The End of the Road

That’s a lie, the road never ends, especially in this country. It’s endless. Even, usually particularly, if you’re lost, the road just keeps on going. A lot of songs have been written about the road, either its healing effects or its escapism. A lot of books on the same subject, on the way and how of the journey. And though the road doesn’t end, the journey must at some point.

So must ours, albeit a bit early. Overwhelmed exhaustion is the main culprit.

It didn’t come as a smashing revelation that woke us up in the middle of the night. It was part of the unyielding nature of our trip. It came in bits and pieces, in feelings and vibrations, as the days wore on and the miles unfolded below. There comes a point in every trip when it’s over. Simply and justifiably, over. Your mind has taken in too much and your eyes forget to see, your ears neglect sounds, smells are left ignored. If you read some of Steinbeck’s travel with his dog you’ll catch a similar passage. It’s all true.

That boiling point was reached somewhere in the Southwest about four weeks ago. This country of ours is so immense, so diverse, that we were overwhelmed just days into it. There’s just too much to see, do, taste, take in. After that we kept trudging on though, despite all quips about being tired and sleepy.

We learned some things, of course. Some we already knew, lessons only being reiterated. Some were new and scary but came to us all the same. In terms of us: Andy’s still an early bird, and Jana wouldn’t mind sleeping til ten everyday. On the flip side Jana is a partier and Andy prefers a geriatric bedtime. Andy can handle the drudgery of hours on the Interstate, while Jana weaves and honks her brilliantly aggressive way through the cities. Jana loves country music. Andy hates it.

In terms of trip: this country is a behemoth. It’s too much. To do a road trip like we’d envisioned a person, or people, would need months, not weeks. Two to three months. To see a place and to get a feel for a place are very separated. The ambitiousness of our outline didn’t allow time to get a feel, we only saw. In hindsight, the thing to do, if given say another six weeks, is to focus on a particular area or region, not the entire leviathan of a nation. If we’d put thirty+ days of exploration into say, the Pacific Northwest then we could get a definite feel and knowledge of the area. Here we are at the end of our trip, barely remembering where we started. Without pictures and blog entries we’d forget what we even did.

So it has come to this, we’re cutting it short. We made it as far west as the Pacific Ocean and then turned around and got all the way to the Atlantic. We’re missing a good deal of the northeast, but as our overawed minds currently exist, we wouldn’t really see it or remember it anyway. It must be saved for the next trip, now that we know how to better attack it.

Exhausted and overwhelmed, we’re just ready to be home.

Thank you to every single friend we saw along the way and who fed us, housed us, loved us. You allowed us to get this far. If not for your hospitality and generosity we might not have made it to this distance.

We’re rounded the trip off at 9,850 miles. In 34 days. 30 states. $1500 on gas. The highest price we saw was $4.70 in California and the lowest was $3.53 in Wyoming.

There’ve been ups and downs, and we hope you enjoyed the best snippets we could provide. We’re happy to have had this experience, and we thank you all for joining in.

Signing off.
A & J

Its Charm is in its Grunge: Observations

It’s been referred to many times, quite accurately, as the concrete jungle. The buildings climb higher and higher and close you in like a treetop canopy. The taxis are as fierce as tigers, hunting a prey to pay their next fare. Buses and delivery vans and garbage trucks charge by with the intent of angry elephants. A cacophony of noise emanates from all sides in the form of honks and squeals and cries. People move with a certainty that leaves the confused even more lost. If you don’t know the unwritten rules of the jungle, you don’t survive.

Molly got us into a taxi at sunset and we swerved our way downtown from her apartment on 90^th Street. It felt less like a stampede and more like a swarm of raging hornets, hissing and swaying, jeering and shifting, all jockeying for the best position at the next light. Our necks were craned back as far as possible out of tinted, childproof windows to see the lights come alive like stars in a darkening universe of rising steel and concrete. There is something incredible about this place. For all the disdain I now have for the gigantic shitshows we call megacities, I cannot quell my naïve and childlike affection for New York City. Being from Middle America, this is the center of the earth and its energy is magnetic, and I am sucked in and won over.

When people move here, they move with a certainty and a determination. If you don’t know where you’re going it’s very apparent. You can tell who the tourists are. Just like you can smell the greed radiating from the Wall Streeters in their fancily tailored suits. Or the apparent arrogance wafting off of the effortlessly cool and uncaring hipsters. Ear buds are in almost every head, lattes in almost every hand. Walk and Don’t walk means little, people go. Cars go. Buses and taxis go. Just keep moving forward. You can’t stop to take a picture, there is no looking around, that architecture’s not to be admired. Everyone has a place to go—you’re only getting in their way.

There’s a busy-ness that goes with those people. It’s why they move that way. The subway comes screaming to a halt and a metallic flash. Whether it’s the 2, the Q, or the red or blue. The doors open. People rush in, people rush out. There are signs and symbols, arrows and signals. Only the natives get it, or those who’ve put in the time to learn. That sub plunges on and another arrives for a different destination. A different color. A different number, a different letter. Molly points and we go and she knows and we act like we do.

