Category Archives: United States

Days 7 – 8 6/27-28

The Very Large Array in New Mexico is the world’s largest radio telescope. After seeing the movie “Contact” many years ago, I knew it was something I wanted to see. Driving out to the Plains of San Augustin I started seeing the dishes dotting the landscape from about 5 miles away. When you see them in the movies they all look very close together, that is thanks to some crafty computer graphics. They can be positioned all together to get a tighter “focus” on whatever they are looking at but it is no small feat. A double set of railroad tracks and a custom vehicle would have to pick up each dish and move them closer together. I didn’t ask, but I’m betting they weren’t going to reposition them to give me a better photo op.

The scale if each individual dish is massive and since they are all connected, the further they are set apart the bigger the collective instrument is as a whole.

After leaving the VLA I decided to start using my video camera to record the drive. Thanks to a “gorillapod” camera tripod and a power inverter I was able to record every mile of road. I thought it might make an interesting time-lapse project. We’ll see what I do with it… better to have the footage than wished I’d done it.

Day 7 included a scenic drive through Taos, NM on my sister’s recommendation. It was a beautiful drive and I came across some great weather to take pictures of. I’ll put a link up to the gallery when I get them all sorted out. 550 miles after I started I found a rest stop just outside of Pueblo, CO. It was a low mileage day so I sat in the rest stop and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while watching South Park on some station the TV in the van picked up.

After a reasonable 6 hours of sleep I was awake and ready for the sights of Colorado. Directly across from the rest stop was a restaurant called Max’s Place. I thought it a fine spot to get some real breakfast. With a parking lot full of pickup trucks and a jeans and baseball cap clad clientele, I figured I’d fit right in (except for the laptop). The Max’s special was exactly what I was hoping for. Ham, 2 eggs, hash, biscuit w/gravy & coffee = Perfect

After dropping another $100 into the gas tank I was off to see the Royal Gorge and its famous “World’s Highest Suspension Bridge”. The bridge is 880 feet long but only 18 feet wide, with a wooden walkway with over 1000 planks. The bridge is suspended from towers that are 150 feet high. When I bought my ticket ($16 – early bird special) I was told by the seller that I could drive over the bridge and back. I asked what the weight limit was and was told “aw, couple million pounds I guess”. While I think his estimate was much exaggerated I was still ok with the attempt.

While walking on the bridge I became a little less confidant as I noticed how much the bridge shook with even the motorcycle and golf cart sized utility vehicles driving across it. Was this enough to dissuade me? Nope.

I drove across the bridge very slowly and heard the tap of every wooden plank as my 4ton van made its way across. The expressions on the faces of the other tourists on the bridge as I approached were, I have to say, priceless. I’ve got video of the crossing; maybe I’ll be able to take a few stills of the wide eyed pedestrians.

After that little adventure I was off to Pike’s Peak. My father has told me for years that if I ever find that I have itchy feet it’s because it’s in the blood. The blood connection is due to being a direct descendant of Zebulon Montgomery Pike.

Zebulon Montgomery Pike was a US Army Captain that was ordered to explore the South and West of the Louisiana Purchase. This expedition was about the same time as the Lewis and Clark Expedition but far less famous. After reading about his expedition a little I discovered that the anniversary of the end of his journey was 200 years ago last Sunday (July 1st 1807). Seems quite fortuitous to be on my trip and find this out.

It is a long drive up to the top of Pike’s Peak, sitting at 14,110 feet of elevation. (Mt. Hood in Oregon sits at 11,249). It is also a beautiful drive – totally without guardrails. Getting out at the top was a chilling experience, both in terms of temperature and my reaction to the altitude. The air was so thin at the top that I was wobbly and a little dizzy. I think my mountain climbing aspirations had a serious reality check that day. It was fun to realize that in the previous 7 days I had been to the lowest point in the United States at -282 ft. in Death Valley where it was 121degrees, crossed the continental divide, and was then standing on top of a 14,110 foot peak where it was snowing. Not bad for the first week.

I’m still catching up here so hold on.

Day 6

I woke up at 5:30am to the sound of trucks starting up. I decided since the sun was up as well I should start driving. On the way I figured out that the South Rim of the Grand Canyon was still available to me, and probably only 20 miles out of my way. Wrong. 150 miles later I’m at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Impressive, but the awe was diminished by my miscalculation and the $25 I was required to pay to look at this scar in the earth. By the price of admission, you’d think the US Government dug the canyon themselves and were trying to recover the cost.

