The very long post on my trip.
Sep. 7th, 2003 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eisoj5Okay! Before I put the link in here, a few comments.
This is a very, very long post. Therefore, if you read the whole thing, you will receive a special prize. I will include instructions on how to obtain your prize somewhere within the post. There is no deadline by which you must read this, so take your time ;)
Left Saturday, August 16th at 7:21 in the morning after waking up a quarter to five and not being able to sleep—a good thing, it turns out, because we still had to shower and pack up the car and it still took us nearly an hour and a half. Drove thirteen hours to Nebraska, passing through the states of Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa and stopping many a time so we could stretch and Darwin could pee. We got KFC for lunch in one of those states, probably Indiana.
Arrived in Nebraska about 8:30 PM our time and went first to Shari and Morgen’s apartment. They seemed decidedly underwhelmed to see us and wanted us to take Darwin away quickly, so we got back in our car and drove to a Motel 6. I checked in ($53.79, I think) and we put the necessities in the room and crated Darwin. Returning to Shari and Morgen, we found that they were planning to take us to look around Lincoln a bit. They also showed us copious amounts of Lisa’s stuff, with which we were to return to Michigan. (Yeah, right. There was a fricking headboard in the pile, as well as a suitcase and shitloads of boxes.)
Morgen drove us around to see the Capitol Building. He told us that it’s Nebraska state law that nothing can be built taller than it (it goes about 15 stories, more or less). Well, it is Nebraska, and there isn’t a whole lot there, so complying with that law didn’t seem too difficult (even if a little silly). Morgen then led us on a whirlwind tour of Lincoln’s disturbingly suburban…suburbs, including one nouveau riche neighborhood in which his brother lives. Big honking houses there, including one he called “the castle”.
Drove around some more (it was now approaching 11, our time) to see some of the other historical sites in the Life of Morgen, including his old house and where he went to school, as well as the campus of the University of Nebraska. Every so often we saw one of the artfully decorated bikes that are the Tour of Lincoln; one was shaped to resemble eyeglasses and others have brightly colored riders doing improbable gymnastic feats atop them. After a little while longer we returned to the Motel 6 and slept.
Sunday, August 17th, we awoke and lay in bed for some time. I took Darwin out to pee and then came back. We watched a History Channel show on the madness of Caligula and played with Darwin, even going so far as to put him on the bed to see what he would do. (He slept between us.) Then we met up with Shari and Morgen to go see the Capitol Building in the daylight.
It was pretty impressive, actually. On the outside where we entered were carven figures who had contributed in some way to politics as we know it, including Hammurabi, Moses, Akhenaton, Solomon, Julius Caesar, Justinian and Charlemagne. The main floor was made of mosaic tile depicting the evolution of various types of creatures in interlocking circles; really cool, although I’m pretty sure butterflies didn’t evolve into pterosaurs. The walls and ceiling were also covered with paintings and more mosaic tile images of people. We went up to the fourteenth floor to the observation deck and, well, observed Nebraska near and far (although I, as is my wont, refused to venture too near the edge). Then we went back down so that we could go outside to look at the Sower, an immense statue atop the building.
Unfortunately, once outside my vision started going fuzzy and I had to sit down…it gets kind of dark after that point, and I woke up to find myself sitting against a low wall, hands clenched in fists and Ronnie, Shari and Morgen peering down at me in concern. Yep, I’d passed out again and done the weird seizure-like thing as well, freaking Ronnie out pretty damn bad. (Stupid period+heat+thalessmia=one very dizzy Josie.) Anyway, after I sat around inside the building for a bit and had something to drink and eat, we went to Wendy’s and had lunch.
Then Ronnie and I went back to Motel 6 so I could rest more; Darwin was quite glad to see us again. We watched “Monk” and Darwin slept on top of my legs on the bed. Around six we met Shari and Morgen at the McDonald’s 3-in-1, where they serve some other foods beyond the usual fare and you order via phone at your booth.
Ronnie described the Kill Corwin Amber DPRG campaign he ran a while back and we ended up deciding to play back at the motel. Ronnie ran a whodunit type of scenario, set in Amber, and fun was had by all—except Darwin, who shit on the carpet and had to be taken outside for a little while by me while Ronnie cleaned it up. (No more greasy chicken for the puppy, I know, I know.) Around 11 Nebraska time, Shari and Morgen left and we slept, again putting Darwin on the bed.
Monday (today, when I started writing this thing), we packed up the car yet again and headed out; we’re currently driving down I-80 West towards the western end of Nebraska to meet up with I-76 South. We’re going to camp tonight somewhere in Colorado or New Mexico; I’m hoping we’ll make it to Taos and that maybe I can swing by the Pot Creek site. We’ll see.
Monday, August 18th, later: we’re driving through Colorado now in the rain. I drove down through Denver to I-25, which was an interchange essentially in the middle of the city. Before that point, though, we passed huge acres filled with small sunflowers so that the hills looked yellow instead of green (or brown). Now, the mountains are beautiful, of course. They’re vast and dark and a little forbidding; I can understand why the pioneers wouldn’t want to keep going. On the tops of many of the smaller hills there are houses with incredible views of the area (and I imagine their own lightning rods, too). The sky’s mostly clearing up before us, although there are still giant rain clouds shedding their bulk over the empty, empty, gorgeous land. It’s neat to see the different layers of clouds mixed with the pure blue sky. It’s much, much cooler, temperature wise, around here in comparison to Nebraska, which was in the 100s when we left this morning. Hmm. Just passed a strip club right off the freeway in Pueblo, CO. Lovely. So it’s now 9:15 PM our time and 7:15 PM Colorado time and I’m either going to nap or play the Sims, I haven’t decided. Ooh, a rainbow!
Tuesday, August 19th now…Ronnie and I are lying down and sitting, respectively, in our tent near Rio Rancho/some other city in New Mexico. Last night we drove and drove and drove and drove and drove until 3 AM our time, roughly, over hills and valleys and scary winding passes to get to first New Mexico and then, once we settled on a destination, Taos.
By the time we reached Taos it was raining pretty steadily and downright pouring when we finally picked a place to stop for the night: Best Western, roughly midnight, New Mexico time. I had hoped that I’d recognize some landmarks once in the city but failed, of course, because I hadn’t taken note of any of the streets in Taos proper nor had I been in the area for over three years. So anyway, the guy behind the desk at Best Western took pity on us latecomers and gave us a room and pretended not to notice Darwin staring at him from the back seat of the car.
Darwin slept on the bed with us instead of in his crate; it was just too damn cold and wet to get the crate out (or much else, either). Being completely exhausted, we pretty much just passed out (but fortunately sans seizure-like action, of course). In the morning, the shower turned out to be pretty decent (the whole room/hotel was pretty nice, actually; go me for picking a good place, even if it was a little pricey at $88) but the tub filled with water rather rapidly. Ronnie got us breakfast (the room came with free coupons for that) which consisted of waffles off the waffle-maker. Then we left for Fort Burgwin so I could show Ronnie (and Darwin) around the site.
Driving through Taos itself proved fairly easy; I started recognizing places such as the Baskin-Robbins, the Sagebrush Inn, etc. At Fort Burgwin the office staff was quite amenable to letting us walk around and even check out the site (although one mentioned that it was covered up), which we then did. Right away we found sherds and flakes, and because a lot of it was in the backdirt without provenience, we took a couple of pieces each. The site…well, aside from being wholly filled in with dirt, it looked pretty much the same as I remembered. Apparently over the past few years others have dug up adjacent rooms, including a couple in the shady area where we used to eat lunch. Ronnie was pretty interested in the site, especially in the rocks, of course. J He also mentioned the smell of the whole area, which I had sort of filed away as just part of the experience, but yes, it does have a particular, wonderful scent that I associate with being there. Pretty damn happy to be back, even for a little while.
After visiting the site, we drove to Santa Fe and walked around a little bit in the central plaza with Darwin, which proved to be quite a task. Sure, he was awfully damn cute and people liked to pet him or have their hands licked, but it was very hard to hold him. Still, we did get to look around a little bit and eat some pretty good food. After that, we drove to find a place for camping, going south on US 25 towards Albuquerque.
