Subway, Part 3

"Wetsuits? No, I don't think you'll need wetsuits. Of course, I am from the 'tough-it-out' school of canyoneering, so take that for what it's worth..."--Our canyoneering instructor, giving useful advice, if you read between the lines.

So far, it was almost noon and we had just entered the Subway. In the almost 4 hours we had been going, we had gotten lost hiking slickrock, and descended a precarious "trail" by using the time honored method of sliding upon our asses. On a more interesting note, both of our pairs of shorts we were wearing at the time seem to be irrevocably stained by the red earth that made up the "trail". Badge of glory, I guess.

Anyways, after a short rest to allow Becky a bit of time to compose herself for the rest of the hike, we set off down the canyon. At least the hardest part was behind us, right?

The path ahead...




I make my way across one of the many boulder fields at the canyon bottom




One of the many beautiful, yet fetid, pools at canyon bottom

Frankly, the next part of the hike was easy, and rather scenic. There was the occasional boulder to scramble across, the occasional pool that looked like it woul d be best to avoid, a tree here, some brush there. The canyon architecture was really something to behold. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't in one of the most beautiful places I've ever been; the Subway, for as dangerous as it is, is simply put, absolutely stunning. Alas, the peaceful portions cannot continue, and we quickly approached our first obstacle--the boulder rappel.

This shows the approach--you climb over the boulders, veering right. Eventually, you find some webbing slung though a pinch point where a boulder rests against the canyon wall:

To be perfectly honest, this wasn't as easy as I expected it to be. A lot of the trail guides talked about this being an awkward rappel, and saying nothing more, except the boulder could be downclimbed if you were experienced, and the easiest way to do the obstacle was to downclimb a narrow hole right next to the rappel point. After waitin g for the family hikers to finish the rappel, we checked our options:

The hole

As you can see, the rappel looked to be the far better option.

So, when it was our turn, we began the safety check of our ropes, evaluated the anchor webbing, found it all to our liking, and prepped the rappel.

While we were doing this, another experienced group came up behind us and proceeded to downclimb the boulder in about 5 minutes, before continuing jauntily on their way. Daaamn.

Anyways, we don't have pictures(sorry), but Becky and I quickly found out why the rappel was awkward: It started out as a normal rappel, but then at the lip of the boulder, the rock turned sharply inwards, and you lost any foot hold you might have. The solution was to turn slowly to the left, and then finish the rappel going down the canyon wall. This was made more difficult by the fact that the rappel was through a narrow space formed by another boulder. So, what did I do? Well, I did what I always did in these situations. I screwed it up.

I tried turning, only to have my feet slip out from under me. I fell back into space, and found my self dangling about 8 feet off the ground, my knees and knuckles scraping against the rock. Not my most graceful moment. However, our ropes held, and I quickly let myself down the rest of the way, more annoyed with myself than anything.

On the bright side, Becky did the exact same thing. Lucky for her, I was expecting it, and had my hands up ready to grab her and cushion the blow. She got through with only a small scrape. However, we were both on the ground, only slightly more wo rse for the wear and were ready to proceed. Yay! 1st obstacle complete! We go up a canyoneering level! Oh by the way, now that we had gone through a rappel, we were trapped. The only way out was forward. There was no climbing back up. Here's a picture I found that is of the first rappel looking back up. This is not our picture; just something I found on the web:

Photo from www.bluugnome.com

Now, here's a picture for you:

Any guesses as to how the trees ended up like that?

If you know, you'll know the danger that any canyoneer dreads more than any others (well, except maybe keeper potholes). The answer: flash floods.

Flash flooding is an extreme danger in slot canyons. The water, draining from up canyon when it rains, even just a little bit, has no place to go. That water builds up very quickly, and violently, and sweeps away anything in its path. Here's a nice example of that:




So yeah....danger danger and all that. If you get caught in a flash flood, chances of survival are not great. I mean, chances of survival are approaching "zero". They're that bad. There are canyons in Zion that if it even threatens to rain in the the few days before and during the hike, you call it off. The Subway has less of a chance than most...but you still don't want to get caught. Chance of rain when we left was 30% chance of storms that night, clear for the day. When we started the hike, there was not a single cloud in the sky. Anyways, my point is, seeing things like that in the canyon walls serves as a very real reminder that you do not want to be there if it rains, and to always be keeping your eyes out for high ground.

