Utah Ho! Day 1

Vacation Log: Day 1

Plymouth – 5:03 AM

Ugh. It’s early. I feel like...an ashtray. That is all. {Added note: You come up with a better description at five in the morning!}

Minneapolis/Saint Paul Airport – 7:11 AM

Through security w/ no problems. Luckily, I must appear to be trustworthy. Also, I left my machete at home. 1.5 hours ‘til boarding. D’oh! Guess I can people watch.

Huh. Taco Bell is open at 7 in the morning, and I saw somebody in line. Yech. Smells awful. (Taco Bell, not the person in line, although I guess I can’t really be sure about that.)

Minneapolis/Saint Paul Airport – 7:26 AM

Sitting outside of Starbucks w/ coffee that’s way too dark. Yuck. Everybody around me is feverishly working on their laptops while I scrawl nonsense in a notebook. Life is good.

Several kids are running wrong-way on the moving sidewalk, laughing the whole time. It’s hilarious. I sort of want to join them. Either that or go to the arcade I passed a while back. (I wonder if they have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game I played years ago in the Copper Country Mall?)

Minneapolis/Saint Paul Airport – 7:59 AM

Pushed past my natural tendency to be reserved and quiet and to never make eye contact w/ anybody. Chatted w/ Anne, the lady working at Author’s Bookstore. She was very nice, and it was quite fun. In other news, I wanted to try out the $1 massage chair but passed. I might end up regretting it. Maybe when I get back.

Minneapolis/Saint Paul Airport – 8:25 AM

Proud of myself for not yet bursting into song: “I’m just sitting out here watching airplanes...”

Almost time to board. Please don’t be next to a 350lb man with a B.O. problem!

Minneapolis/Saint Paul Airport – 9:09 AM

On plane. No longer feeling outspoken. Used that all up chatting w/ Anne. Luckily, guy sitting next to me (not 350 lbs!) is as determined as me not to speak. Nice.

Some guy is speaking loudly and passionately about baseball umpiring behind me. He sounds like he thinks he’s VERY important.

There should be an airline where nobody is allowed to speak. The whole plane would be quiet. I’d fly that airline all the time. Slogan: “Like you’re the only one on board!”

Might have to listen to some Gunsmoke once we get in the air.

Pretty sure the frequency of these entries will decrease dramatically once I actually start doing stuff.

Salt Lake City Airport – 11:03 AM (Utah Time)

Flight was uneventful, as flights should be. Listened to Gunsmoke and played Home Run Derby on my phone. Rendezvoused with Lurch. Can’t wait to see our rental car, i.e. milk carton on wheels.

Going to need sustenance soon.

Salt Lake City is gray and drab. At least from the airport windows.

On The Road South – Various Times During The Afternoon

The rental car is a Hyundai Accent. Actually not as small as I expected it to be. It should do the trick.

Radio stations are not promising. It got so bad that I even attempted the AM band.

Saw a drive-through beef jerky place. Seriously. Didn’t stop there or take a picture. Probably should have.

Unfortunately, Woohoo Burgers in Salina was out of business. What a ripoff! That place sounds cool.

Discovered rental car has X.M.!!! Woo-Hoo! (Not burgers)

Capitol Reef National Park – Early Evening

First hike was Chimney Rock Loop Trail. Legs need to get used to climbing. Lurchism on the descent: “Ah, downhill. Gravity is now my friend.”

Torrey – 9:55 PM

Upon entering the bathroom of the hotel room, I noticed there was a working telephone hanging on the wall. Very curious. {Added note: I wish I’d have gotten the number. How fun would it be to call the phone in a hotel bathroom on occasion?}

Utah Ho!

Just when you thought I might be done talking about vacations, it’s time to make my big reveal: It’s only the beginning! Moohawhaw! (That’s an evil laugh, by the way.)

