Lake Tahoe!!

On our way to Lake Tahoe, leaving Mariposa, we started being passed by firetrucks and utility trucks on some pretty narrow roads, soon to see the cause was a huge fire in the mountains. The fire had just started and the roads were being blocked so we were forced to turn around. We stopped at a lookout to see scouting planes and helicopters surrounding the smoke. Then we took off to follow Wanda's lovely back roads into northern California. Once again, we found ourselves passing wakeboard boats galore and realized that instead of Home Sickness, we were both getting 'Lake Sickness'.

The first thing we did once in Tahoe was head to the closest dog beach to let Cohen run around before we went to find our hotel. After getting settled, we met the British crew again out for drinks and dinner. We spent the next day back at the dog beach lying in the sun and in the water. The lake was so shallow that it took about 20 yards of walking to get the water up to your chest, which Cohen loved. He also loved the fact that the temp was the same as bath water. Later that afternoon, we met up with everyone for lunch on a pier.

Later that night we went to Zephyr Cover to board a catamaran and headed out onto the lake. We had arranged a sunset sailing cruise on the lake with complimentary drinks all night. Trust me, we took advantage!! After seeing the amazing sunset, we headed back to shore where we found a taxi and stopped at the Hard Rock on the Nevada side. Stumbling back to our hotel, later that night, we said goodbye to everyone from England and spent our last night in Tahoe, ready to leave early the next morning.

Mariposa and Yosemite

Wanda strikes again!! On our way from Porterville to Mariposa, CA, instead of the interstate, we found ourselves on a winding back road through the hills of Mariposa, both dirt and badly paved. We had been invited to a house rented by friends from England whom we met on our past cruise. They had their son and his girlfriend with them, and it was their son's birthday, which led to a scavenger hunt from market to market in the surrounding towns, which were at least 15-20 miles apart.

After finally finding the main town and a cake we followed some back roads to find the place we would stay. The house turned out to be gorgeous with a great patio and an even better view. However, it was a different story, once inside. The house was rented out by a family who had obviously not had the time to take down their christmas decorations for the past 10 years, for the house was still fully decorated, complete with festive spiderwebs. Along with the silver garland, there were pictures in every room of their family that seemed to go back to the 70s. These pictures would have been fine, if it was not for the fact that they are one of the creepiest families around. Soon, we found that every drawer in the house was full of the family's clothing, the hot tub did not work, there was really no internet service and 'central air' just meant open all bedroom doors and put all the window ACs on high. Despite the disturbing stay, we were only a half hour from the enterence to Yosemite.

Yosemite National Park was truly amazing with great views. Unfortunately, most of the park's waterfalls are dried up by August, which is the time we arrived, but there was still plenty to see. As soon as we got into the park, we headed to Glacier Point, one of the most popular lookout points. The drive was to take about an hour to reach the point, but of course we hit construction, so it took us 2.5 hours to get there. The view point looked out over the domes which the park is known for, and this picture, which is the half dome. Half of this rock came off in a landslide years ago. They told us that if we zoom in on our pictures we will see the crazy people that hike up the side of it and camp at the top.

While exploring the rest of the views and walks throughout the park, Marc came across his future profession. We saw a female park ranger walking amongst a crowd of tourists, carrying a paintball gun. She was casually telling the people how she had just shot a bear with her paitball gun. Apparently, her job is to deter bears from the road ways and hiking paths by shooting them with clear paintballs.

We spent our second day in the Mariposa River. This river runs along the road that brings you from Mariposa to Yosemite. We drove along the road until we found some suitable rocks we could sit on along the river and we climbed down the cliff with Cohen to the water. The river was too fast to put in floats, but the sun was hot and the water was warm, so we sun bathed, waded and swam and picniced on the river for the day.

Big Trees

Tuesday morning we left the OC and headed into LA traffic. Finding yourself in bumper to bumper traffic is inevitable, even though we precisely timed it out to avoid the morning, lunch, mid-afternoon, and evening traffic. The wait wouldnt have been so bad if it hadnt been for the view of smog that surrounded us and blocked any chance of scenery of the city or the mountains. At first we couldnt tell if it was clouds or smoke, two cleaner alternatives. Finally, after getting out of the traffic, Marc got to get his first 'In and Out Burger' experience. Truly amazing as always and curing any hangover one might have left over from the previous night's poker/drinking gathering.