The history of this place is written under all those mightily rushing footfalls. You can see it in the architecture and watch as it’s slowly consumed and yet still added to by modernity. Lady Liberty has the power to still evoke such unexplainable feelings of patriotism with her hardened face and glowing torch forever facing the world. Buildings with names like Empire and Chrysler steal your speech no matter how many times you go by. You can’t seem to take enough pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge. This is New York City. The international food vendors and smalltime shopkeepers. The squatty wooden water towers on building tops. The dapper bellhops outside hotel doors. The quaint, picturesque brownstones. The accented taxi drivers from Bulgaria. The rusting iron fire escapes. New York City.

We got the insider’s view. Molly (a recent convert to Manhattan from the surrounding area) and Maria (a NY lifer) held us by our little Hoosier hands and took us to hole-in-the-wall places that we never would’ve found on our own. They let us crash in their awesome Upper East Side and Harlem (respectively) apartments. They allowed us to take in this frightening and tremendous and overpowering city in the safest and most guided way. They allowed us to enjoy the true magic of this greatest of cities. There’s just something about this place you can’t resist.

You Can Squeeze My Orange Anytime

Chicago was a revitalizer of sorts. A reenergizer.

After thirty+ days on the road, we’re getting a bit worn down. Living out of suitcases, eating sandwiches in the back of the car, showering every few days (for some), navigating unknown cities, wearing the same clothes (for some), minding the budget, sleeping in a different place every night. It stars to grind on you. I don’t know how traveling musicians or actors or salesmen do it. You get to the point where you need a vacation from your vacation.

I think Chicago rebooted our systems to finish out the two weeks of this trip. We spent two full days in the city. One primary goal was to catch up. One sleep. After checking that off the list we attempted to take in some essential Chicago stops. We visited the still-free Lincoln Park Zoo. We moseyed down to Millennium Park and gandered at the art there. We took a stroll down the Magnificent Mile on Michigan Avenue. We saw a play, for free (thanks Florence!). We went to a Cubs game at Wrigley (don’t worry Mr. Stone and Keena, we swore no allegiance away from the Sox). We had delicious, world famous, Chicago style pizza at Gino’s East. We navigated the L, a first for both of us. I took a run on Lake Shore Trail, passing landmarks like Navy Pier, Soldier Field, the Schedd Aquarium, the Adler Planetarium, the Field Museum, Grant Park. We got to see BU alums Florence and Zuber, and we got to spend some quality time with my little nurse who could, Kimmie.

Of course, in two full days, you can barely even enjoy a smidge of Chicago. Old friends and new sites were missed, but alas, such is the nature of this drive-by-honk-and-wave journey. Never settle long enough to get attached, always move forward, keep track of what’s still left, either in front or behind, to go back and see next time. But always, look ahead, there’s too much to see and we’re only going to get one glimpse at it.

Thank you to the Windy City and the friends we saw, for boosting us through the remainder of our trip. We needed the rest and the comfort of somewhere familiar. Now we head back into the unknown. 

There’s a fine line between adventurous and dangerous

[This one is a few days late! We're actually in Chicago right now, but ENJOY!]

As you drive east through parts of Montana, into Wyoming, and finally reach South Dakota, you come across some pretty quiet and lonely stretches of road. The white-faced mountains fall away behind you and become rolling emerald hills ahead, morphing finally back into the flat terrain of the Midwest we know so well. The landscape fluctuates between the green grasses and the brown, all the while dotted with black cattle here and there. The sky is the richest blue it can be, the purest air left after man started polluting it with our machines. At times the clouds are grey and heavy and seem to suffocate the land, and at others appear to be sleeping on a glass floor, their stomachs dark and flat while their heads puff and round upward in their lazy, graceful way. Beautiful, beautiful country.

The hospitality out here has equaled, if not surpassed, what we experienced on the West Coast. Suzanne put us up in her Livingston, MT apartment for two nights, and Mr. and Mrs. Mohler housed and fed us for another two nights in Rapid City, SD.  It’s friends like that who help to make trips like this possible. Thank you to all!!!

Once in the Black Hills of South Dakota, we pulled up to the Crazy Horse monument in a bit of confusion. Neither of us really knew what to expect, only that people had told us we had to see it. But when we arrived, all we could see was half a face on a faraway mountain. This is it?! Reluctantly we entered the visitor’s center and were directed to an auditorium for a film showing. I cannot impress how much that twenty-minute video did for our appreciation of the monument. It is to the Native American tribes what Rushmore is to Americans. And when you consider that forty-year-old sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski was invited by the Native American chiefs to construct the memorial and then spent the rest of his 74 years slowly carving away the mountain. And when you consider that it is over nine times bigger than Rushmore. And when you consider that seven of Korczak’s ten children are still living and working on the rock. And when you consider that Korczak was approached several times by the US Government with financial backing and refused every time because he wanted the monument to be supported by the interested public not the uninterested politicians. And when you consider that it’s taken over sixty years just to get Crazy Horse to where he is now, despite nearly round-the-clock work. We left with a redoubled admiration for the monument and a new sense of the word dedication.

