It's San Frantastic!

We're here in San Francisco for a few days hanging out with our friends Leora, Matt, and Cat Fulvio and seeing the sites. San Francisco is a great town for just walking through different neighborhoods. After living in DC for a while, I was pretty amazed by all the independent, non-chain stores and restaurants, a definite bonus of living here. In what seemed to us like a miracle of navigational skill, Leora took us to these gigantic concrete slides tucked away on the windy back streets of a random neighborhood. After chatting it up with the local teenagers, we took a few turns. These slides were fast and definitely not regulation!

Partly to keep up with our "training," we walked up some ridiculous hills to Golden Gate Park with the intent of visiting the Japanese Tea Garden, but unfortunately we got there too late to see the koi and drink some tea. The next day, we bought some fortune cookies in Chinatown and went to the Mission District to eat some delicious burritos. We checked out the cool murals in an alley behind the burrito joint and met up later with friends Erica and Kirsten, who I hadn't seen in ages, for some sushi. Good friends, good food, good San Francisco!
-K

Sophisticated Alpaca, Defined...

Everyone by now should be aware that we're just skating off the coat tails of our friends Dave & LeeAnne, who are winding down their Round the World trip right now. As some may recall, they had some adventures in Mongolia. So when searching for non-camping option near Yosemite (40 degrees at night is as cold as we were prepared to sleep on the camping portion of our trip), we found an RV park with yurts. After reminding ourselves why you should never trust Mapquest in rural areas, we rolled into the Yosemite Pines RV Park late to find the most tricked-out yurt you could imagine. This thing had cable tv, a space heater, a microwave, refrigerator, coffee maker, and more electrical outlets per square foot than is sane and probably safe. In summary, it was nicer than the motels we've stayed on along the way, and we loved it. Mongolia, it was not.

And you don't get to be the 8th best RV Park in the U.S. (as rated by the Travel Channel, who knew!) by resting on the laurels of your yurts alone. There was also a petting zoo where we got our first confirmed alpaca sighting of the trip. Heaven. Although when we learned that the much advertised ping pong/ game room failed to exist (dam you rowdy kids from last season!), we had to adjust the Travel Channel rating from an 8 to about a 10 or 11.
-K & D

Yosemite National Park

First off, we realized that Fall might not be the ideal time to visit Yosemite. Sure the park isn't as crowded as in the Spring and Sumer, but the iconic waterfalls are no longer waterfalls by the end of summer. While we would have loved to see the waterfalls, Yosemite is much more than just these famous features. The park is a massive collection of jutting granite rock faces rising from the valley floor. And while the park has hundreds of thousands of acres, we focused on the most well-known central valley. If you've seen any Ansel Adams photos, they all seem to be taken in this valley.

We did a great hike up to Columbia Rock, which allows you to see much of the valley and surrounding mountains. We got a little nervous with all the swirling black clouds, and once it started to rain, we headed down the mountain for fear of lightning strikes. We definitely want to come back and hike the park more extensively because it's one of the most phenomenal places we've seen so far. So long for now, Yosemite!
-K & D

Sequoia National Park

We never thought we loved the humidity of Washington, DC, but after seven years, we grew accustomed to moisture sweet moisture. So for us, driving from Zion to Sequoia National Park after weeks in the desert felt delightful. Even fog felt like a relief.

Now onto the giant trees--we love giant trees. We were told by one of the rangers about a nice 3--4 hour rolling hike through the woods to a vista on top of Moro Rock. For the first hour, we began to wonder if the ranger's definition of rolling hills was different, as the hike was all uphill. Eventually we got to the rolling part among the giant sequoias and redwoods. Of course, we had to think of Ewoks along the walk.

The hike ended in a way that helped me redeem my fear of heights--the final ascent of 376 steps to the top of Moro Rock--often near exposed cliffs--was accomplished. While I was a bit spooked, the ultimate view on top was fantastic. Seeing the granite peaks of the Sierra Nevadas getting larger in the distance was truly breathtaking. Oh, did I mention there were giant trees? We love the giant trees.

