Austin thanks to Dave Weintraub

This post is dedicated to Dave Weintraub who felt neglected on the blog.

I promised myself I wouldn’t do this—ever visit Texas. Nothing against the state really, just Dallas, and for no other reason than those damn Dallas Cowboys. Who’s with me? Let’s ditch it and deport all the fans? Anyone? No? Anyway, after changing our first flat tire of the trip in New Mexico we pulled into El Paso and became the only native English speakers in town. Then we trekked across this behemoth of a state towards Austin. Texas is huge. Like, way huge. I’m not sure how big exactly but I am sure there exists some stat about it being two times bigger than all the coke Michael Irving ever snorted, which is a hell of a lot. Brian was real excited about Austin as they have a vibrant, budding film community and he thinks of it as a possible place to set up shop after college. I on the other hand didn’t know much about it, nor was I very excited at all. Our good friend and New York playboy Dave Weintraub had been in touch and told us one his best friends lived there, so with a series of phone calls we got ourselves all set up with yet another free place to stay. We pulled in late, about 12:30 and after some brief getting-to-know you small talk with Katie, Dave Weintraub’s good friend, who turned out to be a totally awesome girl, we settled down and watched a movie. Katie’s boyfriend Wilsen was there and he started chatting about his month in an Alzheimer's drug test, a month that earned him $6,000. I guess I vaguely knew these trials existed but I never really knew they did if you know what I mean. He told us some crazy stories about the month there and in turn Brian told about a place in Madison, WI, that, to teach students how exactly it’s done, removes and reattaches your pinky toe for $5,000, or, for $10,000 removes and reattaches your picky finger. No joke. And in twenty years they’ve never had a rejection. $5,000 for my pinky toe? I would take $500 for that thing. We talked more about tests, apparently Brian has repeatedly tried to sign up for marijuana trials but has yet to be accepted. We laughed and told jokes about this and eventually I fell asleep dreaming of a lucrative salary testing drugs and removing appendages.
The next day we said thanks and goodbye and headed downtown to see the town itself. It was a pretty cool place and I felt as though I could live there one day. I think it had less to do with Austin and much more to do with college coeds walking about the 50,000 student strong University of Texas. I love and hate college campuses. SCAD didn’t really have much of a campus and I look at the sprawling buildings and benches and youth everywhere and while they make me feel some warm feeling, collective youth maybe?, they also make me feel envious. The thing is I always assume college kids are on the way to some great party or orgy and do nothing but smile, play intramural sports, and watch big time college football. The truth of it is most kids don’t enjoy college to the fullest while they’re there. They drink to much and sleep in, they sit and watch Comedy Central instead of reading on a campus bench and Brian and I are lucky to have enjoyed not only our own school but many others along the way. We left in the late afternoon, north towards Dallas to see Brian’s brother Paul. I thought of college and smiled, not because of college but because Dallas lost their game in the last minute while the Redskins won theirs handily and if you ask me life rarely gets much better than that.

More about clinical trials. In Dallas I visited a clinical trial website to see what I could find. I think a vast future in ADD trials and a few sleep and dream studies, one in Australia, awaits me. Unfortunately there I found quite a bit in the way of ACL trials and instead of paying a grand for my last reconstruction I could have made cold hard cash for it, damn. At the time of publishing I still have both pinky toes.

Back up the update train!

Going through photos today and realized I'd forgot this pic from New Mexico. Mom and family, this one is aimed at you because I figured you would laugh at it. Look at the form, the poise, I was born to ride. I am Joe Pike.



And also check out our friend Josh's art skillz. I think that dilly folded up all compact like.

Random Trip Stats to Date

States traveled: 20
Houses stayed in: 16
Tent usage: 8
Hotel Rooms: 1
Dollars spent on lodging: $0
Bars visited: 35
Miles traveled: roughly 8,500
Days on Road: 47
Flat Tires: 1
Haircuts: 1 (Brian)
Police Interaction: 3

Sand Dunes

I realize I've relied on everyone's knowledge of geography on this trip without helping out much. We took HWY 8 east and stopped in eastern California to see the sand dunes, here's a interactive google map of the area. The sand dunes were awesome. Click on an image to enlarge.






