5110 Miles.
19 Days
8 States
Our Route.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Home at last
850 miles is a long day of driving, but me managed to get in last night and sleep in our own beds again! It was a great trip, but it's still nice to be home. We'll post a few more random things from the trip when the mood strikes, but for now it's time to relax!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Shelf Road
Today was, sadly, our last day of fun before heading home. 800 miles more to go, almost all of it inside of Texas. Did I mentioned that Texas was BIG in my first post when we left there? Anyhow, drove to shelf road this morning, which is the "premiere sport climbing area in Colorado" according to our otherwise useless guidebook. There are allegedly around 1000 established climbing routes in this area, 500 or so of which are bolted, which is required for our method of climbing. As was expected for a weekday, the place was completely deserted, so we had to spend awhile wandering around to try to figure out where everything was. We figured out that from the 1st parking lot we stopped at, the closest wall was a mile hike away. We tried another area further down the road, and wound up hiking in from there. Our map was very inaccurate, so we wound up hiking alot further than we had to and turning around before we eventually found some of the walls.
Now the hard part -- Finding a route on the wall within our skill range. We spent awhile walking around the base of the cliff eyeballing the bolts up there, and deciding most were well outside of our ability. Once we found one that looked promising, I attempted to climb it and quickly determined that it too was outside of our range. Drats. Some additional searching yielded another route, which I was able to setup far more successfully. Annette got stuck 1/3 of the way up or so and came back down, but Matt managed to fight his way to the top eventually.
Even though we had only climbed one route, it was getting late and we all wanted to go to dinner. We found a great place in a nearby town that made fresh pasta onsite, which is hard enough to find in Austin, much less a tiny little town in the middle of Colorado. Very tasty! Afterwards, we had planned to put some additional miles behind us, but decided to call it a night and settle in early. 800 miles to go, but we're hoping that a big 1 day push tomorrow just might get us back to home.
Now the hard part -- Finding a route on the wall within our skill range. We spent awhile walking around the base of the cliff eyeballing the bolts up there, and deciding most were well outside of our ability. Once we found one that looked promising, I attempted to climb it and quickly determined that it too was outside of our range. Drats. Some additional searching yielded another route, which I was able to setup far more successfully. Annette got stuck 1/3 of the way up or so and came back down, but Matt managed to fight his way to the top eventually.
Even though we had only climbed one route, it was getting late and we all wanted to go to dinner. We found a great place in a nearby town that made fresh pasta onsite, which is hard enough to find in Austin, much less a tiny little town in the middle of Colorado. Very tasty! Afterwards, we had planned to put some additional miles behind us, but decided to call it a night and settle in early. 800 miles to go, but we're hoping that a big 1 day push tomorrow just might get us back to home.
Rocky Mountain National Park
Annette here. Yesterday we went to Rocky Mountain National Park. Since it was my suggestion, I am writing the blog entry for it. It was a beautiful park with stunning scenery especially with the fall foliage and we also had a surprise snowfall. Yes, you heard correctly, it snowed several times throughout the day. We had originally wanted to drive the Trail Pass Road, which goes across the park and maxes out at around 12000ft elevation, but because of the snow, we were only able to go part way. It was cold up there!!
Afterwards, we decided to drive around the other existing roads viewing the scenery and then headed towards the 3 lakes trail recommended by my awesome cousin, Chris. The hike was exhausting because it was a one way up hill of nearly 2 miles. The high altitude, around 9500 ft to 10000 ft really wiped us out. But in the end, it was well worth it. The scenery was beautiful, which I think I mentioned already and then after we reached the last lake on the trail, it started snowing again. I was glad it was snow instead of rain. We were also glad that the hike back was all downhill. Since words can't do it justice, more pictures are below.
Afterwards, we decided to drive around the other existing roads viewing the scenery and then headed towards the 3 lakes trail recommended by my awesome cousin, Chris. The hike was exhausting because it was a one way up hill of nearly 2 miles. The high altitude, around 9500 ft to 10000 ft really wiped us out. But in the end, it was well worth it. The scenery was beautiful, which I think I mentioned already and then after we reached the last lake on the trail, it started snowing again. I was glad it was snow instead of rain. We were also glad that the hike back was all downhill. Since words can't do it justice, more pictures are below.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
The Open Road
We spend today driving to Estes Park, Colorado so that we can visit Rocky Mountain National Park tomorrow. Hopefully it won't rain, though it might. We got in early enough to do laundry, which was nice. Since the day was pretty long and dull, here are the highlights.
1 - We found a bagel shop for breakfast. Annette was very excited.
2 - Lunch at A&W in a truck stop. Matt was very excited.
3 - We can go to sleep finally. I am very excited.
1 - We found a bagel shop for breakfast. Annette was very excited.
2 - Lunch at A&W in a truck stop. Matt was very excited.
3 - We can go to sleep finally. I am very excited.
Rapid City, SD
Annette Here. Just a quick blurb about Rapid City, which is the tourist hub if you want to see Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands. It's a quaint town nestled in the Black Hills of SD. We stayed at the Dakota Pines Inn, which was inexpensive and nice. If you find yourself there, we recommend eating at the Firehouse Brewing Company and Sanford's Grub and Pub.
Mt. Rushmore, Badlands and Wall Drug...
Annette here. Yesterday was quite a busy day. Our first stop was Mt. Rushmore, a true American Icon. Luckily, we arrived in time to catch the free Ranger guided tour. We learned the history of the monument site and why those 4 presidents were chosen.
After we were finished with Mt. Rushmore, we started the 2 hour drive to the Badlands. On the way to the Badlands, we kept spotting these strange billboard advertising signs sponsored by Wall Drug. Normally, we are the type of people to ignore advertising, but these billboards just dragged us in and we had to stop at this place called Wall Drug. It was the true definition of kitsch. You could buy everything from ice cream to cowboy boots and they even had an animatronic T-Rex. One of the billboards we passed mentioned a T-Rex. Now, for those of you who were kids in the 80's, remember the Yes and Know Trivia Books with the invisible ink, well I found one and bought it and yes, the copyright was still 1986. Anyway, realizing that we had spent over an hour at Wall Drug, we decided to press onward to the Badlands.
We weren't sure what to expect there, but it turned out to be quite an interesting geological area. On one side of the road is grassland, the other is a beautiful vista of rugged small mountain terrain and canyons carved out by the river. The terrain is fragile and erodes about an inch per year. The park also had a prairie dog town and wow, there were lots of them and they were really cute.
We only had enough time to do 2 short hikes and one of them finally took us off the boardwalk. By the time we finished the hike, the sun was setting and we headed back to the hotel.
