Driving Home

In my last post I told you I got to meet some cool girls in my Santa Monica hostel. 

I met two blonde English girls who were almost done with a self-planned five month world tour. They were friends when they started and they still are!  They went to Australia, Fiji, Thailand, and I can't remember where all else. They were super friendly.

There was also a girl from Indiana who had come for a personal training conference and was keeping up with college work and visiting nearby friends all at the same time! 

Then there were a couple of ladies who with whom I got to chat: one is an art-supporting astrologist and engineer and the other studies biological geography.

It felt like a big sleepover with a bunch of not-so-strangers, and I loved it.

That evening there had been lots of people on the sand by the pier, and even one boy in the ocean.  Tons of people were taking photos. There was one older man taking photos of his wife who was posing happily by the waves for him. Heather and I had come to "touch the pacific" (i.e. poke at the water while running away from it because we still had our shoes on). I didn't think I'd like being on the crowded beach like that, sharing the sunset and the water with all of these other tourists, but instead I felt happy to be exactly there because there were so many happy faces.

The next day was PCH day: the day to drive highway 1, or the pacific coast highway, the road that runs right along the edge of the cliffs facing the pacific, so we were told.

Day one we spent rolling on busy highways and through unimpressive farmland. And even so I insisted on skipping the 101 bypass just so we could say we did route 1 (sound familiar?) As I guided Heather with the help of Google, mostly successfully, through towns and on-ramps and overpasses and cloverleaves and the like. Watching our little blur dot move slowly along the lines representing route one. "Here! Here! Turn here! - Wait, the dot's not there yet, never mind."

When it was my turn we started getting into some of the greenest America I had ever seen. It was surprising to me, then, to hear later from our ranger friend that California had been in a state of drought for the past few years, because I felt we had been transported to the high rolling hills of Ireland. Mom asked if there were stone walls; alas, there were not, and neither were there sheep herders, but man.  I was a happy camper.

And at last - at LAST - we reached The Cliffs.

"Stop looking in your rearview mirror. The car behind you doesn't matter, us staying out of the ocean matters" was the gist of Heather's pep talk as the winding turns began. I took her advice to heart and enjoyed the real-life driving challenge. Not all of the world is designed to accommodate idiots.

I turned Burt on our dashboard so he could look at the scenery for me. Some people believe crystal skulls store memories that can be unlocked later under the right conditions, so maybe sometime Burt can show me some of the views I missed while focusing on the sharp PCH turns.

We spent two days on route 1. Our hotel had a fireplace which I guess made up for the outrageous rate, sort of.

When we arrived in San Francisco the people we met were trying to direct us to places to eat: "if you want to take the scenic route..."

Our joint response: "NO MORE SCENIC ROUTES!!!"

We are so done with finding our way places off the main roads. Give us the direct way, the multi-lane, the angry drivers, the trucks, the merging, please. Someone told us we might be hooked on scenic routes from now on.

I don't know about that. We'll see.

Did I tell you about returning to sea level? Nice. I stopped yawning all the time.

I accomplished three things after arriving in San Francisco:

The first day I slept all day.

Yeah, you heard that right. Heather did her ranger thing and when she got back after 5 PM she found me in bed. "You didn't get up all day?" And I slept all the next night too.

Heather and I went on a hike up some mountain or hill to get a view of the golden gate bridge and I found the conditions to be rather hellish. The only reason I finished was to make up for the day before.  I had to accomplish SOMETHING in the area, after all.

We drove a few of those those steep, steep roads. If someone happened to peer into our windows upon our ascent, they would see our horrified faces or maybe even hear our shrieks as we reachednstop signs. They would see me hugging my backpack. We marveled at the parallel parkers. 

The next day our hotel provided boysenberry syrup for our waffles. It sounded super awesome, although I have never seen a boysenberry. Have you?