After hearing about the absurb amount of bears that bother you while camping in the Sequoias, we opted out of the tent idea and got a sketchy hotel in Porterville, CA. On our way there, we passed every citrus tree imaginable, to the point where if there was a game called 'name that fruit tree', we would master it.

Sequoia National Park was typically what we expected, lots of really big trees, some amazing views, a drive through tree that our car couldnt fit through and some really windy roads.

keepin up with the crew from the OC

After leaving Vegas, we left the lights and the triple digit temps and headed towards Orange County to visit some of Marc's high school friends for the weekend. The weather was still in the high 90s during the day, but at last we had a chance to breathe in some cooler air once the sun was down, allowing us to head out to some 'east coast' bars and meet some of Lindsay and Matt's friends. This night was filled with alot of drinking, del taco and even shopping carts and left us with a nice head ache the following day.

Our second night there, we headed to the Orange County fair. This was definetly one of the biggest fairs we have been to, complete with nightly concerts, huge sausages and turkey legs, and of course, beer. All night we had alot of fun, won a banana, went on a crazy ride with a great view of the area, almost got foot fungus, and got to see some reality stars trying to act 'normal' while walking the fair grounds with a giant crew of cameras taping their every move.

We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and catching up with friends... aka recovering.

Vegas

You know what they say... What happens here stays here!!

Any place that serves 44 oz mixed drinks is my kind of place!!

Reasons never to go to Needles, CA

1. Its hot.... far too hot

2. The only scenery is desert... lots of dirt

3. They give you a warning not to leave your dog outside because of the 'critters' that could get him

4. It is being invaded by Germans... no lie, anyone I talked to that was staying there did not speak English

5. The one time you want to use the TV in the ACed lounge to watch the All Star game, there are German children watching the cartoon network

6. The best job here is to work in the liquor store so you can frequent the beer room

7. Swimming in the 80 degree pool at night to cool off only works for the first 5 minutes, then you want to die again

8. Did I mention it was hot?

9. They sell snake bite extractor kits at the local gas stations

10. Gas is literally a dollar more expensive than it is down the streets 5 minutes to Arizona

slowly and surely might sweat to death...

Today we left our so-under-construction-it-ought-to-be-closed campground in Williams, Arizona to head to Needles, California. I decided, as navigator, to venture off of the popular, route 40 highway and try out Historic Route 66, which is longer, but runs almost paralell of the road. Let me tell you, that if I had the time, money or motivation, I would sue Pixar for false advertisement. Not once did I see a talking car, a motel made of traffic cones, or a scenic mountain road. In fact, not once did I see an ounce of civilazation that didnt involve a trailer park, which, by the way, have $200 monthly rates, and trust me, were being taken up on their offer! What makes someone think that a permanent RV home sitting on cinder blocks would look better with a bed planted flowers around it???

Anyway, after the dissappointment of the lack of activity of the highway, we finally made it to the west coast!!! We enterred California only to be stopped at a checkpoint and forced to give up all of our apples!! The state doesnt allow any fruit from outside the borders due to fruit fly infestations!!! Finally arriving to our campground, we got out of our ACed car, only to find that it was truly 114 degrees outside and our cabin was in the desert! When we asked how much cooler it would get at night we were told high 80s!!

We quickly dropped our stuff and got back into the cool car and headed towards Lake Havasu. The dog park we went to overlooked a canal from the lake where people had just tied up their boats to the side with loud music, tons of people in bathing suits and lots of drinking. It made us a little homesick, missing the LW this summer...

As of right now, we are writing this from inside our cabin, our 1960s AC on high, with a blanket in the crack of the doorway, curtains closed, trying to drink ourselves into a cooler temperature. I think this is where we will stay until Wednessday.

One big hole...

Sunday we left sketchy Utah and headed out towards the Grand Canyon. It was decided that we would hit the North Rim, because only 10% of visitors view that side and being the speed tourists that we are, we would become part of that 10 percent. (This was also decided after we found out that to do the sky walk, which is advertised as only being $33.05, you must first purchase a park pass for another $35.05 and then pay an additional $20 entery and parking fee.) So after setting our clocks back yet another hour (total of 3 now) we ventured off on a 1/2 mile hike onto a narrow rock that gutted out into the huge hole in the earth (kinda scary). After dodging an enormous amount of foreign tourists (really, we are beginning to feel like the minority on the road), we were able to get to the point and then turn around. On the way back we managed to climb some random rock ledges and get some good pictures. We were even able to see the mountains of San Francisco from afar. Of course, after making a huge amount of jokes about how the grand canyon would be quite the innappropriate, over the top, suicide attempt (I mean, come on, you have to pay to get in!), we feel rather badly about the man who drove himself off of the south rim this morning.

