Posts by Jonah

I am Berck's wife. I must use whichever journaling software he chooses. And like it.

Hoover Dam


by Jonah

Virgin River Canyon, UT–Death Valley, CA

We stopped by the Hoover Dam today. What a zoo! There were as many people there as at Disney World. And you have to go through a police checkpoint now to drive across it. The policeman was basically just waving everybody through, I suppose looking to see if you were white first. The last time I saw the dam I think there was only one other family there.

Before that, we drove though Las Vegas, stopping at an In-N-Out Burger for breakfast. In-N-Outs are only in the California area. They have six items on the menu: burgers, cheese burgers, double cheese burgers, fries, milkshakes, and drinks. There are no sizes. It’s a very simple menu and quite cheap. They use all fresh ingredients. Their fries are made from potatoes peeled that morning. Their buns have no preservatives. They’re a family owned business that has refused to franchise. The bottom of their cups say, “John 3:16.” We got two double cheese burgers “animal style,” which isn’t on the menu. We’re not really sure what that means, but Brandon Downey told us to order them that way. Berck thinks it means they sautee the onions in mustard. I think it means they put Thousand Island dressing on them.

Now we’re heading up the pass of death toward Death Valley. Berck is running the AC like an idiot. It’s funny; we left snow and below-freezing temperatures last night, and today we’re in the Nevada/California desert, and it’s HOT.

Well, we made it up the first hill okay. We filled up with gas before leaving NV to make sure we could make it through Death Valley. $2.08 for regular unleaded! The credit card wouldn’t let us use pay-at-the-pump. Apparently, it’s nearly impossible to use a credit card for anything in Nevada; the cards are summarily flagged as possibly stolen.

We made it as far as the Nevada/Utah border last night and broke down and settled for a room at a casino for $24. Sheets! A hot shower! Of course, even though the motel was huge, the floors creaked, and we could hear every movement of the family upstairs, especially their kids and dog. For some reason they had to get up at 4:30 and jump up and down.

We drove I-15 through the Virgin River Canyon last night, a road under construction and so tight that over-sized vehicles are prohibited. It took all of Berck’s skill as an X-Wing pilot to navagate the narrow canyon. The scenery was probably beautiful, but it was dark, so who knows. But there was too much snow to camp in the middle of Utah, so we had to keep going.

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A word about lemonade


by Jonah

Somewhere in Texas, Berck and I realized we were both staying pretty chronically dehydrated. We always made sure we had two big bottles of water with us, but the desert water doesn’t taste good. And since we’re not hot, we forget to drink. We needed to do something about the problem.

So we bought a container of Country Time Lemonade powder and mixed it with in one of the water bottles. Does the sugar content of the lemonade outweigh whatever benefit we gain from drinking more fluid? We don’t know, but we’ve now been drinking a lot more and feel much better.

On our last grocery run, we thought we’d try some variety and get Tang instead. I have a soft spot in my heart for Tang; it saved my life when I got King Tut’s revenge on a trip to Egypt. Plus, it’s what the astronauts drink. We saw some pre-made cartons of Tang in the store. Tell me, what’s the point of that?

We’ve gotten in the habit of emptying our water bottles at night. Otherwise, they freeze, and we can’t refill them, just wait till they thaw. We kept one half-empty bottle in the tent with us last night. It didn’t freeze. I really wanted something to drink in the morning, so I measured the correct amount of Tang for how much water was in our two-and-a-half liter bottle. Then I shook it up good. I tasted it, and it felt chunky. I know Tang always has that bit of gritty taste to it, and maybe I put too much in for the sugar to dissolve? No, the water was just in the process of freezing, so the Tang was full of ice crystals.

Recipe for Road Lemonade:

Fill a well-battered Ozarka water bottle from any available potable water source, be it park pump, water fountain, or service station washroom sink. Measure lemonade powder halfway between one quart and two quart lines. Take a page from a useless brochure you picked up somewhere along the way and roll it up to make a paper funnel. Carefully pour powder into funnel; be patient … if your funnel is narrow, it will take a minute to all fall through. Screw on top. Shake like mad. Drink.

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Arches


by Jonah

Arches National Park, UT–Grand Junction, CO

We spent last night at Arches National Park. We got to Moab in time to buy some supplies from an overpriced yuppie “market” that specialized in organic trail mixes. They also had a nice selection of local beers. Brands included Squatters, who makes Provo Girl (with a picture of a beer maiden on the label) and Full Suspension (a bicycle). We got a good laugh out of those until we saw another local brand, who makes Polygamy Porter (“Why have just one”).

We ended up with two large bottles, one a rather stout stout and the other a brown ale, which Berck has wrapped in my towel to keep it from rattling. Rattling and other car noises are the reason why I’m sitting at a garage in Grand Junction, CO. But I’ll get to that later.

