Pictures for Colorado through Utah

I'm at my friends' house in LA now. I took full advantage of his FIOS and uploaded a whole bunch of pictures. I've also started uploading them in sets, so hopefully its a bit more organized. Enjoy!

Days 35-36: Joshua Tree and Visiting the Brady's

I arrived near Joshua Tree late on the 34th and stayed at the worst motel of the trip. I said to myself, "Self, you've been staying at too many nice places, time to go cheap!" and ended up staying at the first place I found. For $50 it sucked, especially since there was a Motel 6 1 mile down the road. When I arrived, no one was in the office but the sign said back in 15 minutes. So I waited. Across the street was a bar, and shortly a guy exited and ran over (liberal usage of "ran"). I was worried when he said he had to show me the room and explain the quirks. The quirks were nothing too odd, mainly having to do with the cable tv and juggling the power outlets for the lighting. OK, already too much time spent on this place...

Joshua Tree was really nice, as you can see from the pictures. I love the photos warning against swimming.

After the bulk of picture taking was finished, I decided to drive through the park figuring there would be a gas station near southern entrance to quench my rapidly parching tank. Without realizing that California had a helmet law, I cruised to the other side sans protection since I was the only one on the road and it was damn hot. When I arrived at the highway, I returned my helmet to its proper location and set out towards Palm Springs and a gas station. Turns out it wasn't that close, and I rolled in almost on fumes. Luckily the cycle gets about 55 MPG or it would have been fun hitchhiking for the first time.

I had intended on going up the tram to the top of the mountains in Palm Springs, but I didn't find it until I was leaving. Suffice to say, Palm Springs may be skipped unless you are, as my friend John described it, old or have an alternative sexual preference. Stevie, which one of these are you?

I finished up the day by visiting my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Ed. Sadly, Ed has pancreatic cancer and isn't given much time to live. As I write this (2008-06-28), I have find out that he passed away last night after exiting his coma long enough to say goodbye to his family. I'm very glad I was able to see him because it had been about 21 years since they moved to California. It was fun catching up. Even sick, Ed looked good, and Nancy didn't seem to have aged.

Next up, the Bloomers in Redondo Beach!

Days 31-34: Sin City, Now for Children!

After dropping my bike off for service on Friday, I had a wonderful wakeup call at 8am on Sunday when BMW of Las Vegas called to tell me my baby was all fixed up and ready to go. I was very fearful it would take until Tuesday, so knowing I'd be free to roam on Monday made me happy. After picking up the bike, I met my cousin at Excaliber and our weekend of drunken debauchery commenced.

When I think of family vacations, my thoughts tend towards skiing, the beach, camping, Disney, and cultural excursions into the museums and galleries of the cities. I did not realize how many people had Las Vegas on that list. The only thing I can think of is the parents showing the kids where they were conceived. Some might even have had the biological father along for the show and tell portion.

Seriously, who thinks Las Vegas is for kids? There were kids of all ages, too. From one year olds up to young teens. Of course, the streets are lined with desperate looking scallawags snapping business cards with images and advertisements of women on demand and strip clubs. These same cards ended up plastering the sidewalks -- the same side walks used by the kids. Sigh...

Of course, it got worse. Someone thought it would be a great idea to bring their little yipster with them and then lock it in the hotel room all day and late into the evening. The dog was yelping for about 12 hours, though I think it was getting tired around midnight because I could no longer hear it in my room.

The two shows we saw were Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity at New York, New York and Penn and Teller (at the Penn and Teller theater, no less!) Sadly, tickets for Robin Williams were starting at 200/ticket so we had to pass. If only I had won more that first day at the tables. I had seen P&T before, and they didn't disappoint -- by far one of the best shows for your money. Zumanity is the adult/over-18 show that all the casinos are pushing right now. The difference is that this is Cirque du Soleil and you know they craft an good show. Though there was toplessness, the nudity really wasn't what made it adult; it was the extensive and well acted lewd jokes and behavoir that made it so risque. I won't say more, but I would urge you to splurge on the loveseat tickets.

On Monday, luckily the crowds were too busy escaping Vegas to worry about clogging up the buffet or the line for the roller coasters. I managed to ride the Manhatten Express with a wait of about 10 minutes, whereas the line always looked at least an hour or more on Saturday and Sunday. My first stop after leaving Vegas was Buffalo Bill's Desperado roller coaster, which in 1996 had the longest vertical drop in the USA. Both were amazing rides, and if you suck at gambling, you are better off giving the casinos your money that way.