I just returned from an eight day excursion to southern Utah, as hiking around in the desert in extreme temperatures seemed like a fun idea several months ago during the planning stage. During trips like these, pictures are typically my only source of documentation. However, this time I was feeling ambitious, so I also kept a journal. Its point was to allow me to log my thoughts, record exactly what happened should I ever need to recall it, and compile cheap material for use in multiple blog postings later on. (Another evil laugh may be appropriate here.)

 

As you can see, it was all handwritten. I don’t remember the last time I wrote extensively by hand, and it shows. Just glancing over it now, it’s pretty much illegible. (“Does that say canyon or caveman? What the heck is a rawr? Or is that supposed to be river?”) To the casual observer, it could realistically be anything from a grocery list to a terrible novel to the result of giving a three year old a pencil and letting him or her go to town.

 

However, despite the fact that it may very well take a minor miracle to decipher what I’ve written, my goal is to post the entire journal in electronic form.

 

Keep in mind that this is not a foray into serious travel writing, where being informative and educational is the main goal. It’s simply whatever I felt like scribbling down whenever I got the urge to scribble something down. In fact, I’m quite certain that there's an absolute minimum of informative and/or educational information contained in the journal, which is something that I'm very proud of.

 

Also keep in mind that a lot of it was written during breaks in the various hikes that were undertaken. At these times I was usually hot, dirty, and hungry, so my writing may very well reflect it. (Well, I’m usually always hungry, so that probably didn’t affect things all that much.)

 

What’s coming up will be a post for each day in the trip, along with whatever pictures seem applicable. The hope is that it’ll be interesting to see what was going through my head in real-time. Basically it’s kind of like the show 24, except without the gratuitous violence. Also, I probably don’t much resemble Keifer Sutherland. Also, there's no annoying ticking clock. Also - ah, never mind. That was a terrible analogy to begin with. Luckily, I'm too lazy to try and come up with another.

 

So, are you excited?

 

I didn’t think so, but tough. Thhhbbbtttt! (That’s me sticking my tongue out at you.) I’m the one stuck with the translating, so you’ll get no sympathy from me.

 

I’ll get started with the very first entry, from the day before vacation:

 

Vacation Log: Day -1

Plymouth – 9:06 PM

 

It’s the night before. Waking up at 5:00AM tomorrow. This wouldn’t be a problem if I were 93 years old. And if I hadn’t drunk a Mountain Dew at 7:00. So probably little sleep tonight.

 

Oh well. There’s nothing like stumbling around the airport half-asleep.

 

Tomorrow at this time, I’ll be at Capitol Reef National Park in Utah. Or I’ll be angry because I missed my flight. Or I’ll be in L.A. because I took the wrong one.

 

Utah Ho!

Jump To:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8



Out With The Old, Annoyed With The New

I’ve been writing a lot about vacations lately. The reason for this is twofold.

First, I have a vacation coming up here quickly, so it’s been on my mind.

Second, and probably more important, not many amusing things have happened to me in the recent past, which severely limits potential new material. (Seriously, why can’t I get elbowed in the face again and get a huge black-eye? Something like that practically writes itself!)

Anyway, for my next vacation I’ll be using a new camera. My old camera, after many years of loyal service taking grainy pictures anytime the lighting wasn’t absolutely ideal, finally conked out. It was a steady companion that always gave its all, but now it’s time for it to go to the camera retirement home, where it’ll lounge around in a stress-free environment, always seemingly low on battery, its zoom failing, its memory card malfunctioning, constantly bragging to the other retired cameras about all of its wacky adventures, each of which grows in scope and duration every time it's told.

You’d think that getting a new camera would be a happy event for me. However, I find it more annoying than anything else, mainly because I now have to figure out how it works. I mean, you’d think I’d purchased a fully functional nuclear reactor or a time machine, based solely on the number of buttons, levers, dials, and screens I now have to deal with. I fully believe that the designers purposely made everything way more complicated than it had to be. Heck, after I’d finally figured out just how to attach the strap to it, I had to lie down for a while to recuperate, as it had been a totally emotionally exhausting experience.

