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Title courtesy of the girlfriend.
I'm back from my road trip. For those of you who are no doubt waiting desperately for the details, I present our itinerary and related commentary:
Day 1: Mousetail Landing State Park, TN. We left very early on the morning of July 24, drove 800 miles, and ended up in a little state park in the middle of Tennessee. A fellow camper, a very nice pediatrician camping with his daughter, wondered how we ended up here. Our answer? We looked for green spots on Google Maps.
Day 2: The Mississippi River and New Orleans. We trespassed behind a lakefront casino to touch the Mississippi with our own hands in preparation for our daring assault on Area 51. New Orleans, the marshlands surrounding it, and Bourbon Street were pretty awesome but the girlfriend failed to get me drunk.
Day 3: Texas. Jesus Christ this state is ridiculously wide. Road signs in Texas are also ridiculous, from the complicated speed limit metrics to the "Don't Mess With Texas!" littering signs. However, the scenery out in west Texas, especially at sunset, was incredible. Lefty: Sorry for not taking you up on your offer. If we'd planned this whole thing a little better we might have, but we didn't want to impose on short notice.
Day 4: Roswell and Bottomless Lakes State Park. The UFO Museum in Roswell, NM was a ****ing piece of **** waste of time - high-school level production value posters stapled to cubicle walls and an admission fee. Jesus Christ. Bottomless Lakes State Park appears to be the only major source of water in southern New Mexico; as such, it is overrun with mosquitoes. Ow.
Day 5: Los Alamos. The Bradbury Science Museum near the Los Alamos National Laboratory was infinitely cooler than the UFO Museum... and free. Here we began to notice that the southwest seems to have a thing for themed cities. Roswell was decorated with aliens, Santa Fe with faux Native American art, and Los Alamos with sciencey stuff.
Day 6: Arizona. We drove through the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. This was absolutely incredible, but never as cool as the best photographs would lead you to believe. Again we witnessed the themed city concept, as every single populated area nearby sold petrified wood or replicas thereof. Next stop was Winslow, AZ, where we took pictures of each other standing on a corner. Then came Meteor Crater, which was ****ing fantastic. At this point we began to realize that this was turning out to be a space and geology themed road trip. We ended the day by setting up camp in the Grand Canyon.
Day 7: The Grand Canyon. Too stunning for words, pictures, or any other form of adequate encapsulation. Depressingly and disappointingly, however, it eventually became just a pretty hole in the ground as we trudged from one lookout to the next.
Day 8: We broke camp at the Grand Canyon and headed to the Hoover Dam, which was awesome to behold. We learned a good deal from our overexcited tour guide and the various dioramas in the museum section, but very little from the nauseatingly patriotic movie that began the tour. The most interesting piece of information gleaned during our visit: hard hats were an "innovation" of the Hoover Dam project. Also, it was 121 ****ing degrees Fahrenheit at the Hoover Dam and the parking lot was far from the visitor center. We were not prepared for this.
Day 9: Area 51 and Cathedral Gorge. We drove along desolate roads until we came to the unmarked and unpaved Groom Lake Road that leads to the Air Force's facility. We got 4 miles down this road before a red pickup truck several miles further down and along a side road blazed toward the road, kicking dust high into the sky. Likely only a scare tactic, the private security forces still accomplished their job; we turned tail and bolted back toward Nevada 375 - The Extraterrestrial Highway. The pickup truck stopped its pursuit as soon as it reached Groom Lake Road. Cathedral Gorge was an amazing geological wonder - a million year old sedimentary seabed eroded by rain until it looks like a giant drip sand castle that you can walk through. Unfortunately, it was also our first encounter with the Mormon infestation and their tendency to believe everything is religiously inspired.
