A Lot of Ground To Cover

Today was a failure of calculation from tip to toes.  I had a longer drive then anticipated from my campsite to the park, the park took an extra half hour, and most embarrassingly of all, I had forgotten that the evening’s accommodations were two time zones over leading to a VERY late check in and a short night’s rest.  I will say that in this particular instance sloth has done me a great service.  My early plan (way back in March) was to find a campsite on the fly when I got to my final destination of the day.  However, night time campsite hunting is more stressful than fun so I caved and got a cheap rate on a Days Inn from Expedia, God bless them.  At 1am when I pulled in I decided it was the best decision I will have made this entire trip.  And that is the brief view of my itinerary for the second day of my road trip.  How’s about a little more detail?

The cynical view is thus: all I did today was see a park and drive for hours.  Eleven hours to be exact.  Twelve if you count the driving within the park.  However, I am on vacation and while on vacation I try very hard not to take the cynical view.  I like to think of this as a step toward future mental health.  Preventative positive thinking, or at least practice for how to appear more chipper and well-adjusted than I actually am.  Either way, the glossy view is: I got up at an appropriately early time, broke camp a half hour ahead of schedule, saw a really cool cave (did not humiliate park ranger or act overly rude), and drove through three really beautiful states.  I really can’t say enough good things about Utah.  Considering the fact that it is full of religious people you know it much be gorgeous or else I would just write off the whole state.

                I have a whole handful of random and colorful tidbits, but I am trying hard not to start this day in a time deficit so I will get to those later.  For now I will just give you one little piece of Lexi-style randomness.  Yesterday was the first day of summer (June 21^st) and I spent it in the hottest spot in North America.  Today I visited another type of desert (or possibly just a higher elevation piece of the same one).  While here I made what I will call officially the first snowball of summer.  Which I threw aimed at a tree and let fly with childish delight.  I missed.