Shark vs. Bear

Saturday came and we had only one true ambition for the day, figuring out what our Halloween costumes were gonna be. Megan has told us how in Park City people often dress up for various occasions and everyone has a box full of costumes at their place at all times, just in case the need to dress up strikes them. As it stood, all three of us were uncertain of our costumes. I was

going to be a Grateful Dead bear, but had only my hat, Megan was going to be a bumblebee, but had no wings, and Katie hadn't any idea what she was going to be. Megan assured us that this was not a problem and in the morning we headed over to raid some of her friends costume supplies. While we were there both the Katie and Megan decided on an outfit. Megan changed from a bee to a pirate while Katie chose to be a shark, using a handmade costume

originally made for a 7 year old. After a short trip to Michael's and Walmart, I had the rest of my outfit and we headed over to pick up Shasta, the dog Megan was watching, to take her for a hike with us. We made a stop back at Megan's place to change into our hiking shoes and pick up her roommate Becca who wanted to join our hiking party as well. As fate would have it, as soon as we reached the trail it began to rain, and rain hard. This did not stop any of us, including Shasta, to turn back though. Megan had picked a path for us that lead from the edge of town up to the

old mining buildings that were still scattered amongst the hill. The rain added to the creepiness of the abandoned buildings and we all began to joke about how we found ourselves in the ideal plot for a scary movie. A rainy Halloween night, some kids decide to take a walk to up to the abandoned mine shaft on the edge of town... you get the picture. Spoiler Alert! The movie ends with us making it out alive, though our trusty dog ended up getting tragically covered in burrs and mud. Megan was going to

take Shasta back for some maintenance work while Becca decided that if we were going to be wet, we mind as well be warm, and proposed a trip to her gym to visit the hot tub and sauna. Katie and I agreed and while Megan slaved over Shasta's burrs, we all basked in the warmth of the hot tub. After about an hour, Becca, Katie, and I were completely relaxed and ready to take on the Halloween night. We went back to the house where Megan and Becca had some friends come over and bring pizza, while we had a small "getting ready for Halloween" party. After some time passed we headed out for main street and ended up at Star Bar to watch some live music. The evening was great! Katie and I had so much fun spending our Halloween with Megan and her friends. Everyone was very nice and

excited to meet us and really made us feel welcome even though we had only just met them. The music was great, the atmosphere of the bar was fun and energetic; we couldn't have asked for a better way to spend Halloween. We left the bar after the band had finished playing and proceeded to try and get a cab home. Though this took a little bit of effort, it payed off in the end. The cab that finally stopped for us was a big van, lined with Christmas lights and equipped with a Karaoke machine installed in the sound system. Katie and Megan wrestled over the mic the whole way home while they both sang along to some awful music.

The next morning, everyone was slow to rise. Megan had brought Shasta to her house for the night and she was not too keen on sleeping in. After Megan drove Shasta home for the day and Katie and I had showered, everyone was starving, so we headed to Wasatch Bagels for a small brunch. After we had filled up on coffee and food we headed to the Glenwood Cemetery where a local group puts on a Halloween event every year. The event stars many of the cemetery's deceased occupants who come back to life for a few short hours to tell the tales of their lives and deaths. It took us about an hour to walk through the cemetery and listen to the accounts of about 15 different ghosts, most of whom died during Park City's mining days. The cemetery show was very well put on and we had lots of fun listening to all the actors; it really got us back in the Halloween spirit. We left the cemetery and joined Megan back at Shasta's house where she had to finish picking the burrs out of the poor dogs fur. Katie and I used the time to catch up on the internet and just relax for a bit, still desiring to take the day at an easy pace. At about 4 p.m. we headed downtown to watch the dog parade. That's right, the dog parade.

This is a town wide event where Main Street is blocked off and everyone with a dog dresses them up in ridiculous costumes and parades them around in a disorganized fashion. Usually when I hear the words "dog parade" it would be swiftly followed by me suppressing the urge to hit whomever spoke those words with a

bat, but in all honesty, the dog parade was a blast! Not only were all of the dogs dressed up in some fashion but most of the people were. It was like a giant halloween party in the middle of downtown just with dogs everywhere too. The crowd was huge but not shoulder

to shoulder, leaving enough space to walk around everyone and to have a new view every minute. I handed off the camera to Katie and let her go at it for a while, knowing that she would be asking for it every other minute anyway. Megan knows nearly every other person in town so we stopped often to