These three below are amazing acrobatic movies, click the image to play. If movie doesn't work, get Quicktime, if that doesn't work, well, I guess I just messed up. Whoops.

Sunny San Diego

In San Diego we stayed with a random bunch of college kids through couchsurfing.com. To be honest we never even made into San Diego, they lived northwest of it in a place called Ocean Beach, yeah, real original name, that what we said too. We pulled up to these total strangers house and on the porch was a sea of people. It was a damn party, maybe for us, maybe not, but who cares? It was a freaking party and we were invited! Inside, everyone was, well, nice, but to be honest Brian and I felt ostracized like you wouldn’t believe. I can’t even explain it, I’ve tried to verbally and couldn’t and I sure as hell can’t write it down. We just didn’t fit in, our jokes fell flat and our conversation well ran dry. Nobody asked any questions and no one seemed to talk about anything at all. It seems as though the stoner-surfer-Cali stereotypes all rang true and we were just an audience to their west-coast show. Regardless, it was a blast and we stayed up late drinking and laughing with our new friends.
    In the morning we got up and wouldn’t you believe it, it was cloudy. Sunny-fucking-San Diego. It’s like 80 degrees and sunny year round except maybe 4 days, and I guess we showed up for one of them. We walked down to the beach, a few blocks away, and watched the Women’s World Longboarding Championship. There were some good surfers but the weather didn’t follow their lead so we said goodbye to our hosts and got out of town, finally heading east for good.

The Cali crowd passes Brian by. I think those are our female hosts behind him.
Livers were harmed in the making of this photo.
This bum, or just smelly old neighbor, stopped by to fall asleep. Weird.
The view from the porch, 360 of this skinny palms jutting into the sky
One of our hosts Tommy passed out outside
Notice the sun, oh wait, I forgot, no sun for us.

La-La Land

First off, a big, big thank you to Brian’s brother Joe and wife Alison for hosting us for much of the trip. We got fed, we got drunk, we got our clothes washed, and it was damn generous of them and I certainly won’t forget all they did for us.

