Bryce Canyon: Penis Rocks and the Frou-Frou

We left Las Vegas around 10pm and headed straight to Bryce, happening to time it perfectly to arrive about 20 minutes before dawn. We parked at the general store to go to the bathroom, and when we came out I asked B to open the trunk. She stood there, looked like she was concentrating, and then --

HONK! HONK! HONK! WHOOOP! WHOOOP! WHOOOP! WHOOOP!

Then she starts jumping up and down. All I see her head bobbing up and down the length of the car, her eyes were wide with terror, just silently jumping up and down back and forth alongside the car as I hear it unlock and lock again rapidly as she tried to figure out how to shut off the panic alarm.

"HIT IT AGAIN! HIT IT AGAIN!!"
 Then it stopped.
"JESUS CHRIST. I knew that trunk button was way too hard to push."

Goddammit, B.

Anyway. We walk up the path to Sunset Point, and the view was great, but for some reason Bryce Canyon is filled with French people, and the two behind us were not using their Sunrise Voices. They conversed loudly in their obnoxious, nasally, frou-frou language behind us the entire time while rustling bags and eating loudly.

We ended moving to another spot (which had an even better view, ha!), and watched the sunrise with our chipmunk buddy.

Me: Nevada would be great if it weren't for the French people.
Britt: We're in Utah.
Me: Holy shit, when did we get to Utah?
Britt: After we crossed through Arizona.
Me: When the hell did we cross through Arizona?
Britt: Right around the time I told you we were leaving Nevada.

Bryce was the prettiest park we saw, and we regret not being able to spend more time there. We probably could have, but we had to flee the French. The rock formations in Bryce are called "Hoodoos" and they look like penises.

Magnum. XXXXXXL.

Bryce was also perfectly laid out. It's one road that is is about 18 miles long, and they suggest driving to the end and viewing wildlife, and then stopping at the viewpoints on the way back to the entrance because they are all on the left side. Since we were there so early, the wildlife was out in abundance. We had seen one really pretty kind of elk way back at the Badlands, and had to use the zoom lens to get a good picture of it. There were herds of them crossing the road here.

B was on deer watch while I drove, and she hollered that there was another herd of deer to the right. I pulled over, but it was just a bunch of deer butts.

She rolled down the window.

"WAAAAAAGHHH OOOOUP OOOOUP WHEEEOWWW WHEEOOOWWW"

But she sucks at deer watch. We were driving along, and there was a deer to the right. I slowed down to a stop, and B looked out her window to see a deer within arms reach. She screamed, the deer jumped, and both of them freaked out. She got mad at the deer for surprising her, so she started yelling at it again.

"YOU LOOKIN' AT ME?! YOU. LOOKIN'. AT. ME?! I CAN TAKE YOU! YOU GOT NOTHIN'!"

Deer: "What the fuck is her problem?"

Further up, there was a beautiful buck with a giant rack of antlers. B nervously grabbed the camera, and the deer stared at her as she lowered the window. As she took pictures, she asked it not to charge her, and told me to keep the foot on the gas.

Turns out it was in neutral, but the deer didn't try to kill her, so she doesn't need to know that. We eventually got to the end of the drive, and went to the first viewpoint.

Bryce delivers.

The viewpoint was filled with more French, and they were starting to herd towards the entrance. They all stopped, and stared, and started taking pictures at the ground.

You know what they were all staring at?

Tourists.

We ran to the batmobile, and drove as fast as possible to the next viewpoint to beat the French. We were too slow, and soon they caught up with us. They gave our car dirty looks and shook their head at us.

Can't imagine why...

We tried explaining, but we don't speak frou-frou.

We decided to wear the squid hat from there on out. The rest of this post is a story in photos. Just picture us looking at the beautiful views, in a squid hat, surrounded by French, and occasionally speaking in a language consisting only of "derp."

 

Raaarrrghhhttt!

This is mah squid face. Or the constipated one. Can't remember.

The French are coming! I can smell them! To the Batmobile!

Las Vegas: Hotel Aunt Debbie!

I took over driving a little after we crossed the Nevada (Ne-vaah-da, not Ne-vahh-da) border, right around the time B started yelling at the rumble strips for being in her lane.