talk to people and the time passed extremely fast. Before we knew it the police were driving slowly up the street, dispersing the crowd and announcing the end of the event. As we left Main Street, Megan suggested that we needed to add a distillery to our list of breweries that we visit and she knew just the spot. The High West Distillery and Saloon was the first distillery to open up in Utah since the 1800's because of the strict liquor laws and it just happened to be in Park City. The place was packed and there was standing room only so we decided to just stay for one drink before heading back to Megan's. There was an awesome bluegrass band playing featuring a 14 year old girl on banjo and she was awesome. Megan had first seen her play when she was 7 years old and Megan had said that even then she was good. After they finished their first set and we finished our drink, we left the distillery and went back to Megan's. We had a lazy night in, ordered some Vietnamese food, having to go back twice to the restaurant because they gave us the wrong carryout order, and sat around watching The World's Most Haunted Places on TV. Originally we had planned to leave Park City the next day, but Megan had convinced us to stay an extra day because a band that we both knew from Michigan was playing the following day in Salt Lake and we were interested in seeing the show. Anxious for an excuse to stay in Park City longer, we jumped on the opportunity.

More Than Just Potatoes

The next morning Katie and I woke at 6 a.m. before even the sun had begun to show the slightest hint of itself. We left Megan's by 6 30 a.m. just as she was getting up for work. The reason that we had to get up so early was because we had planned a day trip to Idaho. The night before we had consulted our books and found out a number of things in southern Idaho that were just too good to pass up. Since Megan was busy with work that whole day, then had to spend the night at the dog sitting house, we thought today would be a perfect day to explore. Twin Falls Idaho was the first stop on our list and from Megan's place it was easily a 4 hour drive, hence the reason for our early start. When we first left Megan's the stars were shinning bright and we looked up and admired how the big dipper had traveled across the entire sky west to east during the duration of the night. We left Park City and came over the mountains into Salt Lake City. It was shinning intensely bright in the darkness, looking as if thousands of stars had fallen from the sky and were scattered amongst the earth. As we headed north the sun slowly began to brighten the sky, the stars faded and light crept over the mountains. It was a beautiful morning drive and though we tried a few times to capture the stunning scenery in film, our attempts were fruitless, nothing could compare to seeing this. By the time we crossed the Idaho border, the sun was fully risen and there was not a cloud in the sky. Near Twin Falls, there were 2 waterfalls and 2 national monuments that we had planned on visiting before heading north to our final stop for the day, Craters of the Moon National Monument. The first stop we had planned was at the Minidoka Internment Camp, a national monument dedicated on the site of a Japanese-American internment camp turning WWII. Our atlas showed this monument right off the highway, but when we got off at the exit there was nothing there but 2 gas stations. Even the road that it was supposedly on seemed to not exist, at least in the direction that our atlas showed it going. We shrugged our shoulders and decided that we weren't missing much besides a sad, shameful, part of America's past, and decided instead to pursue some of its renowned natural beauty. A little

down the road we crossed the Snake River Canyon for the first time. This was a big deal for me and Katie because we both vividly remember crossing this river as one of the last obstacles before completing the computer game Oregon Trail. We got out at the canyon crossing and read about the real Oregon and California trailer's who passed by this spot on their way to make their fortune, while soaking in the beautiful canyon the entire time. A few miles down the road and we made it to our first waterfall stop of the trip, Shoshone Falls, the Niagra of the West. It really was an impressive waterfall, roughly the same height as Niagra Falls and had a similar horseshoe

shape to it. When we first read about the Shoshone Falls, our book only mentioned it as a footnote. Basically saying if we were going to be in the area for the other falls, which they recommended, we should stop in and take a look at Shoshone as well. So when we pulled into the canyon and the massive waterfall came into full view, we were both a little taken aback by its size and beauty. We stayed around the falls for about 20 minutes, walking to the various viewpoints and just watching the water fall in its unending cascade to the river below. From here we headed back to the main road, a scenic byway in Idaho, named for the Thousand Springs Waterfalls which were the falls our book recommended and one of the principle stops on our trip. Along the scenic byway we saw signs for balanced rock, a rock formation that was 20 miles off the road. This site was also on our atlas, so we decided to see what it was all about, figuring 20 miles was a short distance compared to what we had already driven to get here. Balanced rock turned out to be pretty awesome. Along the way we passed miles and miles of potato farms, many of which were in the process of being harvested using massive trucks that dug them up and spit them out into another truck that collected them, somewhat like a moving wood chipper. From this farmland, we suddenly sank down into a canyon valley that had rock