We also did some smaller self-guided nature trails and learned about the superpowers of the giant sequoias, who are thousands of years old, have survived many forest fires and are completely resistant to insects, fungus, and other afflictions that typically affect the smaller trees. Once again, we had to think of Luke, who after losing his arm, came back even stronger with enhanced jedi powers. Did we mention that the giant trees reminded us of Return of the Jedi?
-D

Interlude: Zion to Visalia, CA

If you glance down at your speedometer and you are going ninety miles an hour and people in the right lane are passing you like you are standing still, you are on highway 15 on the stretch between Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Good Hoodoo

I must confess I had no idea what a hoodoo was before visiting Bryce Canyon. We took a day trip into Bryce while staying in Zion, since the parks are fairly close together. It’s a great day (or two day) trip, with several hiking trails that cover various altitudes/ ecosystems and some really cool scenery, including more hoodoos than anyplace in the world. The hoodoos are actually huge towers of limestone formed millions of years ago (and continually) by ice and rainwater, and most importantly, they look really cool. ….
-K

Zion

So how do you top the experience of the Grand Canyon? The quick answer is that you don’t, but if you are going to try, Zion National Park isn’t a bad place to start. The park itself is like some desert on steroids. There are cliffs and, crazy sandstone formations, weeping rocks, hidden pools of water, trails that are barely chipped out of the walls of mountains, rattlesnakes and 50 degree shifts in daily temperatures.

While its beauty is undeniable, the park seems to be set up as a gauntlet of my fears. I do not love heights. I am fine with heights as long as I am encased in steel and glass, and have no access to outside air. Sadly, Zion does not make their trails to satisfy my needs. After a few tame hikes, we decided to try our boots at the Hidden Canyon trail. The Park’s hiking guide mentions that the trail should not be attempted by anyone with a fear of heights; and the symbol that they use to convey this? Why an abstracted hiker figure slipping and beginning his/her plummet off a cliff. Wonderful.

The first part of the trail was a standard collection of steep switchbacks. The cliff-side of the trail was an exposed drop, but frankly, that wasn’t too bad. Once we got to the first major trail break, the trail narrowed, became a less comfortable 3-4 feet wide, but still doable. Next, the trail narrowed to about 3 feet wide, was slanted about 20-30 degrees toward the 1500 foot drop and had chin link drilled into the side of the mountain. I scrambled across one such expanse and felt like I had conquered Everest. The second such trail section wasn’t so successful. On seeing that the chipped ledge appeared to run into thin air and not stick to the mountainside, I made some comment about how this was clearly not up to OSHA standards, turned around and began down the mountain.

Luckily there were other trails that were rigorous but not quite so terrifying. I made the decision that my hiking would be more about enjoying the hiking and the scenery and less about me grimly sizing up irrational fears and trying to overcome them. It makes the whole experience more fun and less like a Jack London Book in which the dog and the guy bravely soldier on through malnourishment and frostbite.
-D

Two Granola Bars and a Handful of Raisins Isn’t Enough

I’ve been to the Grand Canyon a few times. The last time when I was 20 with my friend Phil. Back then, we hiked down to the river and back in one day despite the many signs warning against it. Machismo or stupidity? At age 34, the answer is clearly stupidity. Kristi had never seen the Grand Canyon before and was blown away by how ‘grand’ it actually is. That evening we set up camp, we walked the south rim trail at sunset and caught a glimpse of two different groups of elk literally crossing our paths. After I snapped a picture, the big bull elk let it be known he was none too keen with us getting in his way, so we were happy to back off asap.

On day two, we decided to take the Bright Angel Trail as far as our legs would take us. We made it to the relatively lush Indian Gardens towards the bottom of the Canyon, but thought twice about hiking the extra 3 miles to the edge of the plateau, where there’s a clear overlook of the very bottom of the Canyon. While the statistics would say we hiked 9 miles and over a vertical mile, it doesn’t begin to capture the sheer agony of the hike. On the way down, we stopped regularly for pictures and to admire the breath-taking scenery. But once the slog back up began, the pictures sorta stopped. When we were a third of the way up, it became clear that our meager rations did not add up to the “twice as much as you would eat at home” requirements of the hike.

