Ryan's Journal

Since putting a bird feeder outside several months ago the house has become a bit of a Disney movie – finches gather by the dozen, ducks hang out looking for spilled seeds, and increasingly-round squirrels discover surprising ways of invading the feeder. After our third feeder became a victim of the squirrels – they somehow managed to chew off a metal perch – the sad decision was made to move to a more squirrel-proof feeder. The Squirrel Buster 9000 arrived a few days ago, and this picture (by Audrey) does a decent job of capturing the frustration of our furry little friends.

Many moons ago Audrey and I were watching one of those odd shows on Discovery Channel – the ones that follow documentaries like “Impaled!” – and they had a bit about a restaurant where you eat in complete pitch darkness with a waiter who is legally blind. While, in the past, I have disparaged LA, one of the very good things about this city is that when you see something odd on TV there’s a high probability that it was either filmed here or has since been copied by someone in this vast metropolis. As it turns out, Opaque operates in Santa Monica, and thus it was that for Valentine’s Day 2010 Audrey ate in complete darkness while I secretly stole her silverware and wine glass.

For those willing to spend a lot of money on a meal that you’ll probably end up eating with your hands, there are locations elsewhere including San Francisco. Note that if your date wants you to “dress nice” since it’s a fancy place, bear in mind that you’ll more than likely discover that you’re wearing some of your meal by the time you leave, unless of course you’re a pro like me. Also, relax your eyes as soon as you sit down; it’s too dark to see anything, and after a half hour I was getting a headache from inadvertently trying to focus. Finally, careful when reaching for the bread bowl – there’s a cup of butter in the middle of it. Here’s a YouTube video that somewhat captures the experience.

There haven’t been any pictures posted in a while. Here are three favorites.

After a truly dreadful job of making predictions for 2009, here’s the 2010 version. A psychic I’m clearly not, but they say even a monkey at a typewriter would eventually bang out a beautiful sonnet if he stuck with it long enough, so here goes:

1. SpaceX will launch their Falcon 9 rocket successfully in March or April. This prediction comes from the fact that a) I want them to succeed, and 2) they’ve already put two smaller rockets in orbit so hopefully they’ve got the hang of it. They’ve got five Falcon 9 launches on their manifest for 2010, but I’m gonna guess that two will be all that make it up this year.
2. Despite Democrats losing their 60th Senate seat in the Massachusetts special election there will still be some sort of health care bill passed this year. With control of Congress and the White House it seems supremely foolish that the Democrats would campaign without having passed any major legislation. “Re-elect me, even though I didn’t do much” just isn’t that catchy of a slogan.
3. Tiger Woods will be golfing again in time for the Masters, will win at least one major championship, and at least five tournaments.
4. The iPhone is going to be available from carriers besides AT&T by mid-year. Apple is able to charge higher prices because they offer a great product with great service, and based on my own experience AT&T’s network isn’t up to their standards.
5. The stock market will end the year around 11,500. It’s at 10,200 today, and while I wouldn’t be surprised to see it drop, the economy can’t stay bad forever.
6. NASA’s ARES rocket program will be canceled or scaled back to the point where it will no longer be a shuttle replacement. I’m a big space dork, but with budget issues and private companies now offering space transport I think NASA is going to be redefined as a research and robotic exploration organization, and not an agency that puts people and cargo in space.
7. The Beatles and Garth Brooks will start selling their music on iTunes. I’m gonna make this prediction every year until it eventually happens. And if Kid Rock and AC/DC are reading this, call Steve Jobs and tell him to make the magic happen ’cause I’m not buying CDs anymore.
8. The Browns will finish at .500 or better. I may be the only person on Earth who likes Eric Mangini, but I think the guy just needs some time to get the team he wants. I suspect Brady Quinn will remain the quarterback, but that one isn’t going on record as a prediction.
9. I’m going to run a marathon. There is absolutely no reason to believe that I’ll actually sack-up and do this other than the fact that I’d like to get it crossed off of the to-do list.
10. The 2010 elections won’t change Congress significantly. After the recent special election in Massachusetts this prediction may be a spectacular failure, but ten months is a long time in politics and I’m betting things may have bottomed out. I’ll say the Democrats will have 57 Senate seats (plus-or-minus one) and 240 House members (plus-or-minus five) when it’s all over.
11. Tesla will IPO and announce the opening of a plant in Downey. The plant will break ground, but full Model-S production will slip from 2011 to 2012.
12. Despite recent protests, the political situation in Iran won’t change in 2010.
13. Google will partner with someone to ship a low-cost, Google branded PC running Google apps and the Google operating system. This prediction might be premature, but I suspect that’s something they’re eventually trying to do.
14. Apple will be on the verge of announcing an Apple television product. They sell movies through iTunes and games for the iPod, so it seems like only a matter of time before they launch an all-in-one device that is a TV / video game / media center. I am going to want one when it does get announced.
15. China will announce plans to sell cars abroad. They seem to be following the exact same roadmap as Japan, first developing manufacturing infrastructure, then improving quality, then become industry leaders. Given the fact that fire extinguishers are supposedly included in most domestic cars sold in China, this is another prediction that might be a few years early.
16. It will be another bad hurricane year. There were five category five hurricanes in 2005, but there have only been two since. With El Nino supposedly back, this looks like another year for big storms.
17. Finally, I will make at least two journal entries a month. It’s gonna happen in 2010, really.