After we were finished with Mt. Rushmore, we started the 2 hour drive to the Badlands. On the way to the Badlands, we kept spotting these strange billboard advertising signs sponsored by Wall Drug. Normally, we are the type of people to ignore advertising, but these billboards just dragged us in and we had to stop at this place called Wall Drug. It was the true definition of kitsch. You could buy everything from ice cream to cowboy boots and they even had an animatronic T-Rex. One of the billboards we passed mentioned a T-Rex. Now, for those of you who were kids in the 80's, remember the Yes and Know Trivia Books with the invisible ink, well I found one and bought it and yes, the copyright was still 1986. Anyway, realizing that we had spent over an hour at Wall Drug, we decided to press onward to the Badlands.
We weren't sure what to expect there, but it turned out to be quite an interesting geological area. On one side of the road is grassland, the other is a beautiful vista of rugged small mountain terrain and canyons carved out by the river. The terrain is fragile and erodes about an inch per year. The park also had a prairie dog town and wow, there were lots of them and they were really cute.
We only had enough time to do 2 short hikes and one of them finally took us off the boardwalk. By the time we finished the hike, the sun was setting and we headed back to the hotel.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
All about Matt
Matt here. Friday we were in Cody, WY. Cody was our stop point because it was well placed between Yellowstone and Mt. Rushmore, and because it contained a museum that I dragged Mike and Annette to.
Cody is the home of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Buffalo Bill Cody founded Cody) and the Historical Center houses the largest collection of American firearms in existence. I had first heard of the firearms collection in Cody a few years ago on a TV show and have wanted to go there ever since. That museum was the reason I wanted to go to Cody. Joyfully, I was not disappointed!
I spent close to 3 hours looking at over 2700 firearms representing examples of every kind of firearm I'd ever heard of, seen, or read about, and a huge number I had never even knew existed. They had actual surviving examples of 16th century "hand cannons" to modern era one-of-a-kind prototypes. I got to see examples of techniques I had only read about before and learned a bunch because I could finally see examples of the techniques. I learned new historical facts about areas I though I knew well. I have never seen a collection this extensive and this well presented before. Without boring y'all with details, I raved about what I had seen for the rest of the day to Mike and Annette.
The museum also had 4 other major exhibits on natural history, Buffalo Bill himself, the Plains Indians and Western art. I only spent about 30 minutes running through the Buffalo Bill and Plains Indians exhibits as we had to get on the road to our next destination.
I think Mike and Annette spent about 1.5 hours in the whole museum and then wandered around Cody until I was done.
I think we drove to Rapid City, SD, to see Mount Rushmore that afternoon, but, honestly, all I can remember about that day is the museum. So, yes, today was all about me :-) .
Cody is the home of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (Buffalo Bill Cody founded Cody) and the Historical Center houses the largest collection of American firearms in existence. I had first heard of the firearms collection in Cody a few years ago on a TV show and have wanted to go there ever since. That museum was the reason I wanted to go to Cody. Joyfully, I was not disappointed!I spent close to 3 hours looking at over 2700 firearms representing examples of every kind of firearm I'd ever heard of, seen, or read about, and a huge number I had never even knew existed. They had actual surviving examples of 16th century "hand cannons" to modern era one-of-a-kind prototypes. I got to see examples of techniques I had only read about before and learned a bunch because I could finally see examples of the techniques. I learned new historical facts about areas I though I knew well. I have never seen a collection this extensive and this well presented before. Without boring y'all with details, I raved about what I had seen for the rest of the day to Mike and Annette.
The museum also had 4 other major exhibits on natural history, Buffalo Bill himself, the Plains Indians and Western art. I only spent about 30 minutes running through the Buffalo Bill and Plains Indians exhibits as we had to get on the road to our next destination.
I think Mike and Annette spent about 1.5 hours in the whole museum and then wandered around Cody until I was done.
I think we drove to Rapid City, SD, to see Mount Rushmore that afternoon, but, honestly, all I can remember about that day is the museum. So, yes, today was all about me :-) .
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Yellowstone
We spent today in Yellowstone. Yellowstone is a BIG park. Our usual park exploration method is to drive around the park to see the sights near the road, and then choose something interesting that worth hiking into or otherwise spending more time at. This technique does not work as well in Yellowstone, since we were less than 1/3 of the way through the park by the time we had to leave in order to get a hotel before dark. This probably has something to do with the fact that the park is larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined.... (Seems to me like Yellowstone belongs in Texas!) Time permitting, we would have liked to spend more time exploring the middle and northern sections of the park, but we're now into the last week of our trip, have many things to see, and are still over a 1000 miles from home....
Back to what we DID see, though. We entered Yellowstone from the west entrance. This area is relatively flat, with dense pine forest and occasional meadows which all seemed to contain at least a few bison. It was very neat to see them roaming in the wild! As we drove on, we turned to the south since we wanted to make sure that we saw Old Faithful and the other geysers and volcanic features which are heavily concentrated in this area.
Along the wide, we took a side trip around a short side loop paralleling the Fire Hole River, which had incredible scenery as is turned and cut it's way through the volcanic rock, forming steep waterfalls and rapids.
It was immediately obvious from quite a distance when we began to approach the volcanic areas, since steam was rising in large quantities from the landscape. You cannot walk on the ground in these areas for obvious reasons, but the park has installed boardwalks through the various volcanic basis that bring you within 10 or 20 feet of many geysers, mud pots, and hot springs. We were even lucky enough to be near one or two of the geysers when the erupted, which was very cool.
No trip to Yellowstone could be complete without the most famous geyser of all, so we headed down to old faithful. It wasn't predicted to erupt for another hour, so we grabbed lunch and were in the viewing area right in time. This was far larger than the little geysers we'd seen earlier, and well deserving of it's reputation. We can check one more American icon of our list of things to see!
We drove through the lakes district of Yellowstone to the East side, and stopped at one last volcanic area to look around before heading out the east edge of the park. Since hotels near Yellowstone were so booked, and our time is growing short, we elected to press onward to Cody, WY and leave Yellowstone behind, despite having skipped over 2/3 of the park. If you're ever heading to Yellowstone, plan 2 days for even a superficial visit to the park!
Back to what we DID see, though. We entered Yellowstone from the west entrance. This area is relatively flat, with dense pine forest and occasional meadows which all seemed to contain at least a few bison. It was very neat to see them roaming in the wild! As we drove on, we turned to the south since we wanted to make sure that we saw Old Faithful and the other geysers and volcanic features which are heavily concentrated in this area.
Along the wide, we took a side trip around a short side loop paralleling the Fire Hole River, which had incredible scenery as is turned and cut it's way through the volcanic rock, forming steep waterfalls and rapids.
It was immediately obvious from quite a distance when we began to approach the volcanic areas, since steam was rising in large quantities from the landscape. You cannot walk on the ground in these areas for obvious reasons, but the park has installed boardwalks through the various volcanic basis that bring you within 10 or 20 feet of many geysers, mud pots, and hot springs. We were even lucky enough to be near one or two of the geysers when the erupted, which was very cool.