My aunt Debbie lives in North Las Vegas and graciously allowed Britt and I to stay the night with her and her boyfriend Danny. Gracious isn't the right word. We rolled in some time after one in the morning, where we were greeted with news of separate beds, hot showers and an offer to do our laundry. Britt actually got down on her knees and bowed. The house was a gorgeous two-story house, the kind with cream stucco walls and red tile roof, and a real grass lawn in the backyard. Never really thought about it, but I guess that's a big deal out here. I would have brought her some plants from home if I'd known. She even had a few cacti. They were the only ones we'd seen so far, so I told Danny he needed to keep an eye on them in case Britt took too strong a liking to them. My aunt took us on a tour of the house, bringing us up to her balcony where we could see the lights of the Strip. We're invited over for some prime seating on a fourth of July, when all the casinos shoot of a massive fireworks display from their rooftops.

Danny went out to grab us some food while we sat on her porch with a bottle of wine, relaxing like we'd never relaxed before. Even though Heceta Head was lovely, it felt like "consider yourselves at home, but don't forget there are ten other people here too." Here, we really felt like we could. Dinner was taquitos, nachos and some drink I'd never heard of, hortchata, which was sweet, delicious and better than the version Britt had in Mexico. Probably because it was lacking in parasites. Afterwards, we went back to the porch to listen to Danny's stories of being a cab driver in Las Vegas. Apparently there's a huge hired transportation mafia owned by a few families, and any idea someone brings to the city to start their own company gets stolen by them. There's a party a few hours outside of the city where it's totally okay to use and buy drugs at as long as you get there by taxi, limo or helicopter. You heard me. Also? The whole thing about "massage parlors"? Totally true. The whole "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" mentality seems to be the backbone of the culture here. And it's not just "I got drunk, made an ass of myself and got hitched," like I always assumed, but the living, breathing center for rule 34. I won't repeat any of the actual stories he told us, but Oh. My. God. By the end of his horror tales, both Britt and my jaws were hurting from gaping in shock for so long.

There were good stories too, though. He's been the driver for couples wanting to get married, participated in the ceremonies and been in their pictures. One time, Danny picked up a guy who had won $400,000. They chatted for a while, then they guy told him to head for some super fancy car museum and go with him to pick up his dream car. The guy paid cash for some super vintage car with super low miles (we were drinking wine at the time, remember?), asked Danny to lead him back to his hotel, then told him to park the taxi and go with him on a joyride. All with the meter running. How awesome is that?!

By 4am, Britt and I were done. Stick a fork in us, dead on our feet, done. But my aunt insisted that we'd feel better after a shower and we knew she was right. Plus, neither Britt nor I wanted to stick our dirty Yosemite feet between her clean sheets. She led us up to the bathrooms so we could take showers, and -- Oh my God, is that a jacuzzi bathtub?! WANT. Then she showed us our rooms (I'm sure each of us were glad not to have to listen to the other's snoring for a night), made sure we had enough blankets, and threw our clothes into the washing machine for us. AWESOME AUNT AWARD.

I woke up around 11:30 and decided to get some posts done. I wandered downstairs to find that my aunt had laid the coffee, measuring spoon and cup next to the coffee maker, and made myself some sweet, sweet nectar. I went and danced around on the hot - HOT! - pavement as I grabbed the computer from the car, settled down next to a very pettable kitty on the comfiest couch I have ever known with a cup of perfectly brewed coffee, and proceeded to get nothing done. Danny left to get his brakes worked on, but Aunt Debbie left work early and came home a few hours later. We chatted, laughed and exchanged stories for hours until Britt stumbled down, looking rumpled but well-rested for the first time since this trip began. She thought it was early in the morning, and found it hard to believe she'd managed to sleep until 3pm.

*** Awful, Awful Discoveries ***

My aunt left when Danny came home to run an errand, so Britt and I took the opportunity to repack the gear. We folded all our wonderfully clean laundry back into our duffel bags, then proceeded to haul every blanket, bag and bin out of a car that had turned into Hell's Fiery Furnace. Everything we touched burnt our hands. Britt's dollar store plastic dinosaur-grabby-mouth-thingy had been lying in the back window. The stick had melted in the heat and was no longer straight.

And it was the Triceratops, too :(

The car reeked of burnt electronics, our phones, iPods and other electronics were too hot to hold. Britt went back to her phone a while after bringing it inside and it actually displayed a message that it was back to normal temperature. The battery also needs constant charging now. My license and debit cards are warped from being in a wallet that bulged with receipts, and an iTunes gift card we had left in the door handle curled over itself in the heat.
Britt discovered the wine first. We had quite a collection of alcohol going: 10 bottles of wine from Napa Valley, about eight others from local wineries from several different states we'd traveled through so far, as well as several bottles of beer. Almost every single wine was ruined. $400+ of wine, several of them important gifts, absolutely ruined. Some of the more expensive wines, like the Angelica from V. Sattui, were sealed with red wax. The wax had bubbled and cracked, and the corks were slightly ejected. ALL OF THEM. By the way, I later tried to reseal the wax by taking a lighter to it and COULDN'T GET IT TO MELT. The ports from Heitz Cellars had wept through their corks and stained the box they were in. It could have been the changes in altitude, but we're more inclined to believe that the wine actually boiled while it sat in the car.

