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A detailed account of 23 days of travel, one month later, would be fraught with the inaccuracies of amnesia. So, good thing I scribbled in the car as we went along. Welcome to blog of excerpt of journal....
DAY 1: 25 May 08
We depart from Santa Rosa - a full van of 6 people - the french girls, Laure and Fiona, Cara, John (berkeley local and last minute addition), Brian and myself.
DAY 2:
'Once on the road we headed towards Bodie... a ghost town. Games to get to know each other... John went to 'Burning Man' - a hippie festival... interesting story...mmm. We spent the night with an amazing family in Crawley Lake near Mammoth Lake. They were fantastic! So generous, so kind, so energetic!... From mammoth Lakes we headed towards Bishop on the way to Death Valley.
DAY 3: 27th May
At Bishop we stopped for petrol... we took the road from there to Death Valley, on the way stopping at Manzanaar Internee Center where American/Japanese were held during WWII... The ranges here were awesome! On one side a red/brown spread stretching as far as you could see across one side of the freeway. On the other side, directly opposite, great tall snow covered mountains. Monstrous size!... I drove through first 1/2 of Death Valley... first time driving since a year when I left Australia... So John decided to leave our group today in Vegas...he felt it was too rushed...
... We had some fun late at night when Brian was driving, I was in the passenger seat, John was leaning over in between us and everyone else was pretty much asleep. We played a word association game and then asked each other random hypotheticals...we got off topic...
We're on the road to Grand Canyon right now....
DAY 5: 29th May
We're leaving Grand Canyon today. It's 9:43am. We arrived at GC on the night of 27th may - pretty much just showered and had dinner. Brian cooked pasta in marinara sauce - really good. In the morning we headed off for a hike... the hike down (and up) was amazing. As soon as I saw the flat topped mountains in the background, yellow cliffs dotted with vivid green in the foreground on the right and red/brown barren cliffs on the left. A cracked face with dry shrubs growing, pushing their way through... we set off around 11:30am, and got back to the top at 4:20pm - a 5hr hike around about. I took 100s of pictures... We met a sweet couple on the way up. The woman was particularly friendly. She reminded me of the beauty pageant winner from 'Miss Congeniality' except with brown hair. We met an Austrian guy on the lookout we stopped at for the sunset. We hiked along the south rim of the canyon for almost an hour - went from Trailview overlook to Powell Point. Sunset and overlook was great. Sun took fricking long to set... relaxing. enjoying the company...
... Brian and I bumped into Christian at the general store when we went looking to buy beer. A kid on our way in asked if we would buy tequila for him - said the police pulled them over and took all their alcohol and weed. .. it was a fun night. We were sharing our campsite with Ruth - a teacher, originally form Germany. She was great to talk to about travel, hiking and nature parks...
... We just left the Grand Canyon about 1.5 hrs ago now. .. Cara just said "There were almonds in the bag, but the bag was in the trash, but fell out of the trash and now the almonds are in my hand; can I eat them?", Brian responds, "Yeah"; Cara shoves the almonds from her hand into her mouth! :p
DAY 6: 30th May
We spent last night with Shaunae and Chris in St George - a Mormon couch-surfing couple, 22y/o and 29y/o. I have never met people into such an extraordinary range of extreme sports. Their stories are great - they meat each other hitch-hiking! ...
... Right now we're on the road to Zion National Park - we just passed through the Kolob Canyons - beautiful, tall cliff faced mountains. We met up with Max from Vegas this morning... So we just came out of Zion NP. Wow! We hiked to Angel's Landing which took us about 6hrs return... Crazy (and dangerous) climbing up rocks, isolated cliff faces to the summit of the rock stack... Cara had to help a lady down who had already made it up but got scared on the way down.... I did feel nervous when I climbed to the top rock of the first high landing - 'landing' sounds a little too broad - it was more of a foot square flat area on top of a high rock stack... I was balancing on a square of rock thousands of metres high! It feels like you're on top of the word there. The birds swoosh by you and you can hear the air moving. You look down and either side of you, left and right, there is a huge drop... We continued on to another landing top; across an almost bridge-like structure created out of rock...
... We're home now. Back at Shaunae and Chris's. A shower! Dinner! Sleep!