After a few hours of being tourists and a pair of broken sunglasses, we took off to our campground, south of the Grand Canyon, in Williams, Arizona. The campground was under construction, so we had to find our way to our site through all of the extremely upset and confused Germans who couldnt understand the fact that there was not yet a swimming pool and would have to go to another park. When we finally got to our cabin, we quickly set up and decided to go cruise the infamous loop of the historic Route 66! Because it was Sunday, alot of the places were closed, but we managed to grab a seat outside of a tourist trap classic diner, where they had live entertainment.

lots of rocks

I'm not sure if it is due to their lack of police funding or their excellent scense of humor, but Glendale, Utah and their surrounding towns have decided to randomly place police cruisers and broncos on the sides of streets with their radars on full blast and in the front seat, none other than a dummy. No lie, we have seen 5 so far. The first took a while to figure out, we couldnt get over the fact that the 'sheriff' sat in the same spot throughout the day and night without anything else to do!

Saturday we decided to explore the national parks that Utah is known for, Zion and Bryce Canyon. First up was Zion National Park. To be environmentally righteous, they have decided to not allow cars on their scenic loop and instead force everyone onto a shuttle, everyone, that is except those who have dogs. So we were only able to do a quick scenic drive through the road that passes through. Despite the fact that some of the hikes would have been cool, I sucked up the fact that I wouldnt have the chance to walk among the rattlesnakes after seeing that the park rangers, whose jobs were solely to direct traffic, wore guns. A 45 minute car ride is enough to view the large cliffs and endless rock.

From there we drove to Bryce Canyon National Park, which had miles worth of amazing views. The park protects miles of land with rocks, which have been formed into 'hoodoos' from the erosion. We were able to drive to each viewpoint and get some great pictures.

Later that night, we decided to try one of the 6 restaurants located within 26 miles of our campground, the 'Buffalo Bistro'. The place was described as an 'exotic bbq' so we went on in. The atmosphere of this place was almost indescribable. From the drunken pictures on the wall, to the cowboy artifacts, to the alpaca wool homemade hats made and sold by our waitress, the place was eccentric as they come. The owner cooked all of the meat to order on the large grill outside and the one waitress ran around like crazy. They served everything from Buffalo and rattlesnake sausage to Rocky Mountain Oysters, where the menu states 'sometimes you just feel like a nut'. We got buffalo wings as an appetizer, which were so hot, Marc claimed he may have came down with Chlamydia. The entrees were pretty good too. For our beers, we had some local brews called 'polygamy porter', which had the slogan on the glass, 'you cant have just one'.

From Colorado to Sketchyville Utah

Leaving from Durango we found ourselves once again in the middle of nowwhere in a desert like setting. There were a lot of scrub brush, trailers and once again road work, but out here they don't even bother with just having one lane open. They shut the whole highway down for sporadic amounts of time and then a small block party erupts as everyone gets out of their cars to do light calisthenics and make sandwiches. We made the quick right to visit the 4 corners marker and found ourselves in line while families of 13 used 3 different cameras, a video camera and every ones cell phone to take 37 different pictures each of them posing, i had Cohen pee on the marker so no one else would lie down on the marker and speed things up for everyone. There were a plethora of Navajo booths selling trinkets and beads back to us as payback for the lopsided deals we made with them hundreds of years ago.

In Arizona we drove by lake Powell and found wake board boat mecca, every other car around there was pulling a boat with a tower on it. Cohen found out that he loves red dirt and proceeded to roll around in it when we let him out. Getting into to Utah brought about the Church of Later Day Saints, or LDS, as they like to be called. But i knew they were Mormons and made sure to drink as much as possible around them. We stayed in Glendale Utah which was convenient for its location but was definitely a 10 on the ghetto campground scale. There was a total of about 12 motor homes and tents there and instead of spacing them out they decided to group us all together in one spot next to the horse corral. We of course were put next to a newly divorced mom and her 15 year old daughter whose whole trip it seemed was for her mom to seem cool while her daughter had late night campfires with the foreign staff and tried unsuccessfully to have an intelligent thought. The bathrooms were pooled with bleach that it was physically impossible to breath, making me wonder what horrific crime had taken place in there and what animal they were trying to cover up their tracks over, my guess was sheep. So instead of 5 night we decided to cut it to two and continue our speed touring of the Utah national parks.