In comparison to the unfinished, but still technically superior Native American monument, our great Mt. Rushmore seemed a tad small. My first comment was, “Teddy sure does seem a bit cramped back there, doesn’t he?” We were still irked by the $11 parking fee as we approached the past presidents. See, we paid $80 at the start of this trip for the Annual Interagency Pass, which so far has served us well. But the tiny lady at the welcome booth said this when I held up our National Parks Card: We don’t honor that. That covers your entrance fee, which we don’t charge. We charge a parking fee.” Semantics! It’s the same damn thing! Whatever lady, here’s your $11, now let us see those faces. In the end there was a bit of awe, seeing a thing in person, which is so often represented in other mediums.

The Badlands. Another National Park where we just say, Wow. We got a tip from our new friends about a magnificent back-roads view that would give us a different angle from which to see the territory. Pulling off the secret road, we exited the car and walked about a hundred yards up a short incline, seeing nothing so far that was very startling. Then the earth just fell away. In his book, Travels with Charley in Search of America, John Steinbeck writes this: As I was not prepared for the Missouri boundary, so I was not prepared for the Bad Lands. They deserve this name. They are like the work of an evil child. Such a place the Fallen Angels might have built as a spite to Heaven, dry and sharp, desolate and dangerous, and for me filled with foreboding. A sense comes from it that it does not like or welcome humans. Well said, John.

For miles and miles along the highways of S.D. you pass signs and signs announcing the glory and grandeur of the Wall Drug Store. After so many advertisements, you get to the point where you just must see this place. Well, I was more impressed with the Gold Digger Casino and Bar across the street. The drug store was rather large, and was stocked to the brim with all those unnecessary souvenirs that are constantly being churned out at some child labor law-breaking factory in Southeast Asia. Yet with all of those signs and billboards I was expecting the facility to be complete with an arcade, bowling alley, shopping mall, mini golf course, laser tag center, ice cream parlor, roller coaster, and silver screen movie theatre. Much to our dismay, only cheap trinkets and pharmaceuticals.

What if when we get there it’s just a huge stone painted yellow?

“Stop stop stop! Look, a….thing!”

By thing, I think she meant elk.

“Look!! Another thing!!” I shouted a reply.

“Holy. Crap. What is that thing?!”

“Well Jan, I think it’s a bison.”

The Thing. Grazing calmly at the side of the road.

We were literally five miles inside of Yellowstone National Park and we were stopped in the middle of the road and there was a 2000 pound bison standing only feet from our car, just munching away at the grass, not minding us one bit.

Yellowstone has brought me the most amount of sheer, childish joy so far on the trip. Later, after we’d driven a bit further, we came upon some sort of blockade in the road. As we neared we discovered it was a herd of these bison, just trotting down the double yellow line. I literally stopped the car and put it in park. The people on the other side were inching along behind the creatures. And we sat there and watched the ten or so bison gently clomp towards us. They were so close I could’ve reached out the window and touched one. And I would’ve too, except for the giant sign we saw as we entered the park, which clearly stated: MOLESTING THE ANIMALS IS ILLEGAL. Well, I certainly don’t want to be an illegal bison molester, so I had to stifle that urge, despite my sister’s encouragement from the passenger seat.

The Sign Warning Not to Molest the Animals

The Road Blockade

A Closer Look at the Road Blockade

A ways down we noticed a guy who had parked his giant SUV in our lane and was standing in the other lane with a giant camera mounted on a tripod. Being the smart people we are, we quickly realized that he must’ve been photographing something pretty amazing. (He was breaking another park law. That being taking photos in the middle of the road. Seriously.) Come to find out it was a black bear. A real-life-in-the-wild-black-bear. It looked all cute and cuddly from where we were but man, I bet that thing could’ve torn that guy apart in about two swipes. THAT’S WHY YOU DON’T PHOTOGRAPH IN THE ROAD, STAY IN YOUR VEHICLES, THESE BEASTS ARE DEADLY. We trailed it for a few hundred feet (from our Escape) until the trees grew too thick to get any more pictures. Then we moved on.

Just those two events made us both feel giddy. In fact every time we saw bison in the street (which was plenty) I wanted to take pictures. Finally Jan was like, “I think we have enough bison pictures.”

More Bison Photos...

The rangers estimate that Old Faithful will blow its head every 93 minutes. We luckily got there with about ten minutes to wait (+/- 10 minutes either way). After about fifteen minutes of waiting the geyser started flirting with us by expelling lots of steam followed by a few little water splashes. This went on for about fifteen more minutes. People were starting to get impatient. “More like Old Teaser,” some guy said. “Yeah, Old Finicky,” a lady replied. Nice. Eventually the geyser did spurt, but after so much anticipation it seemed unimpressive. We all kept standing around waiting for more. We all wanted to be wowed, and although it was cool, it didn’t have the awe-impact we were searching for. But, I suppose on the bright side, at least the Yellowstone Volcano didn’t blow while we were standing on top of it.

We also took in a few hot springs and smelled their sulfuric, rotten egg, glory. There were some pretty amazing colors amongst the breeding bacteria in the waters there. I kept daring her to touch it but the signs warning scalding scared her off.

