My Road Trip

Dad and I left the house around noon on a Sunday. Traffic in Ohio was horrible. Finally, we made it to South Bend, Indiana, which has become a sort of check point for our road trips. We pulled into the Knights Inn parking lot and this jerk tries to overcharge us because there's a baton twirlers convention in the area. Dad makes like he's going to leave and the guy changed his mind. It was a pretty good deal, we got a good laugh watching the twirlers whack themselves in the head as they practiced in the parking lot.

The next day, you know how interesting Illinois is. We reached Chicago . . . you can see the filthy place from fifty miles away. It's a like a big grey cloud. What a disgusting city. After passing through the seemingly endless city, with its seemingly endless stretch of petty tolls, we were soon in Wisconsin. It's quite a beautiful state. Everywhere you see are gently rolling hills, trees, and lakes. It seems to be sparsely populated. So, what comes to mind when one thinks about Wisconsin . . . CHEESE! As we pulled off the exit to go into a Scrubway for a delicious veggie sandwich, we found the dairy Mecca, a place called The Cheese Chalet. We couldn't resist, we had to stop in. Outside the building is a huge cow and a sign that says Cheese with Ice Cream beneath it that looks like it is advertising cheese flavored ice cream. I found some great dorky postcards to send to my friends.

Minnesota was not much different than Wisconsin. I rather enjoyed it though, watching it slowly get dark, the day seems so long when you travel westward. We stopped a gas station on the border of North Dakota at 10:00 and I took over the wheel while my dad got comfy in the back. I set up a Cherry Coke in the cup holder, some rice cakes within reach, popped some caffeine pills, and placed All This Useless Beauty in the cd player. I took full advantage of the 70 mph speed limit by putting the car on cruise control at the speed of 75 and steering. It was beautiful. I will remember this drive forever. All the caffeine and the night itself had made my senses so acute. The stars were beautiful, since there is practically no civilization in the state to block it out. I drove for a few hours, and then Dad took over at 2:00 mountain time.

I took a small nap and woke up to the sunrise in Montana. Montana at first struck me as being strangely beautiful. You could see for miles the angular shapes of the hills, with no signs of human life whatsoever. We hit a dingy little town and stopped for some breakfast. I got some strange looks as I brought my toothbrush into the ladies' room. Something I ate didn't quite sit well in my stomach. uh oh, I think I'm feeling sick... Montana suddenly was hell on earth.

Nevermind the fact that there was no speed limit. We decided to take a detour so far north that it was 14 miles from Canada, all on state roads. Montana is a dead waste land. There is no cover from the brutal sun, no place to stop, no flushing toilets or running water. As if that wasn't enough, my bloody noses started to flare up. I wanted to get out of that state so badly. Finally, we made it to Glacier National Park. The cool scenery felt so nice. We found a beautiful campsite, went on a short mountain bike ride. I took a nice little nap and felt completely better. The next morning we woke up freezing cold. The bugs there were huge and annoyingly frightening, and at that point I wanted out of Glacier.

But then it redeemed itself in what I consider the greatest bike ride of all time. We drove on the Going to the Sun Highway, which takes you to the top of the Rockies. Dad had the idea to pull my bike out of the back of the car. I was a bit reluctant at first, but thank God my father is persistant. This was a great oppurtunity. I drove straight down that mountain, twenty miles, without pedalling more than three times. It was amazing. The best part was that the hardcore bikers which I passed all waved at me because they thought I came up the other side.

When I reached the bottom of the mountain, we put the bike back in the car. We drove out of Glacier and it started to get warm once again. We spied a wooden maze on the side of the road and decided, why not? This maze was harder than it looked, it took us more than an hour to complete. There were four towers, each with a letter: M, A, Z, or E. You have to stamp your time card at each tower.

