My Summer Vacation

Originally posted July 7, 2006

You tramp around the Western and Southwestern U.S. for 17 days, you come to a conclusion: Camping is like being at a giant slumber party with a bunch of strangers.

You wake up and roll out of the tent, freezing and hair looking like Bride of Frankenstein. You're wearing three pairs of socks, two pairs of flannel pants, a long-sleeve shirt, a hooded sweatshirt and gloves (and you're still cold), somehow managed to jam on the hiking boots -- which are cutting off your circulation because of the three pairs of socks -- and sans contacts, you can't really see. The bathroom is a quarter-mile away and you unwillingly trudge there with your tote of toiletries in hand. The bathroom has one-ply paper, no hand dryer or paper towels, water that feels like it was piped in from the Arctic and a "mirror" that's been cleaned/polished so many times, what stares back at you is hardly your own reflection. Or is it? Geez, you look awful. It's been...what...three days since your last shower? Yeah, but who cares? This is the Great Outdoors. This is living off the fat of the land! OK, it's living off the fat of Pork 'n' Beans that you cooked the night before in a cheap pot that melted on the burner. And the "pork" was really just pieces of pig fat that you flung out in disgust. But still...this is Wild America! This is IT, people!

And everyone else looks just like you. Haggard. Tired. Covered in a patina of sweat, bug spray and sunblock, wearing shorts that have seen better days. MUCH better days. Tank top splattered with mud from riding bikes a few days ago on a trail pocked with puddles. Breaking down camp at 7 a.m. in brisk weather and seeing if maybe, just maybe, you'll be able to roll up the tent good enough to fit back into its bag today. More people trudge by on their way to the bathroom. You exchange a "hello" and that knowing look of "we're at altitude and you got a nosebleed this morning too, huh?" Like I said, one big slumber party. Can you borrow my hammer? Sure. We're "neighbors." Go for it. Just bring it back when your tent's set up. This is a blast!

That's how we spent our 17-day adventure. And what did it all start with? A big ol' nail in our back tire that Ryan discovered before we even left the house. It was a Friday, and now we had to find a place that was open at 7 p.m. and could put two new tires on the Escape. Wal-Mart in Livermore obliged, and after dropping off the remaining good tire at a friend's house in Livermore, we finally got on the road at 8:30 p.m. That landed us in Reno around 11:30 p.m. Exhausted, we went right to sleep in our room at a Best Western that seemed to be undergoing a complete makeover. Good thing we only spent a few hours there.

Early the next morning we set out for Jerome, Idaho...a 500-mile drive that kept us in the car most of the day listening to Stephen King short stories on CD. Discovered a lovely canyon cut by a river and had dinner at the "charming" Idaho Joe's in nearby Twin Falls. One thing you should learn: Outside of California, all meals come with potatoes/vegetables, bread, a salad and perhaps some soup. None of this Claimjumper's "one entree equals an elephant on a plate" stuff. You get a square. Jerome also introduced us to life at the KOA Kampgrounds. Our "neighbors" had a 4-year-old girl they let jump on top of their car like it was a bed. And then she talked all night long asking her mom "why?" and similar repetitive questions that small children torture their parents with. Ah yes, the KOA. Always miles from anything important. Always offering ghetto mini-golf.

The next three days were to be spent in Yellowstone. The drive from Idaho to Wyoming proved somewhat tragic, as we pulled up at a Phillips 66 in Idaho to procure bungee cords for our bikes and discovered upon exiting that we had somehow parked on top of an owl. Yes, poor Hootsie had whoo'ed her last whoo. We're pretty sure we didn't contribute to Hootsie's death, since it's doubtful an owl would make a trip to the Phillips 66 at 7 a.m. (unless it was a severe case of hankering for mini-donuts or the immediate need for a deck of cards). But even more disturbing was this comment from a local: "Ah, yep, looks like you got a good'un there!" Have at it, man. Have at it.

On our way we stopped at Craters of the Moon National Monument, a volcanic park that really does give you the feeling of being somewhere other than Earth. The ground had odd textures, like obsidian crossed with pumice, and the park offered hikes around lava flows and through Indian Tunnel, which greeted us with our first rock scramble and a glimpse of some sort of huge black bird in a nest. The subsequent lunch in Idaho Falls proved that not all my ideas are dumb: Their Subway sandwich shop had a drive-through! Once again I lose out on cashing in on a money-making idea. Grr.

A quick jaunt through Montana landed us in Yellowstone, where our arrival was marked by a giant beetle-like bug that adhered to the windshield and hung on for dear life as we drove about 20 miles to our campsite. That was one hearty (and disgusting) bug! It even succeeded in bending the stick when Ryan tried to flick him off the windshield.