For those who do not like suspense: No, we did not get caught in a flash flood. It did not flash flood when we were there. Just trying to create a bit of mood and a bit of background of what was going through our heads as we saw this, and also noticed that there were now a few clouds.

Another half an hour down the road, and we came to our first pool that we couldn't avoid. It was only about a foot deep, but man was it stinky. Hundreds of water bugs skimming across the surface, algae, the works. I've liked the word "fetid" and I shall continue to use it. Anyways, we knew that the water was only going to get deeper at this point, so we took off our socks, stuffed them in the dry bag we brought along, as well as anything else we didn't want to get wet. It made for a pretty heavy dry bag. Becky offered to carry the bag though, as I had the rope--the rope didn't exactly repel water and weighed about twice as much when wet, so I guess it was generally fair. I think I got the better part of the deal though.

With that, and with a bit of ewwwww.....we stepped into the water. And all thoughts of its fetidness vanished. Because let me tell you....it was cold. I'm not talking cold shower cold, or man, I wish that pool had a heater cold. I'm talking freezing, ice cold. I'm talking 40 degree cold. Possibly 50 degree, but let me tell you, at that point, there's not a lot of difference between 40 and 50 degree water. Both will cause hypothermia with equal ease. This was "take-your-breath-away" cold, and we had just stuck our feet into it. If the only way out wasn't forward, I would have had serious misgivings about that which was to come. But we were past the point of no return, and the only way out was forward.

We quickly waded the small pool, grateful to get out. A few hundred feet down, we were greeted by another pool, which we elected to climb over using a rock shelf, rather than wade. A bit beyond that, we were wading up to our knees, and the water seemed to only grow colder. And then....we were at the next major obstacle--the 40 yard swim.

When we got here, I wasn't expecting it to be a particularly bad obstacle. By most accounts, this was going to be the big swim of the day, and if we got past this, we'd have some wading, but not much more. A picture of what it was supposed to look like is located here.

Strange thing about that picture. That rock at the end that seems to be the place to climb up. Strangely missing. In fact, what we encountered was not what it looked like at all. For one, it was longer. Second, see the high water mark in the picture, marked by the dark rock? The water was all the way up there. In fact, there was no climb down into the water at all. There was the entrance, and then, just water. I didn't realize it at the time, but the water, all through out the canyon, was significantly higher than I had thought going in. This would become a problem later on.

For now, I bit my lip, dangled on the end, and then plunged in, backpack, shoes and all. And let me tell you, it was like having a knife stabbed into my ribs. That water cut through me like a razor blade, and I could barely breathe. I don't know how many of you have ever swum in icy cold water, but it was not an experience I cared to repeat. The water was dark--you couldn't see the bottom. What looked like a relatively close edge suddenly got a lot farther away, with the realization that you were freezing cold. And all you can think about is getting out. I tried to swim...but here's another thing about cold water. It's exhausting. Your body suddenly goes into overdrive mode, using all its available energy to simply keep yourself warm, to avoid hypothermia. Your muscles seize up, suddenly deprived of the energy it needs. I found myself suddenly unable to do a simple freestyle stroke, and I was suddenly dog paddling the best I could to get to that other side as quickly as possible. That rock in the picture? Submerged by about 3 to 4 feet of water. The pool was suddenly that much longer. When I got to the lip, which was submerged, I had a moment of panic when I tried to grab on and found that it was too slippery to hold onto. I solved the problem by giving a mighty kick and pushing myself onto the ledge, finishing up by laying there on my stomach.

As I got out, all I could think was: "Damn. That's one of the most dangerous things I've ever done". The water is so cold, it feels like it's pulling you down. In retrospect, that might have been the rope suddenly gaining about 15 pounds, but still. Terrifying.

I think Becky may have been watching all of this, and utilizing that mind reading ability she occasionally has, because as she sat on the lip, awaiting her turn, she suddenly got that look on her face that said "I do not want to do this".

