Tales of Time and Travel v.3.1: Disneyland

Carol was our wonderful hostess while spending 3 days and 2 nights in The OC; making breakfast for me and Grant each of the next two mornings (when was the last time somebody made me breakfast?).  Carol is a great and fun friend from High School days, who after 30 years, had tracked me down and called me up to discuss earthquakes and imminent destruction of life-as-we-know-it along the San Andreas fault, especially as it related to Orange County.  I shared my philosophy for facing destruction with Carol; Eat, Drink and Go to the 'Happiest Place on Earth', for tomorrow we may die.  Whether Carol totally bought into this philosophy, I can not truly say, but she did provide clean sheets on two beds, thus sparing us the cost of a hotel and she also scored discount tickets for Disneyland! 

While in high school together, Carol was my quintessential 'California Girl' kind of friend; a petite blond, with a quick laugh that went with the bounce in her personality - and she drove a Mustang.  And now, come to find out, she lives just 10 miles from Disneyland.  Carol works out of her house as a consultant for commercial real estate corporations, developing budgets etc. for building managers and owners.  Since she did not have to punch a clock, so I suggested she join us for a day in the midst of Tinkerbell's Castle.  She thought she could take a day to do just that.

After a late night at the Dodger game, we slept in a wee bit.  After breakfast we planned to be at Disneyland around 9:30.  Carol then got a call from a client in a big pinch, so she told the client she could work on their problem beginning at 2.  We modified our plans for a half-day for the 3 of us, and Grant and I would return to ride the rides into the night.  Now come to think of it, I have been to Disneyland with Carol more times than with anyone else, including my wife and family.  As high school seniors I recall that we went to Disneyland for 'Senior Night', for 'CSF (Calif. Scholastic Federation - Honor Society) Night' and some other club-type 'Night'.  This trip made four times with Carol in the Magic Kingdom.  Strange how events coincide and combine over the years.

The Suneson Family tradition is to start with Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

Mark and Grant at Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
The second ride of the day

But this day, we opted to start in the 'California Adventure' section of the park, and Carol suggested we first go on the "Soaring Over California" ride.  We got in line, but it soon stopped moving forward.  Eventually, we were informed that a person in the first group through had gotten sick and turned the ride into "Barfing All Over California" (must have been from NY).  Even though the ride does not move, you watch from your seat as the images on a big screen in front of you show you gliding airborne over various landscapes of the Golden State.  When you glide over orange groves, a scent of citrus can be detected, this time I think they cranked up the citrus smell to compensate for any vomitous odor that might remain. 

Then it was time for Mr. Toad.  Grant commented on the old Disney being a bit darker, as Mr. Toad's careening carriage goes through an antagonistic courtroom, a violent explosion and a demon-infested underworld.  I kind of like the saccharine removed.  We were all going to finish with Pirates of the Caribbean before we took Carol back to work - but that ride broke down, so we hopped the fence and had one last go before leaving the Happiest Place on Earth.  

We rode the parking garage elevator with a mom and her teary 5-year old, with the boy sobbing in protest that he did not want to leave. Mom explained that it was his behavior that had crossed a boundary and had brought an abrupt end to his Disneyland adventure, despite in tearful protests.  Back in our car, Grant and Carol roundly condemned mom for her decision, "You just don't revoke Disneyland privileges from a kid! - too cruel."  I suggested mom was playing her 'Mom Card' and taking the boy back to the hotel for some food and a nap.  Then later on, with sincere apologies all around, I confidently predicted they'd be back in the Magic Kingdom by afternoon for the time of their lives. It's an old parent trick; enforce preset boundaries on behavior and reward, take a break, regroup and restart. Even I have pulled a few 'parent tricks' in my day.

Carol brought us to a taco place for lunch (beats Theme Park prices) and then we dropped her off and left her to fix the budget crisis.  Grant and I returned for a tour de force.  Grant goaded me into riding the California Screamin' roller coaster despite my better judgement.  I used to do roller coasters with joy, but now they mess with my inner ear and put a slight pal on my well-being.  But, my manhood was challenged by my own son.  Hell yeah, I can take it!  Bring it on.  

Now I learned something: I won't do that again.

We rode the Grizzly Rapids Wild River ride with an Arab family, where the mother spend the entire ride time fussing and covering her 12-year old daughter with a scarf, I assume in mortal fear that I would see a girl in damp clothing.

We boarded the Jungle Cruise, being the river guide on the Jungle Cruise is the most coveted job in the Magic Kingdom, since the entertainment value of the cruise is largely dependent upon the corny jokes and wit of the guide in the bow of the boat.  I enjoy the Jungle Cruise and the corny jokes, but mostly the puns.

