a violent shootout. It was fun and plus we got an autographed cast glossy! We then got the Hell out of Dodge and drove west over the vast, windy wasteland that is Kansas/Eastern Colorado. We passed cows, corn, and wheat, cows, corn and wheat, cows, corn, and wheat until off in the distance, some ways into Colorado, we could make out mountains in the distance. Two hours later we reached those mountains and then drove further until off in the distance we saw a 30 square mile pile of sand.  We had arrived: Great Sand Dunes National Park! The Great Sand Dunes are, well, a 30 square mile pile of sand abutted against the Sangre De Cristo range on one side and open, flat for forever nothingness on the other. When we arrived at the campsite a storm was trying to make its way over said mountains. The wind was blowing, but not as nearly as hard as in Kansas and the temperature dropped from 100 degrees down 60. We quickly set up our campsite and storm-proofed it, but of course the mountains broke up the storm and we were left with a perfectly tarped tent and no rain. With improving weather and cool temperatures we settled in for the night.

Wednesday night was a chilly night. When we got up the next morning at seven, the temperature in my car read 43 degrees, a near 60 degree drop from the previous afternoon. Alicia and I walked down to the sand dunes from our campsite to take pictures as the sun rose for the day. The low sun helped create dark contrasting shadows on the dunes, perfect (we hope) for some black and white pictures. We walked back and Alicia began to make breakfast while I was sent on a mission to bring back some ice. I brought back some ice as well as a sand sled. So now our morning was planned: struggle up the dunes and slide back down on a waxed sled. The sliding down part was fun: gliding down a 40 foot slope that was at a 70 degree angle is exhilarating. The struggling up part was a struggle. In some parts the sand was soft, so soft that it filled up my shoes as I worked my way up the dunes. The dunes are the tallest in the US, with the highest peak reaching over 750 feet. At 8000 feet above sea level, the sun scorches everything, even with it being only 80 degrees. By eleven  in the morning the sand was too hot to walk on comfortably without shoes, so that meant splashing around in Medano Creek for a bit and then lunch, and then a drive through the vast nothingness leading up to the dunes for an hour and seeing absolutely nothing. When we got back to our site there were three mule deer snacking and laying under the tree that our hammocks hung on. We took a billion pictures and hours of video of the deer because, hey, why not.  Besides, one was really big and they were so close. We later went back down to the dunes to fry in the sun and splash around the creek before eating dinner and then going for a sunset hike up the Medano Primitive Road.

Friday morning we packed everything up and made our way north to Rocky Mountain National Park, trading the vast nothingness for alpine passes. Up the mountains, down the mountains, around the mountains, through the mountains on our way to Boulder (to stock up) and back into the mountains and finally to the Park, itself.  Then we had to drive up a ridgeline road with snowcapped peak after snowcapped peak visible to the left, glimmering in the late afternoon sun. Man, it was awful. We set up camp and then went for a drive in the intense, lowering sun to look for wildlife and take pictures. We saw deer, elk, birds, prairie dogs, chipmunks. We have chipmunks around our apartment yet we still try to take pictures of them when we see them at a park. It’s amazing how quickly priorities change when you’re on the road. We had our first campfire of the trip that night and roasted some marshmallows and drank some beer and then settled in for a chilly Rocky Mountain night.

Saturday morning we arose, broke down camp and went to the range where Alicia’s cousin lost his life while rock climbing last summer. After that we began our drive through the National Park, enjoying stunning vistas of snowcapped mountains and forested valleys, rising above the snowline where feet of snow still lined the road and the tops of mountains. It was very reminiscent of a Coors Light can. We reached the alpine tundra where no trees grow and saw marmots scurrying about the rocky terrain before reaching the Alpine visitor center for lunch and a hike up steps to the top of the mountains. The altitude was marked there at 12,005 feet. It even flurried briefly. We then made our way down the mountain and the back side of the park and reached where we had planned to camp at 2:00 and deciding that we weren’t ready to camp decided to head on. Well we had to make sure we got past some intense-looking storms forming over the mountains, so we kept driving, through Glenwood Canyon to the town of Glenwood. We checked out a campsite but deemed it too close to the interstate with too much sun and not enough to do, so we decided to trek on to Grand Junction, Colorado and get a motel. After having a little difficulty finding a cheap motel because of a local country music festival we finally found a room at a Super 8, ordered a pizza, and got some good rest.

