A week in Los Angeles

(I pulled the picture that appears to the right off the internet. This is Manhatten Beach which is about 2 miles from my hotel. Notice the ugly refinery right on the beach. )

On the heels of our vacation, which is probably as close as you can get to primeval wilderness in the lower 48, I had my first week on my new job, located in Los Angeles.

Wow.

The contrast is so striking in fact, that it is unsettling. I am still reading the books I purchased on my trip. So I spend my evenings reading Edward Abbey and during the day I have to walk past laser guided nuclear missiles to get a damned cup of coffee. I suppose there is no longer any denying that I am cog in the wheel of the military industrial complex. *sigh*

The good news is that I finally finished Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey. It is such a great book. I must confess that I have a weakness for the likes of Abbey. His book The Monkey Wrench Gang is one of my all time favorites and it forever put a soft spot in my heart for environmentalists (which contrasts nicely with my day job.)

I've moved on to reading Cadillac Desert which is a book that deals with the history of the West with regards to water. Another fascinating (environmentally themed) book. One area that the book concentrates heavily on is the place where I will often find myself reading it, Los Angeles. Learning about the history of Los Angeles while I'm actually there is kind of a neat experience. I will admit that until picking up the book, I had no earthly idea who Mulholland was(of the famed Mulholland Dr.) I know now. Although as an Arizona resident I certainly know who John Wesley Powell is, but I didn't know much about his writings. This book devotes a whole chapter to Powell (and one to Mulholland). And if what the book says is true, Powell would probably be horrified to learn that "Lake" Powell was named in his honor. If there was ever a case of "ignorance is bliss" this is certainly it. This book will , like the last book, continually remind me of things I don't want to think about. I live in Phoenix, a city that is completely reliant on unreliable sources of water. Los Angeles is on similarly tenuous ground. I'm not even half way through the book yet, but I can see where the discussion is likely pointing; the confluence of continued agriculture, population growth and a good long hard drought could turn the entire west into a ghost town. I just hope I'm long gone before it happens. This book is confirming what I have been saying privately to friends and family since I have arrived in Phoenix: this desert, with it's snakes and scorpions, and 116 degree days is not fit for human habitation.

On that happy note I will leave off for today. I go back to work on Monday, only this week I will be working in Dallas. Hope you are having a fun summer!

Arches and Ancesteral Puebloans

I am writing this from the comfort of my kitchen in Phoenix. Two days ago we pulled into Moab, UT and checked out Arches National Park. Our orginal intention was to spend one day at Arches and one day at Canyonlands NP. That was not to be, because we found out that the town of Moab itself is filled with ancient Anasazi wrtings called petroglyphs and pictographs, and we really wanted to see these, so yesterday we spent the first half of the day back at Arches--where all 6 kids got Junior Ranger badges--and the second half of the day touring the town to see the ancient writings. One sad thing we noted all over town is that most of the ancient writings have been vandalized over the years and sadly, right next to a petroglyph that might be from 2000 BC, you have grafitti from some idiot who scratched their initials in back in '75. The picture you see here I took in the Arches Park right past the Wolfe Ranch. Because this one is in a protected National Park, it is in very good shape, and also, this particluar slab is not that old. These petroglyphs are from sometime after the Spaniards arrived in the area and reintroduced horses to the contient. (Notice the guy on his horse in the upper left corner.) This could have been put here anytime between 1200 AD and 1800 AD--there is no way to date it precicely--but they can use the content of the pictures to help them determine when it was put there (in this case the Indian on the horese.) Also different times, produced different styles of art.

Last night we drove from Moab all the way to Phoenix. It was past 4am when we finally arrived at home. Charlie cleaned out the camper this morning and as I type I am running one of what will amount to about 5 loads of laundry, and Charlie is taking the camper back to the place we rent to store it. I'm getting bleary eyed, so shortly I'm going to put Claire in for a nap.

I have lots of reflections on this vacation and over the coming weeks as I process it all mentally, I will post my thoughts--what I liked best and least, what I would do differently next time etc... I also purchased four books on subjects pertinent to the vacation, and I will respond to those books here as well.

Thank you to all of you who read this blog. It was fun reading your comments and emails. It was also fun posting to this blog, and recording what we were doing.