No trip to Yellowstone could be complete without the most famous geyser of all, so we headed down to old faithful. It wasn't predicted to erupt for another hour, so we grabbed lunch and were in the viewing area right in time. This was far larger than the little geysers we'd seen earlier, and well deserving of it's reputation. We can check one more American icon of our list of things to see!We drove through the lakes district of Yellowstone to the East side, and stopped at one last volcanic area to look around before heading out the east edge of the park. Since hotels near Yellowstone were so booked, and our time is growing short, we elected to press onward to Cody, WY and leave Yellowstone behind, despite having skipped over 2/3 of the park. If you're ever heading to Yellowstone, plan 2 days for even a superficial visit to the park!
Wandering Through Wyoming
We started the day with a visit the the various museums inside of Union Station in downtown Ogden. Matt had read that there was a Browning Firearms museum there, which he wanted to see. Since the same $5 admission got us into all of the other museums as well, we also saw the classic car collection and the railroad museums there. They were all interesting, and worth a couple hours of our time.
The plan from there was to drive up to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, just south of Grand Teton National Park. This would let us spend Thursday exploring that park, and finishing by driving through Yellowstone to the west entrance where we could spend the night before exploring the rest of Yellowstone. This sounded like a good plan, especially since Jackson Hole had many dozens of hotels, so finding a hotel there wouldn't be a problem. After all, ski season hasn't started, and the summer season is over. This must be low season, right? We drove over the mountains and into Jackson Hole, found ourselves a wireless hotspot outside of a Best Western and began our now familiar search for a hotel. After calling 42 (Yes, forty-two!) hotels, we only found two available rooms in the entire city. One was a smoking room, and the other was $600/night. It's time for plan B.
We started calling hotels in West Yellowstone, where we intended to stay Thursday night. Turns out they were all booked as well (What is going on around here?!?!), but thankfully one of the clerks directed us to a hotel 30 miles or so south of there with rooms available. We immediately called and booked a room at the Anglers Lodge. The only downside was that we now had to drive another 100 miles, backtracking over the mountain before we could sleep. We switched up drivers and headed out, stopping for dinner along the way. Happily, the hotel turned out to be very nice.
Since Grand Teton is now going to be far out of our way, the new plan is to tour Yellowstone on Thursday, and decide later on if we'll find another room nearby for a 2nd night in Yellowstone, or if we will push onward towards Cody and Mt. Rushmore.
The plan from there was to drive up to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, just south of Grand Teton National Park. This would let us spend Thursday exploring that park, and finishing by driving through Yellowstone to the west entrance where we could spend the night before exploring the rest of Yellowstone. This sounded like a good plan, especially since Jackson Hole had many dozens of hotels, so finding a hotel there wouldn't be a problem. After all, ski season hasn't started, and the summer season is over. This must be low season, right? We drove over the mountains and into Jackson Hole, found ourselves a wireless hotspot outside of a Best Western and began our now familiar search for a hotel. After calling 42 (Yes, forty-two!) hotels, we only found two available rooms in the entire city. One was a smoking room, and the other was $600/night. It's time for plan B.
We started calling hotels in West Yellowstone, where we intended to stay Thursday night. Turns out they were all booked as well (What is going on around here?!?!), but thankfully one of the clerks directed us to a hotel 30 miles or so south of there with rooms available. We immediately called and booked a room at the Anglers Lodge. The only downside was that we now had to drive another 100 miles, backtracking over the mountain before we could sleep. We switched up drivers and headed out, stopping for dinner along the way. Happily, the hotel turned out to be very nice.Since Grand Teton is now going to be far out of our way, the new plan is to tour Yellowstone on Thursday, and decide later on if we'll find another room nearby for a 2nd night in Yellowstone, or if we will push onward towards Cody and Mt. Rushmore.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
No Internet Access!
Last nights hotel didn't have (working) internet access, so we couldn't update last night. We're sitting in a cafe now, so this will have to be short. Yesterday we traveled to Ogden, UT, with a stop-off at Maple Canyon to try our hand at climbing on cobblestone composite. It was different, but fun! Matt even managed to conquer a 5.9+ route out there. Since it was Annette's birthday (the big three-o!) she picked out where to go for dinner. She had traveled to Ogden before on business, so knew of a great steakhouse (The Timber Mine, or as Annette recalled, "the something wagon"). This made it a bit harder to locate on the navigation system, but persistence paid off eventually. The food, as she recalled, was excellent, as was the service.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Today is My Birthday!
Annette here. It's my birthday today! Today we are headed to Maple Canyon and areas north of here.
Granary Canyon
Today was our trip down Granary Canyon with Desert Highlights. We were really happy to have managed to book this trip, because we've never had quite so much trouble making reservations for anything. We found Desert Highlights our very first day in Moab, stopped in and talked to them, but didn't book since we had not looked elsewhere yet. It turned out that all of the other guide services all went to the same few heavily traveled canyons, while Desert Highlights had a LARGE selection of relatively unknown canyons that only they used. Granary Canyon looked really cool to us, so we went back the next morning to book it, but the shop was closed. We continued stopping in every day (sometimes repeatedly) for the next few days, but it was always closed. Fortunately, we got lucky on Saturday after our rafting trip and caught them returning from a trip, so we were able to schedule for today. Yay!
We arrived at the trailhead (sort of) after a 45 minute drive. There wasn't a trail, though, we just sort of struck out across open desert for awhile until we came to the rim of a deep canyon. We continued hiking along the rim of the canyon, until we reached a passable spot and climbed down. (Nope, not rappelled. Climbed.) Throughout the day, we did 7 rappels, and a number of challenging climbs both up and down. The most interesting of these was using a technique called "chimneying". This is done in narrow areas, and involves putting your back against one wall and your feet against another in order to make your way up or down a narrow section of canyon. We were all rather taken aback when we came to a 25 foot deep crack which we all had to descend in this fashion. While chimneying for the first time is rather nerve racking, it is actually very easy, and a very safe way to move about in a canyon.
As befits any adventure trip, this particular journey managed to save the best for last. After 6 miles of hiking, climbing, and rappelling through the desert, we came to the edge of the Colorado river valley and were rewarded with the most spectacular view of the day. Of course, the road home was at the BOTTOM of the valley, hundreds of feet below. We did our longest rappel of the day (200 feet!) down the the bottom of the cliff, which was still way above the road. The rest of trip trail was a scramble down the loose rock piles that pile up at the bottom of the cliffs. By the time was got through this, we were all glad to be back on flat land and next to the shuttle vehicle to take us home.
We are going to be sore tomorrow.........
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Day of Many Things
Matt here. An appropriate subtitle would also be "aaaaaaaaaaaaah [breath] aaaaaaaaaaaaah" for reasons that will become clear shortly.
Today we had no specific plan, and it ended up being a day of Many Things. We took care of our laundry, wandered around Moab looking at the various stores, took an exteme off-road tour and did some climbing.