I met a guy at Buffalo Bill's who said I should go see Hoover Dam since the traffic heading towards LA was stretching as far as the eye could see from the top of the roller coaster, so I turned around and drove back to Vegas and on to Boulder City. Sadly, there's a bunch of construction going on at the dam which caused more ridiculous traffic, plus the hike I took (4 miles each way) was also affected by the construction and didn't offer a view of the dam.

As for gambling, a great streak at the $5 blackjack table in Buffalo Bill's enabled me to at least close the gap in my losses. Officially I'm 1-1-1 for the three days, but the loss day was a big loss, especially since I was going to walk away even and then ended up losing $140. Oh well,I suppose it was all part of the fun. The big win day did allow me to pay for both my cousin and my dinners in Paris.

OK, I'm off to Joshua Tree now to look for a place to stay tonight...

Day 30: Viva Las Vegas, a little early

I caught the morning shuttle to Flagstaff where I picked up a rental truck and drove it back to the South Rim. I then requisitioned the help of about 9 park service personnel to help me run the bike up the ramp. Actually, I asked for 3, and then like a Disney movie, the petite, blonde ranger started singing "It's a small world" and more rangers appeared out of the woods. I'm not kidding! After securing the bike with some nifty knots I looked up online, I headed to Vegas, baby.

Here are my first thoughts on Vegas:

• From 90 miles away I could see the light of the city, as if the second coming was imminent.
• In Vegas, the lights go all the way up to 11. I've never seen anything so bright.
  
• The Luxor is much more impressive when it isn't viewed next to the buildings twice as tall.
• A corvette completely took my 16' Budget truck off the line. What's funny is my bike in the hold could completely kick his ass assuming I was on a level surface when I stopped.

Tomorrow I drop the bike off at BMW where they told me they'd do an express fix-er-up-er and then I'll ride the rollercoaster on the roof of one of the hotels the rest of the day.

Day 29: South Rim - The day that shall not be mentioned

Originally, this post was titled:

• What's your vector, Victor? Where I detail how vector calculus is necessary to successfully transit Arizona on a motorcycle in 40-60mph winds of variable direction.
  
• All the world's a sand storm. Where I detail the glory of zero feet visibility.
  
• Some other stuff exhaustion has wiped from my memory.

Suffice to say, I have a 32" inseam, the bike is approximately 32" high at the groin, and the road wasn't as flat as I thought it was. My friend Ted is convinced that the Canyon is cursed. While on his XC trip, he was hit from behind by speeding, drunk, Native Americans causing his car to perform multiple flips and compress like an accordion. He and his travel buddy escaped unscathed, though. Something to be said for Honda safety ratings...

The views from the South Rim were amazing. Much better than the North views. It was a tourist haven, though. I didn't get any pictures, unfortunately, as I had to arrange for housing, and all the stuff one needs to do to transport a 700 lb bike to Las Vegas for less than 900 dollars.

What's really awesome is that I got the room comp'd! Which is good as it wasn't worth the $100+ they would have normally charged me.

Day 28: Mules and Fumes

I woke up early and had a minimalist breakfast of a pear and a blueberry granola bar because at 7am the breakfast room was packed and the Jacob Lake lodge seemed quite understaffed. I then jetted off to Cape Royal on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I started the day w/ almost a half tank, figuring that would be enough for there and back again.

Camp Royal was pretty cool, but I was unable to find one of the trails I wanted to hike, so my stay there was pretty short since the nicely labeled trail was only about a mile total. There were some excellent views which I'll be sure to post once I find a bigger series of tubes.

When I got back to the lodge, I sat in on a forest firefighting review session. It was very interesting. One of the arguments is that since the average temperatures are going up, the plants that would normally be moist are dry and brittle, making for better fuel. Fifteen years ago, a large forest fire burned 45,000 acres. Now we are seeing multiple "mega" fires each year that burn 200,000 - 500,000 acres. Remember, your life is more important than your property, especially if you have insurance and your home is $1M or more.

