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.