Road Trip, Week Two

It has been a few days since my last update... I actually managed to spill water on my laptop last week, so that is good. My keyboard doesn't really work right now, but I'll manage. On with the summary!

After leaving Yosemite we had one of our longest driving days, and so we left early in the morning from our beautiful camp site. Our goal was to get to Las Vegas for the evening, so we planned to just miss Death Valley on our way down, since our car didn't have air conditioning. It is not generally a good idea to drive in Death Valley without air conditioning. That being said, however, we made a slight adjustment to our itinerary and drove through the North end of the valley after seeing Scotty's Castle, which was built in the 1920s as a vacation home for a wealthy stock broker. But now it is just a bit of a tourist trap for the National Park:

We got to Vegas in the evening and found our room in the Plaza, which is where Sinatra and the Rat Pack used to hang out. We were across the street from something called the Fremont Street Experience, which is just a big street with cool movie-type stuff on the ceilings. Then on the next day we walked the Strip for five or six hours after swimming and seeing the new Batman movie at the Palms. Vegas is pretty fake and lived up to its reputation as 'Sin City:' we all agreed that we probably don't need to ever go back. But it was cool to see some of the famous buildings and people... in fact, I met Jessica Simpson, but she was in a hurry so the photo turned out blurry.

After Vegas we drove up to a National Park called Zion (yup... lots of Mormon stuff) for a couple of nights. This was the first of many "Southern Utah" parks -- there are several really cool parks in Utah, most of which have truly amazing rock formations and natural scenery. Zion, for example, sports tons of unique and awe-inspiring views of things like the Checkerboard Mesa. There is also a huge arch in the park, which we were only able to see from a distance, but which I will say more about in my next post anyway.

Our only full day there was spent on a hike up the 'Narrows,' which is, oddly enough, a narrow canyon with a river running through it, and which you can generally hike if there are no flash flood warnings. We walked through a canyon with (sometimes) 1,000 foot vertical cliffs on either side, making sure to look for flash-flood hiding spots along the way.

Our next stop was to the south of Zion -- the Grand Canyon, which is in Northern Arizona. But we decided to take a quick detour to the North first, to see Bryce Canyon. Bryce is another amazing place, but we only had a couple of hours to kill there, so we just went out to some lookouts. Here is a picture of Kyle on the rim of Bryce Amphitheater, which is beautiful:

When we got to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, we set up camp and had dinner, but we also had our first big argument as a group of four men. Two weeks isn't bad when you think about it. :) We did go see the sun setting over the rim, however, which was a great experience and well worth a four mile hike in new flip-flops. Ouch. On the next day, then, we walked down the North Rim of the canyon along the North Kaibab Trail to Roaring Springs, which is a cool little spring where we were able to refresh and eat jerkey, carrots, and wheat thins. Quality meals always.

Again, we were on the edge of some hard-core cliffs, and were able to get some amazing views. And I probably shouldn't have put my legs over another ledge... oh well.

Road Trip, Week One

I just returned last week from a great three week road trip with some of my best friends. More than seven months in the planning, "The Greatest Adventure, Year 2008" was truly an epic adventure, though it probably has a slightly inappropriate name when placed in the form of an acronym. I'm gonna try to do a three-post installment highlighting the best bits! First: allow me to introduce the gentlemen...

Jeff Hodgson, one of my best friends, is on the far left -- he and I went to Lake Washington High School together many moons ago, but we really didn't know each other until UW. Next is KB Baby, Kyle Bjorback, who has been a good buddy since we met at a Phi Kappa Tau "BMC" Weekend our freshman year, and who is getting married in two weeks to the beautiful Lisa Dubbs!! Third from left is the one and the only Jason Boyett, an old friend from Crossroads Bible Church and the fraternity. We used to ride the buses to Bellevue together and talk about girls. We still do the latter. :)

We woke up early on day one and hit the road for Crater Lake, and stopped for lunch at Burgerville, which is Oregon's rip-off of In'n'Out or Dicks. We got camp set up in time to take a hike up to the top of nearby Mt. Scott to watch the scenery -- our first of many hikes to come, and a good warm-up. This is a pic of Kyle and Jason near the top.

We left in the morning for our next stop -- Redwoods National Park in Northern California! The drive was pretty sweet, and I was able to drive along the coast for at bit on Highway 101, then through ancient redwood trees on a scenic drive through the park. The trees in this part of Northern California are really ancient and humongous, in large part because it does not so much rain as constantly "mist" in the forest.

Our campsite was right on the ocean and only a mile or so South of Fern Canyon, which is an amazing gully where they filmed a famous scene from Jurassic Park II. Our campsite neighbors turned out to be an old Christian couple named Jon and Joan Archer - Jon is a pastor and was a High School teacher for many years, and knew the park inside and out. It was a joy to meet them, and a privilege to spend time with them touring the canyon and learning about the history of local indian tribes. Above is Jason, walking through Fern Canyon.

After another night in Redwoods we drove down to Chico State University, where we were grateful for the hospitality of our Phi Kappa Tau brothers there. It was cool to drive through some serious forest fires on the way down -- at times the sky was red and the sun was hidden behind billows of smoke.

Yosemite was the next stop -- we spent three nights on the river just outside of the park there, and on our first full day we hiked up to Glacier Point along the "Four Mile Trail," which is actually 4.8 miles, and which has a 3200 foot elevation change from bottom to top. There are some seriously beautiful outlooks on the way up, and the view from the top would be worth it by itself. Here is the view from Glacier Point, which you can just drive up to if you like, but which is far more satisfying when earned. Then a pic of Jason with the rest of the valley behind him.

Our next day was a hike of Half Dome (you can see the dome in the above picture on the right), which was about an 18 mile day. Doing a 10 mile hike the day before might not have been the brightest thing ever, but we at least learned that we would need to bring about three gallons of water! At the top of the hike you have to climb up a super steep granite face along some cables, which were really busy on the day we went up (a Saturday). Here is a view from the top: you can't tell here, but Kyle and I are sitting next to a 1,300 foot cliff. I probably shouldn't have dangled my feet from the edge, but you only live once, right?