Day 10: Entering Hatu. Our current theory is that after glancing the border of Area 51 we entered a parallel dimension in which our road trip, which had previously been pretty awesome, soon became pretty terrible. We entered the dimension of Hatu, which is ruled by Mormons and features appalling tourist sites. Our first misfortune of the day was finding lunch and trying to get my girlfriend's car's oil changed on a Sunday in St. George. Being as we were in Mormon country, this proved impossible. We end up at a filthy McDonalds. Next we ventured off to Zion - another marvel named by the Mormons - but on the advice of a treacherous article in Budget Travel, we followed Kolob Terrace Road through the park, which is designed carefully with the intent of missing anything worth seeing. We left by the same route - any other would have taken even longer - and tried to explore the park proper but discovered that the recent drought has rendered Zion's supposedly fantastic views somewhat anemic. Dispirited, we left Zion behind.
Day 11: Leaving Hatu. The next day we traveled north to the Great Salt Lake, which stunk. We drove out to Antelope Island where we planned to stay for the night, and it stunk slightly less. Our camp site, however, was unbearable. It was filled with bees, locusts, and absolutely no shade whatsoever. We searched for antelopes and bison on the island, but managed to find only several sculptures of bison which we think were accidentally counted in the park's bison census. The visitor center was covered in spiders. The Great Salt Lake itself was pretty neat, but also pretty stomach-turning. Along the shoreline were these beautiful black swarms that hovered, rose, and receded with fluid-like movements. They were gnats - countless, countless gnats that descended on anyone that attempted to enter or exit the lake. We left the island in disgust. Meaning to stay in a hotel somewhere in the state, we accidentally drove to Idaho where me managed to find a passage out of the alternate dimension of Hatu.
Day 12-14: Yellowstone. We drove into Yellowstone, camped there for 2 nights, and left the morning of August 5. Yellowstone featured a beautiful collection of geological features and wildlife but was cursed by a total lack of any road signs or convenient ability to contact the rangers. Thus, when we encountered a wounded bison on the road on Day 13, we wanted very badly to contact a ranger but could find no adequate phone number to do so, and we eventually gave up when we realized that we had no good way of identifying our location anyway. This, along with terrible signage at the Grand Canyon and a total lack of personnel at Cathedral Gorge, is inspiring me to write a strongly worded letter to the National Park Service.
Day 14 continued: Wyoming. Apart from Yellowstone and the surrounding very pretty landscape, this state was completely empty. I have never seen so many towns with 2 and 3 digit populations. Additionally, I had never previously driven down a mountain on a loosely packed dirt road around wickedly sharp turns. Such roads would be closed in Maryland, but in Wyoming they are merely under construction. We planned to camp in the Black Hills of South Dakota that night, but sudden rains in Yellowstone had rendered our tent unusable and the Sturgis Rally in South Dakota had filled up pretty much every bed in South Dakota with motorcycles. Instead we stayed in the charming Stardust Motel in Newcastle, WY, which featured a complimentary fly swatter in the room.
Day 15: Mt. Rushmore and the Corn Palace. Wikipedia says tourism is South Dakota's second largest industry but after careful examination of the state I have concluded that this is wrong; tourism is the state's only industry. Mt. Rushmore, while impressive, was ultimately depressing. The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, meant to carve all the way down to the presidents' waists and to include a detailed history of the United States. Instead, he died in 1941, we got involved in some sort of war, and Congress officially declared Rushmore to be a finished piece of art. We drove on through the Black Hills, playing Rocky Raccoon on the iPod as we went. The Corn Palace was also depressing. Attached to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD is Mitchell's city hall; the palace is significantly larger. The center of the city is filled with gift shops dedicated to the Corn Palace. The Palace itself is no palace. It's an auditorium with ears of corn glued to the walls. On the inside are a series of photographs depicting previous Corn Palaces. On the outside is a corn mural of the Corn Palace. At the gift shops you can buy model Corn Palaces with corn murals of Corn Palaces on the outside and pictures of previous Corn Palaces on the inside. So sad. We ended the night in Omaha, NE, which called for the playing of a certain Counting Crows song.
Day 16: We drove through Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana and discovered that these three suspiciously similar states have suspiciously similar views from the road: corn. That night we stayed at my uncle's house in Indianapolis.
Day 17: A 590 mile drive from Indianapolis back to good old Germantown, MD ended our road trip at ~7400 miles. In Maryland we encountered the only traffic of the entire trip; I-70 was snarled to a halt by late night construction, ******* drivers, and insufficient time to merge as two lanes were reduced to one.