I met Joe and Alison and they met me with a drink. We got the grand tour. I got another drink. Joe showed me the pool he built, many weekends in a row in the blazing sun, Alison showed me another drink. We walked up their observation tower, from the top overlooking the entire valley, a tower they built in a few weekends. We came inside and sat down to chat, but first, another drink, we finished the chat and set out to the hot tub, but first, another drink. The water was warm and therapeutic, the jets massaged my back, sore from a day in the car and early in the morning, after yet another drink, I fell asleep. This was how I was welcomed to LA, in the hills in an amazing home, with smiles, laughs and booze.
    The house was so relaxing that for our first day in LA we just lounged around it. Once we played a little basketball, I’ve learned a lot on this trip and one more thing was learned that day, it’s that we sure suck at basketball. Joe came home from work and took us for some amazing sushi, It was damn good. Scratch that, it was delicious. Watching Brian and his brother interact was very interesting, seeing their similarities and differences. After dinner we headed over to Morgan’s house near Santa Monica. Morgan lives with Jamie Miguel and two other SCADdies. It was weird seeing the whole bunch together and after the initial so-what-the-hell-is-up, oh-this-and-that-you-know, yep-yadda-yadda-and-so-forth, good-to-see-you’s we went out to grab some drinks. At the bar I was surrounded by gorgeous women. It was magnificent. Not only that, but because, I assume, they operate on the assumption that you could know someone important or could be someone important, everyone of them was open to chat it up. Wonderful. Booze was expensive and Morgan had to work early so we headed home and fell asleep at their house. The next day I forget what we did but I do know that we got absolutely blitzed at some bar, somewhere, and had big group hugs and drunken smiles for a whole night. Terrific.
    We visited Morgs at work and I must say this, Morgan loves what he does, he enjoys all of it, and I would love to have that experience, but me personally, well I could never—never—sit and stare at a computer screen for over 60 hours a week. We showed up and the lights were off, a dim glow emanating on every persons face. It hurt my eyes just thinking of their eyes. For a bit we looked at the projects he was working on, cool stuff from the Morgster, and eventually left.
    The rest of the trip the weather sucked. Absolutely terrible. This is a city that according to most, never gets rain and sure enough it rained all the time. So we lounged inside, a lot, and the days became a blur.
    One night we met up with our college friend Molly at her house with plans to go out to a concert. Instead we chatted, laughed and got drunk. At one point we ran out for more beer, on the way we saw a shopping cart and before I knew it I was flying down the street inside it, Brian propelling the cart behind me. We hit a pot hole and the whole mess went crashing to the ground, me flying forward and Brian right into the cart. Despite a massive head blow for Brian we all laughed at the whole episode for a long time. It was great catching up with Molly and the next morning we exchanged hungover goodbyes and headed off.
    That night we met my Dad for dinner, which was fun but lacking the man-to-man bonding I wanted, after which we met yet another SCAD-grad at her bar. It was wonderful to see her, I’ve always thought she was a truly great person and it was nice to see that LA hasn’t changed my perception of her one bit. She’s one those genuine people who smiles at you and means it, who is nice because she’s genuinely nice. She’s a Midwestern girl too and Mom (a Midwesterner herself) always extols the virtues of those Midwest women. Brian and I played pool and when Emily had a time she stopped and we caught up. Eventually we left and it was kind of a downer, Emily’s the type of girl I would like to say ‘hey lets walk along the beach and talk and see if we make each other smile’ but instead she was inside and I was walking out the door wondering what a walk with her would be like, if it would mean everything or nothing at all. It’s not like a regret or a disappointment, it’s just that I see these people come through my life and let them go without ever taking a chance that something important could be waiting right there for me to find. Or else those sort of things just find you. L.A. (and California in general) was full of gorgeous woman and I really felt down because in my heart I wanted to meet all of them and find someone who could make me feel that spark, that mad desire to spend every minute, every moment in their company. That person who made me feel wanted and someone I could let know how much I wanted and I need in my life. That feeling has been so gone for so long now and I miss it. It’s funny my friends are out here making career moves, an endless, aimless, pursuit of money and they’re passionate about it, they know what they’re working for and how to get there and I’m not that way at all. The thing I desire most, finding someone to be passionate about is something I can’t control, something there is no path for. It’s something I’ll have to wait for, and it’s hard to wait and wonder when that passion will arrive, or if it will ever arrive at all. Alas, que sera sera. It was our last night in LA and leaving it felt kind of sad. I don’t despise the city like so many people do, people dream here and if there’s anything in this world I can relate to—it’s dreaming.

Oh, I almost forgot, we sat in traffic for what felt like one fifth of our visit. I would talk more about it but the transcript of those moments involves lots of cursing and anger and wouldn’t be very interesting, as sitting in stand still traffic rarely is, although, I have had some interesting sitting-in-traffic moments. Once, a car with two girls on their way back to college pulled up next to me while I was at work in the VDOT truck, We exchanged smiling glances for a few minutes and before I knew it I was treated to show of breasts, followed by my redneck co-workers yelling over the CB-radio static, ‘hssss…di’juh see tham titties?…hssss…ew’eeeeee, they got me’all hot!’ It was all those guys talked about for weeks straight, coming over the CB during work to say something like ‘hssss…Eric, j’ew ‘member tham titties?…hssss…they still got me’all hot!’

Joey and Alison's house in the hills
How many SCAD grads does it take to look gay on a couch?
At my urging Brian and Morgan had a street fight. Friends to the end.
And this was the last she saw of her pointer finger.
Morgs, Brian and Tina whose birthday or something or other we were celebrating. Like we needed an excuse!I call this image 'Brian Escapes'
So this girls hair got caught on this guys coat button. Boy did that look sexual!
This my friends is what you call a 'drunken vacant stare'
Uh, Brian, my eyes aren't working so well anymore.