We first tried the campgrounds at Coronado State Monument, but were taken thoroughly aback when Darwin began barking extremely loudly and worryingly at the campsite host, who decided that Darwin’s behavior was “not normal” and that he didn’t want to have us there. So, feeling decidedly unnerved, because Darwin had been so very hostile towards the man and it was rather embarrassing, we drove a little ways back towards the freeway to the KOA campgrounds. The people here are hundreds of times nicer and very dog-friendly; our little site is right next to the fenced-off dog run area and nearly all the staff seems to have dogs of their own. We were going to swim, but they closed the pool because there was lightning nearby.
Darwin got to run and play with a couple of dogs that belonged to other campers, but one camper in particular had a little tiny poodle like dog and she became very upset when Darwin entered the enclosure and beelined for it, meaning to play, of course. She yelled at him and made some other sniping comments and eventually left the area. She also registered a complaint with the staff, but they seemed to feel (like us) that it was her problem, really, and that we probably just had to be more careful about letting Darwin into the run area when there were tiny little dogs present.
We also played chess and won a game apiece. Aww…Darwin just walked into the tent and dropped down on my pillow J He can be very trying at times and very agreeable and adorable at others. Anyway, hopefully tonight we’ll be able to see some stars although right now it’s rather cloudy. Ronnie’s reading the Summer Queen some more and Darwin’s just being so very good right now even though there are other dogs who seem to enjoy barking quite a bit. So…before I run out of battery power I should save this and maybe even play the Sims before bedtime.
Wednesday, August 20th: the last day of our lease at U Towers. Hope Steph got everything out of there okay. Not like I can help, or anything, of course…anyway, today we woke up practically with the sun. The night passed without incident, although the light that illuminates the dog run area is apparently motion sensitive and very, very bright and thus disturbed Ronnie’s sleep a bit. There were also trains nearby, I think; it’s hard to be sure when you’re only half-conscious. Laid around for a while before getting up and showering/dressing. KOA (or at least this one, anyway) has free breakfasts so we had two fluffy pancakes and I had some instant tea.
We left the whole tent set up and went to Albuquerque around 10 AM to visit Petroglyph National Monument off of I-40. The Parks Service woman directed us to a nearby canyon that was less developed than the main one, as we had Darwin with us. We walked around that canyon for a while and looked for the petroglyphs, which were incised on the basalt boulders that dotted the canyonside. Unfortunately, because people never seem to value the past, there was graffiti of modern smiley faces and names and dates scrawled on some of the rocks. But the originals were pretty awesome, even if we didn’t get to see all of them because a) they’re difficult to find and b) Darwin was much too hot and we were running low on water for him. The poor puppy started trying to sit in the shade of anything he could; rocks, us, and even the sagebrush, although it poked him in the face a lot.
So we turned back and drove off to explore the exotic wilderness that is the Albuquerque suburb. Naturally, we hadn’t intended to do so, but our distinct lack of any good ABQ maps made it quite difficult to actually turn the correct direction onto any street. Eventually we emerged from the suburban wilds and returned to our campsite. We each had our turn in the pool (I swam twice, actually) and Ronnie read the Summer Queen more. He made tuna sandwiches and we sat on the picnic table looking at the ants and sunset and mountains and clouds and talked about lots of different wonderful things while Darwin sat and slept in the tent. Glorious sunset, of course, which lit up the mountains across the freeway for a brief, fiery time…hopefully the sky will stay so clear and we’ll be able to see stars. Tomorrow we’ll head out of New Mexico and drive to Arizona.
Thursday, August 21st: We’re in Holbrook, AZ, in another Motel 6 with Darwin curled up on the foot of the bed and Ronnie watching the Discovery Channel. Today we drove about three hundred miles from Bernalillo, NM on I-40 to Arizona, passing a number of crappy, extremely un-PC billboards announcing upcoming outlets of Native American kitsch and their “Reservation Prices!”
Last night the sky was fairly clear and we were able to see the constellations pretty well; Antares sparkled especially brightly. Before leaving this morning, we had another free pancake breakfast at the KOA and packed up the car with the tent and Darwin’s accessories. Then we stopped by the Petroglyph visitor center again so we could purchase a National Parks Pass which lets us into all National Parks sites for the low low one-time price of $50. Driving through the western end of NM we saw lots and lots of gorgeous rock formations; colorful and cavern-like or with walls stretching up around the freeway lanes. Once we reached AZ we headed for the Petrified Forest through the Painted Desert entrance. A nice woman at the gas station at that visitor center gave Darwin a treat J.
We drove through the park, stopping at various points to look out at the red mudstone formations and at Agate Bridge, a petrified log that, well, bridged a gap between other rocks. Finally, we took Darwin on the walking trail through the Crystal Forest, where there were probably thousands of chunks of petrified wood and even more little bits and pieces scattered over the ground. Darwin again tried to find as much shade as possible for resting, usually in the shadow of a chunk of tree. My Nalgene bottle seems to be turning into Darwin’s personal water source. After stopping briefly in the gift shop, we headed to Holbrook and the motel.
On the way there, we saw three dust devils spiraling up into the sky near the highway. Ronnie was kind enough to obtain pizza and we watched the Three Musketeers on HBO and a rerun of Friends. I’m still hoping to meet up with Linzee on Saturday, but it’s a bit hard to arrange things when I’m limited by the length of text messages. Time’s also kind of confusing for us right now; we’re living essentially on Michigan EST, but apparently in AZ (as I should have remembered) they’re three hours behind. Which means that I’m a bit sleepier than I should be for 9:25 PM…because it’s 12:25 to me. Aww…Darwin’s so cute.
Saturday, August 23rd: Ronnie and Darwin and I are sitting in Paradise Valley Park in Phoenix, waiting for one o’clock and Linzee! (And Shannon.) It’s a nice, big, surprisingly grassy park, with plenty of shade and trees and a swingset and a skate park. Darwin’s tethered again, and Ronnie’s reading (also again). Yesterday we drove from Holbrook to Flagstaff and then turned south on I-17 to Phoenix. It seems we’re averaging about one monument/Nationally recognized area per day, as yesterday we went to Montezuma’s Castle.
Prior to getting on I-17, though, we stopped by Meteor Crater but failed to see it, as they didn’t allow dogs. The staff/ranger type woman would’ve probably gladly watched Darwin for us, but we didn’t want him/her/us to be stressed over it, so we left. Driving on I-17 was mountainous and winding.
Montezuma’s Castle was cool; this time I think I saw some new things, including the creek that supplied water to the structure’s inhabitants. Darwin was fairly well-behaved and many a person stopped to pet him/ask what breed he was. While Ronnie was in the gift shop, he saw this cool red-striped skink on the floor, which the ranger later put outside.
After visiting the Castle, we went on to Phoenix proper, and to the Motel 6. The motel was kind of sucky. I asked for nonsmoking, but all the rooms came with ashtrays, and ours smelled quite distinctly like smoke. There were two beds, one which Darwin appropriated. He also registered his dislike of the room by shitting on the carpet. Still, he seemed to have some fun by leaping from bed to bed and back again. We watched a strange movie with Neil Patrick Harris and Whoopi Goldberg, then “Kung Pow: Enter the Fist”, which destroyed many a valuable brain cell. Before succumbing to sleep, we watched the season finale of “Monk”. Darwin barked in the night several times, but mostly slept easily on his bed.
Today we drove a little bit around Phoenix in its suburbs, which are like Canton except hotter, drier, filled with different vegetation and architectural styles. It’s the heat that’s most noticeable, though. Now we’re waiting for Linzee (and Shannon) and after we meet them and do whatever stuff there is to do, we’ll be going to Utah. There may also be a stop at the Four Corners.
Sunday, August 24th: Today’s my dad’s 55th birthday! We’re currently resting at our campsite in the Green River campgrounds at Dinosaur National Monument. Ronnie and Darwin are lying on the sleeping bag, which is spread out on the ground outside the tent, while I type this on the recycled plastic picnic table. Yesterday…jebus. Long day.