Check back this time next year to mock me for being completely wrong about all things 2010. For those who can’t wait a year to begin the mocking, the comments link below is there for your immediate gratification.

About one year ago I made some predictions for 2009, first because it seemed like it might be fun if I got any right, and second because it seemed like it might be amusing how wrong I would inevitably be. Here’s the scorecard:

1. The stock market will be close to 10,000 at the end of the year.
   The year closed at about 10,400 after opening around 9,000 and hitting a low of around 6,600, so this scores as one of my few correct predictions.
2. By the end of 2009 everyone will know what the smart grid is.
   Failed that one. No one ever accused me of being a smart man.
3. There will be at least two new national parks or monuments created.
   Failed again. Too bad, national parks are good things.
4. I will schedule another big expedition-style trip.
   The whale trip was a pretty big deal, but not on the scale of something like South Georgia. Half points for this one.
5. Chrysler is going to go out of business or be purchased; GM and Ford will keep chugging along. Another major bank will fail or be purchased.
   Chrysler was split up and is now sort of part of Fiat, so let’s say that’s three out of four. Not bad.
6. Obama’s approval rating will drop from its current 80% levels but still remain over 60%.
   Oops. I still like him.
7. I will run a marathon or some similar endurance race.
   Nope.
8. The “buzz” in energy will be all about bio fuels and concentrated solar.
   Didn’t get the dorky prediction either.
9. The Beatles and Garth Brooks will finally get released on iTunes. Kid Rock will not.
   Along with AC/DC these guys are all iTunes no-shows. The prediction batting average continues to drop…
10. The Boeing 787 will not face any further delays – two years is late enough. The 747-8 will move into production on schedule.
    There were six additional months of delay for the 787. The prediction game is clearly not one of my talents…
11. The Indians will not make the World Series. The Browns will not make the Super Bowl but will win at least seven games. The Cavs… will not be jinxed by me.
    Five wins for the Browns. That is a terribly small number.
12. Tesla Motors will still be in business, although the Model S will be delayed until the end of 2011.
    Tesla is going strong, which is great. There’s been no recent updates on the Model S, but 2011 seems likely. I finally get another prediction right.
13. I will still be working at DIRECTV.
    I made it through the full year before moving on to greener pastures, and since I’m doing the scoring that one counts as a correct prediction.
14. Yahoo will be purchased or merge with someone like AOL.
    They made a deal with Microsoft, but it wasn’t a merger. Didn’t get that one.
15. Lance Armstrong will finish in the top ten in the Tour de France but won’t be on the podium.
    He got third; I was half right.
16. I will manage to make at least two journal entries a month, doubling my pitiful performance of 2008.
    Clearly I’m bad at more than just making predictions.

It was fun making the (wrong) guesses. Predictions for 2010 will follow soon.