PCH

The D-Day: Dry Dull Desert Driving

**for the non-readers, scroll down for photos**
We took off out of the suburban sprawl and into the miles of dryness and desolation that is the Nevada desert. Outside Death Valley we stop to buy some jerky because the sign said ‘REAL GOOD JERKY!’ and if there’s anything to get us to stop it’s real good jerky. Death Valley was always a mystical place for me as a child, along with the Bermuda Triangle, because as a child I was anything if not literal minded and the name says it’s a valley of death. Scary. Death valley holds the title of the second highest daytime temperature ever recorded in the world at 134 degrees, and that reading was in the shade. Toasty. Overlooking the flat desert is the second highest peak in the continental U.S (Alaska holds the top 16 or so (thanks to Sean Takats for the correction)), where snow sits year round, a testament to the many drastically different landscapes in California. We drive just miles east of all this on our way north, still in Nevada, and my mind imagines what it could possibly be like to be stuck out there in that valley of death.
    The drive is dull and uneventful. Once we stop to take photos and piss and it feels quite empowering to be one of the few (living) mammals within miles. Darkness descends on us as we near the capital, Carson City, and we get off the highway to begin weaving west thru the California wilderness and towards San Francisco. The landscape changes quickly, from dry flat to hilly forests. It’s disappointing that we are driving thru at night as I can tell the land here is beautiful. We’ve been in the car for over eight hours and our minds have grown tired and slow and as we begin to climb an 8,000 ft mountain these mental conditions make for fearful driving. We weave back and forth at 30mph, the engine roaring to climb the ascending road. We rotate around the entire mountain, the steep edge of the road switches from right to left and back again. Finally, we reach the top (where I’d imagine the view is quite nice during the day) but without time to relax we plunge back down the other side. The car shoots down the road, the wheels screeching with every turn as the car lurches against the curves, trying to follow it’s momentum and gravity down the side of the mountain. It’s exhilarating and fun and scary as shit. I would be much less fearful if I was driving but I’m not and my life is in the hands of Brian and his driving. Watching someone else drive, especially in dangerous situations can be a very stressful thing to do. Brian drives well but he doesn’t believe in using the brights, it’s a sort’a ‘do unto others’ mentality as he passionately hates when people drive by him with their brights still on and he refuses to become (accidentally forgetting to turn off his brights) the very thing he hates. Personally I would love more visibility at the moment and I’m suppressing a primal scream of ‘FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TURN THE FUCKING BRIGHTS ON!!!!’ I get these primal screams often watching others do things I would do differently. My brother does this thing where, during a rainstorm, he constantly adjusts the windshield wiper speed to match the intensity of the rain. When he pulls up to a stop light he click, click, clicks the wipers until they are off and when he speeds back up and the rain hits the window harder he click, click, clicks them back to full speed. It drives me nuts. I swear if he ever slammed on his brakes and crashed he would do so with his hand adjusting those damn wipers. Everyone has these sorts of moments though, so I don’t feel so bad about my own. For example, when it rains I just leave the wipers at full speed and often forget they’re on, even when the rain stops. They just keep dragging across my dry windshield making that thudding noise and, when he’s in the car, my brother’s hatred for it drives him very close to crashing the car and ripping those fuckers off. But I digress. Weaving in and out, smiling and scared shitless this one hour on the road feels like 5. I notice it’s down to 34 degrees, and find out later that this area gets the most annual snowfall in the US, something like 150 inches average. It’s not snowing now, thank God (although at least Brian would have an excuse to keep those brights off), and we finally push out of the mountains right at Lake Tahoe. The road straightens out and a few hours later we’re pulling up safely into San Francisco.