The last 3 miles are rough—it’s steep switchbacks the entire way, with the very last portion filled with flip flop wearing tourists who just wandered down to take a photo—and we really felt wrecked then. We also began reflecting on this trip of ours for the first time in a while, possibly because this was the first part of our trip where we ran into all kinds of tourists from around the world (sorry guy from Pittsburg at the Carlsbad Caverns!), and started to feel far from home for the first time.
--D

Like a Phoenix from the Ashes

If you happen to need to stay overnight in Globe, AZ, may I suggest you don’t stay at the Motel 6. Just don’t. From Globe, it’s a short drive to the second of our family stops, my sister Leslie in Phoenix, AZ. On the way there, we got in a couple of short hikes just outside of Phoenix in the Superstition Mountains. We hiked up a plateau in 60 mph winds with very little shade. Ugh-the dessert…I mean, ugh-we R tough!

When we arrived at Leslie and Steve’s house, it felt especially good to be welcomed and comfortable after several days of camping and bad motels. Unfortunately, Kristi came down with the flu and spent the next 24 hours sleeping. While she slept, Leslie and Steve took me to Mystery Mansion, an 18 room mansion built by an eccentric old man for his daughter. The daughter moved in in 1945 and has lived there ever since. We were lucky enough to have her show us around the house, which stands as a testament to old-school recycling. Depression-era glass was used as windows, old bottles were used as tile, and a wagon wheel was used as a bar. Check out photos to get a sense of the place. After that we went for a wonderful drive up the winding mountain roads of South Mountain Municipal Park, the largest municipal park in the U.S. of A. (with some wonderful views of Phoenix.) When we got back and Kristi awoke at around 7 pm, Steve cooked his (to us now) famous ‘deconstructed burger.’ Delicious and just what the doctor ordered.

The following day we relaxed and hung out, but also made a trip to the Casa Grande, old prehistoric ruins of a Hohokam Indian village. There are a ton of ruins throughout the AZ desert, just waiting to be discovered to help us understand more about the past (or pillage and vandalize it, depending on your perspective). We encountered a lots of names carved into the ruins from the 1800s—those punk kids! But at least it led to Casa Grande becoming the nation’s first archeological preserve in the late 1800s.
--D

New Mexico No More

We had a three-prong attack planned this morning. Prong 1: White Sands. As we rolled into Alamogordo, NM, we read that the road leading to/from White Sands is often closed so the military can safely bomb everything that surrounds this national monument. We were feeling lucky that we made it throughout without any road closures and saw the Sands, which exceeded expectations (thanks for the recommendation, Emily!) It was bizarre to be surrounded by huge white sand dunes after hours of driving through the mountains. Charging up the dunes, you realize just how quiet everything is—the sand muffles all sound. But what could improve this experience, you ask? Coming over a dune to find three Japanese body builders stripped down to Speedos photographing each other in the middle of the dessert. Hopefully you’ll enjoy this photo—we tried to capture how surreal and enjoyable a moment this was…

Prong 2: Gila Cliff Dwellings. We wanted to see some cliff dwellings at some point on this trip, and these cliffs near the New Mexico and Arizona border seemed to fit the bill. The map showed the ancient dwelling about 40 miles north of Silver City, NM, up in the Gila National Forest. It’s difficult to explain why the road to Gila made Dennis think that the characters in Deliverance might have just been well-adjusted but misunderstood. After about 5 miles up Deliverance Road, we saw a sign explaining it would take us an additional two hours to reach the cliff dwellings, which incidentally also closed at 4 pm. It was almost 3:00, so we decided to turn back and pursue Prong 3: Ghost Towns.

We saw on the atlas that there are two ghost towns near the border of NM and AZ. While the nearby towns looked like ghost towns we had the brochures to prove there were really old timey historical ghost towns nearby. The first town we visited closed at 2 pm. Ugh. We decided to call the second ghost town to make sure we could walk around the grounds before driving a bit out of the way to get there. Apparently, it’s only open on the weekends, and a nice family lives there the rest of the time. So we left NM with only one of our three sites seen. Having said that, we’ve talked too much trash about NM already. We really did enjoy what we were able to see there, and it’s definitely unlike any place we’ve ever been. Maybe one of these days, we’ll make it back and get to see more.
-K & D

Caves, UFOs, and Bats

We got a decent night’s sleep but for the a-rythmic and continual beating sound of a nearby oil drilling operation to wake us up. Who would locate a park in the middle of oil fields? Apparently, New Mexico would. And the though the park was blessed with bunnies, it had an unfortunate number of scorpions and tarantulas. I was reminded of all the small and deadly creatures that inhabit the desert when I was joined in the shower by a scorpion.