California has tons of bike lanes. One of our friends shared his opinion that bikers (as in, people on bicycles) are the third most arrogant people in the world besides the French and the Texans. Most of the bicyclers I saw were quite personable, though. They even stopped at stop lights.

Returning our dodge journey at the airport was kind of a sad experience. I was kind of proud though. Among all the shiny vehicles, ours was covered in mud "battle scars." We drove that car to the max.

I swear enterprise only hires attractive men.

Just saying.

And now we're driving home from Michigan. The trip's almost over, thank God.

Honey Bunches

Last night it was time to take out my braids. Here's why: little pieces of my hair had begun to sneak their way out of the braids and turn brown and orange all at the same place - the length of my actual hair, creating a gross visual cutoff. Also, I had at least a half-inch of regrowth that was messing with the pure bright pink of the kenakelon braids. On top of that, I was sick of the "braid itch" and the weight of the extra hair and the difficulty putting shirts on and the long drying time. 

So, I bore the left-handed sewing scissors I appropriated from mom's sewing desk a while ago (I am not left-handed, I just always need scissors) and happened to bring along and cut off the fake part of the braids, then unraveled the rest.

What remained was not as horribly faded as I had feared, but at the base of each braid there had formed a little "dred," if you will.  Hair products, dead skin cells, grease, and dust from the air built up in spite of my shampoos - not to mention the braids trap natural shedding of hair.

I had no choice but to savagely rip them apart into pieces that my comb could digest - and even then it lost a few teeth. The sound of the ripping was rather unappetizing but Heather and I managed to eat the pizza and two huge chocolate chip cookies we had ordered to our room.

Heather: "I had no idea Papa John's sold these [warm delicious gigantic] cookies but now that I know, they're going to be the death of me!"

The removal of tumbleweeds from my hair was painful and tedious but did not leave me bald, and I feel oh so free!

I'm on the airplane to Phoenix now, going to connect to Detroit. Heather and I went to two post offices to try and mail something back that we didn't think we could get on the airplane only to find out we were too late or too early.

We now officially detest the united states postal service. It doesn't even get its name in caps.

And what really bugs me is that both times, behind all the rows of p.o. boxes, we could hear rustling and shuffling. Someone was in there who could totally mail something for us, but the doors were closed. The second time, we got really desperate. I got semi permission from Heather and walked down the hall:

"Excuse me, my sister and I desperately need to mail something before our flight leaves, and we can't wait for the office to open, can you please help us?"

Pause.

"We know you're in there."

The shuffling stops.

A voice comes from behind the veil: "This office doesn't open till eleven, you have to go to another post office."

First of all, the sign says ten thirty. Second, ugh.  We argue a bit more and then roll our eyes and leave. We begin our second consolidation process. You should have seen the first: mail this - no it fits better that way - leave this with our host, we might still eat this, trash this, wear this, this doesn't fit - it's okay I have room if I sit on my suitcase! 

We had so much food we had neglected to eat on the road that we left a big box with our final host: a park ranger in San Francisco. He is super passionate about the part he plays in the park system and was beyond hospitable to us.

He might trash most of the food.  "I'm sorry, there's not much to eat here," he apologized upon our arrival. Well, that's not quite true. But I'll put it this way: I was in such need for sugar the night I slept all day that I raided the car for EVERYTHING we had left that tasted sweet: gross orange vitamin drink mixes, and maybe I changed my mind and like pecans, and - AHA! - there's still a nerd rope left, and I know I saw a granola bar in here somewhere, and, and, yes - hot cocoa mix.

Heaven. 

We're at the Phoenix's airport. It is like any other, except we witnessed a pilot spilling his steaming red rooibus tea (a nearby woman suggested hydrogen peroxide to get it out of his white uniform as the friendly staff took care of it. I hope it didn't ruin his day) and it has Arizonan-themed gift shops.

It is like others in one way: everyone got to the charging outlets before us and the ones that are left don't work. Heather provided an example of a similar experience when there were outlets between each seat at the terminals - and none of them worked.