I can't say that I blamed her. The pool was, to paraphrase Robert Frost, lovely, dark and deep. It was long. And I know that she knew a lot more about icy cold waters, being raised upon Lake Erie, than I did. Unfortunately, she did exactly what she shouldn't do in these situations: Panic. I won't go into the specifics, but let me say that it took about 5 minutes for me to convince her to make the swim. During the time, I pleaded, I cajoled, I encouraged, I got stern, I tried everything I knew. Eventually she slipped in, and swam frantically for the other side. Knowing the problems I had had getting out, I was waiting there to grab her hand and pull her up. Afterwards, shivering violently, we both sat in the sun for the next few minutes, laying our shirts upon a warm rock to try to dry them off. Luckily, we were past the worst of it. Or so I thought.

Problem was, the pools continued. Some were waist deep wades. Some were chin deep wades. Some were slightly deeper than chin deep swims. Nothing as difficult as what we just went through, but just as cold. Each one sapped our spirits just a little more. The walls of the canyon started becoming extremely narrow, and we carefully made our way down a short down climb over some sharp rocks. If the conditions were dryer, we probably could climb up those rocks. However, the higher water levels made a tiny waterfall run over them...they were very treacherous and an attempt to climb up would have been foolhardy at best. 50 feet beyond that, and we were at the bowling balls. There's a common picture of the location here.

It's a nice picture. We didn't take our own, because we just wanted to get the hell out of the canyon at this point. The swims were making us miserable, and we were freezing. Getting out a camera at this point would have required digging through the dry bag, which would have wasted time, and like I said, we were freezing. The walls were high and narrow enough, and had been for the last 20 or so minutes, that sunlight wasn't really penetrating the canyon. We were both shivering pretty hard, and our clothes were soaked.

But here's the thing about that picture. See how the guy in it is wading in water that is around his thighs, maybe up to his waist? Videos I had seen of people wandering the subway also showed this part, with people happily frolicking in waist to chest deep water. Good times. Easy to get through.

But the water here wasn't like that. Not at all. Yes, we had had clues that this would be the case. The 40 yard swim was both longer and deeper than the pictures. Pools and wades where there had been none in any trip report I saw. We learned later that rains over the past several days had made the canyon's water far deeper than it normally is. What I knew is that there was a rappel required here, because of a new mini waterfall that hadn't been listed, and that when we tossed the rope down into the water, the bright orange colored rope was only barely visible through the crystal clear water surface. This wasn't fetid water; it was fresh and flowing. It was just deep. Oh, and did I mention cold?

At this point, I think it was my turn to panic. I knew several facts, and they were adding up to something that was not good.

Fact 1: I am not a strong swimmer. I have never been a strong swimmer. When picking this, I figured, yes, I could swim 40 yards, longer than that, no problem. But, as a rule, I'm no good at swimming. One thing I can't do very well, if at all? Tread water.

Fact 2: Cold water made me a far worse swimmer than I already was.

Fact 3: The distance between the end of the rappel and the far edge was at least 50 yards. Then, it could have been a hundred for all it mattered.

Fact 4: The water did not get shallower.

Fact 5: The swims and wades before this point had exhausted both Becky and myself to the point of collapse. We were already freezing cold, shivering violently, and hypothermia was a concern if we couldn't find a place to warm up.

Fact 6: If the water was over our heads at the drop point, retrieving the rope was going to be difficult--we hadn't been trained on rappelling into deep water, and our instructor didn't think it was going to be an issue.

These added up to one conclusion--I was at that point, for the first time that day, in real fear for our lives. The way I looked at it, if I went first, I would, at best, be head deep in freezing cold water. I could, if I was lucky, hang around and help Becky with her rappel. But I also knew, realistically speaking, that if I was in that water too long, hypothermia would become an issue. Also, if I stayed there, I might not have the energy to swim out. If Becky went first, I would have to get the rope, and I wasn't sure I could do that, and also have the energy or be able to tread water long enough to do that. All I knew, at that point, was that if something went wrong, one, possibly both of us, could, at the very least, be trapped in the canyon until we were rescued, probably not until the next day. That's if the cold didn't get us first.

So, yeah. I panicked. It was Becky's turn to calm me down, what with the dry heaving and the shaking and all. She did all the things that I had done for her during the downclimb and the 4o yard swim, and if she hadn't been there, I don't think I could have done it.

She decided that since she was the stronger swimmer, she would go last. Her experience as a sailor gave her confidence that she could tread water, if it came to that, long enough to retrieve the rope. Once I was down, I was to stay if I could and help her out, but if I felt that I couldn't make it, to make for the opposite shore. Either way, I needed to keep moving, no matter what, once I was down. Numb with fear, I hooked in, and started the rappel.