Mark about to head up river
Non-stop bad jokes and
many of the mythical 'great puns'

Grant and I regretted that the Roaring Mountain Runaway Train ride was closed for repair, but we enjoyed the Matterhorn, Space Mountain and all of the attractions we wanted to experience.  I for one, was surprised that "A Few Moments with Mr. Lincoln" still exists.  Back in 1961, the 'animatronics' employed into make a life-like Mr. Lincoln stand and deliver a speech with smooth robotic human-like movement was a marvel of the age.  The few of us gathered in the theater awaiting Mr. Lincoln's address on his views of the Union and the character of the American.  I was gratified when at the close of his delivery, the audience broke out into applause.  To find that others appreciate the oratory of a great American Statesman and applaud the performance of a 50+ year old animatronic robot was an experience that I say, gave me hope that in what I believed to be dead or dying in the American experience and character did in fact still remained.

Our last ride of the night was to be the Hollywood Tower Hotel, where we ride a terrifyingly out-of-control elevator during an electrical storm in a 'Twilight Zone' experience.  Afterward, Grant said, "I remember that ride being longer."  Yes, my son, things are not always as you remember them once revisited.  Sad, but true. 

But Disneyland remains a grand experience, even if it is not quite like you remembered it when you were a kid. 

Tales of Time and Travel v3.0: Southern California

What good is getting a degree in geology?

When you get a degree in geology, you learn about volcanoes and earthquakes.
When you learn about volcanoes and earthquakes, you move out of California - just to be safe.
When you move out of California, you lose contact with all of your old high school friends.

When you lose contact with all of your old high school friends, they have no one to rely on for advice about the dangers of volcanoes and earthquakes.

When your old friends have no one to rely on, they unwittingly move to Southern California to be at the mercy of earthquakes and volcanoes (maybe not volcanoes so much - but certainly serial killers & machete wielding wackos to be sure) 
When your old friends in Southern California realize they are in danger from earthquakes and volcanoes they need to talk to a geologiost.
When they need to talk to a geologist they have to track you down and give you call.

When your old high school friends in Southern California give you a call, you can ask them to get discount tickets for Disneyland and a place stay.

So, get a degree in geology and get a discount on Disneyland tickets (and do it before California shakes and falls into the Pacific Ocean).

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

You see I did get a degree in geology, and one afternoon last January, my cell phone rings, and the cheery, high voice says, "Mark?  This is Carol!"  I think to myself, "Oh Carol! - Just how many Carols do I know? And how do I find out which (if any) of the Carols I know, belong to this voice?"  Then she expounds and fills in the void for me, "Yeah, you know; Carol C___".  Why yes, it is my favorite Carol - only I have not heard her voice in about 30 years.  With identities established and the ice broken, Carol gets right to the matter, "I am freaking out."  Carol is calling from Orange County, California and is gravely concerned about a research paper published by the US Geological Survey about a possible analog between the San Andreas Fault and the fault that caused the tsunami in Japan last year.  Carol is informed about different fault motions and their consequences.  Never-the-less I try to put it all in perspective for her, the odds of an earthquake in the next few weeks is small.  The odds of an earthquake eventually striking in Southern California are large.  Orange County is to be truthful, a seismically active area.  Would she be safer in Madera, in the San Joaquin Valley, she asks?  "Yes" is the short answer.  We discuss how to survive structural collapse and other up-beat topics after our 30 year hiatus.  It was really good to hear from Carol again after so long.

While The OC remains quiescent and unscathed, Grant and I plan a trip out West so see his sister, Inga graduate form the University of Oregon.  Grant's #1 sightseeing priority on the westward trip is to cross another Major League Baseball stadium off his bucket list.  The Los Angeles Angels (of Anaheim) are out of town, but the Dodgers will be playing an evening game while we are there. 

I texted Carol C___ and ask about the better parts of town to stay in while visiting Dodger Stadium.  Carol replies, "Why don't you guys stay with me?"  I say, 'why not?'  And plans are made.

**********

Monday is a day of great contrasts.

We awake to the chattering of birds at first light, around 5:10 AM (Pacific Time) in the National Forest adjacent to the Grand Canyon.  We quickly rise, strike the tent and roll up the bags and stow the camping gear in the back of The Q.  We drive off the Kaibab Plateau with of course very little traffic.  

Noon time brings us into Las Vegas.  Oh my.  In the old days, the casinos lured the touri into the their darkened dens, and past the gaming tables with offers of 99-cent Champagne Brunch, or All-You-Can-Eat Prime Rib Buffet for $4.99.  Those days of yore have alas, passed.  I picked a somewhat familiar boulevard, namely Tropicana Blvd, to exit off the freeway and drove down toward the high rises looking for a suitable, glitzy, over-the-top lunch venue.  After several attempts, I found the entrance to the Circus Circus parking garage.

