In good company

Yosemite National Park. The second UNESCO of this trip, huzzah!!

Yosemite reminds me a lot of Banff. I know that's not something I'm supposed to say about a place, but it really does. They're both glacier carved valleys protected by tireless enthusiasts and over run by tourists - myself included. The park was remarkably busy for this time of year.

No Half Dome, but we do get a nice view of El Capitan.
El Capitan is a rock face people climb when they're insane. The most insane people somehow climb it in two hours, 19 minutes. I think these people may actually be Spider-man.

I think this guy is going to take longer than 2:19.

We went for a nice walk up to Lower Yosemite Falls. I wasn't feeling up to the lung buster to the Upper Falls.

When we got there, it was crawling with tourists. Absolutely lousy with them. (Myself/my group included). We went around the loop trail and after the falls there was almost no one.

As we drove on, I amazed our guide by knowing what a glacial erratic is. Apparently in 500 guests he's had, not one has known what a glacial erratic is.

Next: Sequoia? I hardly knew ah! (I'm tired and it's funny in my head.)

of tarantuas and lessons learned

Many moons ago in Spokane, Washington, I placed my bare hand on the metal handle of a west facing door to Macy's in the baking summer sun.

That was a mistake.

In Death Valley, California, at the Visitor Centre, there is a digital read out displaying the temperature. I was not smart enough to take a picture of it but it was about 80F. The read out is not far from this door:

Do you think I opened that with my bare hand? Or do you think I wrapped the sleeve of my unworn hoodie around my hand and opened the metal handle that way? I can learn things!

Among the things I learned at the visitor centre: common fauna here include scorpions, snakes, and tarantulas. 

We stopped at Zabriskie Point. it reminded me a lot of Drumheller.

I also felt a bit like U2.

As we were walking back from the look out, Jason jumped about a foot back. he did it again, which made us all jump back because we didn't know what was going on. Jason had jumped at a butterfly. He swears it was a flying tarantula. I imagine after nearly being killed by a rock, flying tarantulas are not outside the realm of possibility.

Badwater Basin is 282 feet below sea level.

last of the annual rainfall in the basin.

In the upper middle of this picture is  a sign that shows where sea level is.

The basin itself is a dry lake bed covered in salt and other not so great for you minerals.

The salt is really soft in the parts that haven't been trodden down.

We carried on to Mesquite Flats. There are sand dunes here with the softest sand I have ever stepped foot in.

We ended the day in Bakersfield, CA. This is far closer to Charles Manson that I'd ever like to be. Our excellent guide gut me a cake!

Next: part one of my second UNESCO of the trip.

They're all livin' devil may care

Las Vegas is warm. It is tacky. It is everything you expect it to be.

While in Vegas, I went on the roller coaster at New York, New York. I went on all three rides at the Stratosphere. I won $1000 US.

See, my gramma cheated at cards. All card games, gramma cheated. She also swore like a sailor when she lost. In order to combat her cheating, I somehow learned to count cards. When she started losing to the smart mouth kid, she stopped playing the smart mouthed kid. I make no apologies. 

This talent has never paid off for me. People don't like playing me at cards because I call their bluff. It's not difficult to figure out the cards you have based on the cards I have. I've been told I should play poker but I don't have the willingness to learn that. Bah.

I swore that I would only put $10 in a slot machine and that would be the end of my Vegas gambling experience. Nope. They had $5 single deck blackjack tables at Stratosphere - that's just asking for it. I got $100 in chips and played $80 before walking away with $1100 US. I know I could have doubled it in no time but I chose to walk away. A grand US in Vegas isn't a bad day at all. Such an obvious newbie however; I asked the nice blackjack dealer what I do with the chips after I won. She gave me a tray to take them over to the cashier and I guarded those things with my life and made a beeline to the desk! THANK YOU MINE GOODBYE!

The roller coaster was amazing. Jade and Xuilin didn't exactly want to go on it but I left them with very little choice. It was mildly frightening! Okay more than mildly. I was glad I peed beforehand!  This isn't my video - as we went at night, did not sit in the front seat, and did indeed scream and laugh for all it was worth - but it gives you a good idea.

Me on the climb: it's not that bad!! It's not that bad!!
Me on the drop: I LIED.

Next: Things are about to get deadly.

Death Rock

I've been told a lot about the Grand Canyon by everyone who has been there. I've been told the colours are unreal, it's vast, it's very dark at night - all kinds of things. One thing that everyone agrees on is that you have to see it to believe it; no pictures do it justice.