DAY 7: 31 May
Tired. angry. annoyed. It's about 6am after waking up at 5:15am. We spent the night at Zion National Park, sharing a campground with Travis and Chuck - both of whom we met on the shuttle and did the River Walk to the Narrows with...
DAY 8: 1 June
Bryce. Beautiful. Different completely from Zion. This is rock formations, crazy, like looking down on an army clad in red. Zion was green, mountainous river and trickling waterfalls... But Bryce is unique. The trees are twisted in picasso-style formations... Our horse guide was a laugh and a half. A rodeo, originally from Nevada, who was a terrible flirt - no, a man-whore - who shared with us a very detailed financial outline of how much he earns... who took time to flex his muscles and roll his sleeves high so we could see his tats - and who swung his arm around Fiona when she made a trip to the toilet asking how she was doing when she had gone to use the bathroom. Hilarious...
... After the horseride, Fiona, Max and I did the 'moderate' about 3.5hr hike - Hat Shop and a little bit further... I got back at 5:30pm. Then we did the Rim walk from Bryce Point to Inspiration Point... from there we hiked to Sunset Point...
DAY 9: 2 June
Drove from Bryce National Park to Capitol Reef.
DAY 10: 3 June
Left Capitol Reef today - stopped off at Randy's bakehouse again on the way out. We were there yesterday talking with him (Randy) for a good hour I think. Currently on 24 highway heading to Salt Lake City. He was an interesting guy to talk with. Hippie. Originally from San Diego?... He was very much into sustainable living and had worked, saved, to buy his own farm... He talked about the RV tracks that stained the mountains in the park and his court case and now current litigation to stop this... Indians had taught him about the land... How one man had told him to go and speak with the mountains...
...Capitol Reef was beautiful. It's a shame we didn't have the time to do a hike.... The rocks are red as blood...
DAY 11: 4 June
Yesterday Max left early in the morning. Brian left the previous day. I lost my Ipod!.. We slept on the couches of 3 bachelors in Salt Lake City - Lance, Steve, Joey. We're returning tonight and probably hit the Piano Bar...
... On the 3rd we drove from Capitol Reef straight to SLC airport to drop off Brian, who got there about 1/2 hr before his flight was sue to leave...
... The french girls and I spent the day together. Cara went swimming this morning for her back...Not a whole lot to do (in Salt Lake City).. other than ski and snowboard... Today we saw the Utah Fine Arts Museum... lunched it up at Red Rock restaurant... Yesterday = 'conversion day'. Utah is Mormon. Joseph Smith colonized it and he is called a prophet today... The tour of the Tabernacle (where the world famous choir sings) and the visitor's center, was more of an exercise in conversion. Little did we learn about the buildings or the establishment of the faith, of facts and figures, much did we learn about how much Jesus loves us, and loves us, and loves us!
DAY 13: 6 June
SLC would've been shit had it not been for our cool hosts - Lance, Joey and Steve. Met up with Cara at around 8pm to hear the Tabernacle choir sin in the Latter Day Saints Convention Center. They were pretty amazing. 350 voices... Last night we all hit the Piano Bar - awesome fun. 'F&F' - 'fun & funny' - running joke within the group; born because the french girls weren't sure of the difference between 'fun' and 'funny'. The Piano Bar was too baby grand pianos, arse-to-arse, with two men sitting at them playing and singing song requests. $5 to request a song, $7 to have your song request cancel the one currently playing.. and so on...
... Today we're leaving SLC. We just picked up Ryan and went supermarket shopping. Got so much shit.. Van is freaking heavy...Ryan's host, Bruce, found us accommodation in Jackson for our fist night there, whilst we were out supermarket shopping and stocked us up with raisins, oats and chocolate candy canes... he was so amazingly generous...
... Just pulled over by Officer Grey Knutti - driving 46 in 35 mile zone. Thank goodness Laure was driving - they can't do much with a French driver and driving license. Woohoo! First cop experience in 12 days!
DAY 16: 9 June
...yesterday we did the West Thumb trail through geysers and hot springs... the roads were blocked... we then drove to Old Faithful - saw the massive geyser erupt... it was snowing, raining and cold...