After a hike around the lake, we set out for Carlsbad Caverns. The caverns were amazing and huge. We took one of the mile long self-guided tours, but unfortunately weren’t able to get on a ranger-led tour of the unimproved caves because they only run those tours on the weekends. When we were done exploring the caves, we realized we had another 6 hours before the next Carlsbad Cavern attraction we wanted to see—the bat flight at sundown.

So what do you do when you’ve got hours to kill in Southeastern New Mexico? You drive to Roswell for the UFO museum, of course! We made the ridiculous drive to Roswell and back mostly so we could squeeze in some more attractions we had heard about for the following day.

You could probably spend hours at the UFO museum “finding the truth”—they even have a research library for you to peruse and check out books. My only critique of the UFO museum was the conspicuous absence of the WB’s Roswell teen drama. What gives? Being at the museum spurred a pretty interesting conversation about Dennis and my different personal beliefs where we forced each other to rank in order of liklihood the existence of seamonsters, chupacabra, yeti, the faked 1969 moon landing, and aliens. Forget about questions of religious and cultural differences, this is the stuff you need to know about the person you plan to spend the rest of your life with.

We made it back to Carlsberg for the bats with time to spare. I was hoping to make up for the lackluster bat video in Austin, but unfortunately no photos or video are allowed. I have to say that the bat flight was incredible and well worth the commute. At about 6:30 pm, millions of bats begin pouring out of the cave in a black cyclone swirl and fly towards their insect hunting grounds in giant cloud formations. A mesmerizing experience and one that makes you feel truly in awe of these tiny mammals.
-K

West Texas, We’ll Not See You for a While

Today was one of our long haul drive days. Having been thorough West Texas a few times, my memory had been that it goes on forever and looks vaguely the same. Contrary to my memory, at least half of I-10 is at least rolling hills, not the flat scrub I remembered. Not exactly my ideal scenery, but didn’t necessary make me wan to drive into a ditch.

Our goal was to make it to Carlsbad Caverns and stay at a park on the outskirts by sundown. But the first victory of leaving Texas and entering New Mexico was undercut by one of the central features of NM—it stinks. Our first indication was a stretch of 3 miles that smelled like an industrial revision of Lysol. Soon after, that odor was replaced by the smell of oil rigs. And just to clear that palette, we then piled on the smell of skunk and manure. Since smell isn’t on e of the 5 senses catered to by NM tourism board, we we were left in the recycled air of the car looking at the rugged beauty of the desert.

Thanks to NM’s Department of Transportation’s decision to make the speed limit 70 mph and above, we made it just in time to set up camp in Brantley State Park, though the last 30 minutes were spent desperately trying to remember the squinting-thumb-measurement-till-sundown trick from childhood to gauge how much daylight we had left. When we were down to 3 thumbs, we turned into the campsite. Our arrival was heralded by no fewer than twelve rabbits of various sizes, including super-fast giant hares. This immediately caused Kristi to regress to her 3 year old self, wildly clapping and squealing, BUNNIES! Not a bad way to end a long drive.
-D

Austin, TX

We’ve been in Austin, TX for a couple of days, hanging out with Dennis’ very fun sister Emily. She gets to play tourist by showing us the attractions. We went to an arts festival on 6th Street, and went to watch thousands of bats emerge from under Congress bridge at dusk (check out my feeble attempts to capture the bats on video).

We woke up the next morning and had breakfast at Las Manitas, a great Mexican diner serving cheap and delicious eats. If you’re in Austin, check it out, it probably won’t be there for long. Later, while kayaking on Ladybird Lake, we passed by who I can only assume was Matthew McConaughey (hard to tell because he was wearing a shirt). The McConaughey was floating by in a tiny sail boat smoking weed and made some small talk about the breeze. Ah, Austin!

So, we highly recommend going to Austin . Not only will you see several men who could be the McConaughey, but Emily could make you the most delicious homemade panini sandwiches and show you the sites.
-K