We wandered through parking lots and some hotel additions and found our way into Circus Circus Casino.  It was a low-light tawdry maze of cheap (not inexpensive) galleries and arcades populated by Japanese and Peruvian parents with young kids.  We found a not-so-cheap, somewhat thread-bare restaurant that was understaffed.  We waited for service a long while, while we perused their menu that was heavy on the potty humor to go along with the mini-toilet table center piece.  If ever there is a time to enjoy Las Vegas, Monday afternoon is not it.  We lost 2 hours of precious travel time (but no gambling money), in my attempt to add another "memorable experience" to our travels.   Like many before, I regret stopping in Las Vegas.

Leaving Las Vegas on I-15 was dense and tense - all the way to LA.  High-speed (up to 85 MPH) and at times bumper to bumper in the middle of the Mojave Desert, all the while gusty dusty hot winds were buffeting us.  That stretch of road gets a big yuck from me.  I had texted Carol, who was expecting us, that we would likely stop for a shower in LA [meaning her place] before we went to see the Dodgers play at 7 that night.  Carol was confused by my term LA.  You see, she lives in Orange County, and thought that I had a 'wedding shower' to attend in Los Angels before I came to her place in The OC.  But to me, "LA" means anything between Bakersfield and San Diego.  Carol assured us, she did NOT live in LA.  My mistake - but I did not want to admit it.

It was slow, rush-hour traffic north from Tustin to Dodger Stadium.  But, I must say, the densly packed SoCal drivers were almost entirely a very polite lot; signaling their turns and once somebody signaled, the cars in traffic without exception allowed the signaling vehicle to pull in front.  I do not see such civility in Texas, nor any of the other places I visited on this trip.

Dodger Stadium
Dodgers v. Daimondbacks

We arrived at the sparsely filled Dodger Stadium in the bottom of the 1st Inning.  The home team's star pitcher, Clayton Kershaw had the upper hand as we watched from the first base side, eating Dodger Dogs while Grant scored the game. 

Us non-locals watched in shorts and short-sleeves (the ONLY thing you would wear outside in Texas), while the locals pulled on their sweat shirts as the sun set and the temperatures dipped into 60's.  The visiting first-place Diamondbacks rallied and took the lead.  The Dodgers made a valiant comeback effort, but they fell short.



Grant completes tasks on his phone

after finishing his second

'Dodger Dog'



We exited the stadium to the aroma of pot and began our next adventure - finding where I had parked the car.  I knew we were in the vicinity of left field and remembered the LA skyline was directly behind us, so in our first foray I knew we had passed our parking spot when we got behind center field.  Grant had his idea of where we parked, while I tried another route.  We split up, I then described what I remembered of our location to a couple of security guys and they concluded that I was likely parked in Lot 8  (Grant was already on his way there). I took the offer to ride in the security guy's golf cart over to Lot 8.  My escort and I arrived as Grant was standing next to the car phoning me.

The next adventure was to find The 5 south back to Carol's [putting "The" in front of the highway number was a California-specific speech affect I had lost over the past 30 years].   After driving for 14 hours, my contact lenses were dry and opaque.  I should have let Grant drive, but instead he punched up our location on his iPhone and directed me to various streets until we reached the entrance to The 5, and then suggested lane changes and merges as I sped along.  Still hungry despite spending $50 on ballpark food, Grant then searched his phone for restaurants that were still open.  He located an Appleby's 7 miles off the main route, we took it and had a late meal.

Carol was already asleep. So we let ourselves in with the key she had given us and quickly dropped into bed, Grant in the loft/office while I got the guest bedroom.  No time to reflect on a day that took us from the solitude along the rim of the Grand Canyon at 8,800', through Las Vegas and finally to the dense urbanity of sea level LA, where we finish the day watching baseball.  A day of contrast.  We started the morning at the Grand Canyon, we finished the night at Chavez Ravine (site of Dodger Stadium) - but that is not to say we are in a rut.

 

* The last time I visited Dodger Stadium (~1972) I walked very hard, head-long into a concrete pillar that I think concussed me; and I later lost my ingested Philadelphia Creme Cheese sandwich while going back north over the Grapevine (I-5).  This night was a bit better - as I now know where those pillars are placed. 

Tales of Time and Travel v.2.1: Grand Canyon

When it comes to the Grand Canyon, it is best to not start with words, but rather a picture.

Of course, when one comes to the Grand Canyon - one actually has to get there.

Grant had expressed an interest in seeing the Grand Canyon during the planning stages of this epic journey; and such a request, even if not voiced in full throat with accompanying vim and vigor, should by all means be granted.  Our journey to the Grand Canyon was expected to be a day of relatively few hours and few miles as we planned only to drive from Utah's SE corner over to Arizona's NW corner.  A route that would  bob-and-weave, dip-and-dive south and then north of the common state line in sine wave fashion.  But in the canyon lands of the Southwest, short routes as the crow flies are often more circuitous as the crow drives overland.