As you might expect, the camera came with a manual about three inches thick. It includes many complicated diagrams and utterly ridiculous paragraphs that were obviously placed there just for fun, in order to see if anybody actually reads it. Here is an example: “Divide the slave units into groups A and B, and change the flash ratio to obtain the desired lighting effect. Refer to your Speedlite’s instruction manual to set one slave unit’s slave ID to A (Group A) and the other slave unit’s ID to B (Group B) and position them as shown in the illustration.”

Ha ha! Right! That makes perfect sense!

To top it off, honest to goodness, the illustration referred to in the above paragraph includes, of all things, a cartoon penguin.

I guess I just don’t get photography.

Now, you may think that I’d be smart about this and take the time to test the camera extensively before I go on vacation. This would include taking a wide variety of pictures in all of the different modes until I figured out what worked and what didn’t.

You’d be wrong.

I don’t test well. I prefer to move right on the real thing and just wing it. Now, I fully realize that means I may mess everything up and come back from vacation with a memory card full of pictures that makes it seem that I spent the whole time inside of a running washing machine, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.

For you software developers out there, this pretty much sums up my attitude on the matter:

Basically, I’m resigned to the fact that I’m going to be the guy who’s constantly fumbling with his camera, obviously with no idea as to what he’s doing, but much too proud to admit it for fear of feeling like less of a man. I could be holding the camera upside-down and backwards when I accidently hit the self-destruct button, which I’m sure it has since it has a feature for seeming everything, and after it explodes, leaving behind a smoking crater in the ground and consuming my eyebrows, I’ll look around and confidently say, “Yup, just what I thought!”

But none of that really concerns me. If I look foolish, then that’s just the way it’s going to be. People should just mind their own business, anyway. Plus, maybe I like washing machine pictures. And not having eyebrows.

We're Going Up There!

Vacations are all a matter of preference.

Some like to explore the big cities, rubbing elbows with the masses, which is another way of saying mingling with thousands of unknown people with unknown motives, in what I can only guess is an attempt to break the record for total number of times a single person can be mugged.

Some like to lie on a white-sand ocean beach, barely exhibiting a pulse, listening to the waves as they gently lap in on the shore, hoping not to be pinched by a passing crab or stung by a washed-up jellyfish.

Some like to stand in line at an amusement park for hours on end, wondering if the people in front of and behind them have ever heard of deodorant, just so they can go on a ride that makes them puke.

And me? I like to wander in the wilderness for extended periods of time with a limited supply of food and water, hoping that I’m not the slowest person in my group in case of hungry bears, all just to climb to the top of some giant chunk of rock so I can admire the view for about three-tenths of a second before climbing back down to find something good to eat for dinner.

When my friend Lurch and I wind up on vacation together, our activities seem to always include elevation changes. We’ll find some mountain stretching up into the sky, ringed with clouds, where you can’t even see the tip and where the mountain goats are wearing rappelling gear and helmets. There will be a narrow hiking trail up it, consisting of enough switchbacks to make you dizzy, not to mention a sign that says something like: It’s Never Too Late To Find Religion But You’re Cutting It Pretty Dang Close. Ignoring all of this, we’ll smile, look up the mountain, and say, “We’re going up there!” Many hours later, we’ll stumble back down, exhausted, hungry, but happy. Then we’ll look back up to the mountain and say, “We were up there!” At that point we’ll go find the unhealthiest burger joint around to celebrate our continued existence.

I exaggerate, of course. I’m no mountain climber, but when I’m on vacation, I do tend to often find myself on long hikes with a decent amount of elevation change. When this all goes well, it can be a rewarding experience. There’s the fresh air, the lack of annoying people around you, the beautiful scenery, and the feeling of accomplishment you get when you finish.

When you bite off more than you can chew, however, you end up on a Death March.

I realize that Death March is most likely a politically incorrect term, but I’ve been using it for quite some time now, and it’s too late to change. Anyway, a Death March, at least by my definition, is when you start crapping out on a long hike well before you reach its end, most likely because you never took the time to learn how to correctly interpret a topographic map and chose a hike with enough elevation change that you should have been at least somewhat concerned with getting the bends.

