First Few Days in LA

It's been a very busy, although not always the most exciting, first few days in Los Angeles.  I've been trying to balance the time between showing Tom around town while also taking care of some of the more important items on my continually growing To-Do List before Orientation begins in a couple weeks.  Getting fully unpacked and setting up the apartment has been a slow process that I don't think will be close to completion until next week after my Pre-Orientation trip.  Pictures will have to wait until then when things are more set up.

A summary of the activities so far with the first bullet being boring school/apartment related things and the second bullet being more fun LA activities:

Monday
- Unpacked the car; got my apartment keycard, parking keycard, and parking pass; 
- Throughout the day walked around Westwood Village, Hollywood, La Brea Tar Pits and some outdoor modern art exhibits; lunch at In N Out Burger; met up with Adam Reich for dinner at the Grove and then drinks at Little Bar, which was hosting a karaoke night and gay birthday party

Resting up after a hike to Griffith Observatory

Tuesday
- Got my Bruincard; did laundry; extensive shopping trip at Target for some essentials
- Finally made it all the way to the West Coast when we went to Venice Beach for lunch and an afternoon of sunbathing and dipping in the Pacific Ocean; dinner at the Chipotle in Westwood

The building holding the telescope at Griffith Observator

Wednesday
- Took my Debt Management Session/Entrance Exam online so I could complete the Financial Aid process (probably should have been done a long time ago). Also spent 1.5 hours on the phone between FedEx and AT&T to sort out why my iPhone never arrived.  Finally they put a new order in and said it should be here in 3-4 days.  We shall see.
- Sockos for lunch.  Went to Griffith Observatory with Adam and Tom, including a hike from the bottom.  We watched a movie in the planetarium, walked around the exhibits briefly, and took in some of the nice views. Afterward we went to happy hour at Cabo Cantina in Brentwood to meet up with some of the people going on my Pre-Orientation kayaking trip this weekend.  The happy hour was followed by a larger UCLA gathering at Westwood Brewery, where Tom put on his best grad student disguise and networked like crazy. 

Thursday

Santa Monica Pier

- Took my career assessment online tests which were due tomorrow; had a pre-orientation trip meeting at noon on campus, where it became obvious some of the girls in the group did not realize what camping entailed;
- Went to Santa Monica Pier where a 3-day Beatles tribute festival was beginning; walked around the 3rd Street Promenade, an area of Santa Monica that is closed off to traffic with a lot of higher end restaurants and stores, with a lot of street performers outside; had a delicious ice cream sandwich at the famous Westwood eatery Diddy Riese.

Eventually it was time for Tom and I to drive down to Laguna Hills (of MTV The Hills' fame), to meet up with Mark at BJ's Brewery for dinner and a farewell beer.  Tom left with Mark to head back to San Diego area and I made it back to Los Angeles a little after 10, where I had to start my career assessment assignments before heading to bed.  6 am wake up tomorrow for the trip.

Day 20: Hoover Dam and LA

Lake Mead, Nevada

 Sunday, August 22

Hoover Dam

Not a whole lot of details to go into for this day.  After lunch, Mark headed back toward San Diego while Tom and I drove over to Hoover Dam, around 30 miles east of Vegas.  We got stuck in some traffic about 5 miles outside of the entrance because they have an "inspection" stop point.  This really just involved a man pretending to look at your car from the outside and then waving you along, but it still slowed things down considerably.  We did the full guided tour of the dam which was really cool.  We got to see different parts inside, and then also get to peer out from inside of it.  Afterward we walked along the top of it and even further away from California by crossing back into Arizona.  The views from the area were really nice, but it was pretty brutally hot out (something like 110 degrees), so we cooled off by looking at some exhibits in the visitor center.

More Hoover Dam

Around 4:30ish we decided to head out.  The GPS said we'd make it to LA in about 4 hours but we figured we could make it under 3.5.  We were wrong.  Lesson learned is to never drive from Vegas to LA on a Sunday.  It took us 8.5 hours making this the longest drive of my entire road trip, and we didn't get to LA until 1 am (making it Day 21, and a full 3 week trip I suppose).  We only made one stop for dinner at Jack in the Box (we counted 12 of them on our drive from Vegas, so we decided we had to stop at one of them).  I felt bad because I couldn't get into the building without having my new roommate let me in, so I had to wake him up even though it was his finals week.  So much for a good first impression.  He was cool about it though and Tom and I settled in and went to bed quickly.  Tomorrow would be a good day for unpacking.

All smiles despite the extremely long final drive to LA

I was kinda too exhausted and frustrated from all of the day's traffic to let the whole thing soak in that the road trip was over and I had finally arrived in my new home of Los Angeles.  In hinesight from these past few days, it still feels like I'm on the road trip even in LA, because we've done a decent amount of touristy stuff.  It'll probably feel a little more official after Tom departs and I have to actually focus completely on school next week.  But either way, it was a great road trip.  The Civic survived 4,700+ miles on the road and I got a great mix of fun cities and amazing sites along the way.

Maybe I'll throw a bigger road trip recap post next week, but I just wanted to get these in before I head on my Pre-Orientation trip this weekend.

Total miles today: 335
Total miles for the trip: 4,705
States traveled through: 15

Days 18-19: Vegas

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Miles Traveled: 0


(Acknowledgments: Tom Wible contributed to the making of this post)
________________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE:  Ok, I guess some things that happen in Vegas don't have to stay in Vegas, so I'll give a short rundown of the couple days there.