I have always thought of Austin as a very outdoors-y town with lots of stores to buy fun stuff. Moab, with a tiny percentage of Austin, puts our stores to shame! The first store we walked into had cool camping, climbing and general outdoors gear we had never even heard of before -- much less seen sitting on a shelf! This store prompted my excited outburst that "I WANT TO MOVE TO MOAB!" For example, some of you know that my house in Austin seems to attract scorpions (that are almost the exact same color as my carpet) and Mike ran across a cool tin y little keychain blacklight that I bought so that I could see the scorpions in my house since scorpions glow in blacklight. While shopping we also ran into one of the cool guides from the white water trip and invited him to join us for climbing that evening.
The extreme off-road tour was a 2 hour guided tour of one of Moab's very difficult (4 out of 5 rating) off-road trails in a real military style Hummer (not the mini-Hummers that they sell now). The guide / driver was very good and had a great time showing off the incredible terrain that the Hummer could conquer. Mike, Annette and I sat in the high-rear seats where Mike is sitting in the picture. As we were going over some of the really steep obstacles, Annette added some sound effects that mostly consisted of screaming, a breath, another scream, and so on. H owever, she was clearly having a great time and was just screaming for effect after the first few minutes (hence the subtitle) :-) . I discovered that obstacles I would never have thought a vehicle could go over, could be easily conquered with the right vehicle.
After seeing Moab by Hummer, we went climbing again. We (finally) found some routes that were well suited to us. After Mike hiked up to set up a rope, Annette was the first of the group to actually climb to the top (instead of hiking up). Just then, the cool white water guide showed up and started to hike up to set up his own top rope. Unfortunately, there was only time for each of us to climb the wall once as a big storm (with lightening and thunder) rolled in and forced us to leave the climbing wall early. More specifically, the rain started coming down hard just as Mike finished his climb and we all had to gather our gear, run to the car and dive in before we were completely soaked. I was the last one in as the white water guide had to rappel down our rope as it was raining much too hard for him to climb and he would not have had time to set up his rope. On the upside, we got to see our climbing area turned into a series of beautiful waterfalls (unfortunately, none of the pictures came out well)! 
We finished the day with a great meal at the Broken Oar (which is only the second good meal we've had in five dinners in Moab).
Tomorrow is Canyoneering!
Today we had no specific plan, and it ended up being a day of Many Things. We took care of our laundry, wandered around Moab looking at the various stores, took an exteme off-road tour and did some climbing.
I have always thought of Austin as a very outdoors-y town with lots of stores to buy fun stuff. Moab, with a tiny percentage of Austin, puts our stores to shame! The first store we
Tomorrow is Canyoneering!
Mileage update
Matt here. I haven't updated the mileage in awhile, but we were at about 1900 miles when we hit Moab. Not too much mileage has been added as we run around Moab.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Westwater Canyon
Saturday was our whitewater rafting trip through Westwater Canyon! This meant getting up up 6:00am, but we all managed to stumble out of the hotel room and make our way to the bus. Our first surprise of the day was that the put-in was 1.5 hours away, so the bus ride was a bit longer than expected, but the guide did a good job of entertaining us along the way by telling us about the areas we were driving through, and the scenery was pretty interesting for most of the ride. Finally, it was on to the rafts. This trip differed from all of the other whitewater trips that Annette and I have been on in that it was on Oar trip rather than a paddle trip. This meant that instead of us all paddling (tiring!) the guide sat in the middle of the boat and rowed (Relaxing!). This worked out well since we've been so physically active since we got here.
The river started out pretty tame, with very few rapids before our lunch break, and only small ones at that, but the weather was beautiful and it was just nice to be out on the water floating through such a gorgeous place. Lunch turned out to be "Mexicones", which were tortillas rolled into a cone and filled with pretty much every Mexican ingredient known to mankind. Thankfully, I had brought along enough snacks for just such a contingency. :) Annette and Matt both agreed that the Mexicones were delicious, though.
Finally, it was time for some Whitewater! Class III and IV rapids in relatively quick succession. We hit some really good size waves and got thoroughly drenched. As usual, pictures never seem to capture the scope of whitewater rapids, but here's one anyway. You'll have to trust me that it's bigger than it looks here. Once the rapids ended, there was still 6 miles of flat water to cover, so all three boats in the group were lashed together and they rigged an outboard motor on the back for the rest of the trip. Since it was getting late in the day and starting to cool off, we were all happy to reach the boat ramp and return to Moab.
After dinner we decided to wander around the downtown since the weather was so perfect and we weren't as tired as we've been every other night. Annette managed to find a pair of hiking boots much nicer and lighter than her current pair, and they were on sale since they were last years model. I'd nearly forgotten just how happy a new pair of shoes/boots/skates etc can make her. :)
The river started out pretty tame, with very few rapids before our lunch break, and only small ones at that, but the weather was beautiful and it was just nice to be out on the water floating through such a gorgeous place. Lunch turned out to be "Mexicones", which were tortillas rolled into a cone and filled with pretty much every Mexican ingredient known to mankind. Thankfully, I had brought along enough snacks for just such a contingency. :) Annette and Matt both agreed that the Mexicones were delicious, though.
Finally, it was time for some Whitewater! Class III and IV rapids in relatively quick succession. We hit some really good size waves and got thoroughly drenched. As usual, pictures never seem to capture the scope of whitewater rapids, but here's one anyway. You'll have to trust me that it's bigger than it looks here. Once the rapids ended, there was still 6 miles of flat water to cover, so all three boats in the group were lashed together and they rigged an outboard motor on the back for the rest of the trip. Since it was getting late in the day and starting to cool off, we were all happy to reach the boat ramp and return to Moab.
After dinner we decided to wander around the downtown since the weather was so perfect and we weren't as tired as we've been every other night. Annette managed to find a pair of hiking boots much nicer and lighter than her current pair, and they were on sale since they were last years model. I'd nearly forgotten just how happy a new pair of shoes/boots/skates etc can make her. :)
Canyonlands
Friday we visited the "Island in the Sky" district on Canyonlands national park. All of us were feeling a little wiped out from the hiking yesterday, and figured that this park would be the best to visit because many of the sites can be reached by car, or via very short hikes. (There were plenty of long hikes there too, but enough other s
tuff to keep us busy.) While the views were spectacular, I preferred Arches because you can get up so close to everything. This park was much more about spectacular vistas stretching for miles in all directions. The parks name of "Island in the Sky" is very appropriate, since it is surrounded by a sheer vertical cliff on all sides reaching down over a 1000 feet
tuff to keep us busy.) While the views were spectacular, I preferred Arches because you can get up so close to everything. This park was much more about spectacular vistas stretching for miles in all directions. The parks name of "Island in the Sky" is very appropriate, since it is surrounded by a sheer vertical cliff on all sides reaching down over a 1000 feet
Arches National Park
I'm falling behind on my postings, but only because we've been so incredibly busy here in Moab. So much to see and do! Thursday we went to Arches National Park, just a few miles up from the hotel. It has, surprisingly enough, lots of stone arches, and of course amazing scenery. So amazing, in fact, that words really cannot do it justice, so here's a bunch of pictures.
