Menonites, mullets and missiles! Oh, my!

Okay, so the Mennonites, referred to above were from yesterday’s national park not today’s but I needed another M.  Plus the devotee in question was a 5 year old in a modest bonnet and pigtails rocking some killer shades so I had to give her a shout out somewhere. 

Today was a glorious day.  Why?  Was it due to the closeness of last night’s campsite to my first destination of the day?  Was it due to all of the Timothy Olyphant daydreams I have had since booking a night in Deadwood?  Was it due to getting to check off two national parks from my list in one day?  Nope.  It was because I only had to drive in one state today.  ONE!  I think I even put less than 300 miles on the car today.  Inconceivable!  (And yes, all of those other things did add to the good day.)

I covered Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks today and did something I haven’t gotten to do much of on this trip – got out of the car and walked around.  Most of the other parks have been “drive around me” parks or had really long trails that just did not fit into my schedule.  Today’s parks were short and sweet visits to the land of erosion.  The Badlands look as though someone tried to imagine what was missing from the Grand Canyon and then sculpted it out of a gravel pile.  You feel like if you touch the formations they will just fall apart and blow away.  The truth is, though you can’t break them on your own, they are eroding at an alarming rate.  While nearby Mt. Rushmore erodes 1/10 inch every 1,000 years, the US Geological Survey marker sunk in the 1950’s had to be replaced because the rock it was in had eroded to the point that it had sunk a foot.  One foot in 50-ish years is pretty crazy.  The flip side of my day was cave dwelling.  Where Lehmann Caves in Great Basin was “decorated” all over with formations to the point you couldn’t really see the cave walls, the Wind Cave is virtually bare.  It is Pocahontas to Great Basin’s Marie Antoinette. 

I do feel a bit sorry for Badlands.  You see I shortchanged that park greatly and I really should visit it again someday.  You see, I found out the Minuteman Missile Silo was just next door and so I had to go see it.  Do I need to explain why?  It has missile in the title for goodness sake.  Missile!

There was also a lot of wildlife in my day today.  Between Wind Cave, a prairie dog themed souvenir shack just outside Badlands,  and Custer State Park there were an awful lot of animals in my day today.  I fed some prairie dogs, watched bison lounging in a picnic pavilion and scared the bejesus out of an antelope and her baby I have learned how to spot an animal in the wild.  It is the same concept as finding a fresh kill in the Serengeti.  Just look for the circling buzzards and go where they go.  When in a national park with no real rock formations anytime a person has pulled over  to the side of the road it is usually due to a big game sighting. 

Crazy Horse Memorial was my last non-Deadwood stop of the day and it was very much worth the time.  The four dollars for the bus ride from the visitors center to the base of the statue was money well spent even if the bus driver did tell the most God awful jokes.  There was even a mountain goat sighting .  The bus driver pulled over and told us where to look.  You would think that the 8 military men in BDUs would have been able to figure that out themselves but noooo. 

Now I am currently typing this as I lie in bed, ready for a good night’s sleep that won’t end at 5am.  It’s been a long day.  I am sleeping in a room that is quite possibly haunted.  I am halfway through my trip.  I have caught up on my journaling.  There is no reason in the world that I shouldn’t be sleeping right now.

And so I will leave you with this one final image:  Driving through Custer State Park…on a Harley…portly man…silver mullet waving in the wind…sunlight glinting off his un-helmeted head…the American Dream.

Rocky Mountan High

After an all too brief nap at the oh so luxurious Days Inn of Silverthorne (4 hours is too few to call an actual night’s sleep) I was off to Rocky Mountain National Park.  I was in a bit of a mood already for the day thinking that I was about 15 minutes behind schedule and after arriving at the hotel a good three hours late I was getting tired of being behind.  This is how I inadvertently watched the sunrise.  You see, I wasn’t three hours late to my hotel.  I was two hours late.  It was just that some jokester had decided to set the clock in my room ahead an extra hour.  It is unfair to mess with the clocks in hotels.  Either a guest is tired when checking in and will wearily just accept it and dock themselves the time to sleep OR a guest is there for a little illicit behavior and will rush.  Either way it is definitely unsportsmanlike behavior.