Friday, August 20 - Saturday, August 21 (and a little bit of Sunday, August 22)

Relaxing on the moving sidewalk

Tom's flight had already landed in Vegas hours before I finished up at Zion and started my 3 hour drive to meet up with him.  In that time he managed to make himself a mini expert in the area by walking around multiple casinos, watching the Belagio fountain show 4 times, taking a nap in Caesar's Palace's Sports Book, refilling his Sbarro cup 6 times, and winning a dollar in video blackjack.

Sippin some Long Island's on the Strip

Eventually I made it to Bally's, checked in, and met up with Tom.  We were both exhausted so we took a group nap while we waited for Mark, who had worked a full day just outside of San Diego before driving into Vegas.  He got in at around 10 pm, and we immediately hit up an eatery in our hotel that had $2 hot dogs, and the bar next door which had $3 beers (who said everything in Vegas is crazy expensive?).  We played some blackjack in the next door casino, Paris, and then decided to walk the strip for a bit.  We found an outdoor bar area that served mixed drinks in giant souvenir glasses and found out that the $12 drink is reduced to $6 for all refills.  What a bargain.  One Long Island Iced Tea later (I always remember my roots), and everyone was feeling great as we continued around the strip, making stops at MGM Grand, Press Your Luck slot machines, and New York, New York (remembering my roots some more).  At no point in our trip around the strip or back to the room did anyone pass out nor start to randomly crave reuben sandwiches and soup, and I didn't take any pictures of them doing this. The ceiling was not leaking all over anyone's leg, and you definitely can't request copies of these pictures which may or may not be saved on my hard drive right now.

Atop the Stratosphere

On Saturday, Tom and I spent a quality day at the Paris pool which was quite lovely and was right next to the giant Eiffel Tower.  Mark spent some quality time napping and playing blackjack.  We met up at 5ish to wait in line for the Belagio dinner buffet.  It took us awhile to get in, but it was scrumptious.  We then took the metro to the north portion of the strip.  We first stopped at Sahara for dollar blackjack and some roulette (the only game all weekend I made some money on).  Then we headed to the Stratosphere and did two of the rides (Big Shot and Insanity) off the top of the tower overlooking the rest of the strip, which was pretty cool.  Then we got some dollar beers at Sahara, played some blackjack at Bally's, and then walked the strip some more to cash in on our $6 refills.  It had been a pretty tiring day so we relaxed in some random premium Planet Hollywood seating and people watched the drunk people for awhile before heading back to the hotel.

The Vegas portion of my trip went by fast.  We all lost some money, as almost everyone in Vegas does, but it was a great time.  It was good seeing some familiar faces again after spending the past 5+ days on my own, and the afternoon lounging at the pool was especially relaxing after days spent hiking.  Sunday morning we gathered our stuff and checked out.  Tom and I were headed to Hoover Dam as a sidestop before heading to LA.  Mark had work in the morning and wanted to head directly to San Diego. Either way, I realized the road trip was reaching its end. Also, I shaved Vacation Beard.  Recruiting season is just around the corner.

Final picture of Vacation Beard

Day 18: Zion National Park

Approaching the entrance to Zion National Park

Friday, August 20

Zion National Park

After a continental breakfast mostly consisting of Cheerios at the hotel and a quick gas station run, I made the drive out to Zion, for the final National Park stop of my trip.  Zion has very limited parking and driving options within the park, so they feature a pretty convenient shuttle system with two loops: one making six stops in the nearyby town of Springdale, and one which makes eight stops within the park itself.   I parked my car at the visitor center parking lot and then hopped on the shuttle to head to my first hiking destination, Angels Landing.

For the same reason that I neglected to let the family know I was planning on driving up the treacherous Mount Evans path earlier in the trip so they wouldn't worry, I neglected to describe the Angels Landing hike to them until after the fact (this blog post).  From everything I read about this hike ahead of time I knew that it sounded scary, dangerous, and intense but it was highly reviewed by everyone who had completed it.  I'm really glad how I ended up making this trek on my last day of hiking because this was by far the most fun hike I made on the trip.

The narrow hike up to Angel's Landing

One aspect that made Zion unique from the other parks I had visited was the diversity of habitats.  The Virgin River ran throughout the park and was often visible, and there were also areas of forest, swamp, desert, grassland, and mountains, with a variety of plant and wildlife throughout.  That was one thing that made the early part of my Angels Landing hike interesting, despite an intense uphill trek (the full trail moved up 1,500 feet in around 2.5 miles) in 98 degree weather.   The trail got really interesting though after the 2 mile mark, after reaching a great scenic overlook called Scout's Lookout.  This is where a lot of hikers finish up their path and turn around, because the final half mile or so to Angels Landing requires an extremely steep climb utilizing rock climbing techniques and paths that are in some places only 3-4 feet wide next to straight dropoffs all the way down the mountain.  Chain ropes had been added in recent years to help support climbers in the most uphill sections (not to guard the dropoffs though) because there have been multiple fatalities from people stumbling and falling off the mountain in the past.  After gathering enough courage to continue, I made the slow climb up the remainder of the mountain, and although intimidating it was an absolute blast.  It was definitely intense in the direct sun, and such a vertical climb required a lot of energy.  Also because in some areas two people couldn't fit next to each other, it was necessary to check for hikers returning from the top and plan a path accordingly.