The campground in Arches is all the way at the end of the park … and at its highest elevation. So while most of the park was snow free, the campground was covered in snow. We picked our site, not because of its secluded location or distance from other campers, but because there was a small square of ground not covered by snow and just big enough for our tent. (We’ve tried camping ON snow before … “It’ll be soft!”) We paid for our spot and set up our tent. Then Berck tried to insert the tent pegs. The frozen solid ground wouldn’t budge. He bent two stakes (they’re titanium) and split the rock he was using as a hammer. The best we could manage was twisting one stake in where the ground was a little softer at one corner. Another stake got in about halfway. Since this tent’s rain fly is dependent on staking, we were in a tight spot. Moisture wouldn’t be able to escape, and the rain fly would act like a parachute if the wind picked up. We were at the highest point of the campsite, with a beautiful view, but the worst place for wind.

Fortunately, it never got windy. It did get cold. My feet were cold. I wonder what I can do to keep my feet warm in my sleeping bag when the rest of me is fine. Berck kept violently elbowing me through his sleeping bag because he said I was making snoring noises. Hey, I could only breathe out of one nostril! Berck got me up with the sunrise, when the sun’s rays began melting the frost on the inside of the tent and dripping water down on everything below. We’re going to have to let the tent air out for sure.

We packed everything up and drove back through the park. Arches is a pretty amazing place. It’s like Garden of the Gods times one thousand. It’s named for the 2,000 arches in its borders, but what’s most striking is the myriad of “fins” of red sandstone that slice through the park. We got to see Delicate Arch from afar (it’s the one textbooks always use to illustrate this odd geographic feature). It’s definitely a place I’d love to come back to in the spring and explore sometime. Today it was too cold, and Berck has blisters on his heels from our six miles in one day of hiking in Zion.

Then it was on to Grand Junction. We drove a windy road through a deep brick red and black rock canyon until we got to I-70.

Now we’re in Grand Junction at Flyin’ Miata’s headquarters, whose aim is to build a Miata that can go 200 mph. They also put turbo chargers in Miatas and sell all sorts of other parts. They knew more about Miatas than anyone else, so when ANOTHER noise presented itself, Berck thought we should stop by. Grand Junction is only an hour away from Moab, UT. Berck’s been having a fabulous time talking to the mechanics and stuff.

Well, the Miata people have decided that the noise is “valve noise” and it does NOT imply imminent destruction. They’ve also rotated the tires, changed the oil, and replaced all sorts of little parts that Berck had broken or lost. We may buy a battery as well. Berck got to ride in one of their turbo charged cars. He’s like a kid in a candy shop.

Turns out the mechanic here is also a pilot who learned to fly at the flight school in Norman. I guess that means Berck could always get a job as a Miata mechanic?

The plan is to drive in one long shot to Lake Arrowhead tonight, but I’m feeling very much like a nap. We’ll see.

We’ve zig-zagged across the southwest. Now we’ll travel up through California. We still haven’t decided on a homeward bound route yet.

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Southeast Utah


by Jonah

Bryce Canyon, UT–Southeast Utah

It’s Sunday morning and all the Mormons are in church.

Yesterday we did Bryce Canyon, then camped in the Kodachrome Basin State Park, only a few miles away but two to three thousand feet lower in elevation. Which is good, because Bryce Canyon National Park was covered in a couple feet of snow.

Bryce Canyon is known for its brightly colored, dramatic spires of rock that point into the sky in row after row. They’re called hoodoos, and they’re caused when the bottom layer of sandstone is softer than the top layer of rock.

Our campsite was virtually free of snow. It was in a basin of brown dust filled with chimney spires of rock. It cost $14, but included “hot” showers. Berck and I used the men’s room this morning because we have to share a towel. And we were the only people camping. It was pretty cold. Ice crystals formed in my wet hair, making attempting to brush it fairly futile.

Well, we weren’t completely alone in the campground. It was full of cottontails, jackrabbits, western bluebirds, Steller’s jays, and these weird little birds which are apparently only indigenous to the area. They look like a cross between quail and puffins, and they make quite a racket, at times like high-pitched chickens, other times crows.

Firewood gathering was prohibited, but there was a whole bunch of sawed 1x6s for treefiddy an armful. So I loaded Berck up with a tall stack of lumber. He made it as far as a picnic table before it started becoming unbalanced. Then I carried it to the edge of our campsite before letting it drop. But we had quite a fire!

It made up for the night before. Zion prohibits gathering wood too (but there’s a ton of dead wood lying all over the place). So to heat up our supper, Berck took eight charcoal briquettes, doused them with lighter fluid, turned them over and doused them again, then lit them, and placed two cans of soup resting on four pieces of charcoal each. It’s not much of a fire, but having a warm supper is nice.

