Day 42: Out of Fire and Death, into the City of Angels

As darkness fell over Death Valley, I was beginning the journey from the south edge towards my campground. When I say darkness, I really should note that it was never total. The moon was out, and just over half full, which cast an eerie glow over everything; and the lightning storms, which had yet to let up, continually flashed in front and behind me.

Like most National Parks, Death Valley has an entrance fee to drive through. However, unlike most other parks, there was no range booth on the edge of the park from the direction I came. Rather, you were required to stop at one of the kiosks along the route and purchase a pass from an automated machine. I finally arrived at the first of these machines nearly an hour after turning from the highway. Up until this point, I had yet to leave the confines of my car inside of the valley; I had no idea what to expect from the atmosphere. I arrived at the completely unlit Bad Water kiosk and parked my car so that my headlights could provide illumination. I refrained from turning off the engine, however; I didn't anticipate a long stay.

I opened the car door, and was immediately hit with a blast of 106 degree wind. The storms raging around the mountains were causing a ferocious wind to gust from more than one direction, blowing sand and hot air into my face in an unpredictable manor. I ran over to the ticket kiosk, quickly read the instructions, inserted my $20, and waited for my pass to print. Suddenly, an enormous gust came blowing down from the north, hurling dirt and dust at me. In order to save my poor contacts from further abuse, I turned my back and hunched over to shield myself. At that exact moment, my ticket finished printing and before I could react was blown from the machine and off into the rocky bed below the parking lot. I stood there for a few seconds, trying to comprehend what had just happened. The little piece of paper, which had cost me $20, had just gone flying off into the dark unknown, on the back of a gust of wind which probably measured 40 or 50 mph.

You have got to be kidding me, I said out loud. You have got to be freaking kidding.

I snapped out of my intense disbelief and ran to my car to get a flashlight. I went around the back of the pit toilets (which smelled horrendous, let me tell you what; just imagine the effect of all that waste sitting in 115 degree heat all day, and then having the stench blown at you in hot waves; not pleasant), and began searching frantically for my little receipt. Winding my hand crank flashlight, furiously trying to increase its area of illumination, I continued my futile searched for about 5 minutes. Every now and then, I would stop and listen, hoping to catch the sound of rustling paper. Unfortunately, I had to give up. The wind could have carried it any of at least 5 directions, and by this time far away. I would have to just pony up the cash and buy another one.

This time, I covered the opening with my hand while waiting.

I got back in my car and blasted the A/C for a good 5 minutes cooling off. I eventually arrived at the main village in Death Valley, Indian Village (over 70 miles from the entrance). Luckily, they had a gas station so I could stop worrying so much about saving fuel to be able to leave in the morning. My campground (and the only one in the park open at this time of year) was just up the road and had the charming name of Furnace Creek.

I pulled in, paid my camping fee (again making sure to place my hand over the opening to prevent losing another $12), and began driving around looking for a decent camp site. Furnace Creek is quite large with over 100 campsites, although many of them are place right next to one another in typical "camping out of a car" fashion. I finally settled on one far enough away from others, with a decent view of the eastern mountain range and thunderstorm still in progress.

What followed was an exercise in frustration as I attempted to set up my tent in high winds, while being blinded by sand being thrown into my eyes. When I finally was able to get the tent up (using rocks on each of the corners to weigh it down), a sudden gust of wind essentially turned it into a big kite. For a few minutes, I desperately held on as the tent rose about six feet into the air and pulled me forward. I prayed the straps holding the posts wouldn't rip from their stitching, or that the posts themselves wouldn't break. Finally, I wrestled the tent to the ground and was able to sit on it, preventing it from becoming airborne again. I sat there contemplating my next move. I took the tent apart, shoved it back into my car, and gave my eyes much needed rest and lubrication.

My next idea was again to weigh down the tent as I erected it, but this time from within rather than without. The theory was that once the poles had been connected, the weight would still be inside the tent holding it down and it wouldn't lose anchor like it previously had. I rummaged through my trunk, searching for items to use as ballast. While still in my backseat, I stuff the tent with anything I could find with substantial weight. With faith in myself, I brought it back out to try again.

This is how I lost my tripod, shovel, sleeping bag, pillow, sleeping mat, and extra blanket all at once.