Bison and deer and bears, oh my!

July 11, 2007
I am typing this in the car as we travel east on I-70 through central Utah. It is extremely desolate here and I am beyond tired.
When I left off last time, we were in Cody Wyoming and as I mentioned in the last post, we were going into Yellowstone and camping two days in the park (as such, we had no cell phone service and definitely no wifi.) Yellowstone was incredible, and I was surprised that the kids were so completely fascinated by the place. The day we arrived, the first thing we did was go to see Old Faithful. The kids weren’t too keen on waiting around for the thing to blow, but once it went off they were pretty much speechless. It was amazing. The one thing that virtually everyone complained about in the geyser basin, however, was the incredibly awful sulfur smell. It was overpowering. And little did we realize at the time, but it was going to get worse. So we spent that whole first day just cruising around the Old Faithful area and seeing the other geysers and hot springs in the immediate area. We had the good fortune to see Castle Geyser go off, it spewed water for something near 30-45 minutes. It was amazing. We were across the basin from it , so unlike Old Faithful we were not right near it when it went off, but we had a great view of it nonetheless.
The next day we travelled along Yellowstone Lake and Yellowstone River. We stopped to see some boiling mud pots and there was one called Dragon’s Mouth that literally reeked to the high heavens with sulfur. Joseph started to gag and Marianne announced to the whole world that this smelled so bad that it really wasn’t worth seeing. As we walked along the path to leave the boiling mud pots a bison was walking calmly through the parking lot and in between the cars. It got so close that I started backing up back toward the mud pots and he started heading in our direction, then he changed his mind and started back towards the parking lot; that was our opportunity to dash to our car. We have some incredible pictures of this guy up close. Next we passed through the Hayden Valley where I saw the largest number of Buffalo I have ever seen in my life; there had to be 75-100 mothers and babies in that valley. Some of them were right up next to the road so we got to see a baby buffalo right up close. Next we stopped to see the upper and lower falls of the Yellowstone River. The lower falls were breathtaking. They pour into a thing called the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The walls of the canyon are filled with geothermal areas. So, right there in the walls there are geysers and hot springs. In the parking lot of one area near the river, a geyser sprang up right in the parking lot and they had to build a fence around it. So there you are in the parking lot parked next to a big sinkhole with boiling water in it.
We continued on and we saw a whole mess of people stopped on the side of the road. In Yellowstone traffic tie-ups are almost always caused by animal sightings; but the biggest traffic stoppers of them all are Grizzly Bears. As I mentioned in a previous post, in the old days (about 20 years ago) you would never see a Grizzly near the road. But in fact there were sightings the prior day of a mother and her 3 cubs, so everyone came back at dusk to see if she was out again. She was not there, so we continued on up to Tower falls and on the way we saw a black bear foraging around in the woods. There was a ranger right in front of him on the road to make sure no one harassed the bear. (Yes, people do harass the animals. Usually they are just trying to get a picture, but they start shouting at the animal to get them to turn toward the camera, and sometimes they do more than turn, they can and do charge sometimes and if that happens you are in bad situation.) So after arriving at Tower Falls, it was getting late in the day and we decided to go back toward where we saw the black bear to see if we could get a better look at him, but he was gone. However, as we approached the area where the Grizzlys had been the previous day, we got extremely lucky as a mother Grizzly and two cubs happened to be playing in the meadow. It was incredible. They were at a safe distance so the ranger wasn’t chasing people off. But there were two rangers trying to maintain order. There was a massive traffic tie up and virtually everyone was out of their cars with cameras and binoculars. It really was neat, and just as we got a really good look at her the ranger walked up to us and said that the mother with the three cubs—a different Grizzly family—was spotted up on the hill in front of us. We did not have the opportunity to see this other bear, but having seen the first one with her cubs was really a highlight of the entire trip.
I have had a good bit of time to contemplate this mother bear since the day I saw her. I am very clear on why I admire these animals so much. They spend all summer getting as fat as ursusly possible; so that they can sleep snuggled up next to their cubs for the entire winter! What could be better than that? I would love to spend my summer eating barbeque food and ice cream and then settle down come late September with my little kiddies and sleep until May.
After checking out of the campground in Yellowstone, we decided to return to Teton National Park and take our new canoe out. (Canoeing is not really safe in Yellowstone because the water temperature in all of the bodies of water is so cold; Yellowstone lake never goes above about 50 degrees.) We returned to String Lake and all of the kids got a chance to ride in the canoe, and go swimming. Meagan, Michael and Joseph finished the activities for their junior ranger badges, so we stopped in the visitor center for them to take their oath and get their badges. After that we got on the road and drove all the way to Provo Utah. Last night for the first time on this trip, we stayed in a hotel. The hot showers were awesome. So now we are on our way to Moab (which is where I will be when I finally have an opportunity to publish this post—we should have wifi there.)
Later today we are planning to check out Arches NP (as I type we are about 30 miles out) and Canyonlands tomorrow. I will post again and let you know how all of this goes. After that we are going to make a beeline for home.

