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Published: April 5th 2007
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Road to Arches
Driving along the Colorado River in Utah. I've received many complaints about the tardiness of my updates and will offer only this excuse: I've had better things to do. Sometimes those things have been as mundane as playing another game of Scrabble with Caron (Scrabblethon 2007 is currently tied, only games we've played 1-on-1 count, sorry Jake), watching Full House re-runs with Maisa, practicing with my Tarot cards, or just sleeping in the sun. The point is, there always seems to be some activity more enticing than doing this at any given moment. So I'm sucking it up now after much slacking. (Guess I'm not a natural blogger.)
I've been in San Diego about a week and a half now, splitting my time between Maisa's and Caron's places. It really is mini-Madison here. We almost have enough for an all-Wisconsin alumni softball team! But this update is going to focus on getting here. I'll leave the happenings of San Diego for the next one.
I left Vail on a Wednesday morning and headed for Arches National Park in Utah. Once it became time to leave the interstate, the map showed 2 plausible routes. I thought it might be cool to take one to the park
and the other back. It turned out to be an awesome decision because the first route was a scenic byway that followed the Colorado river through a carved canyon. It took longer, but was definitely worth it. Arches itself was gorgeous. I did a little hiking, but mostly explored with my car due to time constraints and laziness. Hopefully my pictures do it justice.
I spent that night in Price, UT with the intention of spending the entire next day driving to San Francisco. In the morning, I noticed a brochure in the lobby for "9 Mile Canyon", an area a few miles away that featured many ancient petroglyphs on the rock walls. The idea that cool native rock art was only minutes away was far too tempting so I decided to take a detour. To be fair, the brochure did state that despite the name, the canyon was actually 70 miles long. However, it did not say that the road was gravel for 95% of those 70 miles and that said gravel was, at times, extremely loose and bordering on dangerous. Before I even got to the petroglyph area, I was starting to seriously regret my decision and
had visions of being stranded in a Utah desert for days with a flat tire. But with perseverence the road eventually became reasonable and I spent an awesome afternoon playing archaeologist in a virtually deserted canyon.
That whole adventure put me much further behind than I'd anticipated, so I drove straight through the rest of Utah and all of Nevada with practically no stops. Mom gave me "To Kill A Mockingbird" on tape for my birthday and it proved invaluable during this time. About midnight, I took full advantage of a Reno rest stop and finished the rest of the drive in the morning. Some interesting things I saw out my window as I zipped by: the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, the Bonneville Salt Flats and the Sierra Nevadas. (I got to go right through Donner Pass - eeeee, scary.)
San Francisco was awesome. It is definitely one of the coolest cities I've seen in America, if not the world. I only had a day there, so it was the speed tour as usual, but I saw Chinatown, Haight Ashbury, Fisherman's Wharf, the Golden Gate, street cars, etc. My one big disappointment was not getting to
go to Alcatraz. All of the boats were booked for a couple days, so I had to make due with one that went around the island without stopping. It might be for the best though, because I probably would have spent all day there and missed out on the variety of the city.
I stayed in an overpriced boutique inn near the Redwoods that night out of desperation. You'd think that there would be lots of lodging options near a tourist attraction like that, but it was bleak. Sleeping in the car wasn't an option because my cell-phone was dead and I needed it to get directions to Maisa's the next day and I also desperately needed a shower. Ah well, it was a comfortable bed. I hit Muir Woods in the morning and hiked around. I don't think the pictures do the trees justice, they truly are enormous. The weather was perfect for morning hiking - cool and foggy. It was soothing on my sunburned face from the day before.
By 11 I was heading south to San Diego. Nothing of much note happened on the drive, other than I had my first In-N-Out burger. It reminded
9 Mile Canyon
A better section of the ridiculous gravel road. me of a Culver's butter burger. Good, but not the holy grail of all beef patties as the hype would have one believe. I was in San Diego just after dark and the rest of the story will have to wait for another time...
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