But seeing how we drove five hours further than we had planned, we now basically had a free day since Grand Junction and Moab are only an hour and a half a part. So we decided to drive down to Mesa Verde National Park and see the cliff dwellings. But before we did that we went to Colorado National Monument, which is right outside of Grand Junction. Colorado National Monument is a beautiful land of canyons and rock pillars that is best scene from the Rim Drive. There were plenty of bicyclists riding through the park but car traffic was light and it helped make for a leisurely morning. Following the Colorado NM we drove down the four hours to Mesa Verde National Park, where we had a few hours to see what we could see. After a twenty mile winding drive up the green mesas we arrived at Spruce Tree House which is the iconic cliff dwellings that you see whenever you see pictures from Mesa Verde. We hiked down to the dwellings and explored what we were allowed to explore. I must say, the Puebloans picked a nice spot to build a village. They were protected from bad weather and enemies and the animals must have been abundant, munching on the lush vegetation. We then drove the Mesa Loop to view other cliff dwellings from the other side of the canyon. We then drove to Moab and set up camp. Tomorrow is Arches National Park, followed by Canyonlands on Tuesday.

Greetings from Wichita

Well, this year’s road trip has gotten off to a bit of an auspicious start with a sliced finger and a cracked windshield, all in just the first two days. Sunday started out overcast, but we soon found some sunshine as we headed towards Mt. Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi River. We had some great views on the Blue Ridge Parkway heading up the mountain, but once at the top found it to be mostly overcast, which is typical of the area. Only about 25% of the 360 degree vista was clear, but it was nice none-the-less. After that we continued on the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Craggy Gardens which offered a commanding view of the mountains. The sun was shining beautifully on the mountains. Around five we made it to the entrance of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and were greeted with a few drops on the windshield, but as we crossed the mountains and entered Tennessee the rain picked up some, just enough to be annoying. Around seven we made it to our campsite at Cade’s Cove and began to set up in the drizzle. We bought a pop-up shelter for this trip and had an opportunity to use it the first night. It worked like a champ keeping our tent dry throughout the night. Alicia is very paranoid about the tent with “rain seeping through” being her number one fear. She was able to sleep well knowing the tent would be dry when we got up.

Craggy Gardens on Blue Ridge Parkway

But before we went to sleep, just as we were about to sit down to eat Alicia’s delicious anniversary steak dinner, I decided to (stupidly) open the bottle of champagne with my pocket knife. I got myself pretty good on the top of my left pointer finger. Alicia bound it up tight and the bleeding stopped, but I’ll be wearing a bandage for a few days. Fortunately it doesn’t hurt and seems to be healing properly. I think a Great Smoky Mountains curse may have been put on me. Last year, Alicia, Nicolle and I went camping at Cataloochee and while splitting kindling with a hatchet, I hit my left thumb nail, which eventually led to half the nail falling off. I was lucky I got the nail…If I ever go to the Smokies again, I will not be using anything sharp. I’d like to keep my middle finger.

Day two started off a little better as we made our way across Tennessee on our way to the Land Between the Lakes, a National Recreation area between two lakes (go figure) on the Tennessee/Kentucky boarder. Less than hour out from LBL we were a car behind a logging truck. We were at an intersection and up ahead the road added another lane. About five seconds after Alicia commented that we could finally pass the track there was a loud pop and my windshield had a spider web crack about sick inches in diameter. Talks about the trip being cursed began but we headed on to LBL and made the best of the rest of the day.

