My friend Jim came over for dinner last night. He told me a story about two of his friends who took their grandchildren camping in northwest Arkansas recently, during the time I was on my trip out west. This was apparently some kind of remote campsite where they would be off by themselves. They had to sign in at the Rangers’ station and note when they would be coming out. After setting up camp, they went to sleep and left their food out in a cooler. Three raccoons started to tear through the food. The family went out to see what was happening just as a bobcast jumped from a tree and tore the raccoons apart. The family tried to leave, but a tree now blocked their path. They were trapped for a couple of days without food until a ranger came to the rescue. I pass this story on for your benefit. I am afraid to go to the Kroger.
Killer Raccoons
Posted in Uncategorized
A Brief Summary
I am home for a while. I spent most of the day cleaning out my car and washing clothes.
I was on the road for 21 days or 7,477 miles. I made it to two family reunions, one in Sterling CO and one in Bremerton WA continued the next night in Allyn WA.
I visited 9 National Parks. I probably drove through in excess of 30 national forests. I think I crossed the Continental Divide about a dozen times.
I didn’t have any car trouble, although I think my battery is going dead. I will get that checked out tomorrow. No speeding tickets. (How about that Jeff?)
As I was driving back, I thougt about how Travels with Charley is, in the end, a book about race relations in America. While I am at home, I want to start writing about this.
Posted in American Culture | Tags: travel writing, travel, John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley, Race
Long Road Home
I-40 East
July 21, 2010 (all day)
I entered I-40, my old friend from day one of the trip, in Flagstaff and began to head east. If I had more time, I would have taken another route back. I had originally planned to visit Joshua Tree National Park, then take I-10 and I-30 back. As time ran out, I had no choice but to take I-40.
I am not sure about the mileage from Flagstaff to Little Rock on I-40, but I think it is in the range of 1,300 miles.
Early in the day, I talked to my father-in-law. He said that he had been reading the blog. He joked that he would like to buy me one of those GPS devices. I have had some bad spots in this trip where I drove in circles. I assured him, however, that I was now on I-40 all the way back to Little Rock. Even I could not get lost at this point.
By the end of Tuesday (July 20), I made it to Santa Rosa NW. After about 12 hours on the road today, I made it home. I will be home for about a week, then I will be making a short trip to Chicago and looping through some of the midwest. After about another week or two at home, I will make a loop through the south.
Posted in Travel | Tags: I-40, travel, travel writing
Painted Desert
Painted Desert
July 20, 2010 (afternoon)
The painted desert part of the park (Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park) is remarkable. I had seen the Grand Canyon in the morning. The Painted Desert looks like the Grand Canyon on a smaller scale.
Posted in National Parks | Tags: travel writing, travel, National Parks, Painted Forest
Petrified Forest
Petrified Forest
July 20, 2010 (afternoon)
After lunch, I headed to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert National Park. This is basically two parks in one. You can see both the petrified forest and the painted desert. Either one would be worthy of its own park.
As I drove toward the park, I saw a number of roadside souvenir shops selling petrified wood. I guess that this is wood found outside the park. I didn’t stop, so I don’t know how much a piece of petrified wood costs. I guess you never know when you might need some petrified wood. It seems like these businesses would have a limited lifespan. I can’t image that these business people could keep finding more petrified wood.
I’m glad that I visited the park. I have always been fascinated with petrified wood. I don’t know why. It must be related to some forgotten childhood trauma.
Posted in Petrified Forest | Tags: National Parks, souvenirs, Petrified Forest
Americana on Old Route 66
Tepee Motel
July 20, 2010 (midday)
I stopped in Holbrock AZ to eat lunch and came across a tepee motel. Each room is a separate tepee (not a real one, a building in the shape of a tepee), and each room has at least one vintage car in front. I was tempted to stay there, but I needed to be further down the road before I stopped for the night.