We hiked ALOT in Arches, and actually didn't even make it to everything we wanted to since we were just too tired.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
First to the Top!
Annette here. So from the previous posts, you probably figured out that we had gone climbing on Wall Street right after we arrived. Well, since Mike had trouble leading the climb, we had to get someone else to finish setting up the rope. After that was done, I took a turn. The rock was hard to get used to at first since there were no obvious hand or footholds, but after a minute or two I learned that I needed to trust my shoes. The wall was indeed very grippy and even the tiniest foot hold was enough to keep from sliding back down. I did have to cheat a little bit because there were areas with nothing to hold on to. Cheating involves grabbing the rope and pulling it towards the belayer and it also provides some added balance. After about two-thirds up the route, it was basic crab walking the rest of the way. I was so excited after I reached the top and I did feel on top of the world. The scenery was incredible. Pics are below in Mike's post. Anyway, thats all from me.
We made it to Moab
Moab is only a couple of hours up the road from Four Corners, so we stopped for lunch along the way. Just about 20 miles outside of Moab we ran across "The Hole in the Rock", which I recognized from somewhere or other, but nobody else did. We stopped anyways, and took a tour which turned out to be really interesting. Basically, it's a 5000 sq ft home that was carved into the side of a cliff face over the course of 20 years by Albert and Gladys Christensen. I suppose thats one way to get a house for free, but damn! It was actually very nice inside, with a comfortable year round temperature (No HVAC bill!), and a number of large well furnished rooms. They even had a bathtub with running water, and electric lighting. Outside, being a roadside attraction, there was lots of kitschy things strewn about such as a jeep made entirely of license plates. Kitsch makes Matt happy, so this was good for him.Onward to Moab, with it's hundreds of hotels. Surely, we thought, with so many hotels and summer being over, we'd have our choice of any hotel room we wanted. Then again, maybe not. Apparently, once summer ends and all of the families and young adventure seekers have gone home it the ideal time for the geriatric crowd to move in without all them young whipper-snappers running about and making a ruckus. Thankfully, we managed to find a room at the La Quinta.
We drove around a bit to get acquainted with the town, and check out the various adventure tours available. We signed up for Whitewater on Sat, since we had picked an outfitter ahead of time. We'd also like to go Canyoneering, but had to do more research on the Internet first, so did not book anything.
Once we hit the North end of town, we decided to go take a look at "Wall St" which is a climbing wall nearby that I knew about. Once we took a look, though, we couldn't help but want to climb, and we had all of our gear nearby. We learned very quickly that trying to climb on Sandstone is NOT the same as climbing on Limestone. (Non-climbers, just trust me on this.) I managed to lead about half the route, and had to get a local to finish setting up the rest of the route for me. Annette then climbed with the rope set up, and made it all the way up with only a little cheating. We haven't seen her this elated to finish a route since we first started climbing a couple of years ago. Matt did the same, and then I climbed up to clean the route. Once we figured out the difference in technique, we realized the route was not really very difficult, just scary due to the fact that there were no ledges to stand on, and we had to rely of friction almost exclusively.The view from the top looking down was incredible, but by the the time we cleaned the first route, the sun was setting so we packed up and headed back into town for dinner, and a well deserved sleep.
Four Corners
We came. We saw. We left. It took slightly longer to do than it will take you to read this post, but only because we needed to use the port-a-pottys. I'm glad this was on the way, so that we didn't have to drive out of the way to see it. But at least now we're not curious about it anymore.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
The Road Less Traveled
Matt here. Santa Fe was great! I really enjoyed the lunch (already well described by Annette) and Annette and I continue to rib Mike about how good of a meal he missed! My parents have been to Santa Fe a bunch of times and they always rave about how great the city is. I had always figured it was something akin to Sedona, AZ, which has a lot of neat little shops and such, but since I am not much of a shopper, I never really had an interest in going unless I was with my parents. Santa Fe is much, much more interesting! The shops are cool and have much more variety than the endless, identical, native american jewelery and such that Sedona (and most similar cities have). Instead, Santa Fe has a great setting and some interesting historical buildings (unfortunately, we only got to see the chapel Mike described due to time), I would definitely go back on my own time at some point.
The science museum and Los Alamos were very cool as well. Some good friends of the family used to work at Los Alamos many years ago, so I had heard a bunch about the city 3rd hand (ironically, these are the friends my parents are currently visiting in Oregon right now!).
We also had an aborted trip to Bandelier National Monument to see some old Pueblo ruins. Unfortunately, we only got about 0.2 miles into the trail when we felt rain and decided that the big storm on the horizon was a good reason to get back to the car and drive some of the distance to Moab.
Mike's Prius has a great navigation system that we have been using to get us to everywhere, which has saved tons of time pulling out maps and planning routes and such. However, like all electronic devices it is (a) subject to being mislead by bad information and (b) unable to apply common sense to certain situations. Factors (a) and (b) combined to put us on NM-126 (New Mexico state road 126).
We told the computer to take us from Los Alamos to Farmington, NM (a city about 110 miles from Los Alamos with lots of hotels), Part of the route took us over the continental divide and put us on small forest roads to get there. The scenery was beautiful as we climbed out of the last of the desert and into the mountains. Then we turned onto NM-126 from NM-4 (this level of detail is provided with those of you who have google maps open in another window). The first surprise came when we saw the sign that said "CAUTION: Unimproved mountain road" on NM-126. However, we were not worried as the road was paved and looked like any other two-lane road in the US. The second surprise came when Mike looked at the nav system and said "Interesting, I have never seen that color of road on the map before, I wonder what it means". That never-before-seen-color on Mike's nav system means "dirt road". Our paved Nm-126 became the very unpaved NM-126. This caused a bit of concern as a storm had just been through the area and the dirt was a bit wet. However, factor (a) now came into play as the nav showed the dirt road as only a mile or 2 long. Mike has put his Prius over a variety of dirt roads in Austin, and this one looked no different when we go to it, so we continued on through. The scenery continued to be beautiful, but it was starting to get later in the evening. Ultimately, the "short dirt road stretch" was actually 20+ miles of dirt road through open range graze lands (i.e. cows in the middle of the road), one-lane bridges, washboard and some mud. The entire 20+ miles we saw exactly _one_ other vehicle and only a few cabins. By the time we found pavement again, it was dark (as in the kind of dark you get when there are no lights but your headlights for 20 miles) and it had taken us over 1.5 hours to go 30 miles from Los Alamos to Cuba, NM. Note that our goal was Farmington, not Cuba. Cuba, NM, is _not_ exactly a tourist destination (I believe "spooky" was used several times), and the two zero star hotels in town indicated to us that we get the heck out of there and keep on to Farmington, NM (if you have never traveled the deserts of the southwest US you may have never seen what can pass for a "hotel" out here -- zero stars is a complimentary way to describe these places!). We stopped for gas and dinner, switched drivers and made it into Farmington, NM, at 10:30 pm after leaving Los Alamos at 5:30 pm. When we looked back over our route on google maps the next day, we realized that NM-126 _is_ the most direct route to Farmington, however, it's the only unpaved one! This is where factor (b) came into play. The nav system did not mention the unpaved portion in advance, and the nav system _is_ for a Prius, which, while a wonderful vehicle, is not a vehicle known for its off-road abilities and should have routed us on NM-4 and US 550 instead of NM-4 to NM-126.
