Day 9

Bryce canyon to winslow AZ

There was a screaming child at the campground last night. Not just crying, mind you - it was more like bloodcurdling my hand is being pressed on a hot stove screaming for 2 hours. But otherwise the campsite was great. I forgot that we did do some more hiking driving around bryce; to see cool stuff as the natural bridge and rainbow point. Of course the views were great.
We were originally going to head to Zion after bryce, but they were doing a bunch of roadwork and the detour would have taken us way out of the way. Also we had a need to just get out of the area. Progress! Moving forward!
So we drove and drove. Went through some indian reservations and also stopped on this cool bridge over the colorado river. There are natove americans evrywhere selling bracelets and pottery . I kind of feel bad not buying anything but then i realize thst i dont wear jewelry so i dont worry about it. We couldn't find any campgrounds so we had to get another hotel. In winslow arizona. I did a little research in advance on wikipedia and found that not only is winslow a rt 66 town, but it's name is also featured in an eagles song.
Got some pizza and drank some Ginger ale and went to sleep.



The view when I woke up



Natural bridge



I love when people screw up the decimal point and the cents sign. This was at the bryce general store. Did I mention they were sold out of firewood?
CHEAP LEMONS!!!

Day 8

Green river UT to Bryce canyon

I woke up feeling a lot better. I was still eating tums every half hour, but I was no longer at deaths door. Zoned wandered downstairs for breakfast. Because I was so in need of a hotel asap yesterday, the experience of searching around for good deals on a place to stay was completely lost on us. Our hotel was fancy. Some places serve up stale Danish and shitty coffee and call it a "contenential breakfast". Our "contenential breakfast consisted of anything you could possibly want, including a chef that would make you pancakes, French toast, an omlette or anything else you desired. It was fancy.

So we were on our way to bryce canyon. Lots of random canyons and folklore everywhere, so there were plenty of places to stop along the way.

After the whole arches camping fiasco we made sure to snag a site as soon as we could. Got a tent site at sunset campground and from then went hiking. Listened in on some ranger tours but eventually went off on our own. Hiked from a place called sunrise to the queens garden. Saw lots of stone columns they call hoodoos. And then had to hike all the way back up. Had pancakes and hot chocolate for dinner. Oh yeah, we tried getting firewood from the general store, but they said their shipment didn't come in and they didn't have any. So we had to make a fire from the 2 small logs that we had left over from rocky mountain park. I dunno if you have ever tried to make a roaring fire with two logs, but it's hard. Our campfire did not win any awards. But at least we kind of had one.



Hello rooster chefs. You are creepy.



This reminded me of that 5/5 legendary dragon magic card.



Unlikely.



Bryce canyon. Awesome.

Day 7

Moab UT to Green river UT

Woke up not feeling well at all. I will jump to conclusions and assume it was food poisioning. The culprit? Probably a gas station turkey sandwich that I got yesterday. Served me right for being an idiot and buying it. Ah the lessons learned on the road.
Anyway it was time to stumble to arches. Artemis drove the whole day because I was physically unable to. Saw some cool stuff, delicate arch, balanced rock and a rock that said was a sheep but looked to me like a cow. Honestly, I was more concerned about not dying so I wasn't really able to appreciate much. I dont have any photos on my phone. We left after about 2 hours and it was a long miserable ride to a hotel. I needed a hotel. I passed out dead for a few hours and spent the rest of the night with a fever, chills, aches and death. Watched 'terminator 2' through one bloodshot eye. Then I slept forever.



Here is the nintendo arcade I played last night at the KOA. I also played Mario 2.



More from yesterday. This painting was in that bookshop. It's like hunter s thompson in dog form.

Day 6

Aspen CO to Moab UT
Waking up in Aspen was weird. I felt like someone was going to be sitting next to my bed all ready to charge me a sleeping tax or something. Talked to Adam for a short while before he had to go to work and he left while we packed up and showered. So for about 15 minutes, I felt like I had my very own place in Aspen. Adam! Thank you for your hospitality!
Stopped at a post office outside of town to mail some Phish tickets that I sold online. As sad as it is, there is no way that I will be able to make a concert on a tuesday in Mansfield after all this vacation time that I took off. Plus the extra money will be happily crammed into the gas tank. Luckily we were able to avoid buying gas in Aspen. So we drove through the awesomeness of Colorado once more. Saw a cool waterfall. And a coal mining town. And i bought some coconut m and ms - i wasnt impressed. It's crazy how seeing all the mountains never gets boring. Mostly becaue you have to keep driving up and down them and on a whim you could just decide to drive off the edge if you wanted. Not today though. We went a little out of our way to black canyon of the gunnison. It was awesome. We went to the north side, which apparently is less popular, and it was true. We had the whole place to ourselves. Spent a couple hours walking around and checking out trails. The canyon is huge. You look at it and lose perspective of how far away what wall is - after a while it starts looking like a magic eye picture. The black canyon is extremely underrated and everyone needs to go.
We stopped at a used bookstore and I bought 5 far side books at $2.50 each as well as a cassette tape of the gin blossoms for $1 (we have a tape player in the car and have been using the adapter to plug in iPods) The last time I bought a cassette was probably 1991.
So the plan from here was to drive to the arches national park and camp there. But we got too comfortable thinking camping was easy. Even though it was a weekday, and camping at rocky mountain was plentiful, and noone was at black canyon, EVERYONE was at arches. So we had to scramble to find camping in Moab. Everyplace we called was full. We had to settle with a shitty KOA. I hate the idea behind franchised camping. No fires were allowed. The campsites were on top of each other and we were put close to a dumpster. And there is a convienence store, arcade, and wi-fi. I feel bad for any kid who grows up thinking that is camping. At least I got to talk to a guy about the three stooges while we did some laundry.



