Jul 30, 2013

We didn't sleep very well in the desert heat once the sun came up. It was hot and sweaty, but we had a nice view. We kept the rain guard on just to keep the direct sunlight off of us, but it was keeping the heat in also.

This was our camping spot. You can't see that there was a parking lot five feet in the other direction. When we got up there were people there selling Native American jewelry next to the sign that says you can't sell anything. There were a few people checking out the view. We didn't even care about being camped out in the open at this point.

We took a little detour to the Hoover Dam. We were going to do a tour, but it cost more than we wanted to spend. We parked in the lot and walked up to the overlook bridge. This was a cool view. As huge as it is, it looked strangely smaller than I had imagined. It was also a little strange seeing something so iconic in person.

The bridge crosses the border between Nevada and Arizona so we were straddling the line. After we had looked down enough we headed back to the car

The drive to Phoenix was long, and when we got there Joanna dropped me off at North Mountain Brews so I could sample while she went to the store. I was the only one in there and the samples were free so that was cool with me. I tried all of the beers on tap, including the Soiled Dove Dirty Blonde which I really liked, and the 3 Strings Porter, another really tasty one. They had two guest brews on, The Lips of Faith by New Belgium, which was pretty good, and the Vernal Minthe Stout by Ska Brewing that was amazing. I wish I could have gotten a bottle of that. We went over to Papago Brewing next, where I only tried a flight of four. The ones I really liked were the Coconut Joe Coffee Stout and the Vanilla Mandarin Wheat Ale.

We went to Green for dinner. The menu looked pretty awesome and I ended up getting the Big WAC burger. It was so messy and hard to eat, but it was pretty good. The food was good, but the Tsoynami milkshake was amaaaaaaazing. I got one with butterfinger-like peanut butter pieces in it and I inhaled it as we checked out the vegan t-shirt store in the same plaza. There was some cool stuff, but the best part was talking to the clerk about Kevin Smith movies.

We made it to Fountain Lakes DGC as the sun was getting ready to dip behind the mountains. It plays around a lake with a fountain in the middle and uses the water frequently as a hazard. A disc or two were almost lost. It is a gorgeous park, with well-manicured grass, a nice walkway, and easy to read tee signs.

The fountain shoots off every fifteen minutes or so into a huge spout of water that is probably fifty feet high. The course was fun and sunset was beautiful, but somehow I lost a disc in an open area of the grass toward the end. It was dusk and harder to see, but we looked around for a long time. The only thing I could think was it rolled down the embankment and into the water. There is no other good explanation.

We headed back out of Phoenix toward the Grand Canyon and found ourselves a nice spot off a dirt road in the Kaibab National Forest. It's great knowing that we can camp anywhere in a National Forest for free unless it's marked.

Jul 29, 2013

It was hard getting up from sleep on the nice air mattress, but I could tell the weather was really nice outside. Mary had been up for a while, stepping over us in the living room. I had some cereal for breakfast and we left our stuff there to pick up later so we didn't have to leave it in the car all day.

We took directions from a website to find the Hollywood sign trailhead, but we walked the wrong way at first somehow and got pretty far off before we realized we were off track. We came back and realized the road we were supposed to take was right by the car. I really like this sign though.

After an initially very steep hike up the hill we reached a plateau with a single tree overlooking the city. We hung out there for a minute, taking in the view and writing in the journal that sits under the tree.

The path climbed gently after that, rolling over the spine of the hills. We could see the radio tower that I recognize from so many times I've seen the Hollywood sign in movies and photos. The heat wasn't so overpowering once we got up there and weren't climbing such steep sides anymore.

The city skyline was in view here, but the famous LA smog was obscuring it. I actually like the shot of it like this because it's representative of the culture here.

In other directions there are wide views of the LA basin for miles. We continued along the top of the path for a while before it dropped back down on the other side and ended at the "Hugh Hefner Overlook." That's Hollywood.

We took a short road up along a chain link fence with people scattered around looking at the view. It's amazing that something so out of the way and mundane attracts such a crowd.

 The sign itself was just about exactly as I thought it would be. I knew we couldn't get down to it, but the urge grew in me just by being there. We thought about asking one of the landscapers to let us go down there, but we waited too long. We did some feet shots on the fence and I did the best I could to crop out the unwanted parts. Once Joanna was tired of clinging to metal we headed back up and over the ridge to the car.

We went downtown to a place called Real Food Daily for lunch. We were in sweaty hiking clothes, but we didn't care that everyone else looked pretty nice. Joanna went with the nachos, but I had to try their reuben. It was pretty good, but no Chicago Diner. I was still pretty happy with my meal since I was super hungry. After eating we went back to Mary's to pack up our stuff and headed east toward Las Vegas.

