Vegas

VIVE LAS VEG.......AHHH whatever.



Its late. I drove the 10 hours from Reno to Vegas in one sit. We made a stop in the pitch black desert to look at the stars. With no unnatural light source for a hundred miles each star burned bright and illuminated the crest of the surrounding hills and mountains. Rt 168 was the road. It was long and hilly and twisted like a dying snake. We gazed up for long enough to see the stars falling and to watch as even the tiniest star screamed, orange and red and blue and silver. How could the "city of lights" compare to this?

As it turns out it couldn't. Neon flashes reflected off of the big glass windows that cover the side of the van. Newspaper boxes full of prostitute fliers lined the sidewalk and middle aged men on vacation from their jobs at office max cruised the strip in rented hummers and corvettes looking for the thousands of pretty women that Elvis sang about. The one bet I made all night was that those same men ended up in their hotel rooms with take out later that evening. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas right? We gave up on this town and slept in a Walmart parking lot off the freeway. I ate a apple for dinner and went to sleep with visions of the real stars of Vegas still burnt into my mind.

Reno

Reno.

The Biggest Little City in the World is where we called home for just short of a week after the great disappointment that was San Fransisco. Pulling onto our hosts road, I could feel my body start to relax a little. Travel wears on you. Its hard to drive for hours and sleep in a cramped van shivering in the middle of the night parked in a Walmart parking lot. Its also hard to stomach bad truck stop coffee and re hydrated hot water meals for weeks on end. As I threw the van into park and turned the motor off, I turned off and prepared myself for some relaxation. About a week ago I came down with a cold, I have been waiting to have a chance to heal and rid myself of the nagging cough and sore throat, with just a few small tasks to complete like changing the oil in Donato (the van) and cleaning him out, I figured I could be drinking beer in the hot tub by nightfall. I did just that and with a belly full of beer I fell asleep by a hot wood stove, the familiar voices of family and friends in the background lulled me to sleep a sleep that I have not known since the free hotel in Seattle.

I woke up the following morning in a haze. My cold had intensified and my voice was all but gone. Whispering I tried to socialize but had a hard time talking for long. The three girls decided to take a trip to pyramid lake, I decided to take a nap in the guest bedroom. I woke up to Emily rubbing my back. It was almost time for dinner and I was hungry. The entire family came over for a big pasta diner. We made some four legged friends too! Vanilla Bean (VB) was a cute little chiwawa mix, and a great lab named Alpine happily accepted ear scratches and belly rubs. Pets, pasta, and friends, it doesn't get much better than this!


Day three took us to Lake Tahoe. Ken joined is and we climbed almost 10,000 feet only to descend and be greeted by the turquoise blue of the big lake. Later that night we feasted on great home cooked food and enjoyed a few bottles of wine. Later we paired and great vintage with dark chocolate. I don't know who said that alcohol is treacherous to the immune system, but that wine, dancing in my mouth with that chocolate was just what the doctor ordered. I slept like a rock!

Day four held plans of road tripping with Ken to Sequoia National Park for Emily's 30th birthday. Mother Nature had other plans for us however. A snow storm had blocked the main pass into the park and to go would require a detour of a couple hundred miles. Back up plan, Virginia City and camping in the high desert. Old Virginia City is a scene out of a John Wayne movie crossed with a behind the scenes look at broadway. Tourists mix with role playing cowboys who mix with locals raking their front yards. At the same time one feels as if you are walking with one foot in the 19th century and the other in your local coffee shop. We strolled the wooden plank sidewalks and sipped on coffee in the Bucket of Blood Saloon. Night came and so did temperatures in the teens. I was still rather ill and no one else in the group was entirely thrilled with the idea of camping in the frigid high desert that night. We decided to head back to the house and sleep one more night with the wood stove warmth.

Day Five and we said our goodbyes. Las Vegas looms directly ahead and with under two weeks of travel left we need to get a move on. Still ahead is Los Alamos, Austin, Mesa Verde, The Grand Canyon, Memphis, and Nashville. Im hoping for a big finish. We have all held with us on this trip a hope that along with discovering new parts of the country that we will also uncover a part of ourselves that we feel is hiding. The idea of going home to jobs, and the 9-5 of adulthood is less than appetizing. A little less than two weeks left. C'mon inspiration!

some of Seattle.more photos to come, boy this takes time!

http://picasaweb.google.com/emilyjoyashman/Seattle?authkey=Gv1sRgCIb70qPk8qLBqQE#

30th Birthday highlights

Woke up in Sparks
Pancake breakfast
Johnny Cash covers, costumed dancers and cowboys in Virgina City
Freshly made mini donuts Beth bought to share
Rock and fossil shops
Zoltar fortune
Mule deer
Hot tub
Old fashion malts made by dad
Woodstove and cup of joe

-Emily

Two weeks in. Two weeks left. From Forks to San Francisco.

