Astrology | Travel | Speaking Spanish
Today was a rest day, so I only took one photo.
This photo still puzzles me. I have no idea how those two eggs got on the ground like that. They must have somehow jumped out of the egg carton that was sitting on top of the table. Yet they are nestled so closely and aren’t cracked. If I catch the chicken that did it, I may have to eat it.
It seems that all the National Parks here are teeming with visitors. All the trails are well-worn, cars spill out of carparks and it’s hard to get away from the crowds.
That’s why I was so happy to go to Canyonlands National Park just outside Moab, Utah and find fewer people. On one particular walk to Upheaval Dome, I took the longer trail to the second viewpoint and seemed to be the only person doing so. I pulled up a comfortable rock and laid down and watched the clouds push and pull across the blue sky and jets flit from east to west.
I couldn’t hear or see any other people. No crunching footsteps. No conversations. Just the quiet. And it was wonderful, a half hour of recharging in the warm sunshine with incredible views.
I spent the day at Arches National Park near Moab, Utah hiking with Brian who I’d met at the campsite.
Brian is one of those people whose passion is hiking and who is also very enthusiastic about photography. He is so keen he got up at 4:45am to capture the sunrise at Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park before breakfast.
Whilst we started our day at Arches fairly late with our first hike at 11:30am, I just couldn’t make the sunset at Delicate Arch that Brian was so keen to capture. I know that I need to take the time descriptions on the trail information with a big flake of Murray River Pink Salt, but I wasn’t keen to come back down the moderate-strenuous trail in the dark when I’d already walked about 15km.
So I elected to stay in the car for the 2 and half hours it took for Brian to get there, watch the sun set and get back. Sounds kind of boring, but it gave me time to plan the next few stops on my road trip, and you know, the sun sets every day.
Last night I stayed in a dingy hostel with what I shall crown the worst bed ever.
The rickety bunk bed creaked and squeaked as I looked for a way to clamber atop. As I searched for footholds, it was revealed that this is the kind of bed you would find at your grandparents’ place that hails from the fifties or sixties. You know the type with the metal mesh that is suspended trampoline style in the frame. The type that can’t do anything but sag really.
Atop the saggy bed was a very sad mattress. It had clearly seen better days, but now, after much tossing and turning of backpackers upon it, it is so mean and bitter as to stab you with the springs inside it. I will even go so far as to say there is nothing soft about it, not even the covering. Just tired metal coils to stick and poke as you lay like a banana and will sleep to come quickly.
Each tiny move you made, be it bodily or adjusting the position of your foot, caused the bed to squeal and rock, creating more metallic creaking sounds.
This bed is even worse than the dodgy, broken bed I bought in LA.
So, I moved on and pitched my tent in a campground where I could get a comfortable night’s sleep on my queen sized airbed.
You know when you make a plan to do something, stop somewhere, and all of a sudden you find yourself in a vortex of white line fever (or here in the US it is yellow line fever).
I had one of those days. I wanted to stop off at a couple of places along the way to Monument Valley, but that didn’t happen because I was just too comfortable driving and sitting in the car.
I had also planned to camp at Monument Valley, but after a look-see, decided to press on to Moab. I didn’t stop to see anything else along the way and had to content myself with taking photos through the windscreen. I was in a drive frame of mind and crunched 350 miles.
Unfortunately that wasn’t me. It was the Grand Canyon getting her payback for me saying I was underwhelmed by her after my rafting tour.
You see, no one ever told me it snows at the Grand Canyon. I have never seen any photos with snow in them. So I never expected to have my views of the canyon from the North Rim snowed in.
Perhaps the moral of this is if you diss nature’s beauty, nature will hide it from you.
Corn chips, I’ve found, are a great way to meet other campers.
After a wander around Kanab, Utah where I popped in to a documentary screening during a local festival (incidentally where I was asked very seriously by one lady if we have popcorn in Australia) I came back to my campsite to find I had neighbours.