But at least it looks fancy, right?

But back to our mailing problem: we had a big package to mail: a cooler full of maps and AAA books, glass bottles and even a bag of cereal we never opened. Now what?  I figured out that if I give the bag of cereal to the other people sitting in the post office parking lot, blah blah blah and the cooler magically can come on the plane with me!

The people in the car were so happy for the Homey Bunches. On their way out they wished us safe travels.

Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman

After my perfectly formed waffle in needles, I check the tour book and say, "look, heather, the world's longest map of route 66 is painted on the side of this motel on needles! And the neon sign behind it has been restored! We MUST go!"

So we go and find that the "map" is a cartoon illustration of a wavy road and its typical landmarks, not particularly to scale and not particularly photogenic. I do my best to take good pictures, also competing with the sun. We leave. Today is desert day. Like, Mojave desert. From what I'd heard, I was expecting Prince of Egypt-style sand dunes, but I was quite disappointed with much of the same tumbleweed country that i had been seeing for days now. This country was train land and truck land. And us land.

I began to wonder what WOULD happen in an emergency. We didn't pack a gallon of water per person per day.

(Speaking of gallons - remember when I said leaving a gallon of milk out for an hour takes a day off of its shelf life?  I'm curious about soy and almond milk. Ours went through many temperature and pressure changes but stayed good for quite a while. I thought the cartons were puffy because the milk was putrefying but it was just because of our higher altitude. But they're nuts and vegetables...so how long does it take for them to actually go bad?)

Thankfully we were fine.

We stopped at a well-kept but nonfunctional gas station/diner/motel and had a good talk with the guy there as he sat upon his red vintage car and let us use his water cooler to refill our bottles. "Quick! Before anyone sees!" He gave valuable advice and I bought chocolate which gave us valuable energy on our hike up the volcanic crater which was right across the street, sort of.

The station is defunct because the ground only has saltwater and the first go-round they found out the hard way as it destroyed the pipes (we found this out from the T-shirt guy on the Santa Monica Pier - isn't that awesome that we can mention a place and he knows EXAVTKY what we're talking about?). But it's still painted bright, bright white. I commented on this to a lady who had just gotten out of her car as we were about to depart.

Just like that, we were sucked in to another conversation. A nice one, though. According to the woman's husband, Nikon cameras are better than Canons. And back in the day, 66 was full of traffic. Bumper to bumper, he said. The government didn't build I-40 just to be evil and divert traffic from towns and turn them all into "ruin porn" (a popular term used for when artists over glorify the artistic value of decay), they did it to alleviate traffic and make things easier for Americans! And easier to escape to wherever of the Russians did something evil, I believe was the reason the interstate act got passed.

Anyhow, those are what nice Californians are like. I am also meeting lots of nice girls in my hostel. People in Santa Monica give off the vibe of being very...other. I can't say I'll be sorry to leave.

The Amboy Crater. The part worth writing home about is the fact that I hiked every inch that Heather did, and I have a picture and a human being to prove it. The part not so exciting was the crater. Once we hiked  the mile out and up to the rim, there was no beautiful concave shape to observe, just continued hills and piles of rocks. There were two flat spaces on which people had arranged stones to form a heart and a snail shell pattern. Google picture search "Amboy Crater so you can understand the hike. It's three miles round trip, and some of it is kind of treacherous. I didn't bring anything except water and car keys.  If I had brought my camera there would have been cool pictures but it would have been way too much to worry about.

The black rocks sound like glass when you kick them together.

Then we find another hotel with exterior doors, and our dinner counts as lunch the next day. The girl who hostessed that night served in the morning with the same cheerful attitude, which made me feel hopeful too.

That town we stayed in was the border of civilization. It was the end of lonely little blip towns and the beginning of the traffic lights I told you about.

I forget what else I said. I had fish and chips (so much better than fish sticks) and heard someone else snoring last night which means I'm not the only one!