I gotta tell you, that was one of the scariest moments of my life. Not the actual rappel. The fear of what was coming next. Slowly, my feet entered the water. And then my legs. And then my chest. I searched below for something, anything, with which to brace. Finally, chin deep, I found a small outcropping jutting from the wall I had just rappelled. While bracing with one hand, I was able to disconnect and stay perched there without going under. I was freezing. I was terrified. But I could at least stay and make sure we both made it through this.

Becky was already hooked up when I was most of the way down, and as soon as I was disconnected, she started down immediately. About 30 seconds later, she was down, and then we both, while perched on a small rock, frantically trying to get the rope down. Once it was down, we bundled it up the best we could held it...somewhere--I don't remember where--and frantically swam as best we could towards the opposite end. Half way through there was a small ledge that divided the canal, and we pulled ourselves up and over. Finally, we made it out and just collapsed on the other side. We had made it.

To be continued....

Yes, I go there.

Can you say "pretext" stop, boys and girls?

A long time ago, a pair of white kids were slowly cruising though inner-city Cincinnati, (at least, I think it was Cincinnati), in their expensive car. They forgot to use their turn signal to change lanes, and a passing cop immediately pulled them over. The drivers said some suspicious things, and the cop, believing them to be cruising for drugs (on the basis that a pair of rich white suburb kids had no legitimate business in inner-city Cinci, which was the actual reason he pulled them over), searched the car, found the drugs, and arrested them.

The kids challenged their convictions on the argument that the cop was really pulling them over for no probable cause beyond the fact that they might be drug cruising. The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, reasoning that the kids were acting suspicious, but more importantly, because the cop can always pull over for a traffic violation, and if he just happened to find reason to search the car while he was there? So much the better.

This has become known as a pretext stop--say you want to pull over the suspected drug dealers, maybe get a glance inside the car, have the dog do a quick sniff by--but you don't have the probable cause at that moment. Odds are, if you follow them long enough, they'll break some traffic law. Once pulled over, the odds become much greater that you can find the PC to search the car.

I mention this, because our gnomish friend forgot to mention a bit of excitement on the road out of Denver.

We're going down I-76, when suddenly I see the flashing light of the police car behind me. For once, I wasn't speeding, so I was understandably confused as to why we were being stopped. The friendly state trooper pulls up, brings his flashlight out, approaches us, takes a look in the car, shines the flashlight on the stuff in the back and says "your license plate bulb is out. Where are you folks headed tonight?" We explained that we were on a road trip, he took our registration and insurance info, ran it, came up with nothing, commented that our car was pretty loaded up, and then let us go 10 minutes later, wishing us a safe journey. To the trooper's credit, he was extremely courteous and polite, and I can say that he was a stellar example to police officers everywhere, and the purpose of this post is meant as a quick foray into legal instruction, and not complaint.

I only mention it because subsequent research has turned up that I-76 is a prominent route for meth distribution. I'm sure that had absolutely nothing to do with why an out-of-state car that could be loaded up pretty good was pulled over late on a Saturday night in the middle of nowhere on a dead license plate bulb. Nothing whatsoever.

Subway, Part 2.

"Follow the prominent, unmaintained but well-cairned trail for 1 1/4 miles..."--From one of the many guides to the Subway.

The first part of the Subway hike is, admittedly, somewhat difficult. Not in the "oh-my-god we're going to die" sense, but in the sense that there isn't actually a trail to follow. In order to cross Russell Gulch and get into the Subway to begin with, one must cross over about a mile of slickrock--something that isn't conducive to trail making. This can be difficult if you don't have a map and aren't quite sure where you're going. Losing the trail can have some bad, if not fatal, consequences. In 2002, some hikers lost the trail. One fell off a 30 foot cliff (I can only assume that he thought that was the entrance to the canyon), and broke both legs as well as his back. Another pair ended up spending the night trapped on a cliff ledge.

To make matters worse, as will be discussed below, the entrance to the Subway is....not what you would expect. If you don't know exactly what you were looking for, you would never have thought that it was an entrance.

However, every guide I've ever seen (and I've seen several) has pointed out that the danger is in leaving the trail; the trail itself if full of hiker's cairns that one simply needs to follow to find the entrance. While it can be tricky if you don't know what you're looking for, if one simply follows the "well-cairned trail", things will be fine, or so I had been led to believe.