Grand Teton and sneaking a peek at Yellowstone

I'm sorry I skipped a day of posting but I was so spent last night when we finally got to Cody, there was just no way I was booting up the PC. I hope you all understand. So now I have two days to catch you up on.

So two nights ago we didn't make it to Cody as I explained in the prior post--you know the whole Marianne shrieking, deer in the road, mom on the phone situation. Let's not revisit it. So we woke up outside of Grand Teton National Park, camped along the Snake River. The river is just gorgeous, and being the mother of a pile of kids growing up the desert, it was a real treat for them just to go rock hopping and throwing stones in the river. The place was amazing.

I had very little idea of what to expect from Grand Teton National Park. Holy mackerel! The pictures will never do this place justice. I know they say that Yellowstone is the crown jewel of the national park system, but the sheer beauty of Teton really gives Yellowstone a run for its money in the crown jewel department. We entered the park just after the noon hour and everyone was starving. So we ate lunch at a park concession--unlike any other--we ate buffalo burgers inside a teepee. For real. We drove through the park and it was fairly crowded. So the more popular spots (like Jenny Lake) had no parking for our rig. No matter. We ended up at a spot called String Lake and for most of the kids this was their very first time swimming in a naturally occurring lake. And it was a glacial pond no less. But since it was a fairly small body of water, the water was plenty warm enough for swimming even though, as you'll notice in the pictures, there is still a hefty bit of SNOW on Grand Teton. Although he has not said it, I think this was Mike's favorite part of the trip so far. Once we finished hanging out at String Lake, it was time to head to Cody. Well...

Cody was further than we thought. You see, we hadn't counted on having to travel 30 MPH through Yellowstone. (In order to get from Teton out to Cody, you actually have to enter Yellowstone on the South side and exit on the East side.) So we didn't end up in Cody until about 11pm. The drive through Yellowstone was not without it's own special excitement. Halfway through, there were 5 bison on the side of the road. All of the cars were at a halt to take pictures and see them. One of them was literally 10 feet or so from my door. So I, like a good tourist, roll down my window for a picture, and as soon as the flash went off the beast huffed and slammed his hoof down. The pictures didn't come out, and I wasn't too keen on hanging around and seeing if he would charge. So that was the end of that. The drive through the park in the dark was treacherous. I don't look forward to doing that again. The road out to the East entrance is really desolate, and there are bear warnings everywhere. I kept thinking, "crap this is all we need, a Grizzly Bear in the pitch dark out in the wilderness." I have visited Yellowstone twice before in the late 80s and early 90s. Back then, there we bears, of course, but your likelihood of seeing a Grizzly outside of the back country was really low. Their population must have increased, because now there are whole areas closed because mother grizzlies are living there with their cubs. And Charlie actually spoke to a woman who had seen a mother grizzly and three cubs crossing a road in Teton. Back in the early 90s a grizzly on the park road was practically unheard of.

A thing that I want to mention that is positively striking. I was in Yellowstone last time, maybe a year or two after the huge fire and huge portions of the park were black, but with verdant grass and flowers on the burned forest floor. Now, 20 years later the new trees are growing up in place of the old, but the sticks from the old trees are still there. It is amazing to me, now, just how large of an area it was that burned; you can drive for miles and miles and there are literally millions of dead trees, and the things are still standing. I've put a picture of what it looks like.