We were headed for the North Rim of the Grand Canyon; one, it is less crowded (more pleasant) than the South Rim and we would again be camping at a reserved US Forest Service campsite and I wished to avoid crowds; second, this location is at an elevation of 8,800' and expected to be a cool night high above the desert, great for a sound sleep; and thirdly, a more direct - and better yet, a more adventuresome route off the Interstate highway (at least until we were ready to make quick time from St. George, UT into the Los Angeles Basin the following day).  My "Plan A" was to drop south into Arizona, then turn north up to Page, AZ, then go south again and then turn north to cross the Colorado River at the east end of the Grand Canyon on US 89.  After recharging Grant's iPhone at a Jack-n-the-Box in Page, we left town only to find Highway 89 had a sign saying, "Closed Ahead".  The question in my mind was "OK, yeah, but how far ahead?"  We need to go only 25 miles before we turned north again, could we make the 25 miles?  Grant suggested we try.  We tried.  We failed.  We drove 18 miles before the road was closed - but now I had an answer to my question.  We back-tracked north to Page and took the northern circuit up through Utah and then back south from Kanab to the North Rim.

Once in the Park, we inquired about the closed US 89, and were told that the road is still there, only now it is located at the bottom of the cliff.  A caution to the driving public, you will find a 1,000' drop, a resulting little jolt, and then Highway 89 continues. 

Enough words.  A few selected photos.

Geologist's Mecca

Grant outside the Back Door of
The North Rim Grand Canyon Lodge

Grant considers getting a better view

Grant hangs by one hand off the rim
to get a better view

Grant on the North Rim



Point Imperial





Angel's Window



Atop the Angel's Window arch



We scurried from Imperial Point to the Angel's Window and then caught the sunlight's final rays coming from behind the one of the few clouds as the day came to a close and the walls of the Canyon shown in glory at Cape Royal.  Grant thought it would be good to watch the sun set from a spot on the north rim, but I sadly had to admit that once the canyon fell into shadow, the best of the show was over and we would not regret getting back to camp and setting up the tent and start cooking dinner sooner rather than later.  As both of these activities go far better in daylight (or at least twilight) than in darkness.  He agreed.

I had carried kindling and logs supplied by the sweet gum tree I had cut down in our side yard.  The upper part of the sweet gum had died a few years back, and the dry wood quickly sprang into a welcome dinner-cooking blaze.  We  dropped a kielbasa sausage on the grill and placed peels from our tangerines on top to add a citrus savor to the meat (it did not really add any such taste).  With the moonless night beginning to chill into the 40's, we crawled into bed.

We had seen something glorious.  It was indeed a day worth living and night of sweet dreams as our fire died into ashes.

Tales of Time & Travel v2.0: Valley of the Gods

Roll up your bag.  We're burning daylight!

With eyes blinking in the piercing desert sunlight, Grant rolled out of his sleeping bag.  We shared a few granola bars, some OJ and banana bread in our camp chairs, then swept the dust and insects off the ground cloth and as we folded it to fit below the ice chest.  With everything loaded into the cargo space, it was just a few miles out of camp when we turned off the highway for a Sunday drive over 17 miles of gravel road through the Valley of the Gods.  It was to be a slow, photo-op kind of drive.  We had reservation that evening for a US Forest Service campground on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

Some of what we saw in the Valley of the Gods is shown below.



Peeping at the "Lady in a Bathtub"



Mark contemplates Time
In the Valley of the Gods

Behind him, the Four Prophets
Stand Shoulder-to-Shoulder
To Keep Watch in every Direction.

The Dorsal Fin of
Some Large Subterranean Creature
One Flysch, Two Flysche
Red Flysch, Blue Flysch

Guitar Pick of the Gods
Some Deity is looking for His Pick

Exit the Valley of the Gods.
Get gas at Mexican Water where the filling station store was advertising Navajo Rugs for sale inside; but someone scratched a "D" in front of the word "rugs".  HaHa :-).

We drive west on to see the Grand Canyon.

Tales of Time & Travel v1.1: Goosenecks of the San Juan

Volume 1.1: Goosenecks of the San Juan

Last in.  Last Out.  That was the case as Grant and I were shooed out of the Four Corners Monument a few minutes after 7 in the evening.  With the gate closing behind us, we charted the last few miles of a long day of driving for a desert camp at a primitive Utah State Park, The Great Goosenecks of the San Juan.