Alright, what you do is go a-bazillion miles and take your first left

The bay bridge, not an earthquake, just tired eyes

Viva Las Vegas

Vegas has never been one of those places I've wanted to visit. Well, I've wanted to visit, if just to see it but haven't ever really wanted to see it. Maybe it's the mohaked punk rocker that sits deep inside me, inherently abhorring anything hyped up and popular or maybe it's just because I'm an honest person, especially with myself. I just don't understand the idea that you would do things you wouldn't normally do just because someone more or less told you to. Las Vegas is like the ultimate in peer pressure, and if you fall into it and find yourself doing things your-other-self wouldn't do, then you're just a mindless sucker for an elaborate ad campaign. Folks who don't do coke but hey, what's a few lines in sin city. Or the men would would never stop on a corner in their city to negotiate the price of a blowjob but find themselves dialing escort numbers in the dead of night because they feel they have to, I mean it's sin fucking city, you have to! I don't get it. It's like bachelor parties, it's like teenagers and drugs, it's like a black hole of negligence and regret and I despise every bit of it. That's not say you don't have fun in Vegas, it's a party destination, it's like going to New Orleans or Key West or a college town, some places are places to party and so you party, but be honest to yourself and do what you want, not what you feel you should. With all that it's easy to see why I wasn't on the edge of my seat (I was driving so that wouldn't of worked anyway, although my brother drives like that, setback at an acute angle and I don't understand how he's ever comfortable) when we drove past Vegas on our way to our friend Matt's house. I knew I was going to get wild in Vegas, but I knew whatever happened I would be able to look myself in the mirror, and since you have to do that everyday I think it's a worthwhile thing to shoot for.
    So let's cut right to it, the big night of fun and partying. I'll admit, I felt a little Vegas pull, my natural inclination against it was fading with every show of excess and exuberance. The high rollers we are we bought a case of the cheapest beer we could find and walked along the strip taking it all in. I was surprised at the whole strip because I pictured it much larger. It's not all that big and bright really. I thought where one casino stopped another picked up but it's pretty separated, one big bright casino on a lot and down the road another one. It was disappointing really. I'd really wanted to see Dale Chihuly's glass ceiling in the Belagio so we went over there. If your ever in Vegas don't try drinking your own beer and filming in the Belagio, it's not allowed. After that we watched the water show, during which Matt took off his pants and it was all an ocular delight. We headed over to the Hard Rock, where the youngsters flock to make friends and have more fun. We saw a few celebs which no matter how disenchanted with celeb-culture is always fun and an endless stream of people who looked ecstatic about the prospect of losing hundred of dollars. Thankfully Brian, Matt and I aren't gamblers, or at least to poor to gamble, we put a few bucks in some slot machines for kicks, I won $6.50 and figuring it wouldn't get much better than that, I stopped. I got separated from MAtt and Brian and with my sly charm and smooth tongue ("HEY CUTE GIRLS!!!") I managed to meet three girls, in town for a bachelorete party. Eventually Matt and Brian joined us and to all of our surprise the girls LOVED their mustaches. It takes all kinds I guess. We drank and joked and drank for a while and decided what we needed was some karaoke so we ran out and got a cab. The cabbie would only let four of us in so it was decided that I go with the girls, matt and brian would walk. The driver had no idea what we were talking about and we had no idea where what we were talking about was, so the ride did not go well. A $13 fare and giant circle later we were right back to the Hard Rock and since he did such a poor job this is where the girl declared they wouldn't pay him. He was irate. They were irate. I was in stitches. He yelled in his Indian (or middle eastern, or maybe spanish or any accent that sounds like those as I've always been bad at telling accents apart) accent. "You fucking pay me! You pay me! I need to go home, I have wife, you fucking pay me!" He said this while banging on the steering wheel. "I call cops, I call cops, I call cops on all you! You pay me, you pay me, fuck you pay!!!" One girl started crying, it was a giant circus. One girl finally paid the fare and we stepped out side of our deranged cabbies car. Matt and Brian, who had walked to the place (a two block walk by the way), joined us and we waited for a new cab to take us to the girls hotel for a late night jacuzzi stop. The cab never came and someone eventually offered us a ride. As we got in MAtt threw up his hands and declared "Bad vibes" and without another word he turned and walked off. Brian followed and I shrugged and we drove to the Stardust hotel. More drinks. More flashing lights. Matt and Brian showed up. We headed out to the hot tub with our drinks. It was refreshing and hot and girls and bikinis never bothered me much so we had a blast until the sun was almost up. We headed up to their room, took in the view of the city, that desolate hole of aimless financial optimism, and after making out with and snuggling up with Seana (one of the girls), fell asleep.