Today Heather found the toaster at breakfast (small victories) and I enjoyed my breakfast too in spite of the fact that butter came in a serving bowl and was the consistency of chunky yogurt (you spoon it on, yum).  We wash our own dishes which either increases my faith in their cleanliness or decreases it,, not sure which.

I got to see the !aids change the sheets. HOLY COW. On point and with amazing teamwork, they pull the mattresses out, drape the covers, fold them under, and throw the mattress back in the bunk- and it looks tidy, tight, and fresh as can be.

We went to a combination national park/state park/private land place today.  The drive there past the impressive green mountains reminded me of some shots from the Sound of Music. We arrived at one building that shone just as brightly as the whitewashed gas station buildings in the desert a couple of days ago. It featured a tiled fountain with ultramarine tiles on the bottom.  You can bet you'll see a picture of that. Without the water feature the building wouldn't be as memorable.
Between sections of park live many celebrities. The two of us rode along with a friend of Heather's as he gave us the low-down on the community. My favorite was knowing where Beyonce "lives."

My FAVORITE favorite, though, is the section of the park with a "wild west" set on it where numerous movies and TV shows have been filmed. Some of them use other parts of the park too. Heck, American Sniper filmed something in the park we were at! But, back to the set. This set is the Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman set. It is The Town. We touched her office, stood on her porch, went into the sheriff's office. We saw the bridge where little Brian regained his sight.

It was beautiful. I thought I would never see it.

There was also a meadow with yellow flowers and I spun around in it.

Heather and I got seafood (me: fish and chips) from a recommended location, then touched the pacific ocean, found muscle beach, and parted ways. I found a swing and came back to the hostel to befriend some cool ladies. Heather got some cool shoes.

And that's actually it. It's kind of scary to not have anything else, but tomorrow I'll have a chance to get behind on my updates again, right?

Saving Your A**

Before I tell you if we had to push our car around the bend to the gas station, let me tell you about the lady I met at the snow cap restaurant in my previous blog. Yes, I forgot. But she's not someone I can forget to tell you about.

First of all, she had some really cool bling jeans on. Second, long, shiny, dark hair. And beyond appearances, we got talking about my camera (one of the fastest ways to my heart besides Jesus, and picking up interesting things off the ground) and I learned that she loves snowcap food that she would drive three whole hours from her home to come and pick it up!

(The grill is over 60 years old and, yes, they do hold birthday parties for it.)

Today she happened to be in the area, though. She suggested lots of things for the two of us to see but emphasized one: at a lodge in Peachman (the only town with road access to the Grand Canyon), there is Native American art done by a man related to her - and her kids are artistic, too! We're totally friends. Heather and I went to see and it was just like she described. It looked like charcoal on wood, human-animal forms which were beautiful.

On to The Gas Dilemma.  According to the book, Oatman is coming up. Oatman is touristy. Oatman will have gas.

Oatman does not have gas.

A girl about our age sucks a lollipop behind the counter at the Oatman hotel and comes up front when we ask her if there are any rooms. She tells us it's not really a hotel. Then a guy in a yellow T-shirt approaches, hears our dilemma and suggests someone who might rent us a cabin or a camper...or he thinks the mayor does a "bed and barbeque." And as for gas...

People must have their own gas fountain out here because they get blank looks when we ask about the nearest station. Or else they siphon tourist tanks.

There's a bright yellow sign boasting "public restrooms" down the road. We follow it and find a store called "Saving Your Ass" with a sexy looking burro out front and a sign saying "I found my ass in oatman." Well, nature called, so I passed through the short shorts and corsets and into the store. In front of a wall of tee's I secretly laughed at but would never wear were standing our saviors: Dwayne and Nancy. Dwayne told us two routes to get gas.  One for faster, one for cheaper. If the "empty" light isn't on, he gave us comfort that we would be alright. He gave us time estimates, pointed to places on maps until they made sense, probably gave us brochures, and didn't pressure us to buy anything. He is also a firefighter, a nice one. His partners in awesomeness Chandler and Amanda.