New year, new format for the journal. I think everything got converted over properly, although work still needs to be done to group together old trip journals and update links – if anyone notices any issues please leave a comment pointing out whatever obvious blunder has been made. With luck it should now be easier to make at least two posts a month, but that remains to be seen…

December was an extremely eventful month, although sadly I failed completely in capturing everything in a timely manner…

Vegas, Dave, Tim, and Audrey

The first weekend of the month saw Audrey and I off to Vegas to see Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, something that I would do on a weekly basis if possible. Tim Reynolds did some utterly ridiculous things with a guitar – I don’t know what an echoplex is, but it is clearly awesome. Dave started the concert by revealing that any bubbling noises were not a stylistic choice but were instead the result of mucous, and followed that up with a discussion of how Las Vegas is a weird place and proof that something has gone off kilter in the human evolutionary chain. They played for three hours, and afterwards Audrey and I returned home happy despite making the acquaintance of a drunk woman who decided that pressing every button in the elevator would be terrific comedy.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

December 23 saw an end to my tenure at DIRECTV after three years and nineteen days. My co-workers there were a lot of fun and the work was interesting, but it was time to move on to new things. I had expected a lengthy retirement, but a new offer came along that may be too good to pass up, and, being a fan of things like eating and paying rent, it looks like I’ll be working from home starting January 11.

Holliday Family Christmas

Christmas came up fast this year, and while I managed the gold in getting Audrey a membership to Zingerman’s bacon-of-the-month club, I failed utterly with everyone else’s gifts and headed to San Francisco with only gift certificates. Sally came through with “Holliday Family Recipe” books for Aaron and I, and a two hour game of Quiddler ended with disastrous results. Aaron, Ryan Sutherland and I also started coming up with bizarre “what if” scenarios at some point during the trip, and people’s answers made for revealing insights into what was most important to each individual:

• There are eight planes, and all of them are going to fly across the country. One will crash. You can either choose a plane and take the flight, and if you don’t crash you get to choose any three houses in the world when you land, or, if you choose not to fly, your thumbs will be surgically removed. What do you do?
• You get to be the richest person in the world, but you have to live in a hot-air balloon that must stay at least 100 feet off the ground at all times, otherwise you explode. You can modify the balloon in any way, but it can’t be tethered to the ground for more than two hours a day. Do you take the offer?
• You get $40 million today, but at some point between age 65 and 80 you will be killed by a sword to the stomach. Death may take as long as two hours. Deal or no deal?

There were many more, but not all of them were appropriate for a public web site. Needless to say, Ma & Pa weren’t huge fans, but everyone else involved seemed to enjoy the thought-exercise.

After four days at home Aaron and I were getting a bit stir-crazy so we headed out to a fancy hotel in Avila Beach, ten miles outside of San Luis Obispo. Apparently the place caters almost exclusively to couples, so the lady at the desk gave us a funny look when we checked in, but at this point we’re pretty used to embarassment and it was well worth it to have a jacuzzi in the room and a wine reception in the lobby.

My two-entries-a-month goal has failed miserably. Here’s the summary for November:

Thanksgiving in the Bay Area was filled with the usual uncontrollable laughter, including the revelation that the Skipper and Aaron once had a pickle-eating contest that ended disastrously. Audrey joined us for the first time this year and confessed to a sore stomach after the multi-hour laughfest. Even Ryan Sutherland got in on the act, filling us all in on the Infomercial marketing wonder that is Booty Pops. In less interesting news the latest major version of JAMWiki was released on November 3, and surprisingly there haven’t been any reports that it caused some poor user’s computer to burst into flaming wreckage. And in news that is in no way related to me, SpaceX may be able to launch their new Falcon 9 rocket as early as next February, although March is probably a safer bet.

Posted partly because it’s awesome, and partly because I’m trying to do at least two entries a month, here is the list of the nine manliest names in the world. Magnus Ver Magnusson only got third, which I think is a travesty, although in fairness I wouldn’t want to face off against “Staff Sergeant Max Fightmaster”.

Audrey’s photos from the roadtrip are online at Flickr; she did good and actually managed to press the shutter when the moose jumped the fence. Below are a couple of additional photos that I took from Bryce and Canyonlands.