Next was my half day riding a mule down into the Canyon. For those of you that don't know, a mule is a male donkey bred with a female horse. Mules cannot reproduce themselves due to horses and donkeys having a different number of chromosomes, which seem pretty sad for the mules as sex is probably the best part for your typical labor animal. The mule ride was pretty darn slow, which I suppose is good since we were four foot wide trails, the outer edge being a pretty quick drop off. Overall it was fun, there were only a few picture worthy shots and I could have hiked the trip faster with more benefits.

So I had less than 10% of my fuel left as I started my 45 mile (or is it 52? I'm not sure whether the sign was to the lodge or the entrance to the park) journey home, I realized I'd already gone about 280 miles, which is 40 more miles than I had gone before on a full tank. I made the gas station on fumes, putting 6 gallons into my 6.8 gallon tank. I have no idea how I could have put another .8 gallons since the tank was almost at the overflow point. Needless to say, I was pretty worried I was going to be walking a few miles...

Tomorrow (Wednesday) I'm off to the South Rim to see why so many more people go there than the North Rim. I'm guessing (hoping) they have more and better hikes. I'm pretty sure they have more crap to sell. Raise your hand if you like Silver and Turquoise!

Day 27: Grand, Isn't It?

I'll upload the pictures of the Grand Canyon (as well as the other pics from Utah) as soon as I get some bandwidth. No Verizon service out here in the sticks, but luckily I'm getting dialup speeds out of my AT&T USB adapter.

I didn't do much today besides sleep in (accidentally) and score the last hotel room at the Jacob Lake Inn, the owner of which, John Rich, was at the birthday party I attended on Saturday in St George. Of course I found out he was the owner (well, his family owns it) after he had left and I hadn't met him!

I did attend a brief presentation of the geology of the Grand Canyon, and took two short hikes.

The big news, I suppose, is my first true riding screw up. I was going around a left curve and shifted my weight onto my left testicle causing me to shift off, angling me off the road. I'm perfectly fine, though the bike sustained some ugly scratches to the right side where it scraped some rock.

Tomorrow I'm slowing it down by riding a mule down into the Canyon...

Photos Photos Photos

I finally uploaded all my photos to Flickr (I'm now a pro user since they put so many arbitrary limits on non-paying customers. Pickle, wherefore art thou?)

So, now that blogging is mutually exclusive of photo uploading, updates should roll much more frequently. Enjoy!

How undemocratic!

Exactly why are registered Republicans allowed to vote in the Democratic primary? Seriously, Texas and now Indiana (and maybe others...) have had Republicans flocking to make sure Hillary wins the state for the Democrats since McCain already has his party nomination wrapped up. Luckily, the people in Texas voting the delegates somewhat corrected the problem. I'm not sure how it works with Indiana. What does this say about Hillary if her party's opponents want her to win the nomination? I wonder what her paying supporters think?

Regardless of why this is allowed (state or party rules), unless you are an independent, you should not be able to vote in whichever party you want, it goes against all rational sense. The people switching sides *may* want the candidate they vote for to win, but they should have to disavow their party affiliation before the voter registration deadline. I guess "fair" doesn't really count much in politics anyway, so maybe it's just fun for them while we all get screwed.

Segue

I'll be starting the hardest, most annoying, least pleasant, part of the trip on Sunday. The good news is I'll be in Carlsbad on Monday to begin the long awaited portion of the trip. Check out the itinerary. Plans subject to change as weather and exhaustion dictate.

I'll hopefully find time to catch up on the missing days. Sadly, nothing truly exciting or picture-worthy has happened, so you aren't missing much. I do have minor regrets for not pulling over when I see funny billboards, but I suppose I'll get over it. I really need a video camera that can record my funny commentary for all the crazy things I'm seeing and forgetting about.

Day 8: The Big D

Not much to say about Dallas other than "blah".

My friend Dave and I went to a Rangers-Royals game at the new ballpark in Arlington. It's quite nice and it was a doozy of a game -- the Rangers won 11-9. It wasn't that close for most of the game as the Rangers jumped out to a 9-1 lead before the Royals woke up in the 7th inning with five runs of their own. Josh Hamilton, who has a good comeback story, was very impressive, even though he was much ridiculed at our roto draft back in March.

Much thanks to Dave and his wife (Lisa? I should be able to remember this 2+ weeks later, but I didn't really meet her) for their hospitality.