From there I was off to Monument Valley, Utah. While I appreciated the part of the Grand Canyon that I was able to see, Monument Valley was more beautiful to me. Maybe it was because the scale was smaller and I could take it in from the ground. While an aerial view would be a better way to take in the full grandeur of the Grand Canyon.

After Monument valley I pushed on to Socorro, NM to visit the Very Large Array. It was a 400 mile push that left me exhausted. In the end I’d put in about a thousand miles on three hours of sleep and decided I needed a real bed that night to catch up on some restful sleep. So I found a cheap Motel 6 in Socorro to get a hot shower and some real pillows. I found out what their slogan means that night. “We’ll leave a light on for you” yeah, at least in the case of my room the light was left on to spook the roaches away.

From Reno it was on to Las Vegas, with a detour. On the way we saw the signs for Death Valley and decided we had enough gas to give try and make our way through.

Death Valley is hot on a whole different level than anywhere I’ve been in the United States before. When we got to the bottom of the valley and hopped out to see what it was like, we were surprised. I mean, you know it’s going to be hot, but wow, my eyelids actually hurt.

Back on the road to Vegas we ended up arriving at about 10pm. Two hours later than anticipated. We met up with the rest of the Vegas crew and began Vegas-ing. This was a much different trip to Vegas for me. For one, I was looking down the barrel of a fixed budget for the next year or so while standing in one of the most potentially expensive places on earth. But we made it work. I didn’t gamble (although there was this great craps game I really should have hopped in on) and we bought liquor in volume and premixed our drinks on the strong side in Gatorade bottles. That achieved the goal very nicely. Beyond that it was walking around and looking at stuff, eating at cheap buffets, and tossing the occasional $20 at a “Wheel of Fortune” slot machine.

Summer was able to fly in on Saturday night which was an incredible treat! Having her in Vegas with me made it all that much better. We’d had a hard goodbye-for-now a not even a week before when she had left for work a few days prior to my departure from Oregon. We’ve put rough plans into play about where and when we will be able to meet up on the trip but nothing is concrete. It was nice to see our first attempt work out so well.

The crew started departing on the 24th and dwindled to just me in Vegas on the 25th. About 8pm I started heading out of town. It was too dark to drive to the glass bridge overlooking the Grand Canyon so I decided to make a run for Monument Valley in Utah.

I ended up driving through Zion National Park at about 11pm. I would love to drive through that area again during the day. Based on the silhouettes alone it was a beautiful place.

I made it as far as Page, Arizona where I slept in a Denny’s parking lot for a few hours.

I’ve got a few days of notes and pictures to put together. While I’ve been in Las Vegas I haven’t had much time to put my thoughts together or go through the pictures, also I didn’t feel like paying the $13 to get internet access from the hotel. 🙂

I’m in a Starbucks parking lot right now about to make my way towards Monument Valley, Utah. More to come, but here is the first post of the adventure.

Day 1

The party started early. At 6am after a couple nights of very limited sleep. I’d spent the last couple days frantically packing and trying to get everything that I had left where it needed to go. (For as long as I’ve spent planning and packing and staging and prepping for departure it still ended up that I could have spent a little more time getting ready. I got 99% done at that would have to do.)

We headed south with half a tank of gas and a destination of The Redwood National Forest as our first official stop. The van was plastered with the magnetics for the site and the (mostly) well wishes from my going away party. (In order of appearance) Eric, Myself, Chanti, and Erik were on the road.

We arrived in the Redwood Forest at about 2pm and marveled at the size of these ancient giants. Oh yeah, then we tried to drive the van through one. If you notice the dark shape on top of the van in the picture, that’s me. I was able to see just how close we were to grinding our way through the tree. Everything was going well until we were about to exit the tree and it looked like we would loose our mirrors. Since I still need them until Georgia, I called it off.

We also stopped by the Tree’s of Mystery to visit the largest Paul Bunyon and Babe the Blue Ox statues in existence. The Paul statue is wired to a man-behind-a-curtain that speaks to the many children climbing over the statue. Seems the jaw was supposed to move in unison with the voice but had broken down. The hand still waved at a random interval.

Then off to Reno which was a little further away than I’d thought it was. By the end of the day we’d put in about 1100 miles.