formations much like those you think of when the names Bryce and Zion Canyons are brought up, though obviously not on as impressive of a scale. Once we traveled through the canyon, on its far western edge, there was a large rock formation that had an almost hourglass shape to it. This of course was balanced rock. We admired it from the turn out for about a minute when I decided I wanted to climb to the top and stand next to it. I asked Katie to stay at the bottom in order to take my picture and I began to climb towards the pillar. Though the climb was steep, it was also short, and I had only mild difficulty scaling the rocks at the top. Katie snapped some pictures while I caught my breath and prayed that I didn't lose my footing and take a spill down the mountain. After the photo shoot, I climbed down and we headed back towards the scenic byway. Fossil Beds National Monument was the next attraction we passed. We pulled off the road and drove through this National Monument but didn't stop once. This was not due to lack of interest nor effort, but every single pull off and information board was blocked off with cones and hazard tape. Katie and I were both pretty disappointed for the first time with the national parks system; they had let us down twice in one day. We left the Monument site and headed into town where we saw a visitor center for Fossil Beds. We pulled off and learned from the ranger that there had been a fire in the area earlier in the season which is why everything was roped off. Looking back, Katie and I admitted that the area looked desolate and scorched, but since it was a fossil bed and we had never been there before, we had no idea that this wasn't how it had always looked. Next we inquired about our Internment Camp from earlier in the day and the ranger told us that there truly was nothing there. In fact, this visitor center that we were at, 3o miles at least from the Internment Camp site was the official visitor center for that monument as well. The visitor center showed no sign whatsoever that it had any involvement with the Internment camp and when we asked the ranger about this she basically said that Idaho doesn't have its stuff together when it comes to National Monuments. She said that it had taken them 10 years to even get a visitor center for fossil beds and didn't think there would be anything at the internment sight for quite some time. We left the visitor center, a little sad about our 2 failed visits to these national monuments, but gratified knowing that it was out of our hands. The thousand springs waterfalls were what brought us to this area in the first place.

They are numerous springs that come right out of the canyon walls and flow into the Snake River. For years no one knew the source of these springs and the natives believed them to be of spiritual significance. Even now experts are not 100% sure of the spring origins, though they believe they have a pretty good idea. This series of waterfalls is what we passed next along the scenic byway. They are quite shocking as you approach them, it almost looks unnatural.

Scattered intermittently for about a 2 mile stretch of the road are thousands of springs, many of which are grouped together in large clusters creating a very visible waterfall effect, others are more sparsely scattered and slowly trickle down the walls. Since this phenomena can only be viewed from across the river, the scenic byway does not have any good lookouts or pull-offs. Instead, the best spot to view them is from the deck of a resort that faces the river. Katie and I pulled CJ off at this resort and decided to skip going through the resort thus risking a fee, and headed around it to the edge of the river. We stood on the deck of a closed restaurant and used the binoculars to get as close a view as was possible of the springs. Once content with seeing the falls, we hopped back in the car, successfully completing the Twin Falls portion of our Idaho excursion. All we had left to do now was visit Craters of the Moon which

was about an hour's drive back east. Along the way we had hoped to stop for a quick stop at some fast food or something. We hadn't eaten all day and it was already 3:30 p.m. but we didn't want to waste too much time lest the visitor center close and we would miss our stamp for our passport book. We drove through a few small towns that didn't even have gas stations, let alone fast food, and settled on a local pizza place that we hoped had pizza by the slice which we could just take and eat in the car as we drove. It turned out this was not the case. Everything here was made from

scratch and as we were the 4th order to go in, we had to wait a while. We ordered a meatball sub and an order of garlic bread basing our decisions on something that could be thrown together quick and eaten with relative ease in the car. But, in true small town fashion, this place took their time with everything and we waited about 20 minutes before our meatball sub had been completed. It was worth the wait however and by the time we

reached Craters of the Moon, we were both having a little trouble fitting out of the car. Craters of the Moon National Monument reminded us a lot of Lava Beds National Monument in northern California, the one with all of the lava tube caves. Though Craters did have a few lava tubes caves to offer, they paled in comparison to the ones Lava Beds had. However, though Craters lacked in the cave department, it was 10 times more interesting on the surface. Here we had a loop drive that stopped us at 7 different viewpoints all with short hikes and interpretive trails describing the