We set up camp, cooked dinner (here's where the infamous melting pot came into play...one tip: don't buy an aluminum mess kit), played horseshoes, walked around the lake, whittled sticks and roasted marshmallows, and listened to ranger talks. It rained one day and it was absolutely frigid at night, but Yellowstone is a beautiful place. We saw Old Faithful, visited the Paint Pots, hiked and biked Fairy Falls (oddly enough, no falls), stared at the Grand Prismatic Spring, discovered to our disappointment that Mammoth Hot Springs stopped flowing in 1998, watched the Lonestar Geyser blow, hiked and biked Kepler Falls, climbed up to Point Sublime (to see the "Grand Canyon of Yellowstone"), met a couple who planned to bike 96 miles in one day (we saw them later and yup, they did it), hiked to Natural Bridge, and saw buffalo, elk, mule deer, squirrels, pelicans and a yellow-bellied marmot. Also watched a chipmunk try to steal some of our utensils.

The next two days we spent in the Grand Tetons, just outside Yellowstone. Camped at Jenny Lake and spent a day checking out Jackson Hole. This is where I finally found a replacement for my sleeping bag, which was not keeping me warm down to 30 degrees as promised, and had a zipper that suddenly busted in the middle of the night. This is also where we would eventually replace our air mattress, which mysteriously deflated one night and would never hold air again (no visible leak). Only in Jackson Hole will you find a stuffed squirrel wearing a hunting vest and holding a rifle. And only in Jackson Hole can you get candy from the Yippee-I-Oh Candy Co.!

In Grand Tetons, we hiked Hidden Falls (gorgeous), met a couple from Concord (small world!), made the 7-mile hike around Two Oceans Lake, saw our first moose and kayaked on Jenny Lake. It was a great two days.

After that we drove to Vernal, Utah, via Flaming Gorge, and listened to Patricia Cornwell's "Portrait of a Killer" about Jack the Ripper on the way. We set up at the KOA and then went to Dinosaur National Monument, where an entire wall of the visitors center is made entirely of rock and dinosaur fossils. There was a femur as tall as me! Alas, we cut the trip to Dinosaur short due to heat, and dined at the 7-11 Ranch in Vernal, which is apparently the Cheers of the town. Everyone knew everyone else there. Kinda creepy. And Ryan was served ribs that looked like they came straight out of an episode of the Flintstones. We encountered a crazy child on a bike, swam at the KOA and I listened to a mean mom bully her kids in a shower stall. Ah, Vernal. Land of wonder. ;)

The next morning was like waking up on a soccer field. The vast grassy expanse was bright and the skies were blue, which erased all memories of someone walking around our tent at 1:30 a.m. And no more waking up in the cold! This day was my day to drive, and I was promptly pulled over for "speeding" in Rangely, Colo. Pish-tosh. The officer let me off with a warning (I really was not going much faster than the limit). We stopped for lunch at Mesa Mall in Grand Junction, which was like stepping into a mid-'90s time warp. Award-winning quote from Ryan: "I have a theory that when you start wearing denim dresses, you've given up on life." (He had a similar theory about fanny packs in Vegas, but it was more about how people don't know when to stop wearing them. Or that they can.) That day brought us through Black Canyon of the Gunnison, where we took a quick hike and drove around the bottom. Now a week into our trip, we finally broke down and got a room at the Best Western Red Arrow in Montrose. TV! And a real bed! Well, actually, I hadn't missed TV that much. But a clean, unlimited shower! Yes, I missed that!

Rested, we set out the next day for Mesa Verde via Durango and Ouray, really pretty little Victorian towns tucked away in the Rockies. We also saw an old mining colony. At Mesa Verde we toured the cliff dwellings (Cliff Palace in particular) that were built by the Pueblo Indians 800 years ago. Saw a jackrabbit and finally got my first look at a non-light-polluted sky. Did you know there are THOUSANDS of stars in the sky?? That you can see?? In the city and suburbs, there are too many lights that drown out the natural sky. Out in the country, it's completely dark and you can see what it really looks like. Amazing. Truly mind-boggling.

With the extra day from leaving Grand Tetons early, we went on the next day to Four Corners -- where we stood in Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado all at the same time -- then to Natural Bridges. Took the "easy" hike down to Kachina Bridge, complete with petroglyphs, and nearly died of heat exhaustion on the steep climb back up. That trail is inhuman! Then the plan was to stay in Glen Canyon, but that proved to be a big expanse of nothing. So on a whim we decided to try Capitol Reef in Utah. It was absolutely beautiful. Within Capitol Reef is the old town of Fruita, which was settled by Mormons in the 1880s. Some of their buildings and mines are still there, and you can pick your own fruit from the orchards that remain. You can walk through the park-like picnic area that is frequented by literally a herd of deer. We saw rabbits, mice and quail (baby quail too!), and glimpsed another marmot. Yeah, so I accidentally nailed a tent peg into the base of a tree. And then we had to cut the tent free. And buy a new tent peg. And I heard a dog barf up grass. It was still awesome there! We hiked to Cassidy Arch the next day on our way out, a nice 3.25-mile hoofing with a 1,000-foot gain in elevation. Got to take pictures ON the arch. Awesome. Beautiful, beautiful view. Very difficult trail. Ryan almost plummeted to his death...or surely to his extreme injury. After a quick reaction that saved him, he earned the Indian name "Feet Like a Goat."