Across the street, I ate lunch at the Wayside Restaurant, which has been there fifty years or so. I had a Navajo Burger, which is served on fry bread, a flat bread that is (of course) fried and almost has a pastry taste to it. Much better than a sesame bun.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: Americana, Route 66, fry bread, tepee hotel
Grand Canyon
July 20, 2010 (morning)
I camped last night about 50 miles from the Grand Canyon National Park. After a quick breakfast, I broke camp and hit the road.
At the first view of the canyon, the parking lot was full. One man, touring with his three sons in a convertible, left his engine running with bad rock music blaring.
Since I hit the west, I haven’t had my radio or CD player on much, especially in the national parks. I drive in silence with the windows down. I prefer to have as many filters striped away as possible. I almost said something to the man, like, “How could you be so rude?” Instead, I got in my car and continued down the rim road. I soon found a spot where I could be alone for about fifteen minute.
The Grand Canyon is big. Really big. I’ve been thinking of how to explain it.
If the Grand Tetons where hollow and you turned them upside down and inserted them into a piece of flat land, and you did this about forty or fifty times, then you would have something like the Grand Canyon.
It's Big
Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: National Parks, nature writing, Grand Canyon, Arizona
A Drive By (Bye) View of Vegas
July 19, 2010 (midday)
As I left Death Valley, I was on the road to Las Vegas. I decided not to stay the night there. I don’t drink much. When I do drink, my limit is usually about two or three drinks. I don’t like to gamble. I am not interested in seeing Donnie and Marie on stage, even if I could get tickets.
I spent almost an hour driving around Vegas, so I am not an expert on the town. But I thought I would share some initial reactions—a view from a moving car.
When I was doing research on Alcoholics Anonymous, my favorite circuit speaker (an AA speaker who is often invited to speak at conventions) was Ken D. He liked to say that the motto of AA should be “Excess is not enough.” It would fit for Vegas as well.
In some senses, Vegas is the most American of American cities. Excess is part of our economic system. As capital is used to increase production, we start to have more products than we need—more clothes, more cars, more houses, more food. While it is good in many ways to have an abundance of goods, excess also creates problems. How can businesses sell excess goods? They have to find new markets or ways to encourage over-consumption. The growing girth of the average American is just one example of people consuming excess. In this sense, Vegas is like much of American, maybe just a little better at promoting the consumption of excess.
Maybe part of the excess of Vegas comes from its being a place separate from ordinary living. “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” It is in the desert, in the middle of nowhere. The entire city seems to be an amusement park for adults.
You can see the Statue of Liberty without having to take a long, cold ferry ride through New York harbor. You can take a gondola ride without having to worry about pigeons or rats. You can walk past the Eiffel Tower without having to tolerate rude Parisians.
It’s not a real city, and it’s not meant to be. It screams, “I don’t have to behave like I am at work, or walking down my street, in front of my neighbors.”
Posted in Las Vegas | Tags: Culture Critique, Las Vegas, travel writing
Death Valley
July 19, 2010 (morning)
I left my hotel at about 7:20 and found a coffee shop in the next town. They had fresh pastries from a local bakery, so I bought a triple latte and two donuts and headed for Death Valley National Park.
I wasn’t prepared for the beauty of Death Valley. I thought it would be flat with nothing but sand, sage brush, and cacti.
From the west, I entered the park at about 5,000 feet. Hwy 190, the only road through the park west to east, twisted into a valley at sea level for about five miles, then it began to rise again. As the elevation increased, a sign said, “Avoid Overheated Engines/ Turn Off Air Conditioning.”
I followed instructions and was surprised that the heat was not too bad. As they say, it was a dry heat. (Huey, a friend and colleague, often says, “It’s hot in Arkansas, but it’s a wet heat.” I prefer the dry heat.) After a climb to about 5,000 feet, the road dropped into a larger valley, also at sea level. This, I believe, is the real Death Valley, the 20-mule-team Death Valley, pure desert for about 10 miles. The only animal I saw was a chipmunk (I think) that ran half way into the road, saw my car, turned around, and ran back. I thinnk I would have gone ahead and crossed the road at that point.