desolate landscape and the volcanic activity that formed it. We hiked through a lava flow, to the top of Big Crater, inside spatter cones, and underground through lava tubes. We finished with the route with about an hour left of daylight and 4 hours of driving

before us to make it back to Park City. As we drove toward the interstate the sky all around us was bathed in luminous colors. It was as if the sunset was happening all

around us in a 360 degree panorama. Just check out this photo that Katie got, it gives you an idea of what we experienced, but again it is something that will just never translate. It was pure beauty in every sense of the word. After this stunning climax to the day, we began the long trek back to Utah and Park City. Megan had already gone for the night to the dog sitting house and we wasted no time getting to bed when we finally pulled in just before midnight.

Drive-By Sightseeing

Starting from the moment we left Monterey, the main focus of our trip became driving, though we did manage to sneak in a few stops to break up the monotony of the open road. Our plan

was to do the drive in 2.5 days getting us to Salt Lake City by Thursday. We were staying with my cousin Megan in Park City about 20 minutes outside of Salt Lake. We wanted to be there for

the Halloween weekend in order to dress up and go out with her reveling in some holiday fun. The two stops that we had planned along the way were to visit Lake Tahoe then make a pit stop in the Biggest Little City in the World - Reno Nevada. I don't know about you, but every time I hear those words I can't help but think of them in a Bruce Buffer kind of voice announcing the venue of a

title fight or something like that. Anyway, when we woke up in the mountains on Wednesday morning we were about an hour away from Tahoe. We didn't really have anything planned for the area but we both felt that it is just one of those places that you have to visit when you're doing the type of trip we are. There is a road that circles the entire lake and this was our plan: to take the

road around the lake and hopefully make some stops along the way depending on what we saw. We pulled out at a few lookouts near a Emerald Bay which had a gorgeous waterfall flowing into

it and a island smack in the middle as well. Almost directly across the lake from this point we stopped again to do a short, 1 mile hike through some really neat rock formations and got some beautiful views of Lake Tahoe. We sat for a while on one of the boulders just looking out over the lake and enjoying our relaxing day. From there we moved on into town and stopped for lunch at a small little Mexican restaurant then carried on down the road

toward Reno. Reno wasn't joking in the tag line "the biggest little city," this place was small. The strip seemed to have no more than 6 casino's on it and the moment you veered off the beaten path you felt like you were in an industrial area or something. Not that we had expected much and since neither Katie nor myself are gamblers, we didn't plan on staying here long anyway. We parked the car at one end of the strip walked it up and down amidst many heckles from bums asking for change, visited one souvenir shop,

then left. The stop was good if for nothing else than to get us out of the car for a bit and walk around. After Reno we made almost no stops. Megan had requested that we pick up some New Belgium beer for her because since she lives in Utah, you can't find it anywhere. For the rest of the day, as Katie and I stopped for gas we would search super markets and liquor stores in search of the beer she wanted. Even in Nevada the pickings are slim and we had a little bit of trouble finding some. The majority of our day was spent driving through the desert. The scenery was beautiful and the driving was fast. We were in a flat valley 90% of the drive but there was still mountains all around you to look at. The speed limit was 75 mph but everyone drove about 85 mph owing to the fact that you could see for miles and miles ahead of you in the flat nothingness. We drove until we crossed the Utah border then stopped at a rest area in the Utah salt flats for the night.

Today, Thursday, we slept in a little bit, feeling no need to start the day since we had nothing planned for it. The rest area we were at also had a nice canopy which blocked out the morning sun from creeping in our windows, so we were undisturbed during our morning laziness. We

awoke to find the Bonneville salt flats all around us stretching for miles until they reached the mountains. It felt like it had snowed in bizzaro world. The mountains were bare, showing their brownish red hue while the valley before us was covered in what seemed to be snow, completely converse to the snow tipped mountains we just passed through in the Sierra's. We