Yesterday we met Linzee and Shannon at one. They pulled up near the shelter where Ronnie and I sat in Linzee’s car. I recognized her more or less from the pictures I’d seen before; in person, though, she seemed a bit taller. Both Shannon and Linzee also seemed young; I wonder if Ronnie and I seemed equally as old. Anyway, we talked about all kinds of stuff and Ronnie took our picture so the meeting is documented for livejournal’s sake. Our meeting lasted until about 2:30, AZ time. There was a particular strangeness to the meeting: Linzee was physically a stranger to me, as I’d never heard her voice or actually seen her before, but we were also good friends already through the wonders of text. So anyway, we headed out around 2:30(5:30) for Utah. We’d planned to take I-17 North through Flagstaff, then take I-89 North to 160 East, but somehow I completely missed the junction of 160 and so we proceeded further north to Page, AZ. From there, we turned south to meet up with 160, which we planned to take to 191 North.
Unfortunately, we also managed to miss that junction and so ended up proceeding all the way to the Four Corners in the middle of the night despite the fact that we’d previously agreed that we wouldn’t go there. Crossing into Colorado, we headed for Cortez (where Crow Canyon is) and rerouted ourselves through Hwy 666/491 back to 191 North. From there, fortunately, it got a little easier to navigate; we took 191 to I-70 East and then easily made it onto (scenic) Hwy 139 North. It was quite winding and hilly.
Ronnie drove that section (he says, to make up for my having driven the dark and scary and cliff-clinging route to Taos) and I awoke on one of the curves. At this point it was extremely late (or extremely early) and so I saw Orion and a crescent moon in the southern sky where previously I’d been searching for Scorpio and Mars. (I had found the summer triangle and the Milky Way earlier.)
While on 139 I spotted some deer by the side of the road. It turned out that those were not the only nocturnal creatures we would encounter. As the sky began to lighten, Ronnie began to have to dodge bunnies hopping across the road. Lots of bunnies. (Okay, maybe ten-fifteen, total.) We’re pretty sure that all that encountered us survived. There were also possibly bats or owls swooping about.
Anyway, we got all the way up to Hwy 64, where I took over the driving and brought us into Dinosaur National Monument. On the way, the sun rose and infused the landscape with pastel colors. We arrived safely at the entrance station around 7:45 AM, Utah time, and spent some time debating the merits of proceeding to the campgrounds (where we thought we would have to pay extra because it was not yet noon) versus sleeping in the car in a pullout. We went to the Green River campgrounds and are currently paid up until Wednesday.
Our site is up against a rocky wall of sorts, which Ronnie says is limestone. The limestone we smashed contains some fossils J I managed to sleep once we were settled in, but Ronnie (and Darwin) didn’t. After I woke up, we ate peanut butter sandwiches and took Darwin on a “walk” around the grounds. The Green River passes by the sites and there are lots of rock formations that stretch up into the sky around us. Darwin was not a good puppy on his walk, for reasons as yet unknown. He pulled and pulled and pulled on his leash, despite the fact that just two days ago he’d been very well behaved. Once back at the site, however, he seemed a little better. He dug in the dirt, just as he had at the KOA site in New Mexico. I found a lot of bug bites in his ears, though, which worry Ronnie and me a little. Darwin doesn’t seem to mind so much. Not feeling up to exploring the Monument in its entirety, we spent a good chunk of time smashing limestone and looking at the rocks around us. Ronnie wanted to have a campfire today, but we can’t because the area’s under a fire ban (damn this dryness). We saw three lizards, two in our site and one while we explored; lots of dragonflies and regular flies, too. The grounds are really pretty; there are many trees with unusual furrowed bark and the aforementioned river and rocks. There are no showers, but at least there’s toilets and water.
I called Dad earlier, around 1:00 Michigan time, to wish him a happy birthday. He and Mom seem to be fairly at ease about this whole vacation-with-Ronnie thing, which is good. I fully expected them to be much more concerned about all the driving, not to mention the camping, but Mom seems happy that we are camping and Dad just wants us to make sure we take time to relax. Goddamn flies are buzzing me incessantly. Maybe we should get the bug spray.
Monday now, August 25th: we’re back at the campsite again, exhausted after our day (although it’s really only about 2:55 Utah time). Last night we laid out on the sleeping bag under the stars for a while, but the combination of the bright light from the bathroom, Darwin’s need to bark and my paranoia about large wild animals sent us back into the tent. Ronnie went to the ranger-led talk around 7:30 and learned about the invasive species of plants in this area. The talk culminated in the ranger leading volunteers to forcibly remove one larger specimen from the ground. For dinner we drove outside of the park to the gift shop and had sandwiches. During the night it began to rain, so Ronnie put the tent fly back on and I listened to the drumming rain for a little while before falling back to sleep. I awoke in the morning with ants sporadically crawling on me. Ronnie apparently managed to kill a roach during the night, as well.
One thing I forgot to mention about yesterday is that Ronnie dropped his sunglasses in the toilet, rendering them poopy and just about unwearable. We’re sharing my purple sunglasses for the time being. Anyway, today we drove over to the Quarry, where we planned to separately take the shuttle from the main parking lot up to the Quarry building, because we’d previously learned that dogs weren’t allowed on the shuttle. Ronnie headed up first, and I stayed in the parking lot with Darwin and a bottle of water. While I sat outside the building, a ranger came out and asked if I’d been up to the Quarry yet. I said that no, I was going to go up when my fiancé came back down and she told me that I could take the shuttle up with Darwin and wait outside that building. So Darwin and I went on the shuttle (and he was very well behaved). A couple of people emerging from the gift shop wanted to pet Darwin, who was still behaving himself.
Ronnie was quite surprised to see us there when he came out. He said that he had in fact been here before, during field camp. I went in myself, and looked at the exhibits, as well as the fricking massive wall of rock wherein dinosaur bones were embedded. Ronnie, who had heard the ranger-led talk inside, said that all we saw was merely one-tenth of the mountain’s original size, meaning that previously there were thousands more fossils that had been removed.
Most were skeletons of sauropods, including some complete and articulated bones; these stood out in relief from the quarry wall. The man who originally discovered the site had wanted to leave these fossils displayed in context, which made for a pretty astonishing exhibit. After the quarry, we walked down to the parking lot and drove to the gas station outside the park to get lunch. We ate at the camp and then set out on the monument’s auto tour, passing another prairie dog on the road (I’d seen one when we came back to eat lunch).
We began at the first stop, a small shelter area with Fremont culture petroglyphs. Initially, we tried to take Darwin up to see it, but were stopped by a ranger. At the second stop, we saw two more prairie dogs, then moved on to look at the Green River canyon and the formations of Split Mountain and adjacent areas. Towards the end of the tour we saw rocks shaped like a turtle, as well as more extremely cool petroglyphs. For nearly all our stops we were alone, but at the last point we encountered an elderly couple from Indiana who wanted to see the “Indian art” but had gone all the way to Josie Morris’ cabin. She had lived there for about 50 years, eschewing modern conveniences and essentially being a hermit. But I can’t really blame her; that Josie lived in such a beautiful land. Turning back, we stopped again at one of the petroglyph sites; from the road a single large lizard was visible, but I was curious to see it much more closely. So Ronnie took the ascending trail first, taking pictures of both live and represented-in-art lizards, as well as the flute player image a bit further along the ledge, hundreds of feet above the road. I then took my turn, but couldn’t bring myself to get all the way up to the large lizard. There were, however, many smaller lizard petroglyphs and the view was entrancing enough to make the climb worth all my usual terror at being so high.
We returned to the campsite, where Ronnie busied himself with his newly acquired staff (he found it yesterday) and I read Order of the Phoenix for the third or fourth time. There are still flies and ants in abundance. One of the neat things about the site is that we remain relatively undisturbed for most of the day until nightfall/sunset, when people start showing up. This, then, is also the time when Darwin exercises his vocal cords most; rangers marking down who’s here, random bitchlady walkers-by…ah well. Perhaps he will still learn.
Tuesday, August 26th, 2003: Last night was rather rough on Ronnie and me. We started trying a new tactic to get Darwin to be quiet; thwapping him on the nose whenever he barked. It seemed to be working, although when I tried it while he barked inside the tent, he promptly threw up on my bare leg (and Ronnie’s, too). It was gross and runny and had bits of food in it and ewwwwww. We managed to see lots and lots of stars and while I was in the middle of my asthma attack in the middle of the night it was very easy to find Mars (tonight’s the close approach, we’re going to have to go see it at some point in the evening). The blankets were all prickly from the grass and also a bit damp because Ronnie had spilled some water; plus, when I awoke yet again in the night it was very very cold and the blankets were far too prickly to be comfortable. So now I’m typing this inside a nice Motel 6 room where I was able to shower all the dirt and sweat and sunscreen off and where the sheets are pricker-free. (Not including Ronnie’s penis, of course.)