The daylight lingered and the molten sun hung before my eyes as I drove west.  This last leg of the day's trip carried us through a remarkable land.  The abrupt cliffs of sandstone balanced upon slopes of shale, which were in turn set upon older rocks testifying to a time when this now sun-baked terrain was once covered by a clear ocean teaming with lifeforms that would appear quite alien to us today.  While some folks scurry across this landscape seeing nothing but desolation and forsaken abandonment, as a geologist, these slopes, ledges and cliffs tell me stories and speak of wonders from the past.  With such expansive vistas beyond my windshield, my eyes read the stories of extinct environments told by the rock formations.  The rocks have become my friends and it is good to see them and listen to them.

Many of the slopes are colored a hearty, thick, brick red; a result of the oxidation of the abundant element of iron contained in these sediments.  These strata were formed by rivers and streams flowing across a broad and muddy plain.  When these rocks were still mud, Earth's dominant land fauna were amphibians, giant salamanders. This was a time even before the age of dinosaurs.  The boundary between the Permian and the Jurassic is marked by a mass extinction of most of the existing species at the end of the Permian (some place the extinction around 90% of all lifeforms). Thus the ebb and (sometimes eposodic) flow of life, environments of both continents and sea, dramatically ended the earth's Paleozoic Era, "the time of Old Life".  But, since change is a constant, new time brings new life and evolution fills in the gaps.  We come up the slope onto the Triassic and Jurassic formations layered upon the Permian, with more shales holding the bones of early dinosaurs and outcrops of petrified sand dunes of almost pure quartz, displaying festooned bedding in the rock looking like woodgrain and speaking to when this land was covered by towering, drifting sand dunes whipped and driven by the wind.

Now with the sun balanced on the horizon, we two drive through our last canyon and the stone walls catch the low sunbeams and have become as embers of a dying fire, the cliff walls glow a brilliant, warm red.  The entire landscape is radiant in hues of a monochromatic red spectrum, with perhaps a tinge toward the violet within the deepening shadows.  This land of red must be nature's way of saying stop.  And so stop we did.



Grant stretches his limbs on the edge of the Canyon
after a long day's drive to the
Great Goosenecks of the San Juan



The first time I came to this place, it was late at night and as I parked my vehicle and began to set up for a night's sleep, I placed by stuff on the ground as the wind began to pick up.  It was not until first light that I noticed that I had slept quite near the edge of a large cliff and I felt relieved that neither a gust of strong wind  or a fit of sleep-walking hand moved me over the side to my demise.  This time, it was twilight when we set up our camp.  But never-the-less, lesson learned, we set our sleeping bags and air mattresses a good 50 yards back from the edge of the precipice.

We kept it all very simple that evening.  No tent, just a large canvas ground cloth, with our bags laid on top of our air mattresses.  Dinner was also very simple, it was a few small tangerines, banana nut bread (I baked the night before we left) with water and chocolate chip cookies for dessert (cookie provided by Aunt Susan while we stayed in Wichita Falls).

Side Note: We traveled long and far with that heaping bag of chocolate chip cookies, and in the jostling and shuffling and unpacking and packing, some of those cookies were broken to crumbs and dust as the trip wore on.  Do you believe in ghosts?  I swear that up to the very last day of our travels I could smell those phantom cookies at times inside the car.  I guess I like to thing of those dashed cookie crumbs not as phantoms or ghosts - but as comforting little cookie angels watching out for us on our journey.  Thank you Aunt Susan.

Once the dusk deepened into a dark and moonless night, Grant and I slipped into our bags in the still warm desert air and pointed out the Big Dipper, the Milky Way, Venus and Mars, "The Red Planet".  But as the rocks around us tell those who listen, Earth was once "The Red Planet", as climate, environments and even planets change.  We slept well.

Desert Camp at Daybreak

Mid-June days are long, and begin early.  I was up with first light, but lingered for a while within my polyester cocoon.  I knew Grant wanted to sleep longer (and was doing so).  I crawled out into the open and wandered about on the cliff's edge.  The brim of this canyon was the Honaker Trail Formation (Pennsylvanian age), a limestone and the very formation that was the subject of my Master's thesis at the University of Texas.  Though my field area was in Colorado, high up at Molas Pass between Durango and Ouray. 

The San Juan River cut these "gooseneck bends" as a classic example of an entrenched meander.  The San Juan River was originally flowing over a much different terrain, but as the Colorado Plateau began to rise beneath the river, the river kept its course and gradually cut down into the rock that was being uplifted beneath it.  The uplift of the Colorado Plateau is responsible for the Grand Canyon and many of the other spectacular geologic features and formations found in the American Southwest.  At the lip of the canyon, there is a book to register your name and home and add a comment .  It is interesting to note that most of the visitors to this far flung corner of the United States are from Europe. 

I greeted the sun and then picked up a piece of the Honaker Trail limestone and gave it a little good morning peck as well.  Hello old friend.
It is a another fine and good day for adventure!
Let rise and enjoy the journey! 