We both agreed that it was all just too beautiful with the rock walls and the green pines and the snow banks and the rushing blue streams and the wildlife. Can’t really argue with the fact that it’s a National Park. Although, as the first national park created, it definitely set the standard.

A list

Of awesome things

About the city of Portland:

-Public transportation (Combining use of trains, streetcars, buses, and a tram. Tickets are $2 for the day and are interchangeable between types. There’s even a free sector of town where you don’t have to pay to ride.)

-Plethora of microbreweries (Need I say more?)

-Great outdoors (Within about an hour of the city you can reach the coast, the mountains, the forest, the desert. There are so many shades of green that cover the terrain there, it’s like a box of specialty green Crayola crayons.)

-Farmers Markets (Every Saturday on the Portland State campus they set up several blocks of tents and stalls to sell various fruits and vegetables amongst the greenery and live music.)

-Layout (The city is divided into an easily accessible square of quadrants-NW, NE, SW, SE. The roads are in alphabetical order, and they intersect roads names by numbers.)

-Bike friendly (There are more bikes than cars!)

-Powell’s Used Book Store (The building covers a square city block. An entire square. Three stories tall. A better selection than any Barnes and Noble I’ve ever been in. It’s really cool when a town boasts a used bookstore as a tourist attraction.)

-Dog friendly (A lot of restaurants have canine menus. Seriously. Shops and stores keep doggie bowls for food and water just inside their doors. Seriously.)

-Tuckfields (Enough said.)

Another shout out to Kym and Cam for taking care of us during our stay, even paying for our (my) laundry and making sure the parking meter stayed full. We even got to see Daria (a recent PNW arrival) and Steve (up from Eugene). It was great to see all of you, now it’s your turn to hit the Midwest.

Shout-outs also to Jenny for letting us stay with her in Castle Rock as well as feed us a spectacular dinner, Sarah for bringing Hazel over to play and some delicious food to add to our spectacular dinner, and Mr. & Mrs. Bauska (Jenny's parents) for having us over for a wonderful breakfast accompanied with great stories of the past!

Thank you to ALL of you west coasters who made our trek up your side of the country so incredible! Words cannot explain how much we appreciate all of your hospitality!

HaaaaHaaaa!! Gotcha Good F#ckerrrr!

(‘excerpts from the longest drive to date’. or, ‘written whilst driving’.)

The subject line is a direct quote from my darling sister’s mouth. Allow me to explain.

We left San Francisco at 7:45am, a bit later than the compromise we’d decided on the night before of 7:30. See, I’d prefer 6am, Jan would prefer 9am. But I’d Google-mapped the distance and knew our upcoming trek would be about 12 hours. We agreed on 7:30.

Anyways. So, we left S.F. at 7:45. (Shout out to Kev-Dawg for the Californian hospitality!) Now, I realize that a bridge is a bridge, but still. I was thankful not to be from S.F. because the two-minute drive over the Golden Gate Bridge was unreal. Seen so many times in movies and tv, it was like: Wow, we’re actually driving on the Golden Gate Bridge. If we lived there and grew up with it, it definitely wouldn’t have been as cool as it was, no matter how brief.

We’re back on Hwy 1 (not I-5 through the middle of the state, but back on the curvy, two-lane road snaking up the coast). We have lunch at a place in Fort Bragg called Glass Beach. Legend has it the locals used to dump all their garbage into the ocean to the north of the city. The ocean then, serendipitously, washed all the waste back onto their beach. Ha polluters, take that! We were told there would be all of this rubbish beached upon the sand and that we could find handfuls of sea glass—regular glass from Coke bottles, for example, that had been washed over so long it was smooth and stone-like instead of jagged and sharp. The beach wasn’t exactly what we expected. No mounds of trash, no handfuls of sea glass. BUT. We did spend about thirty minutes searching for worthy pieces, and found plenty of acceptable fragments.

After the beach, we pick up Hwy 101 and we pray for a straight road where we can make up time. The spiraling, mountainous journey is getting a bit tedious. We’re both sick to our stomachs, we’re tired of driving 30mph to avoid careening off a cliff. Unfortunately 101 is much the same, except a watery death has now been replaced by one from hungry giant redwoods waiting below. We make it to Eureka, thankful the road is finally straightening out, and gas up.

This is where Jan figures out that my estimated Portland arrival time is not very accurate. She exclaims, “Crap! Bub, it’s seven hours still from Eureka to Portland.” This is at about 3pm. We’ve been driving for over seven hours already. We’re not even to Oregon yet. Whoops. Apparently my 12-hour estimate was if we’d been on I-5, which we hadn’t, and we weren’t planning on for a while. We’re now looking at about 15 hours. A bit of frustration and panic begin to set in. The Tuckfields are waiting for us in Portland! With cookies!! Fresh. Baked. Cookies!!! We’re still seven hours away. AND, the road is about to get all warped and twisted again. And it’s raining now.