The guy running the campground intercepted me on the way back and said “You have some neighbours, I thought they might be able to entertain you.” He’d said something similar to them when allocating their site that he’d put them next to the Australian girl.
Anyways, the three Swiss guys next door turned out to be great company, something that was cemented as we were sitting around having a drink and I pulled out a bag of corn chips. As one thing leads to another, so the corn chips led to us cooking chicken curry and rice together for dinner and then pancakes in the morning.
Food is meant to be shared and I’ve learned that corn chips are made for sharing. So now every shopping list starts with a bag of corn chips.
I started out on the hike slash climb to Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park, Utah not sure if I would make it.
It was rated as difficult in my guidebook and on the trail map from the park and I’m not at my fittest, nor am I very good at climbing things like this 1000ft height to get to the top. They also wrote that many people don’t go all the way because the narrow path with steep drop offs puts them off. I was surprised at how easy it was.
Okay, so it wasn’t a cinch, but the huffing and puffing up to the overlook point wasn’t a killer either. The steep switchbacks were punishing, but nothing that a few stops and gulps of water couldn’t fix.
I then continued along the rocky ridgetop to the very top. At least three times along the way, it could have been the end of the trail as there were amazing views from everywhere along the ridge. One older lady commented that I was like a mountain goat, which I only fully appreciated after I got to the top with a fairly nimble stride. I think it’s just because I like scrambling over rocks and picking a path.
At the top I was rewarded by amazing views over two sides of the canyon.
Even with the stop to eat my lunch in a scenic spot with squirrels trying to get into my backpack, it was well under the 4 hour round trip suggested in the guidebook.
So now I’m going to take those times and descriptions with a grain of salt, because I must say, this trail made me feel like a hardcore hiker.
Before I left LA I made up all these flyers to put up in hostels to find company along the road from place to place. I figured what’s a road trip without any company.
On my last evening in Vegas, the staff at the hostel said an old French guy was interested in getting a lift. I was a bit carried away by all the social activities, so I didn’t follow it up. Anyways, he found me and told me he was looking for a ride to see Southern Utah.
I told him my vague plans and said I could take him to Zion National Park, an offer he took up.
He wasn’t the best car company. It came to pass that he hadn’t understood that I was going to be camping and so he had a little melt down in the supermarket as he started to buy food provisions only to realise he probably wouldn’t be able to use them as he wouldn’t be able to stay at a campground.
I waited in the car while he checked out a number of accommodation options. I used this time to consult the map again and discovered that after Zion my next stop would be to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon instead of Bryce Canyon which is where Andre wanted to go.
When I told him this, he got a bit upset as he said there is no public transport to get where he wants to go. We arranged to be in touch and then I received an email from him saying he couldn’t get to Bryce and that if wasn’t going north then he would hitchhike back to the next big town to catch the bus somewhere else and he didn’t know why I’d changed my plans.
Part of the reason I have a car is that it gives me freedom and flexibility to make my mind up as I go. I also have the luxury of a schedule that means I don’t have to stick to a timeframe.
So now, I have learned a lesson in offering rideshares. I need to do my due diligence and specify that there are no promises beyond the next destination.
Not quite today, but today was the day to soak up the last of Vegas – for this trip at least.
In addition to the partying that was sure to happen being a Saturday night, I wanted to see the MGM Lions. I’m not normally a zoo person, but this is just one of the many free activities on hand in Las Vegas, so I wanted to see the real ones, and the big bronze one out front of the casino.
So I took a couple of kiwis and a Swedish rocker chick down to the Strip to see them too. We watched them for a little while as they pulled apart some food and licked each other clean, despite the voiceover guy saying they had had a bath that morning. It seems they didn’t like their human bath better than their feline bath.
MGM has about 36 lions which are all paraded out, in pairs, on different days. They were cute, if a little bored with being in a humidified glass enclosure. Taking full advantage of the lion’s cuteness, MGM had a giftshop with windows to the enclosure so people could take home their very own Simba.
a little cameo 