From bottom to top it took about an hour and a half, and the views from the peak were stunning and extremely rewarding.  A nice bonus was that there was so much area at the top that hikers didn't need to just snap some photos and then immediately turn around, as in some lookout points on other trails.  There was a huge area to hang out and relax, and I did this for quite some time, eating my packed lunch while I was there.  The trek down was easier (although you were forced to look down throughout the intense portion of the climb, which was kinda scary too) and I made it back to the bottom about an hour later.

View from top of Angel's Landing

The only major problem I had during this hike was that the lunch really wasn't settling too well in the stomach and during the rope climbing portion of the descent I was getting pretty nervous about what extreme and possibly embarrassing measures might have to be taken to remedy the situation.  Luckily (I didn't notice this on my climb up) something that resembled a single bathroom was at Scout's Lookout.  The facility was extremely lacking to say the least so I had to be a little creative with it.  I don't really feel like getting into any more details here, let's leave this part of the trip in the past.

Narrows hike through a river

Once at the bottom I was pretty tired, and my blister that started the previous day during the Grand Canyon hike had been feeling worse, but I didn't feel like heading out of the park yet.  I shuttled around to the other stops and got off at the furthest point from the entrance to go on a short walk along the river.  Another interesting aspect of this park is that where the canyon narrows at the back of the park the roads and marked paths end and only the river continues further back.  There is one more trail that ambitious hikers can go through called the Narrows which is 60-70% in water, involving walking, wading, and swimming through parts of the river.  Sounded cool, but despite the heat was not something I was interested in for this trip.  I did the 2.2 mile loop that went to the start of the Narrows and back, watched a video at the Visitor Center, filled up some oil in my car, and then said farewell to my last National Park of the trip.  Tom's flight had landed several hours earlier and I still had a 3 hour drive ahead of me.  It was time to shift gears for the trip, and I was off to Vegas.

Here's a decent description of the Angels Landing trail with a lot of pictures better than mine if anyone is interested: http://www.zionnational-park.com/zion-angels-landing-trail.htm

Including drive to Vegas:
Miles traveled today: 195
Miles traveled total: 4,370
States traveled through: 14

Day 17: Grand Canyon

North Rim of the Grand Canyon 

Thursday, August 19

As has been the case every day that I've been traveling alone this trip, I've been wanting to get an early start but for whatever reason, haven't been able to.  My excuse this time is that a rainstorm woke me up at 5:30 am, stopped so I could fall asleep again, and then woke me up again at 6:30.  I could have dealt with the lack of sleep alright, but the problem was that it turns out my tent isn't as waterproof as I had hoped.  I didn't get wet, but when I woke up for the day I noticed that the tent had been leaking and much of my stuff had gotten soaked.  It took awhile to dry off whatever I could before packing everything up into the car, while hoping the whole time that the addition of all these damp items wouldn't make the car smell any worse than it already did. 

After all that clean up, driving a short distance down the road to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, eating a breakfast burrito, and parking near the hiking trail, it turns out I hadn't gotten as late of a start as I thought.  I didn't find this out until much later in the day when some random guy on the trail told me, but Arizona follows Mountain Standard Time instead of Mountain Daylight Time.  So it ends up that I started my hike into the canyon at 9 am, which ain't that bad.

Random Fun Fact: 90% of all Grand Canyon visitors go to the South Rim, since it's more accessible to major cities than the North Rim.  I prefer to be a contrarian, and the North Rim was closer to my other destinations, so I got to enjoy the less crowded version of the Canyon.  One more fun fact: Although the South Rim and North Rim are only 10 miles apart as the crow flies, the drive from one to the other is 215 miles, or over 5 hours. For more information, please consult your local library.

Top view of my hike to Redwall Bridge

Anyways, there is only one hiking trail that goes into the canyon from the North Rim.  The full trail is over 14 miles one way to the Colorado River at the bottom.  Obviously I wasn't going to do that, but I hadn't really set on a destination for my hike when I started either.  I knew every step into the canyon was another step I'd have to take uphill later in the day, so I didn't want to go too far, but I wanted to see how I felt as I descended.  The early part of the hike wasn't too strenuous.  Part of it was pretty heavily shaded by trees, but that also meant the views weren't so good.  The one major problem was there was a heavy dose of horse poo at every step.  And horse poo in the heat of the summer adds way more flies and stink to a trail than you'd hope for.  Further down than the horse part of the trail, the path got a lot hotter without the shade.  After awhile I decided that once I hit the Redwall Bridge (it's tough to see, but its a tiny yellowish spot in the middle of the picture on the left), I would turn around and head back up.  I made it down there (a little over 2.6 miles) in a little under 2 hours without too much struggle.  But reversing the course uphill was definitely one of the more strenuous walks I've ever done, between the intense heat, the constant uphill battle, and that I was already tired from a couple hours of hiking.  It took me around 2.5 hours to make it back up to the top, which was quicker than I thought it would take, but I was sweating profusely the entire time, was feeling pretty sore, and had developed a blister on my right heel by the end.  I did a good job keeping myself hydrated and well fed throughout the trek, going through 100 oz of water/gatorade, a sandwich, a banana, several granola bars, and some other snack foods in that time.  Thinking about how much work it was for me to only go less than 3 miles down of the 14+ mile descent into the canyon, was a different way of appreciating how huge this thing really was.  I think I'm gonna add backpacking down the canyon to the river and back (not in one day), to the list of life goals.  But that will have to wait until sometime when I have legit equipment and some fellow hikers to go down with.