The final two and a half hours of California roads are a grueling test of endurance. We pass the Redwoods in a blink; they were, um, tall? Sorry guys, maybe next time? We’ve been driving on CA highways for almost 800 miles and we’re just about done? I have to pee really bad and Jana’s stomach still hurts?

A celebration erupts in the car when we get to the WELCOME TO OREGON sign. Finally. New State Day! (Oregon marks the 12^th state) We get the Tuckfields on the phone, explain our predicament. Kym soothes us with promises of warm cookies, and then she said the only thing that is propelling us to Portland (actually propelling Jan, I really couldn’t care less). Kym promises that she’s already planning on staying up late because she wants to see the Royal Wedding!!! 1: I’m relieved because I didn’t want them waiting up for us. 2: Jana is relieved because all week she’s been scheming how to watch this whole ordeal of a production on television and every time I’ve been like, no that’s dumb.

[Insert selected quote from above] 

We’re now about two hours from Portland, barreling down the darkened I-5. (We’d also like to thank President Eisenhower for his straight, fast, and efficient Interstate Road System.) I have to pee again, but Jan has a wedding to catch. Guess I’ll dig one of the empty bottles out of the back seat…

In other news: We just passed our 5,000^th mile. Go, baby, go.

You’re Just Getting Funky with Everybody

Greeting from San Francisco!

Let’s catch up, bullet point style:

*Remember when we woke up in Vegas after that night of partying and we couldn’t remember a thing because someone had slipped us roofies and Dad was married to a stripper named Jade, Jana had stolen a police car, and I pulled my tooth out on bet?? Wait, that didn’t happen to us, did it? No, our night was pretty tame in comparison. I did win $20 though. Apparently I’m pretty magical when it comes to choosing a good slot machine.

*Cirque du Soleil is f.r.e.ak.i.n.g. a.m.a.z.i.n.g. If you ever have a chance to see one of these shows, just suck it up and splurge for the $120 tickets, get yourself a great seat, and enjoy the amazing-ness. When the curtain call ended and the house lights came back on, the three of us looked at each other in speechless awe. It was performing at it’s finest, seriously pushing the human body to limits that seem impossible. Go see it!

*After a great week, we said goodbye to Dad at the Vegas airport. Thanks again for joining us Dad, we’re glad to help you cross off some of those Bucket List items.

*California weather has been a surprise to us. Sunny San Diego was a cloudy gloomfest, LA was so windy it was unpleasant, and San Fran has been surprisingly chilly, sunny but chilly. Santa Barbara was the only stop that hit the ideal weather nail on the head: sunny, warm but a breeze, crystal sky, almost perfect. We have realized, though, that it’s taking us very little time to figure out which cities agree with us, and which ones don’t. So even though we aren’t in any one place for a long time, we know which ones we want to see again.

*Apparently part of Highway 1 (P.C.H) collapsed into the ocean last month and caused the road to be closed. We didn’t find this out until we got to the barricade and had to turn around, about two hours outside of S.B. This part of the drive was actually quite intense: it’s almost like a rollercoaster with the turns and the dips and the, you know, cliff dropoff right at your side. It’s been one of the best drives so far though, despite the turn-around and any nauseating effects. (On the flip side, the closure prevented us from getting to Big Sur, Point Lobos, and Monterey. Maybe next time…)

*Lastly, to all of the friends we’ve seen in this part of the country, catching up has been fantastic. Carly, Lutz, Jenny, Eric, Rob, Suelo, you all are amazing, and we appreciate your hospitality to the fullest. To the rest of you we haven’t yet reached: We’re On Our Way.

"All the views are great - so don't go tryin to kill yourself for one"

"Keep it for your children and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights every American should see." 
  -- Theodore Roosevelt, on the Grand Canyon in 1908. 

Where to start?
We’ve landed, figuratively, in Vegas, a day early in fact. How did we get here?

The Four Corners, as advertised, was more for the novelty of existing in four places at the same time. Why stand on a line that signifies the meeting of two states, when you can stand on a cross that signifies the meeting of four states? In reality it was a slab of concrete, with an emblem in the center, and signs marking the four states heading in four directions. Yet, the allure of it was still somehow magically fascinating. In a landscape that appeared very similar from each vantage point, it was still pretty cool to take a half turn and suddenly, instead of staring at Utah, you’re staring at Arizona. Another half turn and there’s New Mexico. A third takes you to Colorado, and then you’re back to UT. MAGIC! What was almost even more fun, was to watch the new visitors rush to the center and take an assortment of photos of themselves and their children and their spouses and their brothers and sisters laying, standing, crouching, practically playing Twister with the four states and their various limbs. (Just as we had done 5 minutes prior.)

Our trip to the Grand Canyon from the Corners was much quicker than expected and therefore gave us an entire afternoon to explore (which then put us ahead of schedule). First, read that Teddy Rose quote above again. What can I really say about this place? Raise your hand if you’ve been to the Grand Canyon. If your hand isn’t up, you need to work this place somewhere in your future plans. Let me preface it with this: I was wowed by the Little Colorado River Gorge (Much to my later surprise, I thought this was the G.C. at first.) We wove our way around the gorge as we drove deeper into the park, catching teasing glimpses of the Canyon as we made our way to the back. The plan was to drive as far back as possible without stopping and then slowly work our way out, taking time to enjoy the views. The first Canyon view that we saw literally stopped us in our tracks. You could put five Little Colorado River Gorges inside of the Grand Canyon.