Mesa Verde

Whatever you do, go to the bathroom before you get to the park entrance because they enjoy telling you after you hand them over money for an entrance fee, don't we already fund these places with taxes, that the visitors center is 15 miles away. Not straight down the road away either, like double helix hairpin turns 15 miles away. While pretending i was a race car driver and annoying cohen by crossing the rumble stips multiple times we discovered that it was hot, and it was only leading to our disproportionately arm tans. We also went against all movie wisdom and drove towards the light.

We drove the self guided loop road because the website explained that to get into the visitable cliff houses you would have to "climb a 32 ft. ladder, crawl through a 12ft.-long tunnel, and climb up a 60ft (20m) open rock face with two 10ft (3m) ladders to exit the site. " Since cohen does not have opposable thumbs, playing hide and seen in the cliff houses was out of the question. We were able to see the progression of ancient pueblo structures as the native americans moved from simple mesa top buildings to more complex excavated masonry structures and eventually moving into the cliffs and overhangs of the canyons. There is a lot of professional archaeological speculation as to why they did this but I know why, it was hot and they were looking for shade. I shall wait for my prize and some honorary letters after my name.

Cohen enjoyed owning some yucca plants and we were mostly done with our tour when we heard German children. If you don't know German children have been plaguing us where ever we go on our cruise, outings, in camp bathrooms and now at national parks. There is almost nothing worse than the whining of a pre pubescent German boy calling for his father. That was fate telling us it was time to go. The only thing that can trump it is the HIPPIES. There is such a pletora of dirty bearded hippies asking for rides everywhere the state is actually looking into a managed hunt to reduce their numbers and help reduce the stress of them on the environment. Theses hippies are delusional into thinking people without dead animals in the back of their pickup trucks would stop and deal with their 7 oversized backpacks, scraggly beards, and horrible stench. I have been doing my part to drive them back where they came from by toying with them like the Jack links beef jerky commercials show.

We hit the durango off leash dog park on our way back and cohen found friends and water. He still will not swim but he will chase small dogs into bushes and considers it his best sport. While the dogs enjoyed themselves my attention was caught by the number of people floating down the river in front of us, we saw a number of crafts pass us including, large guided rafts, kayaks, stand up paddle surf board things, two person tubes, inner tires and my favorite bikini clad girls holding a dog with a lifejacket on. I have decided that to live in this area you must apon moving into city limits show that you posess a jeep with large tires, bonus points for racks on top, a human powered river craft, double word score if your drive a schoolbus that tows said river craft, and a citation for driving under the speed limit on highways.

going for gold!

We awoke to the screaming of a campground worker into our tent, 'your dog is loose!'. Cohen had escaped from the tent while we were asleep to play with the children outside and run around the grounds freely. We have now been advised that we need to have him on a leash even INSDE our tent.

Today we set off on the 'million dollar highway' to look at more scenic views and explore some old mining towns. The rules were clearly set in stone before our departure, however, no goat paths would be allowed. The highway lived up to its name and gave us some great photo opts while leading us into the town of Silverton, named for 'mining silver by the ton'. The town was so small that from the top of the mountain road we were on, I could capture the entire vacinity of the town in one picture. We were, however, able to visit the 'house of christ', so our needs were fulfilled.

There we took Red Mountain Pass north again. This road brought us to some really old mines with underground tunels and muddy water. The road was filled with crazy switchbacks and turns, with of course, no guard rails! The pass led us into Ouray, which had a public hot springs swimming pool and then the road stopped having turns for a few miles and we ended up a valley at Ridgeway. We passed through some other small towns until we eventually made it to Telluride. FYI the entire state of Colorado is doing roadwork so learn to love the smell of asphalt.

Telluride is yet another small overpriced ski town in the middle of nowhere. At one end of the town, we saw an amazing waterfall off a huge cliff with a gorgeous house built over it. It turns out this house was once built by a wealthy old man and is now turned into their power plant and the falls were Bridal Falls. Fortunately for us, there was a boulder in the roadway so we werent able to take the pass up to it. Black Bear Road, considered one of the most dangerous roads in the US. (What a shame.)