After relaxing for a bit from the hike, I went to some of the viewpoints overlooking the canyon around the park, and drove to another one off to a different side, all which provided spectacular views.  On the drive out to the park exit, one highlight was seeing a huge herd of bison in one of the nearby meadows.  Allen and I had been looking out for them ever since the Badlands promised there were a ton in their park.  I've eaten two bison burgers on my trip since then, but hadn't seen a live one until today, so this was exciting.  Immediately after that, I saw a fox run across the meadow, and then a young boy vomit on the side of the road.  It was already quite the exhilarating drive, and I hadn't even made it to the highway yet.

It was a 2+ hour drive back to Utah, where I had booked a room at Rodeway Inn.  I made a spontaneous decision to stop at the Pipe Spring National Monument after seeing a sign for it on the way, but when I got there I was told it closed at 5 pm.  My room at the hotel actually featured a full kitchen, so instead of trying some of the local delicacies in Hurricane, Utah, I opted to save some green and cook some of the leftover camping food I had instead.  Which means I had a lovely dinner of soup and rice. Yum.

Miles traveled today:  170
Miles traveled total: 4,175
States traveled through: 13

One more picture of the Grand Canyon from a different angle

Day 16: Bryce Canyon and into Arizona

Threatening skies on the road

Wednesday, August 18

Not sure why it took so long, but I finally realized last night that I had not reserved any lodging for my final two nights of solo travel, and that probably wasn’t a good idea.  The Grand Canyon campground for tonight had been sold out for a long time, and the other ones in the area were first come first serve, so I had been planning on just winging it.  I had also been debating if I wanted to camp at Zion on Thursday night because the website kinda warned against lack of shade and hot temperatures at the campground.  I came to realize that the shade shouldn’t really be a problem since I’m only at the campsites late at night and early in the morning, so I checked online using Bryceway Motel’s free Wifi (living in luxury over here) but it had since been sold out.  Rather than winging my lodging two nights in a row, I decided to forego my last night of camping and book a night at a pretty reasonable fare at the Rodeway Inn near Zion.  I looked up similar options near Grand Canyon, but no hotels were available online anywhere in the vicinity and campsites nearby didn’t take reservations and said they typically sell out early in the day.  This uncertainly kinda hung over my head for much of the day as I wondered when and where I would find lodging for the night.

Hoodoos at Bryce Canyon

Not wanting to let that ruin my entire day, I still headed off to Bryce Canyon in the morning.  It was only around 20 minutes away from the hotel and I got there a little after 9.  I headed to the visitor’s center, picked up some hiking information, and watched an uninteresting video about the park.  Their recommendation for a hike if you had time for only one was to do a combination of the Queens/Navajo Trails, which they proclaimed was the “World’s Best 3 Mile Hike.”  I would have been kicking myself for years if I turned down an opportunity this great, so I decided to head for the trail.

When I first got to the outside of the rim of the canyon, or what they called the amphitheater, I was treated to another one of these wacky landscapes that each park I’ve visited seems to have.  Bryce Canyon is mostly known for their collections of “hoodoos,” which creates a pretty interesting scene when a lot of them are together, and kinda looks like a bunch of red/orange castles.  The Queens Trail was a pretty easy going walk through to the bottom of the amphitheater, and featured a lot of great views of the rock formations from different angles.  The Navajo Trail which connected to the first path was similar, although the views weren’t as good, and had a very steep upward climb at the very end.

Bryce Canyon

It took me a little under 2 hours to finish the walk, and as I got back to the top the sky’s looking threatening to pour again (so much for there being no rain in the desert).  There didn’t seem to be any other interesting hiking trails to try out that weren’t really long or really far away, and I wasn’t really in the mood for doing their version of the scenic drive, so I decided to head out of the park around noon.  I enjoyed my short stay there, but it seemed like there was less to explore there than the other parks I had been to.  One thing I had really liked about Arches was that they had a ton of specific monuments that were worth seeking out.  Bryce had a couple of named rock formations, but they weren’t really labeled nor were they that different than the rest of the landscape, so it didn’t make trying to find them as interesting.

I headed out toward the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, which was around 3.5 hours from Bryce.  I knew there were only a couple of towns on the way there, so I was hoping there were some vacancies or campgrounds where I could spend the night.  But before that, my first stop was at the Thunderbird Restaurant (“Home of the Ho-Made Pies”) for a fantastic hot turkey platter and a ho-made apple pie with ice cream.  After lunch, the first town I wanted to check out for lodging was Kanab, which to my relief did seem to be advertising vacancies outside of some of the sketchier looking motels.  It was still over an hour and a half from the Grand Canyon which would have made a long early morning drive and since it was still early enough in the day I decided to keep driving to see if I could find something closer.  Immediately after passing through the Arizona border (my 13^th state entered so far this trip), I was in Fredonia which was way tinier than I imagined and didn’t seem to have any motels at all.  I kept driving without hitting any other towns, almost all the way to the Grand Canyon entrance, when I discovered the DeMotte Campgrounds.  Online they had said they are always sold out by early afternoon, but the fact that it had been raining most of the afternoon was probably keeping away the crowds because there were still several sites available.  It seemed like I only had two options at this point: either camp there (with the possibility that thunderstorms would continue all night), or drive another hour in the opposite direction back to Kanab. There was some risk involved with each, but I was relieved that at least I had an option, after stressing out about it for much of the day.