So today we woke up in Cody and went for pancake breakfast at the campground. You can't beat it; $2 all you can eat. Our big activities of the day were going swimming, playing in the playground, getting "provisions" down at the local Wal-Mart (Big W to you Aussie folks who are reading) and last but not least, going horseback riding outside of Cody. All of the kids, save Claire, had their own horse. Claire rode with Charlie and would you believe it, she actually fell asleep on the horse! ON the horse. I was amazed. We would have liked to have made it to Cody Rodeo, but we were all just too tired. So we made a giant fire, cooked up some chicken, corn on the cob and baked potatoes. It was a great dinner. Then as I worked on this blog entry, Charlie and the kids made s'mores.

One final note. We made a new family purchase today. You can see a photo of it here. The new item is on top of our car in this picture. We are planning to go back to that lake in Teton on the way back out of here and use it. Then we intend to use it on some of the ponds in Northern Arizona on weekend trips.

So tomorrow we leave Cody and we are going to tour Yellowstone for real. We going to see Old Faithful, which the kids are really anxious to see and we'll probably go up to Mammoth Hot Springs as well (since on two prior trips I never went out there). The only problem with Yellowstone is its size. The park is so gigantic, you could really make it your life's ambition to get to know the place and we, unfortunately, have only a few days. There are a couple hundred miles of park roads and countless hiking trails, lakes, mountains, canyons, geysers and sulfuric smelling hot pools. We got to see a few vents on the way in and when the kids saw them and the boiling water and steam coming out, it finally sunk in that this is a giant active volcano. And they kept asking "why does it smell like that?" Just the earth passing a little gas...whaddaya gonna do?

On that note I'll sign off. We are camping in Yellowstone tomorrow night and I will probably not have Internet access, let's rephrase that. I will not have Internet access, so I will probably not be able to post again until after we leave the park. Take care, and pray that we see no Grizzly mamas, and that we don't inadvertently piss off another bison. And of course, we don't want any geologic events on a scale larger than Old Faithful.

We finally arrive in Wyoming!

The day started out with a bang. While packing up to get us and our rig out of Provo Utah, Claire decided to dump an entire soda onto our bed. So rather than leave we had to run a load of laundry. I was none too happy about this. But we did eventually get on the road and once in Wyoming we stopped at Fossil Buttes National Monument where we got to see the fossilized fish and tropical plants from what was once a gigantic lake--now a dry dusty nothing. It was really cool though, and I'm proud to report that Meagan became a National Park Senior Ranger and Mike, Joseph, Marianne and Christopher all became Junior Rangers. This entailed them doing a bunch of learning activities at the visitor center and then having a demonstration with the ranger who showed them how to excavate a fossil and finally taking an oath to protect our national parks, never litter in the parks, never feed or chase animals etc. After which each of them was given a Park Ranger badge. After all of that we got on the road again and realized we would never make it to Cody tonight, so instead we are camping in Grand Teton. This switch of campgrounds was not without incident however. We were in the Bridger National Forest when we realized we weren't going to make it to Cody. So naturally there was no cell phone service and I needed to make a reservation at a new campground and cancel the old reservation. Finally we get to an area where there is a cell tower and I start calling the campground. At the exact moment that I finished saying to the clerk "Do you have a site available for tonight?" Marianne lets our a blood curdling howl from the back seat. I say "hold on" to the girl on the phone and at the precise moment that Charlie turns around to see what the heck is going on in the back, a deer runs into the street at which time I start yelling "DEER! Hit the breaks!" All the while Marianne still screaming and the poor girl from the campground on the phone. Some days, I could go without all of the excitement y'know. The good news is that we did not hit the deer. The bad news is Claire had bitten Marianne on the hand. When Charlie pulled over and got back there and she said to Claire "why did you bite Marianne?" She replied, "I'n know" which means I don't know. Marianne is fine, but I'm sure it hurt. And the I can't imagine what the poor person on the phone was thinking with all of this going on while she was on the line. Well the day is over and tomorrow we head out for Grand Teton National Park, then on to Cody KOA and Yellowstone.

I'll post more pictures tomorrow.