The next town over from Telluride (or should I say above it) is Mountain Village, our new dream town. The entire town is located on a mountain above. It consists of nothing but beautiful houses. The fire station is made out of logs and is A-framed, the police officers drive Durangos, the grocery store looks like a ritzy hotel. There was a free gondola that would take you from either side of the town or to the mountain, which you could also ski down from outside many of the hotels. We are obviously firm beleivers in playing the lottery now.

We ended the day by stopping at a spot on Delores River right next to the town Stoner to let Cohen go wild. Marc and him ran in the water, and of course, Cohen found a stick larger than life. While he was tired and passed out beyond beleif, we got dinner downtown Durango at the Carver Brewery. Here, the food was okay, the beers were so-so, the atmosphere was not that good, but the artwork that they decorated the place with and sold was amazing.

Another long day... now we have to find a way to put a doggy run in our tent.

back to the middle of no where

I have always wondered, when watching one of those stupid horror movies, where they get the idea that a young couple, taking a road trip out west, would suddenly find themselves in the middle of nowhere and be attacked. I mean, really? Where in the world would you be able to drive hours without seeing one sign of civilization? I now can make a list of destinations to answer that question.

Today, we experienced driving where you thought you could see fields for miles and miles around and then suddenly turn a corner and there is a town, complete with 3 liquor stores, a bank, billy goat with horns on a leash and a dead sheep lying upside down with it's legs in the air.

Bored with views of the mountains and the cows (trust me, you get bored!) we began judging people not by their houses, but by their gated enterance ways. It didnt matter if these people have a log cabin, ranch, mobile home, or just a parked RV on land, they spend all of their money with these amazing wooden archways that frame their dirt driveways. This particular gate framed a driveway that had to be followed behind the mountain in the picture to get to a house that we couldnt even see.

Not much to tell about this drive. We drove through Pagosa Springs, more mountains and finally have reached Durango. Where we are settled at our campground with a great view of the San Juan Mountains.

Goat Path warnings are not to be taken lightly.

Sunday morning we tried for our second attempt to head into the mountains. The journey took longer than we thought it would due to the horrible Colorado driving. This is the first state we have encountered that breaks when going both up and down hills, drives 5 under the speed limit and where you magically find yourself in the middle of a traffic jam, only to find a mile ahead that there was absolutely no cause for slowing down.

This being said, our first stop was Breckenridge. This has to be one of the cutest ski towns ever, over populated with bikes and overpriced housing. From the little restaurants and cafes to the ski area, this could potentially be our next home.

From here, with intentions of taking a 'short cut' mountain pass to another high way on our way to Vail, we headed down a goat path called 'Weston Pass'. This pass started out as a friendly dirt road off of the highway where all of the people you passed smiled and waved. Little did we know that they were smiling because they saw our license plate said NH and we were in a weighted down CRV with roof carrier. They knew what we were getting into... we didnt. Although Marc looks back at this decision with a chuckle, this is where we differ. As the path ascended, the road slowly turned to rocks (and not pretty cobblestones, mind you) and we started to wonder why the only vehicles we passed were jeeps, trucks and quads... It was about 20 minutes after this realization that it started to rain, the 'road' bbecame narrow and we started to bottom out. It wasnt until 2 long hours that we saw civilization, our cell phones regained service, and I actually started beleiving Marc when he repeated 'we arent going to die'. (By the way, this sign wasnt until 1/2 of the pass was complete and there was no way of turning around). Lesson learned: When you look at a map and see a small yellow detour road outlined with dotted lines... take the long way.

After this near death experience, we headed into Vail, which seemed like the entire resort was under construction. Then we explored Copper Mountain and headed into Frisco and ate at the Back Country Brewery, where they had the most delicious roasted pear and spinach salad and again, great beers.

Knowing we were going to run into some more traffic heading back into the city, we detoured off the highway to travel through Keystone and explore the A-basin, both are extremly beautiful, but I highly dont recommend the shortcut through the ski areas if you are like me and still experiencing altitude sickness!! (Which I didnt know until then was what I had been feeling all day.) The drive, however, was well worth it for the pictures of the ending storm and the views.