Somewhere after your 21st birthday you begin to celebrate those aught years – the turning to a new decade and I guess all the possibilities and regrets that go with that. For example, last year I went to France to celebrate my friend Eric’s 50th birthday and ended up not blogging about it mostly because we sat around this castle he had rented eating excessive amounts of croissants and enjoying a lot of French wine. We also drove other places to look at cool castles and I took lots of pictures. However, I was too complacent and bloated on croissants to write anything.
Anyway, this summer my friend Chris turned 40.
40 used to be the birthday where everyone started telling you that you were really old and that the best years of your life were behind you. I remember my parents getting birthday cards like that when they turned 40.
I personally didn't experience this "over the hill" phenomenon and thought the 40s were awesome - it was a pretty cool decade if you ask me.
We decided to celebrate the awesomeness of Chris entering his 40s by going on a road trip. Being busy people, the planning evolved over a few months via email and began to take shape around a loop through the deserts of Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. We played with lots of ambitious plans that would have taken way more time than we had and finally settled on this:
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| Not ambitious at all |
A little ambitious, but what the hell -- you only turn 40 once and since I live on an island where the maximum driving distance is under 100 miles in a circle, at least this was an opportunity to drive in a much larger circle.
With some of the trip negotiation completed, we made arrangements to arrive in Vegas on July 3rd, spend the night there and provision for what was to be a road/camp/hike/maybe climb trip.
After spending the night in the luxurious Venetian and eating excessive amounts of food, Chris and I embarked upon our provisioning expedition through Vegas. This included:
a) Getting breakfast at Mr. Mamas and while the name doesn’t make much sense, it was a great breakfast place;
b) Going to the Amber Unicorn, a used book store, to pick up a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy because Chris had not read it and while I had informed him of the importance of a towel for any road trip based upon this book, it was better that he hear it for himself from Douglas Adams;
c) Going to Target to get camping gear since you are not allowed to bring fuel on a plane for some crazy reason;
d) Getting food at a grocery store, but not too much food; and finally,
e) Going to a pawn shop to look at guitars, though we ended up not doing this because it turns out if your pawn shop is showcased on some reality television show called “Pawn Wars” then the line to get in goes out the door and down the sidewalk even if it is 100+ degrees.
Having failed to get a guitar, not that we had room for it anyway, we set off on the 4th of July to see America as it was meant to be seen – driving an SUV.
Our first stop was the Hoover Dam, mostly because it was between us and our destination and thus on the way. Besides, how better to memorialize the 4th of July but with a trip to one of the great public works projects of the last century? The damn levels were quite low as can be seen in the color of the rock behind it.
Then it was on to Acrosanti, our first official stop because what says the Fourth of July more than staying in an hippy experiment in the Arizona desert that began in the 1970s to help envision a different way of coordinating urban life?
I’ve wanted to see Acrosanti for years but have never been in sufficiently close proximity to make it happen. Chris kindly humored me on this one. Mike, who I had not met yet, but is a friend of Chris', opted out of the hippy experience and joined us the day after when we picked him up at the Phoenix airport, a place that has clearly ignored the urban lessons of Paulo Soleri and has instead opted for the most inhospitable urban sprawl you can imagine.
Thanks to Airbnb, Acrosanti is easily available to the curious, though it also turns out you can rent rooms directly from them. So we drove the 4+ hours to Acrosanti, getting there a little after 6 PM but with enough time to walk up to the top of what I assume we can call a mesa since we were in Arizona to get the full view of the community.
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| The distinct lack of an urban area makes this place a bit confusing as to its purpose. |
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| Chris looking at the sunset with the full community behind. |
Our room for the night was a little studio apartment with a kitchenette that overlooked a valley. It was very quite, all our desert days and nights were very quite, though you could hear music from what turned out to be a pool party being held by some of the residents. Evidently the pool was among the first things built back in the day -- hippies know how to party.
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| View from our patio/lanai |
We wandered around a bit during the evening but were not sure where we were allowed to go and not go so tried to be careful and unobtrusive. One guy at the pool told us not to go one way, but then decided we could go that way once we demonstrated that we were not assholes by agreeing not to go that way. So we went that way. Mostly we didn't see anyone.
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| Chris on our patio |
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| Picture of some of the resident space |
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| They have concerts and music festivals here. |
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| The entrance |
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| The cafeteria |
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| From the bottom. |
We sat on our lanai and as the sun went down, 60,000 solar lights lit up the valley in the pattern of a lotus flower (or at least a pattern).
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| The picture didn't turn out -- but here is what 60,000 lights looks like |
What we learned later was that these lights had been donated to an artist for this installation. Now the artist was gone and community members were trying to figure out what to do with 60,000 solar lights.
It wasn't fireworks but it was a quiet and peaceful 4th of July.
Acrosanti offers tours but we had arrived too late to go on one, so the next morning we signed up for the first tour.
Our guide was a young woman who had been living in the community for about 6 months, staying on after one of the workshops they host.