also realized, via an informational board at the rest area, that the salt flats around us were the location of the land speed records set back in the 60's and 70's as well as the spot that linked the first every transcontinental telegram line. After our brief morning history lesson we carried on down the road admiring the beautiful Utah landscape surrounding us. We reached the Salt Lake area around noon and realized we had a lot of time to waste before Megan got off work. This thought was quickly pushed out of my head as I noticed I was being pulled over by the highway patrol. What happened is a boring and uneventful encounter which I will not recount in detail here. Basically the cop got out of his car, talked with us for 2 minutes, then gave us a warning without even going to his car to verify our info. I'm pretty sure he was just bored and was looking for something to do. After our run-in with the law, we consulted our Atlas and discovered that there was the Timpanogos Cave National Monument a few miles outside of Salt Lake City. It was another cave, one that sounded really big and fun to explore. We figured here we could waste several hours exploring underground and never be bored. We passed the entrance gate, glad to see that our parks pass was valid here, then reached the site of the cave to discover it was devoid of people. The thought that a cave would be closed for the season had never crossed our minds and it was a hard reality to soak into our heads. Caves are controlled environments. They fluctuate little, sometimes not at all, depending on the weather outside, so how could it be closed you ask? Apparently there is a 1.5 mile hike up the mountain to reach the cave and though it is a wide path, the inclines are steep and the drop off is deadly. The area having already had their first big snow of the year, we missed the cave being open by just over a week. After we had been looking at the off season info that was still posted outside for about 5 minutes, a park ranger came passing by and explained all of this to us. She also said that since

we were in a National Forest, there were other trails still open, but she didn't recommend doing them without snow shoes. We also found out from her that there is a scenic drive that is worth while, but it too was closed for the season. Finally, she told us about a lake a little ways up the road that was a pretty spot to drive to. We decided to settle on this, it being our only viable option. When we got to the lake we noticed we weren't alone. There was around 10 people scattered around the lake, some fishing, others just sitting soaking up the beautiful

mountain scenery. We decided to join the latter, pulled out our camping chairs, our books, and a beer a piece. It was great. We got to truly relax for the first time in a while, burning time until Megan got off work. Now I'm sure as I say "truly relax" many of you scuffed your noses at that statement assuming our whole trip has been nothing but relaxing. Though I admit that is partly true, the few moments of silent immobility that we enjoy are usually dedicated to updating this blog, writing postcards, or Katie's scrap-booking. Now by no means is this a complaint, nor do I think we have it rough by any stretch of the imagination, but it was just nice to sit and read outside with nothing on our minds but the books before us and the cool mountain breeze surrounding us. After enjoying an hour or so of this peaceful bliss we packed up and headed back to the city. We got CJ a long anticipated oil change, marking the fact that we have already driven over 20,000 miles since leaving Michigan. By the time we got into downtown Salt Lake, we only had one hour left to waste before Megan got off work. I wanted to see the Temple Square, so we began to search around downtown for it. In any guidebook or picture that I have seen of this temple, the thing just looks massive. Actually, as we pulled into Salt Lake City I kept peaking over at the skyline expecting it to be popping out the way that the Sears Tower or the John Hancock do in Chicago, but saw nothing. Even as we got closer into the city and began seeing signs for it, I still averted my eyes skyward hoping to see spires through the gaps of buildings. But when we finally reached the Temple Complex I finally realized why it had not been visible... it's small! Not tiny, but by no means massive. I am sure that any European cathedral would beat it in both height and girth. After this disappointing revelation I didn't even feel the need to get out and walk around and since Katie had never cared about it in the first place, we decided to move on. As we were driving toward the temple we saw something that neither of us expected to see in Salt Lake: a brewery! We decided to stop at Red Rock Brewery and wait for Megan to give us a call. We split a personal pizza to curb our appetites

and Megan called shortly after. She was dog sitting for a friend the whole weekend and needed to take care of the dog for a bit, but she let us into her place where we got to shower and freshen up before heading into public again. Megan has been following our blog and noticing a common theme suggested another brewery in downtown Park City for dinner. It was the Wasatch Brewing Company and it had some of the most interesting beer we had had on the trip yet. I got a jalepeno cream beer and Katie and Megan enjoyed an amazing pumpkin beer. After our dinner we headed back to Megan's place and quickly went to bed; Katie and I had big plans for the next morning and Megan still had to work Friday.