How did I find out what time it actually was?  Not from the radio – I was listening to a little historical chick lit book on tape with some bodice ripping undertones.  From my phone?  Nope – set to manual reset, no instant updates for me.  Luddite.  I found out the good old fashioned way.  While standing outside the Visitor Center shooting dagger looks at the staff inside who had failed to open the center on time (by my watch) a volunteer finally came over and set me on the right path.  At this point I decided to accept the loss of an hour of sleep time and look at it as an added half hour of cushion time to eat breakfast and read the guidebook entry on the park.  “Wait, that math doesn’t quite…oh, you were waiting outside the visitor center for an half hour before someone filled you in…”  Yup.

The park is gorgeous and has a few special points of interest to National Park trivia dorks.  Or American road trip dorks.  1) It has the highest continuous paved highway in the US (or possibly the world) running through its alpine tundra section. Over 12,000 feet up.  2) One of its visitor centers (there are 5 or so in the park) is the highest one in the National Park system.  It is called The Island in the Clouds and it bests the House of the Sun (at Haleakala) by over a 1,000 feet.  3) The water pipes at Island in the Clouds freeze over during winter.  Which lasts apparently until July as the pipes were still frozen yesterday necessitating use of drafty backwoods outhouse style toilet across the parking lot. 

The park is really beautiful and it was fun to trek across the top of a snowbank and look at the barely exposed signs at your feet.  Standing on top of 3 feet of snow near the top of a mountain is not a bad way to spend the morning in the middle of June.  Much more delightful than the same feat in February when it would just be depressing. 

After I had my fill of snow, mountains, and sheep warnings (but no sightings) it was time to head out.  I managed to squeeze in a little visit to the hotel where Stephen King wrote The Shining.  It is not that I am a fan of that book per se but when you are faced with the opportunity to touch a piece of pop culture history like that I find it almost impossible to resist.  And really, I had 8 more hours of driving ahead of me, let me have a little creepy thrill.

Once I left Colorado behind it was nothing but miles of miles of nothing but miles and miles of Wyoming and South Dakota.  Like Texas but with more greenery.  I had about 500 miles of driving to do between Rocky Mountain and Interior, South Dakota and I did 75 the whole way.  What surprised me is that during the drive I barely saw a town or another car.  How can states so big have so few people?

I made it to my campsite with 12 minutes to spare.  Right on time.

[ed. note - I am behind schedule for the morning (of course) so I am not re-reading this.  If I find it terrible tonight I will actually take the time to edit it properly.  Or I will erase it and we will all pretend there was no post.]

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. 

So many ways this could go...

Bless me travel gods, for I have sinned.  It has been three weeks since my last proper blog post and in that time I have taken the name of travel in vain, had impure thoughts about Antarctica, and acted in a slothful manner as regards packing and planning. 

In short, before setting off this morning I should have known there was going to have to be some sort of sacrifice made in order to get things straight between us.  That is where Death Valley comes in. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I didn’t go to Death Valley as a form of penance.   I have always wanted to go to Death Valley.  I went to Clemson after all.  It is practically a requirement that at some point in your life you go to our stadium’s namesake and take a photo with the sign.  Plus, Death Valley is a national park and as most of you know by now, I have a thing for NPs.  And it has such a cute name. 

Before anyone asks, no I did not go on any hikes.  I will barely hike in Griffith Park, a place with the sweet lazy word park right there in the title.  Did you really think I would be dumb enough to hike in a place with death in the power position? 

I have not so much a ritual as a code of conduct when it comes to national parks.  Once I pass the sign (and almost always I will stop for a picture), I turn off the radio, roll down the windows, and barely speed.  Most NPs have a really low speed limit but it is there so that you can drive slowly while taking in the view.  Plus in a lot of national parks you should drive slowly to avoid wildlife such as deer and campers.  I started out in good faith with DV.  Two hours in I cracked and rolled up the windows for some AC time.  I could not bring myself to speed though.  Even going the speed limit of 60 (unheard of for the main thoroughfare of a national park) seemed exhausting.