Exhausted, we drove on to Bryce Canyon. Rode bikes, checked out Sunrise/Sunset points and took truly the most disgusting shower I've ever had the misfortune of taking. It was even dirtier than anything I've ever experienced in France. Even dirtier than anything I used in Czech Republic! The shower was full of a gray slime indicative of the thousands of people who had previously been there. I tried not to touch anything (unfortunately, my feet still had to touch the floor) and the water ran out on me early. I'm not sure if that shower left me dirtier than when I started. Ugh.

It's here I should mention the interesting people we met on our trip. In Yellowstone, our neighbors were a family (grandparents, mom and two kids) from Oregon, who used to live in Arizona and the Bay Area. The grandfather, Monroe, told us about his horrific Goldwing motorcycle accident, and it's a wonder he's alive. His wife was excited to have seen a bear and his granddaughter, Ashley, seemed to be thoroughly displeased with camping life. We also ran into two Australian guys who were running all over the park BAREFOOT trying to get the closest photos they could get of the bison. Nice guys. In Vernal, we met a teacher from Colorado camping with her "partner" and kids. In Bryce, we met a family from Fayetteville, West Virginia, whom we ended up chatting with half the night. Gary is a retired engineer and whitewater rafting guide. His wife, Kay, was a high school French teacher for 27 years and having had her fill of teenagers, switched to teaching English to maximum security felons four months ago. Their daughter, Heather, just graduated with degrees in English and French, and is headed to grad school to become a professor. We all had such a great time, Ryan and I now have a standing invitation to West Virginia and a place to stay.

In Bryce, we hiked down into the canyon and through the hoodoos, which are those pillar-type rock formations that are Bryce's signature. It's beautiful there. One is hard-pressed to take a bad photo! If only it weren't for the overly loud Asian woman lamenting to her friend that there was no cell phone reception because she wanted to call her daughter "and tell her dat I wish on my life she could do dis one time...we always watch da travel channel and I can't believe dis is me here! OK, I want a picture of you here, with dat tree and dat rock!" Understandable, lady, but take it down a notch, will ya? Oi.

After that we headed on to two days in Springdale, Utah, just outside Zion National Park. We rode bikes, watched a German guy build a wood fire on TOP of his barbecue (reason was unclear), hiked to Emerald Pools and Weeping Rock, and waded through the Virgin River in an attempt to get to The Narrows (I was now suffering a strained Achilles tendon, so Ryan went ahead and stopped when the route required chest-deep wading). I sat in the river and saw a fish. We also saw some kind of harmless snake, many giant caterpillars and ants, and a frog later that night. It was absolutely blazing hot, and despite repeated dips in the campground pool (and the fact that we were somewhat disappointed with Zion), we decided to cut our stay there short a day and spend an extra night in Vegas.

The drive to Sin City started with a stop in Grafton, a low-profile ghost town just outside Springdale. There was a family buried in the cemetery who were literally "killed by Indians." The town was settled in 1868, and while small, gave a glimpse into what life was like back then. You had to build your shelter from whatever was available. The church/school house was composed of wood and adobe-like bricks, which have a tendency to flake. I don't know how the buildings there just don't dissolve when it rains. Then again, I somewhat doubt it rains to begin with. Another winning quote from Ryan: "How the hell do you step on gum in a ghost town?!"

At 1 p.m., it was 103 degrees in Vegas. We procured our room in the extravagantly luxurious Excalibur ;) and proceeded to walk around for the rest of the day. Had a very tasty dinner at Wolfgang Puck's new restaurant, Chinois, an Asian fusion place in Caesar's. Unfortunately, on the way back to the hotel we passed a very, very large man squatting in a public corner with his pants down, towel in hand. Neither of us dares to explore the many speculations we have as to what this situation exactly was, but have filed it away as "that big guy's accident." Shudder.

The next day we checked out Fremont Street Experience, where all the old casinos are located. Totally cheesy! And Starbucks is outrageously expensive there. Disappointed, we went on to Bellagio, where we definitely got our money's worth checking out the Ansel Adams exhibit in the Fine Arts Gallery. Next we decided to go to the Palms and catch the new Superman flick, which we enjoyed (yes, the new Superman is hot...there, I said it). Then it was on to dinner at Le Provencal in Paris, complete with an excellent Carmen aria by a waitress and terrific desserts (hey, we earned it).

The last day was spent entirely in the car, listening to "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" on CD and taking in the "wastelands" between Nevada and the Bay Area. (Lemme tell ya, the In-N-Out in Kettleman City sure is happenin'.) Driving up 580 brought on a contradiction of emotions...it's good to come home, but it's also sad to think about the vacation and adventures coming to a close. We had such a great time! Met lots of people, saw lots of animals, walked about 42 miles and biked about 15, read all of Dan Brown's "Angels & Demons," experienced many extremes of weather, and saw some of the most beautiful places our country has to offer. And had fun just hanging out with each other.

The slumber party's over and now it's back to work...but we have memories and photos to last us forever!

Frey commented: That sounds like the best vacation I've ever heard!

I find it fascinating that a woman gets so sick of teenagers that she quits her job to go teach felons. Stupid teenagers.