Before arriving here, however, we did stop by the gas station for more food (and lip balm for my poor chapped lips) and drove around a little bit inside Dinosaur National Monument’s other portion, which had some spectacular views of the canyon formed by Green River. The road was a bit winding and cliff-hugging and we were lacking much interest in the region beyond the spectacular scenery, so we headed west from the Monument, towards Vernal, UT. From Vernal I drove Hwy 191 North towards Rock Springs, WY; a very scenic route through the Flaming Gorge and over its dam; it is also extremely winding and cliff-hugging. Still, it was beautiful to look at and there were these cool signs along the way that noted what geological layers were exposed closest to the road and anything significant about those formations. Ashley National Forest was also quite pretty; it contains unusual trees that have their leaves only near the tops of the trunks. There were also areas of seriously burned-out forest. Anyway, we arrived safely in Rock Springs, despite the fact that it probably took a good deal longer than it would if someone who was not terrified of heights had driven. Tomorrow we’re going to Fossil Butte National Monument and driving driving driving to Nebraska, for our trip is nearly at an end…
Wednesday, August 27th, and we’re on the road again, this time headed for a town near the Wyoming/Nebraska border. Today we got up a bit later than I’d planned but that was all right. I took Darwin for a walk outside the motel and it was raining slightly. We drove about an hour west to Fossil Butte on very windy (but not mountainous) roads; I-80 to Hwy 30. Very depopulated state, Wyoming: we passed a little place called Opal that had 102 people living in it.
Here is the link to your prize. http://www.umich.edu/~jscz/prize.jpg
Now (not until you've clicked the link), highlight the blank space below...
(Now, before you get all put out, I will say that I am currently working on a real collage. If you have gotten to this point, I applaud you: if you finish the whole damned thing email me and I will send you the collage as soon as it is done.) EDIT: Here is a small collage which is my first attempt at this in several weeks, if not months.
Fossil Butte National Monument was very devoid of people as well, which was rather nice. Poor Darwin had to shit the entire way there and cried and cried in the backseat to no avail. When we got to the visitor’s center he pooped twice. We went on one of the trails inside the Monument, which took us up close to the main research quarry. It was cool, literally. A wind blew for most of our trek up the hillside, possibly making this the most enjoyable hike of our vacation. Along the trail we saw a lot of snail shells that weren’t fossilized, and lots of rocks that could have possibly contained small fossils from the lake. Ronnie used his staff for the first time J. The trail passed through a stand of aspen trees, to which Ronnie compared his stick: it matched, so now we know Ronnie has an aspen staff. Darwin shit three more times while on the trail, poor thing. No more junk food for him. (We keep saying that.) Inside the visitor center is a little crappy museum of the really cool fossils that were discovered in the Butte, including a crocodile, turtles, lots of fish, plants, and bats! Then we drove back east to Rock Springs and now we’re headed away from there. We’ll change to I-25 when we get to Cheyenne.
Thursday, August 28th and we’re in yet another Motel 6. Last night we drove up I-25 North to Wheatland, where we stayed in a very nice Motel 6 that seemed very much like a real hotel almost. It had interior corridors and we stayed in the room closest to the lobby on the first floor. In the morning when Ronnie was getting food from Arby’s and I was putting things in the car, Darwin was rather anxious in the room by himself but came to the window and put his paws up on the sill to look for me and Ronnie, which was very cute. J
I drove a couple of hours to get to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, which is in the northwestern corner of Nebraska. It was okay; the museum was pretty nice and they had a little horned toad hopping around in a plastic tub. The trail was about two miles and along the way there were several bunnies and in the creek I saw a big turtle! Didn’t get to see any real cool fossils in the hills, though. After that, Ronnie drove for a few hours through Nebraska and I took over to get us to North Platte, which is where we are now, watching “Queer Eye” on Bravo while Darwin sleeps like a cute puppy on his bed. Tomorrow we’re just going to drive back into Lincoln and then we’ll be nearly done with vacation L.
Sunday, August 31st: We’re driving home in the rain now down I-80 East. Friday Ronnie drove the entire three hours from North Platte to Lincoln because my left eye was bothering me so bad I had to take out my contacts and actually wore my glasses for a time.
When we got to Lincoln and were settled in our room (the same Motel 6 we stayed in the first time), Shari called and said Morgen wanted to take us to Valentino’s, this Italian pizza place that had a buffet. So they picked us up and we had a fairly decent dinner that didn’t involve peanut butter or tuna in any way. Then we went to their apartment for some reason and then they drove us back to the motel so we could do our character sheets and be with Darwin at the same time.
Unfortunately they said we couldn’t go to the Nebraska Natural History Museum on Saturday because that was the day of the first football game. The stadium’s close proximity to the museum meant that the museum closed on game days, probably for parking and keeping-drunks-away reasons. So that was a bit disappointing.
Instead, on Saturday, we went with Shari and Morgen to a local park where Darwin got to walk around a good bit—and even run. Ronnie took him at a run through one section of the park, tripped, and Darwin escaped, running full speed towards a pond close by. He ran in and out of the water for a bit, still managing to elude his pursuers (us). Ronnie eventually bribed him back to us with some stale bread he found on the grass. After the park, Morgen took us to the Sunken Gardens, a little space in the middle of Lincoln where there are flowers and a waterfall and a fountain and lily pads. And it was below street level, and therefore sunken. Pretty cool. Ronnie and I are going to build one in front of our castle.
By this time it was getting on towards late afternoon and we needed to put Darwin in his crate before going to Morgen’s D&D game. So we attempted to do so. Before we left, though, Darwin threw up a nasty, watery, grapey, fish-smelling mess. That required some cleaning.
Anyway, Morgen’s Egypt game was quite fun. (Cut random D&D ramblings here.) After the game ended around 9ish, we went back to Shari and Morgen’s apartment and had watermelon. Darwin was extremely glad to see us when we got back to the room. We slept, but apparently he spent the night taking things from the garbage and tearing them to bits, because when we got up, the floor was littered with scraps of tissue and cardboard and tuna cans and Pepsi bottles. We got up around 7 and were on the road again by 8:15, although not without another vomit-related incident. While I was getting gas, Darwin threw up yet again—this time on the backseat of the car. It was thicker in consistency than before, but was still squishy and horribly gross. But he seems much better now, although I expect that he’s probably rather hungry. Only a few hundred miles from home!
Sunday, September 7th: Thank you for reading. :D I will have the photos up shortly to go with this entry.
This is a very, very long post. Therefore, if you read the whole thing, you will receive a special prize. I will include instructions on how to obtain your prize somewhere within the post. There is no deadline by which you must read this, so take your time ;)
Left Saturday, August 16th at 7:21 in the morning after waking up a quarter to five and not being able to sleep—a good thing, it turns out, because we still had to shower and pack up the car and it still took us nearly an hour and a half. Drove thirteen hours to Nebraska, passing through the states of Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa and stopping many a time so we could stretch and Darwin could pee. We got KFC for lunch in one of those states, probably Indiana.
Arrived in Nebraska about 8:30 PM our time and went first to Shari and Morgen’s apartment. They seemed decidedly underwhelmed to see us and wanted us to take Darwin away quickly, so we got back in our car and drove to a Motel 6. I checked in ($53.79, I think) and we put the necessities in the room and crated Darwin. Returning to Shari and Morgen, we found that they were planning to take us to look around Lincoln a bit. They also showed us copious amounts of Lisa’s stuff, with which we were to return to Michigan. (Yeah, right. There was a fricking headboard in the pile, as well as a suitcase and shitloads of boxes.)
Morgen drove us around to see the Capitol Building. He told us that it’s Nebraska state law that nothing can be built taller than it (it goes about 15 stories, more or less). Well, it is Nebraska, and there isn’t a whole lot there, so complying with that law didn’t seem too difficult (even if a little silly). Morgen then led us on a whirlwind tour of Lincoln’s disturbingly suburban…suburbs, including one nouveau riche neighborhood in which his brother lives. Big honking houses there, including one he called “the castle”.