Later that night, we stopped in West Yellowstone. We walked around the town and the strangest thing happened. We ate some pizza at a crappy restaurant with a '70s motif. As we were walking out I hear someone yelling "Mr. Kinsman! Mr. Kinsman!" We turn around, and who is it but two kids who went to my school who happened to know my dad. Straaaaange.

Now, imagine how good my shower felt. The last one I had taken was in Indiana. I washed off three days of sweat, bug spray, and dirt. It felt so good. I lied down in the comfortable bed and flipped on Letterman....ahhhhh.... You really appreciate small things like that when you don't get a decent night's sleep.

We made it to Yellowstone. We saw the usual sites in the afternoon: Morning Glory, Old Faithful, you know . . . but it was neat, I had been there before when I was smaller and I was getting a feeling of déjà vu. After lunch, we had more fun than anyone ever had in Yellowstone, I think. I don't know what we were doing, but gosh, was it fun. We drove along from stop to stop, there are about a billion and one little things to see in Yellowstone. The dragon's cauldron was like smothering. We watched the disgusting buffalo who sit right at the edge of the springs and love it. We also stopped to look at a place called Sulfur Cauldron. BAD idea. I was gagging. After that, we rolled down the windows and played Madness really loud. We stopped at this one lookout where these two guys were standing, enjoying the view and smoking cigarettes. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, comes the Mercury Villager. I jumped out of the car with the video camera while these guys gave us the dirtiest looks I've ever received in my entire life. It was hysterical.

The next day Dad and I passed by the Tetons; I don't think I've ever seen a mountain range that looked so out of place. We had lunch in Jackson Hole . . . a little Mexican restaurant called the Merry Piglets. We drove to Utah in pursuit of a hotel room, however, there was some stupid American West Festival going on and there were none to be found. Dad kept on driving while I half dozed. I woke up to find myself in Springdale. This is one of my favorite little American towns. It was 3:30 in the morning so we pulled into the Zion Pizza & Noodle Co. parking lot and slept for a few hours. We checked into the hotel across the street as soon as it opened, and took a nice swim. I napped while Dad went into Zion to do the Angels' Landing hike. He's better at sleep deprivation than me.

This is amazing. I found a picture of the pool on the Internet!

Now, let me tell you about Angels' Landing. I've heard everyone who's been there describe it as like the scariest thing they've ever done. I think something like one person dies there every year, but don't quote me on that. I've been to Zion before but I've never done the hike myself. I've always been curious about it and I finally got to see what it was like. I woke up feeling great, ready to go. Dad must be crazy, willing to do the rather strenuous hike twice in a day. So, I got to the part where it starts to get spooky. I'm pretty good with heights, though, so it didn't bother me much. Unfortunately, we had to turn around at the last half mile, the really scary part, because it was starting to get dark and the idea of getting stuck up there wasn't exactly appealing.

The next day, after a good night's sleep, we did the Observation Point hike. That's a toughie, let me tell you. Something like 4 miles up with a rise of a half mile. Definately worth it, though. It gives you one of the best views I've ever seen in my life, right down the canyon. We seemed to have started a tradition of meeting girls with rhyming names. Last year on a hike in Zion, we met two girls named Christina and Gina. This year, we talked to Stacy and Katie. You meet some of the coolest people in national parks, especially on the longer hikes. They're so much more friendly. Everyone waves, and everyone talks to each other at the top. It's really a great thing. There's something shared, but you're sweating too much to think of anything that deep. So you groan and smile a bit at the passerbys.

Next stop is the amazing Bryce Canyon. We did a nice little three mile or so hike in the morning on a trail I didn't get to see last year, called Wall Street. It's really neat-o, the trail goes right through the sandstone spires, like a cave or a narrow canyon. We had a bit of a lunch, then did the Fairyland Loop. This is one of the most beautiful hikes there is. It's an 8 mile hike that gives you a really good look of the canyon. You get to see so much of it. It's not crowded, which is another plus. It's like being in another world. Earth as you know it could be gone and you wouldn't know or even care.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to eat at "El Hungry Coyote," the restaurant that has been the butt of our jokes for over a year now. But we did eat at the Bryce lodge, and we got out favorite waitor, Tim. He didn't remember us, obviously, but he said that if we came back next year he would.