The morning light begins to seep down into
the canyon of the San Juan River
flowing 1,000 below the rim of the canyon.
Still slowly eroding as it cuts its channel
deeper into the Paleozoic sediments beneath.

  

Grant checks cell coverage for social media and sports updates in the remote American Southwest desert.

Tales of Time & Travel v1.0: Four Corners

Thus begins my tales of adventure, enjoying the journey to Oregon and returning home.

Volume 1.0: Long Leg and Four Corners
As was once my traveling custom, I like to get a late start.  I reverted to this fine old custom once again and arranged as it were, a pre-trip trip.  The plan for day 1 was actually a plan for day 1/3; a journey of a mere 165 miles to Wichita Falls from Garland.  A mid-afternoon departure from Garland would allow some last minute loading of supplies, battening down of computers and various issues at the office and then some yard work before I left my fields fallow for a fortnight.  Of course final preparations took a bit more time than anticipated and the lighter traffic I was expecting on a get-away mid-afternoon Friday turned into heavy get-away traffic by 4:30 when we actually backed out of the driveway for points west.  A road closure of indefinite time, only 60 miles out of Dallas, caused me to retrace my tracks and take a new route to Wichita Falls where we planned to fall in with my brother-in-law and his wife.  We got to the Cook household by 8 PM and enjoyed dinner with Bill and Susan.  Their gracious accommodations provided for a wide-open and immediate shot to head on down the highway the following morn, as it was going to be a very long drive of about 800 miles to our Utah destination the coming day.

I did have some flexibility in this our first and largest leg of our Journey; we could make the Great Goosenecks of the San Juan State Park in the SE corner of Utah, or we could cut north off of I-40 in the middle of New Mexico and make camp in southern Colorado.  The calculation being that if we stopped in Colorado, we could definitely make a stop at Four Corners (nee National Monument, and now Navajo Tribal tourist attraction).  Otherwise, if we shot for Utah, as originally planned, we may arrive at Four Corners too late to find an open gate.  We had been disappointed by a closed gate there before.

Is getting to the Four Corners site important?  In a word, Yes.  It was 3 years hence when Grant was traveling with Sue and I, and I pointed out to Grant that there was a small metal disk that had a + sign etched in it that marked the one and only place in these United States where as many a four states were contiguous.  Grant, showing a spark of adventure, said, "I think we should try and go there."  Not wanting to suppress such adventurous notions, I "stepped on it" and drove fast over the two-lane highway winding through deep arroyos and hills of desert scrub brush, only to arrive at exactly 8:00 PM, just when the BLM ranger was closing the gate as we turned into the drive.  He shrugged the universal sign of "Sorry, we're closed for the night. Nothing I can do muchacho."  Would you believe we missed it by that much?

This time, I impatiently waited my turn at the last good fueling station in Gallup, NM for the final push into vacant country.  We gained an hour as we crossed into New Mexico - that's a plus, as is the 75 MPH speed limit; so I watched the clock as we approached our northward turn to Ship Rock, NM off of I-40.  We were making good time.  Grant was feeling confident we would straddle all four states in a single stance that very evening.  Meanwhile we were fighting a blustery headwind through Navajo Nation.  As the road was at times momentarily obscured by clouds of sand and ochre dust, I asked Grant, "What do you think of this weather phenomena?"  He replied it was sort of cool, as it made it look like we were on the Star Wars planet, Tatooine.  Good thought.

With a zig onto small state highway in New Mexico and then a zag onto another small highway in Arizona, the clock on the dashboard read 6:50 (Mountain Time).  This time we were not to be denied, right?  On the verge of the Colorado state line, the clock was nearing 6:55 as we pulled up to the Four Corners erstwhile National Monument.  Cars and campers were streaming out of the gate, but yes, the gate was still open.  The BLM sign had been replaced by a somewhat crudely lettered sign indicating that the place was now run by the Navajo Tribe, and where the hours of operation once read "Open 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM", there was now a new board nailed over the closing time, indicating they close at 7.  Will they let us in with 5 minutes to go?

I rolled down my window as I approached the weather beaten toll booth just inside the gate, a tribal lady in the darkened interior turned to me and shouted, "OK. You can go in and take ONE PICTURE.  Then we are CLOSED."  We'll take it - and she did not even collect money from us. There were about 3 cars of stragglers still in the parking lot when we screeched to a halt.  The young kids that had bounded out of those cars were hamming it up on the cross-hatched plate the designated the intersection of Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. 

Four Corners.  Only place in the Us where four states
are contiguously joined

It would be rude and unseemly to knock those kids off the marker, but I could hear the hobnailed boots of the Navajo lady as each step she took crunched along the gravel walk.  We were running out of time and after driving for 700-plus miles, I was not going to be denied.  As the kiddos, unaware of time and protocol sashayed on and off the marker, I handed Grant my camera and said, "Quick, shoot me!" as I cut quickly onto the momentarily vacated marker.