I'm back from my road trip. For those of you who are no doubt waiting desperately for the details, I present our itinerary and related commentary:
Day 1: Mousetail Landing State Park, TN. We left very early on the morning of July 24, drove 800 miles, and ended up in a little state park in the middle of Tennessee. A fellow camper, a very nice pediatrician camping with his daughter, wondered how we ended up here. Our answer? We looked for green spots on Google Maps.
Day 2: The Mississippi River and New Orleans. We trespassed behind a lakefront casino to touch the Mississippi with our own hands in preparation for our daring assault on Area 51. New Orleans, the marshlands surrounding it, and Bourbon Street were pretty awesome but the girlfriend failed to get me drunk.
Day 3: Texas. Jesus Christ this state is ridiculously wide. Road signs in Texas are also ridiculous, from the complicated speed limit metrics to the "Don't Mess With Texas!" littering signs. However, the scenery out in west Texas, especially at sunset, was incredible. Lefty: Sorry for not taking you up on your offer. If we'd planned this whole thing a little better we might have, but we didn't want to impose on short notice.
Day 4: Roswell and Bottomless Lakes State Park. The UFO Museum in Roswell, NM was a ****ing piece of **** waste of time - high-school level production value posters stapled to cubicle walls and an admission fee. Jesus Christ. Bottomless Lakes State Park appears to be the only major source of water in southern New Mexico; as such, it is overrun with mosquitoes. Ow.
Day 5: Los Alamos. The Bradbury Science Museum near the Los Alamos National Laboratory was infinitely cooler than the UFO Museum... and free. Here we began to notice that the southwest seems to have a thing for themed cities. Roswell was decorated with aliens, Santa Fe with faux Native American art, and Los Alamos with sciencey stuff.
Day 6: Arizona. We drove through the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. This was absolutely incredible, but never as cool as the best photographs would lead you to believe. Again we witnessed the themed city concept, as every single populated area nearby sold petrified wood or replicas thereof. Next stop was Winslow, AZ, where we took pictures of each other standing on a corner. Then came Meteor Crater, which was ****ing fantastic. At this point we began to realize that this was turning out to be a space and geology themed road trip. We ended the day by setting up camp in the Grand Canyon.
Day 7: The Grand Canyon. Too stunning for words, pictures, or any other form of adequate encapsulation. Depressingly and disappointingly, however, it eventually became just a pretty hole in the ground as we trudged from one lookout to the next.
Day 8: We broke camp at the Grand Canyon and headed to the Hoover Dam, which was awesome to behold. We learned a good deal from our overexcited tour guide and the various dioramas in the museum section, but very little from the nauseatingly patriotic movie that began the tour. The most interesting piece of information gleaned during our visit: hard hats were an "innovation" of the Hoover Dam project. Also, it was 121 ****ing degrees Fahrenheit at the Hoover Dam and the parking lot was far from the visitor center. We were not prepared for this.
Day 9: Area 51 and Cathedral Gorge. We drove along desolate roads until we came to the unmarked and unpaved Groom Lake Road that leads to the Air Force's facility. We got 4 miles down this road before a red pickup truck several miles further down and along a side road blazed toward the road, kicking dust high into the sky. Likely only a scare tactic, the private security forces still accomplished their job; we turned tail and bolted back toward Nevada 375 - The Extraterrestrial Highway. The pickup truck stopped its pursuit as soon as it reached Groom Lake Road. Cathedral Gorge was an amazing geological wonder - a million year old sedimentary seabed eroded by rain until it looks like a giant drip sand castle that you can walk through. Unfortunately, it was also our first encounter with the Mormon infestation and their tendency to believe everything is religiously inspired.
Day 10: Entering Hatu. Our current theory is that after glancing the border of Area 51 we entered a parallel dimension in which our road trip, which had previously been pretty awesome, soon became pretty terrible. We entered the dimension of Hatu, which is ruled by Mormons and features appalling tourist sites. Our first misfortune of the day was finding lunch and trying to get my girlfriend's car's oil changed on a Sunday in St. George. Being as we were in Mormon country, this proved impossible. We end up at a filthy McDonalds. Next we ventured off to Zion - another marvel named by the Mormons - but on the advice of a treacherous article in Budget Travel, we followed Kolob Terrace Road through the park, which is designed carefully with the intent of missing anything worth seeing. We left by the same route - any other would have taken even longer - and tried to explore the park proper but discovered that the recent drought has rendered Zion's supposedly fantastic views somewhat anemic. Dispirited, we left Zion behind.