Grand Canyon. One word: Speechless.

The big problem with the Grand Canyon is that it's so big your mind shuts down upon seeing it. Seriously. You stand there mouth agape and you can't comprehend the sheer amount of space that lays before you. Awesome. At it's deepest: 6,000 feet. At it's widest: 18 miles. Yes. Where we first looked it's about 10 miles across, so Brian and I stood on the rim and looked over 10 miles of rock formations and felt very small and very humble and very, very much alive. After a while our brains turned back on and we drove over to hike into the thing. The hike was steep, in half and hour we'd gone 2,000 feet into it and stopped at an overlook to eat our lunch. The wind was brutal, the colors; astounding, under a clear blue sky we stood and screamed and our voices reverberated for miles around us. After our sweat had cooled our clothes in the chilly wind we turned casually to hike back up. There was nothing casual about the hike. In a matter of minutes we were sitting, cursing the month on our asses in a car. We kept going, minutes later we were breathless, bent over, fearful of even another step. After a few more breathless rest stops we finally made it. It was brutal and our bodies and lungs burned and we felt olympic. Truth be told, despite what we felt was a pitiful performance, we hiked up pretty damn quick—45 minutes when most do it in 2 hours. Hell yes. We felt like bad motherfuckers, with calfs like sequoias and lungs like hot air-balloons. Hell yes. After patting ourselves on the back we limped back to the car anxious to make camp and fall asleep.

(click to enlarge)

Driving to the Canyon of Grandness

**update: scroll down for photos**

In New Mexico I encountered my first elk crossing sign and it was shockingly foreboding. Imagine a deer crossing sign—the deer, head up, prancing, the same pose that people draw Santa’s reindeer in. It looks elegant and graceful, something you almost want to see one merrily hop-scotching in front of your car. An elk crossing sign is much, much different. It’s a giant horned beast, bucking, ready to kill anything in its path. An elk crossing sign is a scary, scary thing. I say this not because it’s necessarily pertinent to the trip as stands, but we passed one on our way out of Albuquerque and the pissed-off beast made me laugh and I just figured I should mention it before we get this thing going again.
    The landscape of New Mexico is burnt and under the haze of thick sun it looks dirty and cheap. It’s not really cheap it’s just that everything you can see is a shade of brown. Where a plant sits, it sits sun-beat and crisp, just by looking at it you can hear how it would sound underneath your feet. For this reason I was glad when the landscape changed to deep red cliffs which were absolutely breathtaking. Sporadically, because we were driving parallel to historic route 66, tacky billboards advertise crappy items and shops we could but never will visit along the way. We pushed into Arizona and I couldn’t wait to see my first tall, pitchfork like cactus. Then I waited and waited and to this moment I’m still waiting. Major disappointment. I was under the impression (damn you Roadrunner and Willey Coyote) that almost anywhere you went in the southwest a large cactus stood to be seen, but, at least along the roads we traveled, not one existed. Eventually we reached the Petrified forest and spent the afternoon mesmerized by the preserved history of millions of years of geological change on earth. Thoroughly amazed and with the sun low we turned northwest to the Grand Canyon.
    In Flagstaff, at our one-millionth taco bell dinner, we discussed our predicament; it was 8:00 and we were more or less at our destination, to drink or not to drink? We pulled out our trusty Let’s Go to see what Flagstaff had to offer in way of nightlife and what we found altered time, maybe not time exactly but certainly our time and certainly my sobriety; dime beer night. A modest $4 cover gained you the privilege of purchasing beers for the price of a bum donation. We found our way down 66 to the host of the dime beers, the Museum Club. As it turns out the Museum Club is one of the finest drinking establishments I’ve ever set foot in, seriously, top five at least. It’s basically a giant log cabin built in 1913. Inside, country music blares out over an all wood dance floor surrounded by knotted, lacquered trees running floor to roof. Brian played pool while I watched playoff baseball, we met cowboys and a very cute cowgirl (whom I overtipped with a minor math mistake, 5 minus 2.50 does not equal 1.50) and we had a blast for many hours and finally, after failing to coerce the cute cowgirl into letting us stay at her house, we left to make camp. I know what you’re thinking, dime beers and driving, how does that work? Let me say this, Brian wore the responsibility hat, he may have wore it backwards but the fucker was on. He may not’ve passed a sobriety test but he wouldn’t’ve* failed by much. Plus we drove on a perfectly straight road thru a national forest, hell the only thing to ever threaten our safety out here would be crashing into an elk and wouldn’t you know it, immediately we almost crashed into an elk. Now I don’t know exactly how big this elk was but I’ll tell it like I remember it, and anyone whose ever argued with me knows how flawless my memory is—this thing took up both lanes, he had a rack (are they called racks, or is that just female and gun thing?) the size of a voltswagon beetle and when we stopped just feet short from this mammoth beast he stood still and stared us down, challenging us to even flash the brights. Even the elk in the sign was scared. Finally he left and we found a nice area to pitch out tent and I fell asleep feeling as though I was in a tilt-o-wheel.
    At some ungodly hour I was awoke by a coyote howling in the distance. Then it howled closer and then, even closer. Then, as I discerned thru his panting, he stopped right outside the tent to howl. Oh fuck I was scared. I wanted to open the tent door to peek but what if he took the opportunity to jump into the tent and rip us to shreds? I just sat there, scared, ear to the side and waited for him to go howl somewhere else, and finally he did. The incident pretty much kept us up and we stepped outside to pack up camp.I;m not sure exactly how fast the wind was gusting but I would guess at least a thousand miles an hour, give or take a few. After battling with the tent, which apparently can double as a kite, we hurled tumble weeds into the road and watched them tumble far down it. I’m not sure the official distance but Brian threw one that must have gone at least a thousand miles, give or take a few. It was great. With that record setting toss we hopped in the car and drove to the grand canyon.