Normally driving 700 miles in one day would be an arduous, exhausting task, and today was no exception. Despite a stop in the Kolob Canyon of Zion and a break for lunch at the Bellagio buffet the vast majority of the day was spent cruising over I-15 at between 70 and 80 miles an hour, watching desert go by. It’s sad to see the trip come to an end, but it was a great one. Two days of rest at home, then back to the grind…

We managed to get out of bed by 6:30 this morning, then set off in search of moose. We were initially rewarded with a large bull and a smaller bull trotting along a road near the airport, but the big payoff came when we headed back to the Gros Ventre campground and spotted an army of photographers arrayed in a field. When we hiked over to check it out a single antler of a giant bull was visible. We waited a bit for him to wake up, and when he did the fun began:

• Moose wakes up, gets shakily to his feet, and looks around for his girlfriend.
• With the girlfriend not in view, he initiates a detailed search pattern consisting of trotting around in circles. Photographers are giddy.
• The search pattern leads him to jump a fence, passing twenty feet from Audrey and I. Note that this is far from safe, but, as Audrey noted, “this is awe-some!”. Also note that I failed completely in getting a picture of a moose jumping a fence.
• After two loops around the assembled masses the scent of the lady moose is detected, and he follows her off into the woods; photographers rush after the moose, although Audrey and I chose not to join them.

After the morning excitement we grabbed a massive breakfast at Jedediah’s House of Sourdough, checked out of our hotel, then spent a couple of hours wandering around the town of Jackson. After that it was time to start the drive of doom home, and with pronghorns everywhere we covered about 300 miles through Wyoming and into Utah.

After a number of early days there was very little chance of us getting up early again today, and to no one’s surprise it was nearly 9:00 when we headed out to see the Grand Teton range in the morning light. I failed miserably with the photos, but the mountain range is very, very impressive – a fault in the earth is shifting, pushing the mountains up and the valley down. Currently Grand Teton rises about 7,000 feet above the valley floor, and supposedly if all of the sediment on the floor was gone the difference would be closer to 30,000 feet; God did his work well with this one.

Our other big adventure today was lunch at the Amangani Resort, which is the nicest hotel I’ve ever been in. It was a bit odd walking into a place and having the manager and customer service guy both shake my hand, so clearly having Audrey with me fooled them into thinking I was actually a classy guy worthy of a personal greeting. Tomorrow we’re up early (really) to look for moose, then it’s southwards towards home.

Today we left Yellowstone and traveled through Grand Teton National Park, but that news is completely eclipsed by the most amazing stat of the trip – we started the license plate game about ten days ago, and as of today had found every plate but Hawaii; however, we did see two license plates with rainbows, but couldn’t identify the state because the text was hidden by the license plate holder. Well, game over, the intertubes has confirmed that was Hawaii – all can stand in awe at our license plate finding prowess.

In lesser news, I woke up before sunrise again (Audrey: “Yeah, today I think you can do this on your own”) and went out looking for the blacktail pack, but aside from some brief howling didn’t find any sign of them. The morning still yielded a ton of elk, and it’s always nice to be outdoors early, especially when the thermometer is poking above the freezing mark (33°F, woohoo!). After a bit of lounging back at our cabin we headed south out of Yellowstone, making a ton of stops along the way. At Dunraven Pass we tried to find bears but to no avail, but did have a really fun conversation with a lady who had heard from Glenn Beck that California was shutting off all water to the farmers; that one is a complex issue that Mr. Beck seems to have oversimplified a bit (I know, shocking), so it was interesting to talk about how the California salmon fishery, migratory birds, etc all need Delta water, too. Following that stop we mostly drove straight through to Jackson, WY and found a really nice hotel – it’s the off-season here (too early to ski, too late for summer tourists) so we got a huge discount on a resort room with mountain views. The plan is to spend two nights here, and then sadly we’ll be heading towards home and back to the working world.

Today was the earliest day of the trip thus far with a 5:30 wakeup – Audrey was surprisingly mentally alert, although she had scouted the entire town the night before to make sure she could find coffee (for anyone in a similar predicament: there is a pot they keep brewing at the desk of the Mammoth Hotel). After the drive out to the Lemar Valley we joined Russ (the ham radio operator), Rick (the wolf biologist) and a small crowd on a hillside and got to watch three wolves, some bison, a few elk, a pronghorn and a handful of bighorn sheep through the myriad spotting scopes that people had with them.