The Nature of Vacation & the State of Utah

Today all we did was drive. We took US Route 89 through Utah along the Sevier River. It was a very scenic drive. There are a few things worth noting about Utah. This state is not like other states. First of all there are things missing (or very short supply) here that you find easily in other states in the union. Those things are:

-Taverns or bars (not that we are going to any, of course. Could you imagine? People would be calling the cops: "some nutcase just walked in here with 6 kids, can someone please DO something about it?")
-Coffee shops
-Daycares
-Synagogues
-Catholic Churches

You can probably find these things in the big cities (like Salt Lake) but in rural Utah they are pretty much not on the landscape.

Another thing worth noting is the physical appearance of the place. Everything here is very neat and orderly, downright spiffy. In the East, down on their luck farmers usually let their properties go to hell; there are ususally old cars from each decade starting in the '60s gracing the lawn, old appliances outside and swings from kids that one guesses left decades ago to raise their own families; the places can look really shabby. Not so in Utah. Here everything is neat and clean; even the most humble trailer has manicured lawns, potted flowers and a fresh coat of paint. Not a single appliance on a lawn did I see. All of the buildings, even the old ones, are well kept. Some of the farms have really beautiful huge houses, and with the cows out to pasture as they always seem to be, the whole scene is just gorgeous.

We watched the fireworks at Brigham Young University tonight. It was really cool--as fireworks always are. And again I can't help but notice what is missing. Here we are in Provo/Orem Utah; we watched the firworks on campus of a major university (BYU is a big school) and not one campus bar did we see. I noticed only one house with Greek letters. It's like the university town twilight zone. What do these kids do one wonders. Considering the number of small children running out and about, the answer isn't exactly a mystery. Which leads to a funny little story that happened at dinner. We went into one of those all you can eat places with the kids for dinner. The girl who was the cashier saw our party of 8 come in and when all the kids ran to the restroom to wash their hands she said "I grew up in a family of 11, and our house was only 2,300 square feet." I told her that while I only grew up in a family of 7 I totally understood what she went through. I did not tell her how small my childhood home was, but she continued her story. She said "my parents finally bought a 6000 sq ft house and 5 of us are already out of the house. It's just wrong." I said, "I hear ya sister."

The other topic of thinking while on this long drive through Utah is what exactly constitutes a vacation? Please post your comments on this issue. Those of you who know me well know that my idea of a vacation means doing absolutely nothing. Walking from my beachfront hotel to the sand is as strenous as I want to get. When I take a dip in the ocean, you cannot call it a "swim" as no actual swimming takes place; I don't move a muscle; I float. I don't go get drinks; I order them brought to me. My sisters can attest that all of this is true. So you may wonder what the hell I'm doing on THIS vacation where it took the planning of an army general to figure out how much driving on each day, and making sure we had a place to park the rig each night etc... Not to mention HIKING and packing a 4 year old out of a canyon on my back to get him back to the car before he passed out from the heat. In my mind a vacation means leaving behind your daily activities, and as I'm sure most mothers will agree, if you are still doing daily laundery, slinging peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and bowls of Cookie Crisp for breakfast, then you are doing all the same stuff you would at home just in a different location; and that therefore is not a vacation. I will allow that there are different kinds of vacations: adventure vacations; family vacations, relaxation vacations; foreign destination vacations etc... but how would you classify what I'm doing now? Family vacation sure, but is it really a vacation? I'll let you decide!

I hope your Fourth was fun! Tomorrow we make our way to Wyoming. It will be another day of driving, but this is where the fun really starts!

Take care, and thanks for reading.

Bryce Canyon National Park, UT

July 3, 2007

I am so exhausted. We started out the day with the kids playing at the campground. There are teepees here that the kids were able to play in, so they took my camera and Marianne filmed a movie staring Joseph and Claire. I'm assuming it was a western since it took place in the teepee.