Camping in Kanab

Being the indecisive person that I am, I decided to postpone the decision even longer.  I drove a little further down the highway and took a sideroad that was supposed to lead to a lookout point of part of the canyon.  I’m pretty sure the road was meant for off-road vehicles, because it wasn’t paved and was really rocky, so it took me a really long time to make it the 4 miles down the road to the lookout point.  The weather really wasn’t good enough to see much at the lookout, but on a bright note, by the time I made it back to the highway, the sky had cleared up a bit, so I decided to go with the campground.  I liked this campground since it was in a forest, rather than a desert, but it seemed like each site I stayed at was a little more primitive than the last.  This one had vault toilets instead of flush ones (meaning very stinky trips to the bathroom), no sinks in the batroom, and certainly no showers (meaning very stinky trips everywhere else).  I didn’t really care about that too much actually, the only major negative was that the fire pit and all the wood were pretty wet, so it was hard to get much of a flame going.  My rice side dish wouldn’t cook because of this, so I ended up eating 3 mildly warm hot dogs for dinner.  Yum.

Miles traveled today: 187

Miles traveled total: 4,005

States traveled through: 13

Day 15: Arches Part 2 / Capitol Reef

Scenic Byway on route to Capitol Reef National Park

Tuesday, August 17

Had a lot of trouble sleeping last night because there was an insane amount of wind, so all night the sides of the tent were flapping back and forth and making a lot of noise.  I wanted to get some quality hiking in during the morning because I had planned stops at Goblin Valley State Park and Capitol Reef National Park later in the day before getting to my hotel near Bryce Canyon, and there would be a decent amount of driving in between.  Because of this, I forced myself up at a reasonable hour, cleaned up the camp, snacked for breakfast, and got to the first trail by around 8:45 am.

Double O Arch at Arches National Park

My plan was to hit a bunch of the shorter hikes that the park labeled as easy and then drive through the park stopping at viewpoints for some picture opps to make sure I covered as much as possible before leaving around noon.  I started with the trailhead right by the campground and was only originally planning on hiking up to the Landscape Arch in this area, which would have been a little bit over 1.5 miles round trip.  There were a couple of short spurs on the trail to go to other arches so I decided to check those out as well.  When I got to the Landscape Arch, instead of turning around, I was feeling pretty good and the weather was still comfortable so I decided to continue down the trail toward the Double O Arch.  The park labeled this part of the hike as strenuous, and it definitely was a lot tougher than the first part, with a lot of rock climbing and elevation changes involved, but that made it more fun.  There were also a couple additional trail spurs to other arches in this portion too which I followed.  By the time I returned to my car from what was supposed to be a quick hike, it was 3 hours later and I had gone almost 7 miles.  I did a few other really short hikes, and stopped at a couple viewpoints in the drive back to the entrance, but I was feeling pretty drained and was behind my original schedule so I didn't want to do too much more than that.  If I had more time I would have loved to explore more.  The park was pretty huge, and the landscape really was fascinating and fun to look at.

Arches National Park

Wendy's was the choice lunch (#6 combo, of course) and then I headed toward Gobin Valley.  To get there, the GPS wanted to take me down some obscure road which was closed, and to find a detour after the fact would have taken me far out of the way, so I skipped it.  Probably for the best since I left Arches later than I had planned, and the State Parks aren't covered by the Annual Pass I bought, so it would have been extra expense to rush through it.

I got to Capitol Reef National Park around 3 hours after I left Arches.  To get there, the route takes you through a Scenic Byway for around 30 miles, which featured some impressive rocky landscape.  The grey/brown colors in the early part of the route seemed a little mundane compared to Arches' bright red rock structures, but the scene did get more colorful the closer to the park I got.  I wasn't planning on spending much time here because of the time, but I decided to do one hike to stretch out the legs after driving for awhile.  I ended up doing the 2 mile Hickmans Bridge hike, which was listed as moderate.  It took about an hour to complete, and felt tougher than some of the earlier ones because it had gotten pretty hot out.  I also got my first use out of the first aid kid in my hiking bag on this trail when a little girl (maybe 8 years old?) came up to me asking for a tissue.  She was holding her nose and actually bleeding really heavily from it.  I got her some bandages and then she scampered back to her group as if it was nothing.  And that was my good deed for the day.

Hickmans Bridge at Capitol Reef National Park

I got to the Bryceway Inn in the tiny town of Panguitch at around 7:45 pm, and was definitely feeling nervous about a repeat of the Dakota Inn incident.  Luckily there were no such issues.  The past two campgrounds didn't have any showers, so I was at extreme levels of smelliness and showered as soon as I got to the room.  It felt so good I was thinking about immediately taking a second one.  Instead I went to the Cowboy Smokehouse Cafe, which I think is the only restaurant in town, for dinner and then headed back to lie in a bed for the first time in a couple days.

Miles traveled today: 297
Miles traveled total: 3,818
States traveled through: 12

Day 14: Colorado Nat. Monument/Arches National Park

Drive to Colorado National Monument

Monday, August 16

Colorado National Monument

There were some thunderstorms in the distance while I was cooking up some breakfast sausages in the morning so I decided I'd avoid any long hikes unless the weather cleared up.  The park had a number of short trails (around a half mile), so as I drove from the campsite toward the park exit I stopped at some of those which provided closer looks at some of the rock structures.  By the time I finished the drive through the park the sky had cleared up a bit, so I decided to put on the ole hiking boots and do a moderate 1.5 mile hike round trip through the Devil's Kitchen trail.  Not sure if the weather scared people off or this just isn't that popular of a park, but I didn't see anyone else on the trail.  It was actually a pretty easy hike, which ended up in a natural "room" created by a bunch of rock pillars.