The Land Between the Lakes is a beautiful piece of land with hard forests, its on planetarium, and a Bison and Elk reserve. So of course we got there at three in the afternoon, during Bison and Elk naptime. While driving through the 700 acre reserve we did manage to see four elk grazing in the distance, as well as some wild turkeys and a raccoon, but no bison (though we did see some off in the distance in a smaller reserve) but it was fun to be on the hunt. The trip began to feel like an adventure again. After that we left the area and made a change to our plans. The first and definitely not the last. We originally planned to camp near Van Buren, MO and tube down the Current River this morning, but decided that even though the crack in the windshield wasn’t spreading, it would probably be best to get it fixed, and it also might not be a good idea for me to submerge my finger in a river. So instead we set up an appointment in Springfield, MO to get the windshield replaced and drove until ten o’clock at night to get there.

At least we saw an Elk

Today we got the windshield fixed and it only took an hour. Since we were three hours closer to today’s destination we decided to visit the George Washington Carver National Monument in nearby Diamond, MO. The park is a beautiful chunk of forest and prairie on the site where Carver was born. It’s basically a giant field trip opportunity for southwestern Missouri schools but Alicia was impressed with how well the exhibits worked for both children and adults.

We left from there around two, heading to Fall River State Park in Kansas. The trip there was fortunately mishap free. Fall River State Park is set on a beautiful prairie with gorgeous hardwoods lining a lake. It was also incredibly windy. Incredibly, incredibly windy. But then again it is Kansas and now Alicia understands why Dorothy didn’t take the threat of tornados too seriously. So we set up the tent and thus began another episode of Alicia being paranoid about the tent. She’s convinced it would either unstake itself from the ground or simply rip apart in the wind. After getting the bedding situated and realizing we wouldn’t be able to get the stove lit and that we would nothing to do besides take a hike or sit in the wind we decided to take a hike (rim shot) and get a hotel in Wichita. So we did and there’s significantly less wind in the hotel room. Tomorrow, getting the Hell out of Dodge and Great Sand Dune National Park in Colorado.

Too windy?

Two Weeks Out

It's hard to believe that in two weeks, Alicia and I will celebrate our 1st anniversary together and embark on another summer-long road trip together, driving all the way to Alaska and back. This trip has been in the making since January of 2013 when one Saturday afternoon we decided, what the hell, we'll drive to Alaska next summer. The first road trip was such an amazing success and it still lingers in my thoughts on a near daily basis. It doesn't hurt to have taken pictures, posters, maps, postcards, etc from that trip and covered an entire wall of our living room.

Last summer, we had an incredible time in Costa Rica and Panama, but while there, we both made the comment that we missed being on the road. We missed having our own vehicle and leaving when we wanted to. We missed sleeping outside, watching the landscape change, and seeing mountains larger and more grandiose than I could've ever imagined. Another year has passed and we're counting down the days.

It was a little harder to build excitement leading up to the trip this time around. The winter weather threatened to put a kink in our plans, and it wasn't until recently that we worked everything out, but we're managing to leave when we intended to. Who needs teacher work days at the end of the year any way? And come on, three and a half weeks before departure my car gets totaled. Fortunately, I wasn't injured and fortunately it happened far enough out that I was able to jump through the insurance hoops and get another vehicle in time. Plus it's three years younger and has 63,000 less miles on it!

The plan is to head west, visit Colorado, Utah, Idaho, and Washington before driving through British Columbia and catching a ferry through the Inside Passage of Alaska's southeastern peninsula. From there we drive through the Yukon Territory. That should take around three weeks. We'll spend two weeks in Alaska, visiting three National Parks and taking a tour up to the Arctic Circle. After that we'll use another three weeks to visit the Canadian Rockies before entering the US again through Montana. We head back to NC through North Dakota the Great Lake states, and down through Virginia. In all, well be gone for 8 weeks, from June 15th until August 9th. We expect to put at least 15,000 miles on the vehicle. We'll be visiting about 15 US National Parks and around 8 or so in Canada. I'll have visited 43 out of 50 states (Hawaii and all of New England will be left) when all is said and done.

Here's to hoping the last two weeks of school go quickly and smoothly.

