01/01/11 Moab, UT – Salt Lake City, UT
Happy New Year Everyone!
The Lazy Lizard Hostel was pretty cool. As far as hostels go, Arlo said this was the cheapest and best quality hostel he has seen. And he has seen his fair share along the Appalachian Trail. We got a cabin for $26, and although it was pretty cold, it was clean and quaint. While making breakfast in the kitchen the next morning, I met a very nice man named Cameron. We chatted about music, mandolins, snowboarding, ski lodges, education, and other things. He was visiting from Salt Lake City with his kids, and gave us some advice on the area, as that's where we were going (but actually just passed through). I wish we had been staying at more hostels so we could meet more down-to-earth people like him.
As of right now, we are in transit to Salt Lake City, and 7,400 feet above sea level. It seems I could point my camera almost anywhere and end up seeing something amazing and majestic through my lens. Today, we drove through Arches National Park. I took many, many pictures on three different cameras. It'll take me a few days to get them organized and uploaded. I reaallllyyyyy wanted to see a big horned sheep, but it didn't happen. =( The whole park was another world. I don't think I've seen many things more beautiful. We spent most of the day there, and set off for Salt Lake at about 5:30pm. The road has been cold, mountainous, and eerie. The mountains in this range (I'm not sure which it is) are different from others I've seen so far. Instead of having a big base with a gradual slope, they have almost a vertical face, and I'm pretty sure it's natural. What makes them eerie is that we're driving at night. We'll be put-putting along, and see an unknown figure that looks like a cloud. And then the realization came that it was actually a mountain, and we were almost right at the base of it. They were almost intimidating, creeping up on us like that! I kind of wish I had been able to see them in daylight, but it was kind of a cool experience at night.
We're getting very antsy on this trip. We love traveling, but we really want a place to call home... at least for a little while. It's difficult to ration out our money per day to make sure we have enough at the end of this to get an apartment. Each town has it's own way of enticing us to reach into our pockets and indulge. It's hard to choose which experiences to follow through with and which to pass by, especially when they all look so amazing. We can only hope we get the chance to come back again to experience all the things we missed out on.
Good life.
01/02/11 Moab, UT – Sacramento, CA
I'm going to preface this entry with a warning. I have a lot to write for today, as I only slept for about 2.5 hours of it. I t I s L o n g .
Yes, we made the 880 mile trek straight through the night instead of going to Salt Lake City. We left Moab, UT at 5:30pm, and it took us about 16 hours of straight driving to get to Sacramento. We weren't getting much love from the Utah or Colorado couchsurfing crowd. I think it was because of the holidays. Several potential hosts responded, saying they were out of town. We decided the best way to offset the money spent on hotels and hostels was to skip the rest of the westward travel chunk up until Sacramento, CA.
Ok, so the drive was long and tiresome. Somewhere along the way in Utah, we stopped at a Target to get a gallon of water. When I walked in, it was the strangest feeling of de-jah-vu. This store was set up exactly like the one in Phillipsburg. I walked down the isles feeling as if I was back on the East Coast. Weeeeiirddd! I quickly bought the water and walked out.
I slept for an hour or two very lightly. I started driving about halfway through Utah. Arlo was telling me he saw oceans on either side of the car while he was driving, and I thought he must have been going crazy from the driving. But we looked at our atlas, and there's some sort of very shallow water basin in the winter that surrounds I-80. It was pretty cool.
As soon as we passed the Nevada border, we were blinded by casino lights. If there's the slightest excuse to have a casino anywhere in Nevada, there will be one there. We saw at least one (there were usually 2 or more) at every truck stop and every town, both large and small. We knew we were coming up on a casino miles before we got there from the glow that loomed over each one. And they were especially noticeable in the rear view.
The desert is a lonely place to drive through. The towns, and more scary, the gas stations, are few and far between. I did a lot of thinking, and listed to NPR pod casts from This American Life. It's always really interesting, and a great way to reduce the monotony of a long car ride.
Living in the NJ-PA area all my life, I rarely got to experience the stars like someone in the country might. The relative closeness of bright, major cities drowns out a lot of star-light, making it somewhat less of an amazing phenomenon to look at. The Nevada desert, with very few inhabited areas, was perfect for stargazing. I even saw a shooting star! I was tempted to stop the car and lay on the hood for a while, but I was also committed to putting in miles. I'm sure it won't be the last time I'm in an area remote enough to get a similar experience.
I know it was in the middle of the night, but I really wanted to see some wildlife. For the whole 5 hours of driving, the only animal I saw was a little mouse scurrying across the road. At one time, I saw something big and white fly kind of close to the car overhead. But I have no idea what it was. Perhaps a UFO? Who knows?
Arlo took over driving again at 4:00am, and I conked out in the passenger seat inside a sleeping bag. I woke up a few hours later in California. The snow was the deepest I had seen yet! It was taller than our car. On the way up, we found the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail)! Arlo was stoked, as he wants to tackle this trail next. We had to go into something called a Sno-Park. If you ever happen to see one of these signs, YOU MUST GO! It lead us to a winter wonderland with snow 8ft high on both sides of the road. I think we spent about an hour there playing and taking pictures. I've never seen so much snow in my life!
Before leaving the mountains, we stopped in a quaint town called Dutch Flat for breakfast. It was absolutely adorable! The food was great, too. There is so much history in that town. And everyone was very friendly!
I slept the rest of the way to Sacramento. We spent lots of time admiring the lush, green grass, and researching prices for hotels and hostels. Hostels are usually much cheaper than hotels, but here in the Sacramento - San Francisco area, the only difference between the two words is the addition of the letter “s”.
We ate dinner at a buffet, and went to a hotel afterward. While we were in the parking lot, Arlo got a call from one of the couchsurfing ambassadors for the area, and he said that he found someone to host us for the night. Aawwwwweeesomeeee! We got there at about 8:30pm, and we got to meet a few of our host's (Jeff and Lindsey) friends. Damascus disappeared for 2 seconds, and then we found him peeing on their Christmas tree. O. m. g. I can't believe he did that! Amazingly, Lindsey and everyone else thought it was funny. We truly had fantastic hosts! The drinking started a little later, and Arlo and I were in bed before they started playing Edward-40-Hands.
So Tired.
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