In the fashion of the old Twister game, it was Left Hand: Arizona, Right Foot: Utah.  Grant them moved toward the + spot as the lady announced, "We're closed!".  But we made it,  We hit our first mark, and perhaps the most difficult of this trip. 

I find it an interesting twist (ironic?) that the Navajo construct their dwellings, hogans, always as a circular structure with the door on the east.  I have heard that some Navajo find it discomforting to live and sleep in a structure with corners - yet here they have been given dominion over a place named "Four Corners".  The epitome of a culture clash, the western foundation built upon cartesian coordinates and boundaries and demarkations, while the Navajo see the world as circular and moving and without lines.

Left Hand - Arizona
Right Foot - Utah
A New Spin on the game of Twister

Grant hip-checks small kids to get his turn at the
Four Corners + Spot as time expires

Families hamming and reclining in multiple states

 On this journey, we would traversed 8 states.  But on this, our first day of travels, we covered four states at once -- how is that for efficiency? 
Boo-yah!

With the sun low in the west, we hopped back into "The Q" (nickname for the Toyota 4Runner) and put on a few additional miles driving into the sunset for a night of camping in the Desert at The Great Goosenecks of the San Juan, Utah State Park.

Tales of Time & Travel v.0.0: Epilogue

These are the tales of a summer of far-flung, free-wheeling, fanciful and sometimes fast, travel and adventure:

On the penultimate day of our two weeks on the road, I lightly gripped the wheel of the 2006 Toyota 4Runner as we cruised Interstate 70, transecting the rust and golden hued warmth of the surrounding mesozoic sandstone cliffs.  Grant, my son, looked up from his iPhone and with a moment of insight and suggested to me that the theme of this trip seems to be time.  I accept his insight and believe it is truly a fitting theme. 
     Time to seize the Future: As the family all gathered in Eugene, Oregon to celebrated his older sister's commencement from the University of Oregon - a full fledged Duck.  With pomp and circumstance, Inga graduated with honors and now charts her future into the real world.  Witnessing the transition to the future was the prime impetus for the journey.
     Time to seize the Present:  This was a father-son trip.  One I am sure I valued more than Grant, this kind of appreciation only comes with time and perspective of a parent. This is likely a once-in-a-lifetime journey for the two of us.  Grant knows well my philosophy, "enjoy the journey".
     Time to embrace the past:  A somewhat unexpected facet of the journey developed as I reconnected with old friends from Madera High after wandering away from the San Joaquin Valley some 33 years ago.  My spirit was warmed beyond my expectation as I rekindled those connections that I thought lost, only to discover the bonds were not as tenuous as I had always believed. Also embraced was a wonderful, albeit short, reconnection with kin; two of the Maher cousins in Portland and almost a third in Tahoe as well as Nephew Scott who joined in Inga's graduation celebration from Portland by way of Bosie, Idaho.  I would hope to continue these reconnections from the past into a "future time".
     Time of eons and epochs of the incomprehensible past:  As a geologist, this journey brought us intentionally through some of the most fanciful and an strangely inspiring landscapes on the planet.  We allowed some time to poke about on the Colorado Plateau, driving on dust-drenched roads beneath towering stone exquisitely carved by the humble elements of wind and water in the Valley of the Gods, Utah.  We journeyed through the Navajo Nation through billowing clouds of ochre dust as we pasted Ship Rock a volcanic plug punching the bald desert sky; a rock formed by once violent and belching fire and now silent, overlooking the surrounding hogans and the occasional goat herd.  We peered over the Grand Canyon and marveled and then made camp near the rim that night. 

We saw and did much in our time of travel. 
The numbers that sum up our travels would read that we drove 5,871 miles, we used 281.5 gallons of gasoline, we averaged 20.8 MPG and paid from a low of $3.319 (Garland, TX) to $4.099 (Madera, CA) per gallon.

We made 26 stops for fuel, and I find these random names at our refueling locations an interesting study in the American lexicon of geography.  To wit:

We stopped in Las Vegas, NV (Spanish. the meadows) and Vega, TX (Spanish. meadow).  I found the plural location, Las Vegas, resembled nothing like a meadow, while the singular Vega location was on the windswept high plains and appeared to be as much wishful thinking and hopeful naming as was Las Vegas.

We bought gas in Glenwood Springs, Colorado Springs and Springfield.
We bought gas in Wichita Falls and Klamath Falls, neither of which readily have falls apparent.
We bought gas in Amarillo, TX (Spanish. yellow) and Redding, CA; while Utah was far more vibrant in both yellow and red landscapes.
We refueled in Gallup and Mexican Water (I have always heard that if you drink Mexican Water, you will get the trots - which may turn into a Gallup).
Our gas stop with the most interesting name?  A) Mexican Water, or B) Rancho Cucamonga?  My vote goes to Mexican Water, by vitue of a sign on the gas station advertising "Navajo Rugs Inside", but some joker added a "D" in front of the word "rugs".