"This is the wild west, so you see that tree? That's the public restroom."
"Okay, but I really hope you're joking."
He was joking.

And you know what? He had sugar skull art in the back. Canvas prints, poster prints, and postcard-sized prints I could stick on my car if I wanted to. Guess how I supported Saving Your Ass in return for its saving our asses? I bought nine postcards for quite a deal. Minimal bargaining and eyelash fluttering may have gone down.

Bottom line? If you're going to stop at Oatman, stop when the light is hitting the wild-west storefronts just right, take some pictures, pet the burros walking the streets, and stop and chat with Dwayne and Nancy (and maybe put a dollar in the fireman's boot on the counter). But make sure you stop and get gas WAY before you reach the squiggly line on the map.

It was scary but at last we saw the lights of a station.

A girl in a hoodie who looked like she owned the place sort of crunched her eyebrows and said "sure, whatever" when I asked if she was the proprietor and if we could use her microwave. 

We drove and drove, crossed a river, saw a welcome sign, and made it to a hotel in Needles, CALIFORNIA!!!!

Heather and I always had this thing about hotels with exterior doors, thinking of them as shady places where people go to have affairs and buy and sell drugs, but unknowingly reserved this room with (gasp) an exterior door. Guess what - it was fine. Orange on the outside, blues and greens on the inside, the most beautiful morning and the most perfectly formed waffle I have had since I started 66.

Dead Chicken Earrings

The next day, we entered a town first called Seligman. Unlike many of the run-down towns, Seligman is a real destination. Its Snowcap restaurant is like a giant assemblage work of art and it has a flushing outhouse with a sink that's so covered in stickers and signage that I could barely find the door. And on top of that, they sell dead chicken earrings and are incredibly friendly.

As we ate (OUTSIDE - I forgot to mention we started putting our coats in the trunk about this time), the speakers started playing "Jesse's Girl" which had been playing the previous night at the bar when Heather said that if she were at home she would be at her martial arts class listening to a song like that.  We liked the coincidence.

Just when we thought it couldn't get any better, we centered a fairly generic 66 gift shop and then when I started a conversation with a gray-haired lady about my hair (she has dreams of tints of lavendar - I told her if she does it a little at a time her husband won't even notice, like a frog in boiling water) SHE started a conversation with us about how Seligman is integral in route 66 history because the barber of the town, Angel, fought and fought for signage, etc. to get people to come through again. Then she showered us with brochures and information, showed us the barber shop, and showered us some more with friendliness.

The walls of the tiny shop were COVERED in business cards from people all over there world and there was a shelf of binders with more cards inside.  There was another wall in the attached gift shop with foreign money collaged all over it from visitors.

Angel had hung a frame with a sign "two waiting, no barber - two barbers, no waiting." He also had a heartfelt (and that's about all I can say for it) poem about his career called "a little off the top." I sat in his ancient barber chair and was glad about this stop. 

By the time we left, I was too tired to make Heather stop at any of the other colorful buildings left in the town, even the one with several mannequins standing on the porch - AND the roof. Regret.

Our next stop, Hackberry. Not really even a town, it was just a building with lots of interesting junk tacked up on  and around it. It rivaled the Snowcap in some ways. Inside the owner's obsession with pinups, Marilyn Monroe, and mannequins was evident. Two blonde mannequins stand perpetual watch over the toilet, for example.

We read that if we had sharp eyes we might spot Hyde Park's ruins on some hill or other right before we got to the somewhat hokey Grand Canyon Caverns (which are so named because they get their natural air supply all the way from the Grand Canyon), but we didn't. It used to be a resort, and it bears our name, but our "no backtracking" rule forbade us from going back to search for it.