The famous Delicate Arch

I went to the Ale House, which is a brewpub from the Breckenridge Brewery, in Grand Junction for lunch.  Got there just in time because it started pouring out as soon as I got inside.  After lunch I drove to Arches National Park in Moab, Utah.  The campground was about a 30 minute drive from the entrance so I got to see a good sample of the interesting scenery,  with weird bright red rock formations all over the park. I had heard some really great things about this park, so I was really looking forward to exploring it.  The highest reviewed hike was to make a trip at sunset to Delicate Arch, which is basically the symbol of Utah and one of the more famous rock structures in the world.  I was thinking this idea might be ruined because it seemed like it might start raining again.  I set up my camp, and despite some heavy winds was able to get the tent set up a lot quicker this time.  Then I headed to the Delicate Arch parking lot, hoping for the best.

Hiking at dusk, with a moon in the sky

In that short time, the sky cleared up a bit, and I went on with the 3 mile hike which was listed as strenuous.  The walk there was pretty rough, with a ton of uphill walking.  Fortunately since it was later in the day the heat wasn't as bad as it could have been, but temperatures were probably still close to 90.  One interesting thing about the hike is that you can't see the arch until the last minute, after walking around a narrow ledge, so it hits you all at once.  This is definitely the most popular hike in the park, and the site around the arch reminded me of a DC monument because of how many people were crowded around it, trying to take pictures of their family in front of it.  I ended up getting there well before sunset, so I hung around for awhile taking pictures from pretty much every angle to pass the time.  At some point I started talking to a couple who had both graduated from Maryland and were currently living in Los Angeles.  Small world.  I agreed to take their picture under the arch, if they took mine.  The walk back was pretty cool because it was dusk, and the moon was out so there was some cool lighting going on, but it wasn't too dark where it wasn't safe to walk back.

 Miles traveled today: 199
Miles traveled total: 3,521
States traveled through: 12

Day 13: The Rest of Colorado

One of my favorite pictures from the trip, of Echo Lake Park in Colorado

Sunday, August 15

After my final Mariott related breakfast of the trip, I drove Allen to the Denver airport and bid him farewell.  Definitely appreciative that he stuck around as long as he did.  The times wouldn’t have been as good, and the rhymes wouldn’t have been as dope without him. He has now been replaced by the cooler in the passenger seat of the car.  Not as talkative, but a much better provider of Gatorade. 

After 3,000 miles in 12 days the easy part of the trip was over for the Civic, the rest of the itinerary promised more elevation changes and higher daytime temperatures.  I decided there was no point in delaying the inevitable, and put the ole Civic to the test as quickly as possible.  My first stop as a solo traveler was Mount Evans, in the Idaho Springs area of Colorado.  The bottom of the mountain was only around 40 minutes from the airport, but from there the trip slowed down considerably. 

At the peak of Mount Evans

The first portion of the mountain was relatively painless, but once the road forks and you choose to take the path that goes directly to the summit of Mt Evans the drive really can’t be described as anything but terrifying.  That portion of the trip consisted of a 14 mile road up to a final destination of 14,000 feet above sea level.  That would be fine on its own, but the 14 miles were a series of continuous sharp curves and steep inclines, all while driving on a road without any guardrails.  Even that might have been fine on its own if there was even a little room for error, but there was barely enough room for your lane and the lane of oncoming traffic directly next to it without flying off the side of the mountain.  And even that wouldn’t have been so terrible if it wasn’t for the constant barrage of bicyclists that required cars to cut into the oncoming traffic lanes to get around.  While I had to concentrate heavily on staying in my lane without killing myself or a biker, it was easy to get distracted by looking into the distance, where a combination of forests and mountain ranges as far as the eye could see produced the best views of the trip so far.  Eventually I made it to the parking lot near the summit, and hiked the short remaining way to the top.  There I could actually relax and soak in the views for awhile, which literally left me breathless (although that was probably more due to the hiking at such a high altitude).  The temperature was drastically colder on top of the mountain (75 degrees at the bottom, 45 degrees at the top, and a wind chill of 25 at the top).  The drive down was a bit less nerve-wracking, and I made a few stops at scenic points such as Echo Lake Park on the way back.

Colorado National Monument

It was another 4 hours or so of driving from Mt Evans to the Colorado National Monument in Grand Junction, but as far as the interestingness level of the landscape goes, this was by far the best stretch of the 3000+ miles traveled so far.  The Rocky Mountains were really pretty stunning, and there was a lot of variety to the colors and rock formations throughout them.  I-70 also took me by a lot of lakes, ski resorts, canyons, and also followed along the Colorado River for a long stretch.

I made a grocery trip in Grand Junction and then arrived at Colorado National Monument around 6ish.  I drove up the mountain to get to the campgrounds and there were still plenty of campsites available (I hadn’t made reservations here previously).  I picked a site and then walked around a little bit to check out some of the nearby sites off the mountain.  Mt Evans only managed to hold my “Best Views of the Trip” title for around 7 hours before being quickly eclipsed.  The orange mountains jutting out of greener valleys below was a really stunning site, especially while standing at the elevation I was at, and was like nothing I had seen in person before.

After a bit I headed back to set up camp.  The campsite I had originally picked was by itself, but while I had been walking all the ones directly next to mine had suddenly become full of about 20 pre-teen girls who were making a huge racket.  There was literally only a few feet between my cooking area/tent area and theirs.  I could tell this was going to be a very long night.  I immediately regretted my decision to go to UCLA and start this road trip.   While I was sitting there contemplating my next move, the park ranger apparently read my mind and approached me, saying I could switch campsites if I desired.  He explained that they were a Jewish camp group or something, and were quite rambunctious.  He pointed me to a campsite in the back of the area, which actually was larger and had some nice views of the town in the valley below.  I could still hear the girls singing the rest of the night, but at least I maintained some sanity. 