Day 11: Leaving Hatu. The next day we traveled north to the Great Salt Lake, which stunk. We drove out to Antelope Island where we planned to stay for the night, and it stunk slightly less. Our camp site, however, was unbearable. It was filled with bees, locusts, and absolutely no shade whatsoever. We searched for antelopes and bison on the island, but managed to find only several sculptures of bison which we think were accidentally counted in the park's bison census. The visitor center was covered in spiders. The Great Salt Lake itself was pretty neat, but also pretty stomach-turning. Along the shoreline were these beautiful black swarms that hovered, rose, and receded with fluid-like movements. They were gnats - countless, countless gnats that descended on anyone that attempted to enter or exit the lake. We left the island in disgust. Meaning to stay in a hotel somewhere in the state, we accidentally drove to Idaho where me managed to find a passage out of the alternate dimension of Hatu.
Day 12-14: Yellowstone. We drove into Yellowstone, camped there for 2 nights, and left the morning of August 5. Yellowstone featured a beautiful collection of geological features and wildlife but was cursed by a total lack of any road signs or convenient ability to contact the rangers. Thus, when we encountered a wounded bison on the road on Day 13, we wanted very badly to contact a ranger but could find no adequate phone number to do so, and we eventually gave up when we realized that we had no good way of identifying our location anyway. This, along with terrible signage at the Grand Canyon and a total lack of personnel at Cathedral Gorge, is inspiring me to write a strongly worded letter to the National Park Service.
Day 14 continued: Wyoming. Apart from Yellowstone and the surrounding very pretty landscape, this state was completely empty. I have never seen so many towns with 2 and 3 digit populations. Additionally, I had never previously driven down a mountain on a loosely packed dirt road around wickedly sharp turns. Such roads would be closed in Maryland, but in Wyoming they are merely under construction. We planned to camp in the Black Hills of South Dakota that night, but sudden rains in Yellowstone had rendered our tent unusable and the Sturgis Rally in South Dakota had filled up pretty much every bed in South Dakota with motorcycles. Instead we stayed in the charming Stardust Motel in Newcastle, WY, which featured a complimentary fly swatter in the room.
Day 15: Mt. Rushmore and the Corn Palace. Wikipedia says tourism is South Dakota's second largest industry but after careful examination of the state I have concluded that this is wrong; tourism is the state's only industry. Mt. Rushmore, while impressive, was ultimately depressing. The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, meant to carve all the way down to the presidents' waists and to include a detailed history of the United States. Instead, he died in 1941, we got involved in some sort of war, and Congress officially declared Rushmore to be a finished piece of art. We drove on through the Black Hills, playing Rocky Raccoon on the iPod as we went. The Corn Palace was also depressing. Attached to the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD is Mitchell's city hall; the palace is significantly larger. The center of the city is filled with gift shops dedicated to the Corn Palace. The Palace itself is no palace. It's an auditorium with ears of corn glued to the walls. On the inside are a series of photographs depicting previous Corn Palaces. On the outside is a corn mural of the Corn Palace. At the gift shops you can buy model Corn Palaces with corn murals of Corn Palaces on the outside and pictures of previous Corn Palaces on the inside. So sad. We ended the night in Omaha, NE, which called for the playing of a certain Counting Crows song.
Day 16: We drove through Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana and discovered that these three suspiciously similar states have suspiciously similar views from the road: corn. That night we stayed at my uncle's house in Indianapolis.
Day 17: A 590 mile drive from Indianapolis back to good old Germantown, MD ended our road trip at ~7400 miles. In Maryland we encountered the only traffic of the entire trip; I-70 was snarled to a halt by late night construction, ******* drivers, and insufficient time to merge as two lanes were reduced to one.
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