She walked us to the lower floor to describe how building into the bedrock helped keep the building at a cooler and even temperature during the year.
The primary mechanism for making money to fund the Acrosanti community are cast iron bells (also known as wind chimes).
We were able to watch them pour molten iron into the molds to make the bells.
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| The foundry -- under an open air arch that helps shade the space during different seasons. |
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| Foundry |
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| Pouring molten iron. |
We learned that while many people come and go, there are people who have lived here for 30 years and some that have only been here a few months. Soleri died in 2013 and the community is undergoing some rethinking, but in many ways, work on the community ended when Soleri's wife died in the mid-80s. She, it turned out, was the one who could help him bring his ideas into a more practical reality.
We were able to see where they do pottery and some of the other intentionally designed spaces.
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| Where they make pottery |
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| Cool arch -- they have meetings under it. |
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| View of different rooms from their performance space. |
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| Provides light for the rooms underneath. |
After buying some bells (how could we not?) we embarked on the next drive -- to the Phoenix airport to pick up Mike. Mike, like Chris, is an incredibly hard working patent attorney and so picking him up on the 5th had allowed him to do a few more days of work before joining us.
Once we got Mike we started driving towards our next destination -- Canyon de Chelley in Navajo territory. Since it turned out the be 5 hours away, we didn't quite make it all the way but instead camped in the mountains where it was much cooler.
It was Chris' actual birthday (July 5th) and so I attempted to make a cake on the stove, which was a miserable failure. I should have tried that out before we actually went camping.
The next day after breaking camp, we drove the remaining 3 hours down through the mountains into the desert and to Canyon de Chelley.
With the exception of one hike, which we did, you cannot enter the canyon without a Navajo guide. Because we didn't have much time, we did the driving/viewpoint version of the National Monument and then went on the one hike to the bottom of the canyon that was allowed without a guide.
The canyon was fantastically beautiful and the hike included a view of ruins built into a cave in the side of the mountain.
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| Looking into the canyon |
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| Chris sitting on the edge |
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| The White House ruins as seen from the top. |
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| Coming down the trail.... |
When we got to the bottom, we were able to get fairly close to the ruins.
I bought some jewelry from some folks sitting at the bottom of the canyon. It seemed to support the local artists and was really beautiful.
We then proceeded the the end of the canyon (for us at least) and saw the really cool Spider rock feature.
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| Coolest feature! |
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| Evidence we were there.... |
Lots of road.
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| A lot of the trip looked like this. |
The hotel was quite nice.
Our view was super interesting.
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| View from hotel room |
Ten years ago, Chris and I drove from Columbus, Ohio to San Francisco and through Moab where we had stayed a couple days to go hiking and exploring in the National Parks. We both had dim and alternating memories of that trip. He remembers camping there and I remember where we ate. Probably says something about me. I do have a vague memory of camping by a river.....
Anyway, Mike had been busy researching hikes which was good because I had spent no time researching hikes. Based upon his reconnaissance, we planned to do an 11 mile hike in Canyonlands National Park the next day, necessitating getting up at 5 am so that we could attempt to get as much hiking in before it got too hot.
We were not super successful at avoiding the heat because it took about an hour and a half to get to the trailhead and so we started the hike at 7:45 am with a gallon of water each.
The hike was in the Needles part of Canyonlands and was down some dirt roads and then out into the desert wilderness. It was pretty cool, not literally because it was a furnace, but figuratively -- with terrain that took us through narrow passages but also on top of rock features.
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| Chris coming over one of the first hills |
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| Passageway |
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| Cool features like this everywhere |
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| And narrow rock-lined areas |
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| View of the rock features surrounding us |
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| Through a tunnel |
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| Rabbit -- I don't know where it finds water. |
All told, it took us around 4 hours to do. I can tell you is that by the time we returned to the car and stopped by the ranger station to get some additional water, not only had we each drank our gallon but the ambient air temperature was 118 degrees. I feel this is a temperature where you might be able to slow cook something.
We drove back to town and found a restaurant where we could eat, but also drink more water. You really do appreciate cold ice water more after spending all day baking. I may have had a beer too.
Because we were on a schedule, we then did a bit of a drive into Arches national park closer to dusk and were treated to a spectacular sunset, of which my photographic abilities captured very little.
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| Chris and Mike in an arch |
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| An arch -- in Arches |
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| My attempt at a panoramic at sunset with a storm coming in. The colors really were amazing. |
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| More efforts to capture light. |
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| There was a rainbow |
After a very adventure filled day and a nice thunderstorm, we again spent the night in Moab and left early the next morning to resume our driving.
As we were leaving the area, we stopped by Isle in the Sky -- another area that Chris and I dimly remembered from our previous tour.
I did remember one key part of that trip, at least once I saw the rock again -- there was this one spot where you could jump from the main rock to a free standing rock feature.
It was a lot safer than it looked. We recreated it, but Mike got to do it too.