Drove around some more (it was now approaching 11, our time) to see some of the other historical sites in the Life of Morgen, including his old house and where he went to school, as well as the campus of the University of Nebraska. Every so often we saw one of the artfully decorated bikes that are the Tour of Lincoln; one was shaped to resemble eyeglasses and others have brightly colored riders doing improbable gymnastic feats atop them. After a little while longer we returned to the Motel 6 and slept.
Sunday, August 17th, we awoke and lay in bed for some time. I took Darwin out to pee and then came back. We watched a History Channel show on the madness of Caligula and played with Darwin, even going so far as to put him on the bed to see what he would do. (He slept between us.) Then we met up with Shari and Morgen to go see the Capitol Building in the daylight.
It was pretty impressive, actually. On the outside where we entered were carven figures who had contributed in some way to politics as we know it, including Hammurabi, Moses, Akhenaton, Solomon, Julius Caesar, Justinian and Charlemagne. The main floor was made of mosaic tile depicting the evolution of various types of creatures in interlocking circles; really cool, although I’m pretty sure butterflies didn’t evolve into pterosaurs. The walls and ceiling were also covered with paintings and more mosaic tile images of people. We went up to the fourteenth floor to the observation deck and, well, observed Nebraska near and far (although I, as is my wont, refused to venture too near the edge). Then we went back down so that we could go outside to look at the Sower, an immense statue atop the building.
Unfortunately, once outside my vision started going fuzzy and I had to sit down…it gets kind of dark after that point, and I woke up to find myself sitting against a low wall, hands clenched in fists and Ronnie, Shari and Morgen peering down at me in concern. Yep, I’d passed out again and done the weird seizure-like thing as well, freaking Ronnie out pretty damn bad. (Stupid period+heat+thalessmia=one very dizzy Josie.) Anyway, after I sat around inside the building for a bit and had something to drink and eat, we went to Wendy’s and had lunch.
Then Ronnie and I went back to Motel 6 so I could rest more; Darwin was quite glad to see us again. We watched “Monk” and Darwin slept on top of my legs on the bed. Around six we met Shari and Morgen at the McDonald’s 3-in-1, where they serve some other foods beyond the usual fare and you order via phone at your booth.
Ronnie described the Kill Corwin Amber DPRG campaign he ran a while back and we ended up deciding to play back at the motel. Ronnie ran a whodunit type of scenario, set in Amber, and fun was had by all—except Darwin, who shit on the carpet and had to be taken outside for a little while by me while Ronnie cleaned it up. (No more greasy chicken for the puppy, I know, I know.) Around 11 Nebraska time, Shari and Morgen left and we slept, again putting Darwin on the bed.
Monday (today, when I started writing this thing), we packed up the car yet again and headed out; we’re currently driving down I-80 West towards the western end of Nebraska to meet up with I-76 South. We’re going to camp tonight somewhere in Colorado or New Mexico; I’m hoping we’ll make it to Taos and that maybe I can swing by the Pot Creek site. We’ll see.
Monday, August 18th, later: we’re driving through Colorado now in the rain. I drove down through Denver to I-25, which was an interchange essentially in the middle of the city. Before that point, though, we passed huge acres filled with small sunflowers so that the hills looked yellow instead of green (or brown). Now, the mountains are beautiful, of course. They’re vast and dark and a little forbidding; I can understand why the pioneers wouldn’t want to keep going. On the tops of many of the smaller hills there are houses with incredible views of the area (and I imagine their own lightning rods, too). The sky’s mostly clearing up before us, although there are still giant rain clouds shedding their bulk over the empty, empty, gorgeous land. It’s neat to see the different layers of clouds mixed with the pure blue sky. It’s much, much cooler, temperature wise, around here in comparison to Nebraska, which was in the 100s when we left this morning. Hmm. Just passed a strip club right off the freeway in Pueblo, CO. Lovely. So it’s now 9:15 PM our time and 7:15 PM Colorado time and I’m either going to nap or play the Sims, I haven’t decided. Ooh, a rainbow!
Tuesday, August 19th now…Ronnie and I are lying down and sitting, respectively, in our tent near Rio Rancho/some other city in New Mexico. Last night we drove and drove and drove and drove and drove until 3 AM our time, roughly, over hills and valleys and scary winding passes to get to first New Mexico and then, once we settled on a destination, Taos.
By the time we reached Taos it was raining pretty steadily and downright pouring when we finally picked a place to stop for the night: Best Western, roughly midnight, New Mexico time. I had hoped that I’d recognize some landmarks once in the city but failed, of course, because I hadn’t taken note of any of the streets in Taos proper nor had I been in the area for over three years. So anyway, the guy behind the desk at Best Western took pity on us latecomers and gave us a room and pretended not to notice Darwin staring at him from the back seat of the car.
Darwin slept on the bed with us instead of in his crate; it was just too damn cold and wet to get the crate out (or much else, either). Being completely exhausted, we pretty much just passed out (but fortunately sans seizure-like action, of course). In the morning, the shower turned out to be pretty decent (the whole room/hotel was pretty nice, actually; go me for picking a good place, even if it was a little pricey at $88) but the tub filled with water rather rapidly. Ronnie got us breakfast (the room came with free coupons for that) which consisted of waffles off the waffle-maker. Then we left for Fort Burgwin so I could show Ronnie (and Darwin) around the site.
Driving through Taos itself proved fairly easy; I started recognizing places such as the Baskin-Robbins, the Sagebrush Inn, etc. At Fort Burgwin the office staff was quite amenable to letting us walk around and even check out the site (although one mentioned that it was covered up), which we then did. Right away we found sherds and flakes, and because a lot of it was in the backdirt without provenience, we took a couple of pieces each. The site…well, aside from being wholly filled in with dirt, it looked pretty much the same as I remembered. Apparently over the past few years others have dug up adjacent rooms, including a couple in the shady area where we used to eat lunch. Ronnie was pretty interested in the site, especially in the rocks, of course. J He also mentioned the smell of the whole area, which I had sort of filed away as just part of the experience, but yes, it does have a particular, wonderful scent that I associate with being there. Pretty damn happy to be back, even for a little while.
After visiting the site, we drove to Santa Fe and walked around a little bit in the central plaza with Darwin, which proved to be quite a task. Sure, he was awfully damn cute and people liked to pet him or have their hands licked, but it was very hard to hold him. Still, we did get to look around a little bit and eat some pretty good food. After that, we drove to find a place for camping, going south on US 25 towards Albuquerque.
We first tried the campgrounds at Coronado State Monument, but were taken thoroughly aback when Darwin began barking extremely loudly and worryingly at the campsite host, who decided that Darwin’s behavior was “not normal” and that he didn’t want to have us there. So, feeling decidedly unnerved, because Darwin had been so very hostile towards the man and it was rather embarrassing, we drove a little ways back towards the freeway to the KOA campgrounds. The people here are hundreds of times nicer and very dog-friendly; our little site is right next to the fenced-off dog run area and nearly all the staff seems to have dogs of their own. We were going to swim, but they closed the pool because there was lightning nearby.
Darwin got to run and play with a couple of dogs that belonged to other campers, but one camper in particular had a little tiny poodle like dog and she became very upset when Darwin entered the enclosure and beelined for it, meaning to play, of course. She yelled at him and made some other sniping comments and eventually left the area. She also registered a complaint with the staff, but they seemed to feel (like us) that it was her problem, really, and that we probably just had to be more careful about letting Darwin into the run area when there were tiny little dogs present.
We also played chess and won a game apiece. Aww…Darwin just walked into the tent and dropped down on my pillow J He can be very trying at times and very agreeable and adorable at others. Anyway, hopefully tonight we’ll be able to see some stars although right now it’s rather cloudy. Ronnie’s reading the Summer Queen some more and Darwin’s just being so very good right now even though there are other dogs who seem to enjoy barking quite a bit. So…before I run out of battery power I should save this and maybe even play the Sims before bedtime.