The one place I wanted to go was Tenaya Creek Brewing in North Las Vegas. After searching for vegan pizza and failing miserable several times, ending up walking all the way down Fremont Street through the freaks and performers, then finding the pizza place to only have one slice of expensive vegan pizza, we gave up. I got the really cool flight of beer at Tenaya, which is my favorite part of it. Some of the beers weren't as good as I recall, but the Tandem Double IPA and Old Jackalope Barleywine were both great.

I was checking in on Untappd to all of my beers, prompting one of the guys that work in the brewery to come out and see who was drinking so much. He talked to us for a while, revealing himself as a fellow traveler. After telling him about our trip he offered us a place to stay for the night. We were quick to take him up on the offer, but we later reconsidered and wanted to get out of town instead of staying around drinking until dawn.

 We went back to the strip to get some food at Tropical Smoothie Cafe and then went to take foot photos by Paris and the Bellagio. We got some cool shots. We headed out of town and picked up Route 93 into Arizona. After searching a few places in the National Forest we ended up putting up a tent alongside a rest area parking lot. It was really warm already, but we were so tired we put up the tent on autopilot and passed out.

Jun 4, 2010

We drove through more of the forest in the morning after we broke down the campsite and then began to drive through winding mountains with steep grades. There was also snow everywhere.

To give myself and my brakes a rest, we stopped and made some breakfast. Peanut butter and jelly is a favorite on this trip.

The snow and mountain passes continued for quite a while until we hit our peak at almost 10,000 feet. Once we began to descend, which was harder on the car than the uphills, it didn't take long to get out of the snow.

Most of the rest of the day through Nevada consisted of flat, open roads. We drove by some lakes and went through some hills but for the most part it looked like this.

We got into Idaho at night and kept driving. Certain states seem much bigger when you're just trying to get through them.

We located a nice little campsite with a confusing late check-in policy but decided to set up our tent anyway. We were later assured by some other campers that we'd be fine.

I took advantage of the free wi-fi (at a campground!) and did some updating. Not enough, it turned out.

Total distance: 739 miles. Nevada is long.

May 19, 2010

After a refreshing night's sleep in the car for a few hours at a Wal*Mart, we were back on the road leaving Utah, driving through the top corner of Arizona and entering Nevada.

Nevada is a lot of what you would picture as the desert. The American desert, anyway; flat, sunny and with a highway full of Hummers, Navigators and, incidentally, at least one Nissan Altima.

Another trademark of the Nevada desert that we drove through was this little town called Vegas. It's been less than a year since I've been here and I didn't really miss it. Not in the daytime especially. If only there was another Blink concert today..

We did hit the big 5,000 on the odometer today. That's a lot of miles. It's been about two weeks. I don't feel like doing the math but it's a good amount of driving.

Ah, the California sign. It makes you think, "California! Beaches! Palm Trees! Los Angeles!?" But the truth is more like: "(more) Desert.. Heat.. Traffic.. Los Angeles!?" Oh, and I still laugh because Nathan and I talked about San Bernardino meaning Saint Bernard last time we drove here.

Once we got close to the city we could see the skyline in a haze over the highway. We didn't really hit much traffic on the way through, but we didn't attempt to go downtown.

We found a disc golf course outside of the city and went to play. The first bit of it was pretty nice but then we came upon the hills.. Once a disc traveled all the way down the hill into the road and we had to walk through plants that left painful thorns all over our shoes. This wouldn't be the only time it happened.

We skipped a few holes along the way after several more trips down a hill and after I lost one disc. I did find another while I was here but that didn't make up for it. The view of the skyline from basket 18 was nice, though.

This is definitely a course of no return. The shots are very similar and it's just annoying to have to search for your disc on every hole. Not worth it.

We had been in touch with Joanna's friend, Adam, who works at Warner Brothers. He invited us over to the studio for a quick tour so we picked up our passes and found our way to the small suburban Warner Village inside the studio. They really just work inside suburban homes built on the lot.

We hopped on the back of a golf cart and headed out to see the lot. There were a lot of warehouses and nondescript buildings but we also saw people's parking spots! Like Chuck Lorre, of The Big Bang Theory, and George Lopez, of whatever it is he does.

We came upon the famous WB water tower. The tour was brief but we saw a good amount of the set and got an idea of how the back lot works.

We got to wander around without supervision for a while after he went back to work. The city streets look very realistic until you go behind them and realize they're only a few feet wide.

I saw the Friends stage and wanted to go in but you have to buy the real tour in order to do that one!

Once Adam had finished work and we found our way back to the gate we parked near, we went to get dinner at Pequito Mas, a Mexican restaurant near his apartment. The food was really good, partly because I was extremely hungry at that point.

Adam offered up his floor to us for the night so we laid out sleeping bags and, after the lack of sleep last night, I fell asleep pretty quickly.

Total distance traveled: 416 miles. And most of it was through the desert. That's something that will keep you driving just so you can find something else to look at.