Driving in Colorado



Weird bone structure in front of the bookstore



See?! I read books!!



Black canyon plays tricks with your eyes.



Mike the headless chicken; Frutia, CO

Day 5

Estes Park, CO to Aspen, CO
It was real cold last night but the river served as a giant white noise generator so I think I got a decent sleep. Made some tea toast and oatmeal for breakfast and packed up. Drove about 2 hours on the trail ridge road which basically takes you up several mountains and 4 different ecosystems. They open the road memorial day weekend - the mountains still all had snow on them. They were doing road work so we had a good amount of waiting - a big stretch of the road was one lane. Then when it is your turn to go you have to follow a pace car to the other side.
After the very scary drive we explored the west side of the park. There were a bunch of old frontier houses and they were all closed so it was kind of boring. Visited the visitors center on the way out where we watched part of a video that wasn't very informative.
Drive drive drive again.
We were now on our way to Aspen, and Adam recommended king over independence pass. Which was kind of like ridge road at the national park but a hell of a lot scarier. Independence pass couldn't care less about giving you guard rails. Plus you have to drive the whole thing at like 10mph just to ensure that you don't die. We made some stops to watch rock climbers and explore some caves.
Got to Aspen, met up with my friend Adam at weinerstube, an Austrian bar that stayed open for the sole purpose of Adams friends birthday celebration. Adam was already one boot of beer in when we got there. It's true: the beer was flowing like wine. I got a 1 liter 'warsteiner' and artemis got the most alcoholic long island iced tea that I've ever seen. It was all alcohol except for a splash of coke added as an afterthought. The bartender/owner was crazy. He would play the same 4 'party songs' over and over, encouraging every one to sing along and drink heavily, and even applied a bandage to my injured friends head. The owner even knew Arnold Schwarzenegger and he told me how Arnold eats at the restwurant every year when he visits aspen. We got some food after and walked backed to Adams apartment while he went to see some band play. We were exhausted; and we even got beds to sleep in!!



On top o trail ridge road



Menu from weinerstube. Not sure if you'll be able to read it.



DAS (empty) BOOT!!!!!!



Tis but a flesh wound



Arnold with our bartender for the night



Aw hell yea!

Day 4

Sterling,CO to Estes Park, CO

There were crazy winds last night. I guess it didn't help that we were no trees and we were on a hill with wind turbines in the distance. The stupid loud family thAt kept us up with their screaming were already up, but it made me glad that they looked tired and unhappy. Now it was time to drive some more. Joy.
The drive from eastern Colorado was one long game of anticipation. Where the hell were the mountains? At one point I felt like I was in purgatory and there were no mountains; we were just driving infinitly for no reason.
Eventually we finally got within reach of some mountains and I saw a llama.
Got to rocky mountain park which said that all the campgrounds were full but in truth they were too lazy to update them so we got a site in aspenglen. Greatest campsite ever. Right next to a giant river and plenty of room. Took a nap and then went driving/hiking to bear lake and nymph lake. Snow everywhere. The squirrels are also different here - they are goddamn crazy. Got back to camp, bought some firewood, had a campfire and cooked hot dogs and beans on a grill.

Zzz



Hundreds of birds lived in nests under this canopy. The birds were very wild.


Science!


Cool gnarled tree


Either bear or nymph lake I can't tell by looking at the thumbnail.

Day 3

Grantville KS to sterling CO
Left in the morning after waking up many many times last night. There was a train that went by every hour (reminded me of north Whitney, although this train wasn't as close. Also an ambulance came to the campground around 2am. I remember waking up, commenting that "maybe someone is being murdered", and going back to sleep.
The goal for the day was to make it through Kansas. Which is a lot harder than expected. Although the rest stops are nice and apparently you can actually camp at them, it just goes on and on. Rt 70 I hate you.
We stopped at one point to check out an abandoned house that was in the middle of a field. We also went 20 miles out of our way to another roadside attraction: castle rock. There were no pictures of it that we could find so we had no idea what it actually was. It turned out to be a giant limestone formation in the complete middle of nowhere. It was pretty great.
Got some shitty coffee at a gas station, and got some tacos at a place called taco johns. Hey taco John, it's obvious that you try really hard to be classier than taco bell but it doesn't work when you have the same lackluster food.
Finally, we made it to Colorado. Spent a good amount of time trying to find a campsite. Memorial day weekend = either everywhere is full or it costs $40 just for a tent site. We finally found a place at north sterling state park. They said it would be $16 but forgot to tell us about a bullshit parking pass which brought it up to 22. The drive to the park was just as long and tiring as driving in Kansas, plus we had to stop a while to wait for one way traffic road work. The construction worker holding us back talked with us about classic rock.
The campsite was ok. It was crowded and we had an annoying family with stupid loud children across from us, but we were at least happy with finding a place to stay.