Well-cairned my ass.

When we arrived at the slickrock section, the first cairn was obvious. And then, the cairns simply disappeared. We later found out from other hikers who had obviously done this canyon before that somebody had come through and kicked over the cairns, removing the trail for those who would come after.

Given the dangers I've stated above, and given the dangers of leaving the trail, I can only say that whomever did that committed a dick move of the highest magnitude. Here's a hint kiddies--cairns have been placed for a reason. If you touch them, you could be placing people who are relying on those cairns into big trouble.

What a cairn allegedly looks like.

We had arrived at the slickrock section with a family of 5 from the area who were also on their first Subway hike. They seemed to have the same directions I did, and we took the opportunity to form a loose alliance--we all split up and spread out, making a shout if we found a cairn. Luckily, other landmarks had been mentioned in the guides, so we knew we were generally going the right way.

That said, I probably should have taken this as an omen of things to come.

Other bad omens? Remember those GPS coordinates I copied? Two sets, in case one was wrong? Yeah, they didn't work. Upon pulling out the GPS at an easy landmark, I compared the readings with the coordinates I had. They weren't even close. Well, they were kind of close, like to within a thousand feet close, but really, that doesn't help. Admittedly, it was an older model GPS unit, and this was the first time I had used a handheld unit like that, but the point was, GPS was now completely useless. And we hadn't even been hiking for an hour.

Still, we made our way across the slickrock, ever so slowly. Sometimes, we took more....scenic routes, through underbrush, such as it was, but every once in a while, somebody would stumble upon a cairn, and we would be reassured that we were going the right way.

Incidentally, with no foreshadowing whatsoever, we started on this hike at 8am, which would give us 12 hours to complete it before dark. Just in case, we had brought headlamps. Oh, and the time to complete the slickrock section is supposed to be about an hour. Our "Where's Waldo" approach to hiking took about 3 hours. Yes, it was now 11am and we hadn't even got into the Subway yet. Oh yes, things were going swell.

I hike across the slickrock.

What the trail looked like.

In retrospect, I'm glad we encountered that family. Without them, we would have arrived at the Subway entrance, assumed that we were at the wrong place, and then spent the next 6 hours wandering around the slickrock trying to find the actual entrance before just giving up and going home.

No, wait. In retrospect, encountering that family was one the worst things to ever happen to us.

See, after 3 hours of hiking, we finally found the entrance. It was marked by a cairn that vandals hadn't kicked over, which was good, I guess. Because had I not seen other people entering the Subway this way, I would have never have thought that this was the entrance.

Take a look at this photo--this shows us approaching the Subway entrance:

From Day 11 pointandshoot

Notice something? We're still 400 feet above the canyon. This photo is taken roughly 100 yards from the entrance.

Guides had told me that the last part of the trail was a "steep dirt and rock covered trail, use caution".

This, my friends, was the understatement of the century.

I consider the hike out of the Grand Canyon to be steep. I considered the hike up Mt. Washburn to be steep. When used with the word "trail", I assume that there will actually be a trail.

This was no trail. This was a 400 foot climb down. Oh, it wasn't 90 degrees. But it was probably 60 or 70 degrees. It wasn't so much a trail as a controlled fall, carefully sliding on dirt, lowering yourself by holding onto exposed roots and rocks, and being more akin to a "climb" than a "hike".

Nothing I had ever read mentioned this. Had I not seen the people before us descend it, I would never have thought that this was the trail. And yet, it was.

Towards the end, it shallowed up quite a bit--here's Becky standing at the bottom:

Notice the distinct lack of trail in the background. In order to get down the trail, much of the path must be spent, out of necessity, sliding down upon your ass.

Frankly, I didn't have too much trouble with this part. Yes, it was kinda scary at times, especially when I could only just barely reach the next foothold, but it was doable.

Becky, not so much.

At this point, I should bring up that Becky and I have an interesting pair of phobias. As you can no doubt guess given prior posts, I have a big problem with heights. Well, also bees, insects, driving over bridges, hippies, the Amish, the letter "theta", midgets, people with gargantuism, dark colors, art deco, the entire city of Las Vegas (and the surrounding suburbs), sentences ending with prepositions, repetitiveness, bees, and the truth. But mostly heights. In fact, mainly heights.