The science museum and Los Alamos were very cool as well. Some good friends of the family used to work at Los Alamos many years ago, so I had heard a bunch about the city 3rd hand (ironically, these are the friends my parents are currently visiting in Oregon right now!).
We also had an aborted trip to Bandelier National Monument to see some old Pueblo ruins. Unfortunately, we only got about 0.2 miles into the trail when we felt rain and decided that the big storm on the horizon was a good reason to get back to the car and drive some of the distance to Moab.
Mike's Prius has a great navigation system that we have been using to get us to everywhere, which has saved tons of time pulling out maps and planning routes and such. However, like all electronic devices it is (a) subject to being mislead by bad information and (b) unable to apply common sense to certain situations. Factors (a) and (b) combined to put us on NM-126 (New Mexico state road 126).
We told the computer to take us from Los Alamos to Farmington, NM (a city about 110 miles from Los Alamos with lots of hotels), Part of the route took us over the continental divide and put us on small forest roads to get there. The scenery was beautiful as we climbed out of the last of the desert and into the mountains. Then we turned onto NM-126 from NM-4 (this level of detail is provided with those of you who have google maps open in another window). The first surprise came when we saw the sign that said "CAUTION: Unimproved mountain road" on NM-126. However, we were not worried as the road was paved and looked like any other two-lane road in the US. The second surprise came when Mike looked at the nav system and said "Interesting, I have never seen that color of road on the map before, I wonder what it means". That never-before-seen-color on Mike's nav system means "dirt road". Our paved Nm-126 became the very unpaved NM-126. This caused a bit of concern as a storm had just been through the area and the dirt was a bit wet. However, factor (a) now came into play as the nav showed the dirt road as only a mile or 2 long. Mike has put his Prius over a variety of dirt roads in Austin, and this one looked no different when we go to it, so we continued on through. The scenery continued to be beautiful, but it was starting to get later in the evening. Ultimately, the "short dirt road stretch" was actually 20+ miles of dirt road through open range graze lands (i.e. cows in the middle of the road), one-lane bridges, washboard and some mud. The entire 20+ miles we saw exactly _one_ other vehicle and only a few cabins. By the time we found pavement again, it was dark (as in the kind of dark you get when there are no lights but your headlights for 20 miles) and it had taken us over 1.5 hours to go 30 miles from Los Alamos to Cuba, NM. Note that our goal was Farmington, not Cuba. Cuba, NM, is _not_ exactly a tourist destination (I believe "spooky" was used several times), and the two zero star hotels in town indicated to us that we get the heck out of there and keep on to Farmington, NM (if you have never traveled the deserts of the southwest US you may have never seen what can pass for a "hotel" out here -- zero stars is a complimentary way to describe these places!). We stopped for gas and dinner, switched drivers and made it into Farmington, NM, at 10:30 pm after leaving Los Alamos at 5:30 pm. When we looked back over our route on google maps the next day, we realized that NM-126 _is_ the most direct route to Farmington, however, it's the only unpaved one! This is where factor (b) came into play. The nav system did not mention the unpaved portion in advance, and the nav system _is_ for a Prius, which, while a wonderful vehicle, is not a vehicle known for its off-road abilities and should have routed us on NM-4 and US 550 instead of NM-4 to NM-126.
Yummy New Mex
Annette here. So yesterday in Santa Fe, Matt and I got to experience the wonderful flavors of New Mex cuisine at the Blue Corn cafe. I was hesitant to order something new at first since I have never tried the red or green chili sauce. So I asked the waiter for samples and he brought us out some. The green sauce was really tasty and not as spicy as I thought it was going to be. The red sauce had a stronger flavor and reminded me a bit of mole sauce. Matt and I both ordered the combo plate #1 which had a blue corn taco, blue corn chicken enchilada with green sauce and a chile relleno also with green sauce. The blue corn added a nice flavor to the enchilada and taco and the green sauce was excellent.
Onward to Los Alamos
We decided that driving straight through to Four Corners would make for a bit too long of a stretch, so we decided to add a stop in Los Alamos to visit the Bradbury Science museum which documents the development of the atomic bomb. Along with way, we passed through Santa Fe and decided to stop in for lunch. I didn't know much (OK, anything) about Santa Fe before, so I was really surprised when we pulled into downtown and found a really neat area full of cute little shops, art displays, lots of places to eat, and no available parking spaces whatsoever. No problem, we'll just ask the Nav where the nearest parking garage is and pull in there. Nope! Those are both completely full. Thankfully, just as we were considering giving up and heading for the suburbs, we got lucky and a spot cleared out just in front of us. Score! We quickly found a place to eat called the Blue Corn Cafe, and decided that trying out New Mexican food was worth a stop. I'll leave it to Matt or Annette to leave a post raving about the food since I wound up skipping on the local fare, but suffice to say they were in a very good mood after lunch.
We wandered around the downtown afterwards, stopping in a very neat games store where the owner was very friendly and enthusiastic, and showed up lots of neat games, one of which will be making an appearance at the next games night. While wandering, we saw a flyer for the Loretto Chapel, which Matt and I were both familiar with, but neither one of us had realized was 2 blocks away from us. We took a quick browse through, and then had to hustle back to the car since the meter was almost expired. Since we still wanted to visit the Bradbury museum, which closed at 5:00, we had to head on without any more exploring, but we might swing by Santa Fe again time permitting on the way back home since it will be pretty much along the way.An hour up the road, we found the Bradbury Museum in Los Alamos and visited. It was neat and informative, and worth visiting if you are in the area.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Mileage Update
Matt here. Total mileage by Truth or Consequences (named after the 50's game show of the same name): 950.
Tomorrow, an eclectic day of Albuquirky, Santa Fe, Los Alamos and Four Corners.
Tomorrow, an eclectic day of Albuquirky, Santa Fe, Los Alamos and Four Corners.