After breakfast the temperature had risen from 25°F to a balmy 35°F so we headed up to the huge, terraced springs that give the area its name. Following that excursion and a short nap Audrey wanted to add Montana to the list of states she’s visited, so we made the quick trip up to Gardiner, stopping along the way to photograph a pronghorn that was standing in a turnout – having recently told Audrey that I thought the pronghorn is the one animal that is so wary that it would never, EVER let anyone get closer than about fifty yards, this fellow spent five minutes posing for pictures thirty feet away from us.

We ended the day with a drive up to the Norris Geyser basin which is the home of Steamboat Geyser, the world’s largest geyser, capable of erupting to over 300 feet in height. Its eruption cycle is from four days to fifty years, and with the last eruption having occurred in May 2005 we decided not to wait around to see if it was our lucky day. While the geysers were neat, the highlight was actually the scenery along the drive, including a stop on the outbound and return trip to re-visit with some of the wolf folks who were on the lookout for the Blacktail pack which had killed a bison in the area; we missed the wolves but saw (and heard) a coyote and a good number of elk, and Audrey was given a really cool photo by a really nice professional photographer who was hanging out in the area, so all was well.

After the late night last night we slept in a bit and luckily were able to switch our room to a cabin in the north part of the park, making for a more leisurely day. Highlights of the drive from Grant Village to Mammoth Hot Springs included another stop at Yellowstone Falls, many hundreds of additional bison, a coyote that everyone (including me) initially seemed to be mis-identifying as a wolf, and finally a group of five bighorn sheep wandering along the road. The sheep in particular were very cool, and by driving ahead of them a bit we got them to wander up to us, allowing for extreme close-ups of sheep nostrils the likes of which the photographic community will never condone.

The evening activity was a trip out to the Lemar Valley for wolf watching. As everyone knows, the way to find wolves is to look for people with big, expensive spotting scopes and stand next to them, and we were very successful at this. With winds whipping and temperatures in the forties a group of us stood on a hill and watched two black wolves more than a mile away. Seeing wolves is always very cool, but the crowd we were with added a bit of additional color – at one point after noting that the wolves had mange Audrey joked that she wanted to give them some medicine. A guy off to the side in a cowboy hat turned to us and in very serious and thick southern drawl intoned “Medicine? Lady, not in a national park you won’t.” We found out his name is Stacy, he is from Tennessee, and apparently one does not make any off-color remarks about wolves in his presence. We’re heading back in the morning for a bit more wolf-spotting, and based on conversations tonight it sounds like we’ll be seeing many of the same people again.

Tiredness abounds, which portends a brief and possibly dull journal entry. Our last day at the Old Faithful Inn saw another early wakeup followed by a car trip around the geyser basins, photos of bison, much fog (of the elf and pixie variety), and lastly an eruption of the very cool beehive geyser. After checking out of the inn we sped off to our next lodging site at Grant Village (“People mostly just sleep here” is how the very friendly girl at reception responded when we asked about the local sights). Within an hour we were on the road again towards the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The route passes through some massive meadows on the way in which we ran into numerous bison-induced traffic jams. Tips learned today when dealing with massive numbers of bison:

• Don’t let your dog out of the car. Bison and dogs don’t mix.
• Don’t form a barrier of cars and people in the bison’s path; they aren’t the smartest of animals and “run at the thing that’s in my way as fast as possible” seems like an option that they are not opposed to exercising.
• When a bison wants to cross the road, let it.
• Finally, the IQ of some people seems to drop 40-70 points around large, unpredictable wild animals as demonstrated by the old lady and the foreign guy who walked to within six feet of a bison, blocking its path; we drove away before we could witness any potential carnage.

Following the bison adventures we did some hiking around Yellowstone Falls, visited with some very friendly and tolerant squirrels and chipmunks, and photographed a herd of deer before grabbing dinner and making the long drive back to our hotel room. Tomorrow promises to be another full day, although sadly it may be our last in the park unless an additional night of lodging becomes available.