Seattle vanished from Donato's rear view mirror as we headed over to visit Olympic National Park and then south towards Portland Oregon. Rain. A lot of rain. We traveled north and then wrapped around the outskirts of the National Park to the main entrance about 50 miles north east of Forks WA. So into the rainforest we went. We put on our rain coats and packed our bags for a short 1 mile hike. Its raining but we figure that it wont be as bad in the forest, I mean the canopy catches about 65% of rainwater right? Wrong. We got soaked. Really soaked. About 10 minutes into the walk I realized that I couldn't get much wetter. Wrong again, you can always get wetter and I did. Downpour aside the forest was as expected, beautiful. Our search for a unicorn came up short but we found waterfalls and gnarly trees and prehistoric growth that you would expect in a place that gets more than 10 FEET of rainfall per year. Bright green moss covers everything and anything organic seems to glisten with a moisture that is almost surreal. The smell of the rich water soaked earth made each breath a ritual as I tried to inhale deeper every breath. The forest itself was dark in a way that Tolkien may have described in a novel. Alive with sound, the rain sounded like an applause on the plump leaves of the undergrowth. Overwhelming.

We got back to van and stood there wondering how we could all strip off our drenched clothes and get into the van without making everything inside wet and muddy. A hard task. With four people in a small van its hard to be modest, I rode out of the forest in my underwear, heat blasting, feet on the dashboard. Life is great.


We arrived in Forks and quickly learned that the rumors where true. The town had been the filming ground of the vampire movie "Twilight". If you for some reason didn't know (I envy you) then you would soon be made aware as you drove by over a dozen stores, cafes, pizza shops, rest stops, and laundry mats clinging on to the twilight cash machine. Its hard to be critical however. Economically depressed, I am happy to see the positive effect a movie can have on a real working class town. The mom and pops shops have all benefited from the vampire movie but it is sad to see how quickly pop culture can suck the identity out of a typical American town that is wonderful in its own right. Pizza was good in Forks. Coffee, well, not so good. We went into a cafe that smelled like toilet bowl cleaner. Dead animals heads lined the walls and hunters sat in the far corner in their forest camo rain suits. We could only laugh as we tried to be good customers but couldn't bring ourselves to order anything in the giant toilet bowl. I ran out to the van, the girls left a dollar on the table because the waitress brought us water and we sped out of the lot with the windows down.

Portland OR.
Portland was interesting. We tried sleeping in a parking lot of a 24 hour restaurant. We have had no problems sleeping anyplace. That trend was about to change. Around 3:30 a.m. we heard a knock on the rear door of the van. I thought I was dreaming, then again, KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK! I speedily got dressed and crawled out of the van. A man was calling in my plate number over the radio while shinning a light in my face. He questioned me. "Where you from?". "Where you going?" Up until now I thought he was a cop. He asked for my ID and I caught a glimpse of his badge and asked, "Are you a cop?". "No", he said. My reply came swiftly, "NO YOU CAN'T SEE MY ID". I walked around to the drivers seat and pulled out as he made his way back to his rent-a-cop ford focus. OK, maybe not the best first impression.
Later we explored Hawthorn St. This trendy strip in SE Portland was full of bars, coffee, and shops. We lounged in a cafe to escape the rain. With no rain relief in sight and behind schedule, we left town with overall good feelings of the place. I will need to explore it again soon minus the security guard.

Into California, the redwoods where great. The rain let up enough for us camp a night in a bear active lagoon. We ate grilled pizza and toasted marshmallows! The morning greeted us with camp showers and then we went out to explore the tall tall trees. Our hike that day was dryer, the sky scraping trees acted as umbrellas and we could walk around, in and out of a prairie to see elk herds and a tree that was estimated to be over 1700 years old.
Through Eureka CA, South bound on Rt 1. The night made the twists and turns nauseating and a certain anticipation filled the van. 25 miles later we emerged and Fort Bragg greeted us with a Denny's and a rest stop to sleep in. The following morning we walked the tiny streets of Mendocino. A great little town with charm out the ears. Wine country came next on our approach to San Fran. Over the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, my expectations of this cultural mecca came up short as we drove blindly around the city for hours. I guess we need a guide to appreciate it but I am city sick and ready for the desert again and rest in Reno.