One I had my new spot, I started to set up camp, and I have to say setting up camp by myself is pretty terrible.  I definitely struggled with the tent to the point where I wasn’t sure if I would get it to stand up.  This campground was very different than in Custer.  Much more of a desert feel, and the ground was pretty rocky.  They don’t allow campfires, only charcoal cooking, which was fine b/c I had plenty of coals.  I fired up some steaks with a side of beans for dinner.  I had to be creative with seasoning the steak b/c of the randomness of what was packed in my car, and ended up sprinkling some Italian Seasoning on it and dipping it in Fire sauce from Taco Bell.  Don’t try to steal the recipe, I’ve already had it patented.

Miles traveled today: 371
Miles traveled total: 3,322
States traveled: 11

Day 12: Denver

Coors Field, our third baseball stadium of the trip

Saturday, August 14

Downtown Denver

Didn't sleep too well b/c the people above us in the Residence Inn were throwing some sort of rager until 4 am.  Still, we got up around 8 so we could make the hotel breakfast.  After getting some grub, we ran some errands downtown.  Somehow my cell phone charger had been cut in half in my bag in the past day or two.  Even though I'll be switching phones after the trip, I didn't want to be without a cell for the next 9 days, so I ended up buying a charger at RadioShack.  I also had to call up ING b/c my atm card wasn't working and I was completely out of cash, but got that sorted out too.

We had been planning on participating in Denver's Microbrew Bar Tour (the highest rated activity in Denver on tripadvisor.com), but they were sold out, so we decided to create our own afternoon Denver brewpub tour.  We took the complimentary hotel shuttle into downtown and the driver suggested that we go to Falling Rock, which he said was considered the best beer bar in the city.  We went there first, and it had a very impressive beer list.  We got lunch and a couple drinks there and then moved on to Wynkoop Brewing Company, where I sampled a Chili flavored beer.  It tasted pretty good, but I wasn't ready for an entire pint so I ordered Tut's Royal Gold, an "Imperial Egyptian Ale" instead.  The next stop was Denver's Chophouse and Brewery, where I had a bourbon flavored stout.  We were right next to Coors Field at the time so we bought tickets for the evenings game (only $12 and $50 tickets were available, so we decided we'd take the cheap seats).  The final stop of our makeshift bar crawl was Great Divide Brewing Company, which featured a few more yummy beers.

Large draft beer selection at Falling Rock Brewery

When we were done with our beverage samplings we hopped over to the Rockies' game.  We ended up sitting in the outfield upper deck on the 3rd base line, fairly low down.  The game was close and went into extra innings before the Brewers eventually won 5-4 in the 10th inning.  That made home teams 0-3 in games that we attended on the road trip.  After the game we were able to call up the Marriott shuttle, and they picked us up and brought us back to the hotel.

From my short time in Denver, I have to say I'm a pretty big fan.  We walked around the neighborhood outside the sushi restaurant on Friday night and it reminded me a lot of some of the nicer suburban areas in DC.  When I ran my errands downtown this morning, some of the streets were closed off just for pedestrians and there were tons of people walking around.  It seemed like a real nice, clean, young, urban area with a decent amount of places to go to.  Our bar crawl consisted of 4 breweries/brewpubs which were all within walking distance to Coors Field, which was pretty impressive and reminded me of the areas outside of Wrigley earlier in the trip.  I have no intentions of ever living outside of the coasts, but I declared earlier in the day that if I had to pick a city inland to move, that based on my small sample of experiences, Denver might have moved itself to the top of the list.

My last photo with another human for the next week

Anyway, it was nice getting back into a legit city after spending so much time in the middle of nowhere, but that comes to an end tomorrow as I'll be spending the next 6 days camping and hiking in National Parks in Colorado, Utah, and Arizona before making it to Vegas next Friday.  Not sure how much internet I'll have as I travel through the desert, but I'll try to keep the updates going when I can.

Miles traveled today: 4
Miles traveled total: 2,951
States traveled through: 11

Day 11: Eric and Allen Do Wyoming

Devil's Tower (and, of course, more bikers)

Friday, August 13

We managed to get a few hours of sleep before getting up at 9 to head toward our one Wyoming destination, Devil’s Tower National Monument.  It was a short 25 minute drive away, and for much of that drive we could see the tower in the distance.  We got some knowledge in the Visitor Center, and then walked the Tower Trail, a pretty easy going 1.3 mile trail around the base of the tower which featured a number of picturesque views.  The weather this morning in the mid 70s also made it a great day for a walk. 

After we had our fill we headed back to the car to begin our longest stretch of driving since Day 1.  The GPS approximated it at 7 hours and  over 400 miles to get to Denver.  We made our first stop around 1 pm in the little town of New Castle for gas and food, which ended up being a good decision because we saw a sign after we left that the next services stop wasn’t for another 85 miles.  We had passed by tons of Taco Johns in the Midwest over the past week and decided that it was time to eat there.  I had a pretty tasty Beef and Potatoes Burrito and Potato O’Lays, although the food probably wasn’t all that different than a Taco Bell.

We hit a little traffic near Denver, but made good time overall and got to the hotel around 7:15.  After checking in, we went to a sushi restaurant that Allen had been to once before when in Denver for work back in January.  It was very tasty.