East bound and down

Greetings from Hot Springs, Arkansas! The eastward push has begun. Then end is near. Fortunately it is has been an amazing trip. Since the last post Alicia and I shopped in Vegas, paid too much for a mediocre buffet and just all around spent way too much in Las Vegas. It was all really fun though, just really, really expensive. Wednesday morning we got up and drove down the strip to see all of the casinos before heading northeast into Utah. Southern Utah is very beautiful. We escaped the barren wasteland and 115 degree scorching heat of Nevada for trees (we hadn't seen those since Sunday) and temperatures under 90 degrees (ditto). We first drove through Zion National Park, which had beautiful reddish rock formations. We were through the park in less than two hours but like practically every other park, was incredibly gorgeous. After another two hour drive we reached our nightly destination of Bryce Canyon. Unfortunately we arrived about 30 minutes too late as we couldn't find a campsite. Fortunately there was a RV park/campground just outside the park. It was more spacious and less cramped than the National Park was anyway. Just a few Europeans were camping nearby. The RV park on the other hand was filled. With Americans, mostly. One thing we've noticed on this trip is that most of the National Parks are filled with Europeans. There really hasn't been a whole lot of Americans out there, espeically any our age. All of the Americans have been old or with kids.

The next morning we woke got up and went back to Bryce Canyon. The canyon area was truly breathtaking. The canyon is made up of hoodoos which are stone spires and formations. It looked like a red castle city made out of rocks. Also very hard to describe. After Bryce we headed south to Flagstaff, Arizona for two nights with my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Larry. After four weeks on the road it was nice to see some familiar faces. After eating lunch and catching up for a bit we took a walk on the urban trail to a pond and then around the neighborhood. To celebrate our engagement, Nancy and Larry took us out to Buster's for seafood and steak. The next morning we walked downtown and saw Nancy's vintage clothing store, Incahoots. We were also on a quest for a southwestern nativity scene for my mother. We were told to find one we wanted to inherit. We had no luck in Flagstaff, but I did have a delicious burrito at the Lumberyard. That afternoon Alicia and I went down to Sedona. No luck finding a nativity scene down there either. The one we did find cost $525. That evening we came back for some presumably organic pizza before presenting a 2 hour, 2500 picutre slideshow of our trip. And that was from only one of three cameras.

The whole time we were in Flagstaff all we heard about was the impending monsoons. It apparently hadn't rained there in three months. After two days of lightning, drizzle and hope, the monsoon finally arrived just as we were leaving on Friday. I'm sure there was much rejoicing.

Unfortunately Flagstaff meant that we had to head east for real. We drove through the monsoon, but did not stand on a corner in Winslow, Arizona (I hate the Eagles). We stopped at an indian store and found a southwestern nativity scenes for $800. I saw another scene that was intricately beaded by the Hopi tribe. I didn't see a price tag on that one, but I could only assume it was even more expensive. The beaded one was absolutely beautiful. We stopped for lunch in Gallup, New Mexico at a Mexican Restaurant. The food was good, but about every three minutes a Native American came in carrying some kind of art or craft and went from table to table. No less than twelve came in while we were there. After lunch we continued east before arriving in Alburquerque, NM. We went to the old town to continue the search for the southwestern nativity scene for my mom. We actually found some in the $30 range, but they were made by Peruvians. Peruvians are indians, technically, but Peru is more midwest South America than southwest South America so we passed. I will not be inheriting a southwestern nativity scene. We drove on for two more hours to Tucumcari, NM.

Sunday morning we got up headed east with a destination of Corinth, Texas to stay with Alicia's friends, the Uridales. After visiting the Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo, Alicia was pulled over for going 75 in a 70. She was given a warning. The highway cop made it seem like he was doing us a favor by stopping us because the city cops don't give out warnings, but all it did was waste 10 minutes of our day. Around 6 we finally made it to Corinth, the land of French Bulldogs. One dog was about to pop. This morning she had 7 puppies by C-section. Not at the house. They were really cute, though. Smaller than a Guinea Pig. We left around 3 and made it Hot Springs, AR by 8. We're staying in the Romance Literature room at the B Inn a bed & breakfastesque motel. We have about 500 or so romance novels in our room. I also took a shower in the smallest shower ever. It as literally 2.5 by 3 feet and the shower head came to about my chest. I think I got all the soap off.