Just kidding. It actually ended up working out fairly well (especially when I used four large rocks to anchor each of the corners inside). I finally set the tent up, threw my water bottle inside, and dove in to escape the pelting winds. After setting up my sleeping arrangements, I stripped down to my boxers and laid on top of it all. The temperature was still over 100, and my gallon of water was quickly running low. Between tent cave-ins, lightning flashes, and the oppressive heat, I spent the longest night of my trip. Oh, and my rudimentary fixes for my leaking sleeping mat failed.

Death Valley 2, Colin 1

I arose just before sunrise to the proverbial calm after the storm. The sky was mostly clear, the wind gone, and even the heat was down to an acceptable 85 or so. I packed up my belongings, got dressed, watched the sun rise, and headed back into the village for overpriced breakfast buffet.

I left Death Valley partially conquered, but partially victorious.

For most of the rest of Tuesday, I crossed the barren wasteland that is south-eastern California. After hours on the road, I descended the San Bernardino mountains and into the smog filled valley. For those who haven't driven into LA by car, the change is very visible; a think layer of brown haze permeates the view into the distance. My first stop in LA was to be with a friend from Santa Cruz, Laura Kim; I'd be staying with her for a few days and getting exposed to some lesser seen parts of life in the Valley. I arrived in Pasadena around 2pm, which meant I had a few hours to kill before she got off work. I bummed around, bought a CD from a used record store, and settled down in a coffee shop to read a local news paper.

That night, we met up with two of Laura's friends for happy hour at Bar Celona, a fairly fancy bar in old town Pasadena. The happy hour menu consisted of a selection of food items such as shrimp, buffalo wings, meatballs, and other such finger food for $5 each. Not too bad, we thought. That's when we found out that for $5, you get four meatballs, or four shrimp, or four wings. We ate a couple of plates between us, drank down some pints, and headed over to King Taco for more substantial food. Another bar (where they had Stone IPA on tap!), then some delicious frozen yogurt from a self-serve yogurt bar. This place was very interesting; you chose the size of dish you want, pour as much yogurt of varying flavors, then top with fresh fruit! Very tasty and in fact quite healthy. I imagine places like this will begin popping up in Portland within a year or two (behind LA as we usually are in these kinds of things).

Wednesday morning, I got up around 9am so I could navigate the interstate traffic down to Disneyland to meet up with my sister Kirsten and her daughter Natalie, as well as her friend Kari and her son Rowan, who just so happened to be vacationing at the same time I arrived in the area. Talk about good timing. Amazingly, the park wasn't all that busy (being after Labor Day, and the middle of the week); we never had to wait more than 5 or 10 minutes for even the busiest rides.

Contemplating my situation.

I spent the day with them wandering around the park, getting shown around Minnie Mouse's house by Natalie, and getting completely saturated on Splash Mountain. In reference to that last point, let me tell you, I think the ride seater was conspiring against Kirsten and myself, as he sat us in the front (myself in the very front), with a smaller child behind. We obviously weighed down the nose of the boat, so any and all declines caused the nose to dip lower than usual into the water, resulting in more pronounced waves invading the sides. I was soaked before we even went down the last drop. I thought about how best to shield my poor backpack (with camera inside) while plunging down the last free fall. Good thing it was a nice day (although I still didn't dry off before going to bed that night).

We parted ways in the evening and I headed back to North Hollywood to meet up with Laura and Meghan, another friend from Santa Cruz. I met them at Porto's, a delicious bakery restaurant and ate some leftover scraps of food they had ordered (well more than scraps really, but that's what it felt like; I had a good portion of a beef sandwich, two potato balls, and half of a cheese and jam filled danish thing). That night, the three of us went bowling at an amazingly hip and "indie" kind of bowling alley. With complete modesty, I can say that Moobs dominated. Okay, dominated is a bit of a strong word, and in fact quite incorrect. But we had fun.

Thursday rolled around, and set in motion events that would culminate in an amazing trip to a Korean karaoke establishment...

Beard status: getting quite full and fluffy. White hairs becoming more pronounced, though.
Total trip miles: 11652. Unbelievable.
Listening to recently:
Eye Alaska - Yellow & Elephant

Day 41: Daylightning

When last I posted I was setting off from Utah on an adventure that would bring me through the corners of Arizona and Nevada, into the barren wasteland that is south-eastern California.