We dragged the whole mess inside, then sat down and stared dejectedly at each other for a while. This wasn't something either of us had considered or even heard of. I finished pulling things out of the car while Britt tried to look up what this all meant and whether anything could be done to salvage any of it. There isn't. The webpage she found said that the flavors would pale and lose vibrancy. At the time, we tried to console ourselves by saying that, since most of the wine was either for ourselves or our boyfriends, we'd only lost a few gifts. Since we'd bought some wonderful, very flavorful wine, we thought we might end up with something still half-way decent at the end. Right? Right? WRONG. This is jumping ahead a bit, but we tried one of the bottles of Angelica at the Grand Canyon. It tastes like goddamned bottom-of-the-barrel brandy, nothing at all like the sweet, smooth deliciousness we'd tried at the winery. I'm getting depressed even writing about this.

Aunt Debbie and Danny arrived as I was contemplating what to do with our small cooler. I'd forgotten a four-pack of sticks of butter had been left in there with them, and was staring at all the energy drinks swimming in an inch-deep pool. It was kinda funny, I suppose. Bottles of wine in various states of open completely covered the kitchen table that Britt sat at with a look of someone who bet their last dollar and lost, while I washed cans of Red Bull with soap and water in the sink nearby.

Popcorn, anyone?

We were relieved to find out that the glass ornaments from Oregon hadn't exploded from internal pressure, but we still have no idea as to the condition of the film for Britt's camera. It could very well be a little melty and all her pictures ruined. Danny brought us over to a Walgreens, but apparently they couldn't even develop it because a lot of places are phasing that out. How can you call yourself a photo center when you only offering printing services?!

We thought about going to the strip for dinner, but it would have been expensive and neither Britt nor I were in the mood for celebration at the time, so we ordered Domino's instead and my cousins Olivia and Faith brought their families over. It was a whirl of children, simultaneous conversations with multiple people, and finding out my dad had married his first wife in Vegas.

We had to hit the road for Bryce, so we left shortly after all my cousins did, which was about 10 minutes before I realized that I failed to get pictures of any of them. Fail. But I remembered in time to harass Aunt Debbie and Danny to stand together for a photo op.

We love you!

We took a drive down the strip as we left. It was bright, but not as flashy as we'd expected. Since it was the only time we would see it, we did the typical tourist thing and drove 20 miles under the speed limit, hoping for red lights, and Britt hanging out the window snapping pictures everywhere. Obviously, most of them are a blur of multi-colored lights, but we did manage to get off a few decent ones.

Just to give you nightmares.

Death Valley: 105 degrees! With no A/C!

We turned some corners, and the road started to get narrow and curvy, which usually means mountains. We passed into Death Valley, and got really confused: Isn't this place supposed to be, like, vast expanses of nothing? Why is it so beautiful? Then the sun started to set as we began the descent into the first valley. It was by far the most beautful sunset we had ever seen, and we pulled over in awe of it. It was literally a rainbow on the horizon. The pictures will never, ever do justice to the Death Valley sunset, but here's our best:

The colors, Duke! The colors!

After that, we started watching the temperature gauge. It was about 78 or so. 78, 79, 80, 81, 828384919397ohgod. We started making bets what it would get to. It hit 95 before we came out of the first valley, went back up for 4,000 feet, and began the descent into death valley proper. We rolled down the windows, because we wanted to be able to say we could do death valley without AC. Also, there were signs telling us to not run the AC because the car will overheat and we've already beaten it up enough. After the first blast of dry, hot 100 degree wind we were screaming "OH GOD IT'S HOT," and whimpering as it crept to 105. Mind you, this was at 9:30 or 10 at night and it was a 35 degree difference from where we were only hours prior. But we did it - 130 feet below sea level and back up to freezing upper 60's with no AC in between. I think it's an accomplishment. Maybe.