Tomorrow we take a bath in the hot springs and then drive as far east as we can with the hope of making it past Knoxville.

Greetings from Las Vegas! This is definitely the easiest city we've been to. The last few days were incredibly fun. High Sierra was totally different than anything else we've done on this trip. I heard someone say that 17,000 people were there this year. We camped in an area called Hillside, which as you can guess, was on the side of a hill. We camped on a small patch of land that was probably on a 25-30 degree slope. We would have slid out at night if it wasn't for the zipper. We did slide down as far as possible thought. Besides the slope it was a good spot. It was shaded so we didn't need the canopy (there wouldn't have been space for it anyway) and it was close to the main stage, so because we didn't know many of the musicians, we could hang out at the tent and just listen instead of standing in the heat at the shows. We did actually go to shows, but usually just for a song or two. The festival was at a county fairgrounds and there was plenty of camping set-ups and other crazy things to look at, so Alicia and I spent a lot of time just walking around and stumbling upon music. We had to park the car about a mile away from the campsite so we were limited to what we could bring in, so we ate from the venders. The food was pretty healthy and had remarkably portions. I was expecting to get raped by the food venders but it was more like being molested. The headliner Friday night was a band called STS9. They were described as Jam-tronica. They were awful in a way that gets people together and totally took over anything else going on to the point we were surprised that anything else was going on anywhere else...and that anyone else could have been doing anything else except being consumed by this loud, repetitive music. Ben Harper was much more enjoyable the next night. We also saw some firedancers with batons and hula hoops and whips, etc that were on fire. That was awesome! High Sierra was a lot like DragonCon, except in the woods.

After leaving the festival we stopped for a few hours at Lake Tahoe and relaxed on the beach for a few hours. It was a little hot but the water from still pretty cold. It was a nice break after the festival. We planned to camp at Walker Lake in Nevada but when we got there we weren't even sure if the campgrounds were open. There was no information on the information sign and no one else was camping. It was also right on the highway and there were no trees. We drove on to Hawthorne and stayed at the El Capitan and lost $6 on the slots.

The next morning we got up and drove to Vegas. We're staying at the MGM Grand. The hotel/casino is much like being at a festival. Everywhere you walk there's music and there's plenty of things to amuse you without leaving the hotel. Being here feels like a real vacation. I'm kind of sad to leave here tomorrow but everything except for the room is really expensive, so it's probably not a bad thing we'll be back at a National Park tomorrow.

No pictures this time.

California Everywhere.

Greetings from near Bass Lake, California! Alicia and I are on the road, headed to High Sierra Music Festival near Quincy, CA. It’s been an exciting and awe-inspiring few days.  Sunday morning we got up and went to the Willow Creek Bigfoot Museum – the reason we stayed in Willow Creek. There wasn’t much to the museum; just a lot of maps, plaster feet, and a video that analyzed supposed bigfoot sightings that were caught on camera. The score of the museum for Alicia was the bigfoot Cinderella story. The 1^st grade at Alicia’s school teaches Cinderella stories from around the world so she now has a new story to add to the unit. From Willow Creek we headed south down the 101 – stopping for brunch at Amy’s Delight, a small restaurant in Eureka. Amy cooked us a delicious breakfast. Driving further south we made it to the Avenue of Giants – a stretch of highway where the largest Redwoods reside. They were even bigger than the ones in the National Park. We climbed ten foot stumps, went through fallen trees, and climbed on fallen trees. There was even a fallen redwood that was split in half because another redwood fell down on top of it. We saw the immortal tree which as survived fires, floods, and lumberjacks, and further down the road we paid $6 to drive through a redwood. It was tight but my car made it through. You really do feel tiny standing next to these trees. Even the ferns with massive. If you outstretched the branch of the fern, some came to be over six feet tall. Alicia kept expecting us to stumble upon dinosaurs but I was more on the lookout for Ewoks. Like most places we’ve seen I would highly recommend driving through the Avenue of Giants.