After passing through the little bit of Arizona and back into my beloved Pacific Time Zone, I made my first stop of the day. It is here that I discovered two amazing things:

1. Red Bull Cola
2. Valley of Fire State Park

First, the cola. I've been more or less a fan of Red Bull since my early days of drumming; it (along with the sadly absent Surge) fueled many a long jam sessions with various friends over the years. I find the taste to be far superior to any imitators that have come after (I'm looking at you Rockstar), and its smaller can size much more manageable. Other than a sugar free version, Red Bull has up until now offered no other variations on its product line. To say the least, I was surprised to now see a cola alternative. My initial thoughts were tempered with memories of the rather vile Rockstar Cola, but my curiosity won out in the end and I purchased a can. I cracked it open, drank it down, and came to the conclusion that I couldn't form a decisive opinion one way or the other about it. It was deliciously Red Bull in flavor, with a nice kick of cola; and yet at the same time just as horrid in flavor as previous energy/cola offerings. Quite the contradiction in a can. Further tests are necessary.

Every park needs an arch.

Either way, I didn't let the Red Bull Cola uncertainty distract me from the second amazing thing I discovered in Nevada; Valley of Fire State Park. On a recommendation from my friend Devin Saez, a former resident of Las Vegas, I took a detour from the interstate to check out this park. The day was beginning to become a scorcher, and time was not something I had in abundance, so I regulated myself to simply driving through the park. Even so, I was able to experience much of the fantastic sights the park has to offer. The site of an ancient inland sea, plate movements have forced enormous amounts of jagged, fire-red rock formations through the surface. The visitor center offered an extremely informational time line explaining how exactly the valley was formed over millions of years, and the processes which caused the brilliant landscape.

One area of particularly amazing formations was the Painted Valley (or something to that effect). Here, different compositions of stone had been pressed together and exposed in such a way that contrasting colors come together, giving a kind of rainbow or painted effect. It was all quite stunning and very fun to drive through.

On my drive into the park, I had noticed a gathering storm off to the east over much of the Lake Mead area. It looked pretty nasty, even to the point of becoming a thunderstorm (as a side note, lightning during the daytime is fun to experience, albeit still a little unnerving when it gets closer). After a while in Valley of Fire, I realized that this storm was heading directly my way. Time to boogie, I thought, not really wanting to get caught up in a nasty storm. I stopped just outside the park to photograph the entrance sign, and was nearly blown over by the powerful winds preceding the storm. I felt sorry for the wedding party that was just beginning to arrive for their afternoon ceremony.

Once back on the highway, I discovered that while running away from one storm, I was heading straight into a second. It seemed the weather systems had conspired to surround me, opening up the sky and letting fly crazy thunderstorm rain right as I pulled into Las Vegas. The storm was pretty nuts, to say the least.

The deceptive beauty of Death.

After stopping to get food and get lost in the suburbs of Las Vegas, I continued on my way to Death Valley. I wasn't sure exactly where the campground I was to sleep at was located within the park, and really wanted to arrive around or right before sunset to ensure I could get a spot. It turns out Death Valley is a bit further from Las Vegas than I had initially suspected. After driving for a couple of hours, I finally crossed the border into California and began the ascent over the mountains bordering the valley on the south-eastern edge. While still on the eastern face, the sun began to set over the western range, the temperature outside a pleasant 85 or so. I crossed the summit and began to descend into the park. It was around this point that a series of facts, once connected, began to worry me.

1. All of the elevation gain for the last 20 miles or so had not been kind on my fuel efficiency.
2. My odometer I use for my current tank of gas was just below 300 miles (I usually average at or just below 400 when I fill up), and my fuel reading was quite a bit lower than I expected it to be.
3. I was enter Death Valley from the south. It is a large park, with the main village close to the center. Also, there aren't really many towns of appreciable size close by.
4. The temperature was rising. Quickly.

I went into extreme fuel saving mode. Despite the fact that the outside temperature was now over 100 degrees, I turned off my air conditioning. Now that I was descending the slopes of the mountains, potential energy became my friend; I put the car into neutral and used gravity to take me down to below sea level, performing what amounted to a controlled "free-fall".

Needless to say, it got hot in the car; every 15 minutes or so I would turn on the A/C for a few minutes to cool off. Due to these fuel saving measure, I was able to travel quite far into the park without affecting my level of fuel much at all. Around 100 feet below sea level, the road more or less leveled off. I was well into the park now, and losing light. No turning back...

This story to be continued (its time for karaoke).