Grand Canyon Canyons is a dry cavern. No stalagtites or mites. It's so dry that a wildcat who wandered in was mummified. There is also an artful recreation of an extinct mammal whose bones were excavated from the cave's rocks.  She looks like Snuffaluffagus from sesame street. She died when she was a year old, say the professionals, which are very sad, and you can see the scratch marks on the cave walls from her trying to climb out the hole she fell in.

The concrete walkways and wooden stairways are made from excess materials sent over from the hoover dam project.

You can stay the night in this cave for 885 per night. They have a flat screen TV, good movie selection, a running toilet and shower, two queen or double beds, and walkie talkies that connect you to the earth above.

The whole vibe I got, though, was a bit campy. Dinosaurs in the front yard, a very casual tour guide, and a dark, vacant,  odd-smelling cafeteria upon entrance to the building turned me off. And the tour was more of a fun uphill trudging physical challenge than a visual masterpiece.

But we love caves.  And we got to meet a cool dog and his humans.  The dog was very well behaved and quiet in the cave.

Next, we arrive at the section of road represented on the map as a little squiggle.

I forget what it's called, but it was beautiful, and I'm glad I wasn't driving.  We drove on a two-lane road around true hairpins around green mountains and cliffs. The green things were desert-y, though, like weird cacti and palmy things we hadn't seen before! Very cool. I'm learning to appreciate the panorama feature of my phone camera.

You bet there's more! We're comin' round the mountain and runnin' out of gas. And will we find it on the other side? Wait and see.

Beeline to the Bar

Here's something I forgot to say. I fell flat on my back in the parking lot while I was trying to pack the car before we made the trip to the grand canyon. I started laughing hysterically and the maintenance guy on the other side of the car totally ignored me. Fun stuff. Didn't hurt.

At the canyon, heather and I got so hungry that we could not think straight, so of course we walked to the in-hotel restaurant. Sorry, the host said. We're closed for the next 20 minutes until dinner starts.

Really.

We couldn't think straight, but we could walk straight to the bar and ask desperately for them to give us food.  We found disgruntled customers who came to the bar for the same reason as us and I felt a sense of community.

Some battered zucchini and mushrooms later, we met three sisters who were very encouraging about our trip. One knew the canyon trails like the back of her hand and had hiked 23 miles that day. Things had lined up for them, too, to spend time together. One of them had great hair herself - the one who had approached me an asked to look at and touch my hair in the first place. Darker underneath and then at least three subtly different golds on top. One of them had been "restructured" out of her job, and I like that she used that word instead of more negative ones she could have used. Sometimes restructuring involves unpleasant changes that nobody wants to make and the fact that she didn't make a face or dwell on the subject meant a lot to me. I think someone will restructure her into their business sometime soon.

And then we got our checks, and they got their fries, and our intensely friendly conversation was gracefully finished, just like that.  I love when I know exactly how and when to hang up the phone, and when conversations come to an end exactly when they should. Even my grandma has tact in wrapping things up - and she likes to talk (and I love talking to her)!

And although the room was a bit simple, the staff was eager to please and had one of us wanted to take a bath there was an old claw tub available in one of the shower rooms. How ABOUT that!

And this is the most important thing: through watching the park film, I learned that the canyon has an artist-in-residence program. And I asked more about it, and did research, and found that about 50 other national parks do too! That means that if I were accepted, I could spend several weeks housed and sponsored by a national park to make art inspired by that park, and then be able to share it with visitors!

I am going to do this if it is the last thing I do.

Red Nail

There are nail salons all over the country. We passed one today named "red nail." And I pictured entering a store with baskets and baskets of iron nails painted red before the rust even had a chance to get to them. Four for a dollar. The red nail store.

The other day Heather and I pulled over at a "landmark" suggested by the author in our tour book: somewhere in the middle of the desert, people spell out messages with rocks. I didn't even bother.  It's February and it was hot. I just picked up some green glass.