Once you hit the Death March portion of a hike, you no longer pay attention to the scenery around you, no matter how visually alluring it may be. You could pass a tree sprouting twenty-dollar bills, the Swedish Bikini Team, or Santa Claus, and it wouldn’t phase you in the least. Instead, you just trudge along, concentrating only on your next step, longing for the end of the trail, your eyes glazed over as you exhibit no signs of intelligence whatsoever, much like if you’d just watched one of the recent Transformer movies.

The best example of a Death March for me is when Lurch and I decided to hike the Peralta Trail in Arizona. We were feeling quite ambitious at the time and decided that going out to Weaver’s Needle and back would be too short. So, we decided to hook up with another nearby trail to extend the hike a bit. I don’t remember the exact distance it was going to be in total, but I believe it was in excess of ten miles, by no means a guaranteed Death March.

The problem was that the connecting trail was drawn on the map with a dotted line. What I didn’t know at the time is that a dotted line doesn’t mean there’s actually a trail there, but that, in theory, a trail could be placed there if enough government stimulus money was provided and enough bureaucrats sighed off on it. This dotted line also so happened to go over a giant ridge, which I probably would have noticed if I’d have ever taken the time to learn to read topographic maps correctly.

Needless to say, the last three or four miles of that hike were not fun. By that time the mountains were no longer fun to look at, my feet were threatening to go on strike, and I’d lost all interest in cacti, even when two of them were growing next to each other and their appendages made it look like they were engaged in a desperate fist fight. By the time we finished the hike, I was numb and useless, much like I’d watched all three Transformers movies in a row.

There is a upside to Death Marches however, and that is that they’re fun to talk about in retrospect:

“Remember that time we tried to hike way too far and almost died?”
"Yes.”
“That was great! Ha ha!”
“You’re right! Ha ha!”

I mean, nobody remembers the little hikes where nothing happened. You need to attempt interesting hikes to keep it fun, and if it winds up in a Death March, then so be it. It’s just part of the game.

Plus, it’s still better than being stung by a jellyfish.

Fool Loan Turkey And Hay

I’m usually not a big fan of gyms, and don’t really foresee myself ever getting a membership at one. This is mainly because I fear I’d crumble under the pressure of working out in public where everybody could see me and laugh, and I picture myself being thrown across the room by the treadmill or pinned helplessly underneath the weight bar. (Just the bar, mind you, without any weight added to it yet.)

Now, before you say anything, I know that I’m being a bit silly about this. I mean, I realize that I could just show up, stretch a little, sip some Gatorade, and pretend to be waiting for some of the various machines to open up, but that seems like a waste of money just to be able to hang around and be too afraid to talk to any of the girls there.

So, at least for the time being, gyms are out for me.

There is one new gym, however, that I’m ecstatic about. This is because it’s made my life a whole lot easier, even though I’ve never once walked through its doors. It’s located in a strip mall right next to my local Subway. This is advantageous because all of the people working out at the gym fill up the parking lot, which makes it look like Subway is full, and so all of the potential Subway customers turn around and leave because they don’t want to be stuck in what they think must be a ridiculously long line, which most likely contains that one guy ordering eighteen sandwiches, the details of which he wrote down on his arm in pen but which have since smeared terribly, leaving him scratching his head and asking for a “Fool loan turkey and hay on Montgomery chipper?”

The result of this is that once I realized that Subway was never actually filled up, even though it looked like it was, I figured out I could just park way across the lot somewhere, hike over, and pretty much have the entire restaurant all to myself, where I could get in and out in only a couple of minutes.

Pretty good setup, huh?

So, way to go America in your battle against obesity! It’s allowed me even faster access to a wide array of highly caloric foods, especially if I break down and get the cookies! (Mmmmm, M&M cookies…) What a great country!