For anyone visiting Yellowstone in the future: while park rules forbid you from invading an animal’s personal space (25 yards from all animals except for bears which get 100 yards), it is apparently ALSO against park rules to allow an animal to invade your personal space – after an elk wandered to within about ten yards of Audrey and I a ranger pulled over to inform us that we were very, very bad people; he may be correct, but a female elk without a calf that is simply grazing isn’t the most vicious of creatures. That unfortunate incident aside, it’s still extremely cool to see elk and bison at such a short distance.

Our day started a little after 6 AM with a trip out to see Old Faithful at sunrise, followed by a stroll around the Upper Geyser Basin. On our way back to the lodge around 10:30 we noticed that Grand Geyser, the world’s largest predictable geyser, was expected to erupt between eight and noon. Figuring it was past due we sat down to wait, and for the next ninety minutes baked under the sun until, at 11:55, a plume of water jetted 150 feet into the air for ten minutes; it was worth it. The afternoon found us in the car exploring some of the other nearby geyser basins, running afoul of the park law, and in general having a very nice time. The pictures below hopefully do a better job capturing the day than my limited grasp of the English language is capable of.

Yesterday is the first day of the trip without a journal entry – the blame for this oversight lies with Jacquie, and specifically with the moment after dinner when she asked “have you ever tried absinthe?” Despite being guilty of promoting inebriation, Jacquie and Roy are two of the finests hosts I’ve ever had the pleasure of staying with, and between the amazing meal, the tour leading, the beautiful home, and the ginormous dog that resembled a cow it was a very, very pleasant visit.

After an excellent breakfast of sausages, waffles and bluberries, a tour of Lander from Jacquie, and an unfortunate bathroom incident with the very large and temporarily crippled dog, Audrey and I hit the road for Yellowstone, arriving a few hours before sunset. Having never visited this park without seeing massive numbers of animals I gave her an ironclad guarantee of at least two large animals, but one juvenile elk later I’m eating crow. Despite the lack of fauna it’s still amazing – for the first time in my life I’m spending the night in the Old Faithful Inn, and I’m quite literally giddy walking around a six story, 110 year old log hotel that is a few hundred feet from the world’s most famous geyser. We had dinner and a drink in the bar, watched Old Faithful erupt from the deck, and are now heading to sleep in our 100 year old room awaiting any adventure that tomorrow might bring. Life is very, very, very good.

The lounging portion of the trip officially came to an end this morning, but not until after I’d spent forty-five minutes chasing around Grand Junction trying to find a Starbucks; needless to say, it was not one of my finest moments. When finally we got on the road we headed up the very scenic Colorado Highway 139, crossing peaks at over 8000 feet with some nice fall scenery, and eventually leading to a lunch stop in Dinosaur, Colorado. The town would seem to have the world’s greatest gimmick given its name and proximity to Dinosaur National Monument, but apparently the closing of the park’s visitor center and the disappointing box office for Jurasic Park 3 has taken its toll.

The remainder of the journey took us into Utah and then up through Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. Thanks to the terrorists we couldn’t walk on or in any way explore the 500 foot tall dam at the head of the gorge (note to the FBI: WTF?) but the scenery was great, and we spotted a bunch of pronghorn antelope as we drove along the ridgelines into Wyoming. Tomorrow we’re off to see some friends, then we’ve got at least four days of geysers, mountains, and being chased by large, angry animals in Yellowstone.

Today was a lounging day to allow us to recover a bit from all of the recent hiking and driving. Since we’re in the midst of Colorado’s wine country we made an excursion out to a couple of wineries, but discovered that there’s a reason why those who list the world’s great wine regions don’t generally include Grand Junction; the people here are nice, the wines not-so-nice. Tomorrow we’re driving again on our way to start stage two of the trip (aka Operation Yellow Stones).