What I realized around hour three in the park was that it had pretty much sapped my will to live.  The sand dunes were lovely.  The salt flats were salty.  You can bet your booty I made it to the lowest elevation in North America. What I really truly wanted was to get out.  The guide books warn you right up front that you should take maps with a grain of salt.  The information is correct, it is just that nothing is as close as it seems.  When I caved and turned on the AC I had just finally made it ¾ of the way across the skinny part of the park and was about to head south for a 17 mile detour.  On the map the skinny part is about two inches across.  The long part is six or seven.  At this point I was grateful for three things:  1) that my AC is in glorious working order, 2) that I had filled up with gas at the last service station [this is always nice when encountering signs that say ‘next services 67 miles (or 72 miles, or 167 miles – all signs I have seen in the last 24 hours)], and 3) that I am in a car at all.  There are signs everywhere about the original Death Valley 49s -poor bastards who had tried to find a shortcut through DV to the gold fields of California.  There is a marker where the less brazen gave up and headed north.  There is a marker where those who continued on burned their wagons and proceeded on foot.   I left the park about an hour and a half after that and have never been so happy in my life as when I saw the Nevada state line sign.  Bullet holes and all.

When I finally got to the campground I managed to set up my tent in under ten minutes (a personal best and long cry from last year’s initial attempt which took an hour), and tucked myself in next to my pepper spray shortly afterward.  I also decided that next year I will not be spending high noon on the first day of summer in the hottest point in all of North America. 

Dusting off the tent and such...

Got a very large shock last night when I finally looked at my calendar - I leave for part two of Operation Hiatus on Tuesday.  What does that mean?  It is time to pack.  Again.  So for about 20 whole minutes today I went through my camping gear and my cupboards to take stock of my resources.  I plan on devoting almost as much grievous labor to my endeavors tomorrow as I do a weather.com search to forecast the overnight temperatures of the Dakotas and points in-between.  The real flurry of packing activity should take place sometime between Sunday evening and Monday afternoon.  Pictures may be posted at some point.  

Sadly, by the time of my departure one of my fabulous readers will be on her own adventure.  Have fun in Africa Michelle!  (Hey mom, look who is going farther away than me.)

And if anyone gets bored and needs a nice fun blog to follow between my adventures, my friend Gina has started one called "What's for lunch today?"  It is fun and quick and can be found at rphilangee.blogspot.com

Talk to you all soon.

xoxo  

Crawling out from under my rock.

Hello all,

In case you were wondering (which I'm pretty sure no one was as you all have Facebook and NO ONE made numerous frantic calls to make sure I landed safely) I did make it home from Hawaii in one piece.  Special shout-outs to Chris and Amy for braving LAX on a Thursday evening in order to pick me up.  In a truck no less.  Also, Michelle and Dan get a major props for letting me park at their place for a month and then having my car washed for me.  They are definitely more thoughtful than I am.

Here is the good news - I found my address book today so I can actually mail out souvenirs to those of you I wish to bestow presents upon.  That is unless you live in LA in which case I will deliver them eventually as I already paid for the presents and am not going to pay to ship them a quarter mile.  Thrifty midwestern values and all.  Family - I have no idea if I will be shipping your prezzies or sweet talking mom into taking them home with her after her visit next week.

I've gotten questions about my travel and I've managed to muddle my way through answers.  Truthfully I am still trying to get my bearings on where I am and what time zone I'm operating in.  Maybe in a week I will have my head on straight and can give more appropriate answers to "What was your favorite part?".  Maybe.  I have downloaded all of my pictures to snapfish and once I delete some of the more redundant and out of focus pictures I will email a link.  I hope you all got a feel for the trip as we went along from the blog and the photos.  It definitely felt like I had company along the way.  Sometimes I even did (Jami, you were a driving rock star).

This post concludes the Pacific Rim adventure.  I head out on a road trip to South Dakota in a couple of weeks and I'm not sure if there will be blogging then or not.  If there is, I hope you will all continue to indulge me.