On a side note, I want to give a shout-out, if that’s still the appropriate “hip” terminology one should be using, to one of the rare customers who was actually in Subway with me recently. It was a lady accompanied by three young boys. They were ahead of me in line, and I was picturing a twenty-minute wait as the boys yelled, punched, kicked, spit, and generally did everything that boys do when they get together, which typically doesn't include ordering a sandwich. The lady, however, graciously told me that I could go in front of her in line, which I greatly appreciated. The boys didn’t seem to mind. They were too busy yelling, punching, kicking, and spitting.

So whoever you were, thanks ma’am! You were as helpful as the gym next door!

Radio Scan

Summer is the time of year for vacations, where you load up the car, hit the open highway, leave behind your daily doldrums, and get out there to discover America! Then, as you find yourself waiting in lines of nearly infinite length, either on the highways or hiking trails or theme parks, you wonder why you were such an idiot as to vacation during the summer, when just about everybody else in the country is also discovering America right alongside of you.

With all of this discovering going on around you and slowing you down, you’re going to be spending a lot of time in the car, and unless you want to use it talking to your traveling companions, which after the first six hours or so will be completely out of the question because you’ll all be completely sick of each other, you’re going to need some form of entertainment.

I recommend Radio Scan.

Radio Scan is when you leave behind your mp3 player and instead explore the local radio stations, in the hopes of finding something interesting, such as something that will give you a little window into the unfamiliar culture of the area you’re visiting, or maybe even broaden your intellectual horizons, or perhaps, if you’re really lucky, make you in some way a better person. (You also hope you don’t find only rap, because then you’ll be forced to turn the radio off and play the ABC game, which will cause you to go insane, but which is still a better alternative than rap.)

Several years ago I was on a trip out west that took us through North Dakota. After giving up on our Louis L’Amour audio book, where the male narrator tried to do the voices of all of the characters but failed spectacularly, especially those of the women, we began to scan through the radio static. That’s when we found Big Bear, who was playing some form of traditional Native American music. It was fascinating to us, in the sense that we understood nothing. Our best guess was that he was performing traditional songs of his people, passed down from generation to generation. But that was just a guess. He may also have been singing about his favorite brand of yogurt or something. Still, we'd never really heard anything like it before, and so we listened intently. When a song finished, the announcer would come on and say, “And that was Big Bear...And coming up next we have…” Then there’d be a long, dramatic pause, before the announcer made the big reveal: “Big Bear!” It was like a 50 Song Big Bear Super Set.

Just recently, on my way up to Michigan, I ran into a station that played old time radio. I got so immersed in an episode of the Six-Shooter, starring Jimmy Stewart, that I blew right through Ironwood without stopping to use the bathroom like I’d planned, because I didn’t want to miss out on what happened during the cattle stampede. It was a looong ride after that to Wakefield, if you know what I mean, but it was still worth it.

Sometimes, however, you’re not so lucky in what you find. Last year my friend Lurch and I were driving through eastern Washington, which is approximately 87 billion miles long and has roughly two total radio stations. Needless to say, this was a rough stretch. Here's how bad it got: As we flipped through the nearly-empty radio dial, we suddenly caught the tail end of “Living On A Prayer” by Bon Jovi. Starved for entertainment as we were, we cursed our luck for having missed it. Trying to stay upbeat, I suggested that maybe they’d be doing a double play. Moments later, “Shot Through The Heart” came on, and we both cheered loudly. When that was finished, “Wanted Dead Or Alive” came on. It was a triple play!!! We cheered and hollered until we were both hoarse, I kid you not. 87 billion miles can do that do that to a person. It was hilarious and sad all at the same time.

Another time, during a trip to Arizona, it seemed that all we heard was “Glory Days” by Bruce Springsteen and some Cher song that I’ve since blocked out of my memory because of the trauma it caused me. I swear we heard each song about a dozen times, and this was on multiple radio stations, too, like it was some sort of vast Arizona conspiracy. Maybe the Cher song was to try and scare away illegal immigrants. I’m not sure about Bruce.

Despite the occasional questionable experience, however, I’m still all for Radio Scan. For one thing, when you finally do stumble onto a good song or program, like a Bon Jovi triple-play, after listening to a string of terrible ones that almost made you wish you were back at work and not on vacation, it’s that much sweeter, a fine example of delayed gratification at its best. Plus, maybe one day I’ll find a place that has a 24-7 Don Williams station. Then I’d move there, because those people would have their priorities straight.