But the coming words and the photos I hope will give a better sense of what we experienced, and in some small part I hope you, the reader, will find a way to enjoy the journey along with us in the following posts [as I find time to record and publish them in the coming days].
        

Remembering the Fallen

Memorial Day.

The first thing I did after stepping from my bedroom was to unfurl my American flag and proudly place the Star and Stripes in the mounting bracket on my front porch brick column.  There it waved in the muggy breeze as a sign of my respect for those who have served.

The Memorial tribute being now set, it was time to turn to the next item on my to-do list.  The old Liquid Amber tree, known in these parts as a Sweet Gum, had displayed wondrous shades of reds and purples over the past handful of Autumns, throwing splendid colors upon our side yard.  But, it's service had run its course and after several years of drought and nature's own morbidity, the Sweet Gum tree became mostly a snag of dead and dried wood.  It was (or has been) time to bring colorful sentinel down to be laid up for next Autumn's firewood.

With a rip and roar of my chainsaw, I lopped of some of the branched that weighted the trunk toward my neighbor's roof, giving the remaining branched weight and impetus for a fall-line between our two houses and onto my half of the lawn.  I made the notch at a comfortable working height, and angled it at what looked like a safe direction - away from the eves and expecting it to fall toward the street and land upon the grass.  With my notch cut out of about 1/3 of the diameter; I then made my back cut.  With a creak, a few hushed splintering sounds and a whoomp.  It was down, and it landed right where I had planned it.

It was a day to remember the fallen.



I pause to remember the fallen



Two Ways to Die (almost)

Oh, I am sure there are way more than two ways to die -- but these creative two ways did not escape notice as they recently passed over our lintel post as an ominous black cloud that skirted on by.

Grant had finished up with his final exams at the University and kindly let us know that he thought he would be returning home on Saturday night.  Only thing is, we had already given his bed away for the night.  We had made arrangements for my brother-in-law and my nephew to spend Saturday night with us as they drove in from California to quickly move my nephew to Dallas to begin a 2 year program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School on the coming Monday.  Grant offered to sleep on the couch - what else could he do?

Actually, he did come up with another solution.  Finish exams and then go sleep in a bed in Chicago over the weekend as a guest of his roommate Carson.  It was a fortuitous move all around, as he worked some of his connections and thinks he has lined up an internship at the Chicago Tribune for the future.  He also got to witness yet another Cubs loss at Wrigley Field, ride the El and eat hot dogs.  All the while, we and our guests slept soundly here in Texas while others around us cleaned up from a dozen-plus tornadoes that killed 6 and caused much damage 60 miles to our southwest the previous Thursday.

Grant had a good time in Chicago and drove the 5 hours back to Columbia, Missouri.  He was going to leave the next day for the 11-hour trip to Texas, but the unstable atmosphere stretching from North Texas to Iowa and southern Illinois had brought forth concern from not only the meteorologist, but from his mother as well. 

Death No. 1: (Ooze & Oz) With 24 dead in Oklahoma from the EF-5 twister(s), and more severe storms forecast for the following day; Mom called him up and advised, wait 1 day before you drive home.  As the line of severe weather was perfectly aligned to make his route home one of continuous travel laterally right through the heart of the those violet-shaded thunderstorm cores on the Doppler radar.  No sense in traveling most of the day through all of that nastiness.  You could get blown away to Oz or Kingdom Come.  Besides, the National Weather Service has issued a Creedence Clear Water Revival Warning (their most calamitous):   DON'T GO OUT TONIGHT, THERE'S A BAD MOON ON THE RISE! (*)

Grant pulled up to the curb the next evening.  Mild weather all the way and not even a speeding ticket.

Death No.2:  (Death Unplugged)  Unfortunately, the strong winds and 2.5" of driving rain we received earlier in the week had found its way into the Verizon cable box on our exterior west wall.  The water had fritzed-out our internet service, so once Grant was safely indoors, he was not connected to internet, nor even Wi-Fi for phone.  It was a hardship well nigh unto death.  "How did you guys ever even live without the internet?  I think this is worse than death."

But a savior did arise, the cable guy arrived Friday afternoon, replaced the soggy switches and resuscitated our dowsed and drowning down-loads.  We are reconnected with the Land of the Living.

Come weather fair or foul; We Live!
We Live to log-in, tweet and blog another day!

We're Not Dead Yet!

(*) --My wife always thought the lyrics to Creedence Clearwater Reviaval's chorus for the song, Bad Moon Rising, were: "Don't poke 'round tonight, there's a bathroom on the right".   I think that is so funny.