After a morning in Canyonlands we hit the road and followed the Colorado River until we eventually got to Grand Junction, Colorado. After two days without cell service I was bombarded with text messages about the latest futility of the Browns, and after absorbing this year’s opening season loss I grabbed a shower, washed off a few pounds of desert dust, and then joined Audrey for dinner. After a week of hiking and driving the plan for tomorrow is excessive lounging, and then Tuesday we’ll make the long slog up into Wyoming to visit some friends from last March’s whale trip

It is 9:30 at night and I am too tired to write coherently, but luckily lack of coherence has never yet stopped me from putting together a journal entry. Today we hit Arches National Park, and judging by the level of exhaustion it hit back. The morning saw visits to Double Arch, the Windows, and Turret Arch, and at each we ran into a pair of woman travelers who scrambled on the rocks while offering strangely valuable photo tips. After a stop in Moab for lunch we headed to Devil’s Garden for some hiking during the hottest part of the day (solid planning on my part) and sweltered along to the massive Landscape Arch (300+ feet) and then up to the very scenic Partition Arch.

The day ended with a climb up to Delicate Arch (the Utah license plate arch for those not up-to-speed on their arch identification). I’ve visited this arch at sunrise when only a handful of hardy souls were present, but never before at sunset when it is a MUCH different experience – perhaps seventy-five people were arrayed around the arch waiting to take photos, with the souvenir-seekers lined up in front of the arch waiting to get their photo taken. One-by-one they stood under the arch, got their picture, and then traded places with the next person in line, all while the nature photographers fretted that they would miss out on an amazing photo while waiting for the Johnson family to get their Christmas card photo. As frustration mounted loud shouts of “Boo!” erupted anytime someone lingered a bit too long. While this may not have been the most serene natural setting it was fairly amusing, particularly when one especially clueless girl stood for a minute under the arch admiring the view while everyone yelled and whistled; when finally she got the hint a rousing cheer erupted from the assembled gallery. Lightning flashed on the horizons during the journey back to our campsite making for an awesome display, and we’re now heading to bed under slightly cloudy skies with hopes of staying dry until morning.

I’m currently sitting in my tent under the most amazing night sky I’ve ever seen – with no moon, at least a 6,000 foot elevation, and a location that is the most remote area in the lower-48 states the Milky Way is lighting up the evening and the stars are shining so brightly that it’s possible to differentiate sizes and colors; Audrey even pointed out what we’re guessing is the space station flying overhead. Being the reliable outdoorsman I left the star guide sitting on my bookshelf, so we’ve been forced to come up with our own names (“Blinky” is popular) but it’s no less incredible without knowing exactly what it is we’re seeing.

The route that brought us to this astronomy laboratory started in Bryce Canyon with an early wake-up to see sunrise followed by too many pictures and a visit along the way from a group of pronghorn antelope. This adventure inevitably led to coffee and bacon at the lodge, and then off for more canyon adulation at Bryce Point. After checking out of our hotel the route took us 275 miles across the state and along some absolutely ridiculous roads – apparently the Great Depression led to the ultimate in make-work programs in Utah, and portions of Highway 12 are literally blasted out of solid rock only because someone decided that a good way to create jobs was to build roads through impossible places. In addition to Highway 12, portions of Interstate 70 (“No Service Next 123 Miles”) traverse canyons and cliffs that made it one of the few parts of the interstate highway system to be two lanes up until the mid-eighties when it was finally expanded to match the rest of the system.

We got out of bed at 7:00 this morning and were on the road by 8:00, ’cause that’s how we roll. The weather alternated between sun and rain, but luckily when we arrived at Bryce it was sunny so we set off on the Navajo Loop trail towards Sunrise Point. The route led straight down through the hoodoos, and while hugely impressive it nonetheless instilled a fair amount of dread for the return trip – I’m in decent shape, but being at nearly 9,000 foot elevation has a way of making the lungs forget how to properly inflate; luckily the route up was more gradual, and with a rainstorm approaching we had added motivation to keep moving and thus avoid becoming human lightning rods.

Given the weather, sunset didn’t provide the expected fireworks, and with my limited photography skills anything less than absolute natural brilliance generally fails to translate well in photos. It was still nice to see, however, and our plan for tomorrow is to be up by 6:30 to catch sunrise. Audrey is surprisingly tolerant of me wanting to take advantage of the light and spend the days hiking, but I suspect some lounging time will be in our future lest we both collapse in a heap in the Utah desert. On a more random note, for reasons that are a mystery to everyone Zion is full of German speaking tourists, but Bryce is the destination of choice for the French speakers; Arches may be full to the gills with Italians…