Miles traveled today: 460

Miles traveled total:  2,947

States traveled: 11

Day 10: Sturgis

Finally, we arrived at the Sturgis Biker Rally

Thursday, August 12

We both slept better on the second night of camping, but Allen couldn't have been more relieved to be done with the camping portion of our trip.  The outdoors isn't really his scene, and being away from AC, a cell phone signal and wi-fi for so long made it tougher, but I appreciate him being a trooper about it the past couple days.  Just like I'm glad that I went camping with Brad in West Virginia back in June to pick up a bunch of pointers, I'm glad I went camping now with Allen to work out the kinks before I do it solo for most of next week.

Dinosaur Park

We didn't even bother trying to make breakfast at the campsite in the morning.  Instead we went to a Perkins in Rapid City, where I stuffed my face with a giant fruity breakfast platter and the waitstaff thought my name was "Urk."  We had plenty of time to kill after the meal, so we went to Dinosaur Park, which was supposedly listed on USA Today's Greatest Roadstops list.  It was free and featured some giant fake dinosaurs and some views from above Rapid City, but definitely cheesier and more disappointing than we would have guessed.

In essence we had been experiencing the Sturgis Bike Rally all week long just because of how the bikers had made up the overwhelming majority of pedestrian and street traffic everywhere we went in South Dakota the past few days.  Even so, we couldn't pass up the chance to go to the heart of the rally, and make a stop in the town of Sturgis itself.  It turned out to be mostly a gigantic street festival, but its really hard to describe just how bizarre the scene was.  As Allen and I kept discussing, during the day it was like being in a parallel universe.  Instead of shorts and a polo shirt, nearly every person we saw was wearing jeans, boots, leather jacket with skull prints, a bandanna and ridiculous facial hair.  Even with my 10 day beard growing in, Allen and I were still the two least hairy people at the event.  Driving a Civic, one of the more common cars in the country, made me feel like a complete outsider.  There was a constant deafening roar coming from the streets.  It was definitely bizarre, but really interesting to walk around for awhile.

After we had our fill of that scene, we moved over to the neighboring historic city of Deadwood and spent  some time at the Silverado Casino.  There were Playmates signing autographs behind our table which provided quite the distraction, but Allen made a killing in blackjack.  Me, not so much.  We went to the Miner's Den, a steakhouse inside another nearby casino, for dinner and I ate a taco salad.

At least my facial hair let me fit in slightly more in Sturgis

After dinner we drove back to Sturgis for the Rock and Rev concert.  We had seen billboards during the week that 3 Doors Down, Daughtery and Hinder would be playing tonight and decided to check it out.  Each night of the week had different bands performing in what ended up being a great lineup for the week as a whole (bands on other nights included Godsmack, STP, Stone Sour, Alice in Chains, 3 Days Grace, Cage the Elephant, and Guns and Roses).  The show we went to was a good one, and included some more bizarre behavior (female bartenders sitting on top of patron's heads as they drink beers, full body painting booths, pole dancers, and plenty of interesting people watching).

The show didn't let out until after 1 am, and we had about an hour drive to get to our hotel in Sundance, Wyoming... our tenth state passed through this trip.  We had to wake up the woman at the Roadway Inn to let us in, and it took awhile for her to figure out the reservations, but eventually we were able to get to our room and went to bed sometime before 3 am.

Miles traveled today: 163
Miles traveled total: 2,487
States traveled: 10

Day 9: More Black Hills Area

Crazy Horse Memorial

Wednesday, August 11

Unfortunately neither of us slept during our first night of camping much at all.  It actually got really cold at night, which I wasn’t prepared for.  Breakfast turned into a fiasco too, because we still couldn’t produce enough heat in our fire pit to cook the eggs and bacon that we had planned.  We had to abandon breakfast plans midway because nothing was cooking, and ended up going to Baker’s Bakery & Café in Custer for brunch instead.  Our over-enthusiastic Drew Barrymore waitress made the meal quite pleasant.

We had some time to kill before our 2:20 Jewel Cave tour reservation, so we stopped by the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is an Indian statue being built into the mountains that would be the largest in the world if it is ever completed.  The project began over 60 years ago, and only a fraction has been finished.  After leaving the site, we did a tour of the Jewel Cave, the second largest cave in the world, which was pretty cool.  It took about 1.5 hours to go through, and our tour guide was even more enthusiastic than our waitress had been earlier in the day.  These South Dakotans sure get excited about the simple things in life.

We made a shopping trip to pick up some dinner for our second night of camping, and made sure to pick up a lighter and some firewood.  This caused our second night at Custer State Park to go way smoother.  We made some delicious triple bacon cheeseburgers, and had an actual campfire for the night, and capped off the night with smores.   

Civic update: Struggling a little more to accelerate quickly now that the landscape is a lot hillier than it was first week of the trip.  Added more oil yesterday, and it ran noticeably smoother today.

Random South Dakota Observations: Even in the Black Hills area which is fairly well known as a big touristy area, towns are even smaller and more spread out than I would have expected.  The population count on some of these towns are in the hundreds, and if the Biker Rally wasn’t going on this week most of the towns and restaurants we went to would be completely deserted.  The whole state seems really dependent on the tourism boost from the rally.  Every restaurant, gas station, bar, tourist attraction, store, etc has a sign up welcoming the bikers and offering special deals for bikers.  The one rock radio station we found seems to spend as much time talking about the rally as it does playing music.



Miles traveled today: 49
Miles traveled total: 2,324
States traveled: 9