Digital Book? Nah, I'm Good

I’ve never been very good at handling change. This is evidenced by the following:

• I’ve had the same clock radio since middle school. It’s been with me in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It probably thinks it’s on some grand adventure that will eventually conclude in California around my 95th birthday. Perhaps that’s true.
• I’ve had the same duffle bag since high school. It smells faintly of the nineties. Several years back, I found a comb in it and laughed heartily. That should tell you how old it is.
• I’ve had the same wristwatch for a half-dozen years or so. Its face is scratched terribly and there's sand in all of its crevices, making it grind hideously any time the band is flexed. I see no reason to purchase a new one. Ever.

With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that I’m slightly disturbed by the trend of books going digital. While I understand the benefits of reading on a tablet, I still think there are too many advantages to physical books to just put them out to the proverbial pasture. Here are a few of them.

1.) With physical books, you get to display them prominently on a shelf, forcing anybody in the vicinity to recognize your extraordinary level of literary sophistication. Personally, I’ve spent more time than I care to admit organizing my bookshelf to get it just right, and I’m quite proud of the final result, even though it may surprise some. (“So, you own, like, every single Garfield book?")

2.) Keeping with the bookshelf theme, a fun activity for children is to pull all of the books off a bookshelf, creating a mound of literature that instantly turns the room into a total disaster area, all while creating good photo opportunities. This would not be possible with digital books. Now why would we want to lose this?

Yeah, that’s me.

3.) Physical books are good to crush bugs with, especially if they’re hard-cover; even more so if they’re 1968 Encyclopedias that state that computers work by “magic”.

4.) When I finish reading a book, I like to celebrate by performing the “Book Throw.” This means I toss it squarely onto the floor from wherever I’m at, which is usually a chair or my bed. This generates a satisfying clunk and punctuates my accomplishment. Doing this with a tablet wouldn’t really work, as it would either break or sense the impact and instantly log onto Facebook to update my status to say how much of a careless jerk I am.

5.) With physical books, you get to have cool bookmarks, like the copper one I have with an illustration of a man panning gold on it, complete with a burro. It’s fantastic.

6.) Reading a physical book automatically makes you look smart, even if you’re not. This is especially true if you frown a lot and wear glasses, along with occasionally remembering to turn the page. (This does not apply, however, if you’re reading something like The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Do-It-At-Home Surgery) However, if you’re reading a book on your tablet, it automatically makes you look like you’re wasting time on the internet or playing games, even if you frown extra-hard and wear multiple sets of glasses.

7.) Physical books can’t run out of batteries on the last chapter.

8.) New book smell.

9.) During my school days, all the way through college, I had to use physical textbooks, and I see no reason why future students shouldn’t have to do the same. Plus, physical textbooks in school have several benefits, including the following:

• With physical books you need a backpack, which you can wear over one shoulder. This makes you look suave, like you’re too cool to play entirely by the rules. (Although there is a small chance that it makes you look like you lack the necessary motor skills to put on a backpack correctly. However, if you frown a lot and wear glasses, you should be all right.)
• With physical textbooks, one way for a boy to display his budding affection towards a girl is to offer to carry hers. It just wouldn’t be the same if the boy asked to carry her tablet. In fact, he might get accused of trying to steal it.
• Books used year after year can be beneficial to the educational process, as helpful notes may be left behind in the margins for the next reader. For example, one might find the following in a chemistry textbook: “Mr. Brady doesn’t use deodorant. If you don't believe me, wait for a hot day when he’s reaching up to erase the whiteboard.” Now that’s knowledge you can’t put a price on.

This is by no means a complete list. For example, I’ve mentioned nothing about perusing used book stores or libraries. Plus, can you really compare reading anything digitally to pulling a beat-up Calvin & Hobbes treasury off of the shelf and reading it cover to cover?

I thought not.