John Steinbeck is a Butterfly

We woke up to Angella bursting into our room to say goodbye to us for the last time before she shipped off to work again, after which Katie and I quickly went back to bed for a few more hours. Even so, we woke up ready to take on the day around 8 a.m. Since we had packed up the car completely the day before in anticipation of leaving, we were all set to go the moment we finished showering. We left San Francisco unceremoniously and headed down the coast on Highway 1 towards Monterey. Our original plan for the coast was to take this highway all the way down to San Diego making various stops along the way. However, we decided to alter our travel plans when we heard that Russ would be traveling out to San Diego for his breast cancer walk. Russ had planned to do his walk in Tampa Bay Florida originally because he had some friends doing the walk there as well. During his training for this 60 mile hike he got a stress fracture in one of his legs, preventing him from being able to do the Orlando walk. Instead he booked his walk a month later in San Diego, hoping that his leg would be healed and ready by then. In light of this information we changed our course so that we would be able to meet up with him in San Diego and give him support during the walk. So, instead of heading straight down the coast, we planned to head northeast to Salt Lake City then south to explore southern Utah, northern Arizona, and a little bit of western Colorado before circling back to California. Since we would not be coming that far north during our return trip to California, Katie and I wanted to visit Monterey and the surrounding area for a few reasons. First and foremost, the Monterey and Salinas area is the setting for a good majority of John Steinbeck novels. Steinbeck being Katie's favorite author, how could we go to California and not visit these places. Also, we had read in a travel book of ours that Natural Bridges State Park outside of Santa Cruz is home to a yearly monarch

butterfly migration point where literally all of the monarch butterflies west of the Rocky Mountains come to stay for the winter in this little valley. The drive down the coast was awesome; sun shining, waves crashing, and no worries as we made our way toward Monterey. When we got to Natural Bridges State

Park we were stunned by how small the one remaining natural bridge actually was. We had seen more impressive examples of these natural wonders during other hikes along the coast and personally I was expecting a more impressive structure based on all of the pictures that we had seen. Still, it was a very beautiful setting but we were both happy that we had the butterflies to look forward to as well. Since the valley which the butterflies congregate is located in a state park our national parks pass wouldn't have saved us the $10's to enter the park, but I was willing to pay anyway. We pulled up to pay window and to our

surprise the attendant told us that we could just park across the street for free and walk into the park instead of paying the entrance fee. We sat for a minute trying to figure out whether or not this guy was serious, then put the car in reverse, parked for free, and walked into the park. The valley was full of monarch butterflies. Thousands of them flying all around you or grouped in bunches on branches of trees. We sat around and just stared at them fluttering

around as the wind blew them around or they sat sunning themselves in the hot afternoon sun. There was a short trail that circled the valley which we thought would give us a chance to see the butterflies away from the throngs of school children that were on field trips.

Amazingly, as soon as we left the valley there was almost no butterflies around. There were a few flying in the air but no big clumps on any of the trees. It seemed that the butterflies were content in their little valley and didn't like to stray much from it. After the hike we

went back once more into the valley to watch the butterflies again. There was an old lady down there this time who had put up informational signs all around the boardwalk and was all to eager to share her love and knowledge of monarchs with every passing person. We stayed and listened to her for a bit and after about 15 minutes we were ready to move on. We left the valley and headed to the beach where we took one more look at the arch, then headed back to the car. After a short ride through the Salinas valley, past the endless fields of lettuce, we pulled into Monterey heading straight for Cannery Row. Katie was super excited and began talking about how she planned on

buying a "John Steinbeck is my homeboy" tee shirt which "unfortunately" no gift shop had. We walked down the Row,

much different now that it is filled with restaurants and tourist shops, than when Steinbeck used it for the setting of his novels. Still, it was fun to walk around and read the various information boards about both Steinbeck and the old canneries. We shopped around for about and hour then headed to the Cannery Row Brewery for a snack which manifested itself in the form of a giant parmesan flavored pretzel. Next we headed to the water where

we walked shortly along the beach watching a sea otter swim around in the waves, then headed back to more shops.

We didn't have enough time to visit the aquarium and make the $65 entrance fee worth it before the aquarium closed, so we made our way back to the car and said goodbye to Monterey. Now that we were done with the northern section of the California coast, our next destination became Salt Lake City which meant lots of driving. There wasn't much in between that we wanted to see and decided to utilize the night as much as possible driving until midnight, finally stopping in the Sierra's right near Donner Pass, named after the ill-fated Donner Party which stayed their tragic winter nearby.