That wasn't really much of anything, except a source of green glass for me. But today a source of pride came to the two of us in the form of the Bottle Tree Ranch, somewhere in the middle of California. And we're proud of it because the author over whiose book we pored day after day for the last three weeks DIDN'T include this exceptional landmark! 

We found it ourselves!

It just dawned on me that he might not have mentioned it because it's not "historic." But the man who greeted us sure was. Long white beard, told us he got up at 6:30 in the morning to clear out some land before summer comes. He's been building his metal-and-bottle-and-found-object forest for fifteen years and isn't stopping. And he won't ask the state for an outdoor welding permit so he does it in the house.

I've been cracking my wrist a lot. It's a favorite pastime when I'm driving (because that's when it wants to crack).  This is my wrist hurt in the stupid beauty school fall. It used to just hurt. Now it's in the fun cracking stage. But heather the EMT just notified me as we drove from traffic light to traffic light during the final stretch of our journey today that I'm not just popping gas bubbles; I'm releasing bursal fluid and thus relieving pressure on my joint. Which is unattractive sounding.

So, um, I'm still going to do it.

Speaking of picking things off the ground. Heather and I were hiking a volcanic crater (more on that later) and passed a little girl with her family who was carrying a pieces of volcanic rock. "I'm going to bring this home!" she said. "Oh, are you going to bring it to show and tell at school?" "We don't have show and tell. We just show things to our class at the end of the day."

Uh huh.

And this is on a piece of national something or other, so not only does she not know show and tell when she sees it, she's probably committing a felony (or would be if she was in a legit national park, I believe) by removing the rock from its natural environment.

Cute.

But we finished the road today!

I'll backtrack later.  I ran with my arms stretched out on the Santa Monica Pier past the "end of route 66" sign and hugged my travel buddy (not before experiencing the best parking situations and friendliest drivers Santa Monica has to offer).  We watched the sun disappear under the PACIFIC ocean. It was the first time I had seen the Pacific!

Before we found the sign, we saw an "end of 66" T-shirt stand. To this stand we returned and, to our surprise, met someone who applauded us and talked to us at length about our journey. When we took pictures of each other in front of the sign, Heather and I were just two girls at a photo op. No one knew we were actually at the end of the road. But Ian asked, and we had a good time talking.  He studies sections of 66 slowly and thoroughly, from what I've gathered, and I appreciated that the shirts heather and I bought were American-made.

The last stretch, man - it was tough. I had gotten used to those roads with no other cars. But once the desert ended, it was OVER.  Then we were in suburbia, then upscale suburbia, then city.  And traffic lights all. the. way.

I started doing my boredom thing and taking pictures of people out the window until I was told "enough." And then I just had to wait too.

That's pretty much today. We stopped at a gas station and reheated last night's fajitas and they turned out quite well, as did our friendship with the gas station guy.

We're staying at a hostel right in the middle of town and I'm waiting until everyone is decently asleep to go to sleep so they won't have as much trouble with my snoring.

Oh, and the trees at the grand canyon? Plenty blocking the view. Also plenty of idiots posing on the OTHER side of the fence.  One of our trails had a fence not on the side that would keep us from falling off, but on the onside to keep us from messing around in the trees. And the canyon was really crowded. The shuttle buses were full, the overlooks were full, the hotel lots looked full - please remind me of my vow to never go in peak months. 

When the sun set (not as cool as the Santa Monica set) the temperature dropped immediately.  I thought it was in my head but soon I figured out it wasn't.

We went on a night "hike" which was really a walk, stop, and talk a lot in the freezing cold with a ranger as a leader who is very informative and sweet. I asked, there aren't any chinchillas at the Canyon. She covered constellations, moon-based holidays, night predators, and more. It was worth it. I lay awake that night processing the remainder of my 5-hr energy drink. That night in our "adequate" room at the Bright Angel, the two of us dreamed of sunflowers and spiders. I won't tell you who. We watched the sunrise and were on our way.

And of course I took a nap on the car.