All of these things are true.

I'll do my best with words but I will fail. There really aren't any words.

The drive from Laughlin is long enough. There's a time change between Nevada and Arizona which makes it seem longer.  Thanks, once again, to Sanford Flemming.

Our guide hands us paper bags and markers, asking us to draw a quick "selfie" on them in the van before we get to the canyon. Okay, crazy man. We do it and once in the parking lot, we are told to put the bags over our head. Alright....

I'm glad we did. Once we got to the rim, he told us to take the bags off.
It was.....spectacular.

Had we been catching glimpses of it as we were walking up, it still would have been spectacular but less so than seeing it all at once for the first time.

James is amazed too.

As we trekked down, three of us powered down into the canyon. Others wanted to take more pictures, we didn't want to waste daylight. We also knew the trek back up would suck. We were about a third of the way in on our path when out of nowhere, a rock fell down and nearly took Jason out. It was about the size of a hand! He was half a step ahead of it or he would have been taken out.

We made our way to a very aptly named point:

We have gained a LOT of altitude today and in addition to powering down the canyon, my head is starting to hurt.

Contemplating the meaning of life after a brush with death.

Going back up was killer. I'm really glad we took our time. Holy crap. No rocks tried to kill us this time, however.  We did come across an iconic Grand Canyon scene:

Mules!

I don't know how to describe the Grand Canyon. It looks fake. It doesn't look real. It looks as though you can take a couple of steps and go through a painting, a Photoshop. It is vast and unreal. I'm not at all good enough with words to be able to describe it and pictures cannot do it justice. You must see this.

I got my UNESCO!

We moved further down to watch the sun set. It was cloudy so the sky wasn't spectacular, but the view was.

Spectacular.

I heeded Mom's warning and bought a headlamp. It does indeed get really dark, really fast. This dollar store head lamp, however, has three settings - high, low, and disco. It is very bright! The unfortunate part is that the disco setting is the one right before you turn it off.

We went back for a bit the next day as well.

Unbelieveable.

On the way out of town, we stopped at a mediocre but cute place on Route 66.

This street sign is 15 feet up; apparently it is the most stolen sign in the USA.

Next up: gonna set my soul on fire.

whom whom whom...

Today we head to Calico, California. This is a ghost town. There are actually a lot of people and shops (that sell "Make America Great Again" baseballs) here.

James has run afoul of the law in the past and it finally caught up with him.

Calico used to be a silver mining town, then a borax mining town, then a nothing mining town. Now it's a tourist trap. The saloon has some pretty strict rules, however:

But y'know, Kids Welcome.

one room school house, zero horse town.

It is very warm in Calico. Very, very warm. It's a cute little tourist trap town, with the chance to stretch your legs and learn some history.

James has made friends with some of the women on the tour - Maddie (Australia), Ramona (Switzerland), and Svetlana (Bulgaria). All were resting due to being over dressed.

We drove on to Laughlin, Nevada from here where the only thing worth noting is that it is pronounced with an F.

Next: sure is grand...

This ain't no country club either

The hotel looks like an origin story. Small town girl goes out to LA to "make it" in the city. She chooses a hotel that is clean, inexpensive, close to everything, and ends up at the Dunes Inn Sunset. Two storeys that face a parking lot, palm trees with Christmas lights. The interiors of the rooms have not been updated since 1976. The beds are mostly comfortable however.

We set off early in the morning and it is overcast. We don't have a lot of time in LA (get used to this being a running theme) so we're looking to optimize it. We made our way up to Griffin Observatory, which is really cool. We walked around and got some neat pictures.

It is not a surprise to anyone to learn that I am a big nerd.
As we were walking around the Observatory, I noticed brass marks on the ground. They've marked out the paths of orbit for all of the planets.

The clouds finally cleared enough for us to get a look at the Hollywood sign.

Yay!

We are off to the Walk of Fame now. The Walk of Fame is four miles long so we don't have time to cover it all.

On the way there, I accomplish a life goal: I spotted a Toynbee Tile!

Toynbee Tiles are messages of unknown origin found embedded in asphalt of streets in about two dozen major cities in the United States and four South American cities. Since reading about them, I've wanted to find one. Now I have!

 Grauman's Chinese Theatre was pretty nifty.  There were many, many stars to be found. I think this was a lot more special than the Walk of Fame stars.

Turns out, that in order to get a star on the Walk of Fame, you have to pay for it. It isn't merit based.

Next: this town ain't big enough for the both of us.