In Leggett, CA we turned on to California 1 – the most winding road I’ve ever had the pleasure of driving on. We wound our way up a mountain, down a mountain, up another mountain, down the backside of that mountain and then wound our way down the beautiful California coast. We stopped near Fort Bragg, CA  at Glass Beach. The story is that people used to dump their trash in the ocean and because of the rocks and swirling waters, the trash didn’t wash out to sea. The glass in the trash broke down and washed ashore creating a beautiful green, brown, and white pebbly beach. We were expecting the class to be covered in large chunks of smooth, colorful glass, but that was not really the case. Maybe at one point it was closer to the description, but there were just small chunks of glass mixed in with the sand. Years of scavengers, I’d assume. The bright green glass was still beautiful shimmering in the sun. We were also able to climb on the jagged rocks jutting out the ocean. I prefer the NC beaches because of the warm temps and large expanses of sandy, swimmable beaches, but the California coast is breathtakingly gorgeous. We continued down the coast towards Salt Point State Park, our campsite for the night, looking for something to eat. There aren’t too many people living on the coast in Northern California, so our food options were limited, but we eventually came to a Mexican restaurant. I had El Campequena or beef, bacon, and shrimp on tortillas. Ron Swanson would be jealous. Right as it was getting dark we made it to our campsite, happy that it wasn’t going to rain.

Monday morning we got up and continued down California 1 to San Francisco. We stopped at the Marin Headlands to view the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a frigid 58 degrees up top, but we got a pretty good view of the slightly foggy bridge. We then paid $6 to cross the bridge before checking into our hotel, which was somewhere between a hotel and a hostel. We had a more hotelesque room that was decorated in a Victorian style. Definitely the coolest hotel so far. We took a street car down to Fisherman’s Wharf for some delicious yet overpriced seafood. We then took the bus to the Castro District so we could walk over to Haight Ashbury. The Castro district was probably the one place on the trip where Alicia wasn’t the one getting checked out. We arrived too late in Haight Ashbury to go into many of the vintage clothing shops, so we settled on pizza. The next morning we did a quick drive though Chinatown. San Francisco is definitely a place we want to go back to. We just need more than an afternoon to do it justice.

From San Francisco we were supposed to go to our campsite at Bass Lake, just south of Yosemite, but instead we decided we would squeeze in Sequoia National Park and take in General Sherman – the world’s largest tree by volume. It was quite big, but the redwoods were more impressive. Sequoias don’t grow as tall as redwoods, but sequoias do get thicker.

On the 4^th we got up and drove to Yosemite National Park. As expected it was full of people but the views, like most of the other great National Parks, were breathtaking. We drove to Glacier Point first, which gives you a straight ahead, eye level, view of Half-Dome. We also had a clear view of the Yosemite Valley down below. While in California we’ve seen nothing but California license plates but have heard very little English. At an information sign for Glacier Point we heard a French couple practicing saying glacier in English: Glass-ee-air. We then drove down to the valley and saw the huge rock monoliths and walls from the ground level. I haven’t spent much time contemplating glaciers, but because of this trip I now have a new respect for them. They’re the world’s greatest artists. It was nice spending the 4^th of July in one of America’s most beautiful parks. It was relaxing and wasn’t nearly as crowded as I had anticipated. It was also neat spending the day with the Germans, Japanese, and French. Flamboyant patriotism isn’t my idea of fun…though I might have gotten used it if we had stayed at Bass Lake for the day.

Bass Lake was one crazy place on the 4^th. Every conceivable spot on the side of road was jam packed with cars. Some spots were forced and those cars were still there this morning. Hispanics and whites alike took to the shore for a day of boating, swimming, and picnicking with families. The weather was perfect: in the upper 80’s and sunny. I’m very glad we went to Yosemite but spending the day at Bass Lake wouldn’t have been an awful alternative. We cooked our seafood fettuccini alfredo – probably the only people eating that – and then went down about 20 feet to the lake to watch the fireworks. Unfortunately our campsite was about 4 miles from where they shot of the fireworks and the fireworks didn’t crest the tree line. We did see the sky turn red and blue behind the trees and were lucky enough to see the grand finale barely make it over the trees. I was able to get one picture. Alicia and I then took a night time dip before going to bed.

High Sierra here we come!