Over the Bridge and Through the Woods

Monday dawned and we woke early, beginning to pack our bags and getting CJ road ready again. During our eastern trek to Yosemite we game back through a mountain road that took us up to 10,000 ft. That night, when we crawled in the back of Calamity we noticed that we were slowly sinking to the bottom of the van. We figured that the elevation had made the air mattress in the back spring a leak and spent the night slightly discomforted on the deflated air mattress. Since it was only one night we had to deal with this unpleasantness we weren't too concerned. We had planned to fill up the air mattress at Angella's house, find the hole, and patch it up before hitting the road again. As we pulled the air mattress into the garage and inflated it we noticed that it filled with the same vigor as it always had. Katie proceeded to lay on the mattress as I searched up and down the seams trying to find the whole but we never did. We decided to fill it as much as we could, and hope that it deflated slowly and we could sneak a couple more nights out of it before there was no air left. To add to this displeasure, when Katie began to empty out the back of CJ in order to get to the air mattress she found all of our sleeping bags and blankets piled up near the back were sopping wet. Apparently, though CJ has never leaked on us before, while seated in the same spot, slightly tilted uphill, during these past two days of intense rain, she finally gave way and began to leak water inside. Since all of our sleeping gear was now either drenched in water or deflated into flat formlessness, we began to rethink our plans of departure for the day. It was already past noon and by the time we would get our sleeping gear dried it would be 4 p.m. giving us 2.5 hours before daylight left us. We contacted Angella to find out if the Horton Hippie Hotel had a vacancy for one extra night, which to our great joy, they did. Fixed with the problem of having another day to spend in San Francisco Katie and I pondered all of the things in the city we had

not done. Since it was such a gorgeous day finally, we decided that we would walk the Golden Gate Bridge as we had planned to do on many a rainy day, then head to Muir Woods, a redwood forest just outside San Francisco that just happened to be George Lucas' inspiration for the moon of Endor inhabited by the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. When we got to the Golden Gate Bridge we were thrilled to see that it wasn't covered in fog. We had quickly learned that in San Francisco it may be bright and sunny in one place and a half mile away fog can completely

block out the sun. We were pleased to see that this was not the case today. We parked the car on the northern side of the bridge and began to walk one side to the other and back again. As crossed the bridge enduring the strong winding and stopping periodically to look over the side. We saw porpoise's and sea lion's down in the bay and as we reached the southern side we

even saw a few surfers taking advantage of the breaking waves. The walk across the bridge was fun and definitely something that we were both happy that we had done though ultimately it turned out much as we had expected. We definitely came back with a much greater appreciation for the builders of the Golden Gate Bridge, marveling at how tall it is, and how thick the cables are

holding it up. That is something that can easily get lost on visitors when they view it from a distance or quickly drive over top it. After spending time with this feat of engineering we headed back into

nature. A short 20 minute drive from the bridge and we were deep in a valley comprised of redwood trees: Muir Woods. Here we walked a 2 mile loop trail, basically following the river almost out into the ocean, but turning around

just as the setting sun began to break through the dense forest valley. There really isn't much to tell about this place that hasn't already been said about our other walks through the redwoods. These were coastal redwoods, meaning they were tall and not

as thick as California's giant sequoia's which we have yet to see. Muir Woods did have an exceptional amount of dead trees that had fallen over the river and sprouted small new trees from its side, exactly like the Candelabra Tree from the tourist trap Trees of Mystery.

After our hike we headed back to the now familiar settings of the Haight. In the Muir Woods gift shop there was a map of the Haight which gave the location of many houses, of now famous celebrities, who formally called the Haight their home. Among them were The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Mansion, and a house formally occupied by the Hells Angels, just to name a few. These however were the ones we were interested in and coincidentally the ones we memorized and visited upon our return to the city. After our mini sightseeing tour we decided to eat dinner in the Haight one last time. We stopped at the Magnolia Brewery on the corner of Haight and Masonic, just block east of Haight and Ashbury. Given its location, we expected to find a cool place with a run-down but happening setting reflecting the attitude of the Haight. What we found was an uppity sort of atmosphere with a giant oak bar and individual glass bottles at every table for water. It seemed definitely out of place considering where we were but regardless the place was packed with people, mostly middle aged, middle classed business types just getting out of work. We had planned on eating there but after glancing at the menu and finding that burgers were $13, the cheapest thing, and everything else ranged in the $20's we decided to have a couple drinks then get some taco bell to bring back to Angella and Kyle. When we got back to the HHH Angella was still not even back from work, it was past 8 p.m. by now, but Kyle happily ate the 4 taco's we got him. Angella did get home a few minutes after us and we enjoyed our last night together huddled around the TV relaxing after our busy but very different days.