Becky, on the other hand, is scared of falling. While the two phobias do have overlaps, they are definitely not the same phobia. This became apparent as we attempted the descent.

Me? The trees and rocks and roots and little stones obscured the true height of what we were descending. I could slip slide to the next foot hold, no problem. Sure, I'm not sure if I could get back up it again, but going down was actually quite simple for me. Becky, not so much.

See, the entire thing was one long controlled fall. If you couldn't reach the next foothold, you just had to sit back, and fall to it. It was only a couple of feet. That couple of feet became a repeating nightmare for my wife.

It started with her trying to reach the first foothold, and coming up short by about 3 inches. She couldn't touch it, and thus would just have to let go to reach it. This is about when she began to panic. The gully was too narrow to pass, and too steep to brace upon, so I couldn't get ahead and help lower her down or catch her or something. There was literally nothing I could do to help. Thus, the panic began to set in. She finally managed to work her way down to it--of course, now there was only 398 feet to go, and the next footholds weren't any easier. Becky was in her own little version of hell. This would be like forcing me to walk a balance beam a thousand feet up--I understand her panic, but was powerless to help. I tried to give her a hand when I could, but there was little I could do. Going back wasn't really an option--even if we could find our way back through the slickrock, our car was parked at the bottom of the canyon, 8 miles away. She had to press onwards.

It was a long, tortuous descent. Every time we thought we'd neared the end, we'd clear a cliff face and see that we had far to go. Each foothold had to be taken very carefully--a loose rock, or a shifting pile of dirt could mean a twisted ankle and a difficult evac. We made it to the bottom without incident, thank god, but make no mistake--this was a very dangerous part of the hike. I had no idea it was coming up, and apparently, the word "steep" has some different connotations. This wasn't a hike. This was a downclimb. Take a look at that picture above once more--Becky does not look happy. There's a reason for that.

Eventually we made it down though; here's the picture we took at the bottom. You can see the trail behind us. Unfortunately, things only continued to get worse.

To be continued....

Day 16- Ouray, CO to Gotherberg, NE

Ouray is actually a quaint little tourist town, made famous by its mining past, its surrounding ghost towns, it opportunities for mounatin sports and, most importantly, its natural hot springs.


I don't know if they have many hot springs in Switzerland, but the folks of Ouray seem to think they do.

The handlers were a bit slow in getting up this morning, and didn't check out of their strangely sized hotel room until ten a.m. However, even that was apparently too early for the hots springs, which didn't open until noon. I should mention that there are hot springs all over this town, and many of the hotels offer hot springs pools and spas as part of their amenities. However, there is a public pool in the middle of town for those of us who can't afford the expensive living.

As we waited for our chance to luxuriate in natural warmth, we wandered the town, taking pictures, and stopping in at a local chocolate/coffee shop for some 'road sweets'. Here is the town of Ouray, shwn nestled amongst the mountains.

The pool opened up and the handler were quick to get changed. Normally, when you think of hot springs you think of something hottub sized or a little larger. This was significantly larger, featuring lap lanes, 2 water slides, and three areas of varying degrees of temperature (when we were there, 78 dgrees, 98 degrees and 104 degrees).

There was also, believe it or not, a koi pond.

We warmed the remaining soreness from our legs, fed the giant goldfish, and then headed on our way north and west towards home.

We went through the heart of the Coloroda Rockies, passing by Vail and Copper Mountain (which appear very different in the summer). We also took a quick tour through Colorado wine country and stopped at a few wineries. Believe it or not, they have some darn good wines in CO. We arrived in Denver around dinner time, which was fine for Handler 2 who wanted to recreate some of the great experiences of his youth by visiting Casa Bonita.

What is Casa Bonita? Well, if you didn't catch the South Park episode based around it (and yes, it's that place), Casa Bonita is Colorado's answer to Chuck E. Cheese...with Mexican food. Basically, think of all the cheesiest, most over-the-top themeing of Disney World, then cram it into a pink colored stucco sided building in the middle of a strip mall. That's Casa Bonita.

If you can find your way through the winding halls, the throngs of excited children and the people selling glowing devices like they do at nighttime parades, you might actually be able to find your seat and eat (or the restrooms, each are equally difficult to find). There are also, for your viewing pleasure, cliff divers, magicians, puppets and "actors" who put on vaguely racist skit shows for the kiddies.

