As we were driving across northern Arizona on our way to San Francisco for about the 20th time in the last 4 years, Cyndi said This route is boring. Can we find a different way back?
So we came back thru the Sierras, across central Nevada and took an even more northerly route across Arizona. This took us close to Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, so we decided to pay them a visit on the way back.
We basically took the longest possible route we could imagine to get to the Grand Canyon North Rim. I'll retrace the trip in reverse order, since my memory bank is generally LIFO, when it remembers anything at all.
North Rim
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| Colorado River down there |
We hiked into the canyon and stopped here to enjoy the view and quiet.
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| Less ambitious (or possibly more sensible) tourists rode into the canyon on mules. Some of the tourist, like this pretty lady, enjoyed the ride. Others, less used to riding, found the irregular side-to-side swaying sitting 8 feet above an abrupt edge quite unsettling. A couple guys were literally green and about to hurl. |
By the way, mules are stinky.
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| Cyndi discovered the hike back up was more difficult than the hike down. She kept stopping but I gave her incentive: There is chocolate in the car, but if I get there first ... |
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| Cyndi's hiking boots It was a dusty trail |
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| Cyndi discovers I've eaten the chocolate |
I always like to include some educational material my narratives, but I am sure you know the story of the creation of the Grand Canyon: When Noah's flood receded, it scoured a gorge revealing the colorful, multilayered wonder God created in one day 6,600 years ago.
At least that is one theory
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| There were plenty of tourists, but it was a comfortable sized crowd. |
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| And flowers. |
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| One last picture of Cyndi before we leave |
And one of me, because ... well, just 'cuz
Nevada
Before North Rim, we drove for about 10 hours across central Nevada. The scenery was pleasant --- bare ranges with subtle desert colors and strips of vivid green at the bottom of the basins along streams filled with spring run-off
But the scenery was repetitious. We'd crest a small pass and off in the distance across the mostly nothing we'd see something. After 30 minutes of driving at 75 mph, we would reach the something, only to find it was two abandoned buildings and four cottonwoods.
On that drive we passed a total of 3 gas stations (stopped at each one), 3 casinos (passed every one), 1 brothel (passed it), a salt lake, 3 bighorn sheep and the world's largest ammo depot. There was nowhere to eat ... at least nowhere that had digestible food.
I have studied this carefully and have found that "Nevada" is a Spanish word meaning "never was nothing and never will be" ... I think.
Actually, I kind of like Nevada ... I just don't want to live there.
We did stop at Rachel, near Area 51, at the Little A'Le'Inn.
That night we stopped at Mesquite, a larger town along the interstate. There we went to what is apparently the best restaurant in town, where we found the no digestible food rule continued to hold true.
The next day I stopped, as usual, at Starbucks for my morning Trenta Iced Coffee. The only Starbucks was in a casino (surprise) ... in the back of the casino, past the hundreds of slot machines, a half dozen blackjack tables, one roulette machine, two craps tables and in the middle of the smokers section. There we had a pleasant conversation about Guadalajara with the pleasant, laid-back barristas.
Sierras
We went to Yosemite as we passed over the Sierras, but avoided the main valley and the masses of frenetic tourists and headed for Hetch Hetchy, my favorite part. After a hike there, the next day we headed over Carson Pass before entering Nevada.
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| This was a six mile round trip hike. I told Cyndi it was to get her ready for the hike down into the Grand Canyon. |
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| Just to prove I was here, too |
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| Our hike's destination |
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| We stopped at the Cocina Michocana for lunch. Cyndi was hungry and didn't want to wait to pose for me. |
Carson Pass
Charts and Graphs
I will take a quick break from pictures and give those of you who love charts and graphs a little bit of fun.
The trip was about 2,500 miles long and enclosed an area of 130, 000 square miles, about the size of Germany.
I have no idea why that would be an interesting factoid, but perhaps the elevation plot of the trip would be interesting. It starts and ends at Santa Fe and has a vertical exaggeration of 667x.
San Francisco
The top reasons to visit San Francisco are friends, neighborhoods and views. Here is a sampling of all.
Pacifica from Monterey
And the reasons to visit the coast south of San Francisco are friends, views and food.
Actually, food is also a reason to visit SF, but we ate all our meals out side of the city this time.
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| Love Park, Monterey |
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| Monterey |
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| Moss Landing |
A portion of a mural in Monterey.
I think these are supposed to be a
Nazi Otter
Hippie Otter
Drowning Otter
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| Cyndi at Bamboo Giant |
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| Me at Devil's Slide |
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| Pacifica We used to live here. We saw a lot of feeding whales just off-shore |
One evening we watched whales just a hundred yards off shore for about 30 minutes.
Then Cyndi said You should take a picture
Oh yeah, I was so caught up watching I forgot to document.
By this time they had moved quite a bit away and my reaction time was too slow to capture a good shot. In fact, I just shot randomly, hoping to get lucky.
I did get lucky ... there are two whales here: one has it's back out of the water and the other is just submerged. And between them you can see a fading spout of a third.
The Beginning
I have to end near the start of the trip with this classic Rte 66 picture from Amboy.
Thanks for reading.