... We're driving through Yellowstone at the moment - just came from the Firehole Canyon drive, a loop just near our camp site at Madison. The first fall we saw, the Firehole River, was hypnotising... Today - Monora's Geyser Basin - desert plains of hot springs, mud spring, steam vents. Heading to Upper Falls - amazing!.. We did a hike of he north and south side of the rim...
... we just stopped to see a stone-turned tree stump, the 'Petrified Tree'.
DAY 17: 10 June
Met Robert, Rosemarie's roommate last night at the Blue Goose Bar... (we spent 2 nights with Robert and Rosemarie couch surfing)... Interesting book collections - Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Why Men Won't Commit, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Zen...
Quotes from the day:
Cara: It's a moose. And it's running! / Laure: It's a running moose!
We just crossed into Wyoming! Gardiner (where Robert and Rosemarie live) is in Montana. Yellowstone is in Idaho. Now we're in Wyoming. Salt Lake City is in Utah. We crossed 4 states in 4 days! Craziness. It's snowing heavily now. We're on our way to Cody and as we passed through the park we spotted a bear.. yay!
DAY 19: 12 June
Some quotes:
"The appearance of a rock, like the appearance of a person, tells you something about he sort of life it has had" - Mediations at 10,000 feet, James E. Trefil
Laure and Cara went horseriding with Pat and her niece Laura today (Pat and her husband Dan were our couch surfing hosts in Cody). Fiona, Ryan and I hit the Old Trail Town (museum) - re-constructed original log cabins where characters from the late 19th C plotted bank and train robberies.
DAY 20: 13 June
On the way to Gillette now. Left Pat and Dan's this morning... drove through Byron, now on the way to Medicine Wheel before hitting Gillette.
DAY 21: 14 June
Never made it to Medicine Wheel - road closed due to snow. Blew a tyre on the way from Cody to Gillette though!... We spent the night with couch surfing couple Scott and Monica. Nice people. Scary that they keep 13 guns under their bed...
...Nothing of excitement during the day - drove from Cody, to Lovell, to Sheridan... We just came from Devil's Tower now. A big flat rock. Pretty cool hexagonal column-like cylinders sling onto its sides... the name Devil's Tower was given by an explorer - the Native Indians called it variations of Bear Lodge...
... passed through Deadwood where the was a music festival going on. A historic town. So many bars. Men and women twirling, dancing in pairs, fold out camping chairs lined up in rows, motor bikes, grey beards, pokie machines, yellow lights, black and white pictures...
DAY 22: 15 June
Last night we arrived at Rapid City, after driving through the beautiful Black Hills. We met Chris, couch surfer host, at his place where another 2 couch surfing groups already were. 2 girls heading to Seattle... and 3 others in a group - Monica, Joey, Shaun. They were a lot of fun. We went camping with them and Chris because there wasn't enough room in Chris's small apartment to fit us all!... Camping was so much fun. such a random Idea...We played Mafia... Fiona and I made pasta...
... We visited Mt Rushmore... The Ranger went on and on about the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence...(*explicit*) conservatives. Road boards anti-abortion - 'Your mother was pro-life'. (*explicit*) paraphernalia.
Just got out of Jewel Cave... We did a drive by Crazy Horse, the Indian Mt Rushmore...
DAY 24: 18 June
So road trip is over. I'm back in Berkeley and just got back from dinner at La Meditrranae with Ashley and coffee/hot chocolate with Emmi... 17th was my last day on roadtrip. I flew out of Rapid City at 12:20pm. On the 16th the french girls left from the Greyhound station. Incredibly we ran into the waitress who served us the night before...It was sad to see the french girls leave...
... The afternoon was pretty chilled... I explored some of historic downtown. This is when I discovered Art Alley - blooming with vibrant colours, touching sketches and powerful political messages... we went down to Rat Shack... I scored some great finds, a bag and boots and 2 Sturgis tops...I was keen to go climbing!... Rock climbing was FANTASTIC!...Chris recognised no boundaries when it came to trusting others.... He trusted me, a beginner, with his rope as a belaying partner for a climb he knew would be outside his comfort zone... he also trusted 2 strangers with his apartment while he went out camping... Beer soup and beer bread at the Old Firehouse for dinner. Good music. Good food...
...This has been an adventure. Incredible. The people.... the laughs. The stupid jokes. The police and the rangers...the spontaneous moments... exhaustion. Exhilaration...