Wednesday, August 20th: the last day of our lease at U Towers. Hope Steph got everything out of there okay. Not like I can help, or anything, of course…anyway, today we woke up practically with the sun. The night passed without incident, although the light that illuminates the dog run area is apparently motion sensitive and very, very bright and thus disturbed Ronnie’s sleep a bit. There were also trains nearby, I think; it’s hard to be sure when you’re only half-conscious. Laid around for a while before getting up and showering/dressing. KOA (or at least this one, anyway) has free breakfasts so we had two fluffy pancakes and I had some instant tea.
We left the whole tent set up and went to Albuquerque around 10 AM to visit Petroglyph National Monument off of I-40. The Parks Service woman directed us to a nearby canyon that was less developed than the main one, as we had Darwin with us. We walked around that canyon for a while and looked for the petroglyphs, which were incised on the basalt boulders that dotted the canyonside. Unfortunately, because people never seem to value the past, there was graffiti of modern smiley faces and names and dates scrawled on some of the rocks. But the originals were pretty awesome, even if we didn’t get to see all of them because a) they’re difficult to find and b) Darwin was much too hot and we were running low on water for him. The poor puppy started trying to sit in the shade of anything he could; rocks, us, and even the sagebrush, although it poked him in the face a lot.
So we turned back and drove off to explore the exotic wilderness that is the Albuquerque suburb. Naturally, we hadn’t intended to do so, but our distinct lack of any good ABQ maps made it quite difficult to actually turn the correct direction onto any street. Eventually we emerged from the suburban wilds and returned to our campsite. We each had our turn in the pool (I swam twice, actually) and Ronnie read the Summer Queen more. He made tuna sandwiches and we sat on the picnic table looking at the ants and sunset and mountains and clouds and talked about lots of different wonderful things while Darwin sat and slept in the tent. Glorious sunset, of course, which lit up the mountains across the freeway for a brief, fiery time…hopefully the sky will stay so clear and we’ll be able to see stars. Tomorrow we’ll head out of New Mexico and drive to Arizona.
Thursday, August 21st: We’re in Holbrook, AZ, in another Motel 6 with Darwin curled up on the foot of the bed and Ronnie watching the Discovery Channel. Today we drove about three hundred miles from Bernalillo, NM on I-40 to Arizona, passing a number of crappy, extremely un-PC billboards announcing upcoming outlets of Native American kitsch and their “Reservation Prices!”
Last night the sky was fairly clear and we were able to see the constellations pretty well; Antares sparkled especially brightly. Before leaving this morning, we had another free pancake breakfast at the KOA and packed up the car with the tent and Darwin’s accessories. Then we stopped by the Petroglyph visitor center again so we could purchase a National Parks Pass which lets us into all National Parks sites for the low low one-time price of $50. Driving through the western end of NM we saw lots and lots of gorgeous rock formations; colorful and cavern-like or with walls stretching up around the freeway lanes. Once we reached AZ we headed for the Petrified Forest through the Painted Desert entrance. A nice woman at the gas station at that visitor center gave Darwin a treat J.
We drove through the park, stopping at various points to look out at the red mudstone formations and at Agate Bridge, a petrified log that, well, bridged a gap between other rocks. Finally, we took Darwin on the walking trail through the Crystal Forest, where there were probably thousands of chunks of petrified wood and even more little bits and pieces scattered over the ground. Darwin again tried to find as much shade as possible for resting, usually in the shadow of a chunk of tree. My Nalgene bottle seems to be turning into Darwin’s personal water source. After stopping briefly in the gift shop, we headed to Holbrook and the motel.
On the way there, we saw three dust devils spiraling up into the sky near the highway. Ronnie was kind enough to obtain pizza and we watched the Three Musketeers on HBO and a rerun of Friends. I’m still hoping to meet up with Linzee on Saturday, but it’s a bit hard to arrange things when I’m limited by the length of text messages. Time’s also kind of confusing for us right now; we’re living essentially on Michigan EST, but apparently in AZ (as I should have remembered) they’re three hours behind. Which means that I’m a bit sleepier than I should be for 9:25 PM…because it’s 12:25 to me. Aww…Darwin’s so cute.
Saturday, August 23rd: Ronnie and Darwin and I are sitting in Paradise Valley Park in Phoenix, waiting for one o’clock and Linzee! (And Shannon.) It’s a nice, big, surprisingly grassy park, with plenty of shade and trees and a swingset and a skate park. Darwin’s tethered again, and Ronnie’s reading (also again). Yesterday we drove from Holbrook to Flagstaff and then turned south on I-17 to Phoenix. It seems we’re averaging about one monument/Nationally recognized area per day, as yesterday we went to Montezuma’s Castle.
Prior to getting on I-17, though, we stopped by Meteor Crater but failed to see it, as they didn’t allow dogs. The staff/ranger type woman would’ve probably gladly watched Darwin for us, but we didn’t want him/her/us to be stressed over it, so we left. Driving on I-17 was mountainous and winding.
Montezuma’s Castle was cool; this time I think I saw some new things, including the creek that supplied water to the structure’s inhabitants. Darwin was fairly well-behaved and many a person stopped to pet him/ask what breed he was. While Ronnie was in the gift shop, he saw this cool red-striped skink on the floor, which the ranger later put outside.
After visiting the Castle, we went on to Phoenix proper, and to the Motel 6. The motel was kind of sucky. I asked for nonsmoking, but all the rooms came with ashtrays, and ours smelled quite distinctly like smoke. There were two beds, one which Darwin appropriated. He also registered his dislike of the room by shitting on the carpet. Still, he seemed to have some fun by leaping from bed to bed and back again. We watched a strange movie with Neil Patrick Harris and Whoopi Goldberg, then “Kung Pow: Enter the Fist”, which destroyed many a valuable brain cell. Before succumbing to sleep, we watched the season finale of “Monk”. Darwin barked in the night several times, but mostly slept easily on his bed.
Today we drove a little bit around Phoenix in its suburbs, which are like Canton except hotter, drier, filled with different vegetation and architectural styles. It’s the heat that’s most noticeable, though. Now we’re waiting for Linzee (and Shannon) and after we meet them and do whatever stuff there is to do, we’ll be going to Utah. There may also be a stop at the Four Corners.
Sunday, August 24th: Today’s my dad’s 55th birthday! We’re currently resting at our campsite in the Green River campgrounds at Dinosaur National Monument. Ronnie and Darwin are lying on the sleeping bag, which is spread out on the ground outside the tent, while I type this on the recycled plastic picnic table. Yesterday…jebus. Long day.
Yesterday we met Linzee and Shannon at one. They pulled up near the shelter where Ronnie and I sat in Linzee’s car. I recognized her more or less from the pictures I’d seen before; in person, though, she seemed a bit taller. Both Shannon and Linzee also seemed young; I wonder if Ronnie and I seemed equally as old. Anyway, we talked about all kinds of stuff and Ronnie took our picture so the meeting is documented for livejournal’s sake. Our meeting lasted until about 2:30, AZ time. There was a particular strangeness to the meeting: Linzee was physically a stranger to me, as I’d never heard her voice or actually seen her before, but we were also good friends already through the wonders of text. So anyway, we headed out around 2:30(5:30) for Utah. We’d planned to take I-17 North through Flagstaff, then take I-89 North to 160 East, but somehow I completely missed the junction of 160 and so we proceeded further north to Page, AZ. From there, we turned south to meet up with 160, which we planned to take to 191 North.
Unfortunately, we also managed to miss that junction and so ended up proceeding all the way to the Four Corners in the middle of the night despite the fact that we’d previously agreed that we wouldn’t go there. Crossing into Colorado, we headed for Cortez (where Crow Canyon is) and rerouted ourselves through Hwy 666/491 back to 191 North. From there, fortunately, it got a little easier to navigate; we took 191 to I-70 East and then easily made it onto (scenic) Hwy 139 North. It was quite winding and hilly.
Ronnie drove that section (he says, to make up for my having driven the dark and scary and cliff-clinging route to Taos) and I awoke on one of the curves. At this point it was extremely late (or extremely early) and so I saw Orion and a crescent moon in the southern sky where previously I’d been searching for Scorpio and Mars. (I had found the summer triangle and the Milky Way earlier.)
While on 139 I spotted some deer by the side of the road. It turned out that those were not the only nocturnal creatures we would encounter. As the sky began to lighten, Ronnie began to have to dodge bunnies hopping across the road. Lots of bunnies. (Okay, maybe ten-fifteen, total.) We’re pretty sure that all that encountered us survived. There were also possibly bats or owls swooping about.
