Tom and Chris Visit the West

The most choice images are up for view now. Enjoy…

Just wanted to post a quick message letting everyone know we’re back safely in MO. I’m exhausted, so I’m not going to upload anything tonight, but expect all our pictures to be up in a couple days time…thanks for all the comments!

We found that there is one redeeming quality of Kansas.  The sunrise looks really nice across its flat ground.  Although the picture doesn’t really do it justice, we could see all the colors of the rainbow ascending into the sky.

So, we’re driving along and I hear Chris say “Where’d my gas pedal go?”.  I thought he was joking around, until I saw him groping under the dash board while trying to drive down the road.  My intial thought was that the throttle cable snapped, which would be horrible since we’re out in the middle of nowhere in Kansas.  We instantly went into survival mode.  Chris took it out of gear and we started our coasting (which you can do for quite a ways in kansas).  We almost made it to a rest stop, but it was on top of the one hill that Kansas has.  When we got out to look at our situation, it was pitch black and freezing cold.  Of course, we didn’t have a flashlight.  I finally discovered that the real problem was that a bushing that attaches the cable to the pedal was worn through.  Being real men, we initially tried to use duct tape to fix it, but instead opted for trying to salvage the old bushing.  This worked, and we were once again on the road.

We drove through the northern part of Utah, during which time, Chris kept waking up periodicly and thinking he saw Martian topography, but I think that was only the stone columns that were rising into the sky next to the highway. My favorite part about Utah was when I saw a billboard that said “No services for the next 110 miles”. I didn’t think there was anyplace in the states where you could drive 110 miles and not see a gas station.

Once we got into Colorado, Chris took over driving. The mountain passes through the Colorado Rockies were probably the most beautiful portion of our trip, which we didn’t actually get to see cause it was the middle of the night. We were tempted to pull over and wait the night out, but figured it wasn’t really worth it. Once you get through the rockies, everything looks like Kansas. Horribly flat. At least it was still dark, so we could imagine to ourselves that there was something nice out there to look at. It’s amazing how many stars you can see when you’re in the middle of no where.

So, with nothing much going on while driving through Utah I (Tom) said to myself “I wonder what this switch does?” So, being the inquisitive guy, I flipped it. The next thing I know, the little red light on the dash is flashing, and the sirens are blaring. Somehow I armed the alarm while driving down the highway at 75 mph. Unfortunately for us, the battery in the remote is dead, so we figured we had better pull over and try to get this thing to stop since we still have approximately 1200 miles left on our trip. At the next exit, I pulled the car over to the side of the ramp, and immediately the alarm stopped sounding. Chris and I looked at each other and thought, “false alarm”, but the red light was still blinking. As soon as I opened the door to examine under the hood, all of its fury was unleashed once more. All in all, we set it off 3 more times while sitting on the side of the road.

I must have had a look on my face that said “any suggestions?”, and then chris blurted out, “Lets just cut the wires, we can always hook them back together later.” Not liking this idea, I decided to start looking for a fuse, which I finally found under the dash.  After all of this excitement, we decided to get some Taco Bell and continue our journey towards Denver.

By the way, during this episode, Chris was filming instead of helping.  So, the video will be coming soon….

Well, we’re back on the road again, after an eventful day in Zion National Park in Utah. We weren’t really sure going into it which hike we’d do, since we only wanted to spend a four or five hours there and get back on the road. After paying the entrance fee, we went to the visitor’s center, and they suggested two hikes. The first is Angels Landing, but we were warned not to go on that one if we had small children, fear of heights, or didn’t want a strenuous climb. The second was to go on a short tour of the Emerald Pools, a set of three pools that feed into each other. Here’s the description from the brochure of Angels Landing:

Sounded perfect. 1488 vertical feet over a 5 mile hike. Couldn’t be that bad. So up we went. Tom’s first comment about it was “I dunno if I’d rate this as strenuous.” But soon, it became evident. It began with lazy switchbacks that were rough paved and wide. After a couple miles of this we were winded, but not too tired…yet. Then we reached the beginning of the real switch backs. Short, sharp incline and a little more narrow than the first set. After getting up that, we thought we were just about at the top as the switchbacks opened up into incredible views of the surrounding canyons. We took some obligatory pictures and then realized that one of the imposing spires had people on it.

And there began the “chains” section. Very steep, very narrow over rocks with chains to help guide and support you. Up and up we went, and every time we thought that we were at the top, a new path to the “peak” was made visible. Finally, after several of these, and a hope-bringing “you just have one more stretch” from another hiker, we made it to the top. Breathtaking view surrounded us. On every side were thousand foot drops into the canyon below and more cliffs and ridges in every direction. We spent a little bit of time up there before beginning our descent back into the canyon.

Since we were doing OK on time, we decided to also go on the short hike to the Emerald Pools. The guide had said a “flat path” led to them which sounded good for a final quick hike. Apparently, the guide’s definition of “flat path” differed from ours, and we soon once again found ourselves climbing up moderately steep paths over sand-covered rock. Well, the Emerald “Pools” turned out to be more like Greenish Puddles, and we were a bit disappointed, especially that we had spent another couple hours total.

Well, we’re back on the road again, about 50 miles from I-70 which we will ride all the way back to St. Charles.

Here’s the peak that we climbed, as seen from the base.

Well, we are just left Vegas at 4:40 in the morning. It was interesting, but neither of us were overly impressed. The casinos/hotels were very ornate and cool, but we had a hard time finding the fabeled cheap delicious food (at least at 2:30 in the morning. This is a short post, because I need to take a nap while Tom’s driving so I can take over when he needs. Here’s probably the coolest casino we saw: New York, New York…

After a long journey through the desert, we finally made it to Hoover Dam. To be able to drive down to the dam, we had to go through an extensive security search which consisted of a police officer looking through our back window with a mag light. Funny that he didn’t wonder what any of the bags/boxes were for in the back seat. And why would two young men be driving a car that has California Handicap plates on it? I guess we just wasn’t important enough. After making it through the checkpoint, we made our way down to the dam and found that there isn’t any place you can actually park and take a look at it (at least at night).  So, we decided to park the car between a few cones on the side of the road and risk life and limb to see this wonder with our naked eyes, all the while dodging in and out of restricted access areas to get that perfect view.

We’re now on our way back towards Las Vegas to get a bite to eat, and see a few sights from the city that never sleeps.

Headed towards Bakersfield on I-5, we were hoping to make all the way to Bakersfield before fueling up. The guage indicated low fuel, so we decided to fill up. We get off at the first available town, and fill up gas. We decide to check the map to verify the next road we needed to take. “State Route 46″ say I. “Then to 99 S, and 58 east.” “OK” Tom says. “I’m tired”, says I, “I’m going to take a nap. Wake me when you need me to drive.”

I get awoken a short time later with Tom saying, “So how far was it to 46?” “I dunno,” I say, groggily. I get the laptop out, then start looking on I-5 for 46. I find it right near a little town called Lost Hills. “Ammm…that’s where we filled up with gas” Tom said.  So we went about 50 miles out of our way to get where we were trying to go to. We’re just outside Bakersfield now, and still within our budgeted time.

I’m going to go back to sleep. It’s cold with the top down at night. But I’m in my nice, cozy North Face sleeping bag, and Tom’s shivering (and driving).

More to come…