These Indian scratchings are 2000 years old, check the handprint out.
A huge log of petrified wood. It formed when a volcano exploded, covering the trees in ash and killing them but preserving them, then (over lots o lots o years) the tree sucks up some minerals (silca) and turn into stone, but it's still a tree, so like a rock-tree. Pretty cool.
Distant plantet or earth? You decide.
Very useful sign for all those sand draggers.

Balloon Fiesta

…and I was ripped from it, the wonderful calm and blackness that was my exhausted sleep. We left Denver just for this morning but I'm not even gonna lie to you, I thought long and hard about just laying right there and falling back asleep. Instead, I woke Brian up and in an almost angry silence we drove to Albuquerque's International Balloon Fiesta. At first glance, through the fog of early morning vision we were unimpressed. We saw several balloons in the sky but not much else. We parked and walked to the main field and around a final bend we saw it—hundreds and hundreds of balloons. A sea of colors and shapes lay before us, with random balloons ascending into the sky and behind it another and behind it yet another. The full scope of the sea was not measurable with our eyes, just like the ocean, yet as we walked through the rising balloons we felt as though it was endless. The sound of gas igniting huge flames dancing madly into the sky was all around us, I felt again a child. Oh how I wanted to run and jump into a basket and fly away with these people, anyone, I wanted to cut the rope or toss the weight bags off the side and float away into the sky. Everywhere in all the sky was a balloon and behind it and above it and below it. We would sit and watch an entire balloon be set-up, from the ground to the sky, and no sooner than they began their slight lift-off the ground than they were gone. For hours we walked around the field, never tiring of the colors, never tiring of the urgent ignition of gas, never tiring at all until the last balloon was in the air and all that was left was the very grounded observers, all eyes looking upwards, fixed upon the distant dots in the sky.

(click to enlarge)




(Mom, Jamie & Kel this ones for you)