White Sands and the Electro-Zap Boardwalk
A quick 150 miles later (yeah, that seems quick now...) and we reached White Sands National Monument. From about 30 miles out as you descend into the valley where the park resides you can see why it's called White Sands. A band of pure white runs across the valley floor, in stark contract to the brown of the desert itself. White sands is, much as it's name implies, a massive area of dunes of pure white sand. Actually, technically it's gypsum, the same stuff that drywall is made of. This is not typically found in large quantities on the surface of the Earth since, much like drywall, it tends to dissolved when it gets wet. Due to the unique geology of this area, however, it has nowhere to flow to, so it stays put.
Despite it being 5:00 or so by the time we drove through the park out to the dunes, and the temperature being only 81 degrees, it felt very hot with the sun beating down from above and reflecting back up from below, so we elected to forgo the longer hikes that the park had to offer. We just climbed to the top of a couple of the dunes near the road and had a look around.
On the way out, we did one of the shorter hikes in the park on a raised boardwalk that went through some of the dunes. It was a short and
easy hike, exccept that the boardwalk had a rather unique eco-friendly design. It was made entirely out of recycled plastic, which for some reason had the unique characteristic of building up massive amount of static electricity. If you walked along this boardwalk for more than a couple of dozen feet (more if you touched the plastic railing) without grounding yourself, then a pretty impressive zap awaited you or the back whoever's neck you decided to poke with a finger. Needless to say, having super zapping powers over one another was a a great power with which SHOULD have come great responsibility....... It's a good thing none of us are super heroes.
Since we only spent a couple of hours exploring White Sands, we had time left to continue driving further north. We made it to Truth or Consequences, NM (Yup, thats a real town name...) before we decided to find some accommodations for the night and dinner. Pulling off the highway, we began to 2nd guess our decision since the town looked pretty decent, but was nearly completely deserted. (7:30pm on a Monday night.) Just about the entire town went by without nothing but some really sketchy looking hotels going by, but just as the road looped back to the highway we came across a nice looking comfort Inn. Annette was tired by now (7:30... Yup.) so we decided to skip driving around to find a restaurant and walk 10 feet from the front door of the hotel to Denny's. This turned out to be a good idea, as a torrential lighting storm blew in about 30 seconds after we sat down in the restaurant. A soak on the hotels hot tub rounded out the evening.
Despite it being 5:00 or so by the time we drove through the park out to the dunes, and the temperature being only 81 degrees, it felt very hot with the sun beating down from above and reflecting back up from below, so we elected to forgo the longer hikes that the park had to offer. We just climbed to the top of a couple of the dunes near the road and had a look around.On the way out, we did one of the shorter hikes in the park on a raised boardwalk that went through some of the dunes. It was a short and
easy hike, exccept that the boardwalk had a rather unique eco-friendly design. It was made entirely out of recycled plastic, which for some reason had the unique characteristic of building up massive amount of static electricity. If you walked along this boardwalk for more than a couple of dozen feet (more if you touched the plastic railing) without grounding yourself, then a pretty impressive zap awaited you or the back whoever's neck you decided to poke with a finger. Needless to say, having super zapping powers over one another was a a great power with which SHOULD have come great responsibility....... It's a good thing none of us are super heroes.Since we only spent a couple of hours exploring White Sands, we had time left to continue driving further north. We made it to Truth or Consequences, NM (Yup, thats a real town name...) before we decided to find some accommodations for the night and dinner. Pulling off the highway, we began to 2nd guess our decision since the town looked pretty decent, but was nearly completely deserted. (7:30pm on a Monday night.) Just about the entire town went by without nothing but some really sketchy looking hotels going by, but just as the road looped back to the highway we came across a nice looking comfort Inn. Annette was tired by now (7:30... Yup.) so we decided to skip driving around to find a restaurant and walk 10 feet from the front door of the hotel to Denny's. This turned out to be a good idea, as a torrential lighting storm blew in about 30 seconds after we sat down in the restaurant. A soak on the hotels hot tub rounded out the evening.
Roswell
First stop of the day was to head straight up to Roswell, 75 miles to our north. Our expectations were pretty much just a lot of silly alien kitsch. There were a couple of alien gift shops, the "International UFO Museum and Research Center", and some cute decorations in the town itself. Overall, a bit of a letdown, but as Matt says, now we can say we've been there. Worth a short side trip, but thats about it. (although for some odd reason, the entire town smells strongly of manure. Very unpleasant.)
On the way out of Roswell, we stumbled across a Toyota dealership which was fortuitous because I could not figure out how to reset the Maintenance Required light that Jiffy Lube did not reset when the changed my oil, and because my car had begun making a strange squeaking noise when I turned it on. The tech there was able to reset my light immediately, and told me that the squeaking was a common occurance, and was not a problem, we managed to get into and out of there in less than 5 minutes. Onward to White Sands!
Hi Mom!
Annette here. It's Monday, and we are going to be hitting the road shortly. We decided that today, we are going to be visiting Roswell and White Sands.
To echo Matt and Mike, who already talked so much about the caverns, they were amazing and blew me away. It makes all other caverns minuscule in comparison. A must see for everyone!
To echo Matt and Mike, who already talked so much about the caverns, they were amazing and blew me away. It makes all other caverns minuscule in comparison. A must see for everyone!
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Carlsbad Caverns
Matt here. Mike's description does not encompass the full splendor of the Caverns. I have been to a couple of other caves in Texas (Inner Space and Natural Bridge) and thought those were really amazing. Carlsbad completely blows those away! Unlike most caves, Carlsbad was not created by water seepage, but due to the formation of sulphuric acid that ate away at the limestone. This created some really amazing cave structures. Plus, the Caverns are BIG. BIG like Texas is BIG. The caves just went on and on and on, and every view was better than the previous one. If you ever make it to New Mexico, this is definitely a must see!
The bat emergence from the Caverns was cool because they had a smaller area to come out of, so it was like watching a tornado come up out of the ground. But the Austin bat colony seems to be much, much bigger, so the display ultimately was not as impressive.
In other news, Chili's has changed their menu from the last time I was there. I have not been to a Chili's since around 2004 because I didn't really like anything on their menu, so I was reluctant to go, but the dining options in Carlsbad are pretty limited. I was pleasantly surprised by the new menu and found several things I wanted to try, so Chili's is back on my list of places to go.
The bat emergence from the Caverns was cool because they had a smaller area to come out of, so it was like watching a tornado come up out of the ground. But the Austin bat colony seems to be much, much bigger, so the display ultimately was not as impressive.
In other news, Chili's has changed their menu from the last time I was there. I have not been to a Chili's since around 2004 because I didn't really like anything on their menu, so I was reluctant to go, but the dining options in Carlsbad are pretty limited. I was pleasantly surprised by the new menu and found several things I wanted to try, so Chili's is back on my list of places to go.
Carlsbad Caverns
The Plan : Tour the caves in the morning, which should not take too long. Then drive 75 miles up to Roswell, spend a few hours, and drive back in time to watch the bat flight out of Carlsbad Caverns.