-jason

Arches & Canyonlands.

Canyonlands at sunrise, arches in the afternoon.

http://picasaweb.google.com/emilyjoyashman/ArchesNationalPark?authkey=Gv1sRgCPvY2-7kx4mFBA#

Utah album. More to come...

http://picasaweb.google.com/emilyjoyashman/UTAH?authkey=Gv1sRgCIXftt6Z5p6OTw#

Fiyaaahh!

"Fiyaaahh!"
translation "fire!"    -Beth, Salt Lake City UT

Seattle Update!

OK, in my previous post I wrote that Seattle was not all that interesting. I have to amend that. This morning I woke up and went for a run around the city. The sun was up but had not yet peeked from behind the cities tall, but not too tall buildings. I ran around the hotel to the sculpture park and saw some great public art, the sci-fi museum building which is a giant sculpture in itself and of coarse the space needle. I ran the pier by coffee shops and fish markets and then up the hills back into the heart of the city. I guess a city is contrast. A contrast between the nature and wild beauty that surrounds its steel and concrete buildings and of the people that fill its streets. I'm glad I gave this town a second look, but its time to move on and into the amazing rain forests of Olympic National Park. I'd better get my rain coat!

Seattle.

From around 1800 to June 1866, what is now known as the U.S. State of Washington was the territory of the prominent Chief Sealth or more commonly, Chief Seattle. Seattle, in the "Evergreen State" is where we four find ourselves on this leg of our trip around the country. I am actually writing this entry from the warmth and comfort of our FREE hotel room in downtown. The space needle, Seattles most recognizable landmark stands to our north, the pacific ocean to our west. The monumental Mount Rainer looms in the south and miles and miles of rugged forest to our east. The city itself is an oasis of urbanism in a otherwise wild and natural state. Everything that I have seen of this state is beautiful. Oh, did I mention the FREE HOTEL!



We pulled in to town at around 1:00 p.m. and checked in. In need of showers and soft beds, we eagerly made our way to our second floor room. In no time we found ourselves in the workout room (a van can feel very stuffy after a while, we needed to move!). A little sweat and 30 minutes later we jumped into the 70+ degree pool until one-by-one we took turns taking extra long hot showers. Life is good.


Honestly, Seattle itself is rather uninteresting to me. A lot of overpriced retail stores and trendy restaurants line most streets. The most fun I have had has been walking around looking for a good meal and spotting locations that I remember from various WTO protest videos. I laughed a little inside as I walked by Nike Town!


For now we are all loving our soft warm beds, happy to know that tonight at least, we will not need to wake up at 2:30 a.m. to start the van and blast the heat to stay warm. After a good nights sleep and a honest attempt at eating all of the free breakfast, we will hit a few thrift stores and then make our way to Olympic National Park to see the rain forest and camp in Forks. More Later.

-Jason

Colorado Album

http://picasaweb.google.com/emilyjoyashman/ColoradoAndTheRockies?authkey=Gv1sRgCPTH5sOB8rfJ7AE#

UTAH

UTAH is exciting.  Day one we went out for delicious burritos, sneakily hijacked firewood, purchased some premium alcoholic beverages & tried to sleep outside for the whole night (FAILED due to chilliness). Early yesterday we got our national park pass- hiked up, around and through the arches (just behind a large family of mormons)--we earned our patches.  There is a great fossil shop here, we took advantage of their parking lot to make a fabulous mexican lunch.  Made our way to the local thrift shop after && spent more money than we should have.  Who can resist a belt with cats all over it?  Not me. Spent a good couple of hours in the afternoon at the cafes in town to go through pictures, the coffee is not nearly as spectacular here as it was in Boulder.  Always comforting regardless. We celebrated HALLOWEEN by driving out to Canyonland, slightly sketchy because of the lack of anyone or anything within 30 miles, a great way to celebrate a spooky holiday though. I wore a skeleton suit and Ashley got a weird wooden cat mask with the name 'Hayden' scribbled on the back (cute!<3).  Just this morning we watched the sun come up over the canyons.  It was pretty majestic, lacked the pegasus I hoped for- I think it might be too cold here.      

------------------------------>Beth

ViewMaster

"It's like being inside my childhood viewmaster."  -beth

Moab, Ut

Bird.

"Bird. It's fun."   -jason