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| Chris on the rock |
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| Mike with great form jumping to the rock. |
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| And it looks like he is flying.... |
We hiked all the way to the end of the cliff - where the view was amazing and we could see all around.
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| At the end of the trail... |
And then the road trip part continued. It took us 5 hours to drive to Escalante along what was called the Devil's Backbone. It didn't seem that bad, for the Devil.
Cushy hotel life was over and we camped that night at a campground called Calf Creek. It was by a creek. However, and perhaps one of the more serendipitous finds of the entire trip, there was the waterfall that you could get to from Calf Creek along a 3 mile trail.
Once it cooled down a bit, we hiked on out to check it out. Mostly it was a hike on sand so I feel as if it counted for double the miles.
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| Cool rock feature on the way to waterfall - I like rock features. |
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| Coming up to the waterfall |
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| Close up of the waterfall |
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| Chris in the water |
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| Mike in the water |
Despite the fact this was a very cool waterfall in the desert, I didn't get in the water -- for some reason I like to be on or around water, but not so much in it. It seems uncomfortable to get wet, put on shoes and hiking clothes and then have to hike out all wet and sandy.
So I just watched the whole swimming in a waterfall in the desert part of the hike.
When we got back to camp, Mike decided to sleep outside the tent. This seemed dangerous to me -- there could be snakes. Or scorpions.
However, all things worked out well and even thought we felt a few drops of rain and had to get up to put the rain fly on - it never did rain.
Being the desert helps I'm sure.
In the morning we continued on our way into the Escalante/Grande Stair Case area -- the one Trump wants to sell to the highest bidder and extract every possible resource from. Wait, that is all of them.
Anyway, we passed, though I now regret passing and not stopping to check out, the National Park for Uranium Mining -- which sounds amazing, though possibly dangerous in a radiation poisoning sort of way.
Our destination was another Mike-researched hike and another highlight of the trip.
After 30+ miles down a washboard dirt road where it really is easier if you go faster, we arrived at the trail head for the two canyons that Mike had researched. Peek-a-Boo and Spooky.
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| Desert Canyons Don't Care |
To arrive at the entry way to these canyons you had to hike down into a wash and then we found magic!
So, it didn't look like much...
Then we got to the entrance of Peek-a-Boo and walked right in....
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| Entrance to Peek-a-Boo |
We followed the canyon all the way to the end and popped back up as if it never even existed. Then, according to the topo that Mike had brought (he was very prepared) it looked like we could walk out of the back of Peek-a-Boo and traverse over and get into Spooky and follow it back out.
It didn't quite work like that.
We somehow managed to follow a trail back down to the beginning, which in hindsight was good because we had to scale this little 20(ish) foot section of rock.
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| Rock climbing always makes me happy |
You definitely wanted to climb UP Spooky, not down it.
There were lots of corkscrew turns and it was super narrow and twisty.
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| Chris navigating a turn |
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| Some random dude -- but here because it demonstrates how we got out of the canyon |
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| And then back into the open |
However, our time was up and instead of getting to drive to Zion, we decided we needed to head straight back to Las Vegas -- still 5 hours away.
We arrived in Vegas where we stayed downtown at the Golden Nugget -- a blast from the past as they say.
And because weather isn't what it used to be -- as we checked in to the hotel, the skies opened up and there was a rainstorm of biblical proportions that brought water pouring through the light fixtures inside the hotel.
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| It was so crazy I took a screen shot of the weather map -- you don't see purple that often. |
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| Me trying to take a picture of the inside where water is pouring through the fixtures. |
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| Chris and Mike at the Golden Nugget |
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| You can't really tell how hard it is raining -- but no one wanted to go out there. |
We checked into our hotel room and then had a fabulous dinner.
Mike, who refused a ride, had a very early flight so we said our goodbyes that night while then all proceeding to sleep in the same room.
Chris and I packed up in the morning and I convinced him to drive out to my favorite Vegas Coffee shop, not that I drink coffee, or have really done an extensive survey of Vegas Coffee Shops, but it has good food and tea and I like it, so there. I found it on a climbing trip to Vegas and now go back every time I'm in town. It's called Mad House Coffee and while technically google maps failed us and we kinda got lost on the way there, we did ultimately find it.
Chris concurred it was good -- and he drinks coffee.
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| This is the bathroom -- how could you not like this place? |
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| And the actual coffee shop |
We still had a bit of time before our flights, so we did the scenic drive through red rocks (though for some reason I didn't take pictures of).
Then we went back to that pawn shop -- that was famous.
People will know what it means I guess, but I still haven't watched Pawn Wars. I did like looking at the butterfly knives.
At the end of this very short week-long extravaganza we had covered a lot of territory.
That's a lot of trips around Oahu.
It was hard to say goodbye. In part because there is never enough time for the fun stuff. In part because there is always so much more to see.
But there will be more adventures and more road trips.
I know it in my heart to be true.