How is this possible?? How is something so immense and colossal possible? The Canyon was ten miles across in some areas, it went more than a mile deep at parts, and here you are standing on the edge of it staring into SO MUCH VASTNESS. The sun was dropping, the red rocks were radiant, I’ll just stop there because there aren’t enough words that I can put together to describe the sight. You just have to see it.

After a while it was just overwhelming. We looked at it from many different viewpoints, and after a while, it was almost incomprehensible that we were still looking at the same piece of land. I hope the pictures can convey even a tiny percentage of the real magnificence of it.

It’s impossible to compare anything to the Grand Canyon. But our next stop took us to another impressive National Park: Zion. Located in southwestern Utah, Zion presented us with a separate rock from what we’d previously seen. Zion was a departure from the dark red sandstone we’d seen and a formal introduction to the brighter, whiter Navajo Sandstone. We had another bracing, mountainous drive into the heart of the park, passing more formations that took the words from our mouths. In Zion, compared to G.C, we were staring up at these formations, not down on them. We were among the formations. Zion is an ideal place for hikers and rock-climbers. That not really being our forte, not to mention we were unequipped for such thrill seeking, we decided on the two least strenuous of the five trails to traverse. Venturing up and down these beginner’s trails we hiked over three miles to see the Emerald Pools and the Weeping Rocks, both scenes of waterfalls spitting over the sandstone and chilled natural pools of spring water.  It was nice to finally get out and into a Park. We didn’t take the hike (or the donkeys) down to the Grand Canyon floor, and we didn’t tackle any of the journeys to get up close with the arches at Arches, so it was very enjoyable to be amongst the rocks and the trees and Mother Nature.

Now.

A two full-day, three night stop in the City of Sin, our longest stop in a single place to date. The Strip, Hoover Dam, Texas Hold ‘Em, Las Vegas Wedding Chapels, Buffets out the Wazoo, Strip Clubs Galore, who knows what we’ll dive into. (Don’t worry Grandmas, we won’t scandalize Jana with any strip clubs, that was a joke, we don’t even like strip clubs.) There are replicas of New York City, Paris, and The Great Pyramids all on the same block!! Since we arrived with only a little money, we don’t have much to spare, but Sis has a special $1 bill and I have $5 on Nickel Slots at Caesar’s Palace, and we wouldn’t mind walking away with enough to pay off our college debt.

On our first full day, we toured the Hoover Dam.

Hoover Dam Guide:
Welcome everyone. I am your dam guide, Arnie. Now I'm about to take you through a fully functional power plant, so please, no one wander off the dam tour and please take all the dam pictures you want. Now are there any dam questions?
Cousin Eddie:
Yeah, where can I get some damn bait?

That about sums up the damn Dam. But no, really, it was the first man-made-marvel we’ve seen in a while. It rates up there achievement wise with the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge (yet to be seen), and the St. Louis Arch. I just kept wondering what it would feel like to slide down the 700-foot face of the thing. It was almost slide-like in it’s design. But the fact that at its base it’s at thick is it is tall is just incredible.

Tonight, we take Vegas by storm.

By. Storm.   

Let’s Git It!

It’s been several days since we drove into a bright and sunny Albuquerque. The mountains there, appearing so enormous in the New Mexican desert, now seem more like mere turds of the of the Rocky Mountains, squeezed out near the end of the range. But let’s back up just a second.

Finding a parking deck tall enough to clear the Escape + giant bubble produced plenty of laughs as we pulled into the Albuquerque International Airport parking lot. We now know the Escape/bubble combo can clear 8’6”. But finally we parked, and waited until a purple Southwest jet from Kansas City brought our father into the desert. Ah, back to the world of hotels and their comfy beds and warm showers.

We departed from Albu on the first morning of his week-long tour with us and headed due north for the Colorado border. Our route was US-550 North, which would later morph into the

Million Dollar Highway

. (Conspiracy theorists give us a few options for this moniker: the scenic view, the fact it was the first highway built in the US costing over a million bucks, or maybe that it was paved with dirt used from the surrounding mines and therefore possibly contained copper, gold, diamonds, and other various precious things).

Here’s where the Rockies come back into it. As we neared the Colorado border, it was as if suddenly (seriously) the clouds parted, or maybe dissipated, and the snowy peaks beamed before us like a Heavenly vision in the elevated sunlight.

Oh man, oh man. Oh man! was all I could say. Or as Steve Snyder said, when he first saw them, Seriously?? Are you serious??