We knew the road would have a steep grade down, but we weren't expecting dips on the valley floor. At one point, all I could see was the road as it rose up, then nothing. Did it turn left? Did it turn right? Was it about to plummet downwards into oblivion? We were going too fast to survive anything but a straightaway, so we screamed a bit and hoped for the best. After that they started putting warning signs for the dips, none of which were as terrifying as the first one. A little late, asshole. At one point during the second descent, we saw a sign for an 8% grade. 8%? Not okay. You gonna do more of the "dip" shit at an 8% grade, I'm gonna shit pickles.

We stopped in at a gas station/gift shop and I suddenly developed an obsession with the classic cow skull thing. A clay miniature, postcard, magnet, earrings....I'm going to get home and see all the random crap I bought and wonder what the hell happened. I think it was the heat.

Part of the reason we wanted to go to Death Valley was to collect some sand in a Crystal Skull nip bottle for Jim. So we pulled over to the side, aimed the headlights into the distance and ran out to some dunes with creepy tree skeletons poking up from them. We dug furiously, all too aware of the potential for scorpions or rattlesnakes or, worse, the headlights going out once the car decided it had been turned off long enough.

Death Valley is next to the Nevada border. Ang was working on a blog post when I saw a something that looked suspiciously like a state sign in the distance. I slowed down and pulled in front of it. Ang still wasn't paying attention, and when we came to a full stop, she was all, "what's going on?"

Then she looked up.

She screamed "NEVADA!!!!!", grabbed her camera, and flung herself from the car. She took a picture of the sign, and then wrapped her arms around the pole. I got out to take a picture on my cell, and sat down on the ground next to her. I pointed out that the car is still in California, so we have to go back to get it. She refused.

I actually had to go get the car, cross the state line, and pull over for her to hop back in because she refused to ever set foot in California again.

Yosemite

Instead of spending the night in San Francisco like we'd planned, we decided a rest area was far more appealing. So an hour or so outside Yosemite, we pulled in and selecteds a parking spot farthest from the lights of the building, next to several other cars with other people already asleep in them. After finishing our nightly wash-up routine (which usually consists of opening and closing every door and the trunk several times regardless of how well we packed and organized everything that morning), we settled down to sleep. I locked the car, then promptly dropped my phone beside the seat. So I opened the door to retrieve it, setting the alarm off, and causing everyone to wake up and glare at us as I waved and said, "sorrysorrysorrysorry" as the alarm is still sounding because I STILL DON'T KNOW HOW TO TURN IT OFF.

Ang made us get up at 6:30 after we had fallen asleep at 3, so I was kinda cranky and refused to relinquish my blanket and yelled at her. She tried to take my blanket away, and I screamed until she was embarrassed to be associated with me.

NOH. MAH BLANKET. YOU CAN NOT HAS.

She cajoled me into getting out of the car by promising to give me quarters to get delicious, delicious coffee from the cappuccino vending machine thing that we find at all the Chevrons and drool over. She lied to me, because it tasted like butt.

Our route took us through Modesto, where they had - drumroll please - a SONIC! After figuring out that we have to pull into one of the little stalls, we took some more time before deciding we had to press the large red "PRESS HERE TO ORDER" button. What to order, though?

Me:  ::gasp:: I want chili cheesy tots! Can I have chili cheesy tots?!
Ang: No. NO. I will NOT be in the car with you after that trainwreck.
Me: ::roaring out the window:: I WANT CHILI CHEESY TOTS! I WANT CHILI CHEESY TOTS NOW!!
Ang: FUCK. NO.
Me: FINE. I guess for my first time at Sonic I won't get chili cheesy tots and I'll probably not be able to get them ever. But that's fine. That's cool. Don't worry about it. ::sniff, sniff::
Ang: ::sigh:: Okay. Okay. You can have your damn chili cheesy tots.
Me: I WIN! I want jalapeño poppers and chicken, too.
Ang: I hate you.

We press the big red button and can't figure out if we're supposed to press and hold the button, so we just mashed it several times until someone responded, and told us it would be about a 15 minute wait because they just opened. I don't care, I want my chili cheesy tots, and I'm never going anywhere until I get them. We sit there for 30 minutes having conversations that will send us to hell and picking our noses next to the speaker, but they'll never see us again, so it doesn't matter.

Finally, the guy comes out and apologizes for the wait being twice what he told us, and so the food is all free. You know what's better than chili cheesy tots?

FREE CHILI CHEESY TOTS!

They were a work of art. Perfectly crunchy outside, deliciously melty inside with hot chili poured on top and a generous coating of cheesy goodness. It was a religious experience that I will cherish forever. I ate one of the jalapeño poppers and didn't even touch the chicken because I gobbled down every last tot, perhaps moaning in between, as Ang cried for her future olfactory senses.