Today we drove over snow covered mountains, white aspens sticking out of them. Then we went along a road that traveled along the spine of a ridge with, literally, enough space on top for the road. It was called Hell’s Backbone. Then we descended to drive through Capital Reef National Park. It’s a pretty impressive wall of bright red rock that rises out of the ground. On the other side of it is canyons of rock and badlands, a desert quite in contrast to the picturesque mountains we’d passed through earlier. Now we’re heading down into the southeast corner of Utah where, apparently, there are no gas stations. Berck is driving slowly, worried that we’re not going to make it to the next town, 50 miles away. We’re having to bypass Natural Bridges National Monument to even hope to make it. The way seems to be mostly downhill. We stopped at a lodge that had gas pumps, but they were closed for the season.

There may not be any gas, but southern Utah has amazing landscapes. The landscape is chiseled out of rock and sand. It’s mostly desert, and even in the winter, the sun beating through my window makes me hot. I’m glad we came in the February.

Well, we made it to a gas station and put 10.6 gallons in the tank. Berck has put 11 gallons in it before. It holds 11.9, but he doesn’t know if all that is usable. It turned out to the be the cheapest gas in town. It was also only one of three things open. I wonder if we’ll be able to buy soup for tonight’s meal anywhere. It’s a Sunday in Utah.

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Cold


by Jonah

Apache National Forest, AZ–Meteor Crater, AZ

The roads in Arizona suck. The roads in New Mexico were quite nice; apparently NM has lots of highway money it doesn’t know what to do with, because they stick signs up everywhere. Every time you pass over a culvert, there are dozens of black and yellow striped signs warning you that, if you need to veer off the road, don’t do it right now. Every time the center line changes from broken to solid, a sign on the side of the road will warn you, “NO PASSING ZONE” or “PASS WITH CARE.” I suppose that might be useful if the road were snow-covered, but this is New Mexico we’re talking about. Berck says, “I find these signs almost insulting.”

But the roads in Arizona are pretty bad. Makes typing tricky at times, reading back over what I wrote unpleasant, especially since we’re cruising at 90.

We stopped for the night at a little green tent on the side of the road in a National Forest(according to the map). It was actually a couple mile drive, the last half mile of which was mud or snow. We finally got to the campground, eerily deserted. There was no place to pay for camping, a bunch of the signs were missing. One sign that still stood said, “Check in with host! –>”

The only thing in the direction of the “host” was a snowy path leading to some wood cabins. So after we picked our site, we headed down the path. There were actually dozens of cabins, but they were all abandoned. Inside each was a couple of mattresses, bed frames, refrigerator, tiny stove, and sink. All the windows were missing, and most of the doors had been broken in. Saplings grew up around them. It looked as if it had been a motel made up of individual cabins that been left to rot. The complex was getting some good use, though … brightly colored little balls were strewn everywhere in the snow. It had become the perfect place for a paint ball game.

Other than the spookiness of our campground’s status, it only had two drawbacks: it was cold, and there was no drinking water available. This was a problem because we only had about half a liter of extra-strong lemonade to drink. We were surrounded by patches of snow, and a creek ran nearby, but we don’t have a pot or water purification devices. It was getting too late to go anywhere else, and Berck had already gotten the car stuck in the snow once.

At least there was plenty of firewood, including some National Forest sign posts that had been sawed up and stuck in a pile. I’m not sure if they were meant for firewood, but one of those huge logs made a nice fire. We had some hot soup and some HOT Wolf chili, unfortunately, since we didn’t have any drinking water to wash it down. But we ate a couple of oranges and felt better.

We ended up saving the lemonade for the morning. That was a mistake, because it got so cold that the lemonade froze solid. We were warm enough in our sleeping bags, but to conserve heat, we partially closed the vent in the top of the tent. That was also a mistake, because we woke up to find the inside of the tent covered in frost that was quickly melting and raining on us. Hopefully, our tent and accouterments will have time to dry out tonight before we have to re-enter them.

We just passed through Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park. Most of the “forest” has been carted out over the last hundred and fifty years by souvenir hunters and gem enthusiasts. Petrified wood is beautiful stuff. Fortunately, there’s probably a bunch of it still buried beneath the hills, waiting for the nine inches of rain the park receives to uncover it all.

Now we’re driving through Winslow, AZ listening to The Eagles’ “Take It Easy.”

We’re back on an Interstate, having left them pretty much behind since San Antonio. Wrestling with truckers again.

Just went to the Meteor Crater. 12 bucks a person to get in! They’ve surrounded the crater with three miles of chain-link and barbed-wire to make sure you don’t get a free look at it. It’s big. Twenty foot-ball games with two million seated spectators could fit in it. All from a chunk of rock 150 feet in diameter. At least they’ve got a decent “State of the Art Museum.” My favorite was the meteor generator, where you got to pick the velocity, size, density, and angle of a meteor hitting the earth, then watch animation of the consequences.

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