Beyond that, I was speechless. Having grown up in the Midwest, and never traveling west of Lawrence, KS, the mountains were simply astonishing in the way they jutted out of the earth, still covered in white, and glowing in the sun. They were behemoth and majestic and dramatic in the way they were tectonically smashed together a million years ago. The route we were on took us straight into their grandeur. Our road wound around and up and around and up. Our brown New Mexican mountains had become covered in aspens, firs, spruces, and snow. The Escape weaved up and up, around bends and hairpin turns where the mountainside simply dropped away and vanished. Just the geography was stunning, the rockslides, the temperate forest, the snow mounds, the mining towns, it was picturesque. We reached an elevation of about 11,000 feet before descending on the other side, ears popping and brakes burning the whole winding way down.

The night was spent in Grand Junction, CO before journeying into Utah where we were met by another jaw-dropping natural wonder: Arches National Park. A planning miscalculation forced us to hurry a bit in the park. We were unable to hike the three miles to widely-recognized Delicate Arch, but we did hike the half mile up to the best view point of it. We saw sandstone sculptures of the Three Gossips, the Garden of Eden, the Double Arch, and the North and South Windows. We were all in silent awe of God’s work. That or mumbling, “This is incredible… Oh man, oh man… look at it… where do you stop looking…” We took it in as long as we could, then we sped out of the park to make our 10:30am appointment for rafting.

We arrived at the Moab Adventures homebase in just enough time. We put on our water-wear clothing. We rubbed in the sunblock. We grabbed our Wal-Mart brand pool shoes. We then boarded a bus and rode forty-five minutes up the side of the Colorado River where we then boarded a raft with seven other gentle souls and embarked on our three hour rafting trip down the river. Now, I don’t know much about rafting, in fact this was our first time riding, collectively, but the guide said the rapids we encountered were Class One, out of Class Five. That’s kinda like a few strong breezes compared to an F5 tornado. So don’t think we were out there manhandling these waves left and right. There were a few sizeable ones though, and when we attacked them with our small raft the guy from Georgia behind me kept yelling, “Let’s git it!!” I had offered myself up as one of the front-sitters, in a way to protect the others from being splashed with the freezing cold Colorado River water. It wasn’t really the water temperature that was so bothersome, it was the raging Colorado River wind tunnel that added an extra chill to your bones. Me and Mark (a different dad on the raft) selflessly chattered and shivered our way down the river so that everyone else could enjoy the views of sandstone canyon walls, and the beautiful sunshine, and the sound of the water below.

Today was a busy day. It was New State Day! as we crossed into the big Utah. We saw amazing, I mean freaking a-mazing, rock formations in the park. We (kinda, but not really) extreme-rafted down the Colorado River. We checked out a small section of Moab, UT. And now we’re ready for bed, so we can have another day of New State Day!, in fact, tomorrow we see four states at once.

Three Gosips

Balanced Rock

Double Arches

Delicate Arch

Windows

Action Shot on the Rafting Trip

After the Trip - Andy's Soaked!

Good 'Ol New Mexico

As we approached the Natural Entrance to the Carlsbad Caverns (basically a giant hole in the ground), Jana asked, what is that smell?

Well, Sis, that is the asshole of the earth.

Not too far off, I must admit. That smell, was the smell of a million Mexican red tail bats that inhabit the Bat Cave (a lightless section of the caverns, prohibited to the public).  (I was able to identify this smell thanks to the hundreds of bats who infested my ceiling in Ghana, creating a similar smell. Thanks guys!) For however long these million bats have lived in the caverns, they’ve been dumping on the cave floor below them. At present, National Park Rangers tell us that the guano heap is over forty feet deep. Produces a pretty noxious odor, eh? Nice.

So perhaps, Sis, that is the toilet  of the earth.

The caverns were the first natural wonder we’ve seen thus far. They were amazing, and all we did was take the beginner’s self-guided walking tour. We didn’t dare to venture with rangers into the more aggressive areas of the cave. It isn’t that we didn’t want to, but apparently that extra-added bit of thrill and fun comes with a price tag.

By the way: It’s National Park Week! Fee admittance!! (Except for aggressive treks.)

Still, we spiraled (or maybe spelunked) our way around stalactites and stalagmites, beyond mammoth columns of calcite far past the reach of natural light, where your eyes start to play with you and you think you’re seeing tiny creatures moving about the rocks, down down down into the ground.

They told us it was only 2.5 miles from beginning to end, but it felt more like 5 or 6. We descended only 770 feet down, but I’ll tell you, going into that first drop, it felt like 770 miles deep. The temp was a chilly 56 for the duration of the hike. I thought we were making our way to the center of the earth.

My favorite point was the Bottomless Pit. Because obviously, it isn’t bottomless (the sign says it’s only 140 feet down—which total ruins the fantasy of it). BUT. What if it was bottomless?? What if you fell in, and never stopped falling??? Do you think, after a while, you wouldn’t care that you were falling? You’d take a nap, or read a book, or something, because there was no fear of ever hitting the ground. That would be soo cool. For a while. Then it would get boring probably. Here I am, seven years later, still falling.  

Another cool point was the Balcony, which overlooked the Lower Cave (about a hundred feet below us). The L.C. is also off limits to the public, so you could only see as far as the blue lights stretched, then nothing but dark. Dark dark. Who knows what kind of crazy cave monsters live back there, just out of sight, watching us, just waiting, waiting…

Overall, the caverns were really great, especially the 770 ft elevator ride to the surface at the end. Beam. Me. Up. Scottie.