Dammit, now I want chili cheesy tots. Wasn't this post supposed to be about Yosemite?

The night before we were going to do Yosemite and Death Valley, we took out the map and seriously contemplated skipping them both just to get out of California as soon as possible. We eventually decided that we would probably end up regretting that decision because a lot of locals said how much they love it and it is their favorite place, so to compromise I pretended Yosemite was in North Dakota. As we started the drive up the tiny windy road and the thousands of feet in elevation ticked off rapidly, we were surprised to happen across a school bus crossing sign some 9000 feet up in elevation. WTF, a school bus?

This...

After all this. Now, I understand that this picture can't convey the full scope of wending your way up the side of the mountain. Just go with it.

At the top of a mountain? Oh, hey, a town! Wow, this is a really nice town. We drove through a little town at the top of the mountain and it was hopping and not at all the sketchy tourist trap hole in the wall that we were used to in past backroad adventures. We regret not stopping, but we had to somehow fit Yosemite, Death Valley, and arriving in Las Vegas all in one day, so we had to step on it.

We decided at the beginning of Yosemite that the trees were better than in Yellowstone. The first bit of road in Yosemite wasn't much to look at, as all the trees were dead and burned, but as we rounded the corner at the first view of the halfdome it was fairly breathtaking. We pulled over to give our brakes a cool-off, because at this point the brakes had started to shudder when we went down mountains. We took a little trail, and wandered through until we found this hidden little part of a cliff to sit on.

It turns out that Ang is must more interested in national parks when they involve lots of big rocks. She was sitting there working on organizing pictures on the laptop or something, and then looked up and got mad I didn't tell her there were rocks. So, Yosemite delivered quite spectacularly in that regard. We were also surprised at how short the drive around the valley was - I guess most of the park is trails, because we went on the main loop of the valley floor and then all of a sudden it was over. We also sort of missed all the turn-offs. Oops. And spent waaay too long at the village in the center, but they had all sorts of shops and an Ansel Adams gallery. I honestly can't remember much about it, so here's what Ang said when I asked her what she remembered:

It had better trees than Yellowstone. It was lots of rocks. Yay, rocks. It sucked to get up there, cute little town that threw us off, sucked to get down, but we had to get down because we had to go to Death Valley. And there were animals? I don't remember a thing about Yosemite. We spent more time in the gift shops. Oh! We climbed out to that ledge, and got awesome shots, and chilled for a little while. We're the worst tourists in the world. Oh, and gas was $5.00 a gallon.

Yeah. It was beautiful, but it was kinda boring. Here's some rock pictures so you can agree with me:

Tree covered rocks!

Rocks under trees!

Short trees big rock!

Rock mountain tall trees!

Tree grass tree mountain!

Mountain mountain tree... water?

OMG! WATER!

On a side note, we had stopped at the entrance of Yosemite to use the restroom, and it made us really, really miss Steve from Sugarloaf. Yosemite, you need to hire a Steve:

This was not the only stall that looked like this. ALL of them had a shitload (ha, get it?) of toilet paper.

On another (somewhat related) side note, it turns out it was a good thing we didn't really stick around, as I was warned soon after by two different people about a hantavirus outbreak. We didn't lick the floors, so there's that.

As we left Yosemite, we came across what I think were the mammoth lakes. They didn't even look real. They were deep, deep blue with white sand formations around and in them.

There were also lines of huge rocky mountains on either side of us as we drove toward Death Valley.

We stopped into a little town for gas, and I saw a postcard for the Sierra Nevadas.

Me: "Sierra Nevadas? Is that where we are?
Lady: "Uh....yes. You're in the Sierra Nevadas."
Ang: "OH MY GOD WE'RE IN NEVADA?!"

These may or may not be the Sierra Nevadas.

She was devastated. Anyway, we left, and began the trek through the desert. We were really looking forward to some desert after the mountains, so once we started seeing some scrubby little pineapple things we think are Joshua trees, we flipped out. Then, Ang started taking pictures of piles of dirt. Then she took a picture of a different pile of dirt because it was darker. As she was doing this, she realized that all the pulloffs on the side of the road were leading up to Joshua trees. We took one of the little roads, and sure enough, it just drove up to a Joshua tree. I may or may not have tapped one when I thought the car was in reverse instead of drive.

Waaaay better than that pile of rocks a mile back.

We soon realized we had no idea why we were so excited for the desert. It's a bunch of dirt and scrub bushes. Apparently this is "high desert" so we don't even get any sand. Or cacti! :(

Yup.