In the distance, I could see another mountain range, behind a heat mist. The heat flattened the mountains into light blue and grey silhouettes, one behind another, seemingly creating distance between each range. As I began to climb again and grew closer, I could see details in each mountain. Most had strata that formed when that piece of earth was flat on a sea bed. As the plates moved, pushing the rock up, the strata moved to the diagonal.
As I drove through the park, I was amazed at the variety of rocks. A geologist could probably spend an entire career studying a few hundred square yards of Death Valley.
It is a place of stark beauty. In that sense, not worthy of the name Death Valley, but it must have been a dangerous place for pioneers. The heat, the scarcity of water, the difficult of climbing out of the valley once you’re in it, all this must have made deadly.
Death Valley
Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: National Parks, nature writing, Death Valley, California, desert
Yosemite
Serenity in Yosemite
July 18, 2010 (evening)
Today was a better day.
I went to sleep early and woke up about 4:30. Not on purpose. I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. So, by about 5:30, I got out of bed, showered and headed to Yosemite.
Ahead of the crowds, I was able to see a grove of Sequoia, drive to Glacier Point, circle down to the valley, and then take a few short hikes on my way out.
At Glacier Point, I talked to two guys (one about my age) who were getting reading to hang glide off the point and fly down into the valley. The older guy said, “It’s the best hike in the park.”
On my way out of the valley toward Hwy 120, I took a few short hikes, just far enough off the road to find a pretty spot with no people. Then, I sat down for thirty or forty minutes to take it in.
At one of these spots, I found a piece of granite near a lake. After I sat there for a while, a couple and their son came up. The man said, “We have to apologize to this man for disturbing his serenity.”
I replied, “It’s hard to disturb in a place like this.”
“Even with a five-year-old?” he said.
“Even with a five-year-old,” I replied.
However, people are becoming a problem in the park.
Yosemite is much smaller than Yellowstone, and it feels more crowded. As I was driving through, I wondered if the Park Service would one day need to limit admissions to national parks by lottery or some other form.
No one wants to talk about this. In Ken Burns’ documentary about the National Parks, he never mentions the crowds, except to cite some statistics on how many people visit the parks.
Americans view the National Parks as their birth right, as well they should. We should also view our parks as a gift to the world.
On this trip out west (my last long car trip out here was in 1996), I noticed far more foreign tourists, especially Germans, Japanese, and Chinese. You do, however, hear many languages as you move through a national park. As economies around the world have improved, more people from these countries can afford to tour America and its parks. I certainly don’t think we should develop an immigration policy for national parks, but foreign tourists are adding to the crowds.
The crowding is most apparent on the roads. You have to walk a ways into a trail to get away from the sound of buses, RVs, motorcycles, and cars. Yosemite has tried to deal with the crowding by providing shuttle service. You can park your car, get on a bus or a trolley (the kind with electric cars that pulls a series of trailers with seats, yes, the kind you saw in Disney World) and tour without a car. While this is a reasonable solution, it does make Yosemite seem a little more like a theme park.
I don’t want to downplay my experience in Yosemite. I had a smile on my face the entire time. It is an amazing place. I am, however, concerned about its future, how we can provide access to all without turning the park into parking lot.
After I left the east side of the park, on Hwy 120, I headed south on Hwy 395 to Independence. I had planned to camp, but I also thought I would still be in the mountains. The high today was about 104. I chickened out and checked into a motel that was probably built in the 1950s. It is a charming place. You just don’t see many motels like this. It is simplier than most chain hotels, but I have everything I need, even WiFi, and it is about $30 cheaper than most chains.
Tomorrow, I will head through Death Valley toward Las Vegas. I may pass through Vegas to Flagstaff and go into the Grand Canyon from there. I don’t know. Maybe I ought to spend a night in Vegas.
Posted in Yosemite | Tags: National Parks, Yosemite
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