Turns out plans are like promises -- They're made to be broken. We made it to the caves as per the plan, and found out there was a 1.5 hour guided tour departing in 20 minutes to a section of the cavern not accessible on your own, so we signed up for that and headed down the elevators. Carlsbad Caverns definitely deserves it's reputation, and we saw some really incredible formations, although not over a very large area since the tour moved slowly. We took the elevator back up to the surface for some snacks from the car, and then moved on to the "natural" entrance to the cave. (Elevators are for wimps....)
From the amphitheater where the bats emerge, you proceed down a series of switchbacks. Then down some more. And some more. And then ...... You go down some more. By the time you reach the place where the elevator drops off the wimps, you've traveled 1.25 miles and descended 750 feet, and seen some of the most amazing areas in the cave. Or perhaps we just thought that because almost everybody else there was a wimp, meaning we had the place pretty much entirely to ourselves the entire time.
After we reached the bottom of the elevator, we still had the main self guided tour to do around the "Big Room". This was aptly named, being 8.2 acres in size and taking a couple of hours to tour around. By the time we finished this, we were tired and hungry, but there are no restaurants near Carlsbad Caverns so it was back to Carlsbad itself 30 miles north to grab some dinner. Since none of the locals we spoke to yesterday we able to point us to any good local restaurants, we tried again with a number of employees in the cavern. The consensus seemed to be that we were in the wrong area for decent food, and that our best bet was probably Chili's. Oh well, we'll find some local food later in the trip!
We returned for the bat flight, expecting it to make the Congress Ave bridge bat flight look absolutely puny in comparison. This, alas, was not to be. While the ranger talk ahead of time was interesting and the scenery much better, the actual emergence was very similar to Austin, or if anything somewhat smaller and less impressive. Ah, well.
Tomorrow, it's on to Roswell and White Sands! (At least, thats the plan......)
Turns out plans are like promises -- They're made to be broken. We made it to the caves as per the plan, and found out there was a 1.5 hour guided tour departing in 20 minutes to a section of the cavern not accessible on your own, so we signed up for that and headed down the elevators. Carlsbad Caverns definitely deserves it's reputation, and we saw some really incredible formations, although not over a very large area since the tour moved slowly. We took the elevator back up to the surface for some snacks from the car, and then moved on to the "natural" entrance to the cave. (Elevators are for wimps....)
From the amphitheater where the bats emerge, you proceed down a series of switchbacks. Then down some more. And some more. And then ...... You go down some more. By the time you reach the place where the elevator drops off the wimps, you've traveled 1.25 miles and descended 750 feet, and seen some of the most amazing areas in the cave. Or perhaps we just thought that because almost everybody else there was a wimp, meaning we had the place pretty much entirely to ourselves the entire time.
After we reached the bottom of the elevator, we still had the main self guided tour to do around the "Big Room". This was aptly named, being 8.2 acres in size and taking a couple of hours to tour around. By the time we finished this, we were tired and hungry, but there are no restaurants near Carlsbad Caverns so it was back to Carlsbad itself 30 miles north to grab some dinner. Since none of the locals we spoke to yesterday we able to point us to any good local restaurants, we tried again with a number of employees in the cavern. The consensus seemed to be that we were in the wrong area for decent food, and that our best bet was probably Chili's. Oh well, we'll find some local food later in the trip!
We returned for the bat flight, expecting it to make the Congress Ave bridge bat flight look absolutely puny in comparison. This, alas, was not to be. While the ranger talk ahead of time was interesting and the scenery much better, the actual emergence was very similar to Austin, or if anything somewhat smaller and less impressive. Ah, well.
Tomorrow, it's on to Roswell and White Sands! (At least, thats the plan......)
Saturday, September 8, 2007
It Begins... Behind the Scenes
This is Matt here.
We got off to a great start this morning and the car's navigation system is doing great.
Our first stop was Fredericksburg, TX, for a great lunch at Friedhelms and great snacks at that shop in Fredericksburg with all the cool samples of food. The samples places had a GREAT mint-chocolate fudge that we split.
However, Mike has omitted a few tiny problems we hit. We discovered that our scheme to play music from the laptop over the car's radio system had a few flaws, one was that Mike's ancient 12-volt-to-AC converter could not handle the power requirements of his new laptop and that my FM transmitter (which can play MP3s over a car radio) was not powerful enough to reach his car's antenna. This problem was solved with a visit to the Carlsbad Radio Shack for a new converter, and a visit to a Wal-Mart in Pecos, TX, for one of those old CD-player-to-car-cassette-player converters. Our laptop is now supplying us with endless good music in the VAST areas of no radio station coverage in west Texas.
Tomorrow is Carlsbad Caverns and hopefully Roswell if there's time!
We got off to a great start this morning and the car's navigation system is doing great.
Our first stop was Fredericksburg, TX, for a great lunch at Friedhelms and great snacks at that shop in Fredericksburg with all the cool samples of food. The samples places had a GREAT mint-chocolate fudge that we split.
However, Mike has omitted a few tiny problems we hit. We discovered that our scheme to play music from the laptop over the car's radio system had a few flaws, one was that Mike's ancient 12-volt-to-AC converter could not handle the power requirements of his new laptop and that my FM transmitter (which can play MP3s over a car radio) was not powerful enough to reach his car's antenna. This problem was solved with a visit to the Carlsbad Radio Shack for a new converter, and a visit to a Wal-Mart in Pecos, TX, for one of those old CD-player-to-car-cassette-player converters. Our laptop is now supplying us with endless good music in the VAST areas of no radio station coverage in west Texas.
Tomorrow is Carlsbad Caverns and hopefully Roswell if there's time!
Hotel at last
I find that hunger makes for extreme brevity. Fortunately, I no longer feel the need for extreme brevity, having visited "Blakes Lotaburger" subsequent to the previous post. This was recommended by the lady at the front desk, so we set off in search of food. Alas, it turned out to be fast food (why would anybody suggest fast food as one of the better places in town? Perhaps the culinary arts in Carlsbad, NM, are not as refined as I've come to expect.....)
Today's drive from Austin made me realize something that I've known for awhile, but never in such a personal fashion. That something would be the fact that Texas is indeed BIG. Really BIG. This is somewhat compensated for by the speed limits along most of the way, but it is still BIG.
Thankfully, it turned out that there actually is a place where Texas actually ends and something else begins, in this case New Mexico. Our trip has begun!
Today's drive from Austin made me realize something that I've known for awhile, but never in such a personal fashion. That something would be the fact that Texas is indeed BIG. Really BIG. This is somewhat compensated for by the speed limits along most of the way, but it is still BIG.
Thankfully, it turned out that there actually is a place where Texas actually ends and something else begins, in this case New Mexico. Our trip has begun!
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