We drove out, pricing hotel rooms. Then Dad decided to call his friend Dave whom he met on one of his other trips to Utah. I had heard a lot about him and was anxious to meet him. We stopped to call him at a closed gas station. Now, the weirdest thing happened. We pull in, and I see this huge bird. I'm staring at this thing and then it finally registered....a peacock?? Then I look, and see two porcupines and what I think was a wild turkey sitting in a pine tree. I will never know what was going on there. I'm not so sure I want to.

We drove through the night, missing all the great desert scenery except for the silhouettes of the formations. We arrived in Grand Junction around midnight and Dave treated us to Denny's. We followed him to his house and he showed us all the cool things there. He had all sorts of Indian tools and shards of pottery that he had found on archaelogical digs. He also showed us the teepee that he built in his backyard! We stayed up fairly late, I mostly listened while everyone else talked. Dave turned out to be one of the most down-to-earth people I've ever met, with an inexhaustable supply of interesting stories. I slept late the next morning, and when I woke, I took my choice from the cereals in the pantry. "Frosted Flakes, my favorite!" Dave exclaimed. Before Dad and I left, he gave me two pieces of pottery and rock he had carved, which is his art. I couldn't thank him enough, but of course I tried.

Later that day we went to Arches, next to everyone's favorite tourist town, Moab. Arches was an inferno. It must have been well over 100 degrees that day; so hot I had trouble walking a mile. That was the longest mile of my life. It was worth it, I had seen so many pictures of Delicate Arch that being there was really bizarre. It was like meeting a movie star or something of that sort.

But of course, I had to walk the mile back, with a broken blister....awww, poor me. I'll stop whining now.

We stopped for the night in Colorado. That night, the funniest thing happened. We were driving on Route 666, and we pulled over to the side of the road to check the Triple-A books. Then we spied in the distance a Shell station. The sign had individual letters, S-H-E-L-L. The "S" sign was burned out. We got a picture (which, unfortunately did not come out well) of the Route 666 sign, with "HELL" in the background.

Mesa Verde was great again. This time, we went on a different guided tour. You had to climb up this ladder to get into the cliff dwelling and everyone was like screaming their heads off over this stupid 15 foot drop. So I sat there and made fun of them all. There was one really screwed up kid there, we speculated he was on either crack or angel dust, who was grabbing onto the walls for dear life when he was more than 10 feet away from the edge of the cliff.

From Colorado, we hit New Mexico. We stayed in a place called Raton, a pretty goofy city by my standards. Then we decided to just keep driving. A lot of the driving was on state roads, therefore, we got to pass through all the neat little towns, like Clayton, which is practically a ghost town. We passed through all those states, Texas was beautiful, people there are so nice. We arrived in Memphis at 1:00 in the morning. So, what do we do? Went to Graceland, of course.

We parked at some gas station and took a walk down the street. There's a huge brick wall, and everyone writes messages like "Elvis-came to see you but you weren't here" and "I hope you and Marilyn are having fun." We took a Thelma & Louise picture at the gate. As we were idly walking back to the car, reading the wall and trying to look at the mansion, a cop car comes up the street. We thought we were in trouble, oh greaaaaaat. The cop clicks on the microphone ... and starts singing Heartbreak Hotel. Only in Memphis.

After that, the trip slowly came to a close. Dad drove while I slept soundly in the back of the car. We had breakfast in Kentucky at 6:00 and I took over for a while. West Virginia is like the same thing over and over again, kind of like that one Nightmare on Elm Street. Finally, we saw the "Pennsylvania: America Starts Here" sign. I was glad at this point to be so close to home, but that was only because I was sick of driving for the time being. I really didn't want my trip to end ...

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