Speaking of.

Then we visited Roswell, NM. For all you who watched X-Files, I don’t need to go into the significance of this place. We went to the International UFO Museum and Research Center located on the main strip of the town (which was much bigger than expected – the town, not the museum). On the way in, aliens greeted us from restaurant billboards and hotel lawns.

The museum, through various pictures, recounts, affidavits, and testimonies, made a pretty convincing argument that something did crash there in July 1947, and that there were little bodies carried away by the US Government. For every excuse the govt had as a cover-up, these people had an explanation. What we gathered, is that many people definitely saw something, at the same time, and the Army came and took it all away very quickly and very hush-hush, then made some silly justification about weather balloons and test dummies. Very fishy…

Maybe we’ll try to stop by Area 51 when we’re in Nevada.

We finally made it to Albuquerque, bought groceries at Wal-Mart, then set up our handy-dandy camp stove right there in the parking lot and grilled chicken and vegetables. We made friends with a small RV community spending the night there, and then we ventured into the Escape for the first night of sleeping in the car in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We also got in our first Scrabble game! (In the cramped back of the Escape, spread out on our sleeping bags, using the light from the parking lot lights.)

Since I’m here typing this right now, I suppose last night was a success. No bad guys came and took us away. We didn’t have to fight off any N.M. gangs with our weapons cache. No hobos bothered us. No bears ripped the doors off in search of food.

We lived!

Shout out to the Hasslers: without your glorious donation of luggage rack and camp stove, we wouldn’t have had dinner or a place to sleep last night. We would like to dedicate our next drink to Mindy, Steve, and Kyle, for making our first night in Albuquerque an accomplishment.

Natural Entrance to Carlsbad Caverns

Home Sweet Home

Dinner at it's Finest

Austintatious

One more state travelled since our last post. Nearly all 881 miles of I-10 across Texas. We chose Austin as a place to explore because of its motto (Keep Austin Weird) and because of its glowing reviews by Kimmie and other TX PCVs. (For those who don’t understand the lingo, that means Texas Peace Corps Volunteers) Really, we just wanted to see what the city was about. What we found was:

*UT campus, which is practically a city in itself. We really wanted to take a tour of the Tower, which is where Charles Whitman barricaded himself on the observation deck with a rifle for a 96-minute standoff that resulted in 14 people killed and the formation of S.W.A.T. teams. But unfortunately for us they only give tours on the weekends. We also toured the Harry Ransom Center, with it’s Tennessee Williams exhibit, one of five complete copies of the Gutenberg bible in the United States (and one of 48 surviving in the world), and the very first photograph ever taken. We also saw the massive football stadium.

*Shopping on

S. Congress Ave.

had its array of antique shops, boutiques, and alternative stores. Here we had lunch at Home Slice (a pizza joint) and enjoyed dessert - a nice strawberry cupcake - from Hey Cupcake! in the Trailer Park. This area is slightly similar to the Fall Festival where vendors sell their goodies out the sides of trailers, such as a 1967 Airstream.

*We wanted to visit Barton Spring which is a natural spring that stays 62 degrees year-round and is open to the public for swimming. The weather was slightly cloudy until late afternoon, at which point we just wanted to relax in a park under a shade tree. Therefore we chose the shade tree and relaxing combo over the swimming in the spring.

*For dinner, there was Matt’s World Famous El Rancho with its incredible Bob Armstrong queso (loaded with beef and guacamole).

*The largest urban bat colony in the world is not very spectacular in early spring. It is said that 750,000 bats flock to the S. Congress bridge every spring where they live all summer, while the pregnant mothers have their babies and teach them to fly. In late summer, such as the month of August, all 1.5 million bats are seen at dusk as they leave their home under the bridge to dine on insects. We didn’t get the dramatic swarm we were hoping for.

*As much as we would have liked to enjoy the Austin nightlife, these long days of walking for miles really wears us out. By 9 o’clock we are ready for beddy-bye (since Andy poopy-pants -his new nickname for when he’s grumpy- insists on waking up before the sun rises).

Our hosts in Austin, Aaron and Emily (friends of Kimmie) graciously allowed us to eat their food, wash our clothes, and play with their dog, Charlie. Thanks to them we had two less nights of sleeping in the car, eating cold sandwiches, no showering, and pooping on the side of the road. THANKS GUYS! J

 
 

Some thoughts: when leaving Texas….

It’s crazy/creepy/cool how the road disappears ahead of you. The mirage or the heat makes it just go away. I want Bill Nye or somebody to explain how that works to me.

In Indiana we don’t have road signs that say: CAUTION – STRONG CROSS WINDS. At times you literally had to fight the wind to stay on the road.

We did, however, like this sign: DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS - $1000 FINE FOR LITERING. Ha! Oh, Texas.

Also, the amount of rigor-mortis deer on the side of the road, like half intact, guts hanging out, feet all in the air, was incredible. At least ten. Granted we covered like 500 miles today, but it still seemed like a lot of dead deer.