One last thing, next summer my goal is a road trip around the US to visit all of my friends and family that I haven't seen in awhile/don't see enough.  I'm hoping to stop in Seattle, NY, Washington, South Carolina, and Missouri.  Let me know if you have any ideas for additional stops.

xoxo
Your Favorite Traveler

A three alarm morning is nothing like a three alarm fire...

Though sometimes those two things do coincide.  When getting up early to greet the sun at a national park here are some things to know:  what time the sun rises (do not trust weather.com, it is a site full of lies), where the 24 hour coffee place is on the way to the summit, how afraid your driver is of fire. 

What was that last one again?  Odd but true: if your driver has a deep seeded fear of fire your entire morning may become derailed.  Here is how:  you are driving in the pitch black of the morning having gotten up at an ungodly hour, lets say 4am (having slept through 2 alarms completely and lied to yourself about the third).  You see an interesting cloud formation in the valley.  Your driver comments on how pretty it is and wonders what the glow at it's base could be.  You gain higher ground and confirm that it is in fact a small fire.  Your driver immediately begins to question if you should turn around and go home so that you don't get stranded on the mountain.  The mountain is still 18 miles away. 

Here is my general rule of thumb;  I got up before Jesus today, I am going up the damn mountain. 

At this point it is quite helpful to have a background in hostage negotiation or dealing with actors.  The two situations are really more alike then you may think.

Step one: 

Assessing level of threat/fear - joke "I had no idea you were so afraid of fire."  Hope for bravado! Bravado means they don't want to admit fear and will work harder to prove lack of fear.  Bravado is your friend, until it storms back into it's trailer.  What do I get?  Admission.  Admitting fear means there is not enough reverse psychology in the world to make a person do something.  Admission is NOT your friend. 

Step two: 

Finding out what they want.  Pretty simple - to go back home.  This is in direct opposition to what you want so you must press on. 

Step three:

Logic.  This step gets you nowhere but it has to be taken.  It's like turning your computer off and then on after it eats your term paper.  It isn't going to fix anything but before you throw it through the window and call the IT Crowd you have to at least try. 

Step four: 

Reassurance.  As you have all probably guessed, this one is not my best subject.  When asked to google "fire" and "Maui" I roll my eyes.  It's dark but I'm pretty sure the sentiment carries the two feet across the car.  I google.  As we are climbing a mountain my reception is patchy.  No giant headlines about Maui going up in flames.  Still the fear rages unabated.

Step five: 

Miraculous resolution!  A car pulls up behind us to also go to the summit.  This makes the world right once again!  Surely if the fire were bad no one else would try to go up. The fear is quashed.  We forge ahead on our merry way. 

Words can't really describe how gorgeous it was at the summit.  There was a throng of pajama-ed and slippered tourists wrapped in beach towels waiting at the edge when we got there.  It was oddly still.  As the sun climbed higher so did the chatter, but somehow it was solemn.  When the orange glow cracked the clouds a park ranger did a Hawaiian chant as a welcome or thank you and officially wished us all a good day. Immediately afterward the crowd dispersed heading out to hot breakfasts or warm beds.

After getting stuck behind no fewer than five bicycling tours heading down the mountain we continued on our quest to conquer the Neighbor Islands.  Makawao is a tiny town not far from the B&B we are staying in.  It is full of little shops that open when they feel like it and sell the usual assortment of souvenir goods though they do so with character and on occasion panache.  There are three types of business here:  food service, clothes, art.  The crown jewel of the morning was watching the glass-blowers work.  A boy once told me I was terribly esoteric.  After chatting about glass-blowing for a half hour I am beginning to think he was right.  I assure you the clerk was impressed though.

The rest of the day had food and rainbows.  Detours to swing by local hangouts that were closed.  Finding the elusive golden sand (otherwise known as regular sand.  Generic.  Vanilla.  Sand).  Banyan trees and Edison films.  As an added bonus we visited the whaling town where Herman Melville used to go whoring.  And that is how you sight-see Lexi-style.