We left around noon and went over to Bryce Canyon National Park. We took the kids part of the way DOWN the Canyon. We did not just stick to the paved trails, but actually descended a good bit. There was a park ranger hanging out on the first switchback and she warned us that coming up is five times harder than going down, she told us not to go too far or we'd have to carry the little ones out and it wouldn't be any fun in the full sun. (That park ranger took this picture you see of all of us.) We followed her advice and went only a short way. It was worth it though. I've never seen anything like this place in my life. We have 165 pictures just from today. It was just amazing. The kids did fine. Mike is at the perfect age for this sort of vacation. Chris on the other hand did alot of "Mom, I'm so tired; I'm so hot; do we have to keep walking?" Much to his credit, whining aside, he made it back up the canyon without having to be carried. Claire did great as well, but she has it easy riding around on Charlie's back. We all got a bit of a sunburn today, because we were out for so long. We saw SO many animals: pronghorns, mule deer, wild turkeys, chipmunks, squirrels, western blue birds, and I think that is it.

This being Mormon country, (my brother in law Joe would love it here) things close up early. Restaurants all close at 9:30 which is before the sun sets for crying out loud. We really had to get our act together to make it to dinner on time. And things don't come cheap in the National Parks. Anyway here are a few pictures of our day. Tommorow we set off for Provo Utah. We will be spending the night near the Utah Lake. We will be just south of the Great Salt Lake.

My feet hurt and I need a shower. Otherwise all is good on the Western Front. To answer my dear old friend Marty's question: yes, you would be hard pressed to find a good nail salon out here. I'm definately going in for a foot massage when this whole adventure is over!

Hope your fourth is fab, and you see some great fireworks!

Antelope Canyon, Navajo Nation (No passport required)

This was such an event filled day. It was just amazing. We set out from Flagstaff around 11:30. We headed north on Highway 89. It is not everyday that you go somewhere you've never been, and that is especially true for me since I have visited all of the lower 48 states at some point. But today was different, we did not get on a single interstate all day; and we travelled through parts of AZ and UT that I've never visited.

We went through the Navajo Nation and we stopped and hiked down Antelope Canyon. It is not a far hike, but it is extremely narrow and steep in parts. I have never seen anything like this place in my life. I took these two pictures of the inside of the canyon. It was not easy getting all of the kids down this canyon and Charlie had Claire on his back. There were stairs at the end of the canyon to get back out, but once up to the surface again, you have to hike, in full sun, to your car. This was by far and away the worst part. It was about 110 degrees and by the time we got back to the car, Meagan was carrying Marianne and I was carrying Chris. Charlie was still carrying Claire and Mike and Joseph kept saying they were going to faint. We all survived.

Next we went to see Glen Canyon Dam. This was really cool. I am tired however, of hearing "Hoover DAMN! Are we still in New York?!" Which for some bizarre reason the kids kept shouting in the car. Two issues here. #1) it was not Hoover Dam, it was Glen Canyon, and #2) Needless to say New York is not on the agenda for this trip. But hey why pass up an opportunity to shout foul language in a confined space, and why not bitch about NY? Whatever. Kids...

We finally pulled in to our campground at about 10:30. We are staying in Ruby's Inn Utah right at the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park. The park shuttle stops right outside of the campground, and we will spend tomorrow exploring the area.

Note: current temperature is 50 degrees and I'm typing this in my COAT!

Flagstaff, AZ

July 1
Written at the Flagstaff KOA, Flagstaff Arizona 10:52pm

We finally got on the road at just before 5pm. Claire slept the whole way. What a blessed relief from the heat this is. It can’t be more than maybe 72 or 73 degrees out. It is dry though. So dry, in fact, that there are not open flames of any kind allowed (because of the high danger of wild fire.) So that meant our plans of barbequing dinner were off. So instead we ate hot dogs and beans.
This campground has very narrow campsites, so we are pretty close to the folks on either side. As I was making dinner I was thinking to myself, the Kennedys, the Bushes and the Hiltons of the world have never had a vacation like this. This is a vacation for people with friends in low places. The kids are having a blast so that makes it worth it. I’m anxious to keep truckin’. It has been so long since I have been to Wyoming and I’m really excited about going back. Wyoming is definitely one of my favorite states in the union; topped only perhaps by Florida. I would say my top 5 list of the contiguous 48 (having never been to Alaska and Hawaii yet) would include—but maybe not in this order:
· Florida
· Wyoming
· Montana
· Vermont
· New York
Well time to chill. Hope your weekend was great. Until next post…