Anyway, we got all the way up to Hwy 64, where I took over the driving and brought us into Dinosaur National Monument. On the way, the sun rose and infused the landscape with pastel colors. We arrived safely at the entrance station around 7:45 AM, Utah time, and spent some time debating the merits of proceeding to the campgrounds (where we thought we would have to pay extra because it was not yet noon) versus sleeping in the car in a pullout. We went to the Green River campgrounds and are currently paid up until Wednesday.
Our site is up against a rocky wall of sorts, which Ronnie says is limestone. The limestone we smashed contains some fossils J I managed to sleep once we were settled in, but Ronnie (and Darwin) didn’t. After I woke up, we ate peanut butter sandwiches and took Darwin on a “walk” around the grounds. The Green River passes by the sites and there are lots of rock formations that stretch up into the sky around us. Darwin was not a good puppy on his walk, for reasons as yet unknown. He pulled and pulled and pulled on his leash, despite the fact that just two days ago he’d been very well behaved. Once back at the site, however, he seemed a little better. He dug in the dirt, just as he had at the KOA site in New Mexico. I found a lot of bug bites in his ears, though, which worry Ronnie and me a little. Darwin doesn’t seem to mind so much. Not feeling up to exploring the Monument in its entirety, we spent a good chunk of time smashing limestone and looking at the rocks around us. Ronnie wanted to have a campfire today, but we can’t because the area’s under a fire ban (damn this dryness). We saw three lizards, two in our site and one while we explored; lots of dragonflies and regular flies, too. The grounds are really pretty; there are many trees with unusual furrowed bark and the aforementioned river and rocks. There are no showers, but at least there’s toilets and water.
I called Dad earlier, around 1:00 Michigan time, to wish him a happy birthday. He and Mom seem to be fairly at ease about this whole vacation-with-Ronnie thing, which is good. I fully expected them to be much more concerned about all the driving, not to mention the camping, but Mom seems happy that we are camping and Dad just wants us to make sure we take time to relax. Goddamn flies are buzzing me incessantly. Maybe we should get the bug spray.
Monday now, August 25th: we’re back at the campsite again, exhausted after our day (although it’s really only about 2:55 Utah time). Last night we laid out on the sleeping bag under the stars for a while, but the combination of the bright light from the bathroom, Darwin’s need to bark and my paranoia about large wild animals sent us back into the tent. Ronnie went to the ranger-led talk around 7:30 and learned about the invasive species of plants in this area. The talk culminated in the ranger leading volunteers to forcibly remove one larger specimen from the ground. For dinner we drove outside of the park to the gift shop and had sandwiches. During the night it began to rain, so Ronnie put the tent fly back on and I listened to the drumming rain for a little while before falling back to sleep. I awoke in the morning with ants sporadically crawling on me. Ronnie apparently managed to kill a roach during the night, as well.
One thing I forgot to mention about yesterday is that Ronnie dropped his sunglasses in the toilet, rendering them poopy and just about unwearable. We’re sharing my purple sunglasses for the time being. Anyway, today we drove over to the Quarry, where we planned to separately take the shuttle from the main parking lot up to the Quarry building, because we’d previously learned that dogs weren’t allowed on the shuttle. Ronnie headed up first, and I stayed in the parking lot with Darwin and a bottle of water. While I sat outside the building, a ranger came out and asked if I’d been up to the Quarry yet. I said that no, I was going to go up when my fiancé came back down and she told me that I could take the shuttle up with Darwin and wait outside that building. So Darwin and I went on the shuttle (and he was very well behaved). A couple of people emerging from the gift shop wanted to pet Darwin, who was still behaving himself.
Ronnie was quite surprised to see us there when he came out. He said that he had in fact been here before, during field camp. I went in myself, and looked at the exhibits, as well as the fricking massive wall of rock wherein dinosaur bones were embedded. Ronnie, who had heard the ranger-led talk inside, said that all we saw was merely one-tenth of the mountain’s original size, meaning that previously there were thousands more fossils that had been removed.
Most were skeletons of sauropods, including some complete and articulated bones; these stood out in relief from the quarry wall. The man who originally discovered the site had wanted to leave these fossils displayed in context, which made for a pretty astonishing exhibit. After the quarry, we walked down to the parking lot and drove to the gas station outside the park to get lunch. We ate at the camp and then set out on the monument’s auto tour, passing another prairie dog on the road (I’d seen one when we came back to eat lunch).
We began at the first stop, a small shelter area with Fremont culture petroglyphs. Initially, we tried to take Darwin up to see it, but were stopped by a ranger. At the second stop, we saw two more prairie dogs, then moved on to look at the Green River canyon and the formations of Split Mountain and adjacent areas. Towards the end of the tour we saw rocks shaped like a turtle, as well as more extremely cool petroglyphs. For nearly all our stops we were alone, but at the last point we encountered an elderly couple from Indiana who wanted to see the “Indian art” but had gone all the way to Josie Morris’ cabin. She had lived there for about 50 years, eschewing modern conveniences and essentially being a hermit. But I can’t really blame her; that Josie lived in such a beautiful land. Turning back, we stopped again at one of the petroglyph sites; from the road a single large lizard was visible, but I was curious to see it much more closely. So Ronnie took the ascending trail first, taking pictures of both live and represented-in-art lizards, as well as the flute player image a bit further along the ledge, hundreds of feet above the road. I then took my turn, but couldn’t bring myself to get all the way up to the large lizard. There were, however, many smaller lizard petroglyphs and the view was entrancing enough to make the climb worth all my usual terror at being so high.
We returned to the campsite, where Ronnie busied himself with his newly acquired staff (he found it yesterday) and I read Order of the Phoenix for the third or fourth time. There are still flies and ants in abundance. One of the neat things about the site is that we remain relatively undisturbed for most of the day until nightfall/sunset, when people start showing up. This, then, is also the time when Darwin exercises his vocal cords most; rangers marking down who’s here, random bitchlady walkers-by…ah well. Perhaps he will still learn.
Tuesday, August 26th, 2003: Last night was rather rough on Ronnie and me. We started trying a new tactic to get Darwin to be quiet; thwapping him on the nose whenever he barked. It seemed to be working, although when I tried it while he barked inside the tent, he promptly threw up on my bare leg (and Ronnie’s, too). It was gross and runny and had bits of food in it and ewwwwww. We managed to see lots and lots of stars and while I was in the middle of my asthma attack in the middle of the night it was very easy to find Mars (tonight’s the close approach, we’re going to have to go see it at some point in the evening). The blankets were all prickly from the grass and also a bit damp because Ronnie had spilled some water; plus, when I awoke yet again in the night it was very very cold and the blankets were far too prickly to be comfortable. So now I’m typing this inside a nice Motel 6 room where I was able to shower all the dirt and sweat and sunscreen off and where the sheets are pricker-free. (Not including Ronnie’s penis, of course.)
Before arriving here, however, we did stop by the gas station for more food (and lip balm for my poor chapped lips) and drove around a little bit inside Dinosaur National Monument’s other portion, which had some spectacular views of the canyon formed by Green River. The road was a bit winding and cliff-hugging and we were lacking much interest in the region beyond the spectacular scenery, so we headed west from the Monument, towards Vernal, UT. From Vernal I drove Hwy 191 North towards Rock Springs, WY; a very scenic route through the Flaming Gorge and over its dam; it is also extremely winding and cliff-hugging. Still, it was beautiful to look at and there were these cool signs along the way that noted what geological layers were exposed closest to the road and anything significant about those formations. Ashley National Forest was also quite pretty; it contains unusual trees that have their leaves only near the tops of the trunks. There were also areas of seriously burned-out forest. Anyway, we arrived safely in Rock Springs, despite the fact that it probably took a good deal longer than it would if someone who was not terrified of heights had driven. Tomorrow we’re going to Fossil Butte National Monument and driving driving driving to Nebraska, for our trip is nearly at an end…
Wednesday, August 27th, and we’re on the road again, this time headed for a town near the Wyoming/Nebraska border. Today we got up a bit later than I’d planned but that was all right. I took Darwin for a walk outside the motel and it was raining slightly. We drove about an hour west to Fossil Butte on very windy (but not mountainous) roads; I-80 to Hwy 30. Very depopulated state, Wyoming: we passed a little place called Opal that had 102 people living in it.
Here is the link to your prize. http://www.umich.edu/~jscz/prize.jpg
Now (not until you've clicked the link), highlight the blank space below...
(Now, before you get all put out, I will say that I am currently working on a real collage. If you have gotten to this point, I applaud you: if you finish the whole damned thing email me and I will send you the collage as soon as it is done.) EDIT: Here is a small collage which is my first attempt at this in several weeks, if not months.
Fossil Butte National Monument was very devoid of people as well, which was rather nice. Poor Darwin had to shit the entire way there and cried and cried in the backseat to no avail. When we got to the visitor’s center he pooped twice. We went on one of the trails inside the Monument, which took us up close to the main research quarry. It was cool, literally. A wind blew for most of our trek up the hillside, possibly making this the most enjoyable hike of our vacation. Along the trail we saw a lot of snail shells that weren’t fossilized, and lots of rocks that could have possibly contained small fossils from the lake. Ronnie used his staff for the first time J. The trail passed through a stand of aspen trees, to which Ronnie compared his stick: it matched, so now we know Ronnie has an aspen staff. Darwin shit three more times while on the trail, poor thing. No more junk food for him. (We keep saying that.) Inside the visitor center is a little crappy museum of the really cool fossils that were discovered in the Butte, including a crocodile, turtles, lots of fish, plants, and bats! Then we drove back east to Rock Springs and now we’re headed away from there. We’ll change to I-25 when we get to Cheyenne.
Thursday, August 28th and we’re in yet another Motel 6. Last night we drove up I-25 North to Wheatland, where we stayed in a very nice Motel 6 that seemed very much like a real hotel almost. It had interior corridors and we stayed in the room closest to the lobby on the first floor. In the morning when Ronnie was getting food from Arby’s and I was putting things in the car, Darwin was rather anxious in the room by himself but came to the window and put his paws up on the sill to look for me and Ronnie, which was very cute. J
I drove a couple of hours to get to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, which is in the northwestern corner of Nebraska. It was okay; the museum was pretty nice and they had a little horned toad hopping around in a plastic tub. The trail was about two miles and along the way there were several bunnies and in the creek I saw a big turtle! Didn’t get to see any real cool fossils in the hills, though. After that, Ronnie drove for a few hours through Nebraska and I took over to get us to North Platte, which is where we are now, watching “Queer Eye” on Bravo while Darwin sleeps like a cute puppy on his bed. Tomorrow we’re just going to drive back into Lincoln and then we’ll be nearly done with vacation L.
Sunday, August 31st: We’re driving home in the rain now down I-80 East. Friday Ronnie drove the entire three hours from North Platte to Lincoln because my left eye was bothering me so bad I had to take out my contacts and actually wore my glasses for a time.
When we got to Lincoln and were settled in our room (the same Motel 6 we stayed in the first time), Shari called and said Morgen wanted to take us to Valentino’s, this Italian pizza place that had a buffet. So they picked us up and we had a fairly decent dinner that didn’t involve peanut butter or tuna in any way. Then we went to their apartment for some reason and then they drove us back to the motel so we could do our character sheets and be with Darwin at the same time.
Unfortunately they said we couldn’t go to the Nebraska Natural History Museum on Saturday because that was the day of the first football game. The stadium’s close proximity to the museum meant that the museum closed on game days, probably for parking and keeping-drunks-away reasons. So that was a bit disappointing.
Instead, on Saturday, we went with Shari and Morgen to a local park where Darwin got to walk around a good bit—and even run. Ronnie took him at a run through one section of the park, tripped, and Darwin escaped, running full speed towards a pond close by. He ran in and out of the water for a bit, still managing to elude his pursuers (us). Ronnie eventually bribed him back to us with some stale bread he found on the grass. After the park, Morgen took us to the Sunken Gardens, a little space in the middle of Lincoln where there are flowers and a waterfall and a fountain and lily pads. And it was below street level, and therefore sunken. Pretty cool. Ronnie and I are going to build one in front of our castle.
By this time it was getting on towards late afternoon and we needed to put Darwin in his crate before going to Morgen’s D&D game. So we attempted to do so. Before we left, though, Darwin threw up a nasty, watery, grapey, fish-smelling mess. That required some cleaning.
Anyway, Morgen’s Egypt game was quite fun. (Cut random D&D ramblings here.) After the game ended around 9ish, we went back to Shari and Morgen’s apartment and had watermelon. Darwin was extremely glad to see us when we got back to the room. We slept, but apparently he spent the night taking things from the garbage and tearing them to bits, because when we got up, the floor was littered with scraps of tissue and cardboard and tuna cans and Pepsi bottles. We got up around 7 and were on the road again by 8:15, although not without another vomit-related incident. While I was getting gas, Darwin threw up yet again—this time on the backseat of the car. It was thicker in consistency than before, but was still squishy and horribly gross. But he seems much better now, although I expect that he’s probably rather hungry. Only a few hundred miles from home!
Sunday, September 7th: Thank you for reading. :D I will have the photos up shortly to go with this entry.
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-07 05:58 pm (UTC)Amber!!!!! Ahhhh!! I used to play that! Did you ever read the series of books? =D
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Date: 2003-09-07 06:19 pm (UTC)YOU USED TO PLAY AMBER?!
Ronnie, look! 'Lise used to PLAY AMBER!
Yeah, it's only Ronnie's favorite series, so I kinda had to read it. :) Ronnie's group (and I) are hoping Ronnie'll run his campaign more. :D
-josie
no subject
Date: 2003-09-09 04:42 pm (UTC)Yup, I loved the simplicity of it. I was never a big fan of dice games... the way Amber worked was fantastic and left more room for actual "storytelling" (IMO).
My cousin got me hooked on the books when I was in junior high and it was only a matter of time till she dragged me into the DRPG as well. =D My cousin's ex-fiance still runs a few games online. He came up with some extremely kickass sorcery/conjuration variations. Really cool guy. In fact, I really should email him one of these days.
If I could manage to get back into reading Fantasy novels, that's one series I desperately long to reread. Alas, I burned myself out a year or so ago and haven't been able to touch a fantasy book since.
So is it safe to assume I know who Darwin's REALLY named after? ;D
And I have to ask - who's your favorite character? (Or should I say... favorite character in the Corwin books, favorite character in the Merlin books, and favorite character all-round?) It's been eons since I've talked Amber... I'm no longer on good terms with my cousin and except for her ex-fiance and some friends of hers, I've never met anyone who knew what Amber was. Sadly. =(
no subject
Date: 2003-09-09 06:47 pm (UTC)Darwin is named for Charles, actually.
Or Erasmus.
We never really did specify. ;)
-josie
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Date: 2003-09-07 06:32 pm (UTC)1. Stop feeding Darwin people food.
2. What's with all the random "J"s scattered about?
3. Penises should NOT BE MENTIONED where other people are reading!!!
4. I want pictures!
5. Oo, lizards!
6. I like dice.
7. A headboard? Yeah, right.
8. Can I play E.V.O. now?
no subject
Date: 2003-09-07 06:45 pm (UTC)Sounds like fun! Except for the buggies and the vomiting and the passing out and the other stuff that, y'know, wasn't fun. But still. Fun!
Linzee, wants to roadtrip, but fears I'd get lost three miles into it and have to come back home. *g*
no subject
Date: 2003-09-07 08:21 pm (UTC)D00d, you went to NE? Yee-haw! I think I missed the "nouveau riche" part of Lincoln. o_o
There were several gross aspects to your story (mostly involving dog vomit/shit), but overall I found it satisfactory. It makes me want to go out west and look at rocks and laugh inappropriately at the Fossil Butte Monument and get all hot again. Agate has a very special place in my heart, and I think I'm jealous. The best part of it was my prize. I really liked my prize.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-11 03:14 pm (UTC)Grr, please try to read this without all the necessary "e"'s. Th E key is sticking quite terribly on my keyboard.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-22 01:24 pm (UTC)I agree with
Did it have to end with Darwin vomiting again? At least there weren't any pictures of that, or at least I don't remember any from the pictures you showed me...