There's also a mariachi band.

And of course games.

Just a note, but there are some not-so-nice people at Casa Bonita. The handlers set one of their little bags of tokens down on their skeeball machines while playing, only to have the bag magically disappear. Not cool Casa Bonita patrons. Not cool at all.

Anyways it was fun!

After that, the plan was to make it as far as possible in the car that evening before crashing. The handlers were aiming for North Platte, NE because it seemed a convenient place to stop. It would have been, except for Railfest. What is Railfest? The handlers had to ask after they were turned away from lodging for the third time. It's a celebration of the nation's railways, of course. And apparently, people come from all over for this..."event".

The upshot was that the handlers had to travel another 30 miles down the road to Gothenburg, NE to find a room. Which just proves that trains are evil and car travel is where it's at.

Quote of the Day-

"Are you yuppies?"- Honest question from a woman working the wine tasting counter after being told that we were at the end of a 17 day road trip and loved to travel. We responded that we're probably a bit to young to be yuppies.

Day 15- Cortez, CO to Ouray, CO

Our next national park to visit was Mesa Verde. This is significantly different from the other parks we'd visited because it primarily exists to preserve the archaeological remains of an anciet people as opposed to protecting wildlife or delicate rock structures. These ancient peoples, once known as the Anasazi, but now referred to as Ancestral Puebloans, are famous for the dwelling sites they built into cliffs.


And there you go.



Wait...what? That's what the ruins are supposed to look like? Well, what kind of moron would live in such a dilapidated structure?

Anyhow, the largest such structure in North America is the Cliff Palace and we took a ranger guided tour of it.

Sadly, Ranger Joshua, who prided himself on telling the "prosperity" story of the Mesa area as opposed to harping on the sad conditions of drought and overpopulation which eventually lead the cliff settlers to leave the area like some of the other rangers did, only managed to make his talk preachy and boring. Still, he did point out some interesting features, like this decoration painted inside one of the houses.

After our tour, we wandered around the park looking at some of the other dwelling areas. There's actually quite a few of them at Mesa Verde, several of which you can go right up to.

Balcony House

Spruce House

We ended up spending a lot more time at Mesa Verde than we originally planned because it was just so neat. We had lunch at one of the lodges there (continuing our tradition), then headed on our way.

We had no firm plans in the morning of where we would end up in the evening. The handlers had decided that, depending on how they felt after Mesa Verde, they'd either cross back into Utah and head to the Moab area, or star slowly winding their way back towards Michigan.

In the end, the decided to take a quick jaunt up the Million Dollar Highway and start heading (generally) back east. Handler 1 wanted to stay in Ouray, CO, because it had hot springs and she'd heard good things about it. Handler 2 wasn't sure about Ouray, because he had heard of a woman there who fed bears in her backyard and eventually got eaten herself. However, the choice was basically taken out of their hands by the bad weather.

As we were driving through downtown Durango, we were hit by a freak hail storm. It quieted down fairly quickly into a simple rain, but this got harder as the evening wore on, and it ended up that Handler 2 really did not want to drive any longer, in the mountains, at night, in the rain. And so, it was decided that we would stop in Ouray.

Shortly before the mess in Durango, and just after passing a trading post marked by giant, 20 foot long arrows stuck in the ground all around it, Handler 1 caught sight of this bald eagle perched in a tree off the road.

She really wished she still had Sweetness.

Upon arriving in Ouray, we had some difficulty finding a room. All the quaint little Swiss themed lodges were full for the night. The Best Western only had a two bedroom suite open. Finally, we found a...rustic...hotel with a vacancy. The proprietor explained that it was Jeep Jamboree weekend and that rooms might be difficult to find. Apparently, as well as billing itself as America's Switzerland, Ouray is also the jeep capitol of America. Whatever.

The room was interesting in that it had obviously been converted from some other purpose that it formerly held. This resulted in what was either a disproportionately small bedroom...or a disproportionatley large bathroom. In fact, the bathroom was larger than have the size of the main room, and appeared to have, at one time, been a laundry room.

The hotel manager suggested that restaurants in town would all close at 9, but that the local Irish pub would be open late and served good food. As we're all fond of pubs (Irish and otherwise), we headed that way. The local beers on tap were good, but the food was better. Irish pubs are not normally known for the quality of their edible fare, but this place was top notch. Although really not all that hungry upon entering, both the handlers cleaned their plates.

Well fed, and needing rest before starting the long trek home on the morrow, we collapsed into bed.

Day 13- WIlliams, AZ to Cortez, CO

The first order of business this morning was to get some better photos of the Grand Canyon. Originally, the plan for this day had included a somewhat strenuous hike into and back out of the canyon, but for some reason, the handlers weren't too keen on that idea anymore.

While at the rim we were treated to the sight of three California Condors doing acrobats. It's kind of hard to see from this picture, but it's there. Handler 1 is hoping she can blow this picture up some.

After that, we backtracked along the same highway we had taken the day before to Page, AZ. Our purpose there was to see Antelope Canyon, a slot canyon famous among photographers for the amazing pictures you can take inside of it. There are actually several such canyons in the area. Upper Antelope Canyon (which is very popular and has a lot of tourists crowding it), lower antelope canyon (which is a lot less familiar and which we went to see) and canyon X (which has almost no tourism, but didn't seem all that pretty from the photos).

Here's some examples of the pictures we tookk inside.

It really is quite a beautiful place.

It's owned by a single family of Navajo and Handler 2 determined that they had quite the racket going.

We contniued on, back into Utah and through Monument Valley. This place is made famous by the fact that a lot of Western movies were shot here.

Handler 2 wanted to try Navajo fry bread. He was told by a soft voiced roadside vendor (all of the older Navajo seemed to be soft voiced...the kids all just seemed like hipster youths) that fry bread could be obtained at a nearby restaurant. It turned out to be much like a Denny's, with all southwestern fare, and lovely handmade pottery water pictchers at each table. The meal was good, but apparently Handler 2 got the wrong thing delivered to him, because there was no fry bread to be seen. All in all, it was a nice stop though.

Just a note, but all these areas are part of the 'Navajo Nation', which is actually quite a large area. So large, in fact, that a Hopi Indian Reservation is contained within its borders. Everything we visited today was Navajo owned and operated. Taxes on gas and other things were tribal taxes and not governmental. All the roads were Navajo routes, indicated by an arrowhead shaped sign.

Neat huh?

We passed through the town of Mexican Hat, named for this balanced rock that looks like a guy sitting with a large hat on his head.

We ended the day in Cortez, Colorado, just outside of Mesa Verde, where we would be visiting the following morning.

Quote of the Day-

"Play us out Navajo cat."

Day 12- Hurricane, UT to Williams, AZ

After the handlers' experiences in the Subway (which I will leave to Handler 2 to relate to you, as he seems so keen on never letting go of it) they decided to depart from the Zion area post-haste before it finished its threat to kill them.

We followed the Highlander on the quickest route to Arizona (which sadly, required going through the park once again).


We passed some lovely scenery of course.

And finally were free of Zion and its evil influence!

We made a quick side trip to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes state park.

The dunes were not quite as pink as we expected.

After that we skirted Grand Staircase Escalante and the Vermillion Cliffs before crossing over into Arizona. This required us to go over a high bridge over the Colorado river. Here, Handler 2's chicken gene took over and he had Handler 1 drive over the bridge for him. We passed by Lake Powell as well. So strange to see boat yards in the middle of the desert.

We stopped briefly in Page, AZ to gas up and, unfortunately, found no strange things afoot at the Circle K.

Just outside of Page is the picturesque horseshoe bend and we stopped to take some photos.

Before continuing on to...

It was fairly late in the afternoon when we finally made it to the canyon, so we were only able to get in a few sunset pics.

We had dinner that evening in the El Tovar dining room which turned out to be the nicest place we ate at, with great service, and so-so food. However, we found something interesting. Arizona does not follow daylight savings time. As such, even though we had just traveled from West of where we were eating, our clocks were an hour too fast. We ended up waiting an extra hour for our dinner and had drinks and appetizers (which included the world's largest fried calimari) in the lounge beforehand.

We also learned it might be hard to get rooms in the area. We figured this from the confused look the maitre d' gave us after he asked where we were staying and we told him we didn't have plans